Dedicated to Blessing Sunday for requesting
that we release the whole book on Wattpad
Death is a warmer embrace than the darkness that holds me right now. I gasp, but there is no air to fill my lungs here. I've read dozens of descriptions of the Void, this space between the dimensions, so when Leavi told me the witch Idyne had constructed a portal back to my country, I thought I'd be ready to step through it.
Now, its reality sears my mind with wonder. It is dark infinity: forever, unchanging, untouchable. Who are you, it seems to ask, to think your tiny, mortal life will make any difference in the war to come? Who are you to brave traveling the dimensions when you couldn't even save your uncle from the Meadow realm? Who are you to dare returning home after running away like a traitor in the night?
The Void holds me for an instant that feels like hours. When it drops away, I still don't have any answers.
The birdsong of late autumn fills what had been silence. Inhaling deeply, I open my eyes.
Gnarled tree bark glares an inch from my face. I call out and step back, heart thrumming. Amarris, the Lady who lured and imprisoned me in Draó, scoffs beside me. "Did the tree startle you?"
The woman hasn't caught her breath either, blue eyes as wide as the gaping Void, but disdain is clear on her strained face. I tighten my grip on the rope binding her wrists. As a wizard herself, she knows well enough why teleporting that close to an object frightened me.
"Come on."
It was foolish to trust the witch. If I had left the Void half a foot forward, in lieu of intersecting the tree, my body would have stayed in the Void, and my other parts would simply have been gruesome litter about the trunk. Wizard manipulation of the realms is usually more reliable than that, but kra'kaas like Idyne are about as reliable as wildfire.
I'm home now, though, and that's what matters.
The ground slopes up to the left, and I turn that way, hoping it's high enough to see where the city is. The fall leaves crunch underfoot, bright with the deep reds and yellows of a Morineause autumn. I can't help the faint smile that comes to my lips. I'm home. Gone is the blinding snow, gone are the endless pine trees. Gone is Leavi.
I push the thought away, topping the rise. A wave of homesickness washes over me. N'veauvia sits beyond the trees, a large wall surrounding her many inhabitants. In the center of the city, the Grand Park surrounds another wall that encircles the sprawling stone castle. The edge of the Park boasts the houses and businesses of nobility, which extend to a wall between the other two. Originally constructed when the city was much smaller, this middle wall now only distinguishes between the First District and most of the commoners. The disparity is visible from even here by the way the height and bright colors of the rich houses gradually fade into grey shanties. Beyond the city, the branching Fork Rivers curve around the shallow hill that hosts the land I grew up in. I must be to the east of N'veauvia.
The wind blows, snapping out red and black pennants strewn across the Grand Park. My foot stutters back. On their poles and across their lines perch countless ravens, as if they're trying to smother the castle. One raven takes wing, and with it, ten, twenty, a hundred more, all rising and settling back down on the field. The enemy force crowds the castle wall's gate, haphazardly camped just out of bow range. There are thousands of them.
A stone drops in my gut.
The Kadranians haven't just marched on N'veauvia—they've defeated two of the city's walls and sit just outside the gates of my home. How could the city have fallen so quickly? So many people must have already died. The northerners wouldn't have shirked killing civilians in their path as they tore through the city, and no doubt many good soldiers and battle casters fell defending the walls. My fists clench.
A twig snaps, shattering the morning air. I tug my prisoner back down the hill with me, and we crouch against the steep ground. After a handful of heartbeats, I turn to carefully peek over the rise's edge.
A fur-clad beast of a man stands forty feet through the trees, glancing around. An axe gleams on his back.
I duck back down.
"What is it?" Amarris whispers. I cover her mouth with my free hand, scrambling for what to do. I can't hope to face this Kadranian soldier in combat with a traitor at my back. My only options are to sit here and hope he doesn't come this way or to try to sneak off. But to where?
Teeth clamp down on my hand, and I jerk away from her. As she opens her mouth to yell, I knee her in the gut. Air puffs from her lips rather than whatever cry she planned. I press my hand down over her mouth once more, holding her head against the rise. She bites me again, but I ignore the pain until I fish out a handkerchief and stuff it into her mouth. Before she can spit it out, I gag her with another.
The moment I finish, she darts to the side. I scramble to tackle her, then yank her back up. Stars. There's no way the Kadranian scout didn't hear the commotion. I shoot a look at Amarris to tell her to cooperate, then risk another glance over the rise.
The Kadranian marches toward us.
Keeping a firm grip on Amarris's binds, I cast with my other hand. "Et væ," I whisper, sending a twig lying ten feet to the brute's left crashing through the leaves. The magic backlashes as I fail to end the spell before losing sight of the twig. I cringe and duck beneath the ridge, pain reverberating through my skull.
When I glance back up, the Kadranian has paused. My breath freezes in my chest. He turns toward his left, and I exhale as he disappears into the trees. I climb back down.
Their camp in the Grand Park blocks the castle gate. There's no way I can get through that way. This would have been far easier had Idyne's portal sent me within castle grounds. Still, just outside the city is mind-bogglingly better than weeks away in the middle of frozen-over Draó.
I refuse to be this close and give up.
My eyes sweep the forest. Who knows how many other scouts they could have out here. I need to get moving. When I glance at Amarris, she sneers, her mouth tight against the gag. Arrogant defiance won't keep the traitor out of the Morineause dungeon, though. I stare at the leaves in front of me.
Even if I could make it through the city and past their camp undetected, I can't use the gap in the castle wall that I left through. It's an escape route, not an entrance. It doesn't open from this side.
An escape route...
I frown, trying to think back to my explorations of the castle's forgotten passages, a memory fluttering just outside my reach. None of the castle's secrets I ever discovered, though, led outside the city.
Again, something itches at the back of my mind, and I clench my fist. Instinctively, I close my eyes to focus but snap them back open, glancing at Amarris and our surroundings.
I need to figure this out, quickly, and without sacrificing my awareness.
The leaves. I narrow my eyes at them, and the memory flits faintly closer. It was autumn then, too.
Only use it if the worst happens, Aster. My uncle Agraund's words, clouded by years and years of memory. I rake my hand through my hair. I feel like if I weren't so desperate for the information, it would come to mind.
I need where it led to. Maybe I'm not so far out from it that I won't be able to find it from here.
It was a tunnel. Blackest black I'd ever seen, as I walked with only his hand on my shoulder to guide. The stale taste of dirt and dust settled in my nose, the unnerving weight of the world sitting over my head. We walked for hours, first down, down so far I would have sworn at the time we were headed straight for the bowels of the earth, then just flatly away. Away from the castle, away from the city, until...
There was a hatch.
He turned to me, in the dark, placing both his hands on my shoulders.
And said what?
The leaves. After we'd left the tunnel, he showed me how the hatch was cast upon to camouflage with whatever had been atop it before it opened.
All at once, his words ring clear in my mind. This is a last measure if you or your siblings fear for your life. You're the only one of you three with the magic necessary to let them out. Do not fail them. Then he told me the words.
I look around, glancing back over the ridge. I see nothing but the trees and my beloved, distressed city. I tug Amarris up. "Come on." The tunnel came out a little more south of the city than here, only a few miles from the main easterly road. I pull Amarris along with me.
I swear she steps on every twig and branch she can. After the fourth achingly loud snap, I spin, standing only inches from her. "You will stop that," I growl. She smirks, and I add, "Or I'll make sure the Kadranians that find us believe you're their enemy too."
She sobers. No matter how many Morineause secrets she's sold on the black market or how long she's been in league with the Kadranians, anyone that comes across us will have no reason to think she's on their side. I doubt their common soldier knows the face of the great Traitor Veradeaux. I spin back around and continue slinking through the trees. She comes, quietly this time.
After several minutes, a large, knobby stump rises up about thirty feet ahead of me. I stop, making Amarris sit so I can tear a strip of cloth from the bottom of her dress without fear of her running. Her eyes narrow, and when I move to tie the strip around her eyes, she pulls away.
"Stay still."
She shakes her head indignantly, mumbling around the gag.
"You're not entering the castle unblindfolded."
She thrusts both bound hands toward the ground as if to say, Then just leave me here.
I scowl. "Do you know of the deep-rest spell?"
She pauses, regarding me warily.
She needn't know the spell is beyond my skill level. Enchantments have never worked well for me, but I've heard it's unpleasant to be forced into slumber without needing it. "You will wear this blindfold one way or another."
She hesitates. With a look like sour wine, she closes her eyes. I tie the blindfold and pull her back up. Together, we walk toward the knobby stump. Upon reaching it, I glance around. I recognize the stump but can't remember exactly where the hatch is supposed to be.
Hopefully saying the incantation this close is enough to open it. I cover Amarris's ears. Pulling in a deep breath, I repeat the words in my mind once before attempting them out loud. If this doesn't work, I'm not sure what will.
"Abrï agantar a'mraê, escatiris," I declare to the air.
Nothing moves.
Could I have misremembered the spot? I look around. I was so certain about this stum—
A low groaning fills the air, and I search for its source. Ten feet away, leaves rustle and dirt shifts, as if some circle beneath attempts to push up. Finally, the hatch overcomes its disuse and swings open. Dirt cascades into its maw. I grin.
I'm coming home.