Three hundred years ago, the Earth split and the sky trembled. And then the monsters came.
The island of Lowynn is cursed. The Veil between worlds has torn, and now, monsters come with vengeance. They can only be placated by the blood of sorcerers...
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Connal's Keep was even more beautiful than Ciara had imagined. She tried to justify her slack jaw by reminding herself that she had only seen the Keep in paintings or through brief stories told by her father, when she had asked where her Uncle Connal had disappeared to.
Ciara suspected that she would have fallen to her knees and wept with gratitude even if it had been a crumbling shack. Beds, warm meals, sleep....
The keep had been carved into the cliffside, with the majority of its rooms hidden within the rock. But the facade was lovely enough for all of it. Nine regal figures had been etched in perfect detail. Their hands alone were as large as Ciara, and their towering bodies outstretched in welcome.
The rugged terrain had been tamed into something impossibly beautiful. The entrance to the keep required visitors to pass beneath the largest of the guardians', a man with a flowing beard and eyes that were kind even in stone. Balor Celnaer, Ciara presumed, searching for the dragon on his armor. Sure enough, he bore the crest proudly. Balor the Judge would always be recognizable, passing his fair and wise pronouncements onto the world below.
Now that she had solved the first part of the puzzle, Ciara expected the rest to come easily. She just needed to place eight more names. The past Celnaer Kings? But there had only been five.
Ciara racked her mind, struggling to remember who the figures could have been. One of them could have been Prince Domhnall, perhaps? But the statues were all ancient, and the men that they depicted were wizened. Each of them wore Celnaer dragons, but those had been rendered in far less detail than their perfect faces. Nine... Nine...
The nine clans of old Lowynn. Though the stone had been hastily masked to reflect changing alliances, these figures remained; heralds to the old world.
"Lugh," Ciara whispered. "I think this place is from before the Celnaers."
Lugh frowned. "I suppose it's possible," he said. Ciara had expected him to know for certain. He was the worldly one, having spent his entire childhood traveling with a merchant father. He belonged to adventure and history, while she was the one who had spent her entire life relegated to books and daydreams.
The only entrance into the hall of stone was through a series of gates. It seemed as though it took several minutes for each one of them to be wretched open, with an agonizing screech which suggested disuse. But she watched them for weakness in their thick iron, and, though her eyes were untrained, they found nothing.
After the unearthly shrieks of metal ceased, an only slightly-better fanfare began. Ciara realized that the trumpeters were likely as out of practice as the gates. But she smiled brightly and courteously, nonetheless. The first rule of hospitality was never to insult your hosts.
"That's enough," a voice called, and the music silenced. It was gentle and quiet, but utterly self-composed. Its tone almost made Ciara feel ashamed for the music, as if it was her fault.
