The Panagea Tales Box Set by McKenzie Austin

Author:McKenzie Austin [Austin, McKenzie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780692124857
Published: 2019-10-21T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Six

Elowyn trudged through the waste of Eastern for miles. Mud tainted by chemicals cast off from the division’s countless factories marred her from head to toe. She kept close to the coast, not only to reduce her interactions with those who might be a threat but because that was where the homestead of Mairyn Catteral dwelled.

She was no stranger to the hardships of travel. Elowyn had powered through more horrid conditions than this. Her time spent as a medic to the Northern military ensured that. Now, though, she drove her legs through sheets of muck instead of banks of snow.

Flashbacks triggered with each parallel to her past. Screams of civilians trailed down from the mainland and into her ears. Poor, unprepared people, brought down by the hands of their manipulated family members and neighbors. There were too many for her to stop and intervene. It was a tough lesson she had learned from the battle of Northern and Northeastern.

The shrieks of her people echoed the cries of the fallen soldiers in her past. It was a sound that never left a person’s brain, no matter how many years it sat there, collecting dust.

Elowyn used to be a crusader. She risked her life on the battlefield more than once, dragging mangled bodies back to vehicles that carried them to the safety of her tent.

She couldn’t save them all then. She couldn’t save these people now. Not yet, anyway.

The shabby condition of Mairyn’s humble home came into Elowyn’s vision when she crawled over a final hill. It looked just as it did when she and the crew washed up on Eastern’s shores last year.

Muscles in her legs pulsed from their extensive journey. Her lungs ached from breathing in the still-tainted oxygen of the Eastern division. But her destination only rested several long strides away. That knowledge alone helped convince her throbbing limbs to approach the door and knock.

Elowyn waited. She didn’t deny the heart palpitations she experienced in the vicinity of Mairyn’s home. The Time Mother wondered if the gun-toting maiden would shoot first, impelled by the conditions as of late to take no risks. But after much thought, Mairyn Catteral remained the only person in Eastern she trusted.

Elowyn only hoped she hadn’t fallen to the gods.

Her knock earned no response. Before she lifted her fist to try again, Elowyn’s ears perked at the familiar sound that came from behind her: the undeniable noise of a lever-action cocking on a shotgun. She remembered it well.

Elowyn made slow, careful movements when she raised her hands above her head. She did not wish to encourage any rash decisions. “Hello, Mairyn.”

“You’ve got ten seconds to explain to me how you know my name and what you’re doing on my property.”

Elowyn turned, unhurried and gradual, to portray no sense of danger. When she finally spun all the way and found Mairyn’s eyes, she said nothing.

The woman scrutinized Elowyn for the longest seconds in the Time Mother’s life. She couldn’t tell what went through her mind.

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