35 lines
No EOL
2.5 KiB
Markdown
35 lines
No EOL
2.5 KiB
Markdown
A murmur passed among the Veyari. Some bowed their heads. Others turned away. The trial was not yet begun, but the tension shifted—like air before a storm. Telaryn’s presence alone had unsettled something. Their silence was not absence—it was weight.
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Tuaru raised his staff, carved with lines that shimmered faintly where the light caught them. “If you are what you claim, let the mountain bear witness,” he said.
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The shrine had no roof—only a ring of standing stones, half-buried in frost. The broken altar at its center was more root than masonry, as if grown from the mountain’s marrow itself. Cracks spidered across its surface, filled with frozen moss and ancient soot. At its heart was a shallow basin, blackened by centuries of offerings.
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Tuaru stood beside it, immobile as the stone. “Blood remembers,” he said. “Yours must speak.”
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Telaryn stepped forward, every eye upon her—Veyari and companion alike. She heard no wind. No voice. Only the soft crunch of snow beneath her boots and the ache in her ribs from the long flight.
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She unstrapped her glove and drew her belt knife. The blade shook—not from fear, but from something stranger: a weight in her veins, a pulse of anticipation. It felt like the air was holding its breath.
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Alisha shifted behind her but said nothing.
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Without ceremony, Telaryn dragged the edge of the blade across her palm. The pain was sharp and clean. Blood welled up, dark red in the twilight, steaming faintly in the cold.
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She held her hand over the altar and let it drip into the basin.
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One drop. Then another.
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The third sizzled as it struck stone.
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A low hum began—not loud, but deep, like a groan from beneath the world. The cracked altar flickered with dull light—not flame, not sorcery. A memory, waking slowly in rock and ash. In the dimming haze, the grooves around the basin filled with a dull amber glow, tracing a spiral—like the mural beneath the palace. Like the seal she saw in the dreams.
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A gasp rose from one of the elders. Tuaru did not move. His voice was low:
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“It is not fire,” he said. “But it remembers.”
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The humming ceased. The glow faded. The altar darkened again, but the warmth lingered a heartbeat longer.
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Telaryn’s blood still dripped into the cracks. But now the stone no longer drank it—it repelled it. As if satisfied.
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She staggered back. Alisha caught her by the shoulders and held her steady.
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Tuaru stepped forward and touched the rim of the basin. “You carry more than bone,” he said, eyes unreadable. “The mountain has not forgotten your kind. That is both curse and crown.” |