The Keepers of Eternity

XXXI

Part 4: Incinerate

"I think I'm going to vomit." Abreigelle panted, coming to a stop next to Blaise.

"How many laps was that?" Blaise said absentmindedly. "Four?" The girl didn't respond, so he tossed her a water canteen. "You're obviously not drinking enough."

He'd spent the last hour relaxing, legs hanging over the edge of a mossy cliff. Below him, a white-watered river gushed through a narrow slot canyon, sending a cool mist rising into his face. Occasionally, a salmon would leap between the rocks in a labored attempt to travel upstream. Using a simple gravitational disc, Blaise would lift the fishes up, mid-jump, and then throw a net down to snare them. He'd already amassed an entire basketful of the ripe, silver-scaled ones.

Blaise spared a glance behind him.

Abreigelle groaned and rolled over onto her back, breathing deeply. He heard her splash most of the water over her face.

This was the only way to her get physically in shape. One could train night and day in disc operation, but still lose a fight purely due to a lack of physical aptitude. That was why he had made this training part of their daily routine.

Blaise knew he didn't need it, since his line of work had kept in in shape. Abreigelle, on the other hand, had spent her childhood doing hardly any physical labor. It would take a lot of work to get her ready for their coming battles.

"If you do one more lap, I'll let you officially be done for today."

She let out a whimper.

Blaise tensed and then turned around quickly, Abreigelle immediately stood up and began drinking. A minute later and she was running again.

Some days he regretted agreeing to train her.

He knew Abreigelle wasn't a completely honest person, but, what person wasn't? She'd neglected to tell him where she'd gotten the Eternity Disc from. That was a fairly large detail to leave out, considering it was the reason why he'd kidnapped her in the first place. Blaise knew Eternity Discs better than anyone alive, but he knew that they, of all things, could turn up in places for almost no reason at all. It was no coincidence that people said the Eternity Discs had minds of their own. He'd decided not to push for answers, at least, for now.

Blaise unlatched his disc box and pulled the Queen's Eternity Disc out. It was small and beautiful, and made of a glass far more crystalline than any prosaic disc. The Saldelude was the most powerful of any of the Eternity Discs, that was certain. It still vexed him: how did this end up in the hands of a servant girl from Shah Neurn? The last place he'd seen it was in its casing, worn by the King of Summernorth that night he'd told Blaise to leave for good.

And I never should have left. Blaise had already beaten himself up over it, for it was his greatest regret. Years that he'd spent in the company of the royal family, it had been like a new life, a breath of fresh air in the midst of a clouded existence. The day he'd departed Summernorth had been the day the greatest version of himself had died. The worst part was that another Blaise—the broken one that he'd thought he'd left behind—had kept on surviving after that.

As Blaise reached to his box to put the Eternity Disc away, something made him pause. He looked down at it again. One half. He blinked. Really, did he remember if the Saldelude had two halves? Blaise put it out of his mind, and forced himself to put the disc back. He'd find out the answers later, once Thadan and Purlip were taken care of.

Blaise got up from his cliff-side perch and stood, stretching his back. White daylight streamed through trees, illuminating the forest around him. So many shades of green dominated these woods, except where he and Abreigelle had tramped a path about a half-mile along the canyon and then around deeper through the fern-rich alpine.