Chapter 26 #2
Alex frowned, struck by the contrast of larger houses faced in pearlescent stone once more after the poorer areas they had traversed, though they looked a bit worse for wear and, in some cases, were clearly abandoned.
Alex nodded. “These houses are a bit nicer than the ones just below, but hardly anyone lives in them now.”
Lini nodded as if it made perfect sense.
“Oh yes, there’s a reason for that. Mother explained it to me.
Long ago, it was considered popular for the elites to have an additional home up here, by the ridgeline.
The view takes in the entire city, and you get to enjoy the contrast of both the endless deserts and the lush valley in the heart of our caldera that all our lives depend upon.
And the ledge does provide partial shade.
But, well, we do live in a desert. And this far from the valley lake below, it’s hard to grow any sort of garden up here, even during times when people aren’t dreading the thought of the falls stopping any moment.
It’s also the farthest away from the centers of culture, power, and influence that both nobles and cultivators crave. ”
Alex nodded. “And of course no prestigious family is going to just give real estate they spent considerable resources developing away to strangers.”
Lini nodded. “Yup. So the houses are basically empty, save for the occasional family retainer who stops by to check on the properties every week or maybe once or twice a season. But at least it’s quiet up here, and no one’s looking our way.”
“Thanks to your gifts,” Ya Ling allowed with a smile, before turning to a somewhat drained-looking Rachel Lu, who immediately perked up with a cheerful grin when Alex noted her condition and shared a bit more of his potency with her.
“And the area is far greener and lusher than it had been before, thanks to our dear friend, here.”
Alex nodded in agreement, noting the steady patches of grass and moss now gracing discrete portions of the boulevard, which probably wouldn’t survive too long, though Rachel had also gifted her blessing to the fig and date trees they passed, and Alex was more than happy to convey the pleased rustles of the trees to Rachel’s excited ears.
“Really? They sense it and appreciate it?” she all but gushed.
Alex nodded. “As a tiny portion of a whole, like rubbing someone’s foot for comfort while they’re asleep. It’s a subtle thing, a small thing, but it definitely helps build a good impression that will last all your lives.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “You’re speaking of the great forest.”
It wasn’t a question.
Alex solemnly nodded as Ya Ling and Lini gazed wide-eyed at them both.
“I am.”
“Because you’re connected to it. A forest gone for a thousand years.”
Alex turned his gaze to the ridgeline before them. “Come on, Ya Ling. If Lini is right, we’ll be descending down the far side, right over the ritual site.”
“Are you sure you don’t want us with you?” Rachel tentatively asked, wiping the sweat from her brow.
Ya Ling gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “You’ve done more than enough, Rachel. Enriching the trees we passed, bringing life to ancient desert stone…”
“So Alex has one more tool to help him not die by the time all this is over!” Lini declared.
“But maybe I shouldn’t have put it like that?
Anyway, you should let us both come with you!
I’m great with shadows, obviously, and Rachel will make the rocks that much more…
friendly to you? Even if we can’t actually, um… fly.”
Ya Ling exchanged glances with Alex. “She does have a point. They both do.”
Alex furrowed his brow. “But if trouble is waiting for us… Serious trouble…”
“I’ll grab Rachel and hide in the jagged caldera wall. No one will be looking our way. All their focus will be on you!” Lini declared.
Rachel solemnly nodded. “Earth and Sand are both my affinities, in addition to green things. And with you filling me up with so much wonderfully delicious potency, I’m only a little bit tired and I already gained another skill rank!”
Alex sighed, then nodded. “All right. So long as it’s understood that should we sense any trouble at all—”
“I’ll hide with Rachel while you and your desert princess dart for the desert sands and play the heroes, just like in the best stories. Which means that neither of you are allowed to die,” Lini firmly admonished.
“I agree. No dying,” Rachel concurred, earning a dimpled smile from the olive-cheeked desert beauty who really was a princess of the sands.
Ya Ling must have felt his gaze as she spun around, her silken curls swaying, showing off the lilac ribbons she so favored. Smoky eyes locked with Alex’s own, crimson-dyed lips blossoming into a teasing smile, showing off ivory-white teeth.
“Agreed. No one’s dying. So, are we ready to do this, Alex?”
“Careful, hero. I think your heart’s racing,” Lini teased.
Alex swallowed his suddenly dry throat, then nodded. “Yeah. I think it’s time we did just that.”
“Good. Because afterward…”
His cheeks flushed, but there was no mistaking the look in her eyes.
“Ya Ling…”
A dusky finger caressed his lip. She slowly shook her head, her teasing smile not shifting an iota. “Not a word, Alex. We finish this. We save the city. And then you let me take care of everything.”
Alex blinked at this, but before he could say a word, she was racing up the escarpment with Rachel in her gentle grip, her nervous passenger still thoughtful enough to focus on creating generous groves of lichen every thirty feet or so.
Lini snorted in Alex’s grip. “I think you’ve definitely met your match with that one, hero. You can play the stalwart ascetic all you like, but I’m betting you’ll be wearing her heart band and holding a cute little blond-haired kit in less than a year’s time.”
By the time Lini made her teasing declaration, they had finished climbing the face of the escarpment.
Alex knew that Ya Ling had the same uncertainty as he had about crossing the jagged ridgeline separating the desert gloom of oncoming night from the torchlit city and the security it promised at their backs.
Yet when they reached the top and stopped where their companions stood with soft, awed curses, Alex could at least take a certain amount of solace that there were no gray areas here.
The ward was indeed a very real thing, as evidenced by Ya Ling’s silken curls flipping free of her carefully done ribbons to float over her head, as did all their hair save for Alex’s own, so dense was the spiritual energy radiating off the ward before them.
The air rang with a foreboding thrum as they gazed upon the very real and exceedingly deadly barrier crackling with such dreadful potency just a sparse handful of feet away from their awed and terrified countenances.
“Um… Alex? I think maybe we’d best get down.
I don’t…” Ya Ling licked dry lips, all playful banter gone, her eyes now that of a frightened doe catching sight of a predator she had thought but mist and shadow, yet had turned out to be very real and exceptionally deadly.
“I think maybe we’d best wait until it actually goes down…
or just… um… accept that we’ll be using one of the major gates, just like everyone else? ”
Lini jerked her head in a desperate nod, her fear palpable in the nervous lilt of her strained voice.
“Yup! Absolutely! Us being here is bad… VERY bad. But don’t worry.
I can get us to blend in so well when we reach the gate that no one will look our way twice.
Even if we have to go all the way through the city, at least that means it will be dark by the time we leave and no one will see us and you and Ya Ling can fly, so you should easily be able to beat the Red Prince’s elites, even if they are making their way to the ritual site.
And it’s such a shame, because it’s literally just a few hundred feet ahead and below us, but that might as well be a thousand miles, because that’s a very, very serious-looking prismatic ward.
And is it just me, or is it actually curving over us all, forming a very big dome?
Yeah. I think there’s a reason why desert cities are hard to take down.
If you can’t force yourself past the gate, you’re not getting in. ”
All the girls gazed at a stunned Alex, who hadn’t bothered to respond to any of their suggestions or concerns, his eyes locked upon the barrier before him.
Shivering as it all clicked, so many disparate truths suddenly coalescing into one unified whole.
Ya Ling gently squeezed his hand. “Alex, are you all right?”
“Um… probably he’s overwhelmed and tired and is trying not to cry, because I certainly want to cry with that scheming asshole now three steps ahead of us, about to claim the princess and blocking the only real way in or out,” Lini said in a sad voice, belying her earlier assurance that she could slip them through the gates with ease.
Yet Alex didn’t let her change in tone faze him. In fact, he paid it no mind at all.
All his focus was instead on the gently humming prismatic field before him.
A field composed of multiple half-step elements in addition to the ones he knew so well.
It was a masterwork.
“No, it’s a Divine-tier configuration,” he whispered, cheeks flushing as he blinked back bitter tears.
Because sure as hell, Long Wang wouldn’t have bothered with such a masterwork for the sake of a relatively tiny city so cut off from the Imperial High Road and, he suspected, most of the cards in the great game the gods above so loved to play.
So he was forced to wonder if maybe… just maybe…
He abruptly shook his head, ignoring the hitch in his breath.
No.
It would do him no good to dwell on the past’s bitter fruit.
Not when the thrumming resonance of so many interwoven forces and fields had so much to tell him.
So many secrets to share.
Truths so similar to his original Prismatic Shield, involving multiple layers of synergized elements forming one glorious whole.