AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Well, looks like we won't have to hike each way," I say to Tulip with a grin. "We've got houses."
"So what, we're just going to set up camp here?" Morrow asks incredulously. "Colonize this ancient city?"
"Why not?" Zeph says, running his hand on the rock wall of a nearby building. There is no roof, and the front is only a half wall. A blacksmith's shop, maybe. "This is where the Gods resided. This is where we plan to bring them back. Why not try to get it cleaned up?"
We walk slowly through the streets, examining the buildings to see how much work needs to be donein this space. "Do you plan on going back to Ytopie?" Plume asks me, placing a hand on my arm. "I mean, after all of this, will you settle there?"
"I hadn't considered it," I answer honestly. My eyes drift to Mace. He quirks one eyebrow and shrugs as if to say the decision is mine.
"I'm not," she says quietly. "I don't think that I could go back now. Now that I've seen all that the world has to offer," her voice drops, and I catch a quick dart of her eyes at an oblivious Jaz.
"For what it's worth," Mace says, moving closer to my side. "I've spent seventy years in Ytopie. It may be nice to live somewhere else for a change."
"Seventy?" Jaz sputters, eyes wide.
I laugh and pat them on the back. "You'll get used to it. Plume and Zeph are sixty-five, Morrow is forty."
"Fae are something else," they mutter, rubbing their hand through their vibrant red hair. "But for what it's worth, this wouldn't be a bad place for a new city. It's not super easy to get supplies to, as we just learned, but it's easily defensible. But magic should help make the supply thing a little bit less of a problem. It makes sense for a God to be somewhere protected."
"I hadn't considered that," I say honestly.
"Let's do it," Mace says, taking the decision from my hands. While I tend not to like someone making decisions for me, with this one, I am grateful for it. I spent too much of my time fighting to get out of Dalery and to Ytopie, but now they both hold so much baggage. Mace looks at our companions as he takesmy hand in his. "We'll do our best to restore the city while we're here. And Viola and I will make this our home."
"And me," Zeph interjects.
"You can't get rid of me that easily, Lola," Tulip says with a wide grin. "I'm stuck to you."
Morrow groans, but there is no real depth behind it. "I guess we're doing this, then."
"Did this place have a name?" Plume asks, slowly walking down some of the stone paths.
Zeph sucks on his teeth but shakes his head. "Never mentioned in the journals. They just made references to being at the Cliffs."
"Then it needs a name!" Tulip says, following Plume, her eyes wide as she takes in all of the buildings. "What should we call it?"
There is silence as we all mull over options in our minds, but one sticks out to me almost immediately. "Rainworth," I say quietly. "We should call it Rainworth."
Jaz grabs my arm, stopping me short. When I turn, I see their eyes shining and the hitch of their breath. "Truly?"
"Truly," I say, placing my hand on top of theirs.
"What's the significance?" Plume asks, turning to look at the both of us. Mace places a hand in the middle of my back, tapping a familiar pattern on my spine, steeling me as I answer.
"Rainworth was Max's surname."
Chapter 27
Viola
It didn't take long for Plume to send a message to Jaz's crew that we were going to settle in Rainworth for the time being. Slowly, they began to trickle into the burgeoning town, carrying food, ale, bedding, and anything they could fit in their transport carts.
Sweat runs down my spine as I work with Mace to repair the town's stonework. "Geomancy is my least used magic," Mace says, groaning and stretching. It just does not come naturally to me." The crashing sound of a large stone being stacked on another punctuates his complaints.
"That surprises me," I remark, focusing on fortifying the house in front of me. The stones shift and grow where needed to form a single-family home. "Geomancy is from a different core than Influence but the same as Decay, so I would have thought you'd have the same control over it." While we're not using our bodies physically, the drain of magic is not to be brushed off. I can tell just by looking at Mace that he's close to needing a break. I'm not sure if he's ready to admit that, though.
"If you haven't noticed," he says with a grunt as he moves a large stone from one structure to another, repurposing it, "my Decayisn't actually that strong either."
"I actually hadn't noticed. You use it fairly frequently."
