Death is immortality.
Death is your second chance.
Velian Terrashine belongs to a classless society of equality, art and democracy; a land full of creativity and mindfulness. It is in that perfect political system that one wrong movement, one carele...
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FROM THE BREAK OF DAWN until our legs couldn't hold us anymore, we'd been training. We'd spent every morning and every night of the week that had followed my visit to this place fighting with swords, knives and daggers, running around empty fields to build muscle and gain resilience, and learning how to control my magic. I'd been complaining about how exhausting everything was, and Denfer had been complaining about my complaints.
During all the hours we'd spent together, there had not been a time that we'd spoken about ghosts of the past or monsters of the future. I was grateful for that because I'd long lost faith in the concept of two broken people finding the light together. I couldn't and didn't want to be dealing with someone else's insecurities and doubts all the time, not when that kind of bond had been what had first connected me with Josh, what had made everything complicated later.
He'd told me about this place too; the Land of Greatness they called it, something that gave Denfer the perfect opportunity to say that it had been named after him. I'd replied that if I ever got the chance to get away from Hell, I would have a palace built for me, not just a tower, named the Palace of Perfection. And despite the sweat and the rain, the exhaustion and the soreness, the Land of Greatness was even more than great. It wasn't part of Denfer's kingdom and that was why he'd always enjoyed coming here—they didn't hate him; they didn't even care about him—and he loved that kind of loneliness once in a while.
The Land of Greatness was a place where the greatest magic-wielders of all time lived, away from everyone, away from the crowds and the people who constantly wanted to see a spectacle of their magic. Most of them were healers, fortune-tellers, shapeshifters, people gifted by death itself or by shadows and things that weren't mentioned in any of the books I'd read here. Some of them could even sneak in people's minds and make them believe scenarios that were false to be true.
The vast majority of the people here had lived during those dark ages of wars and bloodshed, of cruel kings and emperors who had used people with exceptional magical powers for their own wicked purposes. Because of that, now that they'd finally been set free, they didn't want to be under the control of any king. They all craved sunlight and cloudless nights under the stars, but they didn't hate Denfer for his decision to let me decide for myself. Maybe because they could understand what it meant to be a pawn in a game that had no rules.
My days here were calm, simple. We needed time alone as much as we needed time together. We didn't try to be together every moment of the day or find deep and interesting topics to discuss at midnight. It was comfortable. It was good. Denfer would ride his beloved white Nefern every afternoon and I would take a nap, read or talk to whoever was in the ballroom, the room I spent many hours of my day in. I'd even found Cloudien someday there, laughing with an old lady. He lived here, he'd told me.
Sometimes, when I went to the balcony to get some fresh air, I caught a glimpse of Denfer on his golden-winged Nefern, looking like a ray of sunshine had finally managed to outrun the rain. I almost liked those creatures, too. They were reserved and thoughtful, Denfer had told me the first morning of our training, and they didn't like being around many people. That was the reason they would always fly around here, why I'd never seen them in the capital.
