Of Whispers and Daggers ✓ [TLRQ #2]

Chapter 1.1 - Aster

Dedicated to Blessing Sunday for requesting 
that we release the whole book on Wattpad

Death is a warmer embrace than the darkness that holds me right now. I gasp, but there is no air to fill my lungs here. I've read dozens of descriptions of the Void, this space between the dimensions, so when Leavi told me the witch Idyne had constructed a portal back to my country, I thought I'd be ready to step through it.

Now, its reality sears my mind with wonder. It is dark infinity: forever, unchanging, untouchable. Who are you, it seems to ask, to think your tiny, mortal life will make any difference in the war to come? Who are you to brave traveling the dimensions when you couldn't even save your uncle from the Meadow realm? Who are you to dare returning home after running away like a traitor in the night?

The Void holds me for an instant that feels like hours. When it drops away, I still don't have any answers.

The birdsong of late autumn fills what had been silence. Inhaling deeply, I open my eyes.

Gnarled tree bark glares an inch from my face. I call out and step back, heart thrumming. Amarris, the Lady who lured and imprisoned me in Draó, scoffs beside me. "Did the tree startle you?"

The woman hasn't caught her breath either, blue eyes as wide as the gaping Void, but disdain is clear on her strained face. I tighten my grip on the rope binding her wrists. As a wizard herself, she knows well enough why teleporting that close to an object frightened me.

"Come on."

It was foolish to trust the witch. If I had left the Void half a foot forward, in lieu of intersecting the tree, my body would have stayed in the Void, and my other parts would simply have been gruesome litter about the trunk. Wizard manipulation of the realms is usually more reliable than that, but kra'kaas like Idyne are about as reliable as wildfire.

I'm home now, though, and that's what matters.

The ground slopes up to the left, and I turn that way, hoping it's high enough to see where the city is. The fall leaves crunch underfoot, bright with the deep reds and yellows of a Morineause autumn. I can't help the faint smile that comes to my lips. I'm home. Gone is the blinding snow, gone are the endless pine trees. Gone is Leavi.

I push the thought away, topping the rise. A wave of homesickness washes over me. N'veauvia sits beyond the trees, a large wall surrounding her many inhabitants. In the center of the city, the Grand Park surrounds another wall that encircles the sprawling stone castle. The edge of the Park boasts the houses and businesses of nobility, which extend to a wall between the other two. Originally constructed when the city was much smaller, this middle wall now only distinguishes between the First District and most of the commoners. The disparity is visible from even here by the way the height and bright colors of the rich houses gradually fade into grey shanties. Beyond the city, the branching Fork Rivers curve around the shallow hill that hosts the land I grew up in. I must be to the east of N'veauvia.