The Unfinished Story by Char Marie Adles (best books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📕

moved with everyone else. I was tried. Not in just body, but in spirit, hope, heart, and mind. I was all out. Empty. Running purely on my own life energy.
The camps were quiet. Men sat around the fires and looked stared blankly at everything. They did what they were told without question. The spirit of the camp seemed fearful, and depressed. I sat by where my fire had long burned out looked at the black sky. The clouds had followed us and it covered the sky so I could even see the stars. It was the night before we would reach the Imperial City and everything seem rushed.
I rose with the sun and had the camp pack for the city. They did and it was a long march to the city. The men dragged their feet and bared the weight of so many things. They carried the injured, and the tents, and everything they could take from the battlefield. The sun was high in the sky, but shadowed by the clouds and storm that still followed us. The last of the hills came and the palace rose out over the city within its tall stonewalls. The palace had been rebuild and now stood grander then the last. The bright reds and golds flashed in the sun, like fireworks.
I entered through the big doors and walked along the extensive and over adorned main hallway to the meeting rooms. The emperors followed quietly behind. They were sat in the meeting hall, looking grim and shaking as if they were to be executed. I sat across the table and slowly wrote out a contract trying to remember what I wrote done. When I was done I dipping in the ink and handed them the quill I had be using. Without saying a word each one signed. The once emperor was given a title as a lord and rules of what he was to do he gets back home. He silently bowed his head and got up and left the palace. What was left of his troops follow him on the long journey. I stared after he and then to Ryuu.
I looked to the new Emperor of the new Empire of Japan.
“You will do the right thing, I know you will.” I said and with that I left.
I collapsed outside on the steps holding on to the door and Arrow picked up me. I glared at him with hazy feverish eyes. He walked slowly down the main steps of the palace entrance, careful not to move me in his arms too much. When we got to the bottom of the stairs he sat me down at the bottom platform.
“You will do as you promised. You will kill me so I can repay for everything I’ve done,” I stood on shaky legs. “You will kill me so I can be with Kail,” I ordered him. I swayed and he moved to steady my, but I held up and hand in command.
He looked at me with grim determined eyes and slipped his sword from its cover. He raised his sword and everything went black for good.


Chapter 15
What happens next


Everything around me was black and I realized that I no longer had people around me. It was much like my life before I had drowned in the pond and found myself saved by Kail, nearly a thousand years in the past. I guess that Arrow really had killed me. I don’t feel any pain.
I don’t know why, but I thought death would end the pain in my heart. I guess my pain was so deep even death couldn’t stop it. Everything was black, but the blackness around me wasn’t cold. It was warm. Death is peaceful, but the soul isn’t, I guess.
So what will happen now? Where do I go? What do I do? What happened to Kail? Would I see him where I’m going? I guess I might be stuck here forever. It’s not so bad, but if only the pain would stop.
I pressed my hand over my heart, but I didn’t feel anything.
“I guess this is part of being dead,” I said. And my voice echoed in the darkness.
But it’s not what I thought it would be like. I need Kail. I needed to be with Kail!
“Kail!” I screamed. I looked around but it was still only the darkness.
I continue to screams and it felt like someone was shaking me, but I didn’t see anyone.
“Ash! Ash it’s all right! Calm down!” it was Kail’s voice and I looked around but I couldn’t see him. I fought with the force that was holding down, but it was too powerful. So instead I reached out in the darkness to touch what wasn’t there and my hand felt warm skin. I stopped all my movement and just to see my hands to see what it was that my hands touched.
It was a face, and I face I knew very well for when I was blind I spent hours going over to memorize it again. It was Kail’s face, but he wasn’t smiling and his cheeks were wet as if he had been crying.
“So you are here,” I said, “I can’t see you in this darkness, but you are here. I thought I was alone again. Before you go anywhere I want you to know that I love you more than my own life.”

“Yes I am here, but to see me all you have to do is open your eyes,” he said. He bent down and I felt his forehead press against mine.
“I don’t want to. If I do you might leave again. I would rather stay like this. I happy with just feeling you again. Death isn’t so bad.”
“You're not dead, my sweet Ash. Nor am I. I was simply entered a state of shock and my body shut down. That’s all. You weren’t killed.”
“Yes I was I remember Arrow raising his sword and everything went black. Then I was here,” I insisted.
He shook his head. “Just open your eyes and I’ll show you. You once promised to forever be with me.”
The promise…
I forced my eyes to open. It was hard, like they wanted to only see the darkness forever. But they opened and I looked into those silver eyes that I had fallen in love with. I watched him to see what he would do, but he just looked it to me eyes, he forehead still pressed to mine.
As a test I leaned up a bit and kissed him on the mouth. I felt him respond and I knew he was really here, but this could be a dream still.
“You’re here, but I think I’m dreaming still. Perhaps I’m not really dead after all,” I said looking into his eyes again.
He had that look on his face again. That somber worried look, that hid just how panicked he really had been. He must have been pull-out-your-hair-crazy.
I wrinkled my brow and stared at him with sorrow filled eyes.
“I’m truly sorry for everything. I was even the reason you died. You must hate me now,” I said in a whisper.
“Not at all,” he said and then kissed me, “You did everything right. I thought I had lost you again. Next time you will be by my side and I won’t let you do anything. You attract too much trouble.” He hugged me.
“I think it was the trouble that killed me. What a dream this must be.”
“This isn’t a dream. The war happened and I was told you fainted when you where with Arrow,” his voice was so convincing I believed him.
I closed my eyes.
I felt his breath on my face as he asked, “What would you like to do now that everything is over?”
I opened my eyes and kissed him. “I want to go home.”


When I woke the next day I tried to stand up and walk around. Everyone seemed to have gone to the same place because I didn’t see a soul.
The long pathways of the palace were laid out like the old palace but they were larger and higher. The walls were either marble or wood walls painted the colors of gold, red or other bright royal colors. It seemed that Ryuu would be well off when he ruled over Japan.
I went from room to room opening doors and seeing if anyone was in them. I had finished the whole west wing looking into tea rooms, meeting rooms, bedrooms, and any other kind of room one could think of when I heard the sound of someone yelling, but I couldn’t make out if it was a man or a woman. I walked towards the way the sound had come only to be lost in a maze of high-ceilinged hallways.
I was tried and now I had a head ache. It got worse as I walked down a darkened hallway.
I slid down the nearest wall and let my eyes drift shut.
“I take a short nap…yeah…just a short nap…” I murmured and then slipped into sleep.

I woke to someone carrying my in their arms. I swayed back and forth and the person that held me was humming a lullaby, and I realized it was the lullaby I could never remember.
I started to hum the same part that the person carrying my hummed. They stopped walking suddenly and looked down at me. I looked up and smiled at Kail.
“I see you’re awake,’ he said.
“Yeah,” I answered back.
“We’ve been looking for you and you turn up in the hallway of the servant quarters. What were you doing?”
“I was looking for someone to talk to. I guess I fell asleep. I had a head ache.” I said closing my eyes. He started to walk again.
Soon we were back in the room I had been and he sat me down on the futon.
“I’m going to tell them I found you, so stay here, I’ll be back.”
He left and t I laid there on the bed and thought back to everything that had happened to me while I was here. He was back soon and with him was Momo, Sen, Ryuu and the ninjas. I looked at the all with wide surprised eyes. They all came in quietly and stood before me. Momo came to sit next to me and so did Kail. Sen took his place next to Momo.
One by one the ninjas knelt in front of me and vowed that they would be by side if I ever had need of them.
We talked over what we would now do in order to make sure every went right for the new empire.