Restart Again: Volume 2 by Adam Scott (best adventure books to read .TXT) 📗

quiet of the otherwise empty council chambers, filled with some mixture of reverence and relief. “I will allow myself to be taken into custody,” the Strategist said eventually, breaking the silence. “This is not where I die.”

“The night is still young,” I remarked. “Let’s not make any promises we can’t keep, hmm?” With a small nod, I motioned to Val. “Take care of him, please.”

Val nodded, and she and Lia climbed the steps towards me. “By the way,” Lia said casually, looking at the Strategist with a raised eyebrow, “I can see the daggers you have hidden in your sleeve. I’d recommend dropping those, nice and slow.”

“I’ve been hoping this whole time that he’d reach for one, just to give me a reason,” I lied with a chuckle. In truth, I hadn’t noticed any concealed weapons on him during the fight; there was a strong chance that, had he tried it, he could have overpowered me while my guard was down. There was a clatter at my feet as the hidden blades fell from the sleeve of his non-grappled hand. Shit. I got lucky.

When Val had both of her hands firmly on the Strategist’s arms, I finally allowed myself to remove the blade from his neck and step back. While Val led him roughly down to the empty pews, I fell back against the desk and slid to the floor as my exhaustion took full control of my body. Lia rushed over and knelt beside me, taking my hands in hers. I tried to push her away, but my arms were far too heavy to move. “Lia, please...you should, uh, back up, I think. Before the...you know, before I...get sent away.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, “I’m staying right here with you. Until the end.”

“The end,” I laughed weakly. “Nothing is going to end. You’re going to go back home with Val, and I’m going...somewhere else.” The thought would have infuriated me under normal circumstances, but in the moment, I felt far too tired to fight. “We really did it, huh?”

She gave me a smile and nodded, fighting fiercely to hold back the tears I could see welling up in her eyes. “We did. We saved the world.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise,” I said, suppressing my own tears. “I really wanted to see the world with you.” Darkness began to bite at the corners of my vision, and the tips of my fingers and toes went numb.

“Don’t say that,” she cried softly. “You gave me more than I ever could have asked for. I just wish...I wish you could stay.”

“Me too.” The numbness steadily crept its way up my body, and I squeezed her hands tightly in an attempt to anchor myself to consciousness. “You should...stick with Val. She’s a good person. I guess.”

She laughed, shaking tears down from her cheeks onto our hands. “Okay. I will.” The world faded down to pinpoints, and Lia’s face disappeared from view. “I’ll always love you, Elden,” I heard her say through the muffled darkness.

I felt my lips move in response, but I didn’t hear my reply. As the rest of my senses faded and my mind dissociated from my body, I found myself filled with a profound sense of satisfaction. Did you see me, Amaya? Alda? Did you see what I did? Before my mind faded away, I held on to a final, comforting thought. I did something right.

***

15. WHAT COMES AFTER

The darkness surrounded me, as it always did in the end. Formless and directionless, I floated through the vast expanse of nothing with an instinctive sense of calm. I may have forgotten before, but I remember now. I remember what’s waiting for me here. What comes after I’m done. Somewhere ahead of me, the all-encompassing pain of the void between worlds was waiting once again. The feeling of death.

It was a small comfort to name it for what it was. The first time I had felt it, some primal part of me had instantly known where I was and what I was feeling, but my conscious mind had been far too preoccupied with the suffering to process the information. Now, on my fourth trip into the void, there was no fear of the unknown to cloud my thoughts. The pain would come, and I would suffer, but somewhere on the other side, I knew it would eventually end.

As I waited, my thoughts turned to the world I had left behind. There would be a time for grieving in my next life, I decided; the regret, the rage, and the shattering of my twice-broken heart would have to wait until I was in a state of mind to process them correctly. I couldn’t afford to be distracted when the torture came. Instead, I separated myself from my emotions and thought through the logical steps of what would become of Lia and Val in my absence.

The General is dead. The Conduit is dead. The Strategist is their prisoner. Val will take him before the troops waiting in the courtyard and force him to confess his crimes, and the occupation of Attetsia will be over. The Company men will be allowed to leave with their Admiral, and the Unbound will go back to their lives with the promise of a new governing council more in line with their demands. The men who had turned to Thralls should—

My train of thought halted at the idea of my encounter with the Thralls, and the memory of my battle in the plaza played out in my mind. Each moment came and went with perfect detail, and I analyzed all of it with a cool, level head for the first time. I saw something during that fight, something that made me consider the possibility that I was wrong. Whatever it was, the dark presence forced me to ignore it.

Even with my subdued emotions, I was stunned at how clear my error had been when my analysis concluded. The differences would have been clear to