Last time on Threads of Destiny...
"THE BOOK: And since this is of course an immensely frustrating and nerve-wracking moment for the narrative suddenly to switch tracks again, that is precisely what the narrative will now do." (Fit the Twelfth [Sixth of the Secondary Phase], "In which all is resolved, everyone lives happily ever after, and pigs fly.")
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21188/...invocation
Yrsillar Wrote:Ling Qi flew head over heels, tossed by the apocalyptic force of the wind that roared in the wake of the Heron General’s darting blade and the skull-rattling vibrations of the enemy's roaring song.
(...)
If she had anything at all left in her stomach, she would have wretched again as she drifted like one of the million burning leaves caught up in the general's wake. It was sickening and fascinating, the images and sounds that crashed upon her.
In a lake of boiling steam, a temple complex fought with a giant of fire and steel wielding a blade which carved canyons of ossified ash in the fabric of the dreaming realm. The blade clashed with kaleidoscopic waves of color and lakes worth of water from endless depths.
She could not even perceive the sovereigns’ movements, for all that the roared arguments embodied by their clashes reached her ears with clarity. But she could feel the mountain-carving blade in its wake.
(...)
This was the Unity of Blades, the iron Law written into the fabric of the Emerald Seas.
"THE BOOK: And since this is of course an immensely frustrating and nerve-wracking moment for the narrative suddenly to switch tracks again, that is precisely what the narrative will now do." (Fit the Twelfth [Sixth of the Secondary Phase], "In which all is resolved, everyone lives happily ever after, and pigs fly.")
Quote:She was Cai Renxiang, heiress of the Emerald Seas, and it took everything in her power to not put her face into her hands and scream. This undignified urge had been coming to her with greater regularity over the last year, but rarely had it risen to the intensity that it had now.
(...)
She glanced to the side as the security formations on the room twinged in her thoughts. A paper messenger bird fluttered at the window. It resonated with the White Plumes' official qi signature. She gestured, and the wards and window alike opened to allow it through.
(...)
She let the messenger land in her hand. As their guest left and the security shut behind him, it unfolded. Her eyes scanned Ling Qi's somewhat scrawling handwriting, and she felt as if the world had gone still.
Her retainer was a madwoman.
"Lady Cai?" Gan Guangli questioned, not quite leaning over her in concern.
"Gan Guangli, go retrieve Sir Jia. I have messages to send to the other comital clans."
"What has distressed you so?"
"That girl is trying to die again," Cai Renxiang replied gruffly.
Let this not be the time that she succeeded.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21188/...invocation