“I can tell you that story,” Phae said, looking over at Shion and smiling at him. “It is a scary story, Annon. I must warn you.”
“I should like to hear it,” Annon said.
“Before I tell it, there is something else you should hear first. Shion?” She held out her hand.
Her protector reached into his pocket and withdrew the golden locket. The firelight glimmered off its polished edge as he dangled it in front of him. A harmless piece of Paracelsus magic. Harmless, perhaps, but it was the magic that had begun to unravel the coils binding him to the Arch-Rike’s service. He handed it to her.
Annon stared at it with great curiosity. Phae held the locket between her fingers, feeling the warmth of the metal. The shock of the dead Druidecht in Canton Vaud flashed inside her mind. The air was full of misery and suffering. Slowly, she opened the locket.
The haunting melody began to drift in the air. Almost in unison, all eyes turned to Phae, drawn in by the spell of the mourning anthem that somehow, in that moment, captured how each of them was feeling.