Chapter 39 Alar
ALAR
"The Circle of Fate Reveals What the Heart Already Knows."
—Elucian Proverb
Ididn't like being relegated to the middle, and I'd offered to switch places with Codric when we'd stopped to rest for a few minutes, but he'd refused.
If not for the damn hallucinations, which were only getting worse, I would have offered Shovia to trade places, but I still had enough presence of mind not to allow my pride to endanger our quintet.
Shovia was still the least affected of us by the altitude or hunger, and she led us with surprising steadiness, keeping a good pace.
If there was one thing I had learned on this pilgrimage, it was the importance of humility. I wasn't invincible, and everything I knew, all the skills I'd honed, were useless when my body was working against me, and no amount of sheer will could counteract the effects this mountain had on me.
I felt weak, useless, and completely at the mercy of nature and its magnificent beasts.
Becoming a rider was the only way to overcome these human limitations.
By bonding with a dragon, I could siphon some of its resilience, but that wasn't up to me either.
It was up to Elu or rather his more merciful face, Elurion.
I wasn't devout, and I didn't even know any prayers, but I beseeched Elurion to grant me my wish in plain words.
I wasn't seeking fame or glory, and I needed the prolonged life the bond offered to save my people from the disaster they were blindly heading toward, but doubts gnawed at me almost as badly as the hunger.
Who did I think I was to assume that I could change the course of history?
Right now, all I could do was put one foot in front of the other and hope that it met solid ground. "Just keep moving," I muttered to myself, the words coming out as wisps of fog in the thin air.
We'd been pushing hard since dawn, trying to make up for time lost during the blizzard the day before.
A shadow passed overhead, and I fought the urge to look up because I didn't know whether it was real.
Dragons had been appearing with increasing frequency as we neared the summit, their massive forms gliding through aurora-streaked skies, but I didn't trust my senses, and I didn't know whether what I was seeing was real or a hallucination.
"You see them too, right?" Kailin's voice drifted from in front of me. "The dragons?"
"Yes," I said. "I wasn't sure they were real either."
Some of the more fantastical visions had been easier to recognize for what they were the second day of the pilgrimage, but today the lack of food and oxygen was taking its toll on my mind, and I was no longer sure about anything.
We walked along a ridge that dropped away sharply on both sides, and as loose stones skittered beneath my boots, I heard Kailin's labored breathing, and I worried about her.
This section must be incredibly difficult for her. Was she closing her eyes and letting the rope guide her? Or was she keeping her eyes glued to Shovia's back?
I focused on planting each step firmly before shifting my weight. The rope between us grew taut as Morek stumbled.
"Careful." I reached out with my hand to steady him despite the way my own vision swam. "Watch your footing."
"Says the man who's been weaving like a drunk for the past hour," Codric said, his attempt at humor barely masking his strain.
I tried to straighten my posture, to project the confidence my cousin had come to expect from me, but the effort only made my head spin faster.
Thankfully, the path had a rock face to our right again, but the problem was that it rippled like water so that it might be a hallucination, and we could still be on the narrow ridge with a drop on each side.
For a moment, I could have sworn I saw figures moving within the stone, ancient warriors holding spears and marching to some distant battle.
"What are you looking at, Alar?" Codric asked.
Realizing that I had slowed down and was gaping at the rocks, I shook my head. "Just more illusions."
I couldn't explain how the sight of those warriors felt like an omen of battles yet to come, so I kept what I saw to myself.
Codric would have laughed at that.
As a keening cry echoed off the mountainside, I looked up and was surprised that the sound had come from a dragon. I’d thought that they only roared.
It was a large male with deep blue scales, and as it circled overhead, its rider leaned out of the saddle and looked down at our struggling line with what I imagined was either pity or amusement.
"We are getting close, people," Shovia called back. "Look up there. This must be the Circle of Fate." She pointed.
I followed her gesture to a ring of standing stones that were perched atop the summit like a crown. There was something about it that made my vision blur and my thoughts scatter, but I didn't know whether it was the effect of the massive boulders forming the circle or my weakened state.
"I didn't expect it to be so..." Codric's voice trailed off.
"Big?" Kailin suggested.
"Majestic," he said. "There are no pictures or movies made of it, so the circle is shrouded in mystery." He chuckled. "The circle, your shaman, your history, everything about Elucia and its people is so mysterious. That's why Alar and I are here. To uncover your secrets."
I wanted to throttle Codric. Evidently, the thin air and hunger were not only making him see things that weren't there but were also loosening his tongue. If only I could shut him up, but how? What was I supposed to do, turn around and punch him in the face?
Morek chuckled. "You and me both, bro. You'd think we know more than you, but we don't." He tilted his head. "Well, maybe you don't know that the circle used to be a magnificent building. It was Elu's temple before it was destroyed in the First Extinction War."
I hadn't known that, and I wanted to hug the burly Elucian for diverting suspicion away from my cousin and his big mouth. Codric didn't know about my mission, and what he had said probably reflected his curiosity about Elucia, but it cast suspicion over both of us nonetheless.
"I thought you were here to become dragon riders," Shovia mocked.
I should've expected her to be the one to latch on to Codric's words.
"Of course, we are," I said quickly. "But the mystery surrounding it is also part of the allure.
How does Elu open the inner eye of the gifted to allow them to bond with dragons?
How does Saphir Fatewever know whose inner eye is working, especially since he has to test over a thousand people in each pilgrimage?
Do any of you know the answers to these questions? "
"No," Kailin said. "No one talks about it. It's forbidden."
As another wave of dizziness hit me, stronger this time, I was unable to continue the discussion, and perhaps it was for the best. The less I said, the better.
The path ahead split into three, then merged back into one. I blinked hard, trying to focus on Morek's backpack in front of me, but even his broad form seemed to flicker, looking insubstantial.
I worried about Kailin and how she was doing.
Perhaps a foggy brain was better when dealing with a phobia. I didn't suffer from any, so I didn't know how they worked, but I hoped she wasn't terrified out of her mind.
The next time we stopped for a break, I asked Morek to switch places with me so I could be closer to Kailin.
"I can't see anything behind your back," I excused my request.
I was taller than Morek, but his mind must have been foggy as well because he didn't point that out.
A dragon circled lower, close enough now that I could feel the wind from its wings, which I hoped was proof that it was real, but in its shadow, the stone warriors emerged from the rock face again, their armor gleaming with an inner light.
They marched in perfect formation toward the Circle of Fate, their footsteps echoing the rhythm of our quintet.
Oh, wow. Until now, the hallucinations had been only visual, but now they were auditory as well.
"There are so many of them," I muttered, forgetting for a moment that I shouldn't acknowledge the hallucinations.
"Many what?" Codric asked.
"Warriors marching in formation," Kailin said. "Do you see them too?"
My step faltered. "You can see them?"
"Not just them," she said. "I also see a rider. Always the same one. Dark eyes and an obsidian dragon."
A chill ran down my spine. I'd seen an obsidian dragon and a rider with dark eyes as well. Shared hallucinations weren't supposed to be possible, were they?
I'd heard that some herbs, when ingested, produced similar visions, and I often wondered whether certain chemical compounds affected a specific area of the brain, which was how they were producing similar experiences.
But other than the powder that Lysara had given me, I hadn't ingested anything, and Kailin hadn't touched the powder at all.
The group leaders dictated a punishing pace, trying to make up for lost time and reach the circle before nightfall. When it finally came into full view, I was ready to drop to my knees and kiss the ground, which was surprisingly free of snow.
The standing stones loomed before us, forming a large circle, but my eyes seemed to slide off them whenever I tried to count their number.
Within the circle, the ground was perfectly flat, clear, and compacted, and it seemed to be covered in symbols that appeared to move when I wasn't looking directly at them.
I assumed the wavering symbols were just another form of hallucination, but the lack of snow was real.
Was it a natural phenomenon, something to do with what was underground, or had the snow been cleared?
I imagined that several dragons releasing their breath of fire could clear the snow with ease, but given that I couldn't see any scorch marks, that wasn't likely how it had been done.
Magic perhaps?
In the center of the circle stood Saphir Fatewever or an apparition of him, radiating power in waves that were distorting the air like heat rising from sunbaked stones. Or at least that was what I was seeing.
Was it real?
I doubted it. I'd seen the shaman at the foot of the mountain, and he'd been impressive, but he hadn't emitted power or anything else.
My head spun, and as I stumbled, the rope went taut as both Codric and Kailin compensated for my misstep, keeping me upright.
Kailin caught my elbow, and for a moment, I allowed myself to pretend that her touch meant more than just preventing my fall.
"Thank you." I managed a weak smile.
"Look," Shovia called back to us, pointing to the sky.
Dragons of every imaginable color flew over the Circle of Fate, their scales catching the waning light like living jewels. Blue and green, gold and silver, red and purple—they moved in a well-practiced dance.
"The Breath of Fate," Morek whispered. "Just like in the old songs."
"What does that mean?" Codric asked.
"Dragons dance in the sky when powerful magic arises in the Circle of Fate," Kailin said. "But since I don't believe in magic, I'd say it's part of the ceremony. There is nothing like the sight of so many dragons flying overhead to put the fear of Elu into everyone's heart."
I was surprised that she could think so clearly. I was foggy and dazed, and everything about this place seemed magical to me.
The dragons' dance seemed to pull at something deep inside me, awakening an answering rhythm in my blood.
It was probably all in my head.
Kailin took a step back, bumping into me, and I put my hand on her back to stabilize her. "We are almost there."
"Yeah." She turned to look at me over her shoulder, and I pretended not to see the question in her eyes. The same question that had been growing between us since that moment in the cave.
What happens when we get there?
The warrior spirits returned, but now they stood at attention between the stones, their spectral forms snapping salutes as we passed.
I returned their salutes automatically, earning a strange look from Codric. "Just humoring them," I muttered. "It seems polite."
He laughed, a slightly hysterical sound that suggested he was seeing his own visions. "Right, because we wouldn't want to offend your imagined honor guard."
"They're as real as anything else right now," I said, surprising myself with the truth in those words. The line between reality and vision had grown so thin it was barely discernible.
We were close enough now to see individual symbols carved into the standing stones. They seemed to writhe and shift under my gaze, forming patterns that almost made sense before dissolving again. Power thrummed through the ground beneath our feet, growing stronger with each step toward the circle.
Pilgrims who had made it there before us were sitting or lying on the ground, probably overcome by the same hallucinations that plagued us. Others stood in small groups, their faces turned toward the shaman.
Within the Circle of Fate, Shaman Saphir raised his staff, and the warrior spirits appeared one final time, then faded away.
The dragons overhead roared in unison, the sound reverberating through my bones, and reality settled back into place with an almost physical force.
The multiple paths merged back into one, the shifting symbols stilled, and my vision cleared enough to see the circle properly for the first time. I counted twenty-four standing stones, each carved with symbols that no longer moved but still held meaning I couldn't decipher.
We'd made it. We were alive, and soon, we would each learn our fate.