The Summons
Rion was not, as it turned out, particularly stealthy.
“I should go back to my room before everyone wakes,” Rion said at last, almost reluctantly, extricating himself from the warmth of her bed.
“You don’t have to sneak out,” she murmured.
“I’m not sneaking out,” he denied.
“You are absolutely sneaking out.” She looked at him, unable to suppress a small smile. “Go on, then. Preserve your dignity. I don’t want anyone to think I took advantage of you. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead, quick and almost shy, before slipping out the door.
Lark just lay there, cozy and content, listening to his footsteps in the corridor. And then she heard Pippa’s voice, bright, delighted, and utterly merciless.
“Well, well, well.”
Her eyes flew open.
“Good morning, Rion.” Pippa’s voice carried easily through the thin walls of the guesthouse, pitched at a volume that suggested she wanted everyone within a considerable radius to hear. “Fancy seeing you here. In the corridor. Outside Lark’s room. At dawn.”
There was a strangled sound that might have been Rion attempting to respond.
“I was just …” he started.
“Just what? Getting an early start on your research? Taking a morning stroll? Checking for drafts?” Pippa’s tone was honeyed with false innocence. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks rather like you’re sneaking out of somewhere you weren’t supposed to be.”
Lark sat up in bed, torn between mortification and the urge to laugh. She really should go out there and rescue him.
“I don’t know what you’re implying,” Rion said, with the stiff formality of a man who knew exactly what was being implied and had no idea how to deflect it.
“I’m not implying anything. I’m observing. There’s a difference.” A pause, weighted with amusement. “You have a very distinctive walk of shame, you know. All stiff and dignified. It’s almost adorable.”
Silence.
“It’s not what you think,” Rion tried again.
“Really? Because what I think is that you finally stopped being an idiot and went to talk to Lark, and that conversation went rather well, and now you’re trying to sneak back to your room before anyone notices.” Another pause, longer this time. “How am I doing so far?”
More silence. Damning silence.
“I’m going to take that as confirmation.
” Pippa’s voice shifted from teasing to something warmer, though no less amused.
“It’s about time, you know. I’ve been watching you two dance around each other for weeks.
Turns, really, if we count from when you first returned to Autumncrown.
I was starting to think I’d have to lock you both in a closet together and refuse to let you out until you sorted yourselves. ”
“That seems excessive.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Do you have any idea what Lark has been like?
The pining? The moping? The sitting in chairs staring at nothing while I try to have a conversation with her?
” Pippa made a sound of exaggerated exasperation.
“Honestly, it’s been exhausting. I deserve some sort of award for my patience. ”
Lark felt heat rise to her cheeks. She hadn’t been that bad. Had she?
“She wasn’t … I didn’t realize …” Rion sounded genuinely flustered now, his composure completely shattered.
“Of course you didn’t realize. You were too busy wallowing in your own misery to notice that she was miserable too. Which, I might add, Darian and I have been watching with increasing frustration for quite some time.” A theatrical sigh. “Men. Honestly.”
“I should go,” Rion said weakly.
“Yes, you should. Back to your room. To change your shirt. And maybe do something about your hair, which looks like you’ve been …” Pippa stopped herself, but the implication hung in the air, heavy and unmistakable.
“We didn’t. That’s not. Nothing happened.” Rion’s voice had reached a register that Lark had never heard from him before. “We just slept. Actual sleeping. That’s all.”
“Mmhmm.”
“I’m serious.”
“I believe you.” Pippa’s tone suggested she believed nothing of the sort. “But even if nothing happened, something clearly changed, and I, for one, am delighted. You two deserve to be happy. Even if you’ve both been absolutely insufferable about getting there.”
Footsteps in the corridor. Rion retreating, presumably with whatever shreds remained of his dignity clutched around him like a tattered cloak. Pippa’s laughter followed him, cheerful and unrepentant.
A moment later, Lark’s door opened without so much as a knock.
Pippa stood in the doorway, her curls wild from sleep, her grin stretching from ear to ear. She looked like a cat who had not only caught the canary but had also discovered the canary’s secret stash of gold-plated birdseed.
“Good morning,” she said sweetly. “Sleep well?”
Lark threw a pillow at her.
Breakfast was an exercise in endurance.
Pippa had clearly told Darian everything, because he kept looking between Lark and Rion with an expression of knowing amusement that made Lark want to summon a dagger and stab something.
Rion, for his part, had developed a sudden, intense interest in his porridge, studying it as though it contained the secrets of the universe.
“So,” Pippa said, reaching for the bread with exaggerated casualness. “Any plans for today?”
“The archive,” Lark said shortly. “Research. Same as always.”
“Together?”
“Yes.”
“Together together? Or just in the same building together?”
Darian made a sound that might have been a cough, or might have been a poorly suppressed laugh. Rion’s ears had gone red.
“Pippa.” Lark fixed her friend with a glare that had made trained killers think twice. “If you don’t stop, I will tell Darian about what happened at the Ambervine Tavern on our second night out in Autumncrown.”
Pippa’s grin faltered. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
A brief standoff. Then Pippa raised her hands in surrender, though her eyes still sparkled with barely contained glee. “Fine. I’ll behave.”
Darian looked at Pippa, confused. “Wait. What happened at the Ambervine tavern?”
She picked up her tea and took a sip, the picture of innocence. “The what tavern? Never heard of it.”
The archive was quiet when they arrived, the archivist nodding them through. They made their way to the back corner where the oldest texts were kept, to the stone alcoves carved into the mountain itself, and settled into what was becoming routine.
But it felt different now. Charged. Every accidental brush of their fingers as they passed books back and forth. Each glance that lingered just a second too long. Every time Rion leaned close to show her a passage, and she felt the heat of him against her shoulder.
They didn’t speak of it. Didn’t acknowledge the change that had occurred between them. But it was there, present in every interaction, an electric current running beneath the surface of their scholarly work.
“Here,” Rion said, pulling another journal from the shelf. “This might be relevant. It’s from the same period as the founding scholar’s notes, but a different author. Someone who was corresponding with her about theoretical applications.”
They had spent hours searching for more of the founding scholar’s work, following threads and references through the archive’s labyrinthine collection.
Bits and pieces had emerged, fragments of a larger theory, but the practical application had remained elusive.
How did one actually transmute dark aetheria?
What was the mechanism? What did it require?
Lark watched Rion read, watched his eye move across the cramped handwriting, watched the way his brow furrowed in concentration. He was beautiful like this. Absorbed. Alive. The scholar she had first met in Wintersorrow, long before the Ashen Citadel had tried to break him.
“Lark.” His voice had changed, sharpened with excitement. “Look at this.”
She moved to stand beside him, looking down at the page he had open on the table. The handwriting was difficult, archaic, but she could make out enough to understand why his hand was trembling.
“Read it to me,” she said.
Rion cleared his throat. “If corruption is indeed an imposed state rather than a fundamental transformation, then the mechanism of transmutation becomes clear. One does not destroy the dark aetheria, for aetheria cannot be destroyed. Nor does one overpower it, for that would create only a temporary suppression. Instead, one must channel pure aetheria into the corrupted source, suffusing it with neutral energy until the imposed intent is diluted beyond recovery. The darkness is not removed. It is drowned.”
He turned the page, his fingers careful on the ancient paper.
“The challenge lies in the quantity of power required. A single witch, no matter how strong, cannot generate sufficient pure aetheria to transmute any significant quantity of corruption. The mathematics are unforgiving. Each measure of dark aetheria requires approximately three measures of pure aetheria to achieve full transmutation. A corrupted creature might contain the equivalent of ten witches’ full reserves.
A corrupted obelisk …” He paused, reading ahead.
“A corrupted obelisk would require the combined power of every witch in an enclave, working in concert.”
Lark let the implications settle over her. “So it can be done.”
“It can be done. But not alone.” Rion looked up at her, his eye bright with the same excitement she had seen in the archive days ago.
“This is why Duskwood is so dangerous. Not just because he creates dark aetheria, but because fighting it requires cooperation. Unity. The very things he’s trying to destroy. ”
“And the very things Springhope refuses to offer.” Lark thought of the council, of their neutrality and isolation. “If we can’t convince them to join us, to work with the other enclaves …”
“Then we’ll be fighting an enemy we can’t defeat.
We might win battles. We might slow him down.
But we’ll never be able to undo the damage he’s causing.
” Rion closed the journal and pressed his hand flat against its cover, as though he could absorb the knowledge through his skin.
“We need allies. More than ever. Not just soldiers, but witches. As many as we can gather.”
“Then we need to convince the council.”
“Yes.” He met her eyes. “We do.”
They copied the relevant passages carefully, Rion’s handwriting precise despite the emotion still thrumming through him.
The discovery felt momentous, a turning point, the answer they had been searching for, finally within their grasp.
All they had to do now was convince an enclave of isolationists to abandon centuries of neutrality and join a war they wanted no part of.
Simple.
The walk back to the guesthouse was faster than usual, both of them energized by what they had found.
Lark’s mind was already racing through arguments, through strategies, through ways to present the information that might sway a reluctant council.
She would need to talk to Morena. To Helena, if there was any way to get a message back to Autumncrown.
To anyone who might have influence with the people who held power in Springhope.
They were so absorbed in their planning that they almost missed Darian standing in the guesthouse's doorway, his expression unusually serious.
“You’re back,” he said. “Good. This arrived while you were gone.”
He held out a folded piece of parchment, sealed with wax that bore the council’s imprint. Rion took it, breaking the seal, and read the contents aloud. "The Council of Springhope requests the presence of the visitors from Autumncrown at the council hall tomorrow at midday. Attendance is mandatory."
That was all. No explanation. No sign of what had been decided. Just a summons, cold and official, that could mean everything or nothing.
“They’ve made their decision,” Pippa said quietly. She had appeared behind Darian, her hand reaching for his and clasping it. “About the alliance.”
“Maybe.” Lark thought of the message again, as though just thinking about the words might cause them to rearrange themselves into something more revealing. “Or maybe they have more questions. Maybe they’ve received responses to their inquiries and want to discuss what they learned.”
“Or maybe they’ve decided we’re more trouble than we’re worth.” Darian’s voice was flat. “They said they’d consider. They promised nothing.”
Rion looked at the parchment again, his eye scanning the brief text. “If they wanted us gone, would they summon us formally? They could just revoke their hospitality and have the guards escort us to the gates.”
“Unless they want to make an example of us,” Pippa said. “A public refusal. A warning to others who might come seeking alliances.”
The excitement of their discovery had drained away, replaced by uncertainty. They had spent weeks in Springhope, healing, researching, and building the first genuine hope they'd had. The council had promised to consider their request, and Lark had allowed herself to believe that meant possibility.
Now she was not so sure.
“We found something today,” she said, forcing herself to focus on what they could control.
“Evidence that dark aetheria can be transmuted, cleansed, but only through the combined power of multiple witches working together. It proves that no enclave can stand alone against the Ashen Enclave. If we can present this to the council tomorrow …”
“They may not care.” Darian’s voice was gentle but honest. “They’ve had weeks to make their decision. Whatever you found today, it’s probably too late to change their minds.”
“Then we try anyway,” Rion said. “We go tomorrow, present what we’ve learned, and hope it matters. What other choice do we have?”
None. They had no other choice.
Tomorrow they would stand before the council and learn whether Springhope would join them or cast them out. Tomorrow everything might change, for better or worse.
Rion’s hand found Lark's, his fingers interlacing with hers. A small gesture, but significant. A reminder that whatever they faced tomorrow, they would face it together.