Cian folded her hands, resting them on the table. “I don’t trust the soundness of this strategy, sister.”
Eira’s face went blank. “How so?”
“The prisoner is clearly unstable,” Cian said. “We have no way of knowing if he speaks anything other than madness. Why waste our energies?”
“Then what harm could come from investigating his claims?” Eira smiled. “That’s all I ask.”
“Any time we send the Guard into the field there is a risk,” Ewan said. “I’m not certain that this search for a source of the darkness we fight is wise. Particularly with the abbot looking over our shoulder. At any moment he could cry heresy and all our lives would be forfeit.”
“But it is the only chance we have to find the source—the greatest mystery of all,” Eira argued. “Why wouldn’t we take it?”
“If it were that simple, it would indeed be a worthy mission,” Cian said. “But I can’t believe it’s that simple.”
“Cian speaks true,” Ewan said. “We need more time. The prisoner is ill and his testament unreliable.”
“Any delay is a mistake,” Eira whispered, trying to mask her anger. “A terrible mistake.”
Ewan shook his head. “Your petition remains under consideration, Eira. I only ask patience until we gain more wisdom on this matter.”
“The Guard will investigate Dorusduain as we’d planned,” Lukasz said. “After we’ve learned what happened to the village, we’ll be better able to plot our next move.”
Eira bowed her head. “As you wish.” But her heart had already chosen another path.
TWENTY-THREE
EIRA URGED HER MARE, Geal, into the thick mist high atop the hillside, searching for the cairn. She’d visited this place before. As an ancient grave marker, the pile of stones had attracted the attention of a warlock. They’d captured him but not before he’d slit the throat of the foolish girl he’d lured to the site. Though she’d viewed it as a tragedy at the time, today Eira counted the girl’s death as good fortune. A rightful end for an empty-headed ninny, so easily led to her doom.
A place where blood had been shed. That’s what the prisoner told her to seek if she wanted to find his master.
She’d visited the prisoner each day since the Circle had gathered. Making her trips to the stockade when her peers had already sought their beds, she’d taken care that her conversations with the wild man were witnessed by no one.
His words were always strange, sometimes frightening. But the more she spoke with him, the more convinced she became that investigating the truth of his claims herself was the only course of action possible. That conclusion had led her here, to a lonely hilltop where a wicked man had taken an innocent life in the hopes of coaxing an evil creature into his service. Such incidents were often those that incited the Guard’s trips into the field. More often than not, they arrived too late to prevent bloodshed, using the evidence of nefarious deeds to pursue the sorcerer who’d perpetrated such evils.
Conatus punished those who summoned darkness into the world, but they’d found no way to stem the flow of nightmarish beasts. That was why Eira made her way through the thick swirls of mist, seeking the lonely cairn.
Her mare, silver-white like the mist, snorted, pawing at the earth. Eira reined in Geal and dismounted. Animals always sensed the presence of evil, even the echoes of wicked deeds long past. The warlock had taken his victim’s life more than two months prior, but Eira’s steed still tossed her head and shied when Eira tried to lead her toward the pile of stones cloaked by the damp, gray air.
Geal suddenly reared, giving a piercing whinny of protest. Muttering a curse, Eira searched the hillside until she found the bone-white trunk of a dead pine on the ground a short distance from the cairn. She tied the horse to the dried wood and returned to the cairn on her own.
She gazed at the stones for several minutes. Her pulse was uncomfortable, drumming through her veins, reminding her that despite her decision to come here, she remained unsettled by the choice. What she had to do next didn’t ease her mind.
Gritting her teeth, Eira drew her dagger and laid it against her palm.
He is waiting. Your blood will call him forth.
She’d questioned the wild man incessantly on this point. How could her blood bring forth anything? From what Conatus had learned of dark magics, at the least she’d expected to sacrifice an animal and chant an invocation, but the prisoner had laughed at her doubts.
Your blood will call him.
Eira turned the edge of the blade on her skin. With a single, swift stroke she opened her flesh. Crimson liquid welled up, spilling over her hand. She watched her blood drip to the earth in front of the cairn, half wondering if some hideous creature would burst from the soil in the hopes of devouring her.
Nothing happened. Eira heard Geal stirring where she was tethered. The mist continued to swirl around her. Doubts built in her mind, eroding the confidence that had driven her here. Why had she listened to the words of a man so clearly mad? It was no wonder the others had rejected her pleas at the Circle’s meeting.
Eira pulled a length of clean linen from where she’d tied it on her belt. She was about to bind her sliced palm when a voice filtered through the mist.
“You won’t need to do that.”
She spun around, dagger held low. “Who’s there?”
A tall figure loomed, its features obscured by the mist. “I thought you were expecting me.”
Eira shuddered. Whatever she’d anticipated, it hadn’t been this. The voice that addressed her was rich and smooth and spoke with far too much confidence.
“May I approach?” The speaker sounded amused.
Taking a few steps back so she could use the cairn as a shield if needed, Eira called, “Show yourself.”
As if it had been commanded, the mist parted to reveal a tall man. He was dressed in simple but finely made garb: a heavy, dark cloak over a plain linen shirt and leather chausses. From what Eira could see, he bore no weapons.
He tilted his head, regarding Eira with a slight smile. His face wasn’t unpleasant, but Eira wouldn’t have called the man handsome. There was too much haughtiness carved into his aquiline features, and the turn of his lips hinted of disdain. His hair fell to his shoulders, sleek and darker than the richest earth.
“My lady.” He addressed her with the semblance of respect but in contrast to the groveling prisoner offered no bow or even the slightest inclination of his head. Eira had the sense that this man deferred to no other.