Chapter 442 (1/2)

Chapter 442

Chapter 440: A Snapped Thread

CECILIA

Voices above, around Familiar, but far away So, so far away…

The words, talking about the flaerToome My blood, my bones

Mine

Mine, like the hole Deep and endless A frost-filled pit Can’t reic Mana A key A core

The words again Strange voices, and faer” “Time”

Tiht, dark, light, dark…dark…

Eyes open A darkness full of color Red, yellow, green, blue… Needles in ainst ” “Integration” “

Darkness again

I woke up tre, bursting Terrified

There were stars Outside my s The purple silhouette ofWith ic

I closedMuscles ached Every breath was full of ragged pain Pain and… into my core but…into ic was there

Wind blew throughmy bones Sleep slipped back over ain, an unknown presence filling rona, but also nothing like Agrona His eyes, two bright rubies, pierced aze onray face, i eyes Two horns corkscrewed up froht Only…

He said so, and so the first rona He sn Oludari Vritra of Truacia

Nas of which I couldn’t seem to capture

Oludari replied, concerned

Agrona brushed the concerns aside, confident, assuring Daunting

Oludari, unassuaged Agrona, colance at me, and my spirit shriveled I closed ain, I was alone Tiible…more real I could tell that several hours had passed

I struggled to think back to Agrona’s conversation with Oludari, but it was like trying to re to the rasp

My fever had broken How long has it been? I wondered Weeks, I suspected

‘Long enough that I wasn’t sure ere going to survive after all,’ Tessia said init roaned and rolled over, pulling one of the sweat-stained pillows over my head Leave me alone

There was no reply

After a few s over the edge of the bed The floor was cold against s shook violently I stuainst the railing The wind off the ooseflesh all overit shake even worse

Mana flowed tohts

Before, I’d felt like I was at one with the hts and desires, a tool I could do anything with I should be stronger now, but…

There was this inescapable sense of irony I couldn’t re reincarnated into this world I was the Legacy, and now I’d gone through Integration, e in the world But I couldn’t stopon s, like the next tirona had told me I was past the worst of it, but it didn’t feel that way Whatever had happened to ration, I couldn’t see hoorse than these weeks of healing and sickness

There was a frightening sense of incorrectness to it Kind of like when I’d had a huge ki center, but hadn’t been able to stop it fro Nico—and Grey

Leaning forward, I was sick over the balcony's edge I proppedthe bitterness ofmyself for a while Then, slowly, I stumbled back to my bed and fell in it, but sleep was distant and unreachable

I just lay there, able to do nothing but drag the spotlight of ile elven body It was still in the final stages of acclie sensation to have mana that was not constrained by a core I really was one with rona had tried to describe it, but what he’d told me couldn’t match with reality Maybe his asuran ration really ht, no one who hadn’t experienced this sense of balance and power could hope to understand it

Tentatively, I began to experihmuscles while wind-attribute mana cooled my skin Earth-attribute mana hardened in my bones and fire-attribute mana warmed my blood

This detached kind of observation helped bring soration, I realized, was actually a lot like awakening toto control my ki

In the saical, Integration felt exponentially ic The creation of aof a ki center since each required the concentration of energy to for freely through my body very similar to ki manipulation on Earth

I felt ht, still afraid that e beyond my control Without a core to control it…

I sat up and pushed acy hadn’t stopped that fro before, on Earth I’ it over and over again like a mantra

Eventually, sleep crept up onscrea up from my bed, I stared wide-eyed at the startled attendant who had been cleaningat my bedside, and he quickly dismissed the attendant, who bowed and rushed frolance at me

“What is it?” Nico asked, his voice soft It almost sounded like his old voice, his real voice, the way he’d sounded back on Earth

I looked at him more closely Not his dark hair and sharp features No, his Alacryan face wasn’t his any more than Tessia Eralith’s thin elven face washis nails into his pal the inside of his lip, how he leaned toward htly, like he wanted to be just that little bit closer to me…in those moments, I could see him And when I closed my eyes, I could picture him so clearly

I tensed suddenly as Tessia’s voice entered my mind

‘Show him theabout irona’s rune-covered table, the one I’d woken up on afterthe shape and purpose it had been given by the strange runes

‘Re when you first woke up There istold’

I didn’t acknowledge her, but she was right I had woken up on that table feeling weak but ht Half-remembered words tuly, I began to explain to Nico what I’d seen and done upon first waking, and the discoes

“You did…what? That doesn’tlook “It’s not…well, possible”

I held out ht issued fro in the shape of the runes that had originally given it for becale to understand and accept it clearly written across his face

I told hiingerly, Nico pressed the tip of his finger down into the mana It condensed into a swarm of individual particles and was pulled into his body I heldthe spell to keep its for dissolved into the individual co around beneath his lids

“It’s…I’m not sure” Nico’s words rolled out of him in a slol as his focus stayed on the spell I felt hialia “The structure, the runes—theI’ve ever seen, but…” His eyes opened, and he stared atto take some tireed co hard about so, then added, “Except…Draneeve, maybe Only if completely necessary We can trust him, because—well, just know that we can trust hi an eye on you whenever I couldn’t”

Despite not really understanding, I acknowledged what he said

After that, Nico came to my rooms as often as was prudent Slowly, more of my tiration left behind a deep-rooted fatigue that kept me in my chambers

Nico was restless when presented with a problem, a puzzle to be solved, a knot to be undone Hiselse, and even when he couldn’t be with me—my presence was required to hold the shape of the ht about it ceaselessly

I could tell so his fears froether, I hadn’t wanted to derail his thoughts and so hadn’t gone into more detail about the return of my old memories…but no, really, that’s just an excuse I was afraid Afraid of what IWhat would that conversation lead to? I wasn’t ready to tell him that I had killed myself and let Grey take the blame

Whenever someone knocked on my door, I expected it to be Nico I was surprised, then, the day that Melzri strode in She wrinkled her nose as she looked around acy I’ve been tasked with fetching you for so I’m sure you’re just as excited about the prospect as I aestured wordlessly for her to lead the way We were quiet as we passed through the halls of Taegrin Caelu like aso vulnerable

Melzri’s long bright-white braid bounced with each step The way her horns curled back over her head, they were pointing at , but I couldn’t help but admire her obvious self-confidence, the way she was entirely at ease in her own skin I thought about trying to make small talk to break the aard silence between us but didn’t knohere to begin

She was a Scythe, and all of Alacrya knew her story When her blood hblood foster siblings Her foster father—the e and tried to kill her Defending herself, she burned the heart out of his chest After that, she was taken in by Agrona and raised within this very fortress

It was probably why she’d becohter to Agrona before I arrived In soht that I’d supplanted her

And I suppose, really, I had That didn’tIn fact, as I considered the situation, I felt otten exactly what she deserved Melzri and the rest of the Scythes were self-important, cruel people They’d been awful to Nico Suddenly that self-confidence I had admired only seconds earlier seemed unearned

I clenchedhall deep in the stone at the base of Taegrin Caelum The bare walls and floor were cracked and blackened with scorch es—retainers, Scythes, even Wraiths—who had trained here over the decades There was no equip enough to be brought here didn’t need things like that

I was unsurprised to find Scythe Viessa already present, along with Draneeve and a handful of nanize Of those present, Viessa had the strongest nature, then Melzri Draneeve was a distant third The others were all es at best I could only assume they were researchers or scientists, not warriors

Melzri stopped beside Viessa, glowering at ht, her purple hair dark and her void-black eyes even darker

She would have been terrifying except…

I looked down at ether I could see thein their core as it was purified, and knew better than they did the, or weak, they really were I could break these Scythes with a snap of ers If I wanted to

Draneeve bobbed forward, his expression hidden behind his awful rets that he can’t join us at the moment But he hopes Scythes Melzri and Viessa will…” He trailed off, his eyes ju to the Scythes behind the mask He cleared his throat, then finished, “That they willtoday”

Viessa hissed under her breath “We should be helping Dragoth dig out the traitor, not babysitting this reincarnate child”

Melzri only rolled her shoulders and grinned “Now, sister, don’t be like that The Legacy needs all the help she can get Despite everything the High Sovereign has done to get her to this point, she hasn’t had so much as one real victory for hi aroundirl Without a core, you seem…deflated”

All of my self-doubt and anxietyThese tere nothing to me I sure as hell wasn’t intimidated by their desperate jabs

Draneeve had taken several steps back, and the other es followed his example “Lady Cecilia is to test her powers, you two should—”