Page 144 of Blade of the Nightking

An eight-pointed star.

The hair rose on the back of my neck.

I turned back to the swirl of ink and color sprawled across the next two pages, my eyes darting at once to the curious symbols marking the three places within the chaos of lines.

Arrows.

Not south.

Down.

The eighth point of the star.

I rifled quickly back to the image of Tharnyx, pages rustling hurriedly beneath my fingers. My eyes swept across the illustration until I found it—so small I’d missed it entirely before. A tiny mark worked subtly into the edge of the image. An arrow angled toward the lower left diagonal.

I sat up straighter.

The Eidrae. I turned back several pages, my eyes racing across the rendering until I found it again: another small arrow, half-hidden near the bottom of the parchment, this one angled toward the upper right.

My eyes rose to the written passage.

Thus they stood as opposites—perfect counterweights upon the Star.

My mouth went dry.

I flipped backward again to the Keeper of Storms—the Tharuun. Sure enough, tucked subtly into the picture of storm-wreathed giants, another mark waited for me, this one angled toward the upper left diagonal.

The seven-pointed star was the symbol of the Seven Gods, though Aedric had taught me long ago that they were not gods at all, but the seven Firstborn—beings whose magic humans had mistaken for divine.

So what did this eight-pointed star represent? And why was each Firstborn tied to a different place upon it?

I turned back to the illustration of the well.

Shaking now, I gripped the book in both hands, ignoring the sickening smoothness of the aged skin, and brought it closer. At first, I’d assumed the dark scrawl beneath the stone face of the well belonged to the illustration itself—roots, perhaps. But now I saw it for what it was.

Handwriting.

Cramped. Hurried. Almost frantic.

I squinted, struggling to decipher the jagged scrawl. The first word had been smudged, as though a thumb had dragged through the ink before it had dried, but the rest was clear enough.

“... bound in blood at the Three Gates of Othyr.”

I sat bolt upright, cold adrenaline flooding my veins.

Without even thinking, I flung the blankets aside and swung my legs over the bed. I had to see him. Shoving on my slippers, I rushed through the apartments and yanked open the door hard enough that it struck the wall behind me.

Somehow, I knew he was still awake. The bond pulled me onward, every beat of my heart unnaturally loud in the silence.

I’d almost reached the turn in the hallway when the shadows beside me shifted and gathered. And then Veylan was there, as I knew he would be, stepping easily into stride beside me, his long legs effortlessly matching my hurried pace.

“Where do you think you’re going at this hour?”

“The library.”

The pause that followed lasted only a moment, but it was enough to tell me I’d caught him off guard.

“Why?” he mocked, his gaze dropping to the book I crushed tightly to my chest. “Is your book overdue?”