“Jaeger?” Ivo croaked. He struggled to move his arms, legs, anything, but nothing worked.
Jaeger twisted to look at Ivo at last. Tears raced his face to merge with the rain.
Grief.
Rage.
Guilt.
Despair.
Ivo swallowed. He knew what Jaeger had to do. He nodded.
Gabaran’s voice cut over the hammering rain.
“She did it.”
Ivo’s head came up. “What?”
“Look.”
Ivo looked, stunned. Jadeth’s gasp echoed Dehil’s.
The portal stones, leaning, crumbling, and cracking, still sparked and popped. The liquid light at its center swirled to life and sharpened, honing in on something he couldn’t quite make out.
Jadeth staggered to her feet and edged closer. “What is it?”
“It is what you seek, Jadeth.” Ishelene rocked Sesti’s body, not bothering to look up. “It is the gift left you by your Child of Fire.”
Ivo joined Jadeth, his gaze narrowed on the scene within.
It was a mountain top, barely seen in an early morning light that held more shadows than not. No identifying features were visible.
He swung on Ishelene. “Where is this?”
Her dark blue eyes, black with grief, speared him. “It is what you seek. You only have to go to it.”
Dehil materialized and took Jadeth’s hand. All gazes turned to Gabaran.
“We will follow you, Gabaran,” Ivo said at last. “Emaranthe–”
“Emaranthe is waiting for us.” Gabaran stalked toward the portal and stepped into the liquid light without hesitation. It would accept him, he knew it. She had made it. “We will find the Crown of Gods and find her and then stop Rodon once and for all.”
Jadeth and Dehil followed.
Jaeger stood, the book now clutched to his chest. The pounding rain blurred the edges of everything but the hard glint in his gaze. He stalked after the elves without a backward glance.
Ivo glanced back at Ishelene. And Sesti.
He asked, “What will you do?”
She didn’t look up.
“I will send my daughter to the morning sun and then end the battle below. I will find any surviving allies to the west and then we will meet again, Warrior, at the end.”
Ivo nodded and walked through the portal.
The tendrils of energy vanished as he emerged and stopped to stare.
The portal winked out, turning the pre-dawn light darker, but there was no missing the massive object sitting below them, perched on a hillside in a jumble of fallen rocks and twisted metal.
Easily larger than five lengths of his village end to end, and just as tall and wide, it gleamed in smooth angles and curves in the faint morning grayness. He could see the damage further down–shredded bits of metal, black scarring, and in the distance it appeared to be partially buried within the hillside. A long gouge dragged through a series of rolling hills on one side. On the other the clearing it perched on ended in another steep drop-off. This clearing was ringed by over a dozen of the giant stone portal monoliths. Ivo had never seen the like before.
They slipped and skidded down the hillside, sending a sea of pebbles and dust into the air. Ivo trailed behind, dread and awe trading places with grief and anger as he passed between two of the silent stones.
He reached the giant metal object and ran his hand along the cold, smooth metal. Giant letters, meters high, painted illegible words along the length of the belly.
“It’s a giant sky ship,” Jaeger said. He traced a bloodstained hand along the bottom of a painted word that none of them could read. “It’s the ship Ishelene spoke of in her tale. The one that brought her people here to Ein-Aral.”
Jadeth eyed the giant object in awe. “The Crown of Gods is a ship? The sky ship that crashed. This is what we’ve been looking for all this time?”
Ivo’s heart twisted, squeezed. He swallowed. Emaranthe. She should have been here. He glanced at his brother’s face. The grief shadowing his brother’s eyes had deepened into something far worse. He knew Jaeger was thinking about Sesti’s reaction to the sky ship…how she would have loved it.
Ivo swallowed, unable to look away from the grief and rage mirrored on Jaeger’s face, all their faces. He opened his mouth. Shut it. Tried again. A soft gasp caught his attention.
Jadeth moved to the edge of the clearing, her gaze and frown on something. Everyone turned to see what had caught her eye.
Across the ravine, giant towers, arches, and terraces of stone clung to the crags and crevices of a mountain now bathed in the early morning sunlight. And beyond a great, unending valley of green swept to an unseen horizon.
“It must be Orin-Iad. The lost city, the one Mareva spoke of in the Book,” Jadeth whispered. “I don’t understand.”
“We found The Crown of Gods. The Lost City. They must be linked. But why and how? And at what cost? What do we do, Gabaran?” Ivo asked.
“What we are meant to. What Emaranthe and Sesti would want us to do. We stop Rodon and end the war,” Gabaran said. He turned to Ivo. “We will find Emaranthe, Ivo, I promise. She is strong and brave. She can take care of herself.”
Ivo smiled, but tears burned the corners of his eyes. He looked at Gabaran.
“I know.”
To be continued…
THE END
Table of Contents
(Untitled)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Exiles & Empire Page 25