The vicinity of the lake was just shaking off the short, morning rain. Nature was still immersed in silence, every little sound, even coming from afar, reached the mansion clear and pure.
"Good morning," Yanka's warm greeting has never been as calming to me as in the past few days, when me and Sril brought breakfast to her room. "Thank you so much."
"How are you feeling today?" Sril sat down on the chair next to the night table. I chose the free space at the feet of her bed, next to the napping Talia.
"Much better."
A week passed since our last encounter with Shaeth. Yanka was recovering quickly after this painful experience, thanks to the powers of her sath and the care of everyone in the mansion.
She was very interested in how exactly we got rid of Shaeth and his beasts after she fell into the lake, so I explained what exactly I saw, and Sril what he felt.
"Some theories have been loitering in my head recently..." she started. "I think what we assumed from Carath's explanation wasn't exactly precise."
"Why?"
"The reason why Sril's sword reacted the way it did, wasn't because of two pieces of the same magic meeting after a long time. It was rather the old magic trapped in the sath meeting the one in the sword, but the latter has been changed over the years and has taken a new form. It might have been some sort of magical discharge, similar to a thunderbolt. And speaking of thunderbolts... aren't they able to set trees on fire even in rain?"
"Well, yes..." her words sparked a memory in my head and I felt a chill of excitement along my spine. "Wait, you think..."
"I already know," Sril gave me a happy smile. "The appearance of fire in rain was caused by the connection of two kinds of magic, the one placed in the sath by the dragons and the one Ares used to change crystal into a blade... It's similar, when the magic of the dragons meets the magic of a druid..."
"So wait," I suddenly understood something, "does that mean it will only work for you two? Because you carry two different types of magic with you?"
"Well yeah..." But before I could start feeling bad about it, she added: "There is no need for it though. You are strong enough as you are. And your strength will definitely be enough to destroy this cursed thing..." she glanced mistrustfully towards the little shard of the Dawn of Edron, lying between us on the bed sheets.
"After all that I've seen until now though, somehow I don't think that simple fire or a hammer would be enough here..." I muttered, poking it with my finger carefully.
"Regarding that..." Sril suddenly spoke up, lowering his cup back to his lap, "I think I would rather advice against it."
For a moment, there was a hush in the room.
"Why?" I finally asked.
"Knowing the unpredictable nature of mages, especially those from the Cadreesh lineage, it could be protected by some spells. It could hurt us, who knows, maybe even kill us."
Yanka watched him for a few moments, as if contemplating his words. "Could one of you be so kind and bring the Dracsion from upstairs please?" she suddenly asked. "Maybe something about it is mentioned there... maybe I overlooked something about the crystals while reading it..."
I nodded and ran upstairs. As soon as I brought the heavy book, Yanka started to leaf through it, skipping some pages almost completely, and staying longer on others. Finally, she lowered the book a little, sighing with a hint of defeat. "There is nothing about anything like that in here... maybe there isn't really a danger and we are being too careful."
"I still wouldn't want to risk it," insisted Sril. "I think it wouldn't hurt to just keep the crystal safe with us for a while, that way Shaeth can't access it's powers anyway..."
"Maybe we could ask Carath to look further into it."
"You know I would rather not depend on him..."
I was quiet. I watched the innocent stone, lying on the bed sheets. I wasn't sure, but when Yanka lowered the book a moment ago, and it came closer to the crystal, it seemed to me as if it reacted by lighting up with a short, hazy glow...
"What do you think Sian?" I heard Yanka's voice, but her question felt irrelevant right now. I gently grabbed the edges of the book and took it from her hands.
I closed it book, then turned it around to the backside. There was an inlay of brighter beech in the dark oak of the backcover, forming an ornamental letter "D". I brushed the shape with my fingertips, moved the book closer to the crystal again... and suddenly felt the letter sinking a bit under the slight pressure I was putting on it. Surprised, I retreated my hand and the wooden fragment followed my fingers, revealing a tiny compartment. Inside of it rested a piece of parchment, folded in four, and... a crystal, a little smaller than the one lying on the bed, but there was absolutely no doubt, that they were two pieces of the same whole.
There was a moment of silence, that covered the room.
"You're a genius, you know that?" Yanka finally spoke through it.
"It was just a feeling..." I took the contents of the compartment out and opened the book at its last page. The thickness of the backcover didn't match what was hidden in it at all... "This makes no sense..."
"Just like three quarters of everything that happened in the last few months," Sril remarked with a hint of amusement.
Yanka took the two crystals and opened the book again. She seemed to give something a bit of thought, before she spoke up again. "So if the book can react to the magic of the Sunrise, then maybe..." she leafed through it again, to the same page she stopped at before. She held one of the stones close to the script. For a few seconds, nothing happened. And then thin lines started appearing between the lines of words, getting longer, connecting, forming letters...
We almost stopped moving and breathing, when Yanka quickly ran with her slender fingers through the lines, allowing her to do it in peace was almost strenuous.
"If what's written here is true, we really shouldn't try to get rid of it..."
"Why?"
"Supposedly, there is something called the Sanctuary of the Dawnguard, a place where the crystals were kept safe by the Cadreesh mages for many years... the Last Dragons suspected that a spell was put on them, which would transport the stones into that safe heaven if anyone should attempt to destroy them. It may be just an assumption, but still..."
"If it's true, then trying to destroy them would be like placing them right in Shaeth's hands," Sril clenched his fingers a bit around the handle of his cup. "Which would make creating more hybrids and who knows what else wonderfully easy for him."
"And would make our lives wonderfully difficult."
"Well then, we should just keep them with us and protect them with all we have I guess... and find that sanctuary."
"Yes, but how?"
In response, Yanka unfolded the piece of parchment. There were just a few lines written on it, made of slender letters, more delicate than would be possible with the thinnest of feathers.
Yanka started to translate. "We wait for you in the city, where we welcome the day with a show of pearly light... We stealthy come there during night... we breathe the earthly essence at dawn... and by the noon, alas, we're gone... The next piece of our enemy's power we shall give to you... so it can not to the green summits of the disinherited ruler return..."
We fell silent yet again.
"I don't understand anything as usual..."
Even so, I had the feeling that something stirred in my memory, as if I wasn't hearing these words for the first time...
"Why write it in riddles, when only a druid would be able to read it anyway?" Yanka apparently shared my opinion.
"Maybe we should take a look at a map of Edron, see if that brings any ideas," Sril stood up. "I'll be right back."
When he brought the map from the library upstairs and carefully spread it out on the bed, all three of us leaned over it. We searched for a spot that could be suitable to start our search for a moment.
"Maybe it's about an island?" Yanka finally spoke up, pointing at an irregular shape surrounded by azure, drawn a little below the eastern edge of the Sevren Forest. "The sea is what I would associate pearls with..."
"Me too, but why would that 'pearly light' come at night and vanish by noon every day? This has to be some kind of metaphor..."
"Maybe it's about the capital?" I looked to the tiny drawing of the royal castle. "Some people were walking around there adorned with jewels like bushes with gooseberries. I'm pretty sure there were some pearls among those..."
"But that still leaves the issue of vanishing every day... or maybe it's about the trade in the capital, you know, trading goods for jewels?"
I sighed and skimmed through the depiction of the land a bit further. I admired the meticulously drawn trees of the Sevren Forest, then my gaze slipped along the silvery coast of the sea towards the east, past the harbor city Lan...
"Something wrong?" asked Yanka, when I frowned and leaned closer to the parchment.
"Tritia..." my finger rested on the name of a pretty big, seaside city further to the east. "Isn't that city sometimes called 'The City of Pearls'?"
Sril raised his eyebrows. "I'm not sure, but I think I've really heard of it... I have no idea why it's called that though."
"I read about it once... yeah, I'm pretty sure it was one of those books that my tutor told me to put back to the shelf as meaningless and silly. It was about a traveling troupe that settled down there for a while and eventually decided to stay for good, which resulted in the founding of the city..." I took a brief moment to recall the words. "'We never even noticed until sunrise came... it was like they used the night to sneak up on us. But once light greeted the world, they responded with a sparkle more beautiful than a royal treasury...'"
"And such useful verses can be found while being captured in luxurious royal chambers against ones will?" Yanka eyed me with amused admiration.
I laughed. "Thank Carath. He probably had no idea that thanks to his little prank, I would familiarize myself with something that would put us on the right track now."
"Instead of learning how to rule the land you mean."
"I never wanted to do it anyway, even when I still had no idea who I really was."
"But maybe we could use this somehow too," Sril interjected suddenly. "After all, the king died 'childless' just recently, everyone thinks his 'son' shared the same fate or vanished forever. If he was suddenly found... maybe you could invoke your right to rule and organize some forces that could stand against Shaeth and whatever he's still about to conjure up..."
"That would be just pure swindle," I wasn't sure if he was joking or being totally serious. "Besides, I really don't feel any urge to go back to what I've been through there... and I don't want to put simple people at risk of experiencing something so horrible."
"You're right, I'm sorry. It was silly of me."
"It's alright," I soothed, but still watched him a bit unsurely. "Yial must have had some relatives, I'm sure someone will soon take care of everything. If it hasn't already happened."
"Most probably..."
I couldn't hold it back anymore. "Sril... are you alright?"
My friend seemed to hesitate shortly, before he gave me a gentle smile. "I just thought of how much you've changed since our first meeting."
"I've changed? How so?"
"You were asking questions back then... now you're answering them."
"I told you, he's growing up," Yanka smiled. "We should give Tritia a try. Even if we still don't know what the riddle means or why the city is called the City of Pearls, I think it's a good place to start."
"And maybe we can find some information about the Sanctuary as we go."
"Maybe."
"Well then, it's up to you now when we can set sail, Yanka."
She gave me an innocent smile. "It would go quicker if you would bring me another piece of tart from Kaan."
I stood up and bowed a little. "As you wish, my lady."