Chapter 58 Change of Plan
The scrolls and books ruffled from his search, minutes went by before he brought out a dark blue parchment. He cleared his table before spreading the map on the table.
Kaelith leaned over the map, his fingers brushing lightly across the faded parchment. The corners were worn, and some of the ink had smudged, but the lines were still clear enough to read.
Eldenria sat at the center, drawn with thick curves and long winding roads. It was the heart of the realm, fertile lands, filled with old cities, wide rivers, and tall arcane towers. Everything important either began there or ended there. It was the core of politics and magic.
His eyes moved north. Northhelm sat just above Eldenria, shaded in darker tones. The place was colder, rougher, and dense with pine forests, cliffs, and highlands that froze half the year. Behind it rose the Northern Mountains, tall and sharp. Snow covered their peaks. It was a place where old stories claimed dragons once lived.
But what caught his attention wasn’t the mountains; it was what lay beyond them.
Faintly drawn in charcoal, nearly faded from the parchment, were the words: The Land of Skulls.
Kaelith narrowed his eyes.
’Interesting, the Northern Mountains are close to the Land of Skulls.’ His fingers brushed over the words The Land of Skulls.
He shifted his gaze east. Gravemarch looked like a scar on the map. The land there was barren, the earth was cracked, dry winds blew, and nothing green was in sight. It was where warlords gathered and where necromancy was practiced. They called part of it Deadwind Ridge. Kaelith had never been there, but he had heard of the cursed winds that carried whispers with them.