Copyright © 2021 by Kyle West
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Art by Deranged Doctor Design.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Epilogue
About the Author
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Also by Kyle West
1
Lucian had been walking for hours, and night was falling.
He stumbled on a rock, almost face-planting on the rugged ground. The only reason he caught himself was due to Psyche’s lower gravity. He panted, trying to catch his breath. The air was thin up here, but maybe it would be thicker at a lower elevation.
He was following a trail, but it was impossible to tell where it was leading. For now it led up a set of broken steps carved into a cliff. Those steep, shattered stairs would have been impossible to climb in standard gravity.
Climbing hand over hand, his muscles strained under the exercise. He had done nothing for months besides sitting in his cell. Coupled with the low transit gravity of the prison barge, he was the weakest he had been in his adult life.
Pulling himself up the final step, Lucian gasped for breath. Once standing, he peered beyond a precipice before him. It fell hundreds of meters, the trail crisscrossing down before it was lost to darkness. Even in low gravity, it would be hell going down that. But there was no other way to proceed. And the lower he descended, the darker it would become. He just couldn’t catch his breath. He needed to find shelter before night fell. And he needed to find water.
Wherever his escape pod had landed, it was far from any sort of life, human or otherwise. Maybe this part of the moon was isolated, and he was the only living person within a thousand kilometers. If that was true, then it almost certainly meant his death. He would be doomed to wander this moon until he collapsed from thirst, hunger, or sheer exhaustion.
He tried pushing these dark thoughts from his mind, descending deeper into the rift. He tried not to think of what threats might be lurking in the gathering darkness.
One thing was sure. The further he descended, the dimmer the sky grew. Was that due to the onset of evening, or the twisted mountains blocking more sunlight? Those mountains didn’t look right, anyway. Through the violet mist, they were warped like some lurid vision of hell. Even Volsung hadn’t been as bleak as this. The only life were low, stunted trees clinging in rocky crevices. There was no wind whatsoever, while the air was cool, dry, and . . . dead, for lack of a better word. If there was water, it had to be at a lower elevation. And with water, hopefully, there would also be life. And where there was life, there was food.
The mere thought of water made his throat feel even more parched, but it was almost too dark to proceed. Of course, he could stream a light sphere and search late into the night. But light might attract unwanted attention. It would be better to find water without it, but for all he knew, that would be impossible. And of course, it would mean dismantling the block he’d formed around his Focus all those months ago. Lucian had never been afraid of the dark, but the darkness of this moon terrified him. Anything could be lurking behind the copious boulders, crevices, or pits he passed.
In the end, Lucian had to stop because he was tripping over every stray rock and crack. And now, the trail was skirting the edge of a mountain, and one false step could send him falling hundreds of meters. He needed light, but first, he had to see if it was even possible to stream.
He reached for his Focus. There was no sentimentality as he worked to dissolve the block. It was a knot he had practiced untying countless times in his head during the long journey here.
And just as it had been in his imagination, the block was unraveled with a simple streaming of Psionic Magic. A strange heaviness departed him. It would take some time to regather his ether, so to stream a light sphere, he would have to overdraw. There was little choice unless he wanted to stumble over the side of the trail and into the fissure.
The image of his focus, the Septagon and its seven colored points, formed perfectly in his mind. He reached for the Radiant Aspect.
He siphoned ether directly from the Manifold. The energy that powered all magic entered him, shocking him like cold water. But it also burned him at the same time, as if there were acid mixed in. He hadn’t expected so much ether to enter him so quickly, especially being out of practice so long.
There was little time to wonder at it. He created a thin stream, and a dim light sphere manifested before him, illumining the area up to five meters.
Now, he had to get that light to follow him. And for that, he would need to test his Binding. His heart pounded a bit, not knowing what to expect. He would have to stream Binding at some point, so he might as well do so now, when he wasn’t under any immediate threat.
While holding the Radiant stream, he reached for the Binding Aspect. He bound the light sphere to his right shoulder so it would follow him. He didn’t notice any discernible use of ether – it was as if
