As the group is leaving the mountain lion cave they shared with Sava Alexis is thinking out loud.
“I’ve been thinking more about ‘the crown that binds'”.
“Given what you’ve said about your past, Carm, it seemed reasonable that it could have been Ædelfred’s. But there are a few other crowns at play.”
“Tarkus Vell took his orders from a shadow with a broken crown sitting over its head. I’d still wager that was Bandesingh. And the bronze standard of those ice soldiers: the eye with eight points rising out of it. It reminded us of a crown, and it was carried by the orcs at Nodden-Torr.”
“But then there’s the third image. The image of a crown. A crown of black iron, hanging above an empty skull. And the skull is somewhere in this world. But there is a half formed thing standing in the void watching the crown and the ritual around it.”
“As a little aside, if Shasharak has a skull in this world, could it be something like Zrithrak’s skull or the skulls in the Drayek crypt? Is this a connection?” Alexis moves back to his talk of crowns.
“The three ‘crowns’ are not worn. Two of them hang in the air. The third rises out of an eye.”
“And then there’s the iron connection. The red iron shipments from Tarkus Vell, presumably north to Frostbite Pass. The black iron for the crown over the skull. The iron crown worn by Utiog. And then there’s the verse” he closes his eyes to recall it “Eager are princes who feed him with ore, Edged in red iron and promise of war.” Keeping his eyes closed he continues “and there’s the directive to Find the one who feeds him iron and blood.”
He opens his eyes and adjusts his hat.
“Is red iron just iron that’s been fed blood?”
Alexis shrugs and keeps moving with the group.
