Stormless by Nick Stitle

Author:Nick Stitle
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798987896204
Publisher: Nick Stitle

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

DISCOVERY

Sixteen months ago…

Asteros Silverglade stood quietly in the corner of his room, staring at the Crystal in his palm. It was loosely cylindrical, though its lateral sides possessed many faces and jagged edges. It looked just like any other Crystal. It radiated with the strange dark energy of umbrakinesis, rumbling with ancient tones that Asteros could never hope to understand.

He turned it over in his hand, gazing into the depthless darkness within the ethereal Crystal. No one knew where they came from—though it was well known to all that occasionally Crystals would grow from accumulated energy in random caves and crevices. No one understood their nature, for, when broken with force, they released all of the energy that they held.

Somehow, these Crystals absorbed energy from the atmosphere—from the Tempests—and converted it into a form that was usable by mankind’s Summoners. No technology had ever been able to replicate such a phenomenon. No scholar had ever been able to explain such a thing naturally. Not even the Ancients seemed to understand it.

“Asteros?” Shalheira slipped into his quarters. “What are you doing?” she asked upon noticing the Crystal in his hand.

He held it up to the Scorcher-Crystal lamp on the wall, watching the undulating waves of darkness within the Crystal he held. “All the scientific knowledge we have gained in the last thousand years, and we still know nothing about these Crystals,” Asteros mused. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“I suppose I never really thought about it,” Shalheira said, sitting down on the corner of his bed.

Asteros turned to her, lowering the Crystal slightly. “Is it something within the Crystal that changes the energy?” Asteros asked, knowing that Shalheira would have no answer. “Or is it something in the Tempests themselves that is captured?”

“Is now really the time for philosophical questions such as these?” Shalheira shook her head, smiling slightly—her lips curling in that beautiful way they did.

“Perhaps the Tempests are drawn to it by some force we have not yet discovered, and what we assumed to be a property of conversion within the Crystals is merely a concept of concentration, instead.” Asteros turned back to the Crystal, pacing.

Shalheira absently began turning one of her daggers in her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me that you changed the plans?” she asked, looking up from the blade in her hands.

Asteros paused, lowering his head. “I knew you would not approve.”

“You thought that I would not approve of a plan that aimed to unite our continent?”

“I thought that you wouldn’t approve of the methods by which I mean to do it,” Asteros said, meeting her gaze. A slight breeze passed through the chamber, sending a chill down Asteros’s spine. Yet he felt warm nonetheless, trapped in her intoxicating eyes.

Shalheira rose from the bed, laying her dagger on the night table as she approached him.

He slipped the Crystal back into the pouch near his waist, raising his hands to Shalheira’s gentle face.

She closed her eyes, melting into his touch, her sharp lips curving into that devilish smile that Asteros loved so much.

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