Chapter 5
HAVEN’S EDGE
Approaching the town, Venrick studied its protective stout stone wall.
The large, cracked granite blocks looked easy enough to climb.
The blizzard could mask his approach, but it wouldn’t make things easier.
He wouldn’t know where guards were posted, or if they were moving until he reached the top and was visible.
Venrick stood on the road in the snowstorm with his horse’s lead rope in one hand contemplating his next move.
Lark and her dragon could be days away from here by now.
Trying to help Yarla, though, could derail all my progress.
I could lose their trail for good. But he had seen a touch of that purple pattern swirled into the dragon blood where White Eye had bedded.
This also could be my chance to learn more, Venrick realized.
“You in the road, move!” someone yelled. The pounding of galloping hoofs that accompanied the shout nearly sent Venrick flying out of his skin.
Venrick’s horse stirred, but did not spook by the fast-approaching rider.
A man in winter fur clothing rode toward the town.
Dozens more filed in behind him, all who had clearly been caught out in the storm and now were seeking shelter.
Venrick took a chance on this opportunity, mounted up, and fell in near the back of the group.
Like the others, he wrapped his winter scarf tight around his nose and mouth to mask his features, ensuring his hood was up and covering his ears.
He had never visited a Nordraven settlement before sneaking into Red Lodge.
The construction was familiar, much the same as any town in Lamar with a mixture of brick and wooden home construction.
However, as he neared the open gates, obvious signs of magical corruption were evident in nearly everything within the wall.
He made out thin veins of darkness flecked with sparkling snow, almost like starlight.
The veins traced through cracks in the street’s paving stones and spread to the fissures in the buildings’ wood beams, crawling across frost-covered windows.
“Papers,” the guard demanded, voice muffled behind a steel visor on his helmet.
Venrick handed over the forged documents Cheyanne’s people had given him.
He adopted the role of a displaced farmer with this fake identity.
When the guard handed them back, his fingers left traces of frost on the parchment.
As Venrick passed through the gates, the wind abruptly ended. He looked around to see the storm from inside the protection of the town wards. It was like the storm had been turned off within the town’s limits. The town was buffered by an invisible force that surrounded them.
Another trick of the rimeshade’s power, he decided.
I never knew the rimeshade had this much magical control.
As he hitched his horse near the gate, he considered how little he knew of the icy Northern shades.
Most of what he did know was from children’s tales; the shades being demons from the fae realm, sent by the Night Court to terrorize the children of Sataran.
Is this going to work? he wondered, feeling the weight of his choice.
He hadn’t thought this plan through. He hadn’t guessed at the sophisticated level of magic within the town walls.
He was alone in enemy territory. The energy in his Yogos was diminishing.
He had his steel sword, but he didn’t know which people in this town were working for the rimeshade.
Suddenly the buildings themselves felt as though they were leaning in, studying him.
A woman hurried past, clutching a basket of bread. When she turned to avoid a passing cart, Venrick caught the gleam of armor beneath her shawl.
Another indentured servant of the shades or an ally? he wondered. In that moment, Venrick made the impulsive decision to follow her.
The market square opened before him. As he entered, it didn’t take him long to notice that the merchants were too magnificent to be working in a humble Nordraven town.
They wore silks and jewelry too expensive for the average trader in this part of the world.
They called out their wares with a cheerfulness that sounded almost mechanical. Every vendor seemed almost perfect.
The signs were subtle, but he clued into them. Shadows that were cast at the wrong angle, movements that were too fluid or too rigid to be natural, voices that rang out a heartbeat too long.
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.