Chapters
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We left Gina’s office behind shortly after that. I wouldn’t say I wasn’t eager to leave, though I’d certainly gathered some useful information. Maybe not quite as much as I would’ve if Starlight Glimmer had been willing to talk to me…“Did you find out what you wanted to know for your book yet?” Radiant Dawn asked, bouncing along beside me. “It felt like you were going to be in there asking questions for hours.”For the heir of the largest empire in the world, I wasn’t sure if I should…-
45.4 K •
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I didn’t fall off during the trip into the sky. There was more than a little reason to be afraid—with no walls and only a thin wooden platform to separate me from certain death by falling, I wasn’t exactly confident. But despite her protests of its speed, Radiant Dawn seemed to know exactly where to stand so it wouldn’t tilt too far.Lifting up gave me a great view of the city, one that made me wish I’d brought more than my notebook and questions for the emperor. Seeing everything from so…
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45.4 K •
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I knew I wouldn’t have much time for this interview. The Hammer of Gaius was fast, and the emperor didn’t seem patient. I glanced around the bridge to see if any of the other birds here would be disruptive, but so far I could see no sign of their intention to interfere. I reached into my pack, and nearly took the pad myself when I remembered what Radiant Dawn had said. Velar would be too uncomfortable with a male writing to give me anything like honest answers. I passed her the pad, along with my…
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45.4 K •
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I didn’t belong here. I knew that getting an interview with the emperor wouldn’t be easy—but I thought that might mean having to talk to lots of stuffy people in closed rooms, impressing or them into admitting that a few minutes of the emperor’s time would have returns for them, if only because it meant the authoritative history I would write would more favorably capture the griffon perspective. In some of my nightmares I had imagined having to bribe my way through, or perform some strange griffon…
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45.4 K •
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Whatever we were standing on was impressively strong to survive the overflowing waves of ash and dust that had fallen on it from above. It became clear why as Radiant Dawn reached one of the edges of the building and started clearing away ash with a foreleg. There was stone under there, apparently strong enough to survive a volcanic eruption.“Help me find the way down,” Dawn called, glancing over her shoulder. She was still cute, even as her bright colors turned to ashy gray. “We need to find…
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45.4 K •
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“Do we really just… follow some stranger?” I asked, staring down through the empty tunnel where the bird had vanished seconds before. It seemed incredibly stupid to me—we didn’t even know this creature’s name, we knew nothing except that he didn’t seem to want us in one of the buildings, and yet here we were considering following him. True, he didn’t have skulls or anything hanging from his saddlebags, but I hadn’t so much as seen his face. I looked up at the sky, but couldn’t make out…
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45.4 K •
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We couldn’t exactly go anywhere to escape the presence of our rescuer—his strange device was the only reason we were still alive, slicing through the ash and somehow leaving an intact trail behind. I couldn’t begin to imagine how it could actually work, or how it could produce traversable paths without having them collapse on us. But that also mattered far less to me.I had a captive subject for an interview, so long as he didn’t leave us behind. So under the increasing weight of ash over our heads,…
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45.4 K •
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We didn’t have very far to walk to reach Carrion, so called City of the Dead. Only for these birds, the term wasn’t meant to be literal. When I closed my eyes, I could still see the eyes of Cyrus, who had taken us for days through the dark. He said something about the commander of that outpost, who went too far with the Old Magic even before the world ended. He was talking about himself.But as we reached the real city, the birds who greeted us were all clearly alive, though that didn’t make them…
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45.4 K •
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We arrived with no more disasters. We weren’t ambushed by the undead, or secretly betrayed by the Virtue crew for some esoteric reward. Instead we pulled into Caesarea after not quite two days in the air. A distance that had taken the Hammer of Gaius only hours. But it didn’t matter, we’d made it. Whether I would survive what came next, that was the tricky thing. We scrubbed in the cold shower until neither of us smelled like anything but soap and shivering, but would that be enough?“I’ll go to…
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45.4 K •
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What was your first experience with Accipio like? Equestrian records say you were sent in as a negotiator long before any formal agreements were signed.That’s true. I had a blank canvas to work with when I started.I was afraid—everypony was afraid of griffons back then. But I wasn’t really worried about my own life. Mons Ignis was going to erupt, and maybe kill everypony. That was the bigger threat. Coming to Accipio could’ve saved everypony.It looks like it did.She doesn’t respond to this, only…
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45.4 K •
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