pdf-ebookys 20 (II) Charm
20 (II) Charm
20 (II)Charm
Shiv thought, his face turning into a wide grin.
“What?” Adam moaned. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“New skill,” Shiv said. “Another Adept.”
“Another?” Uva leaned back. Even she sounded disturbed.reated me like a monster. And I don’t want Blackedge to sink into the Abyss either. You might care about the town more, but I have people there too. I’m not blowing this off. But I’m not rushing back blind.” Shiv paused. “You don’t know what it’s like out there. I walked through the wilderness, and I got through that the hard way. Then, when I finally got close to this place, a Dragon-Knight obliterated the mountain maze I was supposed to enter in a fiery tantrum. I didn’t do anything wrong a lot of the time. But I still fell. There was just no winning sometimes.”
Shiv eyed Adam. “I don’t want you to die. Despite everything. I won’t blame you if you want to go right now, but I don’t think I’ll ever see you again if you do. And I don’t think you’ll ever make it home to your dad or your beloved either.”
Adam swallowed and nodded. “Fine. But the moment the Composer calls—”
“I’ll answer—” Shiv bumped into an Umbral, and she dropped the book she was carrying. He turned and winced. “Ah. Sorry. Surfacers are clumsy when they speak to each other.”
Unlike the other Umbrals, though, this one simply stared at him with a blank expression. He reached down and picked up her book. Using this as an opportunity to test his new reading glasses, Shiv examined the cover.
Shiv read. “Sounds complicated. I’ve fixed a magical freezer before. For a kitchen. Is there a chapter on that?”
The Umbral just kept staring at him. There was a distant look to her eyes, and he noticed a hive of scars running down the left side of her face. The kind of scars one got from an acid burn. As she took the book out of his hand and placed it back on the nearest shelf, something hit Shiv—and hit him hard.
Foreshadowing: She imagines her bomb going off. She tries to conceive of the light—the heat. She tells herself she will likely be dead immediately. That there will be no pain. But she’s not truly worried about herself.
She doesn’t know why the crow-faced men targeted her specifically—or why the raven that led them is forcing her to do this. All she does know is that if her bomb does not go off within Passage by the afternoon, her son is going to die.
For the past three months, she has spent her time quietly assembling it within one of the teleportation anchors. There are unused spatial passages—and with the blindfold they gave her, even the Composer is blind to her actions. And so she worked, while at night she wept. For what was she supposed to do? They were always watching, and the raven brought her letters from her son every day at midnight to prove they had kept him alive.
Whatever these agents of New Albion are planning, it is beyond her—it will swallow her life. But the contract they gave her promises the life of her son. So it is going to happen. She is going to betray her Exalted Mother, kill her sisters—and so many other people coming and going from Weave. Along with herself. Because she doesn’t want to live with it. Because she can’t…
The time is nigh. She went back to her favorite library one last time. One last moment of comfort from the past. Everything is going to be bright soon.
Foreshadowing > 7
Quest Gained: Stop New Albion’s Aviary from bombing Passage and crippling Weave’s critical teleportation anchors.
Success: Mask of False Paths (Heroic); Cloak of Midnight’s Kindred (Adept)
Failure: The Compact gateway leading to the surface will become sealed.