“Well, we need to destroy it, so we’ll take it back with us to the capital until I can figure out a way to do it safely.”
Lachlan’s brow furrows as he shakes his head again. “We’ll ha’ to find another way. We canna bring that thing all the way back to the capital.”
“How do you destroy it?” Cynane asks, picking up her mead again.
“Raven stone.”
She scoffs. “We have loads of that here.” My brows raise and Cynane continues. “A long time ago, someone carved a hole into the mountain, so there’s an entire room made of that black stone.”
Her words spark an idea in my mind.
“What if we pull the stone into the mountain?” I ask Lachlan. “The raven stone had negated the venom in the room that Luna was in because the rune worked to put her to sleep.”
“Aye, but wouldn’t ye ha’ to seal the room off somehow?”
Cynane throws the rest of her mead back and wipes droplets of it off her chin with the back of her hand.
“There is a door for the room.”
I stare open-mouthed at her. Why the heck is there a door for a mountain?
“You do?”
“People used it for rituals, so they needed to be able to close it off.”
This could solve our problem. But her words have piqued my curiosity. “What kind of rituals?”
I take a bite of the food, enjoying the melding of flavors.
“Death rituals.”
The food gets trapped in my throat as I gasp while swallowing.
“What?” I ask, between coughs. Lachlan roughly pats my back as he chuckles.
“Some warriors worshipped the Morrigan. They’d eat the mushrooms that grow in the forest and then lock themselves in that room to relive their deaths as a way to worship her,” she answers, her eyes alight with ferocity.
“Like the berserkers used to …” I murmur.
The ritual sounds eerily familiar to the legends of the berserkers. My mother used to tell me stories about the elite Vikings who would eat mushrooms to slip into a chaotic state before going into battle. They reaped chaos and madness across villages, killing all who crossed their paths.
She grins broadly before her smile fades. “We really don’t do much of that anymore since we couldn’t heal when magic started fading.”
Lachlan leans over to whisper in my ear, “Is that a tradition you’re going to bring back, too?”
“To each their own.” I giggle and take a swig of my mead.
Lachlan merely shakes his head, diving back into his food.
“So you need to get the crystal and drag it into the cave?”
“Yeah, I think that would be safer than puncturing the crystal and siphoning the venom out like last time.”
The screams and smell of mutilated flesh from Tane’s accident have me pushing my plate away.
“Unless you have a better idea?” I ask her hopefully. I will try anything at this point if it would mean restoring magic and keeping everyone safe.
She gnaws on her bottom lip. “You should talk to Boudicca. Her people might have legends about this.”
