Kingdoms of Ether (Kingdoms of Ether Series Book 1)

by Ryan Muree

  With no response and a waning faith in the thief to do the right thing, he reconsidered his tactic. He couldn’t wait any longer, or she’d get more desperate and take greater risks. He swirled his chain dart, ready to strike again, hopefully for the Caster’s good shoulder.

  Emeryss’s lips moved, but he couldn’t pick out the words. Was she talking to him or the thief? The thief replied to her. Was Emeryss negotiating with her? The others would be here soon, and that would add pressure to the thief. Not something he wanted when Emeryss’s life was still out of his hands.

  He moved toward them, set on pulling Emeryss out of the way so he could extinguish the Caster.

  Emeryss flew forward at him instead, falling and sliding along the floor toward his boots.

  He bent to catch her, but the illusionist had shoved Emeryss toward him as a distraction. He shot out the dart, and it skimmed just past the thief’s ear as she Blinked.

  If he watched carefully enough, the illusionist’s ether would move in the direction she’d intended to pop up. Sure enough, her pink dust shifted just slightly to the left, which meant she would land no more than ten feet away from her original point.

  Perfect.

  He swung his chain at her destined location, wrapping her in it as soon as she popped out of her Blink.

  She grunted and slammed back against the wall.

  Emeryss had crawled away on the ground, but not far enough.

  “Get back!” he commanded her. She scurried on her knees against one of the shelves, but he didn’t want her anywhere near this Caster. “No, farther! Get back to the table!”

  Emeryss didn’t budge. Her eyes watched the bleeding thief.

  The thief pulled back on his chain, grabbing his attention, so he pulled harder. The illusionist fell toward him and dissolved into a cloud again—Dispersion. His chain clattered to the floor.

  The pinkish fog barely moved. She had tried this before and hadn’t gotten anywhere. All it did was stall her fate.

  He swung the chain dart above his head again. Switching to his swordstaff was preferential, but she wasn’t going to stay still and fight him. The threat of the chain kept her in place, seeing as she couldn’t escape as a cloud, and she couldn’t Blink with the chain around her.

  What he had to figure out was if she’d run or Blink again. He was between her and the eastern hall, and the other Keepers would be coming from the southern wing. She had no exit.

  “Come out of that form, surrender, and I’ll ask Librarian Jgenult for leniency. Don’t do something you can’t take back.”

  The fog hovered, waited.

  When she reformed, he’d end this.

  Emeryss sat nearby, watching with her knees drawn up. This wasn’t safe for her. She needed to hide.

  “Emeryss! Go now,” he shouted.

  But she didn’t move. She merely watched the dust cloud.

  He whirled his chain dart faster and neared the fog. The illusionist had to break it soon. She couldn’t stay a fog forever. “Go, Emeryss!”

  A flurry of dust and body, the thief formed and disappeared again—in his direction.

  He swung his chain, turned, and aimed only inches above the ground behind him. She reappeared right where he’d predicted, and the chain caught her ankles and tripped her.

  She cried out as her bad arm hit the floor first. Writhing and wriggling to get free, she fought the tiny barbs on the chain.

  He stood over her and pulled on the chain to get her upright, but she kicked him back with both feet. She’d done it hard enough that he tilted back, his armor weighing him down.

  He found his balance and lunged for her again, pinning her with his knee. Leaving the chain around her was the easiest way to keep her from Blinking out. He grabbed the chain to wrap around her arms—

  White and pink lights danced in front of his eyes until they burned. He roared and fell back. Squeezing his eyes closed and rubbing them didn’t do a damn thing, and Goddess, did it burn.

  He clawed for her, but she was no longer there. Nothing was there. He reached out for the chain dart, but it clanked several feet away from him, followed by the telltale whoosh of it disintegrating. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, anything to clear them. “Emeryss! Run!” he tried again.

  Where was she?

  Blurry shapes of the shelves came into view as well as Emeryss. The thief had gotten to her. They were running. He grasped out to take Emeryss back from the thief, at her faint outline… She was there, just out of reach.

  Damn it! He opened his eyes over and over again. His sight had almost returned. Everything at a distance was still blurry, but he got the shape of Emeryss being taken away from him.

  His Scribe was being kidnapped. He was losing her—losing everything.

  He charged after them.

  Turning his shield-arm over, he lifted the plate covering the Keeper sigils on the inside of his forearm. Seven symbols in an elegant black script ran down the length of his arm. While Casters absorbed ether from their grimoires, Keepers were living grimoires. He stroked the symbols on his arm with his right thumb, breathing to life the spine of a transparent book. Eyes glued to Emeryss and the assailant running away, he flipped his book’s ethereal pages until it landed on his javelin. He reached into the pages of the grimoire and brought the weapon out into reality.

  The mere second it took for him to open his grimoire and materialize his weapon, they had Blinked farther away from him.

  They? How could they Blink? What sort of illusionist could take someone with them on their Blinks?

  He lifted his crystalline ether-shield, pulled back his javelin, and tossed it toward the thief’s back.

  The javelin whistled until it struck the wall with a clank and pinned the corner of the illusionist’s bag with it. The thief jerked back, and Emeryss shrieked.

  As soon as he created a new weapon, the javelin would dissipate, and he needed them to stay put. He charged forward, but the illusionist pulled herself free from the javelin anyway, and it dissolved.

  He reached into the translucent pages of his grimoire again and pulled out his swordstaff, the weapon he’d spent his whole life training with until it felt like an extension of his arm.

  Back against the wall, the illusionist pulled Emeryss into her arms with her hand aimed at Emeryss’s head again. “Don’t come any closer!” the thief shouted.

  “Think about what you’re doing,” he said.

  The thief’s foot slid to the right.

  “It’s okay, Grier. I’m okay. Do what she says,” Emeryss said with her hands up.

  But he inched forward anyway. He had to. I’ll save you. I won’t let her hurt you.

  And then they were gone.

  The thief had Blinked both of them farther down the room into the corridor toward the main lobby.

  He raced down the corridor after them, sweat dripping down his temples.

  Emeryss wasn’t fighting or struggling. She wasn’t even upset. She was… saving herself, saving him. But she couldn’t. She was never reckless like this. And didn’t she trust him to save her? She had to know that going along with this was beyond dangerous. She had to know what losing her would do to him. She might not have known he’d grown fonder of her every day since he’d been assigned to her, but she knew… she knew this was too big of a risk.

  Someone this strong, this skilled, had powerful friends. Emeryss had no idea who she was dealing with, no idea what she was doing to herself, to Stadhold—to him.

  He swallowed, let his shield disintegrate, and darted after them at full speed.

  The whole campus would swarm in any second. The alarms already echoed through the campus. Soon, the thief would be cut off. She wouldn’t have any exits, and they’d get Emeryss back—he would. She couldn’t escape all the Keepers. She wouldn’t escape him.

  Halfway down the corridor, leading straight into the main lobby, the thief ran for the window and peered down.

  And Emeryss nodded to her.

  His stoma
ch dropped. They weren’t heading for the main level of the library. They were headed out. They were running away…

  “Emeryss!”

  She looked back at him, focused on his swordstaff, and then she and the thief disappeared into a puff of pink smoke.

  He slid to a stop at the window, panting and surveying the m’ralli grove sprawling out around the campus in descending tiers below him. The pink-purple ether dust floated and glowed in the darkness between the trees. The thief was Blinking them again and again away from the library, and the puffs of ether lit the way.

  He let his swordstaff disintegrate and hesitated at the edge of the unglazed window. The drop was far… a whole two stories.

  All he had to do was pry his terrified feet from the floor and jump.

  It wasn’t far enough to kill him, right? He would make it. He’d make it because he had to.

  He swallowed the lump in this throat, squeezed his eyes shut, and leaped into the m’ralli grove below. Tree branches and leaves beat against his arms and smacked him in the face. He landed, rolled, and took off for the next tier.

  Emeryss wasn’t safe until he brought her back. And her willingness to leave? He’d imagined it, and if he hadn’t, then she was terrified and bartering for her life.

  Heart pounding, he followed the path of pink dust hanging in the air. There was no telling who this Caster worked for and what she’d do to a Scribe to get what she wanted.

  If he didn’t get Emeryss back safely, he’d never be able to face himself, his brothers, his father, his mother. His punishment would be swift and fierce. He’d probably be removed from the Keepers and sent away dishonorably. He’d be banned from joining his family’s order in retirement. His parents would never speak to him again. All of his plans, his goal of serving on the High Council as a diplomat for Stadhold—all would be lost.

  And still, none of that would hurt worse than knowing what would happen to Emeryss. His heart twisted at the thought of her tortured or enslaved like an Ingini miner. He couldn’t face Emeryss suffering like that; it’d destroy him in every way.

  He barreled through the grove and over hedges between tiers. Thankfully, it was too late for anyone to be walking around the grounds, and it was well-illuminated by sunstone paths and the thief’s pink ether residue.

  It appeared the thief was headed straight for the Revel-Stadhold border. Stadhold wasn’t very large, and the Great Library was located near the border with only a few towns between. If the thief meant for it and had enough ether, she could Blink them out of Stadhold within the hour.

  Past yet another plot of trees, the pink dust was thicker, fresher, and there were feminine voices up ahead. He burst through the bushes, readying his shield-arm as his own heart threatened to beat out of his chest.

  Both women were bent over at the waist, panting and sweating. Emeryss gasped. “Grier!”

  The thief shot upright and poised herself to fight—to run.

  Calls and shouts rang out behind them. One shout from him would bring all the Keepers on top of her, but she was desperate. She’d get even more desperate and reckless if she couldn’t Blink away again. He needed to try something other than threatening her with his weapons and all the wrath of a hundred Keepers.

  “Let her go,” he said, as calm as possible. “No more weapons. No more running. Emeryss, just walk slowly to me.” He edged the distance from the illusionist to get closer to Emeryss.

  The illusionist let her ether-mask dissolve away, revealing wide black eyes. She licked her lips and remained in a ready position.

  Emeryss hadn’t moved at all.

  Alone like this, maybe he could barter with the thief, too. Emeryss was worth infinitely more to her than those grimoires. “Those are the Keepers you hear,” he said. “They’ll find us in no time, and you’ve Blinked pretty far. You have to be running low on ether or too tired to keep this up. Right now, it’s just me. But not for long.”

  “So?” she spat.

  “So, let Emeryss go, and you can keep the grimoires.” He stretched his hand out for Emeryss to take. “Before this goes too far, we all can go back.”

  “Let her go?” The illusionist turned to Emeryss. She looked confused as if her taking Emeryss wasn’t something she’d originally planned. “That’s where I’ve seen your face before. You’re that Scribe from Neeria—”

  “Adalai?” a voice called beyond the bushes and undergrowth of more trees.

  “Ada?” said another.

  The thief perked up with a smile.

  She’d brought a group with her? She hadn’t been a lone addict somehow managing to rummage through the library. This had been organized? He lifted his shield-arm, expanded its crystalline ether-surface again. There was no telling how dangerous she was or who she was.

  Four people broke through the brush and into the small clearing in the grove. An old woman with a walking stick, a short young man with white hair, a very little girl, and a tall, middle-aged man with glasses. Each of them wore the dark suits Adalai had on, all with the same emblem on their upper left arm. He’d nearly destroyed Adalai’s with his dart. Red had seeped into the yellow-and-white shape.

  Yellow-and-white emblem. Dark-blue suit…

  “You’re from the Revelian Caster Army?” he asked exasperatedly.

  More Keepers shouted behind him. They’d be there any second. Several Keepers against a unit of Revelian Casters? This would get very bad for everyone.

  The white-haired guy widened his eyes. “What did you do, Adalai?”

  The tall one with glasses pushed his frames back up his nose and turned back for the bushes. “Sonora, tell Jahree to start the airship. Adalai did something stupid.”

  At the man’s words, Adalai turned to run with them, leaving Emeryss safely behind.

  The worst was over—

  Emeryss grabbed Adalai’s wrist. “Take me with you.”

  Chapter 4

  A m’ralli grove — Stadhold

  Emeryss swallowed.

  This could be her only chance to escape the library. And with Casters, too. This chance could be nothing, or it could be everything, and hope burned too brightly inside of her to believe it was nothing. If she wanted to get out of the library, live—actually live—and be able to see her family again, she’d beg for Adalai to take her if she had to.

  But Grier. His fiery stare drilling into the side of her, saying a million things without a single word. Shock. Fear. Hurt. She had seen that same look when Adalai grabbed her and threatened her life. She had seen it when they edged toward the window before jumping. She might as well have stabbed him in the chest.

  Keepers rustled through the groves behind them.

  Grier held out his hand for her. “Emeryss, come back—”

  Adalai left her and took off after her partners.

  You going to let the fish decide if you eat or not? Her father’s advice from all their fishing trips surfaced in her mind. It bit your line. Pull it back, dig in your heels. Take what’s yours or starve.

  She ran after Adalai. Her stupid slippers were terrible over the broken twigs and uneven grass stabbing into her feet, but she managed to clear the last set of bushes where a great RCA airship sat with its open cargo hold. Adalai’s team jumped on with Adalai behind them, but Emeryss reached for her again before she could make it to the lift.

  “Please, let me come with you!” Emeryss shouted over the screaming wind of the airship’s fans. “I-I’m a prisoner here. Please, just get me out of here.”

  “Look, I don’t really have time—”

  “I’ll scribe for you!”

  Adalai’s eyebrows lifted.

  “Those books you stole and more… I’ll fill the empty pages. I’ll scribe for your whole team. Just let me go with you.”

  “Jahree is taking us now!” The man in glasses shouted at them.

  Adalai pulled Emeryss into the ship’s cargo hold. The airship rose off the ground as the dark-gray, metallic door began to whir shut, closing on Stadhold a
nd the m’ralli grove below and—

  A silver swordstaff bit into the metal door, preventing it from closing completely. Grier’s hand was wrapped tightly around it. His face appeared at the ledge as he hung on to the airship climbing in altitude.

  Emeryss ran to him and pulled him on board with the help of the other Casters.

  His swordstaff dissolved, and the lift to the airship successfully closed behind him. Blue ether-lights kicked on inside the silent hold, creating a haunting glow on the sharp angles of his face. Adalai’s partners backed away from him, hands up ready to cast.

  Emeryss started. “Grier—”

  “Turn this ship around!” His fists shook at his side. “You have kidnapped a Scribe from Stadhold!”

  “What?” The white-haired one jerked his head toward Adalai. “I thought she was just coming along for a ride. You kidnapped her?”

  “You thought a Scribe was joining us for a ride?” Adalai bit back. “And no, I didn’t kidnap her.”

  Grier jutted an index finger in Adalai’s direction. “She took Emeryss hostage after breaking into the library and stealing books. She then held her hostage all the way back to your airship.”

  The faces of Adalai’s group fell, some rubbed their foreheads or groaned.

  Grier lifted his chin, the slightest smirk of satisfaction on his face. Adalai was already in heaps of trouble for breaking in and stealing, but if she was turned in for kidnapping, she’d be handed over to Librarian Jgenult. She’d have to meet with King Fhaddwick of Revel, which would inevitably involve Adalai’s captain or general. She’d be dead or in trouble for a very long time, but Grier knew the truth. He’d heard that she’d volunteered to go with Adalai.

  “She didn’t kidnap me,” Emeryss said.

  The tall, thin middle-aged man with round glasses and a really long nose crossed his arms. “We weren’t there more than an hour. Is this true, Ada?”

  “She kidnapped a Scribe,” Grier repeated. “And you’re all accomplices.”

  Refusals and rejections from the group came at once.

  Grier was just going to ignore that she’d asked her?