Chapter Twenty-Seven
Arken
This staircase was, unfortunately, a prime example of how I couldn’t kick Kieran’s ass if my life depended on it.
By the time we’d reached the top, I had to take a moment to catch my breath. Meanwhile, my tour guide hadn’t even broken a sweat, the fit bastard. That wouldn’t stop me from threatening him, though.
“You ready?” he asked, extending a hand. Whether it was to guide me or steady me, I took it, and pretended that the sharp breath I sucked in was just because I was winded. It certainly wasn’t the warmth of his rough fingers against mine, or the comforting nature of his firm grip. Of course not.
The stairway had led all the way to the very top of the wall, offering a birds-eye view of the entire city within, and behindus, the rolling hills and forests of Pyrhhas. It was absolutely breathtaking. I tried to take a moment to pause and enjoy the view, but Kieran tugged at my hand, pulling me towards the Northern Gates. There, two massive limestone walls met at a wide angle, and I felt the surge of aether before I saw anything.
Whoa.
Nestled in between where the two walls met was a massive, floating chunk of crystal, oddly reminiscent of the one from The Mural of Creation. The jagged, uncut gem sat atop what almost looked like a pewter brazier, also floating. Several sigils were carved in the stone beneath it, glowing softly with a blue-green hue—the telltale sign of Aetherborne arcana.
“Whatisthat?” I asked in awe as we approached.
“It’s a wardpoint. They’re made of astral quartz and some rare, arcane conductive ore mined from caverns in Luxtos and Stygos. There’s something about those two materials that can help contain and preserve the specific arcana that the Elders use to place wards. There’s one of these at every corner of Sophrosyne—six in total. The wardpoints make it so that they don’t have to come up and re-cast the protective magicks every other week. Sophrosyne is a pretty big city to keep constantly warded.”
I never really thought about that—hadn’t considered that warding arcana might be so complex that even the Aetherborne couldn’t preserve it with one single cast.
Then again, we had learned that the wards around Sophrosyne weren’t your average elemental barriers. They weren’t like the basic wards a strong Conduit might be able to set up. There were all sorts of alarms and detections woven into our city’s security system, including the one that would only allow you to pass through if you had the arcane tattoo that acted as your key.
“They’re so pretty,” I breathed, entranced by the iridescent shimmer of the astral quartz and the thrumming power of the arcana it clearly contained.
“I figured you might like them. Considering how buckwild you get over normal rocks,” he teased.
I ignored him and the weight of the several “normal” rocks I currently had in my pockets. The pebble I had found on the way here was not alone.
“Though, do me a favor and don’t go around telling people about them, alright?”
“Who would I even tell?” I laughed.
“I dunno. Laurel?”
“Laurel is far more concerned with a different element of Earth at the moment. You might even say she’s lost in the Craggs.”
Kieran snorted, catching my drift.
“I know, I trust you. And while you really aren’t supposed to be up here, it’s not like they’re some particularly dangerous secret. I would just prefer to keep my balls where they are, and my commander would probably feed them to me if he knew I was taking civilians up here.”
“Do you take people up here often?” I asked, trying to mask the disappointment in my voice.
“Nah. Just you,” he replied.
The disappointment dissipated, replaced by a warmth that I tried to ignore.
“I’m surprised that these aren’t one of those secrets that the Aetherborne keep bound by the brand,” I mused.
“Truth be told, I think that’s by design. Anyone who discovers that the wardpoints exist would probably make the assumption that they’re a weakness, right? Most people would default to thinking that if you disable them somehow, you’d take the city wards down.”
“Yeah, that was my assumption. Is that not the case?”
He shook his head.
“The wardpoints preserve the arcana, and thus they store a whole Hel of a lot of it at once, allowing the spellwork to trickle out over time. If anyone were to disable a wardpoint, several things would happen,” he explained, walking around the quartz to examine it from another angle.
“For starters, the Aetherborne would be alerted, and good fucking luck to whatever poor bastard made that poor life decision. But also, disabling the device would simply release all of that stored arcana at once. The wards would get stronger, not weaker—albeit temporarily.”