Lilith fell to her knees and muttered in her Vailïc tongue. Slowly the black stones circling her started to flicker with each word she spoke. “Ver nadek malik. Ver nadek malik. Ver nadek malik.” Magic awaken. Magic awaken. Magic awaken.
A mist gathered around the stones, and the headstone of the Archway opened like a keyhole. What lie in suspense began to twill in the vastness of Lilith’s ritual. The moon illuminated with sapphire and stars shot across the skies. She was in the eye of the storm. “Ver nadek malik. Ver nadek malik. Ver nadek malik,” she repeated. The stars responded. A beam of energy shot from the headstone and tore through the velvet fabric and into the sapphire disk.
“Vurk ni,” she sneered. Protect me.
The dragon took flight. With black eyes of dominance, its throat rose and spewed out a line of fiery gases, encasing Lilith inside. Orange and red barriers formed outside the ruins. Lilith’s army stood on the outside waiting for their time to wreak havoc and chaos. Their mouths thirsted from the opportunity. Iron hitting iron and boots stomping, they were impatient. She’d promised them blood, and that’s what they were going to get.
“Fytr camit logvine!” Kill them slowly.
38
Moonlight broke the crest of a hilltop and her riders dismounted. Half out of breath and half expecting to find trouble beyond, they came to the edge to see what dark things gathered below.
An invisible pail of icy water splashed against his consciousness. “I don't believe it. The crystals, Rose sold them in Fayhollow. I saw her. And there they are.” Positioned around the upright stone columns, they created a perimeter of their own. What suspensions raised when he was in that alleyway were confirmed. It was she who was inside arguing with that pale-faced shopkeeper. She’d been bringing them to her along and he helped her do so. Billy had an urge to vomit. Was he to blame?
“She sold them directly to Lilith?” Elise asked her mouth half ajar in shock. “Why would she do such a thing? Does she realize what she’s done? Those are val mortem crystals, known as death crystals. Only a Magus can access them.”
The polished black stones stood absorbing any trace amounts of light floating aimlessly in the air. And like a barrier they formed a protective layer of dim energy shielding the happenings inside the ring. The shadow of a figure could be seen strolling inside.
“I don’t think she knew what she was doing,” Billy said although he couldn’t be convinced this was entirely true. There was a lot he still didn’t know about Rose, and even more now that some of her secrets were being revealed. “She wouldn’t have sold them willing.”
“And here we are,” Elise said briskly. “She’s got enough of them to re-write the history of this world and many more. Rose must have known what she was doing.”
The very beast who almost burnt Elise and Billy to a crisp sat perched upon one of the many crumbling columns with its tail coiled up ready to strike opposing enemies. Dark brooding eyes shifted as the dragon watched Lilith perform enchantments. Her long silver hair was half the length before the red jasper set flames to it. And the fractures in her face were deeper than before with bright red rivers coursing through her flesh.
“How do we stop her?”
Elise chuckled dryly. “I don’t think we can at this point.”
Quinn held her breath far down inside her.
The griffin soared through the sky as high up in the atmosphere as his riders could endure. He wanted to avoid unnecessary quarrels and save the advantages they still had. Frostbite flew above in despair. In all of his years of existence, he’d never seen the lands filled with such gloom. It was desolate and heavy. The cries of warning passed between his feathers. Birds of prey were fleeing east to the Far Country. Their squawks encouraged those listening to follow suit.
“Where are they going?” Quinn asked as a fleet of mismatched birds flew by.
“They’re hiding,” Abbott suggested. “I saw it in the crossing when I came back to you.”
“They are headed to the Far Country,” Frostbite explained. “That’s where they’re going.”
The Far Country, Abbott thought to himself attempting to reveal the name’s identity. He’d yet to hear of it before not even from Quinn’s babbling. “Where’s the Far Country?”
“Western. Beyond the edges of all recorded maps. It’s a place of peace and glory— Soren’s country. When the griffins started being hunted, the few who survived took flight collectively. They never returned.”
The shrill winds chilling Quinn’s skin ended as a cascading of comfort filled her. The land sounded of hope and promise. “Have you ever been there?” she asked intently.
Frostbite scoffed through his beak. “No sadly. If I had, I would never come back to these lands. No one does. But with the sheer amount of mischief I’ve played a hand in, it may be the better option when this is all said and done.” Sapphire light reflected from Frostbite’s globe eyes as he remembered those who were no longer with him. He often wondered if he should have joined them when the big griffin migration took place. The entirety of his colony had disappeared over the course of a night. Hollowness accompanied the thought. The Far Country would have been a far better place to be in these troubling times.
They landed on an overlook above the ruins. It offered them a strategic vantage point to plan their move. Frostbite eagerly curled up to find some rest while they conversed. The flight had taken its toll on him and the idea of the Far Country wore on his soul.
Over the crossing, western by the foothills of the Spine Mountains, Quinn saw a cluster of dots traveling towards them like the flooding of fire. She lowered the lens of her stellascope. Her mouth opened in shock. It was Lilith’s army and it was much larger than what they’d seen in Unduk Validur. Inhabit, she unsheathed one of the swords she’d stolen from the Dryads from under her lavender cloak, rising to sharpen them over a hard stone. “We might have to fight our way into this mess,” she said, sliding the blade down and back over the gritty surface. “Unless you know another way?”
She handed Abbott the brass tube and he too was left with the same doubtfulness. “I don’t know of any other way but straight into it. Lilith won’t let her men kill us. She wants to do it herself. I know it.”
“I hope you’re right or we will have thousands of men lining up to take a stab at us.”
Frostbite’s nostrils flared and his head turned suspiciously. “Someone’s behind us. Over there. They’ve been listening to you talk. Behind the rocks.”
Quinn and Abbott’s eyes connected and they readied their weapons as they approached the cluster of rocks behind them. Did Lilith send scouts or spies to find them? Would they come into conflict this soon?
“Who goes there?” Quinn said, narrowing her eyes on a rustling noise from behind. “Come out. We don’t want any trouble.” The shadow of something large grew on the floor before them. The moon’s light cast a shape they could only begin to theorize. “Come out now!” The shadow disappeared and then a dark object shot into the air. Quinn chopped at the sky to defend a potential strike but landed none of her swings.
“Is that any way to treat your friend?”
Blood rushed to Quinn’s face as she recognized a voice long since absent from her thoughts. “Ara? What’re you doing here? I thought you were—”
“Dead? Seems like I thought the same thing.”
In the same colored tunic as Quinn’s cloak, a man hobbled from behind the stone wall and lowered his hood.
“You’re—“ Tears filled her eyes without warning as she broke down.
“Alive?” Martin embraced Quinn.
The tenderness surrounding her dimly lit soul grew brighter again as her nightmarish reality ended. The strings tied around her chest loosened up enough for her to release a whimpering. It was the moment Quinn thought she’d never see. “ Ara said—“
“Dead? No. It was only just a scratch,” Martin chuckled, looking down the bridge of his sharp nose into his daughter’s glossy eyes. “I have Ara to thank for
finding me. She told me about all the trouble you’d gotten yourself into, and we left at once. We’ve been searching for days now.”
“So that’s where you’ve been all this time? We both thought you’d left us for good or worse… been killed too. I was terribly worried.”
Ara’s beaked twitched happily. “My pleasure,” she said inside both Martin and Quinn’s thoughts.
“I don’t know what to do,” Quinn confessed as Lilith’s men gathered around the fiery circle. “I can’t get inside to help him.” Her eyes lifted to the dragon flying overhead.
There was a momentarily twinkling in her father’s eye. One that she knew all too often meant he had a well thought out idea to solve this dilemma.
Frostbite inched closer from behind his rock. His head was low to the ground.
“My, my. A griffin. What an extraordinary pleasure it is to me you.” Martin bowed his head humbly. “I do regret this is in fact not the best place for you to be, and yet, I think we could use your help. We need to pass beyond that fiery ring. Do you think it is within your ability to distract the beast that is making it?”
Frostbite dipped his head nervously.
“I do believe your tail feathers are fire resistant. Along with the feathers lining your wingspan.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” the griffin said, lifting his shifting eyes towards the beast in the sky. “Soren be with you all.” And he took off into the skies and headed straight from the scaly beast breathing fire.
“Ara?” Martin called out. “Help our newly made friend with the dragon.”
Ara opened her wingspan and took off after the griffin.
“How do we stop her?” asked Abbott.
“An excellent question my friend! Luckily I have an answer. Those val mortem crystals are the key. They are what’s giving her power. Once we’ve broken the connection between them all, you’ll have to destroy the Guardian. And it has to be done with that sword, or it won’t work. If we can do all of that and stay alive, we can win. But there will be consequences for these actions. The Archway may cease to work in the manner in which it does. The gate between both worlds will be forever disconnected. You may never be able to return to Woolbury again. You’ll be stuck here.”
“Is there any way we can stop Lilith and keep the arch open?”
“There’s a slim chance,” Martin said cautiously. “But I cannot be certain it will work and I cannot promise you wholeheartedly. As long as the arch exists, Lilith’s chances of passing through will live on. Destroying its barrier is the only way to end her efforts for good.”
“We have to try,” Quinn said, looking into her father’s eyes. “We must do what we can.”
The look on his daughter’s face was absolute. Martin knew with certainty. “We will try, but it is far riskier. Once the val mortem crystals are broken, you must place the Guardian in the hilt of the sword, but only when the moon is at its highest. Not a moment before and not a moment after, you must cast the sword into the arch. The window of this lunar anomaly ends quickly. It will have to be time perfectly.”
“How will we know when to reunite the Guardian and the sword?” Quinn asked.
“When it looks like blood.”
A chill traveled down the back of Abbott’s spine and it stayed in his stomach. A blood moon, he thought. Inedal’s weight began to return inside his hands. The ends of his fingers trembled anxiously as the picture of Lilith’s madness became clearer than ever.
“We will care for the crystals,” Martin said to his daughter. “If your griffin friend can successfully distract the dragon, it will give us enough time to slip in unnoticed by the sea of men surrounding it. But it must be you who faces Lilith.” He placed his hand on Abbott’s shoulders. “You will be the one to fight that battle.”
"How do you know about the sword and the guardian?" The question stuck out in Abbott's mind.
"I am the one who separated and hid them both." Martin's lip curled. "I did so for you."
The words drained the blood from his face leaving him as white as a sheet. He knew the battle was his and his alone, but even that could not bury the feeling inside him. His mind was plagued, conflicted. He looked to the lands above and remembered Soren’s words. He was the protector. He was chosen to do so by the creator of Evinar himself. “He is with me. Always,” he murmured under his doubtful breath. “He is with me.”
The dragon took another pass around the ruins, igniting the circle ablaze. Frostbite eagerly followed the trail of smoldering smoke left behind in the beast’s wake. He’d never come so close to a dragon before and thought of which terrified him. The dragon was four sizes larger than he was and more cunning in every aspect. Frostbite scooped his wings, shaping his body into an arrow, and slid right after this target.
As Frostbite grew near, closing the gap between them, the spiked-tail flung in the wind aimlessly nearly catching his right wing. He lowered his head and pointed his beak. He flew faster and faster. The scales on the dragon could not be penetrated. He would have to find another way to lure the beast away from its duties. With outstretched talons, Frostbite clutched at the beast’s tail. In response, an orange jet of gases jutted from its mouth landing over Frostbite’s neck. But the flames did no damage. They were impervious to the dragon’s weapon. “The old man was right,” Frostbite said gleefully, and he continued his pursuit.
Abbott, Quinn, and Martin snuck down from their overwatch. Lilith’s legion proceeded to chant in their native tongue but broke their attentions to celebrate an unchallenged victory. Their body-length shields lie over the dirt like a battle line.
“Remember. Once the moon turns to blood, you must reunite the Guardian in the hilt and cast the sword into the arch,” Martin recounted. “With the connection between val mortem crystals destroyed, it will weaken her significantly. That will be your best chance at defeating her. That is if your friend can help us.” He turned to the skies as the faint outlines of blue and black could be seen flying through the clouds.
Abbott turned to head towards the firewall when Quinn called him back.
“Wait,” she said. “You’ll need some of this.” Her hands held out a piece of her homemade acorn loaf. “It's the last piece. You’ll need it.”
His lip lifted in the corner as he took it from her hands. He couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you,” he said.
Quinn’s cheeks were reddened.
“Good luck,” she said one final time. “I hope to—“
He flung his arms around her body and gave her what might be a final hug. “Soren be with you.”
“And him with you,” she said flushed as she departed back to Martin, leaving Abbott alone.
39
“Moonlight,” Elise whispered as she worked her fingers through her silver mane. “You must leave us. This is no place for you.” The stallion hesitated the command. They’d been over hills and valleys together, pursued by white wolves, and evaded a dragon. Even for an animal, commitment did not die so simply when dim fate threatened the horizon. But Elise did not provide Moonlight a choice in the matter.
Head hung low, Moonlight scampered away, occasionally glancing back to see if her companion was okay. This would not be the end of their adventures.
Overhead in the clouds, a loud shrieking erupted. The fiery wall encasing the ruins had dissipated. Billy’s eyes intercepted as the dragon’s hulking body fell limp through the air, but before it came plummeting to the ground, a blue shadow snatched it up. The shadow struggled to gain altitude for a moment before carrying the limp beast away into the clouds.
“Griffins,” Elise said, astonished. “He took out the dragon. Here’s our chance.” With nothing more than her dagger in her weakened hand, Elise led Billy beyond the charred ring. The val mortem crystals. They need to be shattered, every single one of them. Their pure glass surfaces smashed to bits. But before they could reach one of the powered crystals, a girl came tumbling down over them.
“Who are you?” the woman said as she c
ircled with her blade pointed. “What’re you doing here?”
An old man stepped in front of her and lowered his daughter’s intimidating weapons. “You’re a long way from your castle Princess,” he said, looking at the royal blood standing before him— golden skin, fair eyes, and light blond hair. Traits of the Embir household. “Far from home?”
“Princess?” Billy gapped, his eyes nearly falling from his sockets. “You’re that performer! The one I bested. Martin the Magnificent.”
“By plan,” Marty said grimly. “This is my daughter Quinn. My apologies for the aggression. We’re a bit wound up at the moment. Not a lot of good people here at the moment.”
“You’re the boy from Woolbury. The one courting the girl who nearly got me killed!” Quinn raised a fist to punch Billy square in the face, but when her eyes caught wind of Elise, she second guessed the move. “What’re here for?”
“Preventing her.” They both looked at Lilith’s shadowy body floating beyond.
“Then it appears we have common allies,” Martin said cheerfully, fluttering his robe in a delighted manner. “Do you know how to destroy a val mortem crystal auspiciously? Without it simply putting itself back together?”
They all exchanged a series of sideways glances. They did not know.
“Salt.” Martin clapped his hands merrily. “Who would have guessed? I wouldn’t have.”
Billy crossed his arms. “Don’t suppose you have any on you?”
“By happenstance, I gathered some ocean water to boil a pot of tea this morning. I like a strong pot in the mornings. Takes away winter’s bite. I collected the salt in the bottom of the kettle. There should be enough of it from all of us. A fair warning. Val mortem crystals are exceeding dangerous…”
Billy shifted his body stature, which could be generalized as “We’re not stupid.”
The Shadow of Our Stars: The Tales of Evinar Page 30