The Beginning After the End: Book 10: Retribution by TurtleMe

Author:TurtleMe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

404

A BATTLE OF WORDS

ARTHUR LEYWIN

Windsom waited, his otherworldly eyes trained on me, his expression unreadable.

My head turned slightly so I could see the cavernous arched entry to the palace, where Jasmine’s silhouette was just visible within the shadows. Inside the darkened outline of her form, Regis’s violet glow was like a beacon.

I placed a foot on the bottommost of the ethereal stairs leading up to the portal Windsom had manifested. “Did you try to talk him out of it?” I asked, stopping.

Windsom frowned and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Elenoir,” I said, turning back to him, staring into those galaxy-colored eyes. “As envoy to this world, did you try to talk Lord Indrath out of the attack on Elenoir?”

“No,” Windsom said, relaxing. “I volunteered to go along and ensure General Aldir was able to complete the mission.”

“I see,” I said with a nod.

Unhurried, I climbed the rest of the stairs until I was standing just in front of the portal. Windsom's crimes would be punished eventually, I told myself. But at that moment, my mind was on much more important beings than him.

Drawing in a deep breath and mentally preparing myself for what was to come, I stepped through.

The palace, Etistin, all of Dicathen melted away into golden light.

Even before Epheotus resolved in my sight, I felt the distance yawning between Regis and me. The tether requiring physical proximity between us had been broken when I dragged Taci into the Relictombs, but there had been no time to consider the ramifications during that fight. At that moment after the battle, I had felt no change in whatever aetheric binding connected us. Now, in the instant where I was entirely within the golden beam of light, no longer in Dicathen but not yet in Epheotus, I felt my connection to him fade, leaving behind a biting kind of emptiness that would have felt like madness if I hadn’t already understood its source.

Then the light faded, and I was welcomed by that familiar feeling of being in another world, just like the first time Windsom had brought me to Epheotus, and all thought of Regis was driven from my mind.

There were no twin mountain peaks, no shimmering bridge, no pink-petaled trees, no towering castle. Instead, I was standing on the carefully trimmed lawn of a simple cottage with a straw roof.

My heart skipped a beat.

Turning in a quick circle, I confirmed that the cottage was surrounded by towering trees with sprawling canopies of leaves that wove together, creating a small clearing where the familiar cottage stood out strangely.

Windsom appeared beside me, stepping through the golden light with his thin blond brows raised. He barely glanced at me before gesturing to the cottage door.

“Why are we here?” I asked, but he only repeated his gesture, more firmly this time.

I hadn’t seen or spoken to Lady Myre, Kezess’s wife, since I had trained here years ago. But I thought of her often, especially as my own understanding of aether increased and revealed the failure of the dragons’ perspective.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.