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Chapter Nine
I am alone. At least that is what it feels like.
Astor hasn’t spoken much since we left Vanguard. I’ve tried to cheer him up in small ways, a light comment here, a funny story there, but it’s obvious he’s hurting with thoughts of his mother, though he never mentions it. The passing weeks have only seen him get worse, but I can hardly blame him.
The sound of Sebastian’s voice and the image of him grasping Julienne’s throat and threatening to inflict such awful pain on her have burned themselves into my memory. I cringe at the very thought. With Julienne in the hands of such a vicious fiend, I can’t think of anything to say to make Astor feel better, so I avoid mentioning her in the rare moments we do talk. He cries some nights. It makes it hard to have hope, not that he hasn’t been a good companion and guide during our trek to the Necromancer’s lair, but the days are eerily quiet.
It’s not just Astor, though. The land, too, has an empty hush to it, like that feeling when you are nervous and take a deep breath anticipating that something awful is about to happen. The wilderness here on the western shores of the river Lethe has become void of wildlife. Astor says this is normal before the Festival of Three Suns. Most life flees east across the river as the light becomes its brightest up until the total solar alignment, something now only perhaps a few weeks away.
The wind has picked up this morning and blows violently through the tall grass in the golden fields ahead of us. We are still a few hours from reaching the region of direct sunlight, but the ambient glow around it is so intense that anything remotely near is lit up brilliantly. It is truly awestriking.
“I would have expected to see something moving about, at least this close to the lighted area,” I comment to Astor some time later, noticing that the land is empty even among the fields beneath the strands and pillars of light breaking through the mist. “The land was so alive just a couple months ago.”
“Yeah,” he replies with a soft voice. “You can thank your people’s thirst for world stones. The land here is purged of whatever life remains as your festival approaches so that nothing is left to oppose your warriors. By this point, there’s almost nothing left, though we should still remain cautious.”
“Have you ever seen it, when the world stone appears?” I ask.
“Yes. It wasn’t easy getting into the citadel, but I managed it once many years ago.”
“What citadel?”
“There,” he says, pointing at a dense forest in the distance. “It’s hidden deep within those trees. A single wall surrounds the citadel, its ceiling open like a sky lit courtyard with towers and fortifications around it. There is a chamber at the center, right where the pinnacle of light rests. That is where the stone forms, where I once tried to take it.”
“Why do that when my father intended to give you one?”
“This was before your parents came to power, when my mother…” he pauses, looking down. “When she thought we could try to steal one for our people. I spent weeks sneaking in. Hiding. Waiting. Starving. But even if I got it for a second, I would be surrounded by an army. We needed another way.”
As I listen, I stare off at those faraway trees. It is then that I notice the first sign of life I’ve seen in days, a line of soldiers marching in our direction. Warriors from Kalepo.
“I’ve often dreamed of what it would be like to be one of them,” Astor comments, stepping next to me.
It sounds odd coming from someone as old as him, though maybe he sometimes thinks of things like children do.
“There’s not much joy in it,” I reply. “They train most of the time, and have to maintain a solitude lifestyle in the Warrior District, a part of the city that—”
“Yeah, I’ve heard,” he interrupts, “but I envy them because the people they protect stay safe. They don’t hear the marching of their enemies in the day, or ominous whispers in the dark.”
A frightening chill runs through my whole body as memories of darkness flood my mind. My escape from the mountain caves with something terrifying in pursuit. Wade rescuing me from the palace at Sanctuary. That moment below Vanguard when some power almost completely overcame me.
“Let’s keep going,” I say abruptly.
