Page 7 of The Dragonrider and the Void
“Nix, explain. What do you mean that the magic here remembers?” Lark asked.
“Your dragon is connected to this event in the past. He can show you through your bond better than I can describe it,” Nix said.
White Eye growled, the reverberation shaking dust off the cave ceiling. Images came to Lark in fragments: dragons fighting in a war. None of the images strung together in a coherent thought or emotion. Lark received them as random snippets of dragons fighting one another. Then one image came through clear enough for her understand. It was a group of dragons all huddled together in this very chamber. At the time it had taken place, the walls were bare of writing, but the dark pool was stillat the center of the cave. The dragons were gathered around it, their attention focused on it. Though there was no wind or disturbance in the ground, a ripple passed over the liquid in the pool. From within the glossy black void emerged a creature cloaked in the same liquid that made up the pool. Overwhelming fear from all the dragons swelled in Lark’s link with White Eye.
“What is that?” Lark asked, staggering as she forced the scene to end.
“Lark, this magic that is unwinding here has been binding this entity,” Nix said, drifting closer to the pool’s edge.
“What entity, the pool of midnight?”
“This thing is what created the rimeshade. It’s how they came to be.”
“That can’t be,” Lark said. “The rimeshade are creatures born of the dark fae, sent by the Night Court to take over Sataran.”
Nix shook her head. “Not the Night Court alone or any individual fae court for that matter. When the dragon war ended, the war that sent the original twelve to seek Hyalites on Sataran, the dark fae didn’t want anything to do with this realm. The magi, dwarves, elves, and orcs had already claimed large areas and were forging kingdoms. The fae wanted to cut all ties with this realm due to the conflicts that had arisen. But there were these portals, pathways between worlds that would remain paper thin despite the faes’ attempts to separate themselves.”
Like the pool Omirre spoke about in the Gosmer Mine,Lark thought.
“To ensure the original twelve dragons who escaped to Sataran stayed there, the four fae courts assigned sentinels to guard the pools. When the first Flashover ended, however, the courts sealed the gates from the fae side. Those left to guard them were trapped here in this realm until the next Flashover when the veils would be thin again. For five hundred years, the fae Sentinels passed on their secrets to their children. Butwhen the next Flashover came about, those who’d originally come from the fae realm were long dead. Their ancestors tried to pass through the veil when it was at its thinnest, but they were no longer fae. They didn’t have the magical fortitude to survive passing between realms. And this...” she gestured to the pool with a flame-wrought hand. “This is where the rimeshade began.”
The rimeshade hadn’t come from another realm. They’d been born in Sataran, lost their powers, and consumed by something between realms. Something that found its way here during the Flashover when the veils between all realms were vulnerable.
“Those images you tried to show me,” Lark said to White Eye. “That’s what the dragons were fighting?”
White Eye bobbed his head in confirmation.
“The rimeshade,” Nix said. “They’re not the Night Court’s creations. They’re something else entirely.”
“This pool, is it a gateway into the fae realm then?” Lark asked.
“Not exactly,” Nix said. “It has ties to the fae realm. The powers from these runes are partly fae. I can feel them, but they’re wavering. Whatever spells are here won’t keep it contained much longer.”
“That must be why the rimeshade have been coming here. They’re trying to free whatever it is.”
“The riders who created this sanctuary must’ve been guarding this place,” Nix said.
“Now, there isn’t anyone here to look after it. The rimeshade have been weakening the wards holding it in. You said we might be able to change that. Maybe I can reinforce the wards,” Lark suggested, her gaze focusing on the pool.
Her broken wrist tinged with pain, reminding her of all she’d sacrificed. Somewhere, Venrick and the others were wondering what had happened to her, perhaps searching for her. But Larkcouldn’t take step away from this and ignore what the rimeshade were trying to gain by freeing the entity from this chamber.
White Eye pressed his snout against her back, offering strength.
“Show me what I can do to help,” Lark said, straightening despite her exhaustion.
Guided by her dragon’s direction, Lark approached a section of the script carved into the wall. She focused, knowing that the key to understanding why they had come here was in the carvings right in front of her, but she couldn’t read them. Only half of what she needed to know was in a language she could understand. The rest meant nothing.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “If something powerful was kept here, why would they try to keep it a secret? Why not destroy it?”
White Eye’s response was immediate. A vision of dragons trying to burn away the pool, only to watch the darkness absorb their flame; the murky liquid spread as the dragon fire added to it.
Nix flickered anxiously in response to Lark sharing the image. “Some things can’t be destroyed,” Nix offered in explanation. “Only contained.”
A sound arose from the dark pool, like water passing over stone, but deeper. Lark turned to face it, her injured wrist protesting at the sudden effort. The surface remained mirror-smooth, but something about the dark liquid felt alert, like it was aware of their presence.
“It knows we’re here,” Lark whispered.
She pressed her good hand against the wall, feeling the old magic within the stone. Her dragon bond swelled in response and Nix’s warmth spread through the pendant on her chest. Lark felt a sensation coming from the power within the runes. It came to her much like those she was offered through her bondwith White Eye. Without speaking, she felt the decisive message: Don’t let it out. Keep the pool shut.
