"What are you doing here?"
"The Gods call for blood, Ellen! We've come to answer!"
He and Fi entered the hangar together, apparently the last to do so as a crowd had begun to form around Aelin. The same three men from the other night around the fire.
Declan had donned a few more clothes for this occasion than the last. A long-sleeved black shirt, black pants, scuffed brown boots and a holster on each hip and each shoulder all four filled with blaster pistols, a knife also hung from his belt but maybe most curious of all was the lute he had stolen from the party and had strapped to his back.
The Gathering had been more than he could of expected. Meeting Fi, reuniting with Ellen, reconnecting with his home, it had been great and yet he found himself with still more questions.
After a couple of dances, Declan had excused himself from Firenne explaining he had a personal matter to attend to and that he would find her after.
Half a dozen tents stood erected in a clearing on the fringes of the gathering near the edge of the wood, where Several lupo couples could be found going in and out of the various tents, of which a very large yellow silk tent appeared to be the most popular. Declan watched as a couple left the tent, their hands entwined, followed by an old woman with gray hair.
"Come, find your fate! See what The Gods have planned for you!" She called loudly and a group of young girls, hardly more than pups, followed her back inside giggling.
Declan stopped in the center of the clearing and tried to choose which tent would be right for him and there was a tug in his mind. He followed the pull to the tent closest to the forest, a drab, dull and small thing, made of simple tanned leather, it had no one waiting outside its entrance.
Declan had to duck to fit through the entrance. The scent of pine needles, burning cedar, incense, livestock and death filled his nose as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting from the low burning brazier. From the outside one would have thought to find this place to be bare. It was anything but,
There were chests of varying sizes, though most were small and gave no reason to be noticed, except for one of medium size made of strikingly familiar black wood with a large golden key lock instead of a touchpad. The were dressers and cabinets covered on top with jars of foul looking and foul smelling liquids with various creatures and body parts kept pickled within, he even saw a coffin and a large ornate wardrobe made from polished oak with a pack of running wolves carved in various symmetrical places.
Bones of all shapes and sizes hung from the ceiling. Bird, rodent, fox, even the bones of wolves.
In the center of the tent was a large rug, alderaani crafted maybe? He could not be certain other than it must of cost a fortune. It was nearly the size and width of the tent it was in. There was a gorgeously woven scene on the rug depicting a group of human hunters surrounded by a large pack of fearsome wolves, their leader being three times bigger than any of the others, black as the voice of space with blood dripping from its snout.
And off near a side flap in the tent was some kind of goat-like creature with horns, three feet long. It lay on a bed of hay and chewed merrily at some grass ignoring Dec completely
At a small round table in the center of the room
"Was a woman. She had olive skin and dark black hair streaked with gray. She wore a black dress with long sleeves. She must be sweltering in the heat of this tent. He thought. But not a bead of sweat could be found on the hard stern features of her admittedly handsome face.
For a minute or so they sat in a not quite uncomfortable silence as they studied one another. She had similar dark green eyes to him.
"Where is your sacrifice?" She asked him judgmentally.
"I've brought only what you see." He explained, which was nothing, just him half naked and empty handed.
The sternness of her features grew ever sterner as she regarded his words. " It will be enough."
She got up from her seat and Declan realized just how tall she was. Half a head shorter than him, that was all and without shoes, if she were to borrow Fi's shoes, he would've had to look up to meet her eyes. She went to a small cabinet and began rummaging through it, bottles clinking as she lifted them to inspect the contents.
After a fashion she tossed a few things onto the table including a mortar and pestle. She glided over to the goat thing and before Dec even knew what was happening, the creature let out a bleat as she clipped a piece of its horn. She tossed the piece of horn into the mortar along with a glittery silver dust and three fat purple berries. She crushed them all together into a paste before rising and rummaging through a different cabinet and returning with a plain bone white wooden cup, veined with red. Pulling a large golden key from yet another drawer, this one in the ornate wardrobe she opened the dark black chest and produced a sleek silver knife.
She strode to his side and placed her hand over his heart where Firenne's had been and once again his skin crawled with goosebumps though these were of a completely different nature. Sleek, sharp, silver-steel, slid slowly across his skin slicing a shallow slit that stood stock still for a second before the sanguine ichor began to spill forth.
He felt her eyes on him the whole time that she cut his flesh but he did not so much as flinch. He could not say whether she was impressed or disappointed. She filled the cup a quarter of the way with the blood that flowed from his chest and added the bone and berry paste, stirred it and topped it off with a sour smelling red wine darker than his blood had been.
"Drink." She told him as she held her hand to his chest once again, the blood rolling over her fingers like logs in a river. He drank deep as a painful burning emanated from his wound…or where his wound had been. It was gone, closed like it had never happened save for the fresh pink scar that was new to his chest among the many stark white and faded ones that he had entered the tent with.
"See you on the other side." She said while licking his blood from her fingers with a wicked smile.
He had no time to ponder what she meant before the floor melted from under his feet and he fell.
He fell for miles and miles, through earth, underground oceans, super heated minerals that made up the core and out the other side again until he stopped in the void of space. It was a darkness so deep and so penetrating, his soul was blind. He walked or he thought he did, he put the intention in his legs but he could not see them to know whether they obeyed. Above him the stars hung just out of his grasp, their light unable to reach him. He learned he must have been moving because in front of him there was a light out in the distance. Another star perhaps but lower than the rest, he hurried to catch it. As he got closer the light revealed itself not to be a star but rather a door.
Cold wind and the smell of smoke came through with the light. After stepping over the threshold Declan was face down in the snow, ice crystals biting at his cheeks, the smell of fire overwhelmed him and pushing himself up, to his horror he saw great gouts of red-orange flame greedily devouring the leaves of the yronwood forest. Without thinkinging he ran toward the blaze.
He crossed the treeline and the fires were gone and he found himself deep deep in The Wilds to a place he had never once been. There was a man in front of him, a great big hulking man with a great black beard and the largest battle axe Dec had ever seen strapped to his back. The man was on his knees in front of four mounds of fresh soft dirt and he was weeping with a howl of anguish unlike any noise Declan thought possible for a man to make. He wished to reach for him, to give some amount of comfort but before he could a great gale of wind swept a curtain of snow between them and when Declan could see again he was no longer in the woods.
He was home. In Hardhaven again. Declan's eyes filled with tears as he laid eyes on his father. Younger than Declan had ever known him but him all the same. He was sitting in the great seat of his house with a babe in his hands, smiling. A woman in a beautiful white dress stood at his arm. Strange, it was not his mother, yet this woman, olive skinned and blonde did not seem a stranger either. She looked up at him and there was a flash of light and he was blind again.
In the depth of his blindness he heard things he would not understand.
"Your sister." His father's voice was full of grief and tears.
"These are your new brothers." A familiar male voice told him
"Put the pack first."
His sight returned but not his wits. What he saw was impossible.
He saw himself covered in blood from head to heel, kneeling before Aerðs who looked down on him approvingly. The Father of Gods turned to the real Declan.
"Blood for Blood, Durinson. Nothing less."
And that was all he could recall. When next he was sane, he was no longer in the tent nor could he find it again when he looked. After a short time he had gone back and found Firenne, with whom he had spent nearly all his time the last few days as he tried in turn to figure out and forget what he saw.
Somehow Dec and Fi got word of Ellen's plan and Declan had decided that this must be the meaning of his vision. A trip through the stars to help reunite this girl with her family and take revenge on those who wronged her.
Declan walked up to Aelin and pressed a small bronze talisman into her palm. A runic expression of Aerðs that he had found in his pocket after his visit to the tent.
"Swear your oaths to Aerðs so The Father may bless your quest."
He did not need the talisman. Aerðs had always been his father's god and his brother's. Declan had always saw Rænör as the god he most closely identified with and yet to his surprise he had gained something else from the tent. The scar on his chest from the witch for that is exactly what she must have been, he had noticed bore a striking resemblance to the symbol for Cérmæ.
Aelin Erevos
Firenne Van-Derveld
Brynjar Threist
Gerwald Lechner
Varick Lechner
Miera Erevos
Declan Durinson
,
Børre Drage
