Rena was moving before Lucas could think of anything to say that might stop her. His tongue had tied itself in a knot. He could only watch as she bounded across the grassland, heading back towards the city as if her previous apprehension from the demon plants was a distant memory. In a matter of seconds, she was far enough away that he would’ve had to shout for her to hear him. The others followed with varying degrees of curiosity.
Lucas genuinely considered running away then. The weight of the future was getting heavier by the second; he could see his paths forward narrowing as the party drew further away from him, and the urge to turn and sprint in the other direction was near irresistible.
Reason won out. Running was a stupid idea; it’d only worsen his position. It would be better if he was there to deflect them, somehow.
Lucas hastened to catch up. His heart was racing, and he took deep breaths to try and calm himself. This wasn’t a moment for panic. He didn’t even know why he was reacting so strongly. It was ridiculous. These people—or at least some of them—would see him as a chosen saviour. They’d welcome the discovery, surely?
The problem was, he thought to himself, being a chosen saviour was a rather daunting prospect. It didn’t feel like the kind of thing that was supposed to happen to an average man like Lucas Brown. Jamie? He could see it. Rian? Surely the first name on the ‘prophesied to save the world’ list. Aarya was so charismatic and charming, she’d literally been voted most likely to be a celebrity in their last year of secondary school. Claire had a full scholarship at Oxford University.
Why was there so much emphasis being placed on Lucas’ arrival? Was it just because he hadn’t shown up with the others at first, and his abilities had gotten mythologised in the absence of the real thing? Or was it as the Skycloak had claimed, and the power they’d given him was just that much of a difference maker?
It didn’t matter, really. The end result was the same, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to face it. It would’ve been one thing if he’d shown up when he was supposed to, with his friends at his side. Together, they could’ve faced anything.
But that was the story of Lucas’ life. Always late when he was needed.
Potential approaches were warring within his mind, and no clear victor was forthcoming by the time he rejoined the back of the group, coming alongside the Skycloak. She glanced at him with a searching look, and another idea came to him.
He could just tell them. Reveal himself right here, right now. Apologise for the deception, and explain that he hadn’t been sure how far he could trust any of them.
The problem with that was it was true, and it remained so. He didn’t know how far he could trust any of them. Wick seemed an amiable fellow. Jyn was generally helpful. The Skycloak was free with her knowledge. Even Rena, the most abrasive of the lot, hadn’t treated him poorly at any point.
But what did that mean, when they thought he was just some country bumpkin plant mage who didn’t know shit about the world? Sure, they probably suspected he was hiding something, the Skycloak most of all, but how would their attitude change if they knew he was the man supposedly destined to save their world?
Lucas wanted to help. He really did. If the state of this world was as dire as had been implied and the potential the Gift granted him was as powerful as believed, turning his back on it would be reprehensible.
So he told himself, but when the moment seemed to have come, the weight of it was crushing him. The burden was squeezing his thundering heart, gripping his lungs until he felt breathless. His vision tunnelled, the unavoidable future stretching out ahead, and it would start with that graveyard.
He wasn’t ready for this. He wanted to just be Ser Rian, just some guy with weird rare magic and a dearth of common knowledge.
“Ser Rian?” Wick’s voice sounded a thousand miles away.
Lucas delved into his mana, breathing deeply. He was acting weird, attracting attention to himself, making the problem worse. He slowed his mana throughout his body, finding comfort in the strength, the solidity it gave him. It made him feel heavy, tethered in the moment. More present. He allowed himself to get lost in the sensation, as if drawing his mind away, disconnecting from his emotions and physiological reactions.
“I’m fine,” Lucas’ voice said at his brain’s command. It didn’t come out trembling. That was good.
Clarity settled on him as he distanced himself from his body, his mind focused on his mana. It was far easier to fall into this quasi-meditative state than it had once been. The Gift had its benefits beyond magic. He had to keep that in mind; so much of his attention had been on arcane pursuits, when he could have been improving himself in other areas.
“Are you guys sure you want to go back towards the city?” he tried. “The plants are one thing, but if there’s something over there I can’t deal with…”
Rena shot him a withering look. “They’re stones.”
“Right. So why’s it so important to you to go and investigate them right now? Just curious.”
Four sets of eyes were on him now. Wick spoke next. “Stones arranged unnaturally like that implies someone was here recently to place them.”
“Not necessarily,” Lucas said. “They could’ve been placed at any time.”
“And we’re investigating to find out,” Rena said, eyeing him like he’d lost his wits. He kind of had. “We can’t safely make camp for the night if there’s some bandits stupid enough to come this far North around.”
Lucas had nothing to say to that. It had been a pathetic attempt anyway, a hopeless delaying tactic. Even if he’d somehow succeeded, they would’ve simply investigated later instead.
The group’s attention turned away from him as they approached the gravesite, and Lucas’ options narrowed even further. It didn’t seem to matter so much, now. With the calm afforded him by conscious dissociation, he could approach his potential choices more rationally.
First off, he had to tell himself there was no guarantee of discovery. He had already considered the possibility, but quickly discarded it as panic started to set in.
A set of grave sites wouldn’t necessarily be immediately identified as recently dug; at least two weeks had passed, and that was enough time for grass to partly grow back. In the event their recentness was discovered, that didn’t necessarily mean their minds would immediately go to someone extracting bodies from the city and burying them out here. If their minds did go in that direction, they wouldn’t necessarily make the logical leap to it being Lucas Brown who had done the digging.
And in the extremely unlikely event that they did make that leap, the chances that they’d then make the connection between the novice plant mage they knew as Ser Rian and Lucas Brown were tiny. To them, he was just a mildly useful country hick in dirty, self-woven clothes. How could they possibly believe him to be the chosen saviour of their world? If anything, they’d get mad at him for making such a claim. Lucas mentally patted himself on the back for refraining from confessing.
Peace settled over him as all those thoughts coalesced and implanted a simple fact in his brain: the chances of them discovering him here were so slim they might as well be zero. There was no use panicking, especially when he was here to affect the outcome himself.
That all went out the window the moment they actually reached the gravesite.
“They’re graves,” Wick said with horror in his voice. “So many, with no fifth rites?”
“They’re recent,” Rena said, her eyes darting around the scene. “Not fresh, but dug within a month at most.”
Jyn’s wand was poking out from his voluminous sleeve, and he was waving it in a slow circle. The stars on his robes were glowing softly. “The bones are all old, but the warmth given to them by flesh and blood faded away at wildly different times.”
“So someone gathered bodies,” Wick mused.
“Bones,” Jyn said. “Dead long enough for everything else to rot away.”
“There are tracks. Recent ones,” Rena said. Her gaze panned to the other end of the gravesite, and Lucas’ stomach dropped. “What’s that pile over there?”
The three moved off to investigate, intrigued, and Lucas was left alone with the Skycloak, who hadn’t moved an inch, hadn’t drawn any attention to herself. He looked at her, and what he saw was worse than anything the others had said.
With it, Lucas resigned himself to the inevitable.
Because she was staring back at him, her blue eyes comically wide as they searched his face. Her lips were moving, but no sound was passing them. Her fingers were clenching and unclenching at her sides, as if she was trying to physically grasp the right words to say. She looked, in a word, stunned.
Seeing so much emotion from a woman who’d been steadfastly stoic since the first moment he’d first laid eyes on her was distressing beyond belief, and Lucas found himself transfixed. His eyes met hers, and he couldn’t look away.
Slowly, almost reverently, she raised one of her white-gauntleted hands, pointed one finger upwards, and placed it against her quivering lips.
Lucas nodded. That was fine by him. He was happy to just let things play out from here. No more worrying.
Dipping the hand back beneath her cloak, the Skycloak closed her eyes and drew in a breath that seemed to send a bolt of lightning through her body. She shuddered once, violently, then went still. A transformation overtook her then, her expression smoothing out, her back straightening and shoulders squaring with renewed purpose. All of a sudden, she seemed a foot taller. Greater, somehow. When she opened her eyes, they hadn’t returned to the icy placidity he’d been expecting.
Instead, they were burning with white fire, bright as the full moon, filled with indomitable determination. She looked at him once, nodded, then strode with her head held high towards the other three where they were investigating a familiar pile of wood. As she passed him, she spoke softly:
“Stay behind me and be alert.”
Lucas’ breath hitched as her words hit him. Questions rose, but she gave him no time to voice them, moving with the air of someone on an important mission. He hurried behind her. His future was concrete now, hundreds of paths pared off, closed to him forever. In a way, it was a relief. Lucas had always struggled with choosing from a plethora of options. A solid idea of the way forward made things easier.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
Wick, Jyn, and Rena had gathered around the pile of wood that had once been a makeshift sled. It had fallen apart in the intervening time, his flimsy plant fibre ropes coming undone. Unfortunately, it hadn’t decayed enough to obscure its purpose. If the grooves in the dirt didn’t give it away, the ropes lying loose on the ground and the baskets he’d piled the bones in, strewn in a loose pile, made it obvious enough.
Looking at the wreckage, it was a miracle it had even survived the journey from the Summoning Hall. It hit him how much of a feat dragging it out here was, with the baskets of bones atop it and all.
Far from triumph, it was hard to feel anything but a kind of exasperation at his past self in this moment for running off and leaving it all out here. Logically, he knew he couldn’t have anticipated that it would come back to bite him. He hadn’t expected to end up back here at all. He’d known nothing about the world or his purpose in it. Even now, he still barely knew. How could he have predicted there’d be people looking out for signs just like these?
None of that sunk in. The anticipation was mounting by the time he reached the others, and he kept his distance, standing behind the Skycloak as she’d instructed.
“Come,” the Skycloak said, interrupting whatever the three had been discussing. “I won’t countenance this many graves without fifth rites for a moment longer.”
Lucas stared at her back, confused. She wasn’t going to tell them?
“Someone lashed together a wooden sled and piled the bones up to bring them out here,” Rena said. She pointed to the deep grooves leading from the back of the former sled to the forbidding wall of foliage a few dozen metres away, letting the sight speak for itself.
“And they buried them with only headstones, no fifth rite,” Wick said.
Jyn was silent, watching the Skycloak. His blue lips were neutral, emotionless. His wand was still in his hand, pointed at the ground.
“I would like to rectify that presently,” the Skycloak said.
“Why would anyone take the time to bury so many long-dead skeletons without giving them the fifth rite?” Rena said slowly. Her eyes were on the city, but it seemed like she was seeing something distant. “Unless,” she continued, “they didn’t know to do so.”
“Who could not know about the fifth rite?” Wick said.
“These are questions for after we’ve dealt with the issue at hand,” the Skycloak said. Her right hand was on her heart. “While we stand here in discussion, over fifty souls lie in unhallowed graves. No matter how curious you are, no matter your feelings, that takes precedence.”
There was a moment of silence, and tension thrummed in the air. Wick seemed to pick up on it, looking between Jyn and the Skycloak, while Rena’s gaze sharpened, though she was still looking towards the city.
Eventually, Jyn nodded. His wand disappeared into his sleeve.
The group was tense and quiet as they set about performing the fifth rite; the same ritual they’d wordlessly enacted over Lila’s grave back in the forest. They withdrew small objects from whatever storage they had and held them to their hearts with their heads bowed, then placed them as offerings at five predetermined points around the gravestones, before drawing lines to connect each offering, forming a pentagon. The tip of the pentagon always faced North.
Lucas, of course, still had little to offer, so he replicated the trick he’d performed before, forming little sticks he scavenged into hearts. The stares on his back as he shaped the bits of wood were sharp as knives. He found himself sweating under the scrutiny, and whenever he turned back he couldn’t help noticing that the Skycloak was stood apart from the group, placing herself between him and the others.
She still hadn’t told them about him. Why?
Time seemed to crawl as they made their way through the graves one by one in silence. Despite tensions, the group made no rush. It seemed all of them respected the sanctity of the fifth rite ritual, though Lucas was sure he wasn’t imagining the steadily increasing attention on him as utilised his floramancy.
He kept his mana slow—so slow it was practically still, and he felt like his soul was stone. The solidity helped ground him, leeching away his anxiety. It felt ironic, somehow; the last time he’d felt the need to infuse his body with mana-induced strength, he’d been at this very same place.
Jamie was tense in his heart, mana slowing to match his host’s, the monstercat evidently agitated by Lucas’ own emotions. At least he had confirmation that was a two-way street, he supposed.
The end of their impromptu ceremony came far too quickly, and Rena wasted no time once the final offering had been placed by the last gravestone. She stepped up to the Skycloak, face to face.
“What do you know?” Rena asked. “What did you not tell us about this quest?”
“I withheld nothing relevant from you,” the Skycloak said. Her right hand was back on her heart, fingers flat against the white breastplate.
Lucas had gone beyond baffled at this point, settling back into apprehension. There had to be a good reason she hadn’t exposed him, and he didn’t like the possibilities that were coming to mind. He took a step back, ensuring he was behind her, as instructed.
Rena sneered. “So you just happened to commission a quest to the lost city at the exact same time that someone who didn’t know about the fifth rite showed up.”
“I had no knowledge of anything unusual in Pentaburgh. The quest I commissioned is precisely what I expected to happen: we would come here and, if possible, find our way to the Summoning Hall and record the Array there for study.”
“And nothing happened to prompt this trip? No alarm that alerted you to someone’s arrival in the city?”
“Nothing of the sort. It is as I already told you: Lady Claire forbids us to approach the Summoning Hall, and I took the opportunity presented when she went away on campaign. I expected nothing like this.”
“I believe you,” Jyn said, speaking for the first time. “But why, I wonder, are you not overcome with joy at finding something ‘like this?’ You are far too intelligent not to piece together the evidence we see around us, yet you act like you suspect nothing.”
The Skycloak turned her head slowly. From Lucas’ position behind her, he couldn’t see the look on her face. But he could see Rena take a step back, wide-eyed, and how Wick went still.
“Jyn Sakhelyan,” she intoned, and the air seemed to thicken at the sound of her voice. “Out of all the members of this party, I judged you most likely to discern my identity.”
“I have some guesses,” Jyn said. He was frowning, now. A bead of sweat dripped down from his hood and rolled under his chin. “Would you like me to list them for you?”
“That will not be necessary,” the Skycloak said. “I am Valerie Vayon.”
Rena paled. Wick’s breath hitched. Jyn’s lips thinned.
“Ah,” the Wandmaster said. He shifted his weight. “That is one of the more unfortunate possibilities I’d considered.”
“I fear you could possibly be working with some misconceptions, and, as a devout member of the Order dedicated to ensuring the dissemination of knowledge, I feel obligated to clarify them for you,” Valerie said, her voice casual but somehow deadly. “For example, you may be under the impression that the consequences for the actions you are no doubt considering would fall only on you.”
Silence reigned, wind silently brushing through the grass, kicking up shreds of detritus. The offerings stayed still at the points of their pentagons.
Lucas tried not to hold his breath. He had no clue what was happening, at this point.
“Allow me to clarify further, in order to ensure no further misunderstandings,” Valerie said. “Though I was not spoiled for choice for party members on this quest, I still took the time to investigate you all. I knew I wouldn’t be able to trust anyone, but I at least needed to know your skills, competence, and experience. In the course of this research, I learned quite a lot about you.”
The Skycloak let that statement sit for a moment.
“I know who you are, Wandmaster Jyn. A master of pyromancy, a storied quester, a man of deep curiosity who wants to see the reality of things for himself.” Her voice was softening as she spoke, until it was little more than a whisper. “And you are a husband. A father. A son, a brother, a cousin, and a friend.”
“I believe you said you wanted to be clear,” Jyn said through clenched teeth.
“If you make an enemy of me today,” Valerie said, “I will not stop with killing only you.”
Holy fuck, Lucas thought, just as rooted to the spot as Wick and Rena were, gaping at the usually-calm Skycloak. Even Jamie had gone still in his chest. What the hell was happening here? Why was the Skycloak threatening Jyn, of all people? Rena, he might have understood, given her attitude. The Wandmaster had done nothing wrong that Lucas could recall.
“You realise you have all but confirmed a theory I was struggling to believe?” Jyn said, forcibly mild. The ease in his voice was betrayed by the way his wand arm was twitching.
“The truth would have outed eventually,” Valerie said. “I chose to have this confrontation here rather than deep in the city, where no doubt more conclusive proof awaits.”
Jyn watched her for a long moment, grimacing. Then he let out a sigh and his shoulders slumped. “Well, if you’re in the mood for giving out information, tell me: how much time have you spent around Lady Claire, Captain?”
“More than most.”
“And you’ve seen her work magic, I imagine?”
“Many times.”
“I was only blessed with such a chance on one occasion, back in the days when I was still a scholar at the college. She was there to visit the High Council for one reason or another, and happened to pass by my laboratory as I was pursuing a new theory. I wanted to see if I could stretch my affinity for pyromancy into hydromantic or cryomantic effects, as I can with brontomancy and ferramancy. My theorem intrigued her, and I hastened to give an explanation. She then used pyromancy to tear the heat from water, turning it into ice, before I’d begun. It was so… easy for her. She didn’t even really understand the principles behind it.
“Before then, I’d only heard stories of the Great Wand’s power, of her fantastical, theretofore unseen workings. I didn’t appreciate what it looked like until I saw it with my own eyes.”
“And it made you feel inadequate,” Valerie said, distinctly lacking in sympathy.
“It did,” Jyn said without shame. “I’m not going to lie and call it a life changing moment. It didn’t alter me fundamentally. But it did get me thinking about the Five and the Prophecy, every now and then—this was no obsession, I assure you—and, after some self reflection, I found myself questioning them. From whence did they summon someone that talented? Well, I looked into it, and I’m sure you know the answer: they didn’t. Not really. Their talent is a gift from us.
“To tell the truth, that made me feel better for a time. If I’d never met her again, my involvement in this story would have ended there. But, sadly, I did, and I saw the truth of who she is.” Jyn’s head turned, and Lucas felt the weight of his attention. “A thousand Wands gave their lives to grant her the power she wields, and she spits on their sacrifice with her methods.”
Valerie shifted, interposing herself between Lucas and Jyn, cutting off the Wandmaster’s hooded gaze. “You know nothing of the realities of this war, Wandmaster. Mind yourself.”
“Heroes from another world,” Jyn mused, ignoring her. “Isn’t it ridiculous? What makes them so special that grants them the right to wield the power our people gave their lives for? The answer is nothing. They’re just people. Lady Aarya said it herself in her famous speech to King Vlahar’s court, did she not? Lord Rian abandoned us, and Lord Jamie is, by all accounts, a broken old wreck. If that’s the case, why must outsiders with no connection to this country or its people gain from our sacrifice? If we could summon such power, shouldn’t it go to one of our own?”
“It is already done,” Valerie said. “The Great Five are not transferable.”
“According to whom? Lady Claire? There’s a quite significant group who consider her words on the matter to be suspect. They approached me some years back with their quaint little plot. I’m not sure I believe it, but I was content enough to take their coin and pass on information. It seems you knew of this, when you accepted me on this quest.”
“Most of the Darkstar’s members and associates are known, yes. Lady Claire doesn’t take you people particularly seriously, however.”
“She wouldn’t. Arrogance.” He tilted his head. “Why did you accept my application, if you knew my associations?”
“Getting information from you was my secondary objective. Now, it’s not even tertiary.”
For some reason, this seemed to relax the Wandmaster. He smiled. “So I was never making it back to Dawnguard alive either way.”
“There are more lives than your own at stake now, Ser Jyn.”
Jyn sniffed. “I don’t believe you.” He leaned to the side to get a look at Lucas. “Lucas Br—”
Valerie snapped her hand out, her sword appearing like she’d drawn it from her chest. With the movement, a crescent of moonlight raced through the air, clearing the space to Jyn in the blink of an eye and bisecting him from shoulder to hip before anyone could react. The two pieces of his body fell in opposite directions. Both burst into flames.
And the flames rose.