The story thus far: Elias is trying to prep his team. They are scheduled to go into the breach in the morning. Ada, Jovo, and Bear are in the tunnel leading to the anchor chamber, where Jovo’s bag is hanging above the anchor, the bait the gress stalker left hoping to lure them in. The three are temporarily protected by the barrier Ada set. The fight is inevitable. Now Ada is meditating, attempting to unlock the secret of the gem within her head in a hope that something within it will tell of the gress’ weakness.
Below is the spotify play list for this section.
The air was hot and smelled of soot.
I walked on an alien planet. Above me a blue sky stretched, but unlike the Earth crystalline blue, this color was a moody, subdued shade, hazy, almost smoky. The sky in perpetual twilight.
The ground was dark stone, triangular hills rising up, ridged with spires of jagged rock. Between the hills, lava flowed in dense currents, a river of it, miles wide, its surface cooled to a grey and purple crust. Here and there, the currents collided, and brilliant red shone in the cracks.
Farther off, at the foot of a hill on the left, where the ground came in contact with the superheated flow, flames rose in a curtain, licking at the hill that had become an island. The fire burned, reflecting in the long stratus clouds and turning them orange and red. Two massive moons hung above it all, translucent grey ghosts sprinkled with glitter.
I’d travelled to someone else’s reality that now belonged to me. I moved through it with a purpose, controlling the flow and selecting my course. I walked and walked, tireless, over the ridges of rock and soil that smelled of tar until I climbed the hill in front of me.
A taller hill waited behind the first. A cluster of six dark towers thrust out of its apex. They were glossy and black, like the crystal points of obsidian that had grown ninety feet tall. Time and the elements had eroded their surface, leaving it pockmarked where age gnawed on the stone. No windows interrupted the solid surface.
I walked to the tallest tower. Rock flowed like water, allowing me to pass, and I entered. The inside of the tower lay hollow. I was on the bottom floor, on a narrow ledge guarded by a stone rail. The black walls, solid from the outside, turned nearly transparent from within, tinting the sky and the burning flow of lava but not obscuring them. Above me, stone balconies ringed the perimeter, six levels. The bottom three were filled with male gress in dark robes; the top three held female gress with veils of chainmail, clothed in garments made from many layers of diaphanous black cloth.
Below my ledge, lava boiled in a round pit. A narrow stone path protruded above it to a round platform fifteen feet wide carved from a glossy black crystal. It looked like volcanic glass, and yet it wasn’t, because lava would have melted it into nothing. In the center of a platform, a rectangular table stood.
The body of a female gress lay on the table. She wore the same garments as the watchers on the upper levels, and a chainmail veil hid the lower half of her face. I moved along the ledge to take a closer look. The skin around her closed eyes was lined and wrinkled like old leather. The life within her barely shivered. She was taking her final breaths.
A tall male gress strode to the dais, walking above the churning lava. A priest of his people. He reached the body and thrust his four arms up, metal bracelets sliding down his narrow limbs with a gentle chime. A long wail erupted from him, solemn like a hymn. He reached down and sliced across the garments, exposing her torso. A metal amulet lay on her chest, a dark ring with 5 moons etched on it.
The female gress exhaled, and the last of her life rejoined the cosmos.
The priest reached for her amulet, touched it, and uttered a sibilant word. The amulet turned red, then yellow. The body of the gress began to disintegrate around it, her skin turning black.
The temple was completely silent. The mourners stood still.
The amulet blazed with white. The clothes of the deceased caught fire. For a breath she shone like she was woven from living flame and then the fire went out, leaving behind a corpse of ash. The priest touched it, and the incinerated body fell apart, raining down into the lava.
Another priest approached, carrying a naked gress baby. The child mewed like a kitten, waving its six limbs. The priests placed it on the table and raised their arms. A spark burst above them and coalesced into an amulet on a thin chain. The first priest reached for it and gently placed it around the baby’s neck.
A commotion broke out behind me. A male gress entered the tower. The two priests hissed in unison and three male gress responded, barring the intruder’s path. The newcomer shoved at them, trying to force his way in. One of the defending gress slashed at the invader. The dark garment of the intruder fell open, revealing his bare chest with no amulet.
The entire gathering hissed. The sound was so loud, it drowned everything.
The lead priest waved his arm, and everyone fell silent. The priest opened his mouth, showing jagged teeth. Alien sounds flowed and turned into words.
“There is no place for you here, soulless.”
The invader dashed out of the tower.
I moved my hand, bending the vision to my will. The temple vanished. A fortress rose in front of me, carved from a mountain side. I watched the gress train within it. I walked between them. I heard them talking. I saw them spar, then learn to kill. I was there when they passed their trials and became Kael. I witnessed them don the devourer shrouds that took root within their bodies. I saw them suffer and inflict that suffering tenfold on others as efficiency mutated into cruelty.
I watched them take their first contracts and step into the cosmos.
I watched them hunt down their prey.
I watched them kill my mother.
yeah!
Certified first 🙂
Wow, color me surprised! Happy Monday everyone!
First?
Wheeeee! Thanks for the update- a wonderful start to my vacation!
yay, new part makes my day wayyyy better
+1! Thank you! 🤗
OMG, first?
top ten?
Jane
Top 10?
First?
Woo hoo!
Thank you very much
I’m getting from this segment that Sadrin, the giver of The Inheritance to Ada had a contract placed on her and the Kael carried it out??
I’m wondering if Sadrin stole one of the gress amulets and the gress chased her, but it’s now in Ada. They’re trying to kill her to reclaim the amulet.
The Inheritance gem is not the same as the gress amulet 🙂
I sense ultimate assasin fu coming up. Kiar vs Kael. No wonder they hate each other, they are business rivals!
This does leave a thousand questions about the rest of the Gress. Do they still exist at all? It sure looked like a last survivors stand after the apocalypse.
My theory is that the ‘soul’ is a generational memory that if applied to a baby will supplant the unformed brain with the patterns of the old one. It is a valid method for immortality.
It is a magico-tech on the level of Ada’s gem, and has overlapping powers, but it isn’t the same origin.
There is nothing the Lees hate more than a business rival! 😄
Good point
Thank you very much! I hope you had a relaxing and easy weekend! House Andrews spoils us so much!
First?
Top ten?
Amazing
I’m getting strong innkeeper crossover vibes…such an interesting world!!! Thank you!
Yay for Mondays!!
Oooooooooh, this one’s such a teaser, I LOVE IT!!! (Also I think the next step in the evolution of books is soundtracks, that was the BEST!)
Awesome, thank you!!
Okay I am spinning. How on any planet is HA going to wrap up this story in just two more posts? There was already a promise to not use “rocks fall everyone dies”
Maybe ‘and then Ada woke up and it was all a dream’…..?! Joke, I know this will not be the case!
Nope, Ilona hates those “twists” 😀
Absolutely not. That’s how you break the readers’ trust, and we try to never do that.
Our authorlords only ever provide the most thoughtful, emotionally delicious and thoroughly satisfying writing that we go back to again and again, because it is our comfy blanket in age of stress.
I was already spoiled for most authors before HA came on the scene, but they have kicked it up to a higher level than ever before. I offer a personal thank you for raising the literature bar for everyone out there.
My eternal thanks
I totally agree!!!
The blog post on July 2 said there were seven installments left. There have been three story posts since then which means (assuming none of the posts contained more than one installment) there are four story posts remaining. Plus some concluding material in the published version.
LOVE the playlist link!
Thank you, what a great way to start the week.
Ooooh….
Thank you!
Thank you!!! Can’t wait to see what happens next 🙂
That ending— so intense!!
Omg, is it her mother or the mother of the giver of the inheritance? What a note to end on! 😵
“Treasure your inheritance, my kind daughter.”
Her mother is the alien lady who gave her the inheritance gem 🙂 . Ada has now gone deeper into her gift than before, and emerges as sadrin recognizing their bond.
<3
Thanks Mod R!
Thanks Mod R! My brain was using “kind daughter” in the sense that we might call someone Auntie or Grandmother to be polite, even when not related. Didn’t even think of her as being Ada’s mother now, in the sadrin sense of mothers. 🤯
You are the best-est of Mods! (Yes, intentional best-est to express you the best of the best!) 🏆
*you being the best
I need to proofread more before posting. 🤦♀️
Ah, thanks for that clarification. My brain was spinning. Didn’t help that my first thought was “Wait! The kres killed Dina’s parents?!?” Holy moly, I have got my stories all mixed up.
So good!! HA, I hope you had good downtime this weekend!
Thank you!!
Wow, that was… something unexpected. I wonder if the gress in the breach are “normal” gress or the soulless? Or maybe only the soulless become Kael?
Thank you!
The soulless seem to be the ones without a gem. The shroud is given to those with a gem.
So only the “ensouled” become Kael. Ie the ones displacing babies’ consciousness.
The soulless (no-amulet gress) do not have a place in their society, they are rejected 🙂
The Kael, by contrast, are the gress warriors, their most trained.
Oh, I have to reread this. I had a completely different take of that from the first read. I thought that the outcasts became assassins to survive, and without their long memories they were corrupted by what they had done to themselves.
Oh, thank you for the explanation. I didn’t catch it.
omg I love Anthem. Can’t believe they are shutting it down next year. The music is awesome 🙂
The gress are gross! If my understanding is correct they replace the soul of a baby with the soul of a deceased (soul being consciousness, probably incl memories). The religion is based on body-snatching.
And they are assassins or mercenaries – never a good first impression, And the shroud is also not an indicator of a misunderstood group of people.
Wow, just wow.
Oh wow. This story is so good. I’m on pins and needles!!!! So full story will be coming out this month, right?
Hope you guys had a restful and relaxing few days 😊
Oooh, interesting! Looking forward to Friday!
Thank you! Color me intrigued!
I’m guessing the gress in the breach is a soulless one and is going after the gem that Ada inherited.🤔
The Kael gress aren’t soulless 🙂 and that’s who is in the breach with Ada
Thanks for clarifying Mod R! You are always right on top of it! 🤗
LoL never gonna be first 😂
Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!!
I want so much for the meeting between Elias and Ava!!!
Last night I decided to refresh my brain about the story ( reread it AGAIN) anticipating a BIG “beginning of the ending climax” today. Waned to have all the facts clear in my mind.
PANIC. Somehow it looked like I had cancelled the entire blog. NO where could I find HA emails. OMG. Horror. Desperation. Anger with myself. How could I do this?! THINK.
RAN ( finger wise) to Ilona blog and reentered their subscription list so I would NOT miss this morning.
Sigh. Thank goodness. Got my HA fix. All is better now. I can make it to Friday:)
Wow! Great update and now chalantly waiting for the next bit. Thank you and hope everyone is feeling well.
Ok, not what I was expecting, but really really interesting! Looks like the Gress are a truly unpleasant society and from another world that exports assassins, ugh. Thanks for the recap and for the great start to the week! Hope HA had a relaxing weekend!
This is the Monday of ALL THE THINGS GO WRONG (plumbing, cable, etc.), so thanks for this. 🙂
Because that’s how it works, right? It’s never just one thing. Good luck. At least you have something you can read and reread as necessary!
woah, is the amulet similar to Ada’s Inheritance gemstone, in that it passes on knowledge to the new wearer?
I don’t see anything “evil” or bad in the ritual described… maybe I need to go back to where the gress are first described. I don’t understand why they feel the need to kill/cause such destruction.
oh! good one!
Fragment niesamowity , okrutne dzięki <3. Równie fascynujące komentarze – jak cudownie choć na chwilę znależć się wśród osób, które tak jak ja, żyją czytaną powieścią 🙂
Love it! Thank you.
Adding a playlist is so cool. Please keep doing that.
Love the playlist. So much depth for a short story/novella.
Well, pretty heavy, so many twists and turns. I need to reread the whole story. Wow! Always so clever
Wonderful!!!!
lore!!!!
My comments keep disappearing?
Or not.
I was hoping for an Elias POV. Maybe Friday?
Oh my!!!! This is soooooo exciting…..thank you for yet another great post…can’t w*it to see how this all plays out! 😁
Wow. This is something else. So the woman who gave the gem to not Gress since she didn’t have extra arms, but the gem is Gress in origin?!
Assassins. What is the amulet? Is that the same as the thing in Ada ‘s head?
Come on, Elias get into the breach! There’s families waiting to get answers and two kids waiting for their mom and Bear.
The inheritance gem is not one of the gress amulets. P*tience, all will be explained 🙂
I wonder if the soulless as the head priest called the intruder, is the father of the infant gress and objects to-the ceremony.
Wow! Wonderful part thank you
Whoa, what an ending to the snippet. Thank you!
Now on to Friday! 😁
Normally I don’t listen to attached music for stories, but boy howdy did it do its job today! That final line hit so hard! Excellent, excellent, excellent
Okay, the soul is definitely something to do with the gem amulet thing, it probably carries a ‘soul’ person in it which will supplant the person in a baby. The souless invader is probably of a small favtion who do not
Like forcing the identiy of someone onto a different person. He is either personally invested in the child or just there to save it on principle.
Clearly Ada’s benefactor has prrsonal enmity against the kael. The fact ada can access her memories means this isnt a far off technology from the kael amulet thing. But since Ada’s has also changed her biology plus whatever the dungeon is doing to her it is probably a different item.
Just ma theory.
nooooo don’t stop there 😂😂😂 more please.
Wow! Loved it!
Phew, I was holding my breath, that was awesome!!!!!
thank you 😃
Ada’s “mother” stole a gress amulet, does that make her the bad guy? Is Ada stuck with a villain’s stolen goods? Will she be able to talk with the gress and clear the situation?
The gress amulet is a ring of metal.
Ada’s inheritance gem is “round and glowing, like a brilliant jewel lit from within. It was so beautiful. The colors swirled and danced, a stunning, mesmerizing gemfire.”
They are not the same thing. What her mother gave Ada was not a stolen gress amulet 🙂
Thank you.
Wow! Will need to re-read this one. So much happened.