These are chapters from an old manuscript, chapter one is available here. The chapter and my annotations are paywalled for people who actually love me and also love freedom and puppies. So. Time to prove some stuff.
Enjoy the first few paragraphs for free!
Chapter 35: Prateva’s Secret
Puk kept himself hidden by ducking behind the mining equipment on the ground floor of the NetherFortress as he searched for a ladder to the higher levels. All of the Korba were busy fighting Bazilla and her women so nobody had time to worry about a little old Lumian.
Something had happened to the amulet on the way over from the edge of the crater; obviously Madame Mayate wasn’t inside it anymore, but neither was Prateva. Consequently there weren’t any voices left to tempt him or guide him, one way or the other. He focused hard to remember the visions he had seen, and as he prowled the levels, he finally found the door to the secret chamber, concealed in a smooth black wall.
Only someone with the amulet could recognize what it was, and what was inside it. Puk pressed his hand to a symbol on the wall, and a square of red light appeared, revealing the small, closet-sized room beyond.
Taking a deep breath, Puk stepped into the room. The door closed behind him.
Gravity instantly stopped working. Puk floated off of the floor, bathed in a soft reddish glow, and as he rotated in the air, he saw that he was not alone.
“Hello, Pana’Pukka Timate,” said a ghost he knew all too well.
“Hello Prateva,” he said. “You look...different.”
Though she didn’t wear her terrible battle armor, she most assuredly was the ghost of Prateva, but she did not have the bearing of an Empress, did not carry herself like someone who had ever gone to war. She pursed her lips and folded her hands in her lap, studying her feet with a forlorn look in her eyes.
“It’s been a long time since anyone called me that.”
“Since you put yourself in here?”
“I placed part of myself in here. The part that hurt, the part that couldn’t hurt others in return. The amulet made it possible--I used my Andoran magic to make it, and the cleaving rock to give it enough power to divide myself,” she said quietly.
“I’ve carried this amulet, I’ve gotten a small taste of the impossible things it can do. I don’t get why you did it, though,” Puk said.
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