Chapter 1 - Part 1 of 5
THE DOORS THEY HEARD
Three years before the attack on Talvryn, before the Shards were again uttered in fear, and before the name of Zyrion crossed the realms, Eldrion opened its gates to welcome a generation of aspirants.
The city did not do it with trumpets.
He did it with a heartbeat.
No one could tell where it had come from. Some inhabitants claimed that it had been a vibration of the mountains; others, that the roots of the ancient trees had shaken under the houses. The merchants barely looked up as they sorted their cloths. The blacksmiths continued to pound on the metal. The women who lit the bread ovens attributed the tremor to the first cart of the morning.
Only the guardians of the four entrances to Eldrion interrupted their tasks.
The stones of the doors had made a sound.
It was not the groan of an old structure or the rustle of the wind blowing through the cracks. It was a low, prolonged note, like the echo of a bell buried too far away to be heard and too close to be ignored.
The sound was born when the sun was still hidden behind the eastern mountains. It ran along the walls, descended the columns that supported the sanctuary, and ended up under the central plaza, where the water channels formed the symbol of a dragon with outstretched wings.
Afterwards, everything was silent.
A guardian rested his palm on the western arch. The surface was warm.
“That hadn’t happened before,” he muttered.
The companion watching beside him slowly withdrew his hand from the hilt of his sword.
“Today the summoned ones arrive. Maybe the door felt them.”
“The doors do not feel.”
“Then you’d better not touch it again.”
The first guardian did not respond. Above them, the golden banners of Eldrion began to flutter, even though the air remained still.
At the shrine, several lamps were lit without anyone approaching a flame.
And in a corridor closed for generations, an inscription covered in dust lost one of its cracks, as if the stone had begun to heal.
Zyrion first saw Eldrion from a hill covered in yellow grass.
She was fifteen years old, her dark hair tousled by three days’ walk, and green eyes that seemed to take on a different glow each time the light changed. The cloak she wore over her shoulders was worn at the edges. She had mended one of the straps of her bag with a bootstrap, and tied the waterskin so poorly that it struck her hip with every step.
He stopped at the top and looked out over the city.
Eldrion stretched between two arms of mountain. From that distance, its roofs looked like scales of copper and slate, superimposed around a central tower. The outer wall did not form a perfect circle. It followed the natural curves of the terrain and, in places, merged with moss-covered rock walls. Four paths descended from different regions and converged in front of their gates.
Zyrion opened his mouth slowly.
“I was expecting something smaller.”
The driver of a wagon a few steps behind gave a raspy laugh. He had allowed Zyrion to walk alongside the vehicle for the latter part of the trip, but had refused to let him on after the boy asked three questions in a row about the cargo.
“Smaller?”
“Yes. Something with two houses, a fountain, and a mysterious old man waiting at the entrance.”
“Eldrion has hundreds of houses.”
“Then there will be hundreds of mysterious elders. It will be difficult to find the right one.”
The driver shook his head and gently tugged on the reins. The animals began the descent.
“Have you really been called to study at the sanctuary?”
Zyrion pulled from the inside pocket of his cloak a rectangular piece of dark wood. On one side was engraved the emblem of Eldrion, a circle crossed by three curved lines. On the other was his name, marked with silver ink that could not be erased.
“That’s what he says.”
“It doesn’t seem like a very safe answer.”
“Safety is overrated. If I say I don’t know what I’m doing, people lower their expectations. After that, anything that goes right seems extraordinary.”
“What if everything goes wrong?”
Zyrion put the card away.
“Then I’ll say that I noticed it from the beginning.”
The driver laughed again, but Zyrion no longer accompanied him.
The road descended through golden fields. Beyond the plots could be seen a burnt tree, isolated in the middle of the grass. Its black trunk was divided into two main branches, and no leaves grew on them.
Zyrion watched him for too long.
An uncomfortable sensation settled behind his ribs. It wasn’t pain. Nor could he call it a memory. It was more like the certainty of having heard a voice seconds before he woke up, a voice whose meaning disappeared as soon as he opened his eyes.
He looked away.
“Don’t start,” he said to himself in a low voice.
“Are you talking to me?” the driver asked.
“No.”
“That worries me more.”
Zyrion quickened his pace. The air smelled of damp earth, freshly cut grain, and wood smoke. As he approached, he found that Eldrion was louder than it seemed from the hill. Wheels struck the stones on the road. Vendors shouted prices from stalls set up outside the wall. Animal bells mingled with hammers and conversations.
People came from many places. Some wore brightly colored clothes; others plain armor or dust-covered cloaks. Zyrion searched for the dark tokens in the travelers’ hands and found several.
He was not the only one called.
The thought reassured him for a moment.
Then he wondered how many would be better than him.
The token inside his pocket warmed up.
Zyrion stopped.
He touched it over the cloth. The heat disappeared immediately.
“Perfect,” he murmured. “Now I also imagine things. Excellent start.”
The wagon driver continued not to hear him. Zyrion stood alone by the roadside as a stream of travelers passed on either side.
From the depths of the mountain came a second heartbeat.
This time no one else seemed to notice.
Kyrahna looked out over Eldrion from the north, where the path descended between pines and white stones.
He was fourteen years old and had kept the same pace since dawn, even when the ground became slippery from the fog. His golden curls were gathered so that the wind would not blow them over his face. The gray cloak that covered his shoulders kept tiny drops on the edges, and his boots showed the mud of roads that did not appear on all maps.
He didn’t stop when he saw the city.
He studied it as he walked.
He counted the visible towers, identified the surveillance platforms, and followed the course of the river until he found the bars that protected its entrance under the wall. Then he observed the central sanctuary, taller than the nearby buildings, with narrow windows that reflected the light of the morning.
I’d heard stories about Eldrion since I was little. In some, the city stood on the tomb of a dragon. In others, its founders had built the first houses around a stone that spoke during storms. No story matched another, except for one detail: people who entered Eldrion seeking answers often left with more dangerous questions.
Kyrahna was carrying one of those questions.
She hid it even from herself.
She reached into a bag around her waist and brushed against the summoning token. She had received it after a visitor to the shrine had watched her stop a falling lamp. Kyrahna had not touched the object. She had only reached out in fright, and for a moment the light seemed to hang in a golden light.
Everyone said it was a reflex.
So is she.
From then on, the lamps lit up too easily when he approached.
Eldion’s token remained cold between his fingers.
“That’s better,” he whispered.
A group of travelers overtook her. One of them told her that the northern entrance was reserved for merchants and inhabitants of the nearby forests. Those summoned had to go around part of the wall to the western gate.
Kyrahna looked at the map folded inside her cloak.
The marked route ended precisely at the northern entrance.
He raised his eyes to the traveler.
“Since when did you change the access?”
“Two seasons ago. A landslide damaged the inner courtyard.”
“The map was sealed less than a month ago.”
The traveler looked at the document and then looked at the wall, uncomfortable.
“So whoever drew it hadn’t come recently.”
Kyrahna put the map away.
“Or I wanted it to come this way.”
He continued to the north gate.
Two guardians blocked the seekers’ access. One pointed to the path around the city, but Kyrahna showed the token and the map. The guardian examined both objects several times.
“Your name is on the Western record,” he said.
“I know.”
“Then you must report there.”
“I will. First I need to know why someone marked this door.”
“It may be a mistake.”
“Shrine seals are not usually affixed by mistake.”
The second guardian came over and took the map. As he unfolded it, a gust of wind swept across the stone arch. The extinguished torches were lit at the same time with a pale flame.
The three of them looked up.
Kyrahna felt a quick heat at her fingertips.
He withdrew his hand and hid it under his cloak.
The first guardian extinguished one of the torches with a cloth. The flame resurfaced as soon as he removed the cloth.
“Go to the western entrance,” he ordered, now less confidently. “We will show this to the sanctuary.”
Kyrahna retrieved the map.
“I want to be there when they do.”
“If Master Eldren decides to receive you, you can ask him.”
Kyrahna held the guardian’s gaze for a few seconds. Then she tilted her head slightly and turned away.
He didn’t argue any more.
But as he rounded the wall, he went over every line of the map. Looking at it in the light, he discovered something he had not seen during the journey. Below the line that marked the north gate was an almost invisible mark, an incomplete curve like half an eye.
When he tried to touch it, the ink disappeared.
