The Rift in the Domain- The Auranos Stories Book 2

Chapter 26 - To Kaonon

Comet

Abigail charged out of camp the night of the ambush in order to look for Reinon. She didn't come back, even by morning. We grew more nervous with every passing hour, and there was no sign of Reinon, either. We had to assume the worst, so rather than leave the job to any of our rebels, Lykar and I went out looking for them ourselves the following morning. And we found her.

She... was a wreck- bloody, unconscious, and delirius by the time we managed to rouse her. Kaian said she had a concussion. That and a few cuts. All of this was fixable, but Reinon was nowhere to be found. My heart just about broke when I heard Abigail's recount of what had happened. He died to save her; that much was clear. And that weighed heavily on Abigail's conscience, even when we rejoined with the rebels and were back on the trail. She didn't speak much for a long time afterwards, though she did confide in Lykar and me about Reinon's parents. Hearing about it only made me feel worse. In Lagokia, Reinon's was the kind of incident that made newscasters pause, stare blankly at the teleprompter, and then read quickly to get it over with. It was the kind of incident that spread halfway through the city before the papers had uncapped their pens, the kind that felt sick and redundant after the first retelling. That was why none of us never knew- Lagoki has a very selective memory.

Where was Reinon's body? Abigail said he dropped to the stream below, but he had vanished by the time Lykar and I arrived. Well, we never properly found it. But we knew there were plenty of scavenger-type animals in the plateau region. I don't want to say more than that.

But we were getting close to Kaonon now. It wouldn't be too long before we had established a proper base. The rebels were excited, and their hope was infectious. Even without Reinon... and I felt half-guilty just thinking it... we would have to just keep going.

We didn't have another choice.

Our rebels hardly noticed a difference. News of his death spread through the camp quickly, with a hushed kind of reverence. But without details, they didn't have much to speculate over, and the rumors died out. So, the rebels marched on without protest, down onto the floor of the plain where steep, rugged cliffs towered overhead. We followed a little winding stream through the valley floor, walking quietly as if in the shadows of giants. After a few more days, when the sun was setting fast and we'd almost given up for the night, we finally saw it in the distance.

The city entrance of Kaonon, built into the face of a massive plateau. A soaring set of five grey towers hugged the cliffs, choked with dirt and moss. Where gleaming marble had once graced the archway, all but the cheapest of stones had been pillaged. The front gate was missing, and most of the windows were shattered and gone, too. It was an empty shell... the perfect place for us to start.

The Sunfall River crossed the top of the plateau and poured out into a beautiful, shining waterfall. The sun's dying light caught the water, setting it aglow against the darkening sky.

And that, folks, is why they call it the Sunfall River.

Abigail took the lead, calling the rebels together to address them properly for the first time in days. She was exhausted and an emotional mess to boot, but she hid it admirably. From the crowd, you couldn't even see the bags under her eyes. It was strange to watch her talk about hope and progress when I suspected she didn't believe in it much herself at the moment. She was a special kind of liar. Hell, to this day, if you ask about Reinon's disappearance, she still downplays the grief she dealt with. She'll never admit how much it shook her.

Upon our arrival, we decided to camp outside for the first night. Then, technicians would be sent in to investigate the state of the city. The power system was dead for hundreds of years by then, so getting it back into working order could take some time. To put it bluntly, we wouldn't be able to see inside properly until the lights were operational. But once Kaonon's old geothermal generators got back online, there'd be no stopping us.

In the meantime, there were still some kinks to iron out, as Abigail told me with a thin smile.

We had to construct a system in which people could claim buildings and property inside the city without causing mass chaos, organize some semblance of a proper governmental structure, set up trading relationships with neighboring towns to get them on our side, and start gathering further resources. There was also the problem of communication with Lagoki, the omnipresent threat of a non-rebellious Dominion knocking on our door, the question of how we'd ever get around to finding Lyte in this mess, and the fact that our team was now down one member.

But the rebels didn't care about any of that- not yet, anyway. Our first night at Kaonon was really a strange phenomenon. The Dominions were throwing parties, having bonfires and dancing to whatever music they could create, but the six of us- Lykar, Thunder, Kaian, Urtam, Abigail, and I- we just kind of sat and stared into our campfire. Thunder confided in me that he couldn't help feeling like arriving in Kaonon was just the start of a whole new set of problems.

But I smiled as much as I could.

There were rebels in the Domain.

����B�