Apostate's Pilgrimage: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 3) Read online

  APOSTATE’S PILGRAMAGE

  ©2019-2021 LEVI JACOBS

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  Published by Aethon Books LLC. 2020

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

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  ALSO IN SERIES

  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

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Thank you for reading Apostate’s Pilgrimage

  ALSO IN SERIES

  Acknowledgments

  ALSO IN SERIES

  BEGGAR’S REBELLION

  PAUPER’S EMPIRE

  APOSTATE’S PILGRAMAGE

  ACOLYTE’S UNDERWORLD

  To my unborn daughter,

  in celebration of the struggles and joy that wait for you.

  1

  What I do, I do not for personal gain, though there is that too. I do it for the world. Enough of wars and political successions. Let us have a thousand years of Councilate reign, rather than a hundred years of revolution. Let us have a peace of blood, if that’s what it takes.

  —Journeyman Ydilwen, final address to Yatiport Cell

  Tai and Ella's boots crunched in the stillness, snowflakes falling thick from a winter-grey sky. Hightown was a forest of burned-out buildings around them, scorched bricks and toppled walls reaching from the city like umber branches, crowned in pale snow. Winter lay heavy on the air, a feeling Tai associated with long months huddled around smoky fires in one hideout or another, chilled to the bone and living on thin broth. This would be his first cold season as something more than an orphan or a street tough. Something much more—he was the leader of the city now, with his own bed in a well-heated bluffhouse and people who looked up to him.

  Some days it was hard to believe.

  Ella shivered next to him, her olive face framed in a wolf's-fur cloak. "You seriously do this every year?"

  "Which part, the freezing? Or the strolling with beautiful Councilate ladies?" That part was even harder to believe. It had been a month since Semeca's attack, since they finally acknowledged what was between them, and having Ella close was still intoxicating. He hardly felt the cold.

  "The freezing, you oaf."

  He smiled. "You get used to it." Even so he tugged her hand closer into his pocket, glad for the warmth of their fingers twined together.

  “You should stop doing this,” she said as they passed through the frozen remains of Mummer’s Square. They were heading out to gather wintergrass, part of their strategy to feed the city. “You’re a leader now. You have people to do this for you.”

  He shook his head. “That’s the kind of leader Semeca was, or Sablo. Not me. Besides,” he took a deep breath and exhaled white, “it’s nice to get out and get some fresh air.”

  “You’re insane,” she said, snuggling in closer. “And wonderful, of course.”

  “Insanely wonderful?” They stepped out onto the surface of the Sanga, the narrow river frozen solid at this time of year. Ahead the open field of bittermelon vines was lumpy under a fresh coat of snow, and Ella’s face went still.

  “Hey,” he said. “We don’t have to go this way, if you don’t want.” This was where she and her students had fought their way from the mines to Newgen under heavy attack. They’d cleared the bodies before the snow came, but the ground was still churned and discolored under the snow.

  “No,” she said, “it’s okay. We won, and they died fighting for what is right. It just—” She took a breath. “That was a hard time.”

  He nodded. Most of the survivors felt this way, their relief in the days after Semeca’s attack colored by grief. Even with people returning who had fled in the final weeks, the city had maybe four hundred people now. A month ago it had been twice that.

  He’d taken charge of a city in mourning, and the people needed something more than warm walls and food. He’d arranged for traditional vigils to be held every day, wishing the ancestors safe passage and inviting them to come into the youth still in need of spirit guides.

  It was hard to know what to think of the old ways, now that he’d learned that the voices were more like leeches than ancestral guides. So much had changed, but he still felt there was value in tradition. To complicate things further, the Cult of the Blood was going strong, claiming his latest battle as another victory for “Lord Tai.” The followers still hung on his words as though he knew the secrets to the universe. It was another reason he liked t
o get out every day, despite the cold.

  “Hey,” Ella broke the silence, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so dour. I know that time was hard for you, too.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, not wanting to remember his days in the woods while his friends fought and died. While a revenant led him around on a broken leg pretending to be Fisher. “Dour? What does that mean?”

  She smiled. “It’s another fancy Yersh word. It means heavy and unhappy. What would you say in Achuri?”

  He thought for a minute and came up with a word, and talk turned to the differences between the two languages as they crossed the long field and got deep enough into the trees to find fresh wintergrass.

  They worked mostly in silence, clipping the purplish grass above the snowline to give the roots a chance to regrow. Wintergrass smelled like it tasted, sour and bitter, but it was better than starving, and the meager grain reserves they’d started the winter with were gone. With the fields burned and passage into Gendrys snowed over, they had no other options for food. It would be a long winter, but he was used to those. All Achuri were.

  Soft footsteps crunched behind him. “You can’t sneak up on me that easy,” he said without turning. “And if you even try to—”

  Pain hit him, like an axe strike to the spine. Tai gasped, losing the grip on his shears and falling into the snow. What—

  “I’m sorry,” a man said, stepping out from behind a leatherleaf in the corner of his vision. Ella screamed to his right, and Tai’s head snapped up, pain forgotten. He struck resonance.

  Nothing happened.

  “You won’t be able to use that against me,” the man said, looking distracted. He had Yati features, wiry red hair and a stout build, and was dressed for the deep winter.

  “Who are you?” Ella gasped behind him.

  “My name is Ydilwen,” the man said, “but that’s not important. What matters is who you are. Tai Kulga god slayer, yes? And his Worldsmouth scholar?”

  How did he know that? The man had to be a mindseye. Or had word spread beyond Ayugen? It didn’t matter. He was threatening Ella. He needed to die.

  Tai pushed himself up, reaching for the long dagger he kept at his side.

  “Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” Ydilwen said quickly. “I can—”

  Tai lunged, sprinting the short gap between them. He stumbled halfway there, like the snow had turned to mud, but kept running. The ground grew stickier the closer he got, until his sprint slowed to a walk, then to a stall as he struggled to even lift his feet. “What—resonance is this?”

  The Yatiman still frowned in concentration. “This is no resonance. But don’t worry. I don’t intend to kill you.”

  It clicked then—Sablo’s strange attack outside Gendrys. That had stolen his uai too. Ydilwen was a ninespear.

  On the far side of Ydilwen, Ella got to her feet. The thick man turned to her, as if Tai was no longer a threat. Tai, who’d killed an immortal being just last month. Defeated an entire army the month before that. Tai wrenched at his foot—stuck solid. He struck resonance again—nothing.

  “You,” Ydilwen said. “Ellumia, isn’t it? I am told you’ve discovered interesting things with the resonances. I hope you’ll be open to discussing them with me once we are through here.”

  “Discuss this,” Ella spat, flinging a knife at him.

  Ydilwen started but the knife went wide. Still, he hadn’t stopped it with whatever powers he was using. That meant there was a chance.

  “I really am sorry,” the man said, “but I can’t risk you taking Semeca’s power.”

  Tai kept his dagger low, pulling his arm back. His arms were still free, and he was just barely in the Yatiman’s vision. If he could throw it just right—

  Ella’s eyes flicked to him, then back to Ydilwen. Spirits send she understood to distract him.

  “Her power?” Ella said. “We already took her power once. That power is nothing compared to what I know. What we know. And if you think you’ll be able to walk out of here—”

  Tai slung the dagger at the Yatiman’s side. It struck true, sliding through the cloak and deep into the man’s flesh.

  Ydilwen gasped, and like that Tai’s feet were free. He shot forward, slamming his hand into the hilt of the dagger, driving it toward the lungs and heart. Ydilwen’s gasp slurred to a scream and Tai pulled the dagger out, preparing to the cut the man’s throat.

  “Tai, no!” Ella yelled. “Your sight!”

  He paused for a moment, caught in the rush, in his need to protect her. His sight—mindsight. Right. They could learn something. Tai struck resonance, his uai weak but back, and pushed into the ninespear’s mind.

  Shock. Pain. He still wasn’t good at reading thoughts deeper than immediate ones—mindsight was like reading scraps of paper caught in a rushing stream—but he looked anyway, squinting. He saw flashes—endless days in snowy forests, desperate moments stealing from villagers, and hunting—but not animals. Hunting what? He tried to focus. Hunting dead people?

  “What were you hoping to do here?” Ella cut in, cold rage on her face.

  “Stop—a war,” Ydilwen gasped, sliding to the ground as Tai released him. Blood pumped hot and heavy from his side, melting a red stain in the snow.

  Ella shook her head, but Tai read the answer as she asked the question, rising to the front of Ydilwen’s mind. “He wanted to thrall us,” Tai said. “To trap our uai somehow. He thought—” He squinted, scraps of thought in the ninespear’s mind swirling slower and muddier. “He thought we would use it to get Semeca’s power back.”

  “Not just her power,” Ydilwen said, his voice weak. “Her ambition.”

  Tai glanced at Ella, rush of battle seeping from his blood. She looked as confused as he felt.

  Ella turned back to the dying man. “How did you do this?”

  His eyes fluttered closed. “Healworker,” he murmured. “Get—a healworker. Explain everything.”

  Tai needed no healworker to see the man was too far gone to get back to the city, even if they wafted. “Who sent you?” he asked. “An archrevenant? Sablo?”

  “No one,” Ydilwen muttered, a strange grin on his face as he slumped into the snow. “My mother. Just wanted—”

  Tai pushed the snow back, trying to read his mind, but the current was dark, the thoughts indistinct. “He’s dying,” he said. “Ella?”

  Ella bit her lip. “Ydilwen. We can still help you. How did you do this?”

  There was no response, blood pumping slow from the hole in his side.

  “Ydilwen!”

  He gave a shuddering sigh and lay still. Tai pushed a moment further in his mind, seeking anything, but the scraps of thought sank from sight. He was dead.

  Tai stood and moved to Ella. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she frowned. “We’re alive. But what—what was that?”

  “It was a ninespears thing, I think. Remember what Sablo did, before we got to Gendrys?”

  “Yes,” she said, “but that was just our uai. This was like—like I was frozen to the ground.”

  Tai nodded. “Me, too. That’s why I couldn’t get to him. That’s why I couldn’t get to you. I—” He shook his head, only realizing now how afraid he’d been. More afraid than he’d ever been for himself.

  Ella smiled, leaning in to him. “Thank you. But I can take care of myself, most of the time.”

  “Not if you don’t know what we’re up against. If I hadn’t had that dagger--” He shook his head, shoulder muscles knotting.

  She released a ragged breath, looking at the corpse. “Can all the ninespears do this?”

  “I don’t know,” Tai said, pulling her close. “But I know someone who does.”

  2

  Tai flew low over the snow-covered trees, face wrapped in furs and body covered in three layers of coats. He was still freezing, and starting to doubt the wisdom of coming out here. The note had said he would know the clearing, which could only mean one place in the southern
forests. The clearing where he’d spent three days with a broken leg, while his friends fought and died. The clearing where he’d fought a wildly powerful revenant.

  The clearing where Nauro had left him to die.

  He had no defenses. No idea what Nauro was capable of. Tai had barely defeated the revenant Naveinya, and if Nauro attacked anything like Sablo or Ydilwen had, he would be as good as dead. Ella had been against him going—everyone had been against him going, but that was one of the good things about them choosing him as a leader. He knew it needed to be done, and he was the only one who could do it, so he went anyway. They needed answers. And now that Ydilwen was dead, Nauro was the only one he knew that could give them.

  Even if the man had been willing to let all of Ayugen die to prove a point.

  There. Smoke, maybe? It was hard to tell in the gray winter air, clouds hanging low over the forest. Tai turned that direction, wind whistling in his ears. A hunch was better than nothing. Yes, definitely smoke.

  Anticipation rose up in him and he slowed his waft, reaching into a side pocket to pull out more mavenstym. He ate the sour purple blossoms on the off chance his uai would do anything if Nauro attacked. Feynrick had given it even odds the man would try to kill him, but Tai thought it was better than that. Why would Nauro wait out here for months in the cold if he was so powerful, and wanted Tai dead? For that matter, he could have easily done it while Tai was under Naveinya’s spell. No, Nauro couldn’t be trusted, but he didn’t seem to want Tai dead.