Sintija guided them beyond the pass to a narrow trail that terminated at a waterfall. The wind howled as heavy snowflakes swirled around them and she urged Markos to keep riding. Whether it was magic or an optical illusion that hid the entrance didn't matter, they continued into the mountain wall and found themselves in a large, dry cavern of glistening grey stone. As Sintija crossed the threshold, she felt a shift in the air and a deadening of the pulse of the Word. It would have been unsettling if she hadn't been prepared for it.
She looked at Markos over her shoulder. The visor hid his face and cast deeper shadows within his helmet and she wondered how he was able to see anything out it. "Is your helmet lined too or are you suffering this weather with stoic resolve?" With all of her teasing, she knew that he was a skilled templar. She could feel the cold emanating from his plate and appreciated that he suffered through it.
The tatya hini waited a couple of heartbeats as she scanned the chamber. She pulled a small sphere from a pouch and raised it above her head. She sang a soft note and the sphere hummed in her hand, the sound resonated around them causing blue lights to slowly appear in the ceiling. She sang a second note, and the humming intensified, casting the chamber in cyan light. She knew it wasn't magic but she wasn't sure if the templar had ever seen the inside of a Maraium cave. "We call them tuning stones. The vibrations react to the lesser Heartstone embedded in the Maraium and generate light." She lowered her hand and held the sphere for Markos to see as she leaned back against his breastplate, the hood of cloak fell away as she continued to look up at him.
"Tuning stones," replied Markos Louvel. The light cast its strange light and his armor, as silvery-white as it was, seemed the frostier for it. He didn't move to take it. If he looked down at her, it was through the rigid visor, and she couldn't see the movement, not really, though she got the sense of it.
He encouraged the horse further into the black-walled cave as the sphere drove the darkness out in front of them. The ceiling sloped upwards, up beyond where the cyan light could reach it, and the cave became a cavern. A long ways away, they could hear what seemed to be a mountain stream or at least the movement of water from deeper within.
Otherwise, the silence lay cold and damp, its mountain air that had been trapped for too long underground.
"We can stop when you are ready," Sintija spoke softly again disturbing the silence. "I can help you set camp and you can shed some of your armor." She sang softly to the stone and wondered how the evening would go. "I see you are well."
"The aphotic fled north," came his answer to the unasked question. His mood seemed as chilly as the winter. She could already feel the pulse of frustration with her that she had so often felt from afar. Up close, it felt too real, like a stranger had touched her shoulder.
"I can help you find it... aphotics are a threat to everyone," she gentled. "An ember will answer the call... if they are allowed to.. but even they would need to seek shelter from the storm. They are immune to the cold but blizzards are bad for horses."
His shoulders tensed and he reined the horse, though not hard. The small party came to a halt in the maw of the cavern, looking deeper. It seemed he had chosen the place, or maybe he had just stopped. "Why would you?"
"Aphotics are a blight to all living things... I would like you to continue living," she intoned softly. "Is that such an evil thing to wish?" Sintija felt small in front of the templar but she smiled over her shoulder at him.
"You haunt my dreams," he said, "Dog my thoughts, tease my evenings, and now I meet you in the middle of a blizzard waiting like some sort of ghost." The helmet moved upwards, so that he could view the darkness of the cavern more thoroughly. "I am surprised this cavern hasn't come alive to kill me."
"When you see me, do you feel that I mean you harm?" She watched his face curiously, "If it makes you feel any better, you haunt me as well. So now that you have me here, what do you wish to do?" She pushed some of her hair free of her cloak.
The man reached up to unbuckle his helmet and when he removed it, she saw that he had worn a scarf, the outside of which seemed rife with frost crystals, as chilly as the helmet's visor had been. His iron-blue eyes tended towards greener hues near the iris; he set the helmet aside on his saddle.
Markos loosened the scarf from his face, letting it hang about his neck. "I wish to know why." His voice sounded hoarse from the cold now that the layers didn't muffle it.
"The Word told me how to save you and the cost... " Sintija glanced at the tuning stone in her hand before she looked back up at him. "I had to use my life to save yours, it was the toll I paid to keep you out of Mara's grasp. I didn't realise that we would resonate."
Without the helmet or the scarf, Markos's breath misted in the cold, just like the horse's. "Resonate?"
Sintija turned so that she was facing Markos on the horse. Her leather covered legs pressed the Maraium plate that covered his. "Like the tuning stone and the Heartstone above. It picks up on the energy from the sound, the vibration and reacts to it.. in the way of the Heartstone and the tuning stone, it results in light." She reached up to touch his face but stopped herself, letting her hand linger near his face. "We see echoes of each other. I saw what happened after I left. I am glad you recovered."
"You bound us by magic." Markos looked at her hand, looked back to her, his jaw working on the issue.
His attention wandered the cavern again. After the realization had worked its course through his expression, from annoyance and anger to that sort of grim, humorless half-cocked smile that seemed peculiar to Templars, soldiers, and men who worked in charnel houses dicing up other people as a method of business, he seemed to find some measure of peace from the answer.
Eventually with a rough laugh and a sort of corpse humor he continued, "At least you're pretty. You hear stories. Every once in a while, some old hag of a witch spells up some sap in a bar."