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They both looked at the hanging parchment in silence for a moment before Ryson added, “I don’t remember what that feels like. To start something like that,” he said, “I don’t understand it.”
You want to start a program to help feed the hungry?
“By Cien. No. I just don’t like that I can’t remember the feeling. What is wrong with you?”
You shouldn’t concern yourself with the sensations of lower beings. You’ve risen above such petty and short sighted gratifications.
“That’s better,” Ryson replied with a smile. He approached the door, his copy vanishing as he passed it. “Much better,” he repeated in a whisper as he walked forward.
Ryson left the room and paced down the walkway until he reached the main corridor. The castle seemed almost entirely empty.
He could still see the marks from Clea’s feet as she’d dragged them along the carpet. They led him up to the two great wooden doors that separated him from the throne room. There was complete silence on the other side, but the air hung heavy with cien. It clung to his skin like sweat.
I bet she screams loudly.His cien noted and Ryson couldn’t tell if it was meant to be an insult or a compliment. He didn’t take the time to dissect it.
He opened the doors with a firm push. They parted to a dim and quiet throne room. Ryson’s footsteps were the only sound as he passed under the rays of afternoon light filtering in from the ceiling. He scanned the room as he approached the throne, finding the source of cien waiting for him on the armrest.
Things just got very interesting.His dark replica spoke from behind him.
Ryson watched the medallion, coiled on the throne, asking to be picked up. He scanned the empty room again.
So, this is it? The source of the cien poisoning. It’s almost like it was waiting for you. Seems a bit like you’re being set up, Ryson, doesn’t it?His dark replica asked, hanging by the door hesitantly.
“You’re starting to sound like Alina with all of your conspiracies,” Ryson replied.
I am you.
Ryson felt something call his gaze out to the large window behind the throne. The sun didn’t break through it with all its brazen heat, leaving a clear view of the rotting city beyond.
Ryson’s intuition of fate was blunted in his weakness, but he’d learned that the world had its own poetry that he didn’t need power to decipher. Clea’s form cast in the lights of the woods last night spoke to him and now, so did this eerie view.
The moment stilled, like a rare animal aware that it had been spotted, a second before he knew it would leap again into the flow of time, never to be seen again.
The power of the three cities and three heroes of Shambelin was symbolic in that it represented the parts of the human form. Ruedom was the city of the mind, Loda was the city of the heart, and Virday was the city of the body, but none spoke of this symbolism anymore because it highlighted a darker story of The Decline. Long ago, there had been a fourth city, Salanes, the city of the soul.
He imagined that lost city now out beyond the horizon. The soul of Shambelin lay out in the forest, the bones of its early walls haunted by beasts. Now, Virday died away under his gaze, with Loda’s last heir trapped inside its bloating corpse. Maybe he’d been generous in assuming humanity had a full century left.
It’s about time,he’d said to Alina in his frustration, but maybeit was. Dark warlords of ancient times still warred and brewed at the borders of Shambelin. The continent itself was shrouded in deadly forest. Maybe it was more a miracle that humanity had lasted this long already.
Ryson examined the medallion, knowing that picking it up would in some ways finalize his decision to play Alina’s game.
Alina had asked that he return the princess to Loda, and in exchange, Alina would die by his hand. In her lunacy, Alina often made senseless deals, but there was always the risk that she knew something he didn’t. Her uncanny sense of the unknown had once earned her the Kaletik name, Alina al Nevana. It translated to The Witch of Wicked Wisdom. In calling her Alina, he was, in essence, calling her witch.
His view of the city now seemed to echo a warning. Against all reason, he was all but deterred.
He couldn’t ignore the vaguest sense of excitement.
Maybe Alina knew him better than he thought.
Chapter 5
To Purge Our Blood
CLEA COLLAPSED AGAINST the straps that bound her limbs and mouth. The crate shook with the steps of its carriers, and dim light filtered in through the cracks between the boards. They’d tied her wrists, palms, ankles, and feet. Her knuckles were bruised from banging against the edges of the crate, but the boards were reinforced with iron strips and pegs. Ansra could heal, create barriers, expel cien, and reinforce weapons, but it was against its very nature to tear things apart.
She stared at the ceiling of the crate, sweat stinging her eyes as slices of light filtered in and illuminated the dust bobbing thoughtlessly above her. For a brief moment, she resented the limits of her power. If her ansra couldn’t help free her, maybe it meant for her to die this way. She’d taken so many risks and struggled so hard in the last several years to end up here. Despite being a supposed emissary of life, life seemed to be working awfully hard to kill her. What had she gotten for all her effort? The prisoner’s kennel.
The crate was infamous for its role in taking those sentenced to death to the grand wall that surrounded the city. Clea had seen it only a couple times before, but she remembered it as the king had meant for it to be remembered. Thick strips of dark red paint hung from its splintered boards and, on each side were the words “To Purge Our Blood.”
