Chapter 407 (1/2)
Chapter 407
Chapter 405: Tell Him
CAERA DENOIR
“Report,” Seris said, her tone cohtforward than usual since her brief conversation with Scythe Nico and his strange companion, the woacy
“The bombardment in Rosaere has started,” Cylrit answered with snappish military precision “We estih forces are still being rallied The shi+eld is holding”
“And the Legacy?”
Cylrit’s handsome features darkened at the name “She has so far seen fit to command from the rear”
A frown, hardly perceptible, creased Seris’s brow “Anything else?”
“A fleet of twenty stea south,” Cylrit answered i ocean in the distance “We expect theard”
Seris’s piercing gaze shi+fted to me “Do we know if the Redwaters were able to coested?”
I tapped one of the e table at the center of Seris’s war rooht that friendly sailors had been successfully relocated to Dzianis to help ‘fill out’ the steam shi+p crews”
“Good,” Seris said with a nod “Have we received any additional confirlanced at Cylrit, who responded with a slight shake of his head “No”
“I see,” she said softly, clicking her nails together Realizing it, she stopped and straightened “Then I shall leave for Rosaere at once Cylrit, you are to stay here and ensure the shi+eld battery reic operations to the city of Sandaerene You will be safer there”
I bit hts that came to my mind
Seris’s brows rose a fraction of an inch
“Forgive , “but I have no interest in re ‘safe’ I am not—”
“Expendable,” Seris said unexpectedly My th better than I, Caera But I have soldiers What I lack is an abundance of Vritra-born highblood foster children with in-depth knowledge of both the intricacies of noble politics and the Relicto me an opportunity to speak, but I had no response “This is not a contest of power and strategy between two sides, where strength of ic and arms in the day This is a revolution This is about reshaping the world so that it works for the people who live in it, instead of the deities who simply use it And even if it isn’t the role you would have chosen for yourself, your part in all this is to guide your peers toward understanding”
My head fell, round at Seris’s feet She quickly closed the distance between us, her hand gently but fir my chin As she had so many ti bare my frustration and fear
“Even I can’t foresee everything that will coently “But I know for certain that any plans I ood people to care for the world we seek to build, ould be the point?”
Her grip tightened on my chin, and she forced me to look her directly in the eye “Now, you’ve wheedled enough coet no ements with my contacts in Sandaerene And reach out if youthe pot outside of Sehz-Clar”
She glanced at Cylrit, who gave her a shallo
Then she wasout of the roolanced around the war roo to Sehz-Clar It was a sprawling, undecorated space on the west end of Seris’s co oval table, with smaller desks pressed haphazardly to the walls around us Open arches led out to a wide balcony that overlooked the western half of Aedelgard and gave a grand view of the Vritra’s Maw Sea and the ocean beyond it
“Lady Caera, please let me know if you need any assistance,” Cylrit said with a bob of his horned head, then he started out of the room in Seris’s wake
Just before he passed under the arched opening deeper into the coht?”
He stopped and turned to consider me It took a moment for his like her own health and well-being For her, it’s all about the plan”
I couldn’t help but srined reverence in his tone “Is that why she has you, then? To think about her health and well-being?”
No flicker of emotion broke the stoic expression Cylrit alore “Perhaps” He started to turn away, then stopped “We’ve set up several recording artifacts around Rosaere If yourwill ease your thoughts” Then, like Seris, he was gone
I wondered how he stayed so cal relatively youthful, Cylrit had been Seris’s retainer for ainst the Vechorian invasion, back before I had even been born Most of the time he seemed just as poised and confident as Seris Soled to see a positive outcome, it was Cylrit I attempted to emulate Asother, beyond reckoning In contrast, Cylrit’s story was very siat all will be accohteningthrough thethem into hasty piles to be relocated
I stopped suddenly, irritated withthat I had an entire staff of attendants to aid
As if suhblood Tremblay—a cousin of Maylis’s—poked her head in the door “Oh, forgive me Lady Caera, I saw Co and—”
“No need to apologize,” I said with a wave of ”
After a quick e—all trustworthy individuals who agreed with our cause and had talents or runes that helped with the distribution of the many an to collectin Sandaerene, a city in the near center of the west half of Sehz-Clar, as far as possible fro But I knew Seris was correct in her assessard and help watch over the shi+eld battery array and the Sovereign at its heart, Cylrit was more capable than I
To help stillested Set into one wall ofroorona’sto the people of Alacrya With a pulse ofit for theartifacts
It didn’t taketo locate the artifacts Cylrit hadcurve of the shi+eld splitting the city of Rosaere in twain The device see outward
The ie it captured made my pulse quicken
On the other side of the shi+eld, several hundred battle groups were lined up and hurtling thousands of spells Bolts and bullets of every eleht missiles crashed into the shi+eld, many dozen per second
The artifact wasn’t portraying the sound of the battle, but I could i of the spells, a noise to shake the bedrock foundations of the continent
But, so far as I could tell, the shi+eld barrier was holding without strain
I adjusted the attunee, but froe point allowedI had taken to calling these Alacryan soldiers the ‘ene—and the war camp far in the distance, beyond the eastern borders of the city
Changing the attunee of the city from a bird’s eye view, and my frown curved up into a smile I found the si this recording artifact, endlessly char to Seris, having been piloted in the war against Dicathen but never put into full-scale use due to the difficulty of crafting such things
I watched for so Seris had gathered just over five-thousand soldiers in Rosaere as a failsafe should the shi+elds be breached, and froe I could see thehout the western half of the city
I tried not to think about how much I would have preferred to be with them, closer to where the action was
A noise like thunder reverberating inside a bell jar ripped through the air, so loud it shook the floor beneath e jurabbed the nearby tabletop to steady ain, and the coht slide off the cliff face and into the sea
Screahout Seris’s hoh the reverberations left by the tre a vibration throughfog
What in the abyss is…
It hit me all at once: the shi+elds
The shi+elds were under attack
Moving at a dead sprint, I sla the hall, hurtling up the stairs three at a ti chambers and out onto a balcony
Beyond the shi+eld, which caently overhead, two figures flew high above the tumultuous waters of the Vritra’s Maw Sea
The blood rushed from my face, and I had to clench
I knew these figures
The pieces caacy must have ordered the bombardment of Rosaere to lure out Seris, then took a te south over the sea Whether she knew this co the do this location only because it was Seris’s houess
I stood i force of mana to her, and hurled her hands outward The thunder sounded yet again, a noise so great and terrible that it drove me to h the railing of the balcony, I watched as jagged lines of white hot light spread across the surface of the shi+eld, like cracks over thin ice
Strong hands grabbed le to focus on the face swi just before me
“Caera, listen carefully” A familiar voice from that blurry face—Cylrit? “Evacuate as many as you can, then send word to Commander Seris Go yourself if you can, but leave now—”
The thunder crashed again I shookrapidly Cylrit’s face finally cahtened and he flinched away fro me feel better—but also si that he was also afraid
As the echoing vibrations receded, I risked a glance at the shi+eld and was horrified to see how far the cracks had spread
“Caera!” Cylrit said urgently, his hands gripping the sides of ht, but—”
“Cylrit…” I said, his name barely a whisper on aze, and together atched as the Legacy fleard the shi+eld
Both her hands reached out and pushed into the cracks, taking hold and pulling
Like glass shattering, except a thousand tiive way
Cylrit launched himself toward the breach with such force that the balcony cracked I threwti with a sound like breaking bones
By the time I had my feet under reatsword as long as he was tall clenched in his fists
All I could do atch as the Legacy’s fingers clawed through the transparent barrier, ripping a hole the size of an outstretched hand The shi+eld crackled with desperate energy around her fingertips, surging against her power and control as it attempted to reseal itself
Silently, Cylrit thrust his void wind blade into the gap, aiacy’s core