She raises the stone tablet in my direction and I reach out my hands. She presses it into my palms, cupping them between her own. She drops her head in a way that feels a lot like a bow of deference.
Seren’s voice barely rises above the wind.
“You bear the mark of Skaedor. His burden is now yours.”
The Vaythari warriors watch silently, their staffs still planted firmly into the ground. I look down at the stone, tracing the carved words with my fingers.
Seren translates, her voice barely above a whisper.
“The fallen are scattered. They must be guided home. That is your task.”
Fallen. Home. Task.Holy Stars.My hands tighten around the stone as the weight of it settles into my bones.
The words linger, heavy with unspoken meaning.
My hands tighten around the stone. It does not say who they are, nor where they have fallen from. Or at least, not to my eyes.
A sharp gust cuts through the pass, lifting the edges of the warriors’ furs. Kael’s jaw tightens, but he remains silent, waiting.
Seren glances at me. Her eyes hold something—concern, maybe fear.
Still, she speaks. “Skaedor sought to unite them. He failed.”
My heart pounds. “What happened?”
Syphra does not answer immediately.
Instead, she lifts her staff and taps it against the frozen ground once.
The warriors do the same.
The sound reverberates through the mountain like an exhale, a sigh from something greater than all of us.
Seren hesitates before translating.
“The cost of unity is always blood.”
I force my voice to remain steady. “Skaedor was betrayed.”
Syphra nods, slow and deliberate.
“And you will face the same test.”
The wind howls through the pass. I feel it curl around me like a whisper, like a warning.
The Vaythari leader pulls something from a pouch at her side—a vial filled with an ink-like substance, thick and gleaming like blackened Lightborne magic.
Syphra rises and stands before me. Her frame is small but muscular. Honed and carved by a lifetime in these mountains.
The others tap their staffs once, twice.
A steady rhythm, a promise.
Seren exhales softly. “She is marking you.”
The woman dips her fingers into the ink, tracing an ancient mark onto my palm.
It burns—not painfully, but with a radiance I cannot describe. Almost akin to a surge of my own power.
