Chaos and Consequences by Nathan Earl Doverspike

Author:Nathan Earl Doverspike
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nathan Earl Doverspike

14

Heart to Heart

One Aetherial is dangerous; two are enough to take on an elite squad and leave without anything more than minor flesh wounds. – Emperor Tenon during his initial speech following the attack on Praetor eighteen years ago.

He didn’t have the desire to open his eyes, but Kai was aware of another being in the room wherever he was. He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think he was dead just yet. The pain from his wound was beginning to subside, from a scalding burn to a lukewarm annoyance.

Though he wasn’t precisely aware of his surroundings, he swore he heard a woman whisper his name followed by, “I’ll see you when you wake up.” The reassuring voice sounded like someone he hadn’t seen in a lifetime, who he missed every day but never wanted to think of. The pain of losing her was still too real. The day he lost her was the day he lost a part of himself that he would never recover. It was his choice to leave, and one that he regretted every second since.

He could have stayed—he should have stayed. But like his father, he had a nasty habit of running away from his problems. Or at least his father did until he discovered the ultimate solution to his problem—sell his two magically-gifted sons off to the Aetherials to fund his booze addiction. It wasn’t the first time Kai tried to run away, and it certainly hadn’t been the last. Though to Kai, the one he regretted the most was leaving the love of his life eighteen years ago. He had abandoned her without a backup plan, without warning. He could never repair that broken bond with her gone forever.

The wounded Aetherial faded off to sleep again; his thoughts a hazy blur of the events that happened mere hours ago in the arena. Or had it been days already? For the first time in a long time, he wondered if he extended himself too far, dug too deep into the Aether and allowed it to start consuming him. The lingering metallic taste in his mouth told him it was entirely possible that was the case, and eventually, he would succumb to the pull of corrupted emotions that had taken so many other Aetherials who stretched themselves beyond their physical limitations. It was an agonizingly slow way to go, your soul deteriorating and growing dark with corruption until your eyes turned to pitch black abysses and your thoughts consumed by one of the Six Hells. Any one of these emotions could be the ultimate end of an Aetherial and transformation into the long-forgotten Nekrofiends.

Ancient texts had warned of this fate, though he wasn’t one for reading old fables and children’s stories. His brother, Tobias, was always one to bury his head in the old texts, and look how far it got him. Those juvenile tales hadn’t helped on Praetor eighteen years ago, they didn’t help when Kai went toe-to-toe with a Greater Hunger Fiend, or when he found himself nearly losing control when he bested Captain Demico in his apartment.

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