Architects of Ether Read online

  Architects of Ether

  Kingdoms of Ether Book 2

  Ryan Muree

  Architects of Ether © 2019 by Ryan Muree

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  Also by Ryan Muree

  The Last Elixir Series Boxed Set

  The Last Elixir (Book 1)

  The Fallen Gate (Book 2)

  The Shattered Core - Zoi and Aramil's prequel novel

  What Blooms in the Dark – Shenna’s prequel novelette

  What Rises from the Ashes – Izan’s prequel novella

  Fairytale Retellings

  In the Garden of Gold and Stone - Beauty and the Beast

  Kingdoms of Ether Series

  Kingdoms of Ether (Book 1)

  Architects of Ether (Book 2)

  Paragons of Ether (Book 3) *Available Summer 2019

  Contents

  Map of Izan

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Paragons of Ether Preview

  Pronunciation Guide

  To Elliott,

  Take what you want; the universe is yours.

  Map of Izan

  Chapter 1

  Observation deck — Zephyr Airship — Revel

  Emeryss wiped the sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her Zephyr uniform. The darkness at the edge of her vision threatened to pull her from her ethereal trance and allow her to be caught off guard.

  She couldn’t afford to mess up.

  If they were going to sneak into Ingini to learn how grimoires were being stolen, then she had to learn how to be better. She couldn’t be a liability.

  She wouldn’t be responsible for another death.

  She could barely see Sonora on her left through the smoky veil of brilliant inky ether.

  Sonora’s boots scraped against the stone as she sidestepped into a new attack position. She was shifting her weight and readying her hands for another attack against Emeryss, while Urla and Grier watched somewhere in the wings.

  Since Kayson and Tully’s memorial, Sonora had set aside her paper hobbies and memory keeping and replaced them with sparring.

  Emeryss had wanted to tell her that taking on the Ingini wouldn’t bring her husband back. He was safe, happy, living his next life in the otherworld. But it wouldn’t help. Just like it wouldn’t help to tell her that the Goddess of Death would take her someday to see him again. Revelians were never eager to remember the rites or honor the spirits. Most had traded in “old gods” and complex beliefs for grimoires a long time ago.

  Emeryss readied the next sigil in her fingers—Fireball. One of her favorites.

  Mostly because she’d spent hundreds of hours trying to conjure one in her drab suite at the Great Library in Stadhold. But hers also never came out orange-yellow as fireballs should. Hers was a copper-blue color instead. In whatever color it manifested from her sigils, she no longer needed the whispers to help her construct the ones she’d casted before. And in just a few days of training, the number of sigils she’d casted was multiplying.

  Her index finger worked the ether floating in the air until the sigil was finished. She pushed it out with a flick of her wrist. Adding the twist would make the fireball spiral in Sonora’s direction.

  It zoomed out of her sigil as a blaze of copper light with a blue sparkling tail. Straight for Sonora’s chest.

  Sonora bent back and deflected the rolling flames into the glass dome of the Zephyr’s observation deck with a concentrated burst of sound from her palm.

  Emeryss followed it with a second Fireball from another direction.

  Sonora spun, her dark hair fanning out around her, avoiding the fireball and sending her own blast in Emeryss’s direction.

  Emeryss jerked back in time.

  For the most part, the sparring was fun. Just like the Zephyrs had said, casting fed a part of her spirit, and most of her commonly used sigils had become extensions of herself.

  She held her next sigil—Air Slice—on the air, waiting for the right moment to strike.

  “Attack faster!” Grier commanded. “You’ll get blasted before you know it.”

  Sparring was fun when Grier wasn’t the one teaching her combat. No doubt she enjoyed being with him in and out of bed, but he almost took her training more seriously than his own.

  To her right, Urla stalked her. Her hair glinted silver, and her weathered hands were deceptively fast. Sparks of electricity, like sparklers on the edge of her aura, came through her usually calm facade.

  Aura is what Emeryss had started to call their shapes when she was in the ethereal plane. Their auras shimmered with ether, highlighting their strengths and disguising the frailty of their physical forms.

  Grier’s dark ether undulated before her. It was black in the real world, but here it was tinged with red. Urla’s glowed a brilliant blue.

  Emeryss had agreed to put off going home to Neeria for a few days to support Grier. She might not have agreed with Stadhold and their treatment of her, but they weren’t traitors to Revel. They couldn’t be. They held to their rules too tightly. Some rules more than others, but especially rules that would cause their entire country to be weaker for war.

  Grier cleared his throat while leaning on his swordstaff.

  She’d said yes to Ingini for more time with him.

  Urla’s aura blurred away from its position.

  Emeryss gasped as something pierced her in the back of the knees.

  She caught herself before she lost her balance and tossed the Air Slice in Urla’s direction. It whizzed through the air at nothing. Urla was already back at her starting point.

  Hand to the side, Emeryss p
ooled violet ether into her palm.

  Sonora twisted and shot a piercing sound wave at her.

  Emeryss thrust her arm out, hand splayed against the air, and brought up her shield to deflect it.

  “Not good enough,” Grier said.

  Urla darted behind her again, and Emeryss spun, gripping another Air Slice sigil and shoving it at her. It flew out of her hand, fast at first, but then it slowed to a crawl before eventually hitting the far side of the dome.

  No matter how hard she practiced, she never seemed fast enough.

  “Too slow,” Urla chirped.

  “It’s possible,” Emeryss panted, “that this type of practice is a complete waste of time. I won’t be going up against highly trained Casters in Ingini.” She let the haze of the ethereal plane float up and away, bringing her back to reality with a few blinks.

  The real world was blinding in a different way. The contrasting colors from the beaming autumn sun through the stormstone made for an unsettling warm return.

  “No, it’ll be worse.” Grier sauntered forward in his mechanic’s jumpsuit. One hand held his swordstaff, the other, with his glinting Keeper bracer, rubbed his fuzzy jaw. He acted like a grizzled general disappointed in his troops, except it only made him more adorable. “They’ll be shooting ether from guns at a rate most of us couldn’t dodge. There’s a reason all Keepers learn to make shields first. No need to dodge or avoid bolts of ether coming at your head if you can just hold up a shield.”

  Gone were the days where he fawned over her every time she stumbled or fell. No more words about locking her up in rooms or cells where she’d be safe. Instead, he’d been the one who suggested training her.

  “So, I should make my shields more mobile like yours?”

  He nodded. “Yes, but you don’t need one several buildings high like before in Marana. That’s a waste of ether and effort. Ether is a finite source for Keepers. Our weapons and shields are only as strong as we are. As we get tired, weaker, wounded, our weapons and shields deplete in strength. Every move has to be efficient. Every weapon drawn from our bracers has to be deliberate. You don’t seem to have the same limitation, but it’s more effort than it’s worth. You just need something big enough to cover your torso and head. Though that still doesn’t address how slow you are.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, daring him to reconsider his phrasing. That’s not what he’d said the night before.

  His jawline turned pink. “You know what I meant.”

  “Maybe that’s it.” Sonora pulled her hair back into a bun. “What if she’s more like Keepers than we thought? Maybe she’s not meant to cast on demand like we are. Maybe she’s expected to be a little more prepared like you, Grier.”

  “I don’t think I’m expected to do anything a certain way,” Emeryss said. “I broke the rules.”

  “Well, it takes Grier a whole two seconds to pull weapons from his grimoire, but that’s still a delay. You have to think before the attack even starts, right?” Sonora asked.

  He nodded.

  “Whereas Casters can afford to be reactive, Grier really can’t. And maybe you can’t either, Emeryss.”

  Urla nodded, too, no sign of sweat on her face. “A ranged-only Caster. You think we’re forcing something that might not need to happen?”

  Sonora shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe.”

  “Getting stronger and faster at fighting is always a necessity,” Grier said.

  “But fighting to your strengths is good, too,” Sonora countered.

  Emeryss shook her head. “All Casters are technically ranged attackers.”

  “But we don’t have to be.” Urla switched her cane from hand to hand. “I can shoot you with lightning from right here, or I can get in your face. Grier, on the other hand, has to be all in, all the time. Maybe you have to be back at a distance, giving you more time to scribe what you need. The tradeoff is that Grier can only use his seven weapons, we can only use our attuned ether-type, and you—”

  “I can cast anything.”

  Urla nodded.

  “It still helps to train.” Grier lifted his swordstaff and rested it over one shoulder. “We’re only as strong as our weakest fighter, and that’s you. If we have to keep stopping to protect you, then we can’t be our best.”

  Ouch. And yet, he wasn’t wrong. That was the whole point. She didn’t want to be a liability. When her father took a group out for sea star harvest, even the weakest person had a job they’d be useful at. Everyone had to pull their weight. Putting the weakest man on pulling up trawls would slow everything down, and that meant people getting hurt or going hungry.

  Still. “I don’t want to cast shields all day. It won’t stop the war.”

  Urla smiled and disappeared. She reappeared beside Grier, forcing him to his knees. His swordstaff clattered to the stone, and his face seized in a strained, electrocuted horror. “Sonora!” Urla called out.

  Sonora shot out a blast of sound at him, the waves rippling toward his chest.

  Second-nature, as right as breathing, Emeryss drew on the air and encased Grier in a transparent shell. His face relaxed as Urla’s connection severed and Sonora’s blast collided with the shield and vibrated its surface.

  Urla laughed as Grier caught his breath. “See? Maybe you do want to cast shields.”

  Emeryss gaped. “I never said I didn’t want to protect people! But shielding Ingini to death is not possible, and if it were, it would be extremely boring.”

  Grier licked his lips and rose. “Not boring. Life-saving.”

  Urla swatted him on the back. “Ah, pfft. You know we would have resuscitated you. It looks like all that sleeping you’ve been doing on this little vacation has made you slower.”

  The blush in Grier’s cheeks never quite left these days. Emeryss fought back a smile.

  Sonora eyed her. “So, what if it’s boring, Emeryss?”

  That stung, too. “Please, Sonora. You know what I meant. Shielding isn’t enough. If I need to shield all of you all the time, then we’re already losing, right?”

  “Life-saving shields are a good thing. And while we’re inside Ingini, it might be the one thing that saves our country—”

  “Or mine,” Grier added.

  Urla shook her head and aimed the end of her cane at them. “Don’t even start with that.”

  “Kayson joined the Revelian Caster Army to protect his country,” Sonora said. “If we don’t find the grimoires, he will have died for nothing.”

  “You and I both know that’s not true.” Urla went back to leaning on her cane. “No one on this airship gets to act high and mighty about our purpose going into Ingini. Everyone is running from something. Doing this for the RCA or for our countries… it’s just conveniently part of it.”

  Grier’s eyebrows drew up in the middle. “No, I—”

  Urla tipped her chin up and looked at Emeryss. “Consequences for your choices with the library.” She looked at Sonora. “Reality of going back to an empty home.” She looked at Grier. “Confrontation with your family. Everyone on this airship is running from something, and Kayson didn’t die for nothing. Don’t reduce his existence and contribution to this one mission.”

  “What are you running from?” Emeryss asked Urla.

  Urla’s cool stare met hers. “Retirement. My old age. A life of baking stupid cookies in a kitchen.”

  Sonora shook her head. “The way I see it, we’ll face those things going into Ingini, too. Ingini coming into our home, hurting our people, is the reality. We know what the consequences are, and I’m ready for another confrontation to stop it.”

  Grier smoothed back his golden hair. “I know it looks like I’m avoiding my family, but—”

  “And the marriage matches…” Emeryss dared to look him in the eye.

  They both knew it was coming. When they’d agreed to be together the night the war had broken out, she’d accepted she wouldn’t have him forever and he’d have to go back to being a Keeper in Stadhold someday. She still accep
ted it; his mother, Captain Lerissa, had merely sped up the timeline.

  His eyes dropped away for only a second before returning to hers. “Fine. Maybe I am, but this is what I want to do. Helping my country and people, and I mean actually helping them, is important to me. Now that I know there’s more going on, I can’t do that by sitting in a library and getting married years too early.”

  He sounded like her before she’d left the library, and it was one of the reasons she’d agreed to support him.

  Urla grinned, and her wrinkles around her mouth deepened. “I agree, as long as we’re all being honest about our goals going into Ingini and living long enough to face our fears. Let’s go again, Emeryss. You want to do more than shield, then do it.” Urla disappeared.

  Sonora got back into position.

  Emeryss let the regular world drop from view, replacing everything around her with its raw ethereal energy. She drew up the ether in her left hand.

  “Move,” Grier said. “You have to be ready at any moment. Keep moving.”

  Air Slice and move. Move.

  She readied another sigil with her right hand while she ran forward and spun the Air Slice out of her left.

  It shot out sideways at Sonora, who buffeted a blast of sound and canceled the air wave. Urla arced a bolt of electricity toward her.