Beyond the Void

Chapter 94, In a dream

KELDIN

Six moons since the Mark of the Other One blossomed.

"I can't find anyone!" The Empress exclaimed all of a sudden. Keldin jumped at the sudden outburst.

"What do you mean?" He stammered nervously.

"That thing!" Sui pointed towards where the Ebon Spire should have been at the heart of the city. Darkness had slowly swallowed the city and Keldin had not noticed until now. No one had lit the lanterns outside tonight. "The voidstone is drowning everything in power!"

"That's a good thing!" Keldin exclaimed after a moment. "If we can't sense anything, then we are that much harder to find." He touched his devourer for a moment. Yet he did not dare take it off.

The periods of silence became longer and Keldin lost all sense of time as he waited and attempted to find any signs of life in the city. How long had the two of them hidden in here? There was no way of telling what was going on in the city.

Keldin noticed it too, now. Whenever he reached out, an icy wall was closing in on him, emanating from the voidstone. It reminded him of sand and a chilly wind. A small speck of warm sunshine was hidden somewhere in there, still lingering, still holding on against the merciless onslaught of the bitter cold. Now he wanted to rush to the Ebon Spire even more.

"Oh!" Keldin snapped his fingers.

"What? What? Is someone there?" The Empress stammered nervously.

"No. We have food here." Keldin had remembered.

"I am starving!" Sui let out a deep breath. She looked at Keldin with an annoyed face for a moment but said nothing more.

Keldin rummaged through a lone cupboard and came up with fruits, juice, breads, a small selection of meat and even alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Most of it was Morwinian red wine.

"Navvar must have put these here." He muttered. Keldin weighed a bottle in his hand. It felt tempting. Too much time had passed by now. The city was dark. An inevitability hung in the air. As the two ate and drank, Keldin tried to think of what to do next.

"No one has come." Keldin said with a stiff jaw.

"No." Sui said with a blank voice.

"We might have to think about leaving." The Empress held Keldin's gaze, but said nothing at his words. "There are boats near here." Keldin felt hollow inside. "There should be a change of clothes in this room. Something that will not draw too much attention to us. And coin. We can take the food with us."

Keldin took a sip to drink, but despite that, his mouth felt dry. They could not waltz out into the unknown. It was not hard to recognise the two of them. They would not last a day out there. Yet the Empress was now ripping her dress into pieces and throwing it under the bed.

"What are you doing?" Keldin asked incredulously.

"What do you think?" Her voice was so incredibly soft.

"I said we might have to think about it. It was planned as a last resort!" Keldin tried to argue. He did not want to be angry, but seeing his wife immediately assume the worst disappointed him.

"My dear Emperor. Keldin." As she said his name Keldin's mouth fell shut. "We should prepare for the worst."

"There is no way to tell what is going on. Maybe we are winning." Keldin mumbled. He felt like a boy.

"No one has come." The Empress said and tore off the remains of her dress. She was rummaging through the footlockers in her underwear.

Keldin felt conflicted seeing such a sight. But most of all, he felt sad at this image. Keldin unbuttoned his jacket but was interrupted by a violent flash of power right on the other side of the river. The torrent of power arcing from the building was so violent that it tore through the roof and illuminated the plaza beyond where the ebon spire stood.