The Secrets of Starellion- the Court of Lincoln Hart by Ember Lane

Author:Ember Lane [Lane, Ember]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781695667815
Publisher: Ember Lane Books
Published: 2018-06-04T22:00:00+00:00

18

Cronis’s Enlightenment

The steps were endless, though Lincoln knew the buttress—the great mass of stone that it was from the outside—reared perhaps a hundred and fifty feet. It appeared a much greater drop down. Each floor was identical: a surrounding landing, a number of corridors angling away, and some open chambers, like shops without a frontage, where Lincoln presumed artisans had once peddled their wares. He began to feel inadequate. If he did, indeed, wake the castle, then was he enough of a soul to fill it, to organize it, to rule it? If all played out as it seemed his companions wanted it to, the task would be huge.

Boredom had already filled his mind at the mere threat of having to adjudicate the petty squabbles of his citizens. His citizens—is that what Joan would have wanted, what she’d have done had she just been given the chance? He noticed that he was trailing behind the others, the weight of the sheer enormity of the place slowing him down, and was pulled from his reverie as Jin clamped his arm around him.

“What burden weighs your shoulders down this time?” Jin asked, shoving him away and skipping a couple of steps down, then turning. “Are we not in the middle of an adventure?”

“A challenge,” Lincoln pointed out. “An adventure is questing through a land, fighting dragons, chasing down thieves, and rescuing maidens.”

Jin roared. “For you, maybe. You forget; we aren’t all immortal. For me, the dragon would fry me, the thief would knife me, and the maiden would give me the pox. Your little trick of rebirth alters your idea of danger to mere fun.” Jin pointed down at Flip. “Once you follow that one’s coattails, the two should mix nicely for you.”

“About that, do you really think I should go? Do you think this is all a test just to let me see I can trust you?”

Jin jumped to the next landing, spinning and kneeling, his head bowed. “My liege, we cannot possibly survive a month or two without you. Before you came, we still suckled our mothers' teats and gurgled our hellos.” He looked up, his face mimicking a desperado, his hands clenched in front of him. “Please don’t leave us. The fields will fall fallow, the seed barren, starvation, ruin, pestilence—”

“All right, all right, I get the point. So, I go with Flip, see the lay of the land, recruit—hopefully recruit—but who runs the place?”

“Always go with the army. Look at Merissia and her encounter with The Thrace. Does that not tell you who should lead?”

“You have the bows,” Lincoln pointed out.

“I do, but Swift has the Apachalant and the Kobane. He has more knowledge than me of the lands: Irydia, Apachalant, Kobane. I hear that scouting Tharameer is part of their initiation, so he has the Lowlands too. No, not I, if you need a captain for war, look no further than Swift. Both elves and dwarves will stand with that honorable choice.” Flip cocked his head as if to tease a further thought out.

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