She looked down at her toes as she wiggled them against the rock’s slick surface. The craftmasters and original Jestivan were great friends, but she was still lonely. Nothing compared to the blissful memories she’d had with Bryson, Himitsu, Jilly, and—as shameful as it was to admit it—Toshik. He had always been a foul, arrogant young man.
But how would the Jestivan react to seeing her now? She was no longer their age. While they ranged in age from eighteen to twenty-three, she was now old enough to be mistaken for their mother. She glanced down at herself, remembering what it was like to see Moros’s reaction when she had first returned from training with Senex. She may have experienced a gradual, natural transformation during that training, but for anyone who wasn’t affected by Senex’s ancient, her body had transformed nearly twenty years in only ten months—a surreal sight.
While Rhyparia reminisced, a figure approached. As he came closer, she recognized Musku’s son, Prakriti. His head was as clean shaven as his father’s, but, unlike his father, that smoothness ran into his face. It was like looking at Musku, minus the burn scars on half of his face.
As Rhyparia gazed up at him, he walked past without acknowledging her and stepped onto the stones at the waterfall’s base.
Assuming he wanted to be followed, Rhyparia carefully stood up before trailing him.As they crossed the stream and stepped onto the wet grass of the opposite bank, Rhyparia became confused. When she had been told to wait at the waterfall for Prakriti, she had assumed they were to enter the cave that housed Realmular Tunnel in its depths. That would have made sense since they were to discuss the mission that involved said tunnel.
The cliff’s wall continued to bend, and they followed it until the waterfall disappeared behind them. Eventually, their path became a cliff of its own. A towering wall of dirt and rock stood to their right—the original Jestivan’s cottage occupying the plateau at the top—and a precipice was to their left, granting an unprecedented view of the farmlands far below.
Figuring Prakriti needed space after watching his father die, Rhyparia remained a couple dozen paces behind the man. After traveling in silence for close to an hour, the level land finally sloped downward, causing the cliff above them to stretch farther out of reach. They’d covered so much ground as they curled around the plateau that Epinio wasn’t visible anymore behind them, nor the statue of Dimiourgos that sat at its entrance.
The grassy path narrowed, leaving little space to move laterally, until it became a sliver of surface jutting out from the cliff side.
Prakriti pressed his back against the wall and began to shuffle his way across the ledge. As she approached the gap, Rhyparia looked down. A pile of rubble rested hundreds of feet below. Had this been a natural disaster or deliberate act?
She gripped her umbrella’s handle and leapt across the gap, altering gravity so that she floated across and landed on the other side. She glanced ahead just in time to see Prakriti’s furrowed brows before he looked the other way. She had grown tired after another half hour of travel, but was floored by what had slowly become visible in the distance ...
Nothing.
Empty space expanded as far as the eye could see—an infinite canvas of blue. She spotted the end of the forest below, where leafy green canopies abruptly came to a stop. It was the Edge, the end of a kingdom’s land. Most people didn’t believe that the Edge existed. The educated, however, did. Such a phenomenon had been mentioned too many times in stories throughout history. Even Rhyparia had believed it, but that didn’t make it any less breathtaking now.
They had arrived at the northernmost tip of Epinio on the opposite side of the plateau. Rhyparia remained wary of the path’s dangers, but, wanting to get as close to the edge as possible, she leaned over and looked down, only to snap her head upright again. There was nothing below her—just a sheer drop-off into a bottomless blue. Even with her ability to alter gravity, she still feared such a plummet.
“Can we get on a path with more surface area to maneuver on?” she asked, forgetting that she had spent this journey in silence for a reason.
Prakriti continued walking and said, “We’re almost there ... just around this final bend.”
Like the mouth of a river spilling into a bay, the path opened immediately after the bend. A wall of trees stood in front of them—a pocket of forest tucked beneath a precipice.
Rhyparia’s fingers tingled. She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been gripping her umbrella over the past hour. Now that she had some security beneath her feet, she allowed herself to relax.
Prakriti pushed forward into the forest, finding a brook in its depths and following its path even deeper. This creek was just another mystery of the Archaic Mountains and Epinio. While streams were plentiful, none of them seemed to have a source.
Though it got late, the daylight remained. The sun’s rays hit the forest, but Rhyparia couldn’t spot the sun in the sky.
“What time is it?” she asked, now by Prakriti’s side. She didn’t want to get lost in here. “It should be dark by now.”
“Not here,” he said. “The sun may have sunk below the horizon, but since we’re practically at the Edge of the kingdom, its light still reaches us. It’d appear even brighter if it weren’t for the thicket of trees swallowing us.”
As they approached a grassy clearing void of trees, Rhyparia slowed. At its center stood a tree bigger than any she’d ever seen in her life, its canopy massive enough to serve as an umbrella for a small village. And its size wasn’t the only distinction that set it apart from the rest of the forest; its color was a pure white.
Halfway up the grand tree were thousands of branches as thick as a regular oak’s trunk, resembling a network of city roads. She spotted holes carved throughout the tree, from its base to its branches, some rivaling the mouth of a bear cave.
Prakriti stopped and sat in the grass, so Rhyparia followed suit. “What is this place?” she asked.
“Most would call it a forest, others a city. It’s either, depending on the perspective. This tree—the Black Bear’s Birch—is the equivalent of a capital’s palace,” Prakriti said.
“Birch trees aren’t this massive,” she said.
“You think that because you’ve never been to the Prim Kingdom.”
She turned toward him, eyebrows raised. “And you have?”
He smirked. “Of course not. I’ve spent my life in Epinio—haven’t even been allowed in the mountains.” His lips fell flat as he said, “But my dad told me birch trees are indigenous to the Prim Kingdom. They have a forest full of them, as big as Lingens Rainforest.” He paused, and then mused, “But I only know how big that is because of my father’s maps.”
Rhyparia frowned, craning her neck to observe the canopy above her. “Well, if Musku said so ...”
Silence swept over them, and after a few minutes, she noticed the oddity of the quiet. Where were the bird calls, rustling leaves, and other animal noises? This place looked like paradise, but sounded nothing of the sort.
“Where are the animals?” she finally asked.
Prakriti flopped back into the grass, placing his hands behind his head. “You’re aware of the Unboundants. I heard you mention them when talking to my dad earlier.”
Rhyparia shrugged. “I’ve only been told that they’re dangerous dimiours who split away from the majority centuries ago, ultimately choosing to live in the mountains instead.”
“Care to know a little more about them?” he asked.
“Sure.”
Prakriti sighed. “Like most legends, it’s a sad tale.”
7
Unboundants
Over 1,500 years ago, when dimiours first crossed through Realmular Tunnel and resurfaced behind the Archaic Mountains in a separate realm, tensions were high between two factions among the race. Dimiours thought they should approach life in a more humanistic style, while their opposition—eventually known as Unboundants—embraced their animalistic behaviors.
This divide stemmed fr
om their past experiences in the Dark Realm, where the Dark Courage King had slaughtered animals across the land before decapitating the omnipotent king of the Dark Morality Kingdom, Dimiourgos. This inhumane act of violence inspired the Unboundants to separate from the other dimiours, who chose to see the good in humans.
This sparked a feud that lasted long enough to transfer into the Known History timeline. The rift between the dimiours and Unboundants worsened over time. Still, they lived together in Epinio’s village with the local animals of the forests and mountains.
Then the year 65 K.H. arrived, when the first human exited the Archaic Mountains and entered Epinio between the two cliffs. She called herself Rosela Lizly, a citizen of the Light Morality Kingdom. The response from the villagers was polarizing. The dimiours welcomed her with a feast and celebration; the Unboundants planned to kill her.
However, such a mission proved difficult since the dimiours placed Rosela on a plateau thousands of feet above the village. It was there they took care of her and treated her as family. After all, humans and dimiours—like animals and dimiours—were cousins.
Over the next ten years, twenty more humans ventured out of the mountains. During that time, not a single Unboundant could achieve their goal of taking a human life, for the dimiours would take them to the plateau.
75 K.H. proved to be a fatal year for their already crumbling relationship. On the tenth anniversary of Rosela’s arrival, a herd of dairy cows had been slaughtered in the night. The deed had been committed by three humans who fled their haven under the moonlight. When thrown in front of a jury of dimiours, the defendants expressed their desire for meat as the reasoning. They couldn’t continue the vegetarian lifestyle of the dimiours.
The Unboundants in the audience believed that surely they’d be condemned. The idea that the dimiours would grant leniency was absurd. For once, the opposing factions could come to a unanimous decision.
It didn’t happen; the dimiours deemed the humans guilty but forgave the acts ... something about it being in their nature to eat meat. The murderers walked free.
That was the final nail in the coffin for the coexistence between the two sides. A black bear by the name of Grot found a clearing overlooking the kingdom’s Edge that was big enough to sprout a forest, so that’s what he did. He returned to Epinio and found a fellow Unboundant who had thousands of river birch tree seeds from the Dark Morality Kingdom and convinced him to plant them in the clearing. They placed the biggest seed at the center of the flatland. Once finished with their planting, they returned to Epinio one final time.
Twenty years passed without incident. During that time, Unboundants trickled into the birch forest in search of their new homes. The forest became a city for the animalistic faction. Meanwhile, the Unboundants that stayed in the village continued their charade of harmony with the dimiours, actually waiting for the moment to strike. When 95 K.H. came, the remaining Unboundants murdered thirty-five of the eighty humans that lived in the village, sparking a battle between the factions.
After a violent two hours, the dimiours had won. The Unboundants that were left fled into the Archaic Mountains, where they would make their homes for the next 1,400 years. With victory claimed, the dimiours moved on. They could live in peace knowing that their enemies had vanished fled—or so they had thought.
Ninety-four years went by without incident, and the Unboundants in the forest believed they’d escaped Epinio’s human-invested culture. Their forest thrived. The grass and leaves were a vibrant green, and the tree bark a healthy shade of beige.
Grot and fifteen others lived within the Black Bear’s Birch at the heart of the forest. They were the leaders of the Unboundants.
But in 189 K.H., their wildlife kingdom came to a catastrophic end after the dimiours discovered their home. A day later, the dimiours returned to burn down the forest and kill all of its inhabitants.
Word reached the Unboundants in the mountains, and from that day forward, they vowed to kill any human or dimiour that entered their territory, giving birth to the deadly reputation of the Archaic Mountains.
* * *
Rhyparia was on her back, nearly shoulder to shoulder with Prakriti as she looked into the canopy. Why did tragedy blanket every corner of Kuki Sphaira? Her head rolled to look at the smaller birches surrounding the open field. She shook her head, for something didn’t add up. “If the forest was burned down, why does it look like this?”
“I wish this was permanent,” he said.
Rhyparia’s nose turned up. “Huh?” But her eyes spread wide as the canopy began to rot. Leaves shriveled into nothing, branches rescinded toward the tree’s base, and the bark darkened to an unhealthy black. Pushing herself onto her elbows, she watched as the forest turned into a wasteland. The grass against her skin became uncomfortable dirt. She hadn’t been part of the mission to find the Unbreakable in the Void years ago, but based off the retellings from Agnos and Lilu about the Almawt Woods, this was what she imagined it to be like.
“This is the truth,” Prakriti stated.
Rhyparia clawed her fingers through the hard sod. “Your ability ...”
“I give life to nature,” he said. “Of course, I can only do so for a temporary period.” Grass sprouted around them once more, but this time covering only a tiny area.
Rhyparia shifted to her knees and sniffed the grass. She then picked a blade and inspected it.
Prakriti laughed. “It’s real.”
She gazed back at Musku’s son and said, “I guess I know your role now.”
“My dad had been training me to strengthen my energy endurance and weaving techniques since I was young, hoping that one day I would lead the journey through Dimiourgos’s chasm. But, to be honest, it wasn’t going to happen—not unless he used his ancient like he did with you.”
Shame bubbled inside of Rhyparia. “He didn’t want to shorten your life,” she said.
“Exactly. If it wasn’t for news of your existence from Ophala, the Realmular Tunnel mission would have likely died. It still would have died even with knowledge of your ability. My dad, Rayne, and Saikatto had decided not to coerce you through the mountains, even with Ophala offering to approach you about it.”
“And this was all before my capture and trials?” she asked.
“Yes, but once we received news that you were to be executed in Rim, we realized that we had a chance to not only rescue you but also to salvage the dream of making it to the Dark Realm. Your gravity combined with my ability could get us there.”
He sat up, looking her dead in the eyes. “During the journey, we’ll operate in shifts. You will alter gravity so that we can walk along the tunnel’s walls. When you grow tired and need rest, I will use my energy to give life to the tunnel’s wildlife. With healthy trees, the team will be able to sleep without fear of falling to their deaths in normal gravity. I also can provide food and water.”
Rhyparia’s stomach clenched again, this time from anxiousness. This mission relied on prolonged energy use from two people. If either of them faltered even once, not only would the mission be at risk, but their lives.
“So when I sleep, everyone sleeps but you,” she said. “And when you sleep, everyone travels with the help of my sideways gravity.”
“Eh ... not quite. The shifts won’t be so neatly structured. They will stagnate, but it’ll work out. Therapif and Saikatto will handle the timing.”
“Still, sounds lonely for you.”
Prakriti rubbed his jaw and smiled. “Don’t worry about me.” He stood up, and the grass beneath them withered into dirt. “Let’s head back to the village.” As he stretched and observed the stars between the skeletal canopies, he said, “It’s late, and we must rest.”
Rhyparia followed Prakriti’s bald scalp, which shined under the night sky. Rest would be hard to come by, for the mission began in three days.
8
Travolter
Lilu scribbled across some parchment, cursing under her breath as the car
riage she sat in hit a bump. Professor Jugtah eyed her impatiently from the front. Once satisfied with her letter, Lilu rolled it up and tied string around it before placing it in the grasp of a falcon’s talons.
“You can’t be spotted in Brilliance communicating with outsiders—even if it is your father,” Jugtah said as the falcon soared out of the window.
“I just needed to inform him of our safe arrival,” she said.
“Did he give you any updates?”
Lilu fell silent. Her father’s message was confidential, containing details of the Jestivan’s mission in the Dev Kingdom and the housing of refugees in Phesaw. As the Intel King’s daughter, she knew not to share such information. Instead, she pouted and said, “No. He fears that someone will intercept the falcon, so he keeps the messages light.”
Jugtah’s gaze held steady on her for a moment before refocusing on a book he’d been reading throughout the journey.
Lilu resisted a sigh as she gazed out the window. Even though she knew her purpose in Brilliance was important, doubt continued to fester. At this very moment, Bryson, Olivia, Toshik, Himitsu, and Vuilni were preparing to infiltrate the Dev Kingdom alongside Horos, Fane, and Flen. That was a group she’d love to operate with. Even Tashami and Agnos were together, sailing the Realm Rivers somewhere. There was something lonely about her mission in Brilliance. Sure, she had Gracie, Frederick, and Limone to hang out with, but the Jestivan was her true circle of friends.
After a couple more hours of travel, they had entered Brilliance and disembarked their lorry. As she stepped out among towering edifices of limestone, Lilu’s somberness softened. Maybe she’d been overthinking things. She really did love this city—or at least the environment. There were still a few aspects of the culture that needed gutting.
Her gaze swung to where a cube of stone sat in the middle of an intersection nearby. That slab of rock had once been part of a statue that depicted Mendac LeAnce, the Fifth of Five. It was the only part remaining after the monument had been destroyed. Lilu had been the person responsible, along with her lab partners from Weavineer Tower. They had obliterated it one night through the use of a few volters—a weapon that Lilu invented, capable of shooting electricity. The only person who knew they’d committed the act was Professor Jugtah, who quickly dismissed it and has kept it secret ever since.
The Chronicle Page 7
