Their meeting with Sylara concluded shortly after, and they were escorted to their room by Alison.
"Why was everyone so surprised Sylara offered to tutor me?" Elira asked.
"Don’t worry, it’s nothing personal." Alison assured her. "It’s just to it knowledge, it’s the first time she has ever offered to teach someone."
"Really? She seems like someone who would love to teach others."
"I think there’s something more to it..." She looked thoughtful. "Like she needed a very specific type of person as her apprentice, or something - I guess you can ask her when your training starts."
They arrived at their destination and she stopped.
"We probably won’t see each other until the festival, so stay safe." Alison waved them goodbye and left them alone.
"Do you have any plans for the next week?" Calen addressed the question to Cassian and Isara. "Ellie and I will be both busy with Sylara, but you two have a lot of free time."
"I’ll be reading the book about Blightborn I got from Antonio." Cassian stated. "It would be nice to know more about them, since apparently they might attack this place."
"And I’ll probably alternate between reading ’the legacy of the Fool’ and fiddling around with the enchantment tools." Isara answered. "By the way, did Sykara tell you how is she planning to split time between you two?"
"No." Calen shook his head. "In fact I’m kinda curious about how she’s planning to do it - it’s not like she can split herself in two... I think."
"If she could there wouldn’t have been an issue at the farm." Elira pointed out. "I think it’s much more likely that she’ll just give me guidance while you recuperate between purification."
"Speaking of recuperating." Isara interjected. "Didn’t Sylara say that you should take the herbs today, so that they have time to take effect over the week?"
"She did." Calen nodded and then opened his box. "I assume you know what those things do, Ellie?"
"Of course, they are quite famous after all. Phoenix feathers are probably the most well known, but the others are nothing to sneeze at either."
Calen took out a beautiful flower out of the box, its petals long, segmented and painted in a mesmerising combination of gold and crimson.
"This flower is a very rare and desirable medicine, said to increase lifespan, prevent all diseases, boost affinity to fire, and make you stronger and healthier in general - along with a myriad of other smaller effects."
"Cool." Calen commented and took out another thing from the box - it was a yellowish white mushroom the size of his palm in the shape of a crescent moon, or as its name suggests, a toenail clipping.
"Despite its horrible name it’s supposed to be quite tasty, and it boosts mostly the things we associate with giants - strength, stamina, constitution."
"I see..." He put down the mushroom and retrieved the last object, a thin branch chock-full of small translucent leaves, reminiscent of insect wings.
"A very interesting plant, its effects are a bit difficult to describe, but it raises your mental fortitude and focus - also apparently the leaves are extremely sour."
"Huh." He places down the last plant and looked at Elira. "So how do we need to prepare them?"
"We don’t." Elira smiled. "All of them are consumed raw - just the flower bud for phoenix feathers, the entire thing for giant’s toenail, and only the leaves for pixie’s wings. Each of them needs to be eaten in entirety, so no sharing this time, but I can help you pluck all the leaves from the branch."
"Thanks, you can do that while I eat the other two." Calen picked up the flower again. "It looks so nice, I kinda feel bad just eating it."
"Just eat it." Isara rolled her eyes.
He looked at the unreal petals for the one last time, and bit off the entire flower bud.
At first he couldn’t taste anything, but as he started chewing a sweet honey-like flavour filled his mouth, followed by a pleasant warmth spreading through his entire body.
Calen swallows and said:
"That was much nicer than I thought it would be."
The mushroom was next in queue - due to its size he couldn’t just eat it in one bite, but he sure was going to minimise how many of them he was going to take.
It has more or less the same structure as most mushrooms, but was a bit tougher and and slightly more chewy. In terms of taste it reminded him of salted peanuts nuts, with its strong earthy undertone - just like Elira said, it was quite tasty.
Just as he finishes his last bite, she offered him a bowl filled with the translucent leaves.
"They’re supposed to dissolve on your tongue." She informed him.
He took just one as a test, and placed it in his mouth.
The leaf did indeed dissolve, and it was quite sour - but also not as much as he expected, probably slightly less than a regular lemon.
He expected that by the time he saw the bottom of the bowl his mouth would be very uncomfortable, but no, surprisingly the leaves didn’t have the same effect as other sour things - perhaps the taste wasn’t even real in the first place.
"What now?" He asked Elira.
"Now you go to sleep, the wings should have an effect within an hour, but the feathers and the toenail need three to four days before working, and sleep helps to speed up the process."
"Okay, goodnight then I guess." He shrugged and disappeared into his bedroom.
"It’s late, I think we should all follow his example." Isara stood up.
"You two go ahead." Cassian said. "I want to check how those implements from Alfred work first."
"Are you ready?" She asked him. "There’s still time to back down."
"Don’t tell me you’re trying to get us to stop as well." He rolled his eyes. "Our decision is made."
"Nah, the others just told me that you’ll maybe listen to me because I’m the oldest, and therefore wise or something." She shrugged. "Personally I think they’re overreacting a little bit - yes, we don’t know what will happen, but it’s not a reason to assume everything will go wrong."
"We’ve taken as many precautions as possible, if we still die then we were always doomed." He shrugged. "But I have a good feeling about this, what I was meant to do, you know?"
The ceremony will be in just a few days, but to him it was an eternity - the only reason he agreed to wait that long was because He offered to oversee it, but was busy until now.
His friend spoke again:
"Is it true you two plan to get married after the ritual?"
"Yes, why do you ask?"
"Because you’ve been together for over two centuries, it’s a bit weird that you’ve waited for so long with it." She chuckled. "In fact I’m surprised she wasn’t more adamant about it, considering... you know."
"She was never a very official kind of person, she prefers more personal symbolic gestures and stuff like that."
Her gaze was drawn to his right arm.
"Uh-huh, I can see that." She nodded. "Why did you decide to do it now then?"
"Eternity is a very long time, I think we’re doing it as a promise that no matter what we’ll be there for each other forever." He snorted. "Not that I expect you to understand, you can’t even stay in one place for five minutes."
"Why would I stay in one place when I have so many places to explore?" She looked at him as if he had grown a second head. "Besides, it’s not like I’m against attachments, I just haven’t found anyone willing to travel with me yet."
"Maybe you would if you didn’t return half dead from most of you excursions." He sighed. "I’m telling you, one day you will stumble upon something that’s more than you can handle, and it will end in tragedy."
"Alright, alright, I’ll try to be more careful." She said, but he could see she wasn’t being honest. "Now, let’s get you ready for the ceremony."
The information Calen received was fragmented, but he managed to piece together a few things.
For one, the memories definitely belonged to one person, and we’re shown to him chronologically. They were also always somewhat reminiscent of his current situation, but considering he saw only three so far it could be just a coincidence.
He still didn’t know what ’ascencion’ was, but he had a feeling it was related to divinity in some way.
Calen had a feeling that the memories were from a very long time ago, perhaps even from before the age of the old gods - which meant that the figures in the memories wouldn’t necessarily be familiar ones, after all the time before the age of the old gods was called the age of mystery.
Well, it probably wasn’t what it was called back then, but it was the name they used now.
Either way, he had to wait for more of these dreams to piece the entire story together.