Page 50 of Summer of Sacrifice

“Pardon,” Laurent uttered, “but do I really have to be the test subject for Seleste to learn these things?”

“Oh, don’t be an infant,” Winnie ordered. “Besides, she knows how to draw your blood, it’s only been a while.”

Seleste chuckled, taking the syringe in one hand and Laurent’s arm in the other. “A couple hundred years,” she mused.

Laurent looked from his outstretched arm on the table up to Seleste. “That’s clear by the four times you’ve missed.”

He wasn’t wrong. There were three bruises blooming, and a fourth would meet them soon. “Hold still.”

The needle slipped into Laurent’s vein at just the right angle, Winnie murmuring her praise. Seleste pulled at the other end of the syringe, a suction drawing out a nice measure of Laurent’s blood. She wouldn’t need much. Satisfied she’d taken plenty, she carefully slid the needle free, and Winnie moved to dab a bit of clean cloth against the infinitesimal wound.

“Keep it there for a few moments,” Winnie instructed, bending Lau’s arm to ensure the cloth stayed tucked in place, putting pressure on the incision.

“What exactly do you plan to do with that?” Laurent tipped his head toward the vial in Seleste’s hand, filled with his lifeblood and, in a way, Chresedia’s.

She held it up in the bright light streaming in from the open tent flap, studying the colour. Looking for any sign of a fallen goddess. Of course, there were none to the naked eye, only a deep crimson glowing brighter by the light of the sun. Cork in place, she sent the vial to her rooms in Castle Merveille by magic. Taking her time to answer Laurent’s question, Seleste strode over to the wash basin, dipping her hands in. Wiping them on a nearby linen, she finally answered. “I have some ideas. But I would like to consider them more thoroughly before I perform the spell.”

“Wasn’t there something else you came here to discuss?” Winnie asked, gesturing to the notes and star map Seleste had discarded on a side table.

“Yes.” Retrieving them, she spread the pages out in front of both Lau and Winnie. “This constellation here, it eerily resembles one of the Druid symbols you couldn’t quite decipher. Do you have the relic?”

Laurent rose from his seat, the chair protesting so loudly that Seleste worried it would break. He opened a drawer in his desk, and she vaguely wondered how they travelled all across Midlerea with that giant oak monstrosity in tow. Magic, she presumed. She’d like to see how that worked…

“Here you are.” Laurent handed the contraption to Seleste, both he and Winnie peering over her shoulder.

Spinning the carved, wooden layers, Seleste chewed on the inside of her cheek. “I can’t help but think that perhaps these symbols might line up to make—” Her words broke off as she spun the pieces into the bottom half of the same symbol cluster on the map.

Her heart began to beat a little faster, and she spun the relic’s discs again, trying to fit it to create the top portion. “Aha!” she shouted, causing Winnie to jump. “There it is!”

Winnie snatched up the star map Sorscha and Gaius had found under the painting of La Femme Déchue, holding it next to the relic. “What does it mean?”

Seleste took mental notes of the star map, the relic, and the peculiar constellation made up of symbols, and darted for her notebook. Murmuring as she flipped the pages, she found it. “There!” She slammed her finger down on a crude drawing of Midlerea. “If Asa, Laurent, and I are all correct, Chresedia is planning to leave our realm from?—”

“Eridon,” Winnie breathed.

“Yes!” Seleste beamed. They were one step closer. Flashes of information flooded her from her cunning, almost too quickly to grasp. “Oh, gods…”

“What is it?” Laurent put a hand to her shoulder. “Are you all right? Do you need a glass of water?”

“No, no. That’s not it. The door.”

Laurent and Winnie looked at one another, bewildered.

“The door the Grimoire had Sorscha open in Eldritch Alley. It’s how she comes here from the Liminal Place, right? At least one of the ways. If she has more entry points, we don’t know about them.” Seleste’s hands moved wildly as she spoke, piecing things together. “It makes sense that she would place it there. Have one of the Sisters Solstice, born of godly bloodlines, to open it there.”

“And that reason is…” Laurent prompted.

“River Vide runs directly to the heart of Eridon and up into Prilemea, where all the mage bodies were originally found. It goes all the way to Praeval, skirting the city before it dumps into the sea near Helsvar. It’s the perfect route to travel easily.”

“Eridon is only even a kingdom because of the Grimoire Ordering Aggie to make it one over a century ago,” Winnie added.

A deep sound rumbled in Laurent’s chest. “And it is tied to Seagovia’s throne through the blood of Fleurina.”

“Gods,” Seleste murmured. “She has had this planned for so long…”

SORSCHA

She squealed and went airborne, launching herself onto the bed and landing on her stomach.

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