Chapter 11 #2
The Asterism was a pompous cluster of crystal gluttons with no regard for anyone or anything but themselves.
As soon as her obligatory introductions with the Taureon Asters in the city were concluded, Aela retreated to her quarters as quickly as her sentinel guard had allowed.
Her head and feet were aching. Tarek had insisted that she change into suitable clothing, which apparently meant a sleeveless flowing white dress beneath a solid crystal, amethyst corset, hair curled and elegantly gathered behind her head, and to her greatest dismay, slanted shoes that raised her further off the ground by several fingers.
Briefly marveling at how she could open the quartz door to her apartment, Aela stepped inside and went straight to her bed, kicking off her shoes as she went. The corset clamped around her would have to wait. Before her ashy-gray hair made contact with the silken pillow, she was asleep.
Aela’s dreamscape received her, and she sat up with a wince, rubbing her temples with her fingers.
White sand from one of Solara’s many islands shifted beneath her as she climbed to her feet.
The simple ivory nightgown she wore remained dry even as she waded out into the warm ocean waters.
Tipping her head back, she pushed off the sandy bottom and floated on the surface of the water, allowing the soothing ocean to do its work.
The spasms she felt eased, as all her ailments did whenever she dreamed—her dreamscape knowing how to take care of her.
Adhering to her ritual, Aela cast her awareness outward as she searched for any other sign of life.
When she passed through the invisible wards of Prente to Avarice, her magic could breathe for the first time.
The reprieve was short-lived, though as her power became trapped once more.
Her magic didn’t like being contained—but in her dreams, she was in control.
Without a thought, the bands that encircled her wrists fell away and sank into the ocean. When nothing responded to her silent call, Aela’s eyes drifted shut, and she let the ocean pull her along its current.
Solara would always hold a serenity in its landscape that she craved over the bustle and raw majesty of a city like Avarice, and one she would never grow tired of.
Most of the planet was an ocean, carrying notes of salt and orchids on the gentle breeze with sparse islands sprinkled throughout its restorative seas.
The island Aela dreamed herself to was a favorite of hers as a youngling.
It was there that her father had taught her the art of crafting her own body surf from the timber of the swaying trees overhead.
A tradition his father in turn had taught him.
Memories of Epsilon halted, and Aela’s eyes snapped open.
All around her, little jet streams of air bubbled to the surface, frothing the water.
She had never seen the Solaran waters behave in such a way.
She reached her hand to the closest air pocket that was creating tiny ripples.
She winced and yanked her hand back—the tips of her fingers scalded.
A second later, animalistic clicking threatened to burst her eardrums.
“What in all the hells…”
In a wild spray, the ocean became teal scales as something erupted from the deep, forcing Aela into the sky.
Her scream was lost in a wave of water so massive that the planet seemed to tilt.
A dark, sinuous pattern was unearthed from the ocean floor, no longer concealed by the blue depths.
The wide trench stretched beyond what she could see as if it encircled the entire planet.
Wind tore at her eyes as she was pressed by something leathery and hard into the sky.
Up, up, up, she was carried until the air turned thin and cold.
Lavender clouds were left behind, and through the blue haze she was flung.
Streams of water froze to ice, and the darts sliced at her skin as she shot into the black night.
Squeezing her eyes shut as she rolled, Aela tried to decipher up from down as she spiraled into the astral air; over and under she tumbled until she jerked her arms out and firmed her mind on stilling her body.
Panting, she smoothed her hair back from her face as her body slowed—an instinct she couldn’t explain directed her body to right itself.
Aela looked down. The ocean planet was nothing but a glowing blue orb beneath her.
Her eyes widened at the indiscernible height between her and the planet.
The blackness was going to swallow her whole.
Her mind was tying itself in knots and a cold sweat broke over the back of her neck.
She was going to be sick.
Before Aela’s body could decide what to do with itself, a planet-shaking roar decided for her. Aela fled. Shift.
Abruptly, she fell to her knees. Rather than the white sands of Solara, this shore was dark gray, almost black. She sprang to her feet and dusted the damp sand from her hands. The sky was an angry crimson, streaked with a deep orange and lighter shades in between.
The terrain was unfamiliar to her. She had landed in a cove of some sort, with gloomy evergreen trees that mourned in the stiff wind.
Midnight, iridescent scaled armor crawled over Aela’s skin, replacing her torn slip.
Across the beach was a body of dark water, and at the far end, a fortress clung to a mountainside overlooking the lake.
A massive waterfall spilled out beneath the castle into the dark waters.
Transfixed, she took an unbidden step toward it.
In the span of a breath, black vapor speared out from the fortress, streaking across the crimson sky.
Aela gasped and wrenched her eyes shut, banishing herself from her dreamscape.