Category: chapters
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Chapter Thirty-Two – In which Khanaarre recalls her childhood fear and the Vencari tell each other stories
Elana sulked for a few hours, much as she had when Derrek had tried to reassure her that the Usurper’s rise had not been her father’s fault. I had tried to soothe her, then. This time I had no stomach for it. We had been in the wilderness for months. Hunting was plentiful, now, but… Read more
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Chapter Thirty-One – In which Derrek leads the party north toward the Lightning Plains
It had been weeks since we had fought Lynqxaemass. That her friends and allies were still waiting for us spoke either of the degree of their enmity, or of their certainty of our survival. I suspected the latter, which meant that they had diviners, which we should have assumed, given Lynqxaemass’ citing the stars. That,… Read more
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Chapter Thirty – In which Khanaarre leads the party back to the Veil
When we had all been purified, the curse and the depression of the miasma lifted, Rennin and I changed back into travelling clothes and saw that the party was fed. Hunting by twilight was never easy, but we found only a pair of lean desert hares, and that – combined with the magical waters of… Read more
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Chapter Twenty-Nine – In which Derrek ruminates over past choices, and ones he has yet to make
In a very material sense, the hard part was done. We had traversed the Wolfwood and crossed the Eastern Veil into the Holy Lands – fighting and, impossibly, defeating a literal dragon to do so. We had navigated the alien rainforest and crossed a cursed wasteland of black rock to the Tomb of Xadaer. Rennin… Read more
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Chapter Twenty-Eight – In which Khanaarre and the party retrace their steps
Manipulating the Tomb of Xadaer had not taken much in the way of blood or power. I was not drained as I had been after fighting Lynqxaemass, or after helping Derrek part the Eastern Veil. But it had taken every iota of concentration that I could muster, sustained for hours on end. My exhaustion was… Read more
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Chapter Twenty-Seven – In which Derrek contemplates the Blade of Xadaer, and Rennin enters the tomb
My fascination with the Blade of Xadaer began when I was a child, learning to read under the tutelage of the priestesses. There were no other children in that enclave – the last of the most recent cohort, I learned later, had left the year before my arrival – so I was very much alone,… Read more
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Chapter Twenty-Six – In which Khanaarre inspects the Tomb of Xadaer
I approached the Tomb of Xadaer an hour and a half after dawn. I was not feeling at all fresh. The ghosts howling on the night wind were soul-shuddering. The tension that had marked our crossing had abated only briefly, then become a deep and savage undercurrent that I was finding increasingly difficult to navigate.… Read more
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Chapter Twenty-Five – In which Derrek leads the party through the Holy Lands
Our first days in the Holy Lands were a blur, a fact which I will regret for the rest of my life. These were the lands where the gods and their children had walked aeons before the first mortal life sprang into being. I should have been singing awe-struck praise-songs, pouring libations out on the… Read more
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Chapter Twenty-Four – In which Khanaarre and the Prince’s Fighter cross the Eastern Veil
Each of us had come with the prince knowing full well that we might die. But … what had befallen Veralar Tann? To forget who you were, who you had been, who you wished to become? That was a fate far worse than death. I wanted to wail and beat my breast and gnash my… Read more
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Chapter Twenty-Three – In which Derrek fucks up
I might have made plans not to be seduced by Khanaarre of the Black Mask, if it had ever occurred to me that it might come up. In defense of my forethought, I don’t think that she had planned to do it. It had just … happened. And on a very immediate, personal level, I… Read more