Chapter 8 #2
Southwest of Haven’s Edge, very near where Venrick had passed through to reach the town, Cheyanne led the group down into a steep ravine.
It blended into the rolling hills of white, appearing as a slight dip until more closely inspected.
The cavern’s entrance opened into a surprisingly expansive chamber, water-carved limestone offering refuge from the howling wind.
White Eye crouched to enter. He curled his massive body to block the entrance, keeping out the storm’s chilling winds.
. Inside, the limestone walls opened up to what felt like a hall in a castle.
Where pillars of carved marble held up the ceiling on a Keep, the stalactites and stalagmites formed textured columns of stone at the edges of the deep cave.
Lark settled in next to White Eye, unpacking her saddle bags to dry out her gear while paying close attention to something on his shoulder.
Venrick helped Yarla settle in by Cheyanne deeper in the cave.
Gravlin led his Morsythians deeper still, where they made a camp to wait out the storm.
They seemed to be making a point to create distance from Venrick.
“Here,” Venrick said softly, helping Yarla lower down against a smooth section of wall.
He shrugged off his cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders.
Her silver-white hair had frozen during their trek and was now dripping as it thawed in the relative warmth of the cave.
The sight of her, so diminished from the vibrant elf he’d known in his youth, made his chest ache.
Cheyanne crouched down at her side, resting her staff on the wall next to Yarla. “She’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it,” Cheyanne insisted. “You should sort out whatever you must with that one,” she said, nodding toward Lark.
White Eye had started a small fire for Lark, burning with magic. Venrick hesitated before joining them.
There’s so much I need to tell her, he thought. Most of which was intimate, and the kind of conversation that he would prefer to have in a more private setting. The Morsythians were far enough away, but Cheyanne and Yarla were well within earshot.
Here goes, he thought, walking up to Lark and White Eye. Similar to Ingamar’s response toward him, White Eye lifted his horned head at Venrick’s approach and released a throaty growl.
“I come in peace,” he said to the dragon.
Lark scolded White Eye with a tsking noise, and said, “Knock it off. He didn’t know what we were trying to do when he shot you.”
“I’m sorry, White Eye. I really did think you were there to kill us. I wouldn’t have let the arrow loose if I’d known you were on a different mission,” he pleaded, his hands open in front of him.
White Eye snorted, puffing a plume of sulphury smoke at Venrick as he lowered his head. Lark instantly chuckled, playfully hitting the dragon on the shoulder.
“What?” Venrick asked, edging closer.
“He’s glad you’re not a good shot,” she chuckled. “But he knows what you did to help me.”
“At least he’s not shooting fire balls at me, the way Ingamar did,” Venrick joked.
White Eye growled again. Lark put her hand on his paw to calm him.
“Lark, I wanted to talk before, but with the storm and the threat of a Nordraven rider finding us…”
“Nordraven patrols won’t venture far in this weather,” she said, crouching next to White Eye. “We have until morning, at least.” Lark’s gaze looked past Venrick toward Cheyanne, who was working on Yarla. “Was she like that when you found her, whoever she is?” she asked.
“Her name is Yarla. We knew each other when I was a child,” Venrick said. He moved in to lean on the cave wall near her. “The darkness in her veins has lightened up a bit.”
A blue glow passed from the Yogo in Cheyanne’s staff in response to her whispered spells. The thin line connected to Yarla, feeding a trickle of magical energy to replenish what the elf had lost.
“I didn’t know magical energy could be collected from another living creature,” Venrick said, his voice sounding hollow.
“That is why the rimeshade are such a threat to our world,” Lark said. “They can take power from another magical being and immediately use it for their own purposes.”
“But that’s not all they were doing in Haven’s Edge,” Venrick said.
“What do you mean?”
“I found jars of dragon blood. They were distilling the magic out of it. Pure magical energy, not from a Hyalite or a Yogo. They were also collecting power from the blood of other magical races,” he said, motioning to Yarla.
“I found her hanging from a cellar ceiling, her life and power being drained into a jar. We knew each other as kids in Gambria.”
“That can’t be. Rimeshade are powerful but they can’t separate the power from a living creature for use by someone or something else. They alone can use the magic they collect,” Lark said, looking toward her dragon.
“The rimeshade was expecting a Magus to come to Haven’s Edge,” Venrick said.
“This rimeshade are not working alone,” Lark said, knitting her brows in thought.
“They’re working with members of the Magi Order. Likely a directive of Hierro De Vonte, the Archmagus in Astral City.”
“That’s the same Magus who was working with Joc when they put that curse on you. He was trying to use you to get to me and the Hyalite we stole. They have to be working with Barrik again,” Lark said.
“I don’t know if Barrik was involved with this, but when I first arrived in Haven’s Edge, I overheard the rimeshade’s orcs saying they were close to perfecting the process. Distilling the magic from magical blood must’ve been what they meant,” Venrick reasoned.
Lark’s hand moved to the pendant around her neck. It was something she did whenever—
“Perfecting it for what?” Nix asked an instant after appearing in a pinwheel of sparks.
“Nix, I thought we’d lost you,” Venrick said in disbelief.
“I wasn’t lost to Lark, just gone for a short time,” she said, her dress rippling in her own fire.
“Nix, what do you know about rimeshade trying to distill magic from another magical being’s blood?” Lark asked.
“Rimeshade? That’s not something they need to do,” she said with a shake of her head.
“But for building followers,” she added raising her brows toward Lark.
“I could see why one might try to figure out how to do that. If they could give magic to loyal followers, then those followers wouldn’t need Hyalites or Yogos, right? ”
“Now that I think about it, among all the jars I came across, only a few were purely distilled magic. The rest were filled with magical blood.”
“Dragon blood, right?”
“A lot of it, yeah, but not all. That’s what they were doing to that giant dragon. They must have been syphoning off its blood since the days that the town was first established. The dragon was in a dormant state and the town had been built over the top of it,” Venrick said.
“Haven’s Edge was a trading post until recently. The town is maybe ten years old. They would’ve had that long to experiment and harvest blood,” Lark said.
“Wouldn’t they have stocked up more than just a few jars of distilled magic in that time?” Nix asked.
“Yes. With all that time they would be able to generate quite a large stockpile,” Lark said.
“There were rooms of empty jars in the cellars of Haven’s Edge,” Venrick said.
“Empty,” Lark said. “Then they’ve been putting it to use.” Lark glanced knowingly at White Eye, causing Venrick to question if they might know more than they were letting on.
“Maybe storage is an issue,” Nix replied.
“That could be,” Venrick said. “When magic from a Yogo or Hyalite is removed and not used it will fade.”
“Or they’ve been trading it,” Cheyanne interrupted from nearby.
“If they’d been trading it, the rimeshade would’ve had more resources,” Lark said. “No, I think they were putting it to use.” Venrick opened his mouth to ask her why she was so sure, then she added, “If I had to guess.”
“What do you mean, if you had to guess,” Cheyanne said. “It’s what we were uncovering before you went off the grid.”
“What do you mean? We were trying to get a Hyalite to the Morsythians, so they could properly defend themselves against the rimeshade,” Lark defended.
“I’m talking about before you went and stole that Astral Lathe from Barrik,” Cheyanne said.
“I didn’t steal it. Sasja did. Once it was in our possession, we had no choice but to follow through with your plan.”
“My plan? The whole thing was your idea. You came to me,” Cheyanne protested.
“And I suppose you’re blaming me for what Barrik did to you,” Lark argued.
“It was your misstep that led him to finding us,” Cheyanne accused.
“I was put in an impossible situation. I did everything I could to help.”
“Hey, hey, calm down. What’s done is done and in the past. We’re here right now.
No Astral Lathe, no Hyalite. We need to focus on what we can do to bring the rimeshade’s threat to the public’s attention.
We’ve all made mistakes that have led to actions we regret.
What’s best is to learn from them and move on,” Venrick said.
“I’ll be the first to admit when I’m wrong,” Cheyanne said. “Trusting her without question was that mistake. I’ve learned I can’t trust her and now I’m moving on. She’s playing dumb right now, pretending not to know about what the rimeshade’s plans were for using that much magic.”
“If you can’t trust me, then why did you come to rescue me in Red Lodge?” Lark argued.
“I did that for Venrick, Hardin, and Sasja. They were under a curse. You weren’t.”
“I lost my memory and still don’t have all of it back, okay?” Lark said, frustration flushing her cheeks.
“Your memory returned, right? Barrik made you remember. Isn’t that why you left?” Venrick said.