“He’s kidding.” Gil tugged on Sterling’s arm, all but bowling him single-handedly into their room. “But seriously, though, you’re passing through some rough terrain. Look out for the wildlife.”
I did not sign up for that shit. We needed to head to the Convocation, sure. But evading a mountain lion?
“Least of our problems,” Herald said later, leading the way back out of the tavern. Olga waved at us with a huge smile on her lips, as if she thought nothing of the fact that two of her guests were heading out for a night hike that potentially involved getting eaten by bears. “We run into something, I’ll freeze it in its tracks. It’ll thaw by morning. No harm done on either end. So, win, win.”
The air vibrated again as I walked out of the front door. It was like moving through one of those giant carwash brushes, only invisible ones. Also it tickled a little.
In silence, Herald and I headed to the trail, which led into the woods at the base of a hill that overlooked Silveropolis. It was a chilly night, made even colder by the damp of being surrounded by so many dewy trees. I pulled my collar up around my chin, shuddering. The woods smelled gorgeous, though. Like bark, like wet earth, like life.
The trail ended shortly around the bottom of the hill, in an area marked with wooden signs strongly suggesting that it wasn’t a great idea to head into the hills after sundown. Unfortunately, that was exactly where we needed to go.
I guess I’d expected the hike to be less uneventful, but it was borderline boring. Almost pleasant, actually, going up at a reasonable incline, kicking rocks as we followed an old, seemingly abandoned rope trail that wove around the hill. So far, so good. No bears in sight.
“Damn it,” I wheezed. “I shouldn’t be getting this worn out so fast. I’m too young to be tired.”
Herald frowned. “Quit your bitching. It’s all those damn burgers you eat. Plus we need to move fast before the Heart tries to track you down again.”
“I love burgers,” I mumbled. “Anyway. I thought the rest of Silveropolis was protected, like the Twilight Tavern.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Are you saying that this hill isn’t?”
Herald looked around nervously. “Can’t say. I mean I feel magical emanations throughout the place, but you never know with the Lorica.”
We crested the peak, finally. It was flatter than I’d expected, and very sparse. Almost unnaturally so. Dead trees sprouted out of the few patches of earth interspersed among so much smooth, weathered rock. Something made it so that they grew in a circle around the plateau, like sentinels watching over the cairn in the center, just as Arachne had described.
And the cairn was just that – a mound of smooth pebbles and rounded rocks, piled into a miniature mountain in the dead center of the trees. It almost looked as if the plateau grew this way by design. It did, of course, probably crafted by the gods and entities of night themselves into the perfect, conveniently laid-out setting for a communion, complete with a circle, and an altar for the offering.
Herald and I approached the cairn, and by the light of the moon it was easy to spot the dried, rusted drops of blood that had been offered and dripped onto the stones over the years. Herald extended his hand, mumbling softly to himself.
I watched as wisps of violet energy curled from his fingers, then solidified into a shimmering, glassy blade. The Midnight Convocation demanded blood of all who climbed its sacred plateau, whether or not they came to present themselves as candidates for patronage.
“You first,” Herald said, holding out his hand.
I bit my lip, then reached out my arm. It always surprised me how Herald could move so fast, how agile he was. In a flash of purple the blade had already pierced the tip of my finger, its bite drawing a perfect, dark bead of blood, which fell onto the cairn and smoked as it hit the stones. I hissed, sucking on my finger until the bleeding stopped, the taste of copper lingering on my tongue.
Herald was too focused on drawing his own blood to care, expertly flipping the arcane knife in his hand, then without even wincing or hesitating, stabbing himself cleanly in the tip of his ring finger. He squeezed it, the blood still clinging stubbornly to his skin.
“Come on,” he muttered. “Damn it.”
Above us, the sky flashed red.
I threw my head back. There it was again, soaring through the night like a falling star, a comet. A streak of red light, the dreaded pillar of the Scions, the lashing, far-reaching beam of its vengeful Heart. But it wasn’t headed for the plateau. The light was flying far from Silveropolis, maybe several dozen miles away. The pillar struck ground somewhere beyond the hil
ls, a fact only made clear when the earth rumbled with the impact of the explosion.
“What the fuck,” I said. “You saw that? Who is the Heart attacking now?”
Herald stared at me with severity in his eyes, still squeezing the tip of his finger. “This place must be protected. That means the Heart and the Eyes can’t find us. But that also means that rifts are still opening all over the place.” He shook his head. “This is bad, Dust. The Eldest were using you as a beacon, but now that they can’t see you, any rifts their worshippers open with their prayers can appear anywhere, anytime. And we would have zero warning on the matter.”
“No way,” I said. “This is fucking nonsense.” There really was no better choice, then. I would have to wear the Crown of Stars to have even the slightest chance of stopping the shrikes, and ultimately, the Eldest.
“Fuck this,” Herald hissed, wincing. He stopped squeezing, resorting to just smearing his blood directly against the rounded stones with his finger.
“Dude, what are you – is that even going to work?”
Apparently not. Herald cried out when the contact made his blood sizzle, and he pulled his finger away, his hand shaking. The dark stain on the cairn said that it had accepted his blood offering. The whitish burn mark on Herald’s finger, however, said that it had been the wrong thing to do.
“Fucking ouch,” he said, his lips pursed as he carefully applied healing magic to his finger with his free hand. I watched, but the scorch mark didn’t seem to be improving.
“Is that going to help?”