The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) by Garrett Robinson (elon musk reading list TXT) 📕

Lying, as it turned out.

Another misty breath wreathed around my temples. “All right. Good night.”

I pulled my bedroll off my pack. But before I laid it out, I went to Yue and put a hand on her shoulder. “Yue, I—”

She shoved my hand away. “Leave me alone.”

I shook my head. “Yue …”

“Dark take you, Albern, you were wise enough to leave me be when I lost soldiers in battle. Be wise enough to get away from me now. I am not going to do anything stupid, if that is what you are afraid of. I just want to be alone.”

I ground my teeth and turned from her to look at Dryleaf. He no longer held Mag’s arm but had his hands tucked under his armpits for warmth beneath the blankets. Silent tears left slow tracks down his cheeks.

“Of course,” I said softly.

I went to the other end of our little campsite and laid out my bedroll. Soon I was tucked inside it, huddling for warmth, my back to the fire and to my friends. Eventually, I heard Yue do the same, laying out a space to sleep and soon filling the clearing with little snores.

I fell asleep not long after that.

I woke up close to sundown.

And Mag was gone.

Mag waited by the campfire until the rest of us had fallen asleep. That was not long. Dryleaf’s injury sent him back and forth between senselessness and an agitated dozing. Yue and I were bone-tired and soul-weary. Before long, Mag rose from her place by the fire.

A moment’s trepidation held her. What if someone came upon our camp while she was gone? But I had told her Kun would not pursue us. And she believed me. She always believed in me.

Even if I could no longer believe in her.

Oku got to his feet and trotted to her, a low whine issuing from his throat.

“Kip, boy,” said Mag.

Oku paused, one front paw hanging in the air.

Mag knelt, scratching him behind the ears. Then she pulled him into her arms, sinking her fingers into his fur, holding him close and relishing his warmth. Oku pushed his nose between her elbow and body, nuzzling into her.

“I am going,” she said quietly. “You have to stay here, and you have to stay quiet. Do you understand?”

Oku drew back and looked up into her eyes.

“Of course you do,” she said. “You are a good boy, are you not?”

He took two slow steps back, and then he sat. He did not move or make a sound as she strode away from our camp.

Before long, she had emerged from the northern end of the Greenfrost. As I have told you before, she was never good at tracking. But even she could see the signs of an army marching across the landscape. There was the trail, the deep furrow that Kun’s force had left as it marched out of the woods and into the hills. She could even see, faintly in the distance, the smoke of campfires rising into the sky above the tops of the hills.

She sighed, set her course, and started walking towards them.

Far away, and yet not so far as all that, Rogan sat at a table in a tent, looking at a map of Dorsea. He was alone—or as alone as he ever was. His thoughts lingered on Kaita, and they left him despondent.

Suddenly he felt a presence. The flap of his tent flew back, and a figure strode into the tent.

Rogan looked up, and his heart nearly stopped as he recognized the Lord.

“Father?” he said, frowning. Something was … wrong, but his mind was slow to identify it.

Then the Lord came and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Rogan shot to his feet. “Father!” he cried, his voice shaking the tent canvas. “You … how are you here? You cannot be here! You—”

“Be at peace, my son,” said the Lord. “I am here because I must be. Have faith.”

“Of course, Father,” said Rogan, bowing his head. “Forgive me, I … oh, Father.”

He leaped forwards and wrapped his arms around the Lord, crushing the smaller man into his chest. And though Rogan, like all the shadeborn, was always as warm as if a furnace burned in his chest, he felt an even greater warmth seeping from the Lord, suffusing him, granting him a peace of mind and a comfort that he had long missed.

“It has been too long, my favored son,” said the Lord quietly.

“It feels like forever and an age,” said Rogan, withdrawing slightly. “Are you absolutely certain that this is safe?”

“As certain as I can be, and as safe as anything is,” said the Lord. “Besides, it could not wait. Much has become clear to me. I finally know the reason, Rogan. I know why we had to send Kaita to her doom, though it was agony to us both.”

Rogan’s eyes shot wide. “Why, Father?”

“You will soon see. Fetch horses, but only for the two of us. We must move quickly.”

As I woke from the day’s sleep, I leaped up with a shout. “Where is Mag?”

My cries startled Yue awake. “What?” she grumbled, blinking against the fading sunlight.

“Mag!” I shouted. I should not have been yelling so loud, but I did not care. I ran around the edges of the camp, screaming into the Greenfrost. “Mag!”

Dryleaf had come awake. He tried to push himself up from the ground, but he could not do it until Yue came running to help him. His head swung back and forth, blind eyes blinking anxiously.

“Albern!” he called out. “What is it? What is happening?”

“Mag is gone,” I growled, stomping back towards the camp. “Dark take her, I knew it, I knew—”

My attention caught on Oku. The hound was trotting back and forth towards the north end of the camp, sniffing the ground and whining.

“What is it?” I ran to him, and he pointed with his nose. The ground there had been