Keith Sterling's Arc

Chapter 2 of 8

Keith left the tower with the ring on his hand and a new fear in his chest. Halfway down the hills, the metal went cold. He held it up. The engraved face had gone gray. The blue thread it once carried was gone. He remembered the creature's warning. The ring held his soulmate's trace magic, and that trace was fading fast. Without it, the rite would stay sealed and the name would stay hidden. He needed help, and he needed it soon. The silver owl found him again. Its mirror wings flashed as it dropped from the sky. It circled his dimming ring, then flew low toward a wall of climbing roses. Keith followed. The roses parted around a stone arch. A single red bloom crowned the top, and light spilled from the doorway beneath it. He stepped through. Inside stood a small woman in blue robes. She held a staff topped with a glowing stone. Her hair was white, and her eyes were pale and blind. She turned toward him before he spoke. "You carry a dying thing," she said. Her voice was calm. "I hear it going quiet." Keith held out the ring. "An oracle," he said. "You're the one who can wake it." "Lysandra Moonsight," she answered. "And yes. But not with words." She reached out and touched his cold hand without missing it. "The trace inside this ring feeds on one thing. The petals of the bloodrose. Crush them here, on the altar of this place, and the magic drinks them." She led him deeper. Roses grew thick along the walls. At the center stood a low stone altar. Lysandra plucked a deep crimson flower from the vines. Its petals were dark red, soft, edged with small thorns. She pressed them into Keith's palm. "Lay the ring down," she said. "Cover it with the petals. Then hold your grief for him in your mind. The bond feeds on that too." Keith set the gray ring on the altar. He piled the crimson petals over it. He thought of the man whose name he could not say, whose face he had never seen. His throat tightened. The petals began to darken and shrink. A red light seeped up through them. Then the ring blazed. The petals crumbled to ash. The engraved face shone bright and warm again, and the blue thread rose from it, taut, pointing past the roses toward the world outside. "It is charged," Lysandra said. "The rite can proceed." She turned her blind face to him. "But the ring is only the first of three. You have the second now, gathered here from these vines. The third still hides. And I will tell you where." Keith closed his hand around the warm ring. It lived again. The name was one step closer, and one hunt remained.