Abi flipped the page of his notebook and raised one finger. “Not so fast. The scroll says, ‘In his waning years, Master Saito made a journey to revisit the sites of his major battles. He vowed to end his trek where he’d battled his first demon, the Arch Vile Hojila. He brought no supplies, and allowed none of his cohort to travel with him, proclaiming there remained enough spark in his heart to see him to the journey’s end.’”
This find was almost too good to be true. I considered Abi’s news for a moment, then asked the question I was sure would dash all my hopes.
“You’re sure it’s still on the island?” I held my breath while I waited for Abi to break my heart.
“There is no way to be one hundred percent sure,” Abi said in a calm, measured tone. “But if Saito had the Heart when he went to the island, I’m sure it’s still there. Have any of you found a more recent mention of this artifact in your search?”
We all shook our heads and considered what Abi had told us. We’d spent all this time since the museum searching for the Heart, and only Abi had come up with anything. Maybe he was right. And, even if he wasn’t, unless Clem had something better to go on, we’d have to investigate the volcanic island.
“That’s amazing work, Abi,” I said. “That’ll be a tough one to beat, Clem.”
A frosty chill passed over Clem’s features. Her eyes sparked with a dangerous light, and for a moment she looked more like a European superspy than my old friend. Just as quickly, she banished the cold persona and reached over to flick the end of Eric’s nose with the tip of her index finger.
“How much do you want to bet what I found is even better?” she said.
“Oh, let’s make it interesting,” Eric said. “I’ve got a hundred oboli that say Abi’s lead is the winner.”
“Done,” she said with a smirk. “You should have heard me out before you made the bet. Abi’s made a fantastic discovery, and I definitely think we should follow up on it. But what if there’s more than one Heart?”
That got all our attention. Clem relished the eager curiosity in our eyes and drew out the tension for a long moment before she continued.
She flipped out her own notebook and tapped a page covered in sloppy block letters. I was surprised to see that Clem, the best scrivener in our group, had the handwriting of a kindergartner. She frowned at the look on my face and shook her finger at me.
“Don’t judge my notes. I was in a hurry. I only had limited time to talk to my friend in Kiev while she was in the state library. Which is where she found a book with that symbol of yours, Jace.” She traced her finger down the page and tapped a line near the middle. “Here’s the important stuff. One of the earliest families of cultivators made quite a name for themselves in what’s now Eastern Europe. The people there regarded them as terrifying fortune-tellers and berserk warriors who could shift into the shapes of wolves and, sometimes, bats.”
I’d seen monsters from outside of time and space try to invade Earth. I’d done battle with spirits and dragons. I’d even seen squid-faced blobs trying to eat the Grand Design. But this seemed like a little much.
“Vampires?” I asked. “Seriously?”
“You didn’t hear that from me,” Clem said. “But their enemies believed the blood drinkers were as real as dragons. I’m not saying all the legends are true. What I am saying is that this family stayed in the same little town and ruled their isolated territory for thousands of years. They were there before the Compact between men and dragons, and they were there long after it. As far as I can tell, they were one of the oldest cultivation lineages in Earth’s history.”
Clem’s words hit home. I’d seen firsthand how stories could get distorted, and how a person’s enemies could use half-truths and out-of-context anecdotes to paint a very dark picture. Half the crimes people laid at the feet of the Eclipse Warriors were straight-up lies, and the other half were exaggerations. If Clem thought this was a good lead, I was willing to follow it through.
“And why do you think they had the Heart?” I asked.
She flipped to the next page and read a snippet she’d copied from a history book.
“When the Church of the Grand Design came to collect the tithe from Ygor Wallovik, he claimed his vaults held no coins to give them, no treasures to part with.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me and continued. “The tithe master searched Wallovik’s humble home for six days, but never found the vast treasures he’d been told the isolated family had hoarded over the centuries. When the tithe master was called away on more pressing duties, Wallovik saw him off. As the Church’s emissary took his leave, he looked back one last time at the window where the old man watched him. For just a moment, the priest saw a doorway opened through Ygor Wallovik, and crimson and silver light poured out of it. The priest immediately returned to investigate what he’d seen and found the simple home devoid of even a single obolus. Legend says there weren’t any people within the walls, either. It was as if the entire Wallovik clan and all their servants had simply vanished. Oddly, I found historical references to Wallovik still controlling that territory after his supposed disappearance, though, so it’s hard to say what really happened there. It does sound like Ygor had something like the Heart, doesn’t it?”
Clem was right. That sounded a lot like what I’d seen in my first vision of the Heart of Eternity. But that didn’t answer all my questions.
“That sounds pretty solid,” I said. “Do you know where it is now?”
Clem flipped through a few
