I stepped back from the wall, thinking furiously. I needed to move carefully, that much was sure. If the rashi were in that room, as well, they would probably sense me if I got too close. Of course, that assumed that they were there and not being held captive somehow—although honestly, I wasn’t sure how that was possible. The spirits of the volcano were obviously still bound by the valskab, which meant that its members could likely call on the power of those spirits if needed—including the power of the high spirit that bound me earlier.

“Kadonsel, could a powerful ojain have commanded that high spirit like that?” I asked silently.

“No,” she replied firmly. “Even the Kungas himself doesn’t have that power. Besides, that’s not how Henguki works, remember? Even if an ojain could bind that spirit, they’d bind it into a crystal and tap its energy.”

“Good point.” That meant that either the rashi were willing participants in whatever was happening, or they were being coerced or controlled somehow. I wasn’t sure which was the case, but I had to assume the former. If that was true, then I couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

I quickly erased the circle I’d drawn, then scratched another, this one as close to the floor as I could get it and no wider than my shoulders. Once again, I had my earth spirit dissolve a hole in the wall, and once it was big enough for me to slip through, I lay down on my stomach and wormed my way slowly through the hole into the next room.

I froze as I entered the room and a wave of energy washed over me. The place was thick with power, enough that it made my fur stand on end and tingled up and down my spine as my Draining Aura sucked it into me. Kadonsel made another silent sigh of pleasure as that aura fed an even thicker flow of power into her, but it seemed that the extra was too much for her to absorb, and the power gathered inside of me, slowly growing in an expanding sphere of glimmering energy. It was the most energy-dense place I’d yet been in this world, which explained the brilliant radiance I’d seen glowing through the walls. I wondered why I hadn’t felt that power when I’d opened the hole in the wall—at least, I did until I looked around and discovered the answer.

It was hard to make out the room’s shape and layout from my prone position, but the walls to my left and right curved away in gentle arcs that made me think the place was circular and pretty big. The walls curved into a dome overhead that gave me the impression that the place was shaped like the top half of a bubble. Crystalline stalagmites rose from the floor at regular intervals, smooth hexagonal shapes of various pastel shades—at least, I thought they were stalagmites until I looked more closely at one and realized that it had been set into a hexagonal hole carved into the floor.

The column of crystal wasn’t too large, only rising to my waist and about as thick as my wrist. Its top was a hexagonal pyramid, and from the way it had been polished, I could guess that it wasn’t entirely natural. The power in the room seemed to be thicker near the obelisk, although I couldn’t tell without using See Spirits or See Magic, and I had a feeling either would be blinding inside the place. Another column rose before me, maybe six feet closer to the middle of the room, and I slipped closer to it, examining it. It was similar to the last one, but not identical. It was taller, for one thing, as high as my navel, and maybe a couple inches thicker. The power around it was denser, as well. As I turned away from it, a flash caught my eye, and I glanced over to see the glittering arc of a huge circle shining on the floor near the wall behind me. It gleamed the same silver as the paint I’d found, which I felt sure wasn’t a coincidence. That was why I hadn’t sensed the power in this room; it was being contained by a circle, the same kind that the Oikies had been pouring up in the Northern Ocean. Yeah, definitely not a coincidence.

“Those are Henguki crystals!” Kadonsel said excitedly. “And they’re full! I can feel the power in them!”

I turned back to the crystal and cautiously activated See Spirits. Even prepared, I still winced at the sudden radiance that exploded from all the crystals. Each crystal shone a different color that reflected the spirit contained within, but all burned so brightly that I assumed they held spirits of extreme power. I quickly activated Genius Loci and winced at the information that flooded my brain.

Henguki Crystal

Capacity: 106/110

Spirit: Class S Earth

Henguki Crystal

Capacity: 111/113

Spirit: Class S Wind

Henguki Crystal

Capacity: 108/109

Spirit: Class T Ishvarn

Henguki Crystal

Capacity: 268/292

Spirit: Class S Close

…

Each of the crystals in my sight pulsed with the energy of class S or T spirits. The ones behind me, closer to the wall, were land spirits of different types. The one in front of me had a beast spirit, and beyond it, I sensed a pair of crystals in range of my ability that held close spirits, one of healing and one of sorrow. All were enormously powerful, far stronger than any of the spirits I held except the two high spirits, and I had to shut off See Spirits to be able to see anything past the brilliance of their radiance.

“This is amazing!” Kadonsel whispered. “These crystals—they’re some of the strongest and most perfect ones I’ve ever seen! And the spirits inside them—how did they convince ancients that strong to enter the crystals? The amount of power they’re generating is astounding! I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in the Halls of Sura Jarvi!”

I ignored her fangirling and swept my eyes over the rest of the room. I could only see a small part of it, but I could tell immediately that the crystals grew larger and presumably held stronger spirits closer to the center. They also looked to be laid out in a fairly regular formation, almost like a series of nested rings.

“Almost perfect circles, too, John,” Sara agreed. “I’d need to see more of the room to be sure, but I’ll bet if there’s any deviation in the perfection of each circle, it’s less than the width of one of your fingers.”

“Meaning what?”

“I don’t know, sorry. I don’t know as much about Henguki as Anduruk because you haven’t really gotten to see a lot of it yet. Kadonsel might, though.”

That was a good point, and I turned my thoughts to the still overly excited spirit. “Kadonsel, is there any significance to the layout of this place?” I sent to her silently.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“It looks like it’s laid out in a nearly perfect series of concentric circles,” I explained. “Weaker spirits on the outside, and I assume stronger ones on the inside. Does that mean anything to you?”

“I’d need to see more to be sure,” she said hesitantly.

“But…?” I prompted.

“But—it kind of sounds like a focusing array. The idea is that the stronger crystals draw more power than the weaker ones, so by placing them in a series of rings, the stronger crystals will draw power from the weaker ones and focus it inward. If there’s another layer of even stronger crystals there, it’ll do the same, and so on until at the center, you get an area of extreme power density.”

“And you think this could be one?”

“I don’t even know if that’s possible. I’m not sure it could be done with such powerful crystals, Outsider. Usually, they’re made of crystals similar to the ones you carry.”

“Let’s assume it is,” I thought grimly. “Why do your people make these?”

“Focusing arrays are used when a specific effect would require binding an ancient far too powerful,” she replied, her tone taking on a lecturing quality. “By setting up a focus array and placing a receiving crystal at the center, you can mimic the presence of a more potent and powerful ancient and use that crystal as a power source.”

“How much stronger are we talking about?” I pressed. “Are you creating an area of double the power density? Triple?”

“It depends, Outsider,” she said helplessly.

“On what?”

“A lot of things. The quality of crystals being used. The exact layout of the array. The power of the spirits involved. The gap differential between layers. It all has to be set up perfectly to generate a maximal density. Even then, the result depends on the ambient energy; you can only focus what’s there to gather, after all.”

“So, they’ve got crystals so good that you squeed over them, Class S and T spirits, and pretty close to perfect rings set up in what’s probably the most spirit-dense place in the Haelendi,” I sighed. “I assume that means the density at the center could be extreme.”

“It—it could be. I don’t even know if it will work, though. I’ve never seen anything like this, and I don’t know how well the concept scales, or even if it does.”

“Let’s say it works. How much power will it generate? And what can it be used for?”

“I’d have to see the inner rings. Typically, though, a focusing array creates an area of power a rank denser than the innermost ancients. If they’ve put elder ancients in the center, then it should create an area of power with similar density and properties to a Class S or T high ancient, at least. And as for what you’d do with that—I have no idea. I can’t imagine anything that needs that much energy to function.”

I could think of a few things, but I didn’t want to guess without information, so I turned my thoughts back to the room. I still heard voices from ahead, so I slipped forward, staying low and keeping behind the glowing crystals. As bright as the things were in my spiritual sight, I hoped they’d shield me from being seen by a letharvis’ senses. I crept ahead until the voices were clear, then moved to where I could see the speakers.

“…time is becoming short,” a rough, gravelly voice spoke. “The Wanderer’s path is getting close to what the savages call its Descent. Soon, the Reaping will end, and our window will have passed.” I slid around a crystal and caught sight of the speaker, an older Oikie dressed in a black coat and wearing gleaming black leather shoes on all four of his feet. The man’s hair was white and pulled back out of his slightly simian face, which had a coating of short, white fur framing it, leaving only his eyes, nose, and mouth bare. His face was wrinkled, and his gaze was stern.

“I’m aware of that, Patriarch Rantala,” a voice that I quickly recognized as belonging to whoever had seized me outside the volcano spoke dryly. “I was the one who told you of the harmonic resonance, after all. I’m not likely to forget it.” I couldn’t see the speaker, not without moving so much I risked being seen myself, so I settled in and watched the Oikie and his two servants.

“Rantala?” Kadonsel gasped. “Piryo! Tarvi!”

“You know them?” I asked silently, assuming she meant the two servants.

“I—yes, I do. The two ojaini are Piryo and Tarvi. Both are strong ojaini; Piryo has always been excellent at crafting Henguki crystals, and Tarvi is one of the best channelers I know. They’d be good choices to craft a focusing array. And the noble is apparently the patriarch of the Rantala Clan.”

“I gathered that much,” I chuckled. “Who is the Rantala Clan?”

“The Rantala Clan is one of the strongest in Almella, outsider. It stands at or near the top of the Elanjurr, and its influence can be felt everywhere. This man is one of the most powerful people in all Allmella. For him to be here…”

“Means that it’s a dire matter,” I finished. “Of course, we already knew that, or I wouldn’t be here, either.”

“You dare speak to me that way, Redeemed Elder?” the patriarch demanded, opening his coat to reveal what looked like a sword hilt. “I am Patriarch…”

“I know who you are.” A sudden wave of power swelled in the room, and the noble froze, his hand halfway to his sword hilt. Both of the ojaini stilled at the same moment. I could tell from their wide eyes and trembling muscles that their sudden lack of movement wasn’t exactly voluntary, and a quick flash of See Spirits showed me the massive high spirit that grabbed me before wrapped around all three.

“And I’ve told you, time and again, I’m not one of your ridiculous tame Elders,” the resonant, female voice continued. The tone and confidence made me think that the speaker was mature, probably older, and was used to being in charge. “You and your people are my guests here, and if you abuse my hospitality, it won’t go well for you. Is that understood?”

The three suddenly stumbled as the spirit released their limbs, and the noble slowly closed his coat and moved his hand away from his blade. He cleared his throat and spoke as if the last few seconds hadn’t happened.

“I simply wish to know if we’re still on our timetable,” he said. “If we wait another week, we’ll be too late, and we’ll have to begin all over again next year. I’m not certain if I can pressure the Admiralty into cooperating again, not with the costs placing the circle out in the oceans incurred. Six ships lost in total, hundreds of lives drowned in the cold waters of the North Ocean, and all those crystals and ojaini gone forever…”

“We’re on schedule, Patriarch,” the woman cut him off. “I have the last high spirit we need in my possession—or I will within the day. The Great Bargain will be broken, and with its loss, our peoples will finally be able to live in peace and harmony.”

“That will be welcome,” the noble sighed. “The amount of resources—the number of lives the clans have to pour into this mindless war each year is absurd, and for what? To keep the Kungas in power, and to satisfy the bloodlust of the spirits involved in your Bargain. An end to that will be welcome.” He hesitated. “However, you know that your people won’t see it that way. The loss of their valskabs…”

“They’ll adapt,” the woman said nonchalantly. “They’ll have no choice. Without the Bargain, they won’t have the power to hold their elder spirits in thrall anymore, and those spirits will turn on them. We’ve seen that in our experiments: a freed elder spirit attacks anyone nearby until driven off or recaptured. Surviving those will force them to grow and become more than they are, just as your people will grow without the endless conflict cannibalizing your youth.” She chuckled. “I know that you fear that they’ll turn on me and cost you your ally, Patriarch, but I assure you, that’s the least of my concerns. My people—and yours—will be far too busy dealing with the changes to bother either of us, trust me.”

“As you say,” the man said after a moment. “I don’t wish to lose an ally, but I also don’t want the only line of communication built between our people in centuries to be cut. My people are taught that conflict is the will of the spirits, and they won’t all be willing to let go of this conflict right away. There will be incidents, and we’ll need communication to smooth them over.”

“And there will be.” The woman said impatiently. “You worry too much, Patriarch. Everything has gone according to plan so far. It will continue to do so…” She fell silent, and the patriarch glanced curiously back at his ojaini, who returned his puzzled expression. Guessing that she was locked in telepathic speech, I gambled and activated Silent Communion. As I did, whispered thoughts flowed into my head, words that I understood without really hearing them.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“…empty. There’s no sign of struggle, but Guthfin is missing.”

“What of the spirit sealing the door?” a voice that I recognized as the woman’s asked. “Was it taken?”

“No, Heltharvis. It responded to my entreaties normally.”

I felt a surge of irritation flood the communication. “We should have placed two guards instead of one. No matter, Palmi. I’ll find and bind him quickly enough.”

“Won’t he have fled Aldhyor, Heltharvis?”

“No, he won’t. He’ll be here. Double the guard on his companions; he might seek to free them.”

“What of Guthfin, Heltharvis?”

“Guthfin is departed, Palmi, one way or another. My spirits will likely find his body in a nearby room somewhere. Spread your people out and be ready to move when I find him; if he slipped my spirit once, he might be able to do it again.”

“Yes, Heltharvis.”

I felt a chill spread through me as I deactivated my ability. My escape had been noted, and my time was short. I took a deep breath, then reached down and touched the spirit of Lerlauga, drawing up the tiniest strand of its power that I could manage and feeding it into the pattern of mist around me. I felt the slow increase in power as I stopped sending Kadonsel’s energy into the spell and added the high spirit’s instead. The power burned slightly as it flowed through me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it forever, but hopefully, it would give me enough time to make a better plan.

“Is something wrong?” the Oikie patriarch asked, disturbing the silence and my thoughts.

“Wrong? No,” the woman replied. “A minor delay, nothing more.” She cleared her throat. “What’s important is that we’re on schedule, and the ritual will be ready to enact within three days, Patriarch Rantala. Perhaps less.”

I tuned the pair out as I slipped backward toward the hole I’d made. I’d heard enough, at least for the moment. The rashi—at least, some of them—were working with the Oikies to destroy this Great Bargain that the Menskies talked about. They seemed to think that doing so would end the war between them—and incidentally free the elder spirits that kept the valskabs connected.

There were still plenty of questions I needed answers to, obviously. What was this Bargain, and how did it keep the war going? What effect would dissolving it have? Obviously, unleashing the elder spirit on the valskabs wasn’t a great thing; I got to see it happen twice, after all, in what I assumed were two of the experiments they talked about. Neither had been much fun. And none of those were the biggest question: what, exactly, did the rashi get out of this?

At first, I’d assumed the heltharvis was working for the Oikies, somehow being forced to do what they wanted, but that obviously wasn’t the case. They seemed to have some sort of partnership, and in a partnership, both sides had to benefit. I could see how the Oikies stood to gain since, according to Kadonsel, the war cost them tens of thousands of lives a year and obviously used a ton of resources. Plus, ending it would probably advance this patriarch guy in the political hierarchy, maybe all the way to the top, so he definitely stood to gain. The heltharvis, though, was probably dooming a ton of her people to death. There had to be a powerful motivation for that, and if I knew what it was, it might make deciding what to do about it a lot easier.

I slipped out of the room and shifted my masking spell back to using Kadonsel’s energy rather than the high spirit’s. I wasn’t worried about being spotted by people at this point as much as by spirits, after all. I slipped back through the hallways without incident and made my way through the tunnels, following Sara’s directions until I neared the rooms where the others were being held, each kept separate in case I’d affected them somehow—not that I suspected that the rashi believed I was a traitor anymore. The heltharvis at least had to know that I wasn’t since she actually was in league with the Oikies, and I suspected that the rest of the rashi did as well. No, they wanted me for the high spirit I’d taken at Lerlauga, nothing more.

The smart thing for me to do at that point was to get the hell out of Aldhyor, honestly. Denying them the high spirit they wanted might be enough to derail their plans, after all—although I guessed they had to have a backup plan in case something went wrong. At the very least, it would make them hurry, and hasty people made mistakes. However, I couldn’t know what a mistake would mean, or even what breaking the Great Bargain meant. I needed more information, and that meant there was only one place to go.

Guards filled the tunnel outside the entrance to Aeld’s room, but none guarded the rooms nearby, so it didn’t take me long to slip from chamber to chamber until I stood just outside of Aeld’s. I paused with a hand on the wall as I realized that I couldn’t see the man’s spirits in the next room. Had the heltharvis taken him from here in case I came looking for him? If that were the case, there was probably a trap of some sort waiting for me beyond that wall. I carefully opened a hole in the wall and peered through, sighing in relief as I saw Aeld sitting in the center of the room, his eyes closed in meditation—or sleep, I guessed, if he could sleep sitting up like that. I shifted to magical sight, and a barrier of energy sprang up before me, a couple feet away from the edge of the wall. It looked like the rashi had put the letharvis inside a circle of some kind, most likely to keep him from using his spirits to escape the room.

I widened the hole in the wall until I could step through it, then eased cautiously into the room, closing the wall behind me and being careful not to touch the circle that glowed on the floor just past my toes. I cleared my throat loudly, and Aeld’s eyes snapped open, looking around in confusion for a moment before fastening on me. His eyes widened, and his expression looked startled and faintly concerned for an instant before settling into one of relief.

“Freyd!” he said quietly, rising to his feet. “How did you reach me?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “All that matters is that I’m here, and I can get you out.”

“I can’t go with you, Freyd,” the man sighed, his shoulders slumping. “The rashi has declared that I must stay here until they determine my guilt or innocence.” He paused. “You should flee while you can, though, and leave the Haelendi. Go west, toward the sea, then south into Mellung…”

“Not yet,” I cut him off. “First, I need to know about the Great Bargain, Aeld. What is it, and what does it do?”

The man’s gaze turned hooded, and he gave me a regretful frown. “I can’t tell you that, Freyd. Those aren’t my secrets to share.” He paused. “Why do you need to know?”

I quickly decided to take a minor gamble. “Do you remember the elder spirit attacks, Aeld? Well, it seems that the rashi was behind those.”

“What?” he gasped, his eyes wide. “Freyd, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but the rashi…”

“Listen to what I have to say, Aeld,” I cut him off again. “Then, decide if you still want to keep the rashi’s secrets.” I quickly told him what I’d seen and heard. He gasped and his face paled as I mentioned the presence of the Oikithikiim, and he swore softly as I told him what the heltharvis said about breaking the Great Bargain and its effects. At last, he sat down, his head and shoulders slumped forward in a defeated posture.

“I—I want to say that it’s impossible,” he whispered, his voice sounding broken. “After all, you’re an outsider, Freyd. You could be lying. Except…” He took a deep breath. “Except that I can’t explain how you would know what effect shattering the Bargain would have. Only the letharvisa truly know the depths of that Bargain and what it means. You could only know if—if your tale is true.”

He took another deep breath, his chest shuddering. “The Great Bargain, Freyd, is both our greatest accomplishment and our greatest shame. It was a dark time, the time of the Retreat, when the warming world and the Oikithikiim both drove us from our lands into the high places, from which we would have no escape.”

He looked up at me. “The Haelendi then wasn’t as you see it today, Freyd. It was a place of ice and snow, where the soil was frozen year-round just beneath the surface. No High Reaches shielded it from the polar winds. The peaks of Kimurrin in the south didn’t shelter us from our enemies. It was a place of death, and we knew that it would be the deaths of our people to live there. We had to do something, so we did. Our letharvisa joined together and did the unthinkable—we reached out to the First Spirits and asked for salvation.”

Kadonsel gasped in my head, but I ignored her surprise and focused on the shaman. “I thought you said that they couldn’t be summoned or bargained with?”

“For all practical purposes, they can’t. No letharvis can call on one. However, with enough power, you can get their attention, and the combined strength of all the letharvisa together was just enough.”

“And they responded?”

“They did, yes. If you can get them to notice you, they’ll always come.” His face twisted sourly. “However, part of what I said is correct. The First Spirits can’t be bargained with. If you bring them to our world, you can ask anything you’d like, and in return, they’ll tell you the price for it. You pay it, or they punish everyone involved in calling them for your effrontery.”

“Sounds like your people have called on them more than once,” I said suspiciously.

“Yes. And not just us.” He seemed to gather his thoughts. “That’s a different story, though. The point is, we called for the First Spirits, and one of them came to us. We asked it to keep us safe from the Oikithikiim, and it agreed. It would shelter us against our enemies, seal us away from them, and turn the Haelendi into a place where we could thrive.” He looked down again. “Of course, it demanded payment for all this.”

“What payment?” I asked, suspecting that I knew the answer.

“First Spirits only accept one payment, Freyd—lives. They don’t care about worship, and blood isn’t sufficient to appease them. They want lives, and to secure our future, we had to give them some.”

“Whose lives?”

“First Spirits always ask for a balance of lives,” he sighed. “If they take the life of a friend, they also need the life of an enemy. If they take someone you love, they’ll also take someone you hate. I don’t know why this is—no one does—but it’s always been the case, at least according to our memories.

“In this case, it asked for the lives of half of the letharvisa who dared to contact it and a tenth of the people it would be protecting. In balance, since it took the lives of those being attacked, it needed an equal number of lives of our attackers, to guard against their own kind.”

He took a deep breath. “We could offer our lives, of course, but we couldn’t offer the lives of our enemies. They weren’t ours to give. At least, not unless first we took them—so, we did. We lured one of their largest armies into the Haelendi, trapped it within a massive circle, and gave it to the First Spirit. It accepted them, and the true horror of what we’d done commenced.”

He looked up at me, his expression stricken. “That’s the thing about the First Spirits, Freyd. They always uphold their end of a bargain, but never in a way you’d want them to. We hoped that the spirit would grant us a shield, something to hold out our enemies and shelter us.”

“It didn’t?”

“Oh, it did, but what we hadn’t considered is that no First Spirit would ever linger in our poor world longer than it must. It wouldn’t remain to protect us, so it changed the world to serve as our shelter, instead. It broke the continent and rebuilt it into a place of protection.”

“The Uprising,” Kadonsel whispered in my mind. “By the Great Spirits—he’s talking about the Uprising!”

“The Haelendi melted,” he continued in a dead-sounding voice. “Mountains rose to the north and south. The earth fractured beneath our feet, and lava exploded from it, rising swiftly into the peak we’re in now. Geysers of steam and boiling water thawed the soil and filled the cracks to form the rivers and thermal lakes you’ve seen, and the heat and steam formed a great storm to the east, the never-ending hurricane of the Endelbarat that’s fueled by the warmth of Aldhyor meeting the cold winds of the pole. To reach us, the four-legs would have to cross nearly impassible mountains or brave a storm that wrecks any ship that nears it.

“However, the First Spirit wasn’t done. We asked for sanctuary, and physical barriers alone wouldn’t provide it. Any wall can be scaled, and any gap can be bridged. So, it reached out and twisted the spirits themselves. It bound the high spirit of the Haelendi to us, tying us all to it and thus to each other. It forcibly bound us to elder spirits to create the valskabs, so that we would know our enemies. Worst of all, it took the spirits of the foes we’d offered it and turned them into a shield that protects our lands, forcing those spirits to destroy any of their own kind who step foot in our lands.”

“The spirit lights,” Sara said softly. “That’s what those are, and why they look like mortal spirits—they’re the spirits of the Oikithikiim army, bound to kill their own kind for all eternity.”

“Of course, the First Spirit couldn’t let us go without punishing us for our effrontery,” Aeld laughed weakly. “The Bargain ties our spirits to the Haelendi, and that means that leaving the Haelendi causes us pain. Bregg and I suffered to head north into the High Reaches, as did the other hunters, a spiritual ache that can’t be healed. To go beyond that into the Northern Ocean or south beyond the Kimmurins, we would have to tear ourselves free of the binding. That leaves our spirits permanently crippled and scarred, severs us from the valskab, and leaves us weaker and in perpetual pain. This is what happens to those of our people who leave the Haelendi, either willingly or as captives, and travel into the lands to the south.” He laughed again and wiped at his eyes. “It’s what I first guessed happened to you, in fact. You’d gone too far onto the Northern Ocean and lost your connection to the Haelendi. Of course, once I saw how easily you handled spirits, I knew that wasn’t the case—a Menskallin who’s lost their connection struggles to communicate with or bind spirits, and doing so causes them pain.”

“I can see why you said that no one contacts the First Spirits,” I sighed after a few seconds of silence. “I don’t understand how that keeps the war going, though.”

“First Spirits have enormous power, Freyd, but even theirs isn’t infinite. Over time, all bindings and spells lose power and fade, even one from a First Spirit. The Bargain has to be maintained to keep its power, and that means more blood and lives.”

“I get it. The war feeds the binding—and probably the First Spirit who created it, I’d imagine.”

“That, no one can say, but it seems likely, yes.” Aeld sighed again. “And to make sure that it keeps going, the Bargain did one final thing—it kindled a hatred in the hearts of Menskallin and Oikithikiim alike that would drive them to kill one another and keep the war from ever ending. So long as the Bargain holds, there can never be peace between our peoples.”

I frowned, thinking over his words. “I’m still a little confused,” I admitted. “What could the rashi gain from shattering the Bargain? The Okithikiim outnumber you and have superior technology and weapons. Without your protection, couldn’t they overrun you? And would breaking the Bargain turn the Haelendi back into a land of ice and snow?”

“Obviously, there’s no way to know. Perhaps you’re right, and the rashi are traitors to our people somehow. He hesitated. “However, the Bargain chains us as much as it protects us, Freyd. Maybe they think that without it, we could drive down into the lowlands and take the war to the Oikithikiim. Maybe they hope that without the Bargain feeding our hatred, there would be no more war. Maybe without the valskabs, our fear of everything and everyone different from us would vanish, and our peoples could come to know one another again.”

He looked back up at me, his face somber. “The Bargain was a despicable thing, Freyd, something we made as a people on the edge of extinction. At the time, we made it so we didn’t have to watch our children die from starvation or at the hands of our enemies. However, times have changed, and maybe the rashi think we’ve outgrown the Bargain.” He gave me an intense look. “Maybe they feel that an act of evil is the only way to avoid an even greater evil. I have a feeling you understand that.”

I stared at him for a moment, processing his words. “It sounds like you agree with them, Aeld?”

“Agree? No. But I can understand why the rashi might believe that ending the Bargain is the best thing for our people.” He hesitated. “I can also see why someone might want the Bargain to end for their own selfish reasons.”

“What do you mean?”

He fell silent again, his eyes glazing as he seemed to look past me. After a few moments, he took a deep breath. “Do you know, Freyd, that one of the advantages to the valskab is perfect memory? Because we share so deeply in one another’s thoughts, when one of us departs this world, all their memories can be given to others to share. This can be incredibly useful to preserve a hunter’s or crafter’s skill and knowledge, or the wisdom of a letharvis. However, it also means that things we’d rather not remember stay with us forever, with perfect clarity.

“When I became a letharvis, I was gifted memories that all letharvisa share—including the memories of those who lived through the Bargain, so we can understand it and what’s needed to maintain it. When I think about those times, I don’t just remember what happened. I recall it as if I were there. I can feel their terror and pain, their rage as those they love die in their arms, and their hatred for the spirit that’s doing this to them. It’s as fresh as if it had just happened to me, and it will be, forever.”

“Or until the Bargain ends, and the valskabs with it.” I grimaced. “Could the rashi really be that short-sighted to do all this just to avoid some pain?”

“Maybe. Maybe that pain is just motivating them to risk breaking the Bargain for the chance of actual peace. I can’t tell you that.” He sighed again, his face sorrowful. “Now that you know, what will you do with that information?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure.” I looked down at the circle surrounding him. “If I wanted to stop this, would you help me? Even if it meant opposing the rashi?”

“My duty is to the people, Freyd, not my elders.” He chuckled ruefully. “That’s one of the things they and I haven’t seen eye-to-eye about, in fact. I’m sure the others would agree, though—well, Fifa would. She feels the same. Bregg—I’m not sure. He’s devoted to the people, but he’s also strongly honor-bound.”

“Then the first step is to get you both out,” I said. “After that, we’ll see…”

I froze as a sudden surge of power filled the room, and a wave of pressure slammed into me, locking me in place once more. Aeld’s eyes widened as he froze as well, and we could only stare at one another as in the corner of my vision, the door to the room opened, and someone entered. I couldn’t see them clearly, but oddly enough, I could feel them. The person’s presence made my stomach shift and writhe, to be certain, but it also made the skin on my chest tingle strangely. It felt like feathery fingers sliding along my flesh or tiny sparks dancing along my skin.

“Clever,” the person said admiringly, walking past me. “I can see the circle you drew on the wall to hold out the stone spirits there. I wondered how you got out of your cell without leaving a trace or claiming the door’s spirit, and how you’ve been moving around so easily. You’ve been going through the walls, haven’t you?”

The voice fell silent, and the figure moved back into the periphery of my vision, then stepped fully into it, letting me get a glimpse of them for the first time. The woman was tall for a Menskallin, only a couple inches shorter than me. She looked younger than her voice suggested, maybe Fifa’s age, with light blonde fur highlighted with reddish streaks. Her eyes, though, looked older than her body, and when I looked into them, I felt a flash of recognition. I knew eyes like hers; they were the eyes of someone who would kill without hesitation, who’d seen so much death and horror that it no longer bothered her. They were flat, hard, and emotionless, and when I met them, my chest tingled and burned like I’d touched a car battery. A slow grin spread across her face, and she took another step toward me. My skin ached and throbbed, but I couldn’t move so much as a muscle to escape the sensation. At last, she stepped back, seeming to find what she wanted in my eyes.

“Take him to the ritual chamber,” she ordered, glancing over her shoulder. “The others, too. They’ve all been contaminated by the taint of the Oikithikiim, and they must be cleansed.” She looked at me and began to speak in a language I didn’t understand, at least, not for a few seconds until Sara translated it.

“…long do I have to keep doing this until—ah, there it is. Comprehension.” She gave me a vicious smile and kept speaking in the same tongue. “Welcome to Aldhyor…Inquisitor.”

“John, her aura—I just got a solid read on it!” Sara said in a slightly panicked voice. “Look!”

Heltharvis

Letharvis, Level 19

Heltharvis, Level 8

Divine Inquisitor, Level 11

Estimated Physical Stats

Prowess: 81 Vigor: 74 Celerity: 83 Skill: 104

Strongest Bound Spirit: High Class N, 1,955 Power