Page 15 of The Dragonrider and the Void
Is everyone here under a spell?
This was no longer a town. It was a staged performance where every actor was wearing a costume of magic and lies. Somewhere in this frozen theater, they were holding Yarla and possibly the secrets to where Lark had gone.
How is this possible?he wondered.Out of all the stories I’ve ever heard tell of rimeshade, none of them could conjure this much magical energy. Not enough to keep an entire town under a spell and protect it from a winter storm. There’s something else, or someone else, causing this. This can’t all be drawn from a single rimeshade, right?
Venrick forced himself to keep walking, to become just another farmer seeking shelter from the storm. His certainty grew with each step. This place hadn’t fallen to a rimeshade alone. A Magus was at work here.
The woman with the breadbasket turned down an alley, passing by a tanner’s shop and an herbalist store. Both establishments bore the same unnatural veins coursing through their foundations. Venrick followed her, maintaining his distance. He touched his dwindling Yogos, drawing just enough power to whisper a spell and dampen the sound of his footsteps.
The alley opened into a small courtyard. Here, the masks slipped. Three figures stood in a tight circle, their faces shielded from his view. Beneath the gaps in their sleeves and the open folds of their cloaks, Venrick glimpsed green skin and battle-scarred armor. One drew a glassy object. It glowed with the same silvery tones as the flecks in the veins scarring the stonework.
“The harvest exceeds expectations,” the tallest said, voice guttural despite the magical disguise. “The rimeshade’s ways are... effective.”
Harvest? What do they need fire wheat for? There are no dragons here.
“The half-bloods are proving a more reliable source.”
“But the pure-bloods have more within them,” another said.
“They’re difficult to apprehend.”
“Half-bloods yield a more potent result, regardless.”
They aren’t talking about fire wheat harvesting. They’re talking about harvesting magic, but is that even possible?
Venrick’s thoughts drifted to the moment when Lark had been launched out of the firestorm. Even in brismil armor, a fall from that height would’ve done major damage, yet she’d been able to heal quickly. The combination of brismil and the power in the Yogos somehow allowed Lark to heal herself instinctively and much faster than she could’ve otherwise.
Is that what they’re doing here? Do they know about the effect brismil has when combined with a god’s power?
A door creaked from somewhere behind him. Venrick pressed himself against the wall as another figure emerged from the herbalist shop. She appeared to be a beautiful young woman with pale skin and creamy white eyes. She was wearing a merchant’s dress. Yet the air around her sparkled with tiny flecks of frost. Wherever she stepped, ice formed and those dark veins with silver specks crept out along cracks.
The others straightened. “Lady Sanj,” they murmured in unison.
Lady?Venrick thought.This has to be the same rimeshade who’s been leading the orcs.
Lady Sanj acknowledged the others with a slight nod. “The Magus will be arriving tonight to perform the summons.”
I knew there was a Magus involved.
“Prepare the central chamber. And be sure that our special guest is properly contained. Her elven blood makes her particularly valuable to the Entity,” the rimeshade added.
Special guest? That must be Yarla… But what’s this Entity, and why is a Magus helping them?
Venrick’s Yogos suddenly pulsed, their magic responding to something in the courtyard. The rimeshade turned abruptly toward his hiding spot, frost crystallizing in the air around her.
Venrick didn’t wait. He let his elven speed carry him as he ran.
He slipped on the icy cobblestones as he fled. Behind him, the temperature plummeted. He risked a glance over his shoulder. Frost was spreading rapidly across the walls of the alley, following him like a wave of winter. The rimeshade wasn’t pursuing directly, but her power was. He needed somewhere to hide, somewhere to think.
A cellar door caught his eye, half-hidden behind empty market crates. The lock was already rimmed with frost. Venrick pressed his hand against it and whispered the spell to unlock, hoping there was enough energy left in his dying Yogos. The lock mechanism responded sluggishly but it clicked open.
He slipped inside just as ice crystals began forming in the air where he’d stood. The cellar steps led down into darkness. Each step bore the same scars of corrupt magic, but here their energy felt stronger. As he descended, the air chilled, his breath puffing out in tiny clouds of fog.
The cellar opened into a network of storage rooms. Wine racks stood empty of bottles that had been replaced with empty jars. Bare crates were stacked haphazardly around the rooms, many bearing brands from the Nordraven Kingdoms. But it was the floor that drew his attention. The dark veins converged here, forming intricate shapes.
It’s that pattern again,he thought, noting the same design that he’d seen in the frost trailing the rimeshade and in the purple lines of White Eye’s blood.
The confluence of rimeshade corruption led him through various storage rooms, each housing hundreds of the same jars. Finally, he reached the end of the storage chambers. He didn’t hear anyone pursuing him, but the chill down here did little to settle his nerves. Along the back wall he spotted a door.
