Chapter 355: Just His Name (1/2)
Chapter 355: Just His Na my hand, I reveled in the response of the y The yellow hovered low to the ground, rolling and tu like tiny stones The blueto h They had a cutting quality, like a sharp blade, whipping and snapping like the wind they represented, but there was also so cool and clean about them The wind mana was both hard and soft at the sah in the Basilisk Fang Mountains Not far fro around for miles that I could accidentally destroy…but I wasn’t out here because Agrona feared I ht lose control Rather, he knew the extent ofinto the sky, I focused on the h above Water and wind condensed, se, black storm cloud that darkened the mountains for miles all around us
My small audience watched in silence Nico was there, of course, along with three of the other Scythes Draneeve, Nico’s attendant and a few other ranking figures frorona hadn’t, but I’d never seen him leave the castle before
Fire mana drifted up frohtning that crashed back down to shatter boulders and cast shrapnel across an to fall like catapult stones to smash craters into the hard th on Earth, I’d never been able to do anything like this with ki
My rona proin to feel er I was in this body The runes covering ether, helped keep the other voice quiet
Windstrea me from the others Wind, both soft and hard…
My life—my previous life—had required me to hardenI had received But there had always been a piece of myself that I kept inwarmth for the first time in my life, and it was that warmth that maintainedfrom the shattered remnants of those memories I still couldn’t remember my death, and Nico had only said I would learn about it in tilanced at where he stood, watchinghis face I couldn’t help but notice how he stood well away from the others Poor Nico, an outsider even here
Draneeve clapped his hands and shouted into the wind, hisquality that I found uncomfortable to listen to Nico motioned for Draneeve’s silence, and the h he continued with a slow, inconsistent applause
Reaching out, I tugged at the corners of the huge storm and drew it inward and doard until it hovered just above o a deadlyentirely different Tiny winged creatures made of air wheeled within the clouds, while little watery dolphins jumped and splashed below them
It was beautiful Mana was beautiful Ki had been energy, capable of being gathered and unleashed but never really formed, not in the saic
My attention twitched nervously over to the three who stood apart from the rest: the Scythes Technically, Nico was one of them, but they held him apart, or he kept his distance Or both
Their varying shades of gray skin, black horns, and red eyes all served to define theazes held both curiosity and unease, like an audience watching a lion ta er than them eventually
“Very, very well done!” Draneeve piped up in his purposefully grating voice “You’ve grown so much irl’s body and you’re—”
There was a loud crack
Draneeve straightened hiswith small holes for eyes and a crudely drawn smile—and rubbed the side of his head where Nico had backhanded hirace to at least look embarrassed He hated Draneeve, I knew, but he wouldn’t tellNico
Dragoth was enore as any man I’d ever seen, but he was otherwise cut froh the ranks in the King’s Crown tournament, there were h at their own jokes, and quick to fight at any perceived insult
Cadell was stranger, scarier He had a cold and cruel face, like the sharp side of an axe, but was businesslike in his manners I didn’t like him
But it was the third Scythe who I foundI’d only h she looked young—twenty at the most—there was a deep, curious wisdoence I felt like she was dissecting me with her dark eyes, both then and now Unlike her counterparts, she was still watching ulls and water-dolphins, butinto her eyes, it was al to figure me out Did she see me as a threat? A tool? I wasn’t sure
“Nico,” Cadell said, his tone full of frost and fire, “be nice to your pet After all, it is Draneeve who returned you froeted, his attitude unreadable behind his ugly eneral now, perhaps even a retainer, if he hadn’t retreated frorateful hide”
My spell faded away, the cloud dissolving toas I waited for Nico to respond He clenched his fists and took a step away from Draneeve “Don’t speak to me like I’m your lesser, Cadell I’rinned, his teeth shi+ning white as ht, little Nico You are a Scythe And the na our nuhed loudly at his own joke, but didn’t stop there “Perhaps Bivrae should be a Scythe, or even Draneeve!” he said, practically shouting, his grin turning predatory
Nico sneered “And where was thethe war? Tell me, titan of Vechor, as it your retainer went to Dicathen and died while you stayed safe and—”
“Be careful what you say next,” Dragoth growled, his se , thorn-covered vine erupted between the into a wicked briar fence I hadn’t hting My defensive instinct always veered toward plant ic, even when other eleoth leaned forward, resting both ar and little, yet already at the peak of your power, reincarnate”
Nico’s head tilted to the side His eyes were cold as dead coals “Everyone who etoenough—at Lord Agrona’s insistence, of course,” he added quickly, shooting a sour look at Cadell
“Your ability to aze cutting me apart bit by bit, “but don’t be clouded by what's in front of you Keep your eyes and ears open and do not reach beyond your grasp”
“She is the Legacy,” Nico countered darkly “The stars therasp”
My first experience of this world was the forest hoeness was lost on me I was too confused and astonished by my own reincarnation to pay much attention to their enchanted forest Even the appearance of the three-eyed giant—an asura, I reminded myself—had failed to impress upon me the otherworldliness of an to understand how different this place really was frorona It wasn’t until Nico led me into the Relictoe and wonderful differences between the torlds
Agrona’s private portal could connect to any other in Alacrya, allowing us to teleport much too close to our destination I would have liked to explore, to spend ti it all in as we meandered across the second level of the Relictoazed up into the vast blue expanse I thought ic, but this…
I knew logically that the sky itself was a ical construct, but I couldn’t understand it It see When I shared this thought with Nico, he ignored h the crowds of armored men and women around us
“Are you entirely i pace beside hiotten accustomed to all of this, but I’ve only recently arrived here”
“We have someplace to be,” he snapped He must have seen me frown from the corner of his eye, because he slowed down a little “I’rona hinted that e’ll find here ht be important to me, but he’s left out any sort of details and…” He trailed off, wincing “I’m sorry, it’s not your fault I’es”
“No, I’uilty for th about his lives, both what it was like for hi’s Crown tournaht of what you’ve been through”
“I knoas all he said
I followed along silently as Nico led us straight as an arroard a large, inti of dark stone and black spines It looked a little like a huge porcupine with an ar to its back
A wo for us in front of the building She rapped in dark robes eolden sword and scales Her eyes stayed on her shoes as we approached, and even when she began to speak, she did not look up
“It is a great honor to welcon” Her tone was authoritative, even when she tried to be subservient “Although, I must admit, we expected you sooner”
Nicojust slightly farther back fron has little ties I’m still not sure why a Scythe was needed at all,” Nico said briskly
I wanted to look around, but alking too quickly for hed when I saw a giant fresco of a rona It seemed like the artists had never even seen him, but I realized quickly that was a possibility Then ere past it, with neither Nico nor the red-haired wo any notice
Nico stopped at a black iron door, tapping his fingers ih justice to open it Waving her mana-swathed hand in front of the door, she motioned us toward a diray tiles Nico took the lead again, descending the stairs rapidly By the ti at an uncoh justice and I to practically jog to keep up with him
A ht, lined with barred cell doors In the closest cell to the stairs, a raggedy woht, saw Nico, and i as if she’d just seen a de tunnels as he led us straight down theclicked
His standoffishness, the way he was practically ignoringtirelessly to prove to Agrona that I was ready, his ill teation
It was hardly a stretch to say that id, every movement stiff and aard, and he wouldn’t even look atwhatever was to come
The hallway ended in a pair of wide iron doors, black as night and entirely covered in silvered runes They looked like they could keep a rah, they swung open all by thee, circular room on the other side
My stomach did a flip
“What did these people do to deserve this?” I asked, avertingspread-eagle fro by their wrists and ankles Bronze bands covered their s, I couldn’t sense anything fro suppressed or—I sed hard—their mana cores had been destroyed