Dawn Of Twilight

Chapter 20: Stranger Danger?

Fog spilled out of the valley like milk. Mist clung to the shoulders of Riverview Hill, unspooling in ribbons that braided around the stone steps leading up to the shrines. Somewhere below, a bell answered the morning wind—thin, metallic, half a memory—and threaded through the silence that hung over the place like a held breath. The air tasted of wet stone and thyme; to breathe it in was to inhale history.

They gathered at the foot of the path. Dawn wore her favourite faded sweater, fingers worrying at the pendant at her throat. Ruoxi rocked on the balls of her feet as if waiting for a race to begin. Rui stood with brittle papers and notebooks clutched to her chest, posture taut with the authority of someone who had read and reread Riverview's records until the ink itself seemed alive. Erevin lingered behind them, hood down, the light catching amber at the edges of his eyes. He watched as though everything before him were a board set for play.

Rui spread the papers on a mossy cairn, reverent as if arranging an altar. Her voice when she spoke was low, ceremonial.
"These shrines are not souvenirs," she said. "They are claims—where the old promises of Riverview were made, kept, and broken." She tapped a sketched map, the paper snapping once in the breeze. "There are five. Each with a name, a duty, and a way of taking and giving that no one understood until they had to."

Her finger touched the first drawing: a squat temple on the lower slope.
"The Shrine of Judgment—the Blade of Twilight. At the base of Riverview Hill, where the town's breath reaches you when the wind turns east. Azarath stands there, sword drawn, eyes bowed as if in mourning. This is confession and counterweight: you speak what you cannot carry, and the shrine balances it. Justice, pure and absolute. Some who stood in its shadow never returned."

Ruoxi raised a brow. "So basically... go in guilty, come out missing?"
Her laugh faltered when Erevin's jaw tightened. He had read that line before in catalogues, stripped of reverence. Here, with wind tugging at Rui's sleeves and the air sharp with lichen and stone, the words cut colder.

Rui continued. "Midway: the Shrine of Passage—the Lantern of Ghostflame. Narrow, claustrophobic walls. The statue holds a black-flamed lantern, arm outstretched as if across time. The torches here once burned without fuel. People said they whispered—like elders muttering in the dark. Folklore calls it a ferry: the dead are guided, not stolen. The flames speak the language of what was—names, regrets, truths that refuse to rest."

"Comforting," Ruoxi muttered, but her voice was quieter this time.

At the mountain's center Rui slowed, voice softening.
"The Shrine of Union—the Sanctuary of Eternal Vow. A dome ringed with silver-petaled flowers that never wilt, their scent recalling promises. Here Azarath and Zaraya sit side by side upon one throne. At their feet, Lyssa of the Devoe line kneels, mortal among gods. This place is oath and bridge. Here vows were bound; here the Dragon Awakening Ritual was once performed. Lovers still come, because the stone remembers hands. Promises tied beneath the dome are said to outlast storms."

Dawn's hand slipped into Erevin's where it lay in the grass. She looked at him, something tender stirring in her face. He didn't notice; his eyes were still fixed on the sketches.

Rui's tone shadowed as her hand moved higher.
"Near the peak: the Shrine of Redemption—the Throne of Ash and Bloom. Zaraya sits upon a pale throne, vines binding and unbinding like scars. Around her, petrified statues—supplicants, sinners, saints—frozen mid-appeal. Redemption is rebirth through confrontation. The shrine shows you the sins you owe yourself. Dreams, visions—some wake weeping, some never accept the mirror. Redemption is a violent kindness."

Ruoxi's irreverence dimmed. "If it shows what you did... what if you can't forgive it?"
"Then sometimes it leaves the choice to you," Rui answered.

Her finger rested finally on the summit. The sketches there trembled with stars.
"The Shrine of Salvation—the Veil of the Ethereal. Above all, where mist flows like a river and night thins. A dome of marble carved to trap starlight like water. Zaraya in her divine form of six arms, each holding relics of life, journey, death, and what lies beyond. Here the last mercy is offered. If the soul is ready, salvation waits. If not..." Rui's voice faltered. "The summit has been sealed for eighteen years. The elders locked it, and now it is only memory."