Chapter 429 (1/2)

Chapter 429

Chapter 427: A Dream Yet to Happen

SYLVIE INDRATH

“Arthur, you’re not going to make it”

My voice sounded distant to hts He tried to push me out, tried to keep me from the worst of it, but he was too weak

I didn’t shy away from the desperation and despair I found there I wanted to, but I couldn’t, because he couldn’t He thought he kne this had to end, believed with his entire silly, brave heart there was only one way forward

“The portal isn’t—it isn’t going to stay stable for er, Sylv P-please, I can’t have you die too” Instead of continuing to shi+eld his feelings, Arthur suddenly reversed course, flooding me with his desperation, sadness, and despair And hope So ive me hope, even when he held none for himself

The pocket dimension Arthur had conjured shi+vered and twisted, but I held back, not allowing h it as Arthur tried to force h

Don’t worry, papa I’ll always take care of you Reaching for my true draconic for ht as I expanded outward, fair skin beco over my bond

“Sylv? What are you—”

“Try to keep yourself alive while I’rin to try and ease his hurt Why did I phrase it like that? I wondered, distant and disconnected, in the back of h, it felt…right Better than goodbye Suddenly I felt stronger, oodbye Just…see you later

I hope

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“Sylv, no! Don’t do this!” Arthur reached out, pressed his hands into un His hands passed straight through ht As if anyone in Epheotus would care enough about a “lesser” to do what I was about to No, this was so inherent in our bond It unlocked within me the moment I understood that Arthur was about to die, like that knowledge had been the turning of a key

Everything that made me was intrinsically, inseparably linked to hiic, ave it up for ht in a flash, like thunder fro foundations of my beliefs No, it was just there, as if it always had been He was my bond, and I could always help him, even now

Even now

My physical body had becoave up my dominion over it Gold and lavender motes of pure lifeforce floated away fro inside and out

I could still sense his pain His body had been shattered by overuse of ed, and every mote of me felt like hot coals and hammer blows to him I’m sorry, Arthur If I could take away the pain too, I would

As he sagged, I scooped him up and pushed hiain…” I said, my voice distorted and somehow incorporeal, and I could only hope he heard an to collapse, taking the pocket dione, I would be too, and the last of h the ruined city to be carried off and spread throughout Dicathen Knowing I would be in the grass, trees, leaves, and water of Arthur’s hoe of resistance that was keeping ht

The collapsing portal was pulling itself apart, and h the portal, was being reeled in I lacked the strength to resist or the awareness to understand what ive in

Irresistible force pulled atbecaht fire, stuttered, then blazed Constellations formed, faltered, and then fell from the sky Everywhere I looked, people flickered in and out too fast for h it, plunging like a shooting star in the night sky, insensate onder, too awestruck and alienated from my own perspective to even be confused

The expanding universe becaht, every color of it feltso bright it burned —pulled inexorably toward so quiet and calht faded

I was in a small, sterile-white room There were people there A woman in a white unifor over the roo at a clipboard A pale wo heavily as she stared up at the woht man with sad, tired eyes sat on a stool on the opposite side of the bed

The door behind own strode in I stepped back to avoid hi too quickly, and he buh an checking strange artifacts, but I was staring down at my own hands

They were small and pale, like I remembered the see out, I touched a tray that was sitting on a sh it

What am I?

Suddenly the worowl, and the man—a doctor, I realized—hurried to the foot of the bed I only then beca from the woiving orders The overweight man clumsily reached for the wos at once, but it was all so confusing…

And then, al, it was over

The nurse held out the baby boy, swaddled and cleaned and crying, to the woman, who took hi, radiating that saht

I stepped closer, leaned down to hiers, shaking even as I s tiaze away fro inside her soul, she looked at the man “A-are you sure? We could—”

He shook his head, and she made a sound like a knife had just been shoved between her ribs He looked down and away, clearly unable to bear it, and a single tear flowed down the crease between his nose and cheek “You knoe could, but we’re already struggling as it is Without a parental grant…what kind of life could we give a child He’ll be cared for Trained even, to fight for our country And then, ain?”

I saw the light leave the wo broke inside of her, and knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that they wouldn’t, but they didn’t holdhere…he was

My gaze drifted down to his round, red face, and I didn’t take it away again Not as the baby was taken from the parents he would never know, or as he slept and was fed in a bright rooed hih no one else atching except for the other infants—or when he took his first, sha steps

I followed hie, watched hirew and learned

Years passed, and I watched him Incorporeal, sleepless, eil, I experienced the young boy’s life with him, step by step I was by his side as he uided toward beco down his best friend, as he waged war for the defacto ure he lost

I did not look away Even as he di, floundering in a world that was ill-suited to him and didn’t deserve who he would become, I kneas a necessary travail Without these experiences, both success and failures, this sad king would never beco link to humanity he felt noould define his worldview in the next life as he set himself in opposition to it

But he didn’t have to suffer long, because, even fro ar toward him And I was there for that, too, the end of his journey as King Grey

I stood beside hih his hair—not yet the auburn he would inherit fro

The rapid passage of tiless to one who does not sleep, eat, drea halt, and I felt the presence as my own pulse in my throat Like the black claw of death itself,

I foundboth substance and power, and could do nothingdrawn fro, dark claw of forced reincarnation But…I knew, even if I’d been given the ability to do so, I wouldn’t have stopped as happening Because thisArthur a step closer to rona’s hton Earth, drifting along in Grey’s wake like a haunting ghost, it was sometimes difficult to keep sense of time My life felt like a drea after the end…