Daughters of Fate Book 3 | An Original Fantasy Adventure

Chapter 31 (28th of Earonitan in the year 6200)

"So why can't we just go through?" Gregory dismounted next, leaving the mount Reane had bequeathed to him to graze in some stubs of grass. The seer, having since departed on some mysterious journey, had obviously no further use for it.

"If the mind believes in something, then there is nothing left to fool."

Brentai leaned forward in his saddle. "But you're supposed to be able to find the way. That's what Reane said."

"Yes. Well, not so much me, but the fairies I am connected to. Since they are intimately joined to the land. They are not fooled as easily as we are." Sayra drew forth the pendant, like Sheala's, she had carried since before this journey began. It was glowing and lively as she moved it in front of the face of seemingly all too real stone before them.

As she performed the ritual, everyone could see how what laid before them changed as it fell within the sphere of the medallion's influence. The mountain was still before them, but it moved to new locations as she walked with her medallion held before her.

Continuing to drift along the wall, Sayra was eventually quite a ways away from the rest of her companions and having still found nothing but solid stone. The elf turned to them and beckoned them to follow. "Come. We will search for the way. It may, however, not be nearby."

"Great." Sheala's muttered curse wasn't so quiet that no one else heard. "What I wouldn't give for a map right about now."

"Nothing worth having comes easy," Brentai replied to her frustration as they urged their horses on and began to follow and plod along.

Their otaur companion began to follow while her uncle's former man-at-arms collected the reigns for his mount as well as the elven First Mother's and walked the distance. "The Tear is too powerful to allow it to be claimed easily," he said. "If it weren't for this?" He motioned to the stone that was both real and not real. "Lord Hedric would have reclaimed it long ago. And used it for his own ends."

"It makes sense that something with as much power as this stone supposedly possesses would need to be secured. Still, that does make one wonder. Why was it kept in a temple in Roatsburg for all those years before Lord Hedric's reign? You know, if it was so dangerous to let people have access to it?"

Gregory shrugged. "Before that damnable Blood Lord and his demon queen decimated the lands, the power of the Tear of Earoni was respected. The priests were able to guard it without fear that someone would misuse it. And that as long as they possessed it, they could use it for good."

"People are arrogant," Sheala replied, drawing a look from Brentai and Gregory. "They always think they can control things not meant for them. That's what my mother used to say about the Priests of Hitithe and the Tear. She talked about how if they hadn't been so pompous, they could have stopped all this from ever happening—stopped Lord Hedric's ascension to power."

"What did she mean by that? Was she insinuating that the priests had some hand in all this?"

"It's just what she said." Sheala shrugged. "Maybe she explained it further at one time and I just wasn't listening. I don't know. I was never really that interested in the aspects of religion. And now, here I am, fulfilling one of its prophecies."

"If you're all done waxing philosophically?" Sayra stood at a particular location along the illusionary wall up ahead. "I believe I have found us a way in."

Holding her medallion up, it revealed a schism in the stone about four feet wide heading into the mountains.

Sheala's surprise rolled out as a groan of words. "I thought it'd have taken longer."