Chapter Thirty
HIMMEL
Jordaire led Himmel away from the sea, sky, and his home.
He moved through the earth without corporeal form, becoming the very granules that his presence pushed aside in the pursuit of a safer place.
He left no trace, similar to when Himmel raced across the sky, or Pedr called the currents. Only a ghost of what had been remained.
In all her almost-five hundred years, Himmel had never observed Jordaire in his Arcanist’s form. Always in his human body, where he sculpted, scowled, or hid. Never in the power granted by the dirt and the earth.
To see him thus was stunning.
He had so much ability.
It won’t take long, he promised, his voice a reverberation like a landslide. We must move quickly.
I’ll keep up.
Where was safe from Onskar? Somewhere dull. Forgotten. Without souls.
Within her curling winds, Himmel kept pace with his punishing speed, grateful to escape human inhabitants. One never knew when they’d interfere. But she still felt uneasy.
They traveled far inland, to a place rimmed with a towering circle of stones.
Nearly halfway into the mainland, there wasn’t a hint of human life, no drifting conversations, nor a pungent, emotional sense.
Nothing to give indication that anyone knew this place existed.
Only a thin forest, more bush than trees.
Amidst scraggly flowers and wind-weathered stones, memories wafted from the land, occasionally releasing into the gusts that scuttled by.
The recollections whispered of sacrifice and love, and smelled like death.
Himmel left the stories to remain for later, and paused when Jordaire stopped at a giant stone edifice.
The rock structure plunged into the soil at her feet, completely unbroken, and wider than she might have imagined. The walls, the floor, all stone. No dirt collected to produce even the smallest flower in a forgotten ledge or lip.
She attempted to comprehend the sheer size of this stone edifice when a light flow raced up the rock.
It vanished out of sight, so Himmel sent her winds to follow.
They reported an upside down dome as the ceiling, with an apex as tall as mountains.
The smooth stone, decorated with colorful striations and a weathered facade, deserved attention for its sheer eccentricity.
What is this place? she asked, hushed.
The Hall of the Land. You can see it because I am with you.
Himmel’s mind slowed. It must contain hundreds of thousands of souls.
Not to mention a protective shell, for something hid it from sight.
The sky knew this area as well as it knew anywhere.
In all her years eavesdropping and gliding across the surface of Elestra, the wind never mentioned this colossal structure.
But then . . . it hadn’t seen it. The land arcane hid it.
As the wind returned with its visions from all sides, she slipped farther away. No need to stand too close.
Jordaire’s voice rolled from the soil. I have only been here once before, before you arrived.
Why haven’t you returned?
Would you?
No, she wouldn’t. Too behemoth and uncomfortable.
The Hall of the Land is utterly inaccessible unless you pass through the stone.
I cannot.
Neither can I, and I should be able to.
Onskar has blocked you.
Onskar, or the arcane.
Aren’t they the same?
Jordaire ignored the question. He appeared in his human form, the dirt that Himmel obtained from the City of Citadels still clenched in his fist. He opened his palm.
The memory-soil lifted, swirling into a cloud that elevated to his nostrils and then sped inside his chest. He breathed deep, deep.
When he released it, smoke issued from his lips and his eyes turned to umber, a shade not unlike the pockets of soil outside the stone edifice.
“The diasvard,” he sighed.
His body stiffened, arms at his side, eyes distant, nearly gone to black. He stared into the stone through an unseeing glaze.
“It was created in me,” he breathed. “The stone pulled from the belly of the earth, extracting from the deepest mines. I see the chunks departing my hallowed depths in carts, elevating to the surface, blocking the sun.”
He stopped. Whirling around, he crouched into a dancer’s pose, as if seeking something. Bent over, face toward the earth, his shoulders and back arched like an angry feline. His tone sharpened with a hiss.
“Magic.”
The word sent a second bolt of terror through her, but Himmel ignored it for her utter fascination with Jordaire.
“Forged by the humans, pieced together with raw mining and skill and talent.” He straightened, arms sprawled wide, as if welcoming an embrace as he tipped his head to the sky. A dance. “I smell their hunger for the dagger. Their desperation.”
Himmel remained incorporeal as she whispered, “Why?”
Jordaire jerked to the side, sucked a breath through his teeth. His eyes, swirling with suspicion, darted around. Head jerking up and down, he whispered, “They are here.”
“Who?”
“The Arcanists.”
Frowning, she asked, “What do you?—”
He cut her off by jumping, turning mid-air, and landing on his feet. Instead of rote and hard, his voice gained new fluidity. Less growl, more story, it unrolled like a traveling ribbon.
“They are here,” he repeated. She thought she heard a different voice.
“The Arcanists have come, and the only defense we have is magic. They fear it. They don’t understand it.
It matches the arcane in power, if not exceeds it in ability.
Any of us can use magic, though none of us are as powerful as the Arcanists.
Yet, we will stand. We will protect. We must.”
Jordaire’s entire body wilted. Himmel surged forward as he collapsed, but the land arcane forced her back.
She couldn’t endure the heat of it, the pressure, the horrific scent of loam.
His name lingered on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t dare release it.
He embodied a memory, surely. Expressing words not his own, gifted to them by the memory she unearthed and brought to him.
From where he lay on the ground, Jordaire reached to his side, as if extracting something. His empty hand lifted, palm up, flat. His fingers formed a motion, as if he gripped an object hard.
“It is our only hope.”
Earth gathered beneath his feet, whisking to his hand. It formed a dagger, the soil teeming as it trembled. His voice deepened.
“Our only hope.”
The dirt exploded, flying outward in a wheel. Himmel recoiled. The earth slipped through her ethereal form. Jordaire shrank to the ground and lay there only a moment before stirring. The shadows retreated from his eyes like a clearing storm, revealing fresh curiosity and shock.
“Himmel?”
She advanced, allowing her body to form. “I’m here, Jordaire.”
“That was . . .”
“A possession?”
Jordaire licked his lips, grimacing. “No, not that. There was something there. It . . . it brought history to life. There was . . . power in the dirt. I’ve never experienced it before.”
“Was it magic?”
“I don’t . . . know.”
His knees shook as he stood, arms held out to stabilize. Blinking, he gazed round until he found her.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she breathed.
Himmel retreated to her unseen form. She pulled a breeze into the stone circle, restoring the stillness with movement and life. As it soughed through the bushes beyond the grass blades, comfort restored. Was there anything as terrifying as stillness?
Jordaire pressed his palm to his head, as if he’d absorbed a blow. New energy infused him—terror, perhaps. She recognized the fuel of something big in his words as he spoke with a steady purpose.
“The soil revealed more of history than I could state in words,” he said quickly, as if pressured.
“The arcane unfolded in my head. I saw . . . much. The days of the diasvard, when people still populated the citadels and the now-abandoned northeast. When magic teemed in the world alongside arcane. When . . .”
He trailed away.
How long ago must those days have been? The wind couldn’t hold memories for that long, it moved too much. But the soil must hold all memories. What would stop its plumbless depths? Layer upon layer, buried and ready.
“Where are they?” he demanded.
“Who?”
“Pedr. Draven. Mila. The human. Where are they?”
“Out to sea.”
“What’s their plan?”
She hesitated, and he growled, “I see it now! I see what they must do. The arcane showed me the diasvard and the purpose. Himmel, they must kill Onskar with the diasvard. It’s the only way.”
Hearing the confirmation from Jordaire confirmed every suspicion for Himmel. She said, “I’m seeking the Hall of the Sky while they decide their plan,” instead of telling him about the doorway and the halls, just in case.
“Have you found it?”
Though tempted to turn her mind to the wind, seeking answers in what could be found, she forewent.
It would require time and concentration.
“I . . . I think so. Probably. I’ve been focused on traveling with you, not listening to its report.
Assuming my Hall is in the northern citadels, or near it, Pedr and the others are hours away, at most.”
Jordaire’s nose twitched.
“Return to Pedr,” he commanded. “Tell him that I have learned the diasvard is formed by magic and is the only thing that can separate an Arcanist of Souls from the arcane. That’s why it is so feared.
But there is one rule inherent to the diasvard: it cannot be wielded by an arcane being.
Only a human. The magic prevents our using it. ”
Stunned by this revelation, Himmel could only say, “But it’s too much to ask of any human.”
“We must ask it!”
“Jordaire, they cannot! Mila is too kind. Einar is . . .”
She trailed off.
Oh.
“Einar,” she breathed.
Jordaire’s whisper was ragged. “Yes, Einar. Pedr must have suspected his importance, or smelled fate on him. Our souls are in the hands of a human seeking his lost lover. Himmel, things could not be more bleak.”