Mith opened his mouth to argue, to tell Jis that grief was making her see ghosts, but the words died in his throat.
A sudden, sharp heat pressed against his ribs—distinct and rhythmic, entirely separate from the hum of his own internal flame. It was a vibrating pressure, like a warning bell ringing against his skin.
He flinched, his hand flying to the leather pouch belted at his waist.
"Mith?" Jis stepped closer, her eyes darting from his face to his hand. "What is it?"
Mith didn't answer. With trembling fingers, he undid the clasp and reached inside. He pulled out a heavy, slate-grey stone. It was perfectly round, carved with faint, spiraling grooves that had never shown any reaction to his magic before.
"The Slate," Jis breathed, staring at it. "The artifact Master Akhand gave you."
Mith held it up, his heart hammering against his ribs. He had carried this stone for three years, ever since their final day of apprenticeship. Master Akhand, the High Sorcerer, had pressed it into his palm with a look of grave seriousness. 'Keep this close, Mith,' the old master had said. 'Do not ask what it does. Do not try to wake it. When the time is right, it will wake itself.'
They had never known what it was. A weapon? A key? A shield? It had been a dead weight in his pocket through a dozen battles.
But now, the stone was alive.
The spiraling grooves on its surface were flooding with a brilliant, violet light—the exact same shade as the particle residue drifting from the dead Stalker. The light wasn't scattering; it was focused, projecting a beam like a tiny lighthouse.
"Why now?" Mith whispered, looking at the stone in bewilderment. "Akhand never said..."
"Look," Jis interrupted, pointing at the air.
The dissipating smoke of the dead creature wasn't vanishing. It was being pulled. The violet motes swirled in the air, drawn magnetically toward the stone in Mith's hand. As the smoke touched the stone, the artifact pulsed violently, the vibration traveling up Mith's arm and rattling his teeth.
The stone drank the essence of the monster, and for a fleeting second, the cold silence of the moor was broken. Not by a roar, or a scream, but by a sound that made Mith's knees buckle.
It was a laugh. Faint, distorted, and buried under layers of static, but unmistakably Tuk's laugh.
Mith looked up at Jis, his eyes wide and wet. "Did you hear that?"
"I heard it," Jis said, her face pale. "Mith... Akhand gave you that stone before we ever went to Argentis. Before we lost Tuk."
"He knew," Mith realized, a chill that had nothing to do with the weather sweeping over him. "Or he knew something was coming."
The stone was now vibrating violently in his grip, the beam of violet light swinging away from the dead creature and pointing steadfastly into the distance.
It pointed back the way they had come. Back toward the Shadow Gate. Back into the dark.
"It's not just an artifact," Jis realized, watching the beam cut through the fog. "It's a compass."
Mith gripped the glowing stone, feeling its warmth seep into his cold skin. He didn't know why Akhand had given it to him, or why it was reacting to Tuk's essence now, but the undeniable truth lay in the direction of the light.
"He's out there," Jis said, her jaw setting into a hard line. "He's not dead, Mith. And this stone... it knows where he is."
Mith closed his fist around the glowing object, the violet light spilling out between his fingers. He turned his back on the road home.
"Then we follow it."
The stone stopped glowing and became dead again. They were both confused.
The journey begins as they fall on the ground.