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

opened. I sat back on my heels and watched as Val began to drive the wagon forward into Attetsia. It felt as though the silence in the room was judging me, and shame over my past actions burned in my gut for the first time in decades. Was I really doing good? Or did I just convince myself it was good out of necessity?

As if in answer to my moral quandary, Lia reached out with a comforting hand, placing it on my knee. She said nothing, but her eyes held everything I needed: compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance. My stomach settled down, and I gave her a small smile. If she believes in me, I must be doing something right.

Val stopped the wagon on the opposite side of the wall, and I spun the gear in the opposite direction. A counterweight system activated somewhere within the walls, and the wheel continued to turn on its own as the gates closed. “Let’s get out of here. I could use some fresh air after all of this,” I said as I hopped down from the chair.

We made our way back through the barracks and exited a matching iron door on the opposite side of the gatehouse. It latched, but I noted that this door had a handle on the outside face as opposed to the bare door on the Kaldan side. “Are you ready to move on?” Val called out from the wagon parked a few yards away.

“No. We have something we have to take care of first,” I replied. “You need a change of clothes if we’re going to have any chance of making it to the city unharassed.”

Val looked down at herself briefly. “Of course.” She stepped down from the driver’s bench and moved towards the back of the wagon.

“Do you even have a change of clothes?” I asked her, amused. “I’ve never seen you wear anything apart from your armor. Do you travel with an extra set of—” My thought was cut short by disbelief as she bypassed the wagon and knelt down at the edge of the road, cradling her shield reverently in her lap. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered with a mix of wonder and annoyance.

Lia looked back and forth between the two of us. “What? What’s going on?” She asked quietly.

I nodded to Val. “Watch. She’s going to use magic.” We both reached out with Detection and listened in with heightened senses as Val’s breathing slowed to a meditative pattern.

“O Prime of Light, divine above all, bestow upon me the power to create an illusory disguise so I may move on undetected.” Her chant was soft and rhythmic, most likely an old, well-practiced incantation. The pooled energy within her shield stirred at her invocation and crept slowly up her arms, infusing into each scale of her armor as it moved. Before long, her body shone brightly from her neck down to her boots.

The energy blinked off, then on again with a less pronounced glow, and I realized something had changed. Val looked the same as always in the projected mana image in my mind, but my eyes told me something completely different. Her lustrous silver scale armor now had spots of rust and patches of missing scales, appearing to be made of an old, cheap iron. The stained-glass shield looked to be a poorly maintained tower shield, with dented metal corners and a hastily painted Yorian crest.

When the transformation was complete, Val moved to the back of the wagon and retrieved an old longsword from her trunk. She strapped the belt to her hip, then turned back to us. “I have never been noticed with this disguise before. It should suit our purposes well enough.”

My foot tapped impatiently as I chewed on my lip. “You can use magic?”

She nodded. “Yes. All members of the Trinity Guard are required to learn a standard roster of spells.”

“And you didn’t think that would be a good piece of information to share with us?” I heard a petulant whine in my voice that I had tried to hide, but my annoyance had gotten the better of me. We could have learned so much more about magic on our trip.

Val’s eyebrow arched upward slightly. “It did not come up.” Though it was difficult to see on her face, I could tell she was enjoying my frustration. “My reports told me you had a low level of magical aptitude. Would you like me to teach you?”

“I’m not looking for a teacher!” I snapped. In truth, I wanted nothing more than to pick her brain about every aspect of magic she knew, but my pride forbade me from admitting it. “Don’t concern yourself with my abilities. I’ve learned more on my own than anybody could ever teach me.”

“It is true, the vanishing trick with your sword was certainly unique, and I am unsure as to how you opened the gatehouse door, but I would not consider that to be advanced magic.” She paused a moment in consideration as she looked me over. “I am sure that, given ample time for practice, you could learn at least one of the techniques I know.”

I felt my face flush. “If you knew HALF of the things I know, we wouldn’t be—”

“Why don’t we discuss this on the road?” Lia chimed in loudly, cutting me off. “We still have a ways to go to reach the city proper, right Val?”

Val studied me for a few seconds longer, then turned to Lia. “Yes. We do not have enough daylight to reach Attetsia today. There is an inn on the main road that we will reach by sundown, should we leave now.”

“That sounds like a great idea! I’d love to sleep in a real bed for a night,” Lia said happily. She took my hand and gave it a less than gentle squeeze. “Doesn’t that sound nice, Lux?”

“Yes,” I managed to mutter through clenched teeth. In the moment, there was nothing I wanted more than another spar