Chapter 449 (2/2)
“Etistin hasn’t already been attacked,” Caera filled in “But the Wraiths may still be here already Fro theirthe battlefield to suit theure crossed in front of the alley where ere huddled, but it was only an older gentleman out for a ith his mana beast, a creature like a feathered lizard that skittered ahead of hi Sylvie and Caera, I said, “I want you to go to the palace Find Kathyln and explain e’ve seen Question her about the dragons Whatever you do, though, don’t let her bring you to Charon” My gaze turned up to Caera’s horns “Or let theavenatures in and around the city The pressure exuded by the dragons was evident even froh to be an asura or Wraith
I probed the dragons’ signatures and felt a hint of familiarity
“Windsom is here as well,” I confirmed “Neither can know you’re in the city until we’re ready to deal with therandfather”
“What will you be doing?” Caera asked, her eyes juure of a sis and I will search the city for any sign of the Wraiths”
Sylvie took o “Reach out to et into trouble Yes, I know you’ve faced Wraiths before, but don’t get complacent”
“Be careful in the palace,” I said in answer “It’s certain to be a political quagmire”
Caera and Sylvieacross the city toward the palace, while I leapt to the townhouse roof and activated Real inside e their way into Etistin’s city streets until they’d disappeared from view, then I turned my focus to the task at hand
Atmospheric ned to where the round and stone walls while air-attributeon the wind Thesedraard a e or pushed away froh the world in accordance with some inborn mechanical property of the mana itself
The aether in the atmosphere was much less dense Only a thin curtain of purple particles could be seen filling in the spaces between mana particles
It was exactly the interplay between those two forces that I was concerned with
The Wraiths couldn’t influence aether, and so they couldn’t manipulate it to help mask their presence I couldn’t be sure just how effectively they could do so with mana, and so I couldn’t rely on Realh the Godrune let me see even the clustered e, I theorized that a ic user with suitably refined control over mana could smooth away even that to make themselves truly undetectable, especially if they also balanced the input and output of their mana with a technique sitih as I could get for maximum visibility The interplay between aether and mana was very subtle and easily ht, my mood sour Still, a proactive approach see to happen
With aether enhancingate fro for any condensed nature, or changes in the atht indicate a powerful source of condensed but hidden mana
Meanwhile, I could sense that Sylvie and Ellie reached the palace but were still waiting for an audience with Kathyln
As I searched, I tried to remember what the city had looked like before the war, but I couldn’t The tall walls cutting the city off from the slope down to the bay hadn’t been there, I knew, and the city’s separate districts had been reshaped and walled off fro altogether Etistin still carried a militaristic air, a city fashi+oned into a fortified hub of countrywide politics, but the people seeht struck ely, I sent to Regis, who acted like a second set of eyes Areas people are avoiding without seelances, where passersby speed up to get past quickly
‘Yeah, no proble sarcas for a needle in a haystack or anything An invisible needle poised to kill everyone’
As I resu a faded turquoise cloak off a clothesline and dropping a coin in the pocket of a pair of trousers The hood was deep, falling down to obscure olden eyes
It also covered the glow of side Real into the strea the sights and sounds, but also the sixth sense that was the tug of theof the aetheric pathways connecting every point to every other point aroundwith the natural ebb and flow of its people It was there, I was certain, at the confluence of mana, aether, and human sensitivity, that I would find less blur, keeping track of it a sense that I lost as I focused entirely on the others Theof my head to listen to a child’s whimper or watch a woman hurry past a darkened doorway done without conscious effort
‘There,’ Regis thought, honing in on a distant patch of city wall so the course of hisat each other Aether rushed intouards were pale, sweating, the question in their eyes obvious: why a back along their patrol route, but too quickly to be natural
I , I realized, and the shadoere deep With my hood dra andto instead focus on thefor: a subtle distortion in the aetheric pathways, a twitch in the atone
Frowning, I expandedfor the same pheno up to the top of the wall, where I ie and searched with ain spotted it first ‘Thedown over the townhouse roofs, I scanned the sainst the foot of the district wall Beneath that wall, the shadows grew deeper, and—there!
No strong source of natures were a handful of wandering e core But in the heart of those shadows, the atht have missed it if not for the faintest distortion of the aetheric pathways that suggested a powerful source of ainst the aether all around it
Everyone who approached the shadows turned away suddenly, wrapping their ar as if they’d had a sudden chill before hurrying away to a different part of thein that direction, keeping my eye on that one spot
The distortion dissolved,as they eased back into their nor to find the distortion again, now on the other side of the ithin the shadows of a tower
‘It’s heading out of the city,’ Regis pointed out
It knoe’ve seen it
Casting off the cloak, I pressed Regis, and he e The aetheric pathways opened beforebolts running up s
I felt the pressure exuded by the invisible figure for half a second, then it vanished
‘On top of the city’s outer wall!’ Regis said, guidingthe wall to have a better view
Feeling the paths, I God Stepped again, this tiuardpost that topped the tall outer wall on the south edge of the city
‘Already gone,’ Regis huffed ‘Over the wall somewhere’
I had to search this ti to see the pattern
South of the wall, s had been erected to replace those de the war I searched their shadows and found the disturbance just as it vanished again, reappearing behind a building a few hundred feet farther away
The aetheric pathways took ain I appeared just as the distortion vanished
Distantly, through his senses, I felt Regis leap off the high wall and strike the ground running behind me
I found and God Stepped after the distortion again, but I had to look for ain it kept just ahead of me
But after a few more rapid shi+fts, we reached the end of the slurown on these stony steppes approaching the bay had been cut down during the war, providing a clear view for over a mile, and with the only shadows provided by wild shrubs, low bushes, or young, straggly trees
But the sun was nearly do, and those shadoere growing longer by the moment
The disturbance appeared in the shadows of a large rock, suddenly veering eastward I scanned the area beyond the rock, where a roild berry bushes provided the only shadow of substance
Charting the path through the aether, I God Stepped first to the rock, then to the bushes, not waiting in between
I would have grinned as the disturbance swelled right beside h the shadows, except there was no time
A dark shard of black ice stabbed out of the air, aimed at my throat I parried, but when I reached for the hidden ar but air Another blade thrust from the side, ai up under my ribs towardthe third impact with an aetheric blast that incinerated the bushes Moving in the wake of the blast, an aether blade appeared ininto the center h my arm in precise sequence
I felt the blade et’s flesh and bone
The shadows fell away like a cloak being pulled froround and back to their feet One ar on the ground between us The thin, palestus of his dark, unruly hair “The ascender…” he said, his voice oozing out of hi my eardru some distance between us but ready to counter if he so much as twitched
He shook his head, but no eistered pain “No warning, last tin didn’t tell theht, a real one A rare treat for theain, ascender But not here for you Knives in the dark, but not for you”
“You’re standing on the wrong continent,” I said, shi+fting htly “Which means that even if you’re not here for me, I am here for you Nohere are the others? How is approached fro around to pen the Wraith in froain and, strangely, seemed to relax “Already too late Can’t run, can’t talk, can’t win”
I cocked , but I pro If you can’t—”
“Not you, ascender He is watching” He pointed to his red eye “My eye to his He knows So it is already too late”
“He? You rona? He’s—” I took an involuntary step back as mana swelled within and around the Wraith
He let out a choked gasp and fell to one knee, then looked up atfrois, back!
I slipped into God Step even as the mana erupted
From several hundred feet aith aetheric electricity still arcing over me, I watched as a nova of black mana and blood iron spikes burst fro outward in a deadly doround apart for a hundred feet in every direction A rain of blackseconds after the explosion
I was still staring at the field of spikes as Regis ca up beside me “These Alacryans and their blood curses” When I didn’t reply, he added, “Think that’s it? Attack deflected?”
“No,” I said, knowing the truth
We hadn’t stopped the attack We had sied events to a future thatdidn’t know