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The outside world drops away as you focus on the gleaming liquid hanging suspended in the vial before you. The murmur of conversation, the cold wind against your cheeks, everything retreats into a dull haze. The golden gemstone becomes your entire world, the strange reflections in its shimmer surface telling you everything you need to do. Almost reflexively, without thinking, you start to project your will onto the amber. Digging deep into the dormant power of your blood, you sculpt it into the familiar shape of your family’s chosen patron.
The gemstone shudders as you carve Insight into its core, convulsing like a dying animal until all you can see in the reflections is your own eye, replicated a dozen times over.
Then it’s done, the gemstone growing still once more as a terrible wave of fatigue washes over you. The vial slips from your numb fingers, dropping down into the silver box it came from as Ariel hurriedly moves it into place. She snaps the box closed, the heavy click of the lock causing the rest of the world to come rushing back in.
“We’ve got what we came for,” you announce, shaking off the last of your fugue, “Let’s go.”
-
Despite Ariel’s occasional threats, she doesn’t pass out as you march back down to the Iron Keep. Arriving back to a blazing fire and a mug of hot soup is a comfort that you never imagined that you’d find here, but it’s a comfort nonetheless. As you warm your hands by the fire, Elle carefully unfurls the paper scroll and peers at the faded markings on it.
“I think these markings might mean something,” she murmurs, turning the paper over in her hands as if unsure of which way it’s meant to be read, “I think this might be a map.”
If it is, it’s not like any map that you’ve ever seen. It doesn’t have any countries of cities, no borders or oceans. All it has is a number of blank spheres, annotated with what you assume to be names in a language that you can’t read, all connected with spidery lines. Perhaps the map would have been clearer when it was brand new, before the ink had faded into a ghostly shadow, but you doubt it.
Even if it is meaningless, Elle dutifully takes out her pen and starts to copy a version of the map down into her own notebook. “I think we should show this to…” she begins, only to falter for a moment before bravely pressing on, “I can’t believe I’m actually suggesting this, but I think we should show this to Miss Phalaris. I think she might be able to make more sense of this.”
The problem, then, is trying to get Yulia Phalaris to make some kind of sense herself. Deciphering the map through sheer force of will alone may actually be easier.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” you reply vaguely.
[1]
