Chapter 25

Water had yet to invade my lungs, but I know that it is only a matter of time. I pound on the ice, still fully lucid, but I am quickly losing my ability to attempt to continue to break through three feet of solid ice.

That's when the panic sets in and I start to fall, very, very, slowly. I try to swim back up, but I can't. A roar shakes the world as I faintly see what appears to be a- a- wyvern. A sea one.

I feel wetness that has nothing to do with the water sliding down my cheeks. This is really happening. Like really happening.

I'm about to be eaten or drowned, whichever claims me first, and I am trapped in an endless cycle of misery. I can't breathe at all and I. Am. Drowning. I'm falling and falling and falling and there is no one to catch me and no one to save me because no one loves me and no one cares if I live or die.

I can fight it no longer.

Water invades my every sense. Everything else is drowned out because I can feel water filling every inch of me. I feel light, but not in a happy go lucky way. I'm light in a, I'm about to die, way.

My hair floats around me, as if in a halo, and I- I stop fighting to be alive because I have already lost. Winning against Aries Aculiac is impossible.

I stop trying to swim my way to safety, I stop trying so hard to be good because there is no point. I will always be the monster. I will never be given a chance,

My vision fades in and out, rational thought is difficult. More water invades my lungs. My face bloats and I pale, the color draining from every inch and millimeter of my skin. My eyes flutter closed. I can't keep conscious much longer.

Thought goes away and I can only feel.

Cold.

Lonely.

Afraid.

I am so sorry.

I flip over one page of parchment to be greeted with another. The endless stacks of paper are starting to get to me.

I hate that I have to be drowned in paperwork when I feel like I should be doing something. I quietly remind myself that half the war is played out on parchment long before the first battle. The first battle, in fact, is paper.

Paper in the form of endless trade agreements I have to sign or toss, endless Spector reports on members of the court, reports detailing first hand accounts of those who had witnessed their village burned or their wife taken, their children burned at the stake or drowned in the wells.

I wish that things were simple. That I could just move them all out of harm's way immediately and without a fight. But I know Varsillian's. They hold their ground.

Not only is it going to take a few days to convince half of the border cities to uproot their entire lives and move to live in a hidden city beneath a desert, but it's going to take time to prepare for such a large quantity of people to enter Lunata.

My first meeting with the Sector Elders of Lunata is tonight, after I finish paperwork and eat something. I know Karina, Mary, Aera, and Gislee well, but this will be my first time meeting the newest Elder, Phinnaeus Acharya.

Normally Elders weren't allowed to become Elders until they were well into their hundreds, but Phinnaeus, at only twenty five years of age,has the ability to see into the future, which makes him a rare occurrence and an important commodity in the community.

He's hailed as the Oracle Elder and is popular with the younger generations. It makes him influential and important. I need to impress him, but treat him like I do all of the Elders.

The Elders and I are like old friends. We talk in passing, whenever I go down there, but we aren't too close. Gislee, though, Glislee is a good friend. I've always preferred her to the others. Mary is a whore, Karina is fairly lazy, she is only an Elder because of her power level and I never got to know Aera.

Another page flip, another signature, another letter sealed in blood.

To my left is a tall stack, to my right is a tall stack. Endless hours put into petty letters written to me as a way to bait me. They can all toss themselves off a bridge for all I care.

I cross and uncross my legs, tap the end of my quill, sign another paper, chew at my lip, careful not to break skin. I groan and my head falls to the desk. Why am I subjecting myself to this when I have Val and her team for this exact purpose?

I sit up and dip my quill back into the jar of ink. It drips and I toss it to the side. Enough of this.

I concentrate reaching my hand up into thin air and I tug. Nothing happens. I tug again, the air tears a little. I peel the open fold back. Scooping up up the massive pile of papers i place them neatly in the open space, careful not to tip them or disorganize any.

With half a thought the hole disappears and so do the papers. Now they are Val's problem. The girl actually likes to do paperwork. It calms her mind, one of the many reasons I had taken her in to begin with. Her strengths are my weaknesses and my strengths are her weaknesses. It's a perfect pairing.

I pull out a fresh parchment. Later this month I have Vienna, Qiem and Tramile to pull to my side. The three worlds had suffered as the surrounding worlds of Varkeshia for centuries. Their trade had been intercepted, their supplies taken.

They should be the easiest to snare to my side.

I pick another one of my many quills and I write a few things down. Weaknesses and strengths. Things I can exploit and things I can play to.

I drop my pen. Something shifts in me. Something is off and it gives me this feeling like the day I had made that bargain in the dungeons. A sinking rock, a burning in my chest.

It must be- it can't be-

The Ley lines, it has to be. Their energy is off and it is directly connected to me. They need a surge of my energy to set them right, but I don't- I can't- that power isn't easy to come by.

I clutch my stomach and bile rises to the back of my throat as I fall to the ground and vomit. I heave my breakfast and afternoon snack up as I hold onto my roiling stomach.

I heave until I'm only bringing up bile as I lean over my knees, feeling really, really, sick.

Something black comes up as I hurl one last time, emptying what feels like everything in me onto the ground.

Black magic poisons those ley lines and I need a force to drive it out.

The nasua comes back as I think, think, think. I need to think and remember to breath. Only one thing lights a surge so large.

An ascension.

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