Baleful Signs (Dagger of the World Book 3) by K. L. Reinhart & Jada Fisher

Author:K. L. Reinhart & Jada Fisher [Reinhart, K. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairfield Publishing
Published: 2021-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

11

The Circle

Terak found himself in what appeared to be a chamber made entirely of the ancient tree’s heart. The walls flowed with the undulations of bark, and inward-growing stems, devoid of foliage, had been smoothed and polished, and were hung with a variety of drying herbs, opaque stones on strings—

“Ach!” Terak flinched. His skin shivered as if in the bitter colds of a Tartaruk storm. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up, and that familiar ache of magic hurt the bones in his jaw.

“Ah. I see that you are more progressed than I had thought,” Mother Istarion said, moving under the whorled shapes of “windows,” merely deep holes in the tree’s bark, fitted with panes of colored glass.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand . . .” Terak voiced his confusion.

“The Ochullax.”

The younger elf watched as Mother Istarion drew something from one of the deep alcoves in the walls that formed natural shelves. She took a series of thick, velvety cloths and wrapped them over some of the hanging and standing crystal fragments. Terak caught a glimpse of them before they were covered. Each one was the same, opaque and iridescent pearly-white stone. None of them were the rounded orbs that the Chief Arcanum used.

Although the sense of uncomfortable nausea didn’t go away, the elf felt an instant improvement when the rare mineral was covered.

“They used that in my Testing,” Terak said, wiping the beads of sweat from his brow.

Mother Istarion nodded, “Naturally. It is the customary way to determine magical prowess, to expose the student to the star-crystal.”

“Star-crystal?” Terak asked, trying to remember something that the Father Jacques had told him. Something about the creation of the first Blood Gate.

“It was a star that created all the ochullax in our world, which is also why it is so rare,” Istarion said, finishing her task and turning to address Terak directly. “The star fell on Midhara, wiping out the Empire of the First Family. It is assumed that it was summoned unwittingly by the Sorcerer-King’s attempt to create and open the Blood Gate.”

“Which only opened out onto the . . .” Terak hesitated to even think of the nightmare realm, The Ungol.

“Precisely,” Mother Istarion said. “It is a mixed curse, however, as now we have ochullax–which is incredibly potent as a magical amplifier.”

“Not for me it isn’t . . .” Terak muttered automatically, before coughing when he realized he had spoken out of turn. For Terak, it appeared that the star-crystal only brought with it pain and nausea.

“Are you so sure, Terak of the Second Family?” Mother Istarion asked quietly. She turned to take a pouch from one of the alcoves and started to pour a wide circle of fine, silver dust in the center of the room.

What? Terak was surprised by Istarion’s words. “But I’m—I’m a null. I have no magic.” He remembered that when he had held the three orbs to determine his power, his very touch had caused them to grow lifeless and gray and crack like brittle eggshell.

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