If you were simply browsing the Kindle Store and this book caught your eye, I urge you to close this preview and go check out
House of Blades
. I’ll wait.

If you’ve already read the Traveler’s Gate Trilogy—or at least the first two books—then come on in, my friend!

These stories are intended to give you a closer look at the Territories and characters that we didn’t get to explore in the main trilogy. If you’d rather stick with Simon, Alin, and Leah, I’ll understand!
City of Light
will be available in early 2014, and I hope it meets your approval.

Still with me? Then buckle up. We’re headed off the map.

Here there be dragons.

Welcome to Elysia, young Traveler.

You will have heard many stories about what it means to be one of us. Do not be fooled. No outsider understands our purpose. They think we are here to lead other Travelers, to make the decisions that they cannot.

This is true, and it is not true.

They think we are here as a last resort, as an ultimate power, to keep the Incarnations in check.

This is true, and it is not true.

They think we are here to balance the other Territories, to keep them from obtaining too much power and upsetting the natural balance.

This is true, and it is not true.

What I am about to tell you is known by few, and understood by even fewer: we are not here to lead, or to threaten, or to eliminate threats. In the course of our duties, we will do all these things, but ultimately we are here for a single purpose.

We are here to guide. We are here to lead by example, inspiring other Travelers to live up to their own potential. We should be as beacons in the darkness.

Welcome to the City of Light.

-Elysian Book of Virtues, Page 1

The Traveler’s Gate Chronicles

(Collection #3)

T
HE
L
IGHTNING
W
ASTES

Valor is an easy virtue to admire.

We make heroes out of those who charge recklessly against superior forces. We idolize the warriors who risk their lives to save the innocent, who stand firm in the face of certain death. Truly, bravery and courage are fine qualities.

But Travelers of Endross can take it too far.

-Elysian Book of Virtues, Chapter 7: Gold

358
th
Year of the Damascan Calendar

1
st
Year in the Reign of Queen Leah I

9 Days Until Autumn’s End

Queen Leah the First slumped over onto her camp desk. The thing almost collapsed—it was made to fold and pack up for easy marching, and she'd been using it as a permanent fixture for months now. She was lucky it had lasted this long without it buckling under her.

She kept her face pressed against the desk. So what if the desk broke, sending her crashing to the ground? She couldn't bring herself to care.

She had other things to worry about. Such as her meeting with the nine Overlords, which had just ended.

“Could that have possibly gone any worse?” She asked, into the desk.

Indirial's cloak rustled and a chair creaked; he must have sat down. “An Incarnation didn't blast through the tent and kill us all. In that light, I'd say we came out ahead.”

Leah raised her head, and it seemed to take ten times as much effort as normal. “They're barely listening to me anymore, Indirial. They're not concerned about the nation. They can barely see past their own cities.”

Indirial's easy smile never left his face, blinding white against his dark villager's skin. It was hard to put a dent in his optimism. “You're young, and they barely know you. Give them time. Besides, the nation's going through a crisis. Of course they're going to look to their own realms first.”

He had taken his black cloak off, draping it over the back of his chair, leaving his chain-wrapped arms bare. She had rarely seen the shadow-chains marking his arms that short; they barely twisted around his wrists. He wore confidence like a second cloak, solid and dependable even in a crisis. He was as old as her father—old enough to be her grandfather, in fact—but he looked twenty years younger. It must have been a Valinhall thing.

Leah glanced over at the table next to her. It was much sturdier than her portable writing desk, and covered with a giant map of the kingdom of Damasca. The map was almost lost beneath a chaos of pins and buttons in every color imaginable. The release of the Incarnations had worked on the nation like a kick on an anthill. Cities were practically trading refugees, as their citizens fled one citadel for perceived safety in another. Thousands of them were here, camped under her command, less than five miles from the sealed city of Cana.

“It's not what they're doing that bothers me,” Leah said. “Look at what they're not doing. None of them bothered to address the Endross Incarnation. Not even Overlord Feiora.”

Only a few days ago, they had received word that the Endross Incarnation had burst forth from its prison beneath the city of Eltarim. It had left the city largely untouched for some reason, blasting off into the wilderness to terrorize ordinary merchants and a handful of small villagers.

Indirial folded his arms. “Overlord Feiora rules Eltarim, but the city and the surrounding lands are practically untouched. She's no Endross Traveler.”

“She should have been,” Leah said. Her father had appointed Feiora Torannus to guard the Endross Incarnation, even though she was an Asphodel Traveler. In every other case, the Overlord Traveled the same Territory as the Incarnation he or she guarded. Feiora was the sole exception, and at the moment Leah was having trouble recalling why. “In any case, that's no excuse for her shirking her duty.”

“You think she may have a...personal reason for refusing to listen to you?” Indirial's grin got a little wider. “Maybe you shouldn't have trapped her brother alive.”

Lysander Torannus, Feiora's brother, had been another Overlord. Before she sealed him into a block of solid crystal for treachery and attempted regicide.

Leah glared at the Overlord of Cana. “I'll let him out at any time, if you think she won't mind me executing him instead.”

Indirial put on a thoughtful look. “No...no, I don't think that would win you any friends. Besides, she has a point. She's got enough trouble keeping her people from panicking to hunt an Incarnation down. What would she do if she found it?”

Leah had to resist raising a hand to her pounding head. She always got a headache after meeting the Overlords. Instead, she scooped up a report detailing the number of Travelers under her direct command.

“How many Endross Travelers did you have working for you?” she asked.

“Six.”

“Can you find any of them now?”

“I'd bet I can tell you exactly where they are.” Indirial craned his neck and looked meaningfully out the flap of the tent.

A few miles distant, but still clearly visible, the city of Cana glowed like a cherry-red sunset. The whole capitol, from wall to wall, was covered by a shining dome of scarlet light.

Sealed by the power of the Ragnarus Incarnation. No one had been in or out since the Incarnations first escaped, over three months before.

Leah found herself wondering whether any of the Endross Travelers were still alive. Whether anyone was alive, under the dome, or if their blood, minds, and souls had been used as fuel for the weapons of the Crimson Vault.

“I don't see any on the list,” Leah said, scanning it quickly.

Indirial leaned forward, shuffling through her papers. “I think there's...ah, yes, here we go. One of Cana's weather-workers made it out before the city was sealed.”

Leah took the paper he offered her. “An Endross weather-worker? I never knew Cana had one.”

“The weather in Cana's pretty mild, so she had an easier job than most, but she warded off her fair share of storms.”

She stared at the one single name under the “Endross” column, as though she could make it multiply by sheer force of will. “Where are the others? Even counting the people trapped in Cana, we should have seen some Endross Travelers from other cities.”

Indirial hesitated for a moment before speaking. “This is just hearsay, you understand, but I've talked to the other Overlords. They're all missing Endross Travelers. I'd go so far as to say we're missing maybe half of all the Endross-trained Travelers in the kingdom.”

“Where did they go?” Leah asked. Her tone sounded much more harsh than she meant; she sounded like she was going to track them down and strangle them all one by one.

That didn't sound like such a bad plan, actually.

“With the King dead, and the Incarnations loose, and no Overlord specifically looking over their shoulder, where do you think they went?” Indirial leaned over the map. “Some of them probably deserted, I'm sure some of them started following their Incarnation around, and I'd bet most of them took the excuse to move to their Territory. You know how Endross is.”

Endross itself was a blasted landscape, half storm-wracked desert and half deadly jungle. Endross Travelers were the only ones crazy enough to try and live there.

Leah stood up, taking care not to put any weight on the unsteady desk. “Since the Overlords are unwilling to do their jobs, I'll have to go myself.”

Indirial pulled his cloak off the chair. “I figured as much. Let's go get that weather-worker, she can guide us.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Not us, Indirial. I have a different assignment for you.”

The Overlord's eyebrows raised. “You can't go without a bodyguard.”

“I need you to hunt down the Endross Incarnation. Kill it if you can, but if not, drive it away from the populated areas.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Huh. Yeah, there's no one else around to do the job. Very well, my Queen, I live to serve.” He gave her a little cloak-flourishing bow. “I will leave as soon as you select another bodyguard.”

“I hardly need one.”

“No one is safe alone,” Indirial said, for once completely serious. “Particularly not with the Incarnations around. And no matter how confident you are, you'll be surrounded by Endross Travelers in their own Territory.”

“They're Damascan citizens,” she pointed out. They should obey her without question.

“They're Endross,” he said simply. “You need a bodyguard. I haven't seen Kai in weeks—”

Leah shuddered at the thought of spending even one day with Kai. She had never gotten over her distaste for the man. He was simply...eerie.

“...and Denner's in the south, leading refugees away from the Asphodel Incarnation. If I could find Kathrin, I could hire her to guard you, but that would take a few days.”

Indirial's grin was back, in full force. “That leaves one Valinhall Traveler left.”

“It doesn't necessarily have to be a Valinhall Traveler,” Leah protested.

“Would you prefer one Valinhall or four Tartarus?”

Bringing one guide and one bodyguard meant that she was confident enough in her royal commands that she didn't need to lean on force. Bringing one guide and four bodyguards meant that she felt she needed protection, because she didn't expect the Endross Travelers to obey her. They would see it as a sign of weakness.

“...one.”

“Excellent!” Indirial said, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “I'll open a Gate.”

***

Indirial left his Gate open, then walked out of the tent. She called after him, but he didn't respond, which was typical: once the Overlord had a new goal in his sights, he tended to head straight for it, blocking everything else out.

She turned from the portal and faced the entry room of the House of Blades. It looked like nothing so much as a sitting-room for a wealthy noble. A wealthy noble from a century past. It was a little dim, and the swords—hung in wooden racks on the walls—left a little to be desired, as far as decor went. Ornately carved tables sat here and there in the room, covered by books and surrounded by plush, red-cushioned chairs. Against one wall set a comfortable-looking red sofa, though she thought she could hear a soft growling coming from that direction. Maybe there was a badger or some other small animal stuck under its cushions.

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