I reach for the letter. As before, the seal bows beneath my finger and disappears. My hands shake as I open the envelope and pull out an empty page, blank as fresh snow. I turn it over, glance up at Orthriel, fling the door to my mind wide open, but their expression remains as blank as the page. I run a finger across the creamy parchment. The moment my skin brushes against it, enchantment sweeps through my body like an icy gust of wind. There’s a jolt, a hum in my veins, a voice in my head – one I’ve never heard before, though the pinched drone is familiar from a childhood spent among the coterie.
Noelani is talking to me across time and space. My heart falters for a second, then hurtles, as she speaks my name.
Leilani,
If you are hearing this, you have almost succeeded in reaching the caves. I know your path to this point was likely fraught with danger, and I wishI could tell you things will get easier. But the truth is, your journey has been but a preamble.
There are things I omitted from my first missive. A deliberate choice, a safeguard to prevent our sceptres falling into enemy hands– her hands.
Yes, you heard aright. Sceptres. You will need to retrieve all four to break Arden’s curse.
This will come as a shock, and for that I am sorry. My visions do suggest the Starlight Staff will be central to revoking the Sickening, but the other sceptres will serve their purpose too, and I suspect Arden’s Core Crozier has an important role to play. It inflicted this destruction; vestiges of the dark incantation she invoked may still endure inside it. Perhaps it can redress its own wrongs? It was broken the night we confronted Arden, the night she fled. The shards will not answer to us, but perhaps they will to you… I hope that’s what the prophecy means.
The sceptres presently reside in their realms of origin, well-hidden, but nothing in the future is assured, and I can only hope they remain so. If– when – you succeed in finding the Starlight Staff, the location of the next sceptre will be revealed to you. A pattern repeated with all four of them – staggered, to minimise the chance of Arden, or those loyal to her, capturing them and using them to wreak more havoc, destroying our only chance of reversing the damage she inflicted.
I lift my trembling finger from the page and the phantom voice falls silent.
‘Swear you didn’t know!’
Orthriel raises their hands. ‘I didn’t.’ Their face is drawn, their aura dimmer than ever. I believe them, but it doesn’t make any of this better.
… to minimise the chance of Arden, or those loyal to her, capturing them…
Is this confirmation that Arden lives? Confirmation of my vision in the mooncrystal? Confirmation she’s hunting us?
‘What vision?’Orthriel’s question lands rough and urgent in my mind.
I lift my gaze to theirs. Of course, they don’t yet know.
Those cool fingers rifle my memories. It won’t take Orthriel long to retrieve the image of the flaming woman – a face printed indelibly on my consciousness, a face I’ll never unsee as long as I live.
‘Where?’Orthriel’s voice is tight. The desperation in their question sends little shivers scurrying through my body.
‘In-In the mooncrystal?’I stutter.‘I asked it to show me who’s been following us.’
‘Impossible. Yet, there’s no question who she is.’
I swallow. I know the answer already but Orthriel’s the only one who can confirm it. They saw Arden all those centuries ago. They knew her.
‘It’s as you fear. Arden Incenzo.’
I shut my eyes, swaying where I stand, and jab at the paper again. Perhaps the remainder of Noelani’s message will lessen the force of the blow. Contain something to sweeten the bitter shock of learning we’ll have to seek four sceptres, not one. And with an ancient evil at our heels.
In addition to weaving powerful enchantments upon our sceptres when we concealed them– enchantments which can only be broken if you and the other members of the Quaternity re-enact a version of our Blood Bond to release each one in turn – we also assigned custodians to guard them. You and your companions will have to use your combined skills to defeat them.
I deliberately kept myself ignorant of the fates of the other sceptres: another precaution, another safeguard. But I want to prepare you for what lies ahead as best I can, at least when it comes to my own sceptre.
Night-birds guard the Starlight Staff– the same winged wraiths the Dusk Sister sent from the Cradleworld, and which the Dawn Sister bound as they rent her body to pieces, imprisoning them with her dying breaths in the depths of the Astral Mountain.
I expected our Blood Bond to drive out these vestiges of Shadow, that this was how we would bring the Aethers into proper alignment, restore divine balance to the realms. Instead, we gained dominion over them. Our rite didn’t remove all trace of Shadow from Arcelia, but we neutralised it, subsuming something of that darkness into ourselves and our talismans.
I have ordered the flock to protect my sceptre, so you must proceed with caution, for the birds will fight to the death to prevent anyone from taking it.
They feed on the dark and cold, are capable of tearing any living thing to shreds, but their eyes are their principal weapons, lethal if you look directly at them. Light cows the night-birds, but only heat can overpower them, for they are creatures born from the bitterness of the Dusk Sister’s icy heart. Armed with this information, I hope you will be able to devise some way to subdue them and retrieve the sceptre.
I wrench my finger from the page again. It can’t be true. ‘The story of night-birds still trapped in the Mountain, it’s only a legend, a story told to frighten children. They’re gone. They’ve been gone for centuries…’
Who am I trying to convince? The world has tipped on its axis. My winged nightmares were never simple dreams, they were visions all along, warnings of what I’d have to face.
