Chapter 397: Eye of the Moon
The sigils flared to life and the locks turned, and the temple’s door swung wide open with a heavy creak.
Virella opened her arm wide and bowed in a welcome, “I present to you, the Eye of the Moon. The Sylvan’s most sacred site.”
The very top of the mountain peak was flat, a small plateau. There was no polished stone here, no marble statues or other works of art, only snow, ice, and a few rugged rocks. Wisps of frost-mist trailed on the ground.
The howling wind rushed into the temple’s open door, the biting cold gnawing through their bodies. Virella and Aurelia braced themselves for the cold and endured its touch with a grimace. Tauri and Plum shouted in surprise and flinched, the warmth of their bodies leaving them in an instant. They had never experienced such frigid conditions. This wasn’t just nature’s chill touch, this was something more, something that ran deep from the mountain’s heart.
The freezing winds filled Stryg’s lungs and he was suddenly reminded of the time he had fallen into the Dark Fringe. The darkness and searing cold were like nothing he had ever experienced. Yet while the Dark Fringe had sapped away at his consciousness, now the cold snapped him awake, as if he had been sleeping all along.
Stryg stepped past the doorway and into the plateau, his feet crunching the snow underneath. The howling winds suddenly felt calm. The world fell silent and the light of the moon shined down on the plateau with an almost ethereal glow. He slowly walked towards the edge with a trance-like gait and stared at the endless expanse beyond. The Rupture Mountains stretched out towards the western horizon and the scarlet forest of Vulture woods spanned across the northeast.
For the first time since he had first walked through the gates of Hollow Shade Stryg felt incredibly small, like a grain of sand in the desert. Before it bothered him, it made him feel insignificant. But now it was calming, to know that despite being an Ebon Aspirant, despite so many people expecting so much of him, in the end, the world would still go on, with or without him.
It was bittersweet, he supposed.
“It’s beautiful,” Tauri whispered from beside him.