At last, I find myself in a deep underground vault. From the main level where our dormitory hall is, I’ve come down two additional levels, into the deepest parts of the abandoned city.
I’ve passed catacombs and sepulchers down here, carved with stonework depicting ancient dragons at rest. These are tombs of our ancient dead, I know, as I finally arrive at the place I feel called to.
And find myself at a dead-end alcove.
As runic fire flares all around the alcove now, I know this is where I’m supposed to be. Though massive protector-dragons snarl all around me now, carved in great detail into the arching stone of the vault, nothing is before me except a triptych of ancient, silvered mirrors inside the arch.
The center most one has a gilded lockbox upon a pedestal before it. Moving into the trio of mirrors that cascade from the floor to the highceiling of the ancient vault, I see the lockbox is embedded into the gilded pedestal that’s been carved out of the vault itself.
More like a tome than a box, the cover on the book is sealed with a complex series of runes that slither and bend through the gold and silver of the tome and its binding.
The book has a solid gold cover, inlaid with complex runes so ancient I don’t recognize a thing. As I whisper my fingers over the cover now, letting my magic inspect the tome for me, I don’t feel any curse-work.
I know this is the item that called me, however, as Aesa’s Truthstone flares upon my chest. The silver ring on my finger gives an answering pulse; closing my eyes, I sink into my magic now, which loves all things warding and locks.
As I go into a trance, I let my balanced Blood and Bone Magic spiral together into their united Bloodwalker power, using both sides of my dark and light nature to figure this out. As I whisper both hands over the book now, feeling my way through it, I feel gossamer threads of rune-phrases leap to my magic, as if begging for me to untangle them.
Though I’d thought breaking the lock on whatever’s here would have been beyond difficult, judging by how ridiculously complex it seemed, it’s almost simple now for my magic to figure out. I have a sudden instinct that this lock would be nigh unbreakable to anyone else; but the threads of magic upon it leap to my fingers now, as if they were made for me to decipher.
They flare bright white, then sigh away, until at last something deep inside the tomechunks. Blinking my eyes open, I see all the complex runic work on the binding of the book and the cover have fallen away.
Allowing me to open the tome now—which I do with reverence.
I know this thing is ancient, as I lift the solid-gold cover. What I find inside is not a book, however; though it looked like a book, it’s a solid-gold box I’ve opened, like I thought at first glance.
Within is an ancient piece of parchment, crumbling and yellowed,covering something else. I can’t read any of the runes on that parchment; as I touch it, it crumbles to dust.
Revealing four silver rings beneath, on fraying crimson silk.
Men’s rings, they breathe and pulse with power, as they are revealed. As the ring on my finger suddenly flares, resonating with them, I inhale in shock to understand what these rings are.
They’re the complimentary rings to my own; four silver rings, created by my Ancestor Hedda, they are matched with the one I wear upon my index finger as I touch them now.
As I do, a powerful magic surges up from the box. It blisters to the three mirrors—revealing a man in them now.
I jolt in shock as that towering man is unveiled before me, staring at me from each one of the trio of mirrors. He does not menace me; even as I cry out, he holds up a pacifying hand, regal.
Dressed like a king from long ago, he wears ornate black leathers with gold and crimson sigils tooled all over them. Tall and insanely handsome, he looks almost like Bjorn as he towers above me in the vault.
His long golden hair is streaked with silver and braided half back, his firm jaw graced with a gold and silver beard, also braided. His eyes arrest me as he holds up his hand for me to not freak the fuck out and go ballistic right now.
Ancient, stern, kind, those eyes are pure, molten gold in the way Bjorn’s eyes are when his dragon is high in them. As this ancient king beckons for me to be at ease, I suddenly see in him what Bjorn would look like a thousand years from now.
Noble and wise.
As I relearn how to breathe, swallowing hard and forcing myself to stand down from how I just raised my combined magics into a serious shit-storm all around me, I feel my heart thunder hard. The ghostly king in the mirrors does nothing, however, only watches me as I settle.
His golden eyes glimmer in the fey light that steals around the sepulchervaults. Suddenly, something about his calm, ancient presence and his appearance in the mirrors down here in the burial catacombs makes sense.
Because I don’t feel anyone here in the corridor with me; like a ghost, the ancient king appears only in the mirrors, which scroll through with silver and gold runes now, much like the mirror-stone in the library hall.
As I watch him, I feel his deep sadness. I understand then that he’s not living anymore but an apparition, bound somehow to the box I just opened.
And the silver rings.
“Be at peace, young Bloodwalker. I am not here to harm you,” he says in a voice as strong as the mountains now, as he hails me. But that voice blows through the vaults like an ancient wind.
Not a thing that exists anymore—only an echo.
