Aethosphere Chronicles: Storm of Chains Read Online Free PDF

when the bar harlot
finally reappeared, sweeping into the room in a cloud of floral
scents and powdery makeup.
    “Alright, come with me, Drish,” she said to
the noble’s relief, that is, until he took note of the use of his
name. The aristocrat’s breath caught in his throat.
    “My name,” he gasped out, “how do you know
my name,” he managed through a fit of coughing and sputtering
    “Just come on.”
    Drish should have known that the woman was
with the insurgency. He shouldn’t have been surprised when he found
his father standing in what looked like a brick wine cellar either.
Despite what reason should have already explained in Drish’s
mind, he was still astonished when his father looked up at him from
a broad table, and calmly stated for his son’s benefit, “Welcome to
the Ascellan Resistance.”
    But Drish’s astonishment quickly turned to
anger. From the looks of the setup around his father, Arvis looked
to be the damned mastermind of the entire King’s Isle insurgency.
Laid out at his fingertips was a map of the whole isle, and over it
was riddled dozens of tiny, place-holding tokens, though it was the
bottle of Coronation Wine displayed prominently at the table’s
center that commanded the most attention. Regardless, Drish snapped
his eyes up to confront his father, but the flag tacked to the rock
wall behind him halted his words. The young noble had seen this
emblem a thousand times growing up, and though he may have felt a
pride at seeing it at one time, now it brought a sickening
dread.
    Drish actually gasped aloud. It was the flag
of the Unified Kingdoms of Ascella, with its segmented red griffon
poised upon a field of gold. He was sure the Empire had burned
every last one of them, and best if they had. It had become the
very embodiment of the senseless patriotism that had turned King’s
Isle on its head. Even now it seemed to glow in the light of its
own malice; obstinate as ever despite the tattered nature of the
cloth—nay, each burn and bullet hole only seemed to enhance its
defiance. It was almost a perfect representation of the man
standing under it, broken and marred, and yet still unshaken, still
unforgiving, and still accusing Drish of disloyalty and
treason.
    “Thanks Abigail,” stated Arvis calmly as he
smoothed the gray scruff of his beard. The facial hair helped hide
the immobile and waxy flesh from where the stroke had paralyzed his
left side. “I think we can take it from here. I’d like to talk to
my son alone if you’d be so kind.”
    “You bet, Arvis,” the scantily-dressed girl
replied cordially, even adding a curtsy that revealed a bit more
than was acceptable for a lady. As she turned, she flashed Drish a
kind look that took him off guard.
    In the dingy light of a single greasy
arc-bulb—under the relentless gaze of the flag—the collaborator
expected a look of accusation from the perfect curves of this
lowborn girl’s face; one that said collaborator aloud; one
that said traitor ; but there was no such look. He couldn’t
even be sure what she had intended with that expression of hers,
but its result was undeniable. He felt a strange sort of stirring
from within, and whether that was simply carnal lust or something
more profound, he was at a loss to explain.
    “Something tells me you didn’t come here to
join the Resistance, son,” Arvis’s voice dragged him back to the
present. “So you mind explaining to me what you’re doing carting
around my bottle of wine?”
    Drish didn’t remember his father sounding so
lucid. There was certainly an underlying difficulty to his speech,
and the left side of his body remained limp and immovable, but he
also looked stronger than he remembered, and a lot more coherent.
It left Drish wondering just how long it had been since he and his
father had last spoken. Usually, when the young accountant left for
work in the mornings, the elder Larken was asleep in the servant’s
room just off the kitchen (on those days that