#xaderavcal facing the literal bones of the past

[lightdancer1]

From the upcoming chapter of Blood Among the Stars:

Xaderavcal H'vat H'vorxixnon stood at the gate of the broken mountain, for the first time in decades. It had seemed so much larger when she had fled, and touched the walls with bare fingers. Now it was an armored gauntlet that looked at the old scar left, in a hand thirty years older than the one that had been then. It was an empty place, old blood spatter scabbed over, broken armor.

She could wade through stars, she had faced the Deathless Oathkeepers and kept pace with them until the Blight within her had erupted and then had overcome her, in the end. Very little existed that could make her truly afraid and remember her own age.

This place did, the broken armor did. Her fingers tapped a rhythm against the rock, indecisive for a moment. She closed her eyes and then focused herself. She opened her eyes and then took her first step into the gutted mountain, and then another.

And another.

#omniverse tales #blood among the stars #the janissary project and its ashes #the sundered mountain #xaderavcal facing the literal bones of the past