Conduit - M J Marlow (best short books to read txt) 📗

I nodded and they left me to float. I did not know how long I rested, it felt like seconds; it seemed like hours, then years, then centuries. They showed me what would happen if I did not step back and let others lead. I was in tears for those lost to my stubbornness and pride. I could not allow it to be, my mind screamed. I would learn to step back. I would learn to lead through allowing others to have their heads. “Then we leave you with a gift, little queen,” the voices said to me. “Which will be made known to you when it is needed most.” I woke up almost before I fainted and looked around the hall in confusion. I had been saying something but I could not remember. Lord Chert was looking at me for some answer. Ashad was ashen as if he had expected something to happen and it had not. When I told him it had and I had learned, he was on his knees, broken. His last gambit destroyed by a mere child. I felt sorrow for the loss of him. He could have been so much more if he had just let himself be open to more than his petty pride and ambition. “Sylenni has need of you, Ashad,” I told him as I approached. “You would remain chained when you could walk free?” Ashad looked up at me in confusion. I was in his mind and he fought me as I removed the damaging ambitions. I went back to the time when he had made his decision and I erased all trace of the wrong choice. When I pulled free, he was smiling up at me in gratitude. I removed his shackles and kissed his cheek. “You know what you must do now, my friend?” I asked the smiling man. Ashad nodded. “Then go become the man you were always meant to be.” “Where did you send him, my queen?” Everd asked as Ashad left the hall and flew away. “To the Great Library,” I replied. “It is where he always wanted to devote his life. His father made the other choice for him and beat Ashad into that shape he held.” “You are a Goddess,” Chert cried and fell on his face. “No,” I shook my head and asked him to rise, “I am a child who thinks everyone should have the right to choose their own path.” I looked at those assembled around me. “Do you hear me, my people? There will be no more slavery, of any kind, in the Sylenni Alliance. That is my will.”
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Text: M J Marlow
Images: Bookrix
Editing: M J Marlow
Publication Date: 01-10-2010

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