Page 133 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
But one which I could keep track of.
The magic in Solkar’s Reach had given me the spark in my sight and the fire in my veins, and I used them both.
Tracks to my left, but those were too faint to have come from an outsider. I had constant scouts on the borders, but they’d been trained to leave marks only our ranks could recognize.
A pack of servals had sniffed too close to the border, then promptly scurried away east, leaving fur hairs caught between the thorny shrubs.
I’d almost rounded the lip halfway when I noticed them.
Boot marks.
At least three dozen of them, all gathered around the shards.
I halted with a groan, my body aching from having to defy nature and rearrange the bones twice in such a short amount of time. I shook the tremors away and crouched low.
Heavy boots, spikes on their heels to escalate the treacherous ice.
The Mountain Clan had visited. They’d always been the most reckless, confusing being brash with brave.
They were also the most violent. Drops of blood lay peppered between the footprints, too many to have been made from mere scratches.
My eyes sparked as I leaned close enough to the ground that my breaths disturbed the thin coat of dry dirt.
It wasn’t human blood, at least.
A small creature whose only mistake had been wandering in the wrong place at the worst time.
My gaze followed the drops, which increased the closer they got to the largest shard, which stood up straight, like it was threatening the sky itself for being dug from the ground and forced to stand at attention for all eternity.
My jaw clenched as I rose and stared at the display in front of me.
A grizzly spatter of blood had caked onto its slick surface. The crater wouldn’t have accepted such an offering–it didn’t like swallowing the innocent, that was no danger.
But the Northern Clans trying to sacrifice blood for the crater’s powers was a risk graver than the fools imagined.
Bigger than the Clans.
Grander than the entirety of Malhaven.
And it could ruin us all.
Chapter
Twenty-Six
THE COMMANDER
This time, I stopped my mad dash a healthy distance away from the entrance of the fortress, hidden in the shadows of the fir trees.
Pain ripped at my strained body. I had to call on my power to soothe the ache and help guide my bones back into their place, which only exhausted me more. I smacked my back against one of the firs, chest falling and rising rapidly, as my entire being mended itself after my run.
Most Blood Brotherhood members feared The Calling, when they were summoned into the sacred mountains to learn the secret of their powers. The process was painful and long and too many had died bleeding on the sacred stones as magic had finally coursed through their veins, unforgiving.
But it was nothing–a mere stab wound rubbed with nettle–compared to the pain the sacred Solkar’s Reach ritual inflicted.
The only outsider who’d gone through the ritual and survived had been Zandyr. Which is why the crater didn’t accept just anybody to do it.
But those of us who survived, well, they could break nature’s laws themselves.
