The Lightning Wastes (The Traveler's Gate Chronicles: Collection #3) by Will Wight
Authors: Will Wight
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T HE L IGHTNING W ASTES
Valor is an easy virtue to admire.
We make heroes out of those who charge recklessly against superior forces. We idolize the warriors who risk their lives to save the innocent, who stand firm in the face of certain death. Truly, bravery and courage are fine qualities.
But Travelers of Endross can take it too far.
-Elysian Book of Virtues, Chapter 7: Gold
358 th Year of the Damascan Calendar
1 st Year in the Reign of Queen Leah I
9 Days Until Autumn’s End
Queen Leah the First slumped over onto her camp desk. The thing almost collapsed—it was made to fold and pack up for easy marching, and she'd been using it as a permanent fixture for months now. She was lucky it had lasted this long without it buckling under her.
She kept her face pressed against the desk. So what if the desk broke, sending her crashing to the ground? She couldn't bring herself to care.
She had other things to worry about. Such as her meeting with the nine Overlords, which had just ended.
“Could that have possibly gone any worse?” She asked, into the desk.
Indirial's cloak rustled and a chair creaked; he must have sat down. “An Incarnation didn't blast through the tent and kill us all. In that light, I'd say we came out ahead.”
Leah raised her head, and it seemed to take ten times as much effort as normal. “They're barely listening to me anymore, Indirial. They're not concerned about the nation. They can barely see past their own cities.”
Indirial's easy smile never left his face, blinding white against his dark villager's skin. It was hard to put a dent in his optimism. “You're young, and they barely know you. Give them time. Besides, the nation's going through a crisis. Of course they're going to look to their own realms first.”
He had taken his black cloak off, draping it over the back of his chair, leaving his chain-wrapped arms bare. She had rarely seen the shadow-chains marking his arms that short; they barely twisted around his wrists. He wore confidence like a second cloak, solid and dependable even in a crisis. He was as old as her father—old enough to be her grandfather, in fact—but he looked twenty years younger. It must have been a Valinhall thing.
Leah glanced over at the table next to her. It was much sturdier than her portable writing desk, and covered with a giant map of the kingdom of Damasca. The map was almost lost beneath a chaos of pins and buttons in every color imaginable. The release of the Incarnations had worked on the nation like a kick on an anthill. Cities were practically trading refugees, as their citizens fled one citadel for perceived safety in another. Thousands of them were here, camped under her command, less than five miles from the sealed city of Cana.
“It's not what they're doing that bothers me,” Leah said. “Look at what they're not doing. None of them bothered to address the Endross Incarnation. Not even Overlord Feiora.”
Only a few days ago, they had received word that the Endross Incarnation had burst forth from its prison beneath the city of Eltarim. It had left the city largely untouched for some reason, blasting off into the wilderness to terrorize ordinary merchants and a handful of small villagers.
Indirial folded his arms. “Overlord Feiora rules Eltarim, but the city and the surrounding lands are practically untouched. She's no Endross Traveler.”
“She should have been,” Leah said. Her father had appointed Feiora Torannus to guard the Endross Incarnation, even though she was an Asphodel Traveler. In every other case, the Overlord Traveled the same Territory as the Incarnation he or she guarded. Feiora was the sole exception, and at the moment Leah was having trouble recalling why. “In any case, that's no excuse for her shirking her duty.”
“You think she may have a...personal reason for refusing to listen to you?” Indirial's grin got a little wider. “Maybe you shouldn't have trapped her brother alive.”
Lysander
Valor is an easy virtue to admire.
We make heroes out of those who charge recklessly against superior forces. We idolize the warriors who risk their lives to save the innocent, who stand firm in the face of certain death. Truly, bravery and courage are fine qualities.
But Travelers of Endross can take it too far.
-Elysian Book of Virtues, Chapter 7: Gold
358 th Year of the Damascan Calendar
1 st Year in the Reign of Queen Leah I
9 Days Until Autumn’s End
Queen Leah the First slumped over onto her camp desk. The thing almost collapsed—it was made to fold and pack up for easy marching, and she'd been using it as a permanent fixture for months now. She was lucky it had lasted this long without it buckling under her.
She kept her face pressed against the desk. So what if the desk broke, sending her crashing to the ground? She couldn't bring herself to care.
She had other things to worry about. Such as her meeting with the nine Overlords, which had just ended.
“Could that have possibly gone any worse?” She asked, into the desk.
Indirial's cloak rustled and a chair creaked; he must have sat down. “An Incarnation didn't blast through the tent and kill us all. In that light, I'd say we came out ahead.”
Leah raised her head, and it seemed to take ten times as much effort as normal. “They're barely listening to me anymore, Indirial. They're not concerned about the nation. They can barely see past their own cities.”
Indirial's easy smile never left his face, blinding white against his dark villager's skin. It was hard to put a dent in his optimism. “You're young, and they barely know you. Give them time. Besides, the nation's going through a crisis. Of course they're going to look to their own realms first.”
He had taken his black cloak off, draping it over the back of his chair, leaving his chain-wrapped arms bare. She had rarely seen the shadow-chains marking his arms that short; they barely twisted around his wrists. He wore confidence like a second cloak, solid and dependable even in a crisis. He was as old as her father—old enough to be her grandfather, in fact—but he looked twenty years younger. It must have been a Valinhall thing.
Leah glanced over at the table next to her. It was much sturdier than her portable writing desk, and covered with a giant map of the kingdom of Damasca. The map was almost lost beneath a chaos of pins and buttons in every color imaginable. The release of the Incarnations had worked on the nation like a kick on an anthill. Cities were practically trading refugees, as their citizens fled one citadel for perceived safety in another. Thousands of them were here, camped under her command, less than five miles from the sealed city of Cana.
“It's not what they're doing that bothers me,” Leah said. “Look at what they're not doing. None of them bothered to address the Endross Incarnation. Not even Overlord Feiora.”
Only a few days ago, they had received word that the Endross Incarnation had burst forth from its prison beneath the city of Eltarim. It had left the city largely untouched for some reason, blasting off into the wilderness to terrorize ordinary merchants and a handful of small villagers.
Indirial folded his arms. “Overlord Feiora rules Eltarim, but the city and the surrounding lands are practically untouched. She's no Endross Traveler.”
“She should have been,” Leah said. Her father had appointed Feiora Torannus to guard the Endross Incarnation, even though she was an Asphodel Traveler. In every other case, the Overlord Traveled the same Territory as the Incarnation he or she guarded. Feiora was the sole exception, and at the moment Leah was having trouble recalling why. “In any case, that's no excuse for her shirking her duty.”
“You think she may have a...personal reason for refusing to listen to you?” Indirial's grin got a little wider. “Maybe you shouldn't have trapped her brother alive.”
Lysander
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