by Eli Ingle
“No you weren’t,” said Rigel after giving Rona a strange look. “You were gone about ten minutes.”
An inaccuracy of the time was something to take note of, but Albireo filed it away for later thought. “Well, I’m glad they’re okay, anyway.”
“So what happened?!”
Albireo sighed, rumpling his hair. “He got away. We fought for hours but were evenly matched. It was just like before. Neither of us ever got the upper hand.”
“But we won in the end, didn’t we?” asked Rigel. “That’s why they were banished to the Dark Realm and we lived on.”
“On that,” said Albireo, “you are very wrong. But we will talk about that later.”
The Light Ones moved back towards the airships.
“So you know where the weapons are?” asked Rigel.
“Yes, and after we’ve talked, or while we’re on our way, I’ll tell you about everything you missed.”
The city was catching fire at a rapid pace, almost as if it wanted to wipe itself off the face of the land. Rigel was battered, exhausted and utterly at sea with how events had turned out. Another Light One, but this one was fully grown? The Commander – who they had not known even to exist – had escaped and was at large, while their journey had barely begun. They must find Rigel’s key and the weapons and then actually face the Darkness and destroy it.
To think that far into the future was madness, so Rigel joined Rona in her laughter as she helped Tink out of his parachute, feeling the last warmth of the day on his skin and experiencing something close to contentment.
There were dark days ahead. When were there not? But not today. Today, they had won and they had found someone who knew where to go and how to help them. In a way, Rigel did not believe he had known true hope until now.
In fact, for the first time, he actually thought they might be able to win.
End of Book Two
Afterword
I’m not going to lie, this book was a bit of a nightmare! The original story was 120,000 words long and we didn’t see Frivlok once, nor Rigel and Rona at the Institute. After suggestions from readers, I added this in but then the story became even longer! So I had to cut a lot of it. Ideally, I wanted the book to be released in December 2016 (a year after Rigel was published) but I quickly realised this wasn’t going to happen. So I pushed it along until Autumn and I’m glad that I did. I’m really happy with how the book turned out, even with all the stress it gave me.
A quick mention about the characters’ races. My proof-reader wondered about the diversity of the cast of characters. I have purposefully never mentioned this because, to me, it is open to interpretation and they can look however you want them to.
Thank you as always to my mum who helped me more than would be possible to describe. Her suggestions as always help me to produce my best work. I might not always like it – and be dragged kicking and screaming towards it, but in the end, I know it’s the best idea! So thank you.
Thanks to Dad and Niamh for their support. Thanks to Seth (who still cannot read a book this length yet but is getting there!) for being the best little brother ever.
Thank you to Patrick for his beta-reading suggestions.
Huge thank you to Imogen for proof-reading again and doing an amazing job spotting errors, continuity mistakes and general suggestions that once again improved the book massively.
And thank you to you for getting this far. I hope you enjoyed the book. I don’t know when Book 3 will be out but hopefully it won’t be too long!
Love and Best Wishes,
Eli
Sheffield, United Kingdom. 22nd May 2017
Send the Children to their graves