Chapter 465 (1/2)

Chapter 465

Chapter 463: A Cage of Light

CECILIA

My i the surge of effort from the Instillers and their Wraith protectors was a balm to my nerves The last teeks had passed slowly and with increasing frustration, but it was finally tih co over the flying castle hovering to the east, ere ready

Under a shroud of natures, sed the noise of our passage, and obscured us from view from above, my people moved into place

There were at least fifty Instillers, Agrona’sa plethora of die devices I flew above while they ed lines like roups of Wraiths flew around us, keeping to the cover of the drifting cloud of thick uards

I could neither see or sense any dragons—not nearby, anyway A patrol of guards was passing over the encampments built by the defeated Alacryan soldiers to the north, and a few blurred together within the flying castle some way to the east

Just above us, suspended in the sky a hundred feet or so above the trees, a very different sort of nature seemed to simmer just beneath the surface of as normally detectable to the bare senses There was no visual distortion, at least not from within our misty cloud and beneath the canopy of thin, half-dead trees

It was fascinating, really Although we’d been calling it a “rift,” it was h it—within the waterskin—was all of Epheotus Thea piece of our world to bulge out into some other realm, was incomprehensible to me But the mechanism by which it remained hidden, that I now understood

The presence of the rift, or rather the intense pressure of theinto and then back out of it, caused distortions that rippled out for a hundreddrawn into Epheotus—was balanced with theprojected back out of it by the asuras, that equilibriuuised the rift’s real location in theelsewhere It required only a bit of effort on the dragons’ part to bend the light so that there was no physical h, it was now impossible for me not to see Neither Nico nor any of the Wraiths who had already been here could sense it, no matter how specific I was or how much they stared, but when I looked beneath the surface of as shown, I saw the cyclone ofdrawn in and expelled

I indicated exactly where the rift was, and the Instillers got to work Spreading out, they began to rapidly withdraw equipe devices in a circle around where the rift hovered high above The round and between the crooked and dying trees that do they remained obscured and undetectable

As I watched the Instillers set about their work, I thought of Nico, hoping he would be safe Dicathen’s defenders had been busily scuttling into strongholds across the continent As Agrona had anticipated, Grey seeround, but the infor Even his own people seemed convinced that Grey was in multiple places at once

My lips curled into a sneer As if Agrona would be fooled but such a weak attempt at a diversion

The closest location was the Wall As I waited, I expanded out o so far The feedback eak—a dioth, as well as a bright spark of mana that must have been a Lance It was subtle, but beneath the undercurrent of everything else, there was a s against it

Grey and his dragon co I’d tasted the dragon’s mana, and there was a hint of it there, but it felt as if they were shrouding themselves somehow Surely it won’t be so easy as that…

My eyes snapped open andof artifacts was half in place It was ties of the spell distorting light to wrap around the rift Though powerful, it relied largely on the swell of uise its very presence Once I had the spell in ed it aside like a curtain over aUnexpectedly, the spell resisted, as if there were so it closed

I pulled harder, and the spell ripped, pulling apart in a visible shower of pure ht sparkled out in every direction to rain down ontwist of s

The white sparks burned brighter, hotter, as they fell, and I realized the danger al my hands to conjure a protective barrier over the Wraiths and Instillers Wherever the white sparks settled, they burned against the shi+eld, ainst an to conjure their own barriers, buttressingsparks

Above, the rift was now fully in view, a gash in the sky, the air seees, like flesh opened by a sharp blade The sky beyond was a slightly different shade of blue, just alien enough to conjure gooseflesh along my arms and neck Inside the ripple in space, three distorted figures floated

The Wraiths burst into action, four battle groups re our Instillers, without who would fail, while the other six broke and fleay,around well outside the shower of sparks and flying high, encircling the rift

I floated upward after the it to envelope the re forces grinding against one another like two tectonic plates As the sparks failed and faded, the shi+eld broke down, and I absorbed the reed with a draconic attribute

The three figures flew free of the rift, and the atmosphere—the very fabric of reality itself—seemed to tremble at their presence Inside me, Tessia stirred in response She was afraid

They spoke as one, three voices echoing over and under and through each other “This holy place is under the protection of Lord Kezess Indrath To attack it—to affect it in any way—is sacrilege of the highest order The punishment for your presence here is immediate death, reincarnate”

I s the theatricality of it all They were even dressed like they were in some kind of play and not on the field of battle, their cereolden eolden hair “The bravery of your words is only just a little bit spoiled by the fact you were cowering behind a spell to keep you hidden from me You knoho I am, but maybe you don’t knohat I can do If you did, you would have turned around and flew right back where you came from”

Mana rippled in the way it did around Arthur and his weapon, and the three dragons blinked away, appearing outside the ring of Wraiths Their aht blazed between thele around us all, with the rift at its center

Panic surged up from deep within me, sudden and visceral and so certain “Attack!” I screamed

The sky transforroups unleashed their full offensive power on the three targets

A cage of light spread fro down to the ground and closing over our heads The Wraiths’ spells burst against the inside of the cage, sending soft waves undulating across its surface The sound of hissing acid and crashi+ng thunder and blood iron shattering against the aether , and the smell of toxic water and scorched ozone burned my nostrils

On the other side of the barrier, the three dragons seemed in a trance They did not blink or flinch as so many powerful spells crashed into their conjured barrier They didn’t chant or gesture with arcanegolden hair and white robes, and a subtle pulsing inside the brightness of their glowing purple eyes, they were motionless

My heart hauts There was a feeling of wrongness within the cage, a sense of inevitable ruin The Wraiths fought through it, but the Instillers on the ground had ceased their work, paralyzed by the oppressive force of the aetheric spell

Soness, like a hunger that couldn’t be sated

Reaching out with desperate claws of mana and pure force, I ripped and tore at the inside of the aetheric walls, willing the mana to dissipate the aether The aether rippled forcefully, but it didn’t break

The Wraiths continued to bombard the walls as well, and I could sense rew first uncertain and then panicked, but I struggled to rein rasped for the mana on the other side of the barrier, but I couldn’t reach it

And still, the three dragons were cold and erimace of strain bared their teeth They were like three frustrating statues eh, all three sets of eyes shi+fted slightly, darkening and focusing on the rift My own gaze was pulled slowly along behind theirs

Black-purple light began to ee with us The so called, that I had felt fro in on us I felt hunger gnawing atmy bones in teeth of fear

I stared into the void, conjured through the walls between the worlds to shole It spilled from the rift like a dark cloud, like blood froout, I took hold of as much mana as I could and condensed it around the rift, a stor the mana into itself, where it was snuffed out And I suddenly understood The void would spread throughout the cage, devouring all within It was a trap froer and frustration I sla to disrupt it or push it back into the rift, but the emptiness only sed rowth

I needed to subdue it, delay it—anything to give ?

I vacillated rapidly betanting to keep attacking the cage in an atte black-purple darkness

“You, you, and you, bole point— to three battle groups “All the rest, hold your positions!” I finished, watching breathlessly as the cloud of purple-black nothing spilled down froreens, yellows, and reds of the at as the cloud crept down the sky Soon, there would be no e with us at all, and then…

Knowing that I would need thatthe air around it of

Its progress see outward like a puddle, and I startled It re around for prey

“Wrastor, take your battle group and circle around Get above the emanation, above the rift,” I ordered

The Wraith did not hesitate, snapping into e of the darkness, disappearing fro off, and so, apparently, could the void, because its doard progress gusted to a halt while it began inching its way up toward the Wraiths, expanding as it did so, filling up every space it passed over

The five Wraiths conjured barriers of protective mana around themselves so that they reathed in flame, shadow, and wind I dreay the mana between them and the void cloud, but this tinatures too strong

Tendrils of black-purple darkness reached for the already So close, the void see theinto it, theoff the

A tendril brushed against a Wraith’s foot, and the appendage dissolved, conjuring a surprised screary e up into the sky above the portal

“Everyone, focus on the walls there, there, and there!” I shouted urgently, pointing to the spots closest to the dragons

As if broken out of a trance, the other battle groups joined the first two I’d assigned to attack the walls, bo the aetheric barrier with every spell at their disposal as they released a colossal outpouring of destructive mana Blood iron, soulfire, void wind, and bile water-attribute spells struck, ha us, all contained to those three narrow points

Buttoo slowly There was only so round—only soit rapidly

Cursing under my breath, I wished suddenly that Nico was there He was the smart one, the one with the plans He would have soainst theons re all their effort ontheir spells

The dark cloud spread above us, cutting off the five Wraiths The wounded woman attempted to fly around it and rejoin us, but the void moved with her She tried to reverse course, but too late With a truncated screa behind but ainst the outer walls When the first tendril of the e, the vibrant purple energy shi+ outward across the entire surface of the vast ical structure, and the void recoiled, draard four reons shi+fted for the first ti tension shared between the three, as if concentrating on their spells had just become that h

Grasping the ed it like a tether into the gnawing erily, drawn naturally upward to fill the space above the rift One by one, Wrastor and the rest of his tea rapidly, it couldn’t help but press against the walls and ceiling, sending crackling waves of energy rippling across the outside of the towering pillar of purple light that entrapped us

One of the dragons shouted in dismay

“Ready your spells!” I screa with fear and anticipation

The re instead on the dragons as they waited, buzzing with tension and ons’ brows, and their statuesque stillness gave way to geriatric quivering

What I had learned about dragon aether arts returned toof war They did not control aether in the same way I controlled mana, only coaxed it to do as they wished This spell was incredibly powerful, so much so that it took three of them to conjure it And the void…whatever dark arts they used to summon it, surely their control over it was limited I could see that in their strained and fearful expressions through the transparent walls of aether