Page 95 of Gate of Chaos


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Akoni snorted. “Doves were a symbol of hope that existed before humans ever met dragons. Post-cataclysm humanity associated doves with various mother goddesses. The symbol has persisted, and the memory has never been lost. So you, you stubborn creature, are my little dark dove.”

Asshole serpent, about to make me cry again.

Instead, I tried to put aside my gross feelings and despair to enjoy the eels, except something likemy family would be happy to know I was happydidn’t bring me a lot of comfort.

My family wouldneverforgive me for not warning them. They’d be furious if they knew I’d been enjoyinganythingwhile they got a great big Lemurian boot in their asses. It wasn’t hard to imagine my family screaminghow could youwhile clutching all the kids.

“Helena?” Keon asked.

I looked in my teacup. The usual: jasmine. “Thinking about my family and what I’ve chosen. Don’t tell me they’d understand or be glad I was safe. They wouldn’t. And if I ever see any of them again, they willnotforgive me. Not that I blame them.”

Auryn, sitting next to me, put a hand over mine and squeezed.

I prodded my brain for information on Gates, portals, consorts, baby dragons, or even grimoires. No rush of understanding or facts. I knew what a grimoire was, but no idea of how to make one of my own.

The grimoire had probably been damaged, and I’d only recovered fragments, like data off a damaged disc.

Keon tapped on the panel in the table to order our eel, plus some steamed buns and crispy kelp. I sipped my tea and looked around the eatery. I’d been to this one before and always liked the little sign that hung on the wood trellis that was covered in flowering vines. The sign featured two carved, painted dragons with entwined tails shaped into the alphabet and a pictograph that was a clever play on the proprietors’ names andgood food.

I sat up straighter.

Had someone explained the sign to me before? Why did I suddenly get it today? Previously, I’d just enjoyed the painted carvings because most dragons didn’t do painting. Or carving. It was a little human touch.

“Helena?” Auryn asked.

“Keon, give me one of the untranslated archive entries,” I said. “Something that I haven’t seen. A wall of text.”

“…why?” Keon asked as our eel arrived.

“Because I can read that sign.” I pointed at the sign. “Like, Iget the joke.”

Keon pulled out his tablet and brought up something and passed it to me. It was a mess of old pictographs and the Lemurian alphabet. Wall of text, as requested, no hints or clues as to what it was.

My brain wentum…..Same sensation as when I’d been confronted with an equation I’d never seen before.

Sip of tea. Bite of eel. Look at it a second time.

“It’s an… an entry about warehouse inventory.” I skimmed and re-skimmed the lines.

Akoni snapped his head towards Keon. “Is she right?”

“She’s right,” Keon said under his breath.

“Holy shit,” Akoni whispered.

I skimmed the document again. “It feels like something I did as a kid, but forgot all about. Another, please.”

He called up another document Dekka would have deemed harmless. This one was about plants. Specifically, a variety of red tubers grown on Homeworld and how the harvest had not been good.

“Are you recalling anything else?” Auryn asked carefully.

I prodded around in my brain. “No.”

Akoni broke outhistablet and handed me something else. This looked like a more modern document, all text, no images or schematics. Fewer pictographs, more alphabet. This one took me longer to puzzle through, and I didn’t understand about a third of it. “I think it’s an announcement about the eel and apple harvest?”

Keon took Akoni’s tablet and compared the two documents. “Different dialects.”

Auryn took a few bites of his eel. “I am not an expert on memory, but my general understanding is our brains offload knowledge we no longer use. This is especially true for skills and knowledge acquired at a very young age.

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