There are still at least nine candlemarks to go until the next dawn - it gets dark very early around Midwinter - and Leareth might be able to get a message to them at midnight or something and want to arrange a meeting. Vanyel is inclined to say they go to bed early, rely on the Companions having a very accurate time sense to wake them a candlemark before dawn or so, and at that point they might as well use Blai's spells, since he'll be asking for fresh ones anyway. 

(The Owl's Wisdom spell might help Jisa figure out what she hasn't thought of yet for the binding oath spell she apparently invents? Though Vanyel is still hoping they can think of a way to convince Randi that doesn't involve Jisa having to be there.) 

That sounds fine to Blai. He will go ahead and sleep in a furheap. Are these the skins of dead dire wolves? Would it be Evil if they were or just a weird custom? They're warm, anyway.

Vanyel goes to sleep as well, cuddling with Stef. 

...At which point, to his genuine surprise, they find themselves in the ice dream. 

It is one of the more redundant dreams they've ever had. But he introduces Stef, because why not (and Stef will be mad at him if sent to ride away in the forest again this time), and is able to confirm that Leareth did receive his last letter, is on board with the plan, and was indeed not able to reply until morning because the nalaar can hone in on a mage-artifact beacon or find a place they've been before in the dark but cannot follow visual instructions to find a particular landmark they've never visited before. 

When Yfandes wakes all of them, he can update Blai and Jisa on this. 

:...So it was blocked before but it wasn't either of you, and now you're having it again? Huh.: 

:Were you under any kind of: they say "shield" here not "abjuration" :shield effect that might have accidentally affected it?:

:Not a regular shield - and that’s never interfered before, and we’re a lot more shielded here! …But we were still in the Web, before, and aren’t now.: He keeps finding himself poking at the unexpected emptiness in the back of his head, like a loose tooth. :It’s never been a problem, before, but - maybe it lets the Star-Eyed Goddess interfere? Since the entire Web is anchored on a Heartstone now.:

:That seems... bad... if She's hostile.:

:It's probably not good, no.: In hindsight how much has this been a thought he avoided because he made the Web-improvements and created the Heartstone and it's always been something he was proud of and it hurts that maybe it was a mistake. 

:I don't think it ought to let Her do - arbitrary things - but I suppose if She has influence throughout the Web, it's not impossible She could fake Web-alarms. And - Companions have a kind of background Foresight, we get hunches - if Van's dream was vulnerable to interference, She can probably also influence that.: 

:...well, She probably can't affect my prophecy, if you'd like me to cast that now before dawn.:

:We should do that. On...me, I guess?: 

He's tempted to say it should be on Stef, so he can find out if Stef is going to be in any danger and because he's not sure he actually wants to know if this still ends like it was always going to, with his Final Strike all information is worth having. 

:I'll do that and then follow up with the Owls' for interpreting it, how about.: "Minor Prophecy."

Vanyel, looking mildly singed, is sprinting through what's recognizably a hallway in the Palace, not the exact same one that Blai walked down with Savil to reach the Gate-terminus room but it must be in the same building. 

His expression is focused, controlled desperation. 

He reaches a door, a fancy one with a stone archway, and there's a shimmering shield over it and he can't get through. (There's someone in the room, along with - something bright and somehow alive-looking on a stone pedestal - but through the shields it's impossible to see much detail of either.) 

Vanyel stops.

His face goes blank in the way a lot of the Heralds do when they're Mindspeaking - there's the sense that a conversation is emphatically not going well and then - 

Time for the backup plan, then. 

:Uh, in this prophecy, you're - I think in the Palace. There's somebody behind a shield you can't get through, in a room with something - shimmery, crystalline maybe, on a pedestal - and then I think you have some kind of telepathic conversation and it seems like it goes poorly and then you explode.:

:You're kidding.: 

:That's the Heartstone.:

:Great! Now we know that you should absolutely not go to Haven or you'll end up having to Final Strike the Heartstone! Which in case you forgot is in the MIDDLE OF HAVEN and you'd probably take out half the city!: 

:I mean. Maybe the alternative was - something worse - there is a nondestructive or at least less destructive way to shut down a Heartstone but I would need to touch it and I - guess someone was preventing that - that said I can't think why I would fall back on a Final Strike, seems like even if it worked it would - just do the same thing that happened in k'Treva...: 

:Is there a way to guard the Heartstone in such a way that you'd be able to non-explosively access it? I couldn't tell - who exactly - was shielding you out, but maybe the ability to do that at all narrows it down?:

:It’s got to be someone keyed to the Heartstone, so unless they start adding every mage who volunteers to help with a war - which isn’t impossible, actually, if they’re desperate - but if they don’t, that’s just the active Herald-Mages and - Brightstar. And - even if i was tired and cut off from it while they were drawing on it, it’d still have to be a strong Adept for them to hold a shield I couldn’t get through. So - Savil or Brightstar.:

:I would probably be strong enough but I can’t think what would possibly get me to do that.:

:Brightstar being the one who belongs to the Star-Eyed?:

:Yes.: