Chapter 503: Aftershocks (1/2)

Chapter 503: Aftershocks

ALARIC MAER

The contents of the save a crystalline clink as I set it down on the bar The wrinkled little bartender scooped the pay it disappear behind the counter Her beady eyes squinted and her lips pursed, deepening the craggy wrinkles of her face She druers across the bar once, then pointed out the nearest

A long-legged equine e outside A ered next to the cart, eying anyone alked by appraisingly

I knocked twice on the scored and pocked bartop, winked at the tender, and then headed for the door

The co without even a glance at the bottles behind the bar?” She clicked her tongue, and I caught the ghost of a smile beneath her hood “You really have turned over a new leaf”

It was moments like those that reminded me most clearly of one certainty: as lucid as the hallucination was, it was only ever a reflection of hts Co away froraceless as to kick an old dog while he was shi+vering fro cruelty that only I could co door out into the street It was overcast and had recently stopped raining Although Onaeka was a prosperous trading city on the coast of Truacia, I was in the unad edge of town The street wasn’t even paved, and my boots sank an inch into thei, he flicked the brim of his hat back and hooked his thurowth of so almost like a beard His face was pockmarked from sun-scars, but there was an unhidden cleverness in his dark eyes

“Need a lift, stranger? You look like a gent with a purpose” He grinned, revealing h that when I spoke softly, he’d still hear ht on both counts You’re clearly a clever est the bent ofto go into hiding Clever enough to turn another man’s desperation into a bit of hard-earned wealth for yourself”

I ad, at odds with the rest of his drab, da relic Pretty rare, that Exceedingly rare, I’d say, since they’re all taken to Taegriain”

His eyes widened “Well now, friend, don’t see why you’d think—just a backwater coachger flashed in ed it into his ribs Or I would have, if not for a burst of y It was fast, flickering in and out in a blink

Thenoise and shuffled back and forth

“Aye, what are you—”

I stowed the blade with one hand and held the other up to silence hiri went sideways Maybe given to you in trade for passage and sealed lips Still, the belt’s worth a thousand times whatever service you could have possibly provided A lot of wealthy highbloods would kill for such a thing”

The coach the artifact “What do you want, chu smirk, and his face fell

If his secret benefactor had been sos would have played out different But this was the kind of man that could smell desperation from a hundred feet He knew the runaway Instiller was less of a threat than ue

I took e The door didn’t close properly and creaked dangerously when I forced it shut The carriage had an openout to the driver’s seat It looked like, once upon a time, there had been slats that could be closed to keep out the wind and weather, but these had long since been broken

The coachman hopped up into his seat and took up the reins He shot a furtive glance back atat the roaned as the cart began to et your nah the mud

“I ain’t nobody”

I chuckled “nobody’s nobody inour destination with the driver, I settled in for a long ride north up the coast I could have used a te a destination without a specific target or a clear picture of where I was headed seemed like a ht where my prey landed as well

Besides, it was a welcome reprieve from the chaos In part, that’s why I was out herethe Instiller across the ass end of Truacia Anything to not be part of one

The pulse of oth had reached past the borders of Central Doe it hit The backlash hit the strongest the hardest, ironically But plenty of others—those ere frail by nature or still weak from the shockwaves that had rippled across the world only weeks earlier—died too Although she played it off, Seris seeht after it happened

The one-two punch of the shockwave fro pulse that see Mountains—rin Caelum itself—had everyone spooked Not that there wasn’t reason for it Tens of thousands of ot the mana sucked out of then of particularly good ti, I didn’t dare close my eyes—at least one stayed firmly on my driver at all tih the last few days since Central Academy My bruises felt sharp and fresh as I re artifact

I hadn’t been surprised to find Caera Denoir on her feet despite the fact irl was tenacious

She’d been organizing a bunch of unadorned to bring in whatever comforts they could for those ’s men even bothered to ask who I was as I approached the library, and I was able to watch from the mouth of an alley for several minutes

“When I say anyone who can activate a terunature, so I assumed he was an unadorned servant From the quality of his clothes and the pouty scowl on his face, he was clearly high ranking a ordered around by anyone besides the Kaenigs

“We have a lot of people here ill be better off in their own ho that—that—whatever that siphoning blast was” She took a deep breath to cal But anyone who can still stand and channel mana is needed Send a call out into the city if necessary”

I didn’t hear the man’s response as he bowed andspot and approached Caera as she took a scroll fro it

“Well, isn’t this a tidy little custer f—”

“Who—Alaric!” Several expressions tuuilt, and hope, aroup, before But now…” Her voice softened, the scroll hanging liot any to offer”

I idan’s central library Every single ills look In fact, it was the only way to tell the nature

“Lady Seris?” I asked when I didn’t see her

Caera bit inside of her cheek and shot a furtive glance to a nearby tent It had been erected in a hurry in the grassy lawn beside the library More were already going up around it

“Alive?”

Caera nodded “Couarded by two young ed theh the act of drawing out all a es more than the weaker ones

Inside, the tent held nothing but a single fold-out cot Seris, once Scythe of Sehz-Clar, was sitting up in the cot, her back supported by several rolled blankets Dark rings surrounded her eyes, and her cheeks were porcelain pale Her retainer, Cylrit, sat on the ground beside the tent, his head reclined against the thick fabric wall, eyes shut Both gave off weak, shuddering auras

I would have been surprised to find theoth, but a handful of erass beside the cot explained it: elixirs, and potent ones by the residue re

Seris’s eyes flickered open as we entered

I gave her an appraising look “You look a far sight better than your conteoth Dead as a doornail”

Seris’s eyes closed as if dragged down by a heavy weight “A pitiful end for a pitiful ave oth?”

I chuckled and withdrew the shard of carved crystal: the storage crystal frorona’s really gone If ence is correct, this crystal contains just such proof”

“Soood news today,” Caera said under her breath “But how did you get this?”

Seris leaned forward, staring into the crystalline structure as if she could read its contents through sheer will alone “It’s frohtly “Froes will be mana locked They require a specific sequence of applied mana—sometimes even from only certain people—to access”

I felt my expression sour “You were a bloody Scythe Are you saying that you can’t use this?”

Seris was silent aheavy in the air despite her backlash “I ht be able to break the lock…once I’ve had time to recover”

I picked dried blood out ofof…I don’t suppose you have any idea what in the abyss that was, do you?”

Seris sighed and eased back again, closing her eyes “Several theories, but they’d likely do ood if I shared the away cobwebs “I need time to think”

“We should let Seris rest,” Caera said, putting a hand onelse,” I said, taking half a step closer to the cot “Everyone who’s seen this recording is dead, except for Wolfrued to slip out of Dragoth’s clutches before he htly in the cot, but she didn’t open her eyes “Heourselves Can you put soed, then realized she couldn’t see me “I’ve spent the last day imprisoned and tortured Not sure what kind of o h her nose

“You just said you—”

“Nevermind that They were amateurs” Behind Caera, in the doorway to the tent, the hallucination of Cohed Her eyes wererapidly beneath the lids I couldn’t explain it, but a shi+ver ran up“This pulse ofti slowly and clearly “We need a positivetheer under the Vritra’s yoke”

“Understood,” I grunted With a wink to Caera, I showed myself out

My network had been in shambles, as expected It was the mystery of it, more than the effects themselves, that shook people A bitter wind from the mountains that stole the mana from your very core…

Like the tales of Wraiths told to scare children straight, I thought as I watched the Truacian coastline slither past froe

The sheer scale of it was the real thing “Agrona’s ghost, still sucking the life from his people,” I lance back at me, but neither of us spoke

Whether by luck, a lack of skill on the part of oth’s death spread like soulfire, it had not taken long to hear rumors of a desperate, on-the-run Instiller headed north This, of course, had led me eventually to Onaeka and the dreary coach h tione with the story that this secondary, inal shockwave That, of course,was caused by Arthur Leywin’s defeat of Agrona in Dicathen I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t need to This aftershock story was bullshi+t, of course, but Alacrya was already on the edge