Restart Again: Volume 2 by Adam Scott (hardest books to read txt) 📕

“You should be nicer to her,” she whispered. “She’s nice to you.”

“Not being mean is me being nice,” I grumbled as I lined the floor with our lightly-padded bedrolls and a single blanket. After a pause, I sighed and sat down on the bench to remove my boots. “No. No, you’re right. I should be nicer.”

She packed away the last piece of her armor in the canvas bag and sat down next to me, rubbing her shoulder up against mine. “I know you’re trying, and that’s what matters. You just need a little prodding now and then, is all.”

I massaged my face in my hands. “I appreciate it, honestly. Even if I don’t sound like it.” With a quick nudge back into her shoulder I stood and moved to my sleeping mat. “Now, let’s get to meditating so we can get some sleep.” She joined me in sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“Nice and easy, tonight,” I said under my breath. “A quick warmup to get the mana flowing, and then we’ll reach out and see what we can see with Detection. Nothing fancy.” We fell into a comfortable silence as we focused inward. My mana flowed up and down my extremities, taking me down into a peaceful trance. “Okay. Starting now…”

An image of the wagon interior blossomed to life behind my eyelids. Lia sat before me, as radiant as the sun and overflowing with her own energy. The two fronts of probing mana met all around us, and there was a moment where I could feel her presence envelop my own. It was a sensation I hadn’t yet grown accustomed to; equal parts intimate and comforting, it felt as though I could feel her consciousness right at the edge of mine, ebbing and flowing along with the mana.

In unison, our commingled energy flowed down from the wagon and spread along the ground beneath it. “Good...good…” I murmured, taking in the wealth of information. “Let’s see how far we can reach together, comfortably. No need to…” I trailed off as my focus was pulled away by an unexpected discovery.

A brilliant light shone out from Valandra’s shield, constantly shifting in color like a crystal spinning under direct sunlight. It was such a unique and fascinating experience that I hardly noticed the energy within Valandra’s body; the subdued violet glow from her core was a shadow in the noontime sun beneath the blaze emanating out of the artifact on her back.

“It’s beautiful,” Lia whispered, awestruck. We both stopped the expanding wave of energy to focus on the light, our initial task immediately forgotten. “Why does it look like that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it before,” I admitted. The temptation to probe into the pool of light and experience its mystery was strong, but I knew it would take far more time to understand than I had to give it. As excited as the discovery made me, I also felt trepidation about disturbing the energy. I could feel the immense power of the mana along the shield’s surface and worried about the potentially dangerous effects of releasing it by accident in my study.

“We should leave it alone, for now,” I cautioned Lia. “I’ll ask her about it tomorrow. Though I don’t expect her to know exactly what it is, I’m sure we’ll get some insight into what’s going on.” While I knew it was the right decision, leaving such an enticing mystery uninvestigated was disappointing.

Lia seemed to echo my sentiment. “You’re right,” she sighed after a long moment of consideration. “I doubt I’ll be able to get to sleep now.” The dark world of mana shrunk down to a pinpoint as our energy retreated back to us, and I felt strangely blind as I opened my eyes to find our regular wagon surrounding us.

I laid back and pulled the sheet up around my shoulders. “Just wait. Your body will remember how exhausted it is after your excitement wears off, and you’ll be snoring before you know it.”

“I don’t snore,” she remarked sharply as she snuggled her back up against my chest.

“How would you know?”

She turned her head just enough to glare at me with one eye. “I don’t snore.”

I laughed and curled my arm around her waist. “You don’t snore.” The ache in my muscles returned in the form of a dull buzz as the relaxing effects of my meditation wore off. “Goodnight, Lia,” I said into the back of her head.

“Goodnight, Lux.” As expected, her breathing quickly slowed to a steady pace, and I was left alone with my thoughts.

I promised Amaya I’d try, and I failed. I should have said it. I basically DID say it, which makes it even worse. She’s given me so much, and I can’t even say a simple damned word. My free hand balled into a fist repeatedly as I reprimanded myself. I promised I would do whatever I could to make her happy. It would make me happy too, somewhere in this fucked up head of mine. I could feel sleep’s grip pulling at me, and I closed my eyes one last time. She deserves to be happy.

But do I?

***

8. GETTING TO KNOW YOU

“Our understanding of the situation is unfortunately incomplete. We have a brief, but verified, report from our scouting party which was delivered a few days before we departed the capitol. The majority of our information is based on firsthand accounts from Attetsian refugees,” Valandra explained. She sat sideways on the driver’s bench of our wagon as the horse pulled us along the wide dirt road without direction. “These reports vary greatly in scope; some describe demonic figures wandering the streets at night, while others blame the situation on a peasant revolt. Across all of the stories, one thing remains consistent: the lands surrounding the Attetsian capitol have become unsafe to live in.”

I leaned forward from my seat on the interior bench and rested my head on my tented fingers, processing