Journey onto the Storm (BOOK 2)

Chapter 46

MARIA

"My love,

I wish I had better news. I write this letter to you on the border of Haneka, we are close to Draken's Descent, and more than ever I want to be home - with you.

It is for that reason that I must speak plain — I had an expulsion flash on the road.

You will wonder; question as you do, but consistently have I taken the medication you set for me. I did not understand it, but I did trust you. It helped. It gave me relief where nothing else suppressed the corruption inside me — but I know better than anyone everything is temporary, including the life we lead. As Storm Wardens, we expect to fall in battle against the Derelicts, but is it so wrong for us to want to die in peace? In death, our sacrifices to this cruel world who are too busy throttling themselves to acknowledge the danger we stand against, leaving the Wardens as the only shield, all the while prodded from behind by pigheads?

In death, even if I do fall in battle, I find that more peaceful than what I know awaits me at the end of this road.

I know not what else to say but to tell you it stopped working. Maybe a small, childish part of me wanted it to stick, to not fear the husk again when nothing but death will burn the ashes.

The expulsion flash on the road told me all I needed to know. Fenrer thinks I should wait, but Maria, how can I wait when I am on a time limit of my life? I have reached the point of no return, I know this, he knows this, and most of all, you know it.

Maria, I want you to be happy. I want you to live happily, and I do not think you're going to get it with me, as close to death as I am. All that remains is grief and hurt, and I don't want to do that to you. I hope this letter finds you well, and that you forgive me for the transgressions of that stupid child inside of me.

In the end, I'm sorry.

~ Yuven."

Spiral stacks spread a shadow of gloom inside the Euros mail room. Letters engraved on the white painted cupboards for the Storm Wardens in service to the light in alphabetical ordered surnames, all gathered for sorting, reading, and sending by courier. Sunlight pierced through the clerestory along the walls, bending downwards in sections between the organized stacks. His Navei script glimmered in the morning mist, her arrival to Euros beset with more concerns, with Neven quick to spirit Kayal to the highest level of the healing wing of the citadel. Maria traced his name on the course parchment with the tip of her finger, the quick, curving flourish so akin to his glyphs.

Hippogryph calls broke her out of her staredown with the black ink, a flying shadow cast from the sun and the flight of their chosen mounts. Maria breathed out her flaming agitation to tuck the letter inside her coat and let her own footfalls guide her out of the spiralling mail stacks. Every step, weighed down by microbursts of her inner maelstrom. Few Storm Wardens bustled inside the citadel proper, often sent to postings the moment reinforcements were needed. It gave the citadel a sense of weighted serenity within the green-capped caldera of the inactive volcano. Its magmatic fire burst underneath her skin, a power source to the citadel of the Order, refreshing any rune with its thermal spread of energy from the magma corridors far beneath the archipelago. In the entrance foyer of the citadel, the vow of the Storm Wardens plastered on the walls in the myriad of languages in a harmonic convergence. Navei. Hanekan. Dyrenji. Common. Wyverns danced up the pillars to carry the stars on their wings, the promise she made on her crescent blade and the conviction she underwent in drinking Derelict blood for the promise.

I would have you, Traye.

Out of the gilded doors of ebony wood decorated with golden trimmings, she kept her back to the citadel and headed for the pastures, where Neven told her he would be the moment Kayal was settled. Paper bent in her clenched fists as a couple of hippogryphs laid in the sun with their large wings fluffed out to catch the rays on the other end. Chirps and coos lifted from the stables built along the mountain rim, with the doors open to let the hippogryphs have free roam, but a place to return to for care. "Neven," she said, and her voice carried on the wind of seasong. "Neven!"