Nyxath's words continued to haunt me as she launched with a powerful thrust that pressed me back against her scales, and the Citadel fell away beneath us. The flight to Mount Hope took about half an hour, and despite having made it countless times, I still enjoyed the magnificent view.
Elucia might be a harsh land, and life wasn't easy in these mountains, but its beauty was unparalleled.
The mountains rolled past below, ancient peaks that had watched civilizations rise and fall, that would continue long after all of us turned to dust. Even immortality had its limits. Riders died in battle, dragons could be killed, and nothing lasted forever.
The prophecy spoke of saving the world, but it didn't specify how.
Prophecies were maddeningly vague for a reason. They showed possibilities, not certainties, and how we achieved salvation might look very different from what any of us expected.
Thus, it was revealed to the seven and they were allowed to create their own path. However, the issue was that the seventh member was still absent from the septet, and the sixth remained a significant uncertainty.
Mount Hope rose before us, its peak crowned with the familiar circle of standing stones. Even from this distance,I could make out the pillars reaching toward the sky like supplicant hands.
How many times had I stood in that circle? How many ceremonies had I conducted, how many cadets had I called to their destiny? And yet it never lost its power to awe me.
As the dragons began their descent pattern, I watched Vyrassin spiral down with Odinah and the cadet riding with her. After touching down, he stayed only long enough for the captain and the cadet to dismount before launching immediately skyward to clear space for the others. The rotation proceeded smoothly until all the cadets stood assembled in the circle, craning their necks to stare at the pillars.
Finally, Nyxath descended, and I felt the familiar solid thump of landing. I dismounted with Moki clinging to my shoulder, my feet feeling the warmth and dryness of the ground that mystified all visitors to the Circle of Fate even through the soles of my boots.
"Welcome back to the Circle," I said. "All of you have been here before, but I bet you don't remember much. The altitude, the fast, the exhaustion, and then the sacred tea distorted your memories of this place. Today, you'll see it with clear eyes and clear minds. The temple ruins are remarkable, mysterious, and full of secrets we're still uncovering after a thousand years."
The last sentence elicited a few excited murmurs as I had known it would, for the simple reason that it never failed to do that. Curiosity was a fundamental element, an engine that propelled humans to seek knowledge and innovate. Without it, nothing would have ever been achieved.
I began walking the perimeter, and the cadets followed, forming a loose procession, with the instructors accompanying the group walking behind them.
"These twenty-four pillars are all that remain of Elu's temple." I gestured to the nearest one. "They once supported amagnificent glass dome. The temple was destroyed in the First Extinction War. The Sitorians destroyed everything they could."
"What about the pillars?" Shovia asked.
"They tried to destroy them as well, but even their worms couldn't topple the dragon-blessed stone. These pillars have withstood thousands of years of weather, earthquakes, and attempted destruction, and they'll likely withstand thousands more. Regrettably, the technique for creating them was lost."
I led them to one of my favorite inscriptions, those that had been carved in the common tongue and that I could read. The knowledge of the first language had been lost after the first extinction war, and despite all my endless efforts to decipher the meaning of the ancient symbols, I had not been successful.
"All paths lead to the Circle of Fate," I read aloud. "This was carved many years after the temple's destruction," I explained. "The circle became the center for our people returning from wherever they had scattered after Elucia had fallen. This is where we reestablished our traditions and started to rebuild our Dragon Force."
I walked over to the second inscription. "The Circle speaks three truths: What was. What is. What will be," I read. "Past, present, future. All are knowable to Elu. The temple ruins remember everything they've witnessed."
I read the third one, "By blood we are called. By merit we rise." I turned to the cadets. "Your heritage brought you to the pilgrimage. Your blood made you candidates for bonding with dragons. But only merit will make you riders."
Codric was hanging on every word and tracking the symbols carved into the pillars with hungry eyes.
"Why is it so warm here?" one of the cadets asked.
I smiled. "I could say magic, but that wouldn't be the truth. It comes from geothermal activity, underground hot springs, and volcanic chambers that honeycomb this mountain. It's whythe ground stays dry and snow-free. The ancient architects must have deliberately chosen this location for those properties. Come."
I motioned for them to follow me, leading them to the entrance hidden between two pillars, where stone steps descended into darkness. "The temple extends far underground. What we'll explore today is a fraction of what once existed, but it should give you a sense of the scope." I motioned to a stand that held simplified versions of my staff, with glowstones at the crown.
It was a simple phosphorescent mineral that stored sunlight and released it gradually. The beauty of it was that it didn't produce flames or smoke as a torch would, and it didn't require batteries, which were costly and prone to malfunctioning.
"Stay close to me," I instructed. "I know which passages and chambers are stable and which aren't. Wandering unsupervised down here is dangerous."
The steep steps led into a large space that had once been a gathering hall. The ceiling had collapsed, leaving a jagged opening to the floor above it, but the walls remained intact, covered in ancient symbols.
"This would have been the main assembly area," I said.
I watched Codric walk over to the nearest wall and trace the symbols etched into the stone with his fingers. I droned on about the chamber and the kind of stone that was used to build the temple to allow Codric more time to explore, but eventually I ran out of things to say about this particular space and had to continue the tour.
Small rooms that might have been bedrooms for the temple attendees, storage areas with stone shelves, and a room that might have been a dormitory with stone ledges that could have been beds.
