Under the Dawn's Light (Book 5)

Chapter 50

ADARA

If I let him leave now without saying anything about what happened, we won't be able to undo it. He'll never talk to any of us about what's on his mind if I let this go. If I let him go. It'll be just like with Tara where after she told me to not worry, I waited for her to say something, anything to me, and when I realised something was wrong it was too late. Adara clenched her fists at the sight of the carts being wheeled into the citadel, a bolster of supplies for the Burning Abyss, but he made her a promise. Yuven can think I don't learn, but I can and will learn. Into the citadel after her thoughtful walk around the caldera, she readied herself for what was to come, no matter what it meant. She faltered in the western wing, searching for bravery but coming out with nervousness at the sight of Yuven and Maria in what appeared to be a quiet debate. Grey feathers thinned out when Yuven brushed his nose without a second glance at her, with Maria burdened with boxes of tonics. Her fellow firecore sent a fiery glyph against the door to walk inside, with Yuven following after her.

Yuven finally started to trust me. The most I can do is prove him wrong. That I'm not that same, ignorant magickae with no idea how this worked. I do know people. Shawl squeezed around her shoulders, she forced herself to step away from the sick ward to face the situation she walked into.

Out of the western wing of the citadel, she came to a stop by the gigantic spiral staircase with the thickness of a marble trunk which pierced into the launch tower for Riders, all the way to the observatories. Wind brushed across her neck with a cold touch, her arms wrapped around Fenrer when they took flight and she tasted freedom from her twenty turns of faded memories. Onto the first step, she crawled downwards until the white alabaster twisted into glittered blacks lined with gemstones. Silver light hushed through them when she passed them, a reflection of her flames and in the dark, flaming wings of twilight hues.

The past. The present. The future I'm walking into, the future I've wanted but couldn't reach. Adara curled her fingers against her palm at the spirit's final words to her, half a warning and half a statement of her true power not found in the inferno blazing through the woods of Prunal with stolen lives of Magickae.

"Maybe you can make something of the chaos."

Heat oozed out of the walls, but vented out into thermal magitek generators by way of rune pipes. Far from the power centre the citadel carried, she came into the storage area. Several boxes piled against the walls, sorted with tags latched onto their sides. Some sat upon carts to join the rest of the carriages on the main level. Adara squeezed herself past smaller boxes full of elementia crystals. Her hand hovered over one, but she drew back when a crack sliced through the sudden glow of silver. It broke apart in her ears, and Yuven sent the shards up into the gale. A soft connection and the two falling stars. Adara closed the box with a click. Other boxes held Runic Expanders or empty phials.

Ahead, a door rested, half-open with a reluctant invitation. Through the gap, she frowned at the sight of Fenrer lining runestones into a box by a small window which revealed parts of the mountain she had yet to discover and trace on the maps. Nearest her, Fenrer abandoned a table full of stout phials with imperfections and cracks, resting on a safety tarp. Adara closed the door behind her, but froze in time with him when he squeezed one of the runes with a silent huff.

"You said you were willing to talk," Adara pointed out when he refused to look at her.

"You're in the way of the door, I can't back out now." Fenrer continued to pile up the runes into separate boxes by the stamped glyphs upon their surface. "I'm listening, Adara, but I need to get all these boxes to the lift. We're going to be very busy in a few moons." He swiped the box in front of him closed and sent his magick through the wood. Adara flinched when the vines twisted apart, and he sent his fist into the misbehaving expression of the flow. It glowed with jade-touched whispers, and he pushed it off to the side. "Or we can stand here silently and you can think it in my general direction, but I don't make it a point to break the law and minds can't be read like books." He hauled up a larger runestone into a fresh box. His shoulders pressed against his neck, and he twisted around to reveal the dark shadows under his eyes. "People like to assume that's what Aurus can do, but that's not how that works."