Veyrion chuckled, low and unbothered. Like distant thunder deciding whether to come closer. “Your fire is familiar, Nerina,”he murmured, delight curling at the edge of his voice. “I see now whyhefell for you.”
I stared straight ahead, letting the moment pass.
We passed beneath an arch of ice, its jagged fangs glazed with frozen condensation, and entered a tunnel lit by blue flame. With each step downward, the air thickened. My breath fogged in pale spirals, curling around runes that shimmered with a light older than memory.
Blue fire licked iron sconces shaped like howling beasts, their shadows writhing along the walls like restless spirits—welcoming us, or warning us. I wasn’t sure which was worse. My pulse quickened. The crescent mark on my forehead began to thrum—warmth blooming beneath my skin like a second heartbeat. It always answered emotion, glowing with a life of its own. Part of me wanted to run—bolt back up the ice-cut stairs and into the open air, anywhere but here. Another part burned to keep going, to tear truth from the Elders’ mouths if I had to. I didn’t know which side would win.
I pulled the soft gray cloak tighter around my shoulders and forced myself to steady. I’d come this far. I would see it through.
If the Elders could tell me what the artifact was, why my mark burned, why my dreams swam with stars and voices that weren’t my own—then it would be worth it.
But I would not walk blindly.
Whatever waited in the mountain’s heart, I would meet it standing—eyes open, teeth bared—ready to bleed.
The Elder's
The tunnel opened into a vast hidden chamber, and I stopped dead.
At its heart rose a tree unlike anything I’d ever seen. Pale, silver-white bark spiraled upward in smooth, elegant coils, as if sculpted from moonlight itself. The trunk was thick and gnarled—its roots spreading across stone before sinking into a still, dark pool at its base. From it hung long crystalline strands—icicles spun from starlight and frost.
Before the tree—carved directly into the stone—stood three thrones. Each faced the tree, not as ornament or altar, but as one sovereign acknowledging another.
The Elders.Memory. Presence. Possibility.
The first looked impossibly old, spine bent as if time itself had pressed her into that shape. Her skin was a map of fissures and fine lines, pale as driftwood hardened by centuries of frost.
The second appeared barely older than me. Her face was smooth, skin catching the light in opalescent shades. Her eyes held the color of storm-washed skies—unsettlingly alive.
The third stood between them, ageless and unmoving, features held in perfect, unnerving symmetry. There was no telling whether she would grow older or younger in the next moment.
For a heartbeat, I thought they were carved from ice and set here to watch until the end of days.
Until the eldest stirred. When she spoke, her voice cracked like thawing stone—each word weighted with the past. “She walks with stars in her blood…” Sightless eyes—pale as bone—tilted toward me.
At her voice, my crescent mark flared hot beneath my skin. A faint glow spilled against my temple—soft but undeniable.
The chamber seemed to inhale with it. The tree’s silver light bent—subtly, impossibly—as if drawn toward me.
The second elder’s attention cut into me next. She lifted her chin, eyes narrowing at the glow.
“What is your purpose in bringing her here?” she asked Veyrion. Her voice was stripped of metaphor. Clear. Exact. A demand for truth—though she sounded like she already knew.
Her attention shifted once to my mark, and a faint shiver rippled through the tree’s branches behind her.
Veyrion bowed his head. “I brought her here so you might judge the consequences of what she is. I would see her bound to Ymirskald—should you bless it.”
I froze.
Heat surged from my brow. My mark burned hotter, bright enough I swore it would split my skin.
I had thought he led me here for answers. Not judgment. Not…this.Not yet.
I turned toward him, searching his face for any flicker of hesitation or jest. There was none.
His expression was carved in stone—unwavering. Certain.
Leaving Thalassia only to end up bound to Veyrion would be trading one cage for another.
