Chapter 11

  Back in our room, we were all exhausted—but not quite finished.

  Vin went straight to work, kneeling near the far wall and focusing on the patches of mold creeping between the wooden beams. With a soft hum and a few whispered words, green light flickered between her fingers, and the decay slowly began to fade. I was grateful.

  Simon sat cross-legged in the corner, his face pale, eyes twitching across the pages of his notebook as he scribbled line after line of notes. The scratching of his pen was rapid, nervous. Focused. He was trying to make sense of what we’d found—or perhaps trying not to lose his mind in the process.

  As for me, I dropped onto the edge of the bed with a tired sigh and removed my helmet. My armor was dust-covered from the tunnel and the rune-chamber, so I took out a cloth and quietly set to work cleaning it. One piece at a time. Small, familiar movements to ground myself in the chaos.

  And then Maira sat down beside me.

  She didn’t ask.

  She didn’t need to.

  She just eased onto the mattress, close enough to feel but not to crowd. Her presence was calm, quiet. And unexpected.

  She knew I wasn’t interested in hearing about her faith. I’d made that clear enough. And after what she’d told me in the chamber, the last thing I expected was a follow-up conversation. But she didn’t say a word about death, or Erebos, or how the shadows whispered to her at night.

  She just sat.

  I didn’t tell her to leave.

  Whatever complicated thing we were—or weren’t—now wasn’t the time to draw lines. Not after what we’d seen. Not with what was coming.

  After a moment, she spoke. Her voice was soft, almost cautious.

  “I think I should explain something,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “Something about the role of sacrifice in summoning rituals.”

  I paused in cleaning my vambrace and glanced at her.

  “Fine,” I replied. Probably a bit harsher than I intended. “If it helps us understand what we’re dealing with.”

  If she noticed my tone, she didn’t comment. Her expression remained neutral—but I thought I caught a flicker of hurt in her eyes. Then it was gone, replaced by the calm precision she used whenever she was about to launch into one of her infamous lectures.

  “Before I can explain the function of sacrifice,” she said patiently, “you need to understand the basics of summoning—and death.”

  Here we go, I thought grimly.

  Esotericism. Theology. Spirit channels. The kind of talk I usually tuned out the moment it started. But Maira was in her element now, her posture straightening ever so slightly, her voice growing more confident with each word.

  She wasn’t just reciting knowledge.

  She believed it.

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  And clearly, nothing I said—or didn’t say—was going to stop her now.

  So I leaned back a little, set my cloth down, and resigned myself to what was shaping up to be a long, possibly frustrating, and probably uncomfortable lesson in the metaphysical mechanics of summoning death-born abominations from beyond the veil.

  Wonderful.

  Just the relaxing bedtime story I needed.

  “So,” Maira began, her tone calm but firm, “let’s start with death.”

  I gave her a surprised look. “We’re starting… at the end?”

  She smiled faintly. “Yes—and no. You see, Luken, death isn’t just the cessation of life. It’s the severing of something deeper. The soul and the body—two halves of a whole—are forcibly torn apart.”

  She paused, and there was a quiet intensity building behind her words. I leaned in, despite myself.

  “Once that connection is broken,” she continued, “the soul is no longer bound to this world. It travels—upward or downward. To what we call the Higher or Lower Realms. The place you end up depends on… well, many things. But that’s not the part that matters right now.”

  She raised a finger as if to underline the next sentence.

  “The part that matters—what has everything to do with summoning—is what happens in the moment of that severing.”

  I found myself listening more closely than I expected. She had a way of drawing you in, even when you didn’t want to be caught.

  “What does happen?” I asked quietly.

  Maira took a slow breath. Her voice dropped slightly, growing solemn.

  “When a soul leaves the body, it releases an immense surge of raw mana.”

  “Mana,” I repeated, nodding. “The energy that fuels all spellcasting.”

  “Exactly,” she said, her eyes meeting mine. “And summoning magic—true summoning magic, the kind that bridges realms—is among the most mana-intensive forms of spellwork that exists.”

  She leaned forward slightly, her expression now shadowed by something else. Guilt? Sadness? Maybe both.

  “And that,” she said softly, “is why people make sacrifices. Not out of malice. Not always. But because it’s one of the only ways to generate enough mana… all at once.”

  I frowned, the pieces clicking together more uncomfortably than I liked.

  “So the sacrifice—” I began.

  “—isn’t about cruelty,” she finished for me. “It’s about fuel. About forcing a door open between our world and theirs.”

  She fell silent for a moment, her gaze drifting down to her clasped hands. I could tell there were things she wasn’t saying. Things she might never say. But what she had said… was more than enough.

  If what she described was true—and I believed her, gods help me—then that altar we found in the rune chamber… that untouched, pure altar…

  It wasn’t meant for display.

  It was waiting to be used.

  “The murder of the stable boy,” I said slowly, the words heavy on my tongue, “makes a lot more sense now.” I turned my gaze back to Maira. “But what I don’t understand—”

  “Is why they killed him so far in advance of the summoning?” she finished for me, her voice low. She nodded grimly. “I’ve been wondering the same. The only thing that makes sense… is that they didn’t let his soul go.”

  I blinked. “You think they trapped it?”

  “Yes,” she replied without hesitation. “It’s the only explanation that justifies killing him days before the ritual. Otherwise, the mana would’ve dissipated, the soul would’ve moved on… and the sacrifice would’ve been meaningless.”

  A cold chill slithered down my spine. The idea of someone being murdered and then held, soul caged like an animal—it made the air around us feel thinner.

  “Then the altar we found,” I muttered, “must be meant for a second offering.”

  Maira’s eyes widened in alarm. “If that’s true—if they need two sacrifices—then the spell they’re casting… the mana required would be far beyond anything I’ve ever seen.”

  She looked genuinely shaken. And that worried me more than I wanted to admit. If she was afraid, if someone like her thought this was beyond reason, then we weren’t just chasing rogue mages anymore.

  We were staring down the kind of power that could change a region—maybe even a continent.

  “So,” I said, exhaling slowly, “if we want to stop them from unleashing some nightmare from the Lower Realms, our only choice is to prevent the second sacrifice.”

  Maira gave a small, bitter laugh. “Put simply… yes.”

  There was nothing more to add. The gravity of it all had settled in like a weight on our shoulders. I noticed Simon in the corner, packing away his notebook and muttering something under his breath as he collapsed onto his bedroll. Vin followed suit shortly after, curling up with her cloak draped over her like a blanket.

  Maira and I exchanged a final look, and without another word, we both stood and made our way to our own beds. No prayers. No jokes. Just silence.

  Tomorrow, everything would begin: the investigation, the hunt for the Crytomancers and, possibly, the fight to stop a second death.