Chapter Twenty Eight
HIMMEL
Himmel rarely inhabited her physical body.
She could, at any moment, regain her human form, but the desire was fleeting and rare. Why live with flesh and blood when the entire world lay beneath her feet? The sky was her domain, and she imbued it fully.
Far, far to the north, a breath of shivery wind pebbled her invisible skin and raced through her in icy fingers as she arrived at the citadels. This is the place that, when she focused beyond her usual comprehension, she sensed more arcane.
Her Hall.
It had to be.
Yet, the exact location eluded her.
She emerged from the sky, whirling far above the doomed structures. A dark feeling crept over her. Like most arcane beings, she loathed the north because the citadels teemed with an unnerving and indefinable essence.
Magic.
Few souls dared to venture this far north.
Most humans didn’t dare. Those who did rarely returned.
The tempestuous seas sent them away, or the wild forest kept them out.
Animals, arcane, and dangerous creatures prevented exploration around the outskirts, where the stone buildings didn’t clutter every inch so precariously.
But dire circumstances required heightened work, so she brought herself closer and manifested in her physical body. Starlight shimmered on a moonless night when she closed in on the sharp spires and constant turrets, coated with dark glory and memories.
The City of Citadels.
Atop towering, dark cliffs stood gigantic stone structures—sprawling, gargantuan castles in an unbroken oval.
Too many of them pressed too close. Twenty castles?
Or was it thirty? This peculiar place occupied a jutting land almost disconnected from the giant mainland.
Only a thin slice of soil kept it from becoming an island, barely wide enough for humans to trod two abreast. Given enough storms and significant weather, the tiny land bridge would erode within a few years and isolate the City of Citadels.
Which may not be the worst thing.
“Report to me,” she murmured aloud. She’d intentionally waited for dark to come before she inspected it, hoping for a more natural cover.
The wind blew outward, carried west, east, and south.
She didn’t command it farther north yet.
The farther north one ventured, the weirder things became.
She rarely ventured farther north than the City of Citadels.
Air curled along the ground, reading arcane whispers before it exploded outward in all directions and raced to her bidding.
While she waited, sea spray crashed against the massive rocks jutting from the foamy tide.
Rain and ocean and tempest attacked the stone cliffs, too far away to reach the citadels perched on top.
The cliff’s slick, harrowing steepness prevented a sea approach.
Despite the relentless attacks, no sign of damage appeared, and nothing stirred within.
No torches.
No souls.
Only magic.
Dead magic, at that, from what rumors claimed.
So little was known of the wild, powerful force.
Different from the arcane’s limits and specific assignment, magic had little structure, only what hushed incantations required.
So easy to wield in comparison, and widely available.
The thought of arcane ability in human hands brought a deepening darkness.
She couldn’t imagine.
Magic, the other power, was unknown, banished, not fit for Elestran society. Magic held responsibility for all the destruction of the eastern lands, the desolation of the mighty citadels to the north and east. That corner of the mainland, all but forgotten by the humans, practically reeked of it.
The citadel’s empty appearance rang with a haunting melody.
While the wind gathered information and long-lost tales, she closed her eyes.
Magic was undetectable, even for an Arcanist, which is what made it so frightening.
Even Onskar feared the source in the far north, preferring to act as if it didn’t exist instead of acknowledging its reality.
Magic forged the diasvard.
For hours after she sent the wind to work, the sky opened, cut by cross currents while she floated, waiting for its report. Night crept along. Stars shifted. Finally, the sky arcane returned, carrying suggestions and hints of lore.
Breezy tendrils spoke to her without words.
They brought images . . . of a sort. Much like an emotion snatched from human hearts and laid to rest in history until she disturbed them tonight.
She experienced fear shifting to terror.
Despair into grief. These feelings came in bundles, never alone.
Emotions this big never existed as a single strand, but an entire tapestry.
Amidst the chaos, she sensed something unexpected. A story. She hadn’t sought a story, but a place. This story she couldn’t unravel entirely, only in suggestions, because it originated in the soil.
The wind spoke of metal and men, forging and fire.
Nestled near reluctance and relief were whispers of the diasvard.
These lost tales told the truth of a dagger created by magic long ago, destined to stop the arcane.
Himmel heard whispers of a request to make one weapon that could forever stop an evil Arcanist.
Himmel’s inert heart gave a surprised beat.
It had been so long since she felt it stir that she almost leaped from her trance.
She held onto the story with tenacious, claw-like determination.
This powerful recollection lingered in the dirt, buried with bones far below.
She couldn’t drudge it up—that was Jordaire’s domain—but she captured what returned with her in swirling soil.
Himmel opened her eyes.
Go to the north, she commanded the wind. Spread as far as you must. Find the location of our Hall, the Hall of the Sky. It belongs to us; you will sense it. Find me after and let me know where it stands. Onskar has hidden it from me, so search thoroughly.
Her loyal arcane pirouetted away. She felt it leave, hoping her desire would prove possible.
If the arcane did not locate the Hall of the Sky here, then it could only be farther north.
Farther than any desired to venture, in unmapped territory to which she rarely sent it.
Is the Hall of the Sky the reason why Onskar told her to ignore the north?
Himmel commanded the wind to bring her back south to the mainland, to Jordaire.
The story swirled in a protected cocoon of moving air at her side.
She paused before turning away from the City of Citadels.
If she looked very closely in the growing morning twilight, several chimneys jutted out of the wall, soot-burned at the top, as if very, very hot fires had burned below.
She coaxed the story to follow.
They sought Jordaire.
Himmel kept half her attention on the Rosenvatten’s progress and swept the rest of her focus to the mainland. Traveling the skies while dawn awoke in the east allowed her thoughts to yarn out.
With a brisk flow, the mainland appeared in less than an hour. Her haste came to a winding close as the sea-drenched rocks appeared. She formed her approach as an airstream curled over the land. She smelled Jordaire in the rich earth, nearly black as pitch from abundant arcane and nutrients.
She sent out a call.
Where are you?
The land did not answer. The wind sent her cry into the distance, keeping it close to the ground.
Seeking, seeking. She skimmed along the sea edge, beyond crashing waves.
Sailors shouted their surprise when a crosswind developed from nowhere, fading as quickly as it surged.
Her violence knew no measure. Humans clutched their hats as she pressed with ferocity into her query.
Winds scuttled around buildings, scudded the ground, blew over walls, and drifted through bushes.
She moved too quickly to truly inhabit space on Jordaire’s land domain, but Himmel paid attention all the same.
Did it really matter if she crossed domains?
Jordaire? sang the air.
She followed Jordaire’s scent trail beyond the populations, out of the cities, skirting the mainland with unmatched speed, throwing her might as Arcanist into her search.
Where was he?
She twirled lower, tumbling past salt-stained rocks, over a high hedge, away from humans, and landed deftly in the exact spot she’d previously envisioned: Jordaire’s octagon by the sea. The place where Pedr broke his first curse layer.
Himmel waited several steps off the earth, allowing her human form to coalesce with only an occasional transparency.
It was the most she desired to allow. To be fully visible for a woman with arcane ability was a special sort of vulnerability.
Besides, the land arcane here truly resisted her sky arcane like fighting magnets, threatening to fling her away.
Not revealing herself required less focus to stay stable.
Jordaire’s arcane teemed with unparalleled power at this octagon—a favorite retreat for him.
If he inhabited this spot for hundreds of years, a fact for which she had little doubt, because she’d observed him here for four hundred years, then this place would never be the same when he left.
Arcane would saturate it for generations.
The Arcanist of Land stood in the middle of a chaotic mess, hands balled into fists, and glared at her.
Clay shards and half-broken sculptures littered the ground at his feet, their razor-sharp edges gleaming a foul promise.
As he glowered, the pieces sank into the earth, dissolving into soil. Once-full shelves lay barren.
“What?” he snapped.
With a gasp in her voice, she asked, “What happened? Jordaire, all your sculptures. Your art . . . ”
His bushy brows lowered. He mumbled something incomprehensible, arms tight over his chest. His chin tipped down.
“Nothing happened . . . yet.”
“Did—”
“No. He hasn’t been here.”