Chapter 502: The Seal of Three Stones

There was silence in the hall, thick enough to press against the ears, as everyone stared at Eldric. Seconds stretched, slow and deliberate, and still he said nothing.

Mary cleared her throat, her voice cutting softly through the tension. "Eldric... you do realize we are all waiting for you to speak, right?" she asked him.

Eldric nodded, then cleared his throat. "Yes," he said finally, his voice low, careful. "I apologize for the delay in speaking."

He straightened slightly, eyes flicking over the council, lingering on Sophia for a moment before settling on the parchments spread across the table. "Like I said before," he began, "I may be wrong, but what Sophia just read aloud... it sounds like there’s a warning intertwined in it. That much I feel certain of. And some parts of it... I have seen before in an ancient script. One... concerning curses, chains... words I didn’t fully understand then. I had hoped to seek Madam Tyler’s expertise when the time came... and I had thought I could solve it myself too."

He told them.

Ronan chuckled. "At least you are honest."

Eldric ignored him.

He paused, as if collecting the right words, and then he spoke up.

"In that script I spoke of, the part... ’wash the earth’... it was written in it," he told them. "The phrase... it does not literally translate to ’washing the eyes of the earth,’ as is written there. It is... more general."

"I attributed it to something like a cleansing. A purification, perhaps. A kind of renewal... although I’m rethinking that part now," he said softly.

"And the line about the blood running black... the text mentions it too," he continued. "Just that phrase, ’blood runs black.’ Everyone here should know what that implies."

"We don’t," they all said immediately.

Eldric rolled his eyes. "Well, you should. Especially you, Madam Tyler," he said, pointing at her.

"I’m an old woman, maybe I’ve forgotten," she told him.

Eldric rolled his eyes again. "One thing common with people who practice black magic is the fact that they start losing their humanity. But then there are those affected by it. They may not practice it directly..."

"But if black magic has been used on them, their blood turns black," Madam Tyler completed with wide eyes.

Eldric raised his hands. "Finally, you get it.

Black magic rots the body, it rots the blood. Black blood is... common among those affected by it, in some way or another."

"When you say used on them, you mean—"

"...exactly that. People it has been used on," Madam Tyler said, interrupting Sophia.

Orion’s brow furrowed, hands crossed over his chest. "That is all interpretation, Eldric," he said, voice sharp. "But how does it relate to the curse, or the seal, or whatever you spoke of before?"

Eldric’s hand hovered briefly over the table. He nodded once.

"It is the rock," he said. "The rock that bears the writing... it is a sign of a seal. I am not certain of this entirely... but Ronan did say that there were three rocks, yes? Three stones marked in different locations."

Madam Tyler’s eyes widened at that again. Eldric was onto something, and she was quick to grab it this time.

The faint lines around her eyes deepened as she spoke. "Ronan," she said, voice deliberate, "take the parchments. Position them as you found the rocks."

Ronan blinked, brow furrowing. "I... I don’t understand. Position them... how?"

"Think of the locations," Madam Tyler said. Her hands gestured faintly, guiding him. "The first, the second, and the third. Place the parchments according to the directions you found the rocks."

Ronan nodded slowly. Sophia handed him the parchment in her hand.

His jaw tightened, eyes narrowing. He leaned over the table, frowning as he moved the parchments around, shifting each carefully, as if feeling their orientation in some unseen map of Nirvana.

He placed the one Sophia had held to his left. "Here," he muttered softly, "near the frozen river... north, yes, north."

Madam Tyler’s gaze followed each movement, sharp and calculating. Eldric watched silently, his own expression tight, disbelief flickering through his green eyes as the arrangement slowly took form.

Ronan picked up the second parchment—the one from the moss-covered ruin—and positioned it across the table, at the opposite side. "East," he murmured, "toward the ruins. The light... it moves this way, doesn’t it?"

The third parchment, representing the stone outside the cave where the beast had been bound, he placed at the top. "South," he said quietly, "the cave. This one... this is the top, the apex."

For a moment, no one moved. The arrangement was simple in its geometry, yet heavy with significance. The three parchments formed a triangle, one at the cave, one at the ruins, and one at the river. The shape felt like it belonged to the land itself, echoing the locations they had all walked, the paths they had traced.

Madam Tyler’s breath hitched slightly. "My..." she whispered, voice tight, not fully audible, but sharp in its reaction.

Eldric made a sound of disbelief—a low, short exhale that could almost have been a laugh if not for the tension in the hall.

The others simply stared. Confusion spread across their faces, brows furrowed, mouths slightly open. None of them understood yet what the arrangement meant, only that something profound had just been set in motion.

Lysander explained softly to Brynhild what Ronan had just done on the table.

"You are very certain this is how you saw them?" Madam Tyler asked him.

Ronan stared at the placement on the table, then nodded.

"I am... I never thought it’d form a triangle, though," he said.

"That’s not just any triangle, right, Madam?" Caspian asked.

Madam Tyler shook her head. "No, it’s not."

But she didn’t speak. Her face was just scrunched up in confusion. Orion opened his mouth to tell her to get on with it when she finally blessed them with her words.

"This triangle is a seal, and it’s forbidden. Lost to time. It shouldn’t exist," she told them.