Echo reads

Emberlynn-The Roaring strand of Glintlure City

With her eyes closed, Emberlynn could hear the white wave lion’s roar more clearly. She looked at this churning coast from the gray-blue battlements of Glintlure City countless times, fantasizing that a huge wave of tens of meters a day would rise and flood the whole city. Even Master Isaac could not stop it. In her memory, her mentor Keter, dressed in a spiral star clan robe, staring at her with a locked eyebrow. He reached one hand to hold her left arm and told her that the roaring was the curse of Glintlure City.You must always warn the Lord about that. His another withered hand was placed on her sage circlet, and he was channeling his last life energy to her. She could feel the warmth through the night star on the circlet.This is your oath. No matter how the Glintlure City changes, you must guard this place. 

Unlike the hereditary succession of lords, the great sages of each castle were selected according to their virtue. As the only few sages who complete the Pilgrimage of Devotion, she received great attention from Mentor Ketter. She became his only disciple after several other contenders had given up and chosen other Great Sages of other cities. Glintlure’s responsibility was too exhausting for them. 

Take the oath, wear the circlet. Her motivation drove her. I will become the greatest sage. She choosed to bear the same slanders that Mentor Kurt had suffered before. 

Abruptly, a coarse whip struck her back, sharply pain made her wince. She looked up obliquely to the left, and saw Stitch the warden was grinning and clutching the hemp whip stained with blood. His eyes shimmered with the cold, venomous glint of a viper. No time for Emberlynn to react, he whipped her back again: 

“Hurry up, you whore!”

Glintlure City stipulated that all prisoners who deserved the death penalty should be trialed on the Roaring strand. Before then, prisoners should not be executed, and this meant endless torture. Emberlynn didn’t even have the strength to stare at Stitch now. She lowered her head again and clenched her teeth. As a result, the loose teeth that had been tortured yesterday fell on her mouth and it tasted like metal. As soon as she spat, the tooth rolled into the muddy sediment from the sea. 

The Roaring strand is also known as the “roar of the dead“. Emberlynn looked at the footprints left on the ground, which belonged to the prisoners before her. I knew the history here. The people who were given the death penalty would be brought here, tied to the rack erected in the sea, and receive the eternal wind and sun for eternity. Before she arrived Glintlure City, she didn’t know why until she saw it with her own eyes. 

No one knows if this water was calm before it became a place of execution, but now, Emberlynn believed that countless souls must have gathered at the bottom of the sea to take frantic revenge on the Glintlure City. Every white wave looked like their march. A unique way to execute prisoners in a place like this. 

Stitch suddenly kicked her calf hard, and she fell to the ground like a scarecrow. Stitch was demoted to a Warden because of her words, she knew his hatred. And Lord Lysander sent him to interrogate her is because he didn’t trust Mentor Kurt anymore. She struggled to get up, I can’t show my weakness, the hands tied tightly behind the shackles, I was the great sage of the Glintlure, baptized, I can’t show my weakness. 

She looked up, saw that the prisoners in front were dressed tattered just like her. The cries and laughters all rushed to her face with the salty sea breeze. She also seemed to hear the sobs from the sea. Looking sideways and in the direction of the voice, it turned out that a prisoner’s head was pressed into the sea by one of Stitch’s men. He struggled hard, and after a while his head was lifted violently backward. He paralyzed and knelt on the ground. Emberlynn could see the tight muscles of his neck when he breathed heavily, with inflamed scars on it. 

I can’t show my weakness, I’m the great sage of the Glintlure City. Her eyes narrowed. 

“Stitch,” she turned and tried to soften her voice, although it was still so stiff, “did you do what I told you last night?”

With a whistle, the whip greeted her face. Her dried lips tasted the blood. 

“Shut up, bitch,” his neck flushed, “do what? Now is not the time for you to command!” He rolled up the whip and slammed it fiercely on her back, and Emberlynn could hear the man behind her, who was a prisoner like her, laughing, giggling, and shrilling like a crow. 

Her eyes glazed over, and the sweat pierced her eyes. She looked back and wanted to ask again, but was stopped by Stitch’s glare. 

What should I do?

She began to worry that Stitch had not done what she had begged him to do. If it was true, she would  die on this lonely sea today. She couldn’t accept such a tragic ending. No, I need to escape. There must be a way. 

She turned around again, reluctantly: 

“Did you really not give my letter to the officer to hand it over to Lord Lysander?”

Stitch did not speak, and he looked at her like a wolf, aggressive and hungry. 

“Hand it over, keep it—what difference does it make?”? 

“Did you give it or not?”Emberlynn was anxious and her voice rose. Her tone betrayed a hint of the commanding sage. 

“Snap–” Stitch slapped her already red and swollen right face, more blood flowing. “I didn’t–” He stretched his voice, lazily, with contempt. “Just because you said so and I have to follow? Did you forget who brought me here? “

Lord Lysanderor or her? Emberlynn didn’t know the answer, maybe both of us brought him here. 

“I gave you that circlet. And you promised!”Emberlynn remembered that she had told him personally where the circlet was hidden. When she was dismissed, almost all the property was confiscated, except that. She quietly hid it before she was shackled. She did not want Mentor Kurt’s only treasure to be taken away. 

“You lied to me,” Stitch snarled. “I didn’t find it at all.”

How can it be, Emberlynn squinted, looking at him,only I know the place, how can you not find it? She could see the reflection of the sunset in Stitch’s eyes jumping like a flame,  with layering shadows. 

Stitch clung to her blighted blonde hair with his other empty hand, making her rolled up,  revealing her slender neck. He slowly approached, and the foul smell made Emberlynnn gasp. “Looking at me like that again, the rope will become the chain, and the spike will sit on the wooden stake. When you die, your soul will be extracted, and those crazy people will be make you become The Devourers–” Then, he viciously spat on her face. 

Upon hearing the devourers, Emberlynn’s body could not help but tremble. Nothing was more terrible than becoming a devourer. Everyone believed that people’s souls would rest well after death, but becoming a devourer completely cut off this possibility. She had not seen it, but Mentor Ketter and all the sages she had encountered before warned her that the devourer was a collection of grievances in which the soul was constantly refined and distorted. No one knew what would happen to them after they died. They had no home. 

She lowered her head, and Stitch’s saliva meandered along her cheeks, drops by drops, mixed with a stench, fell on the sand, leaving white foam, and she had nothing to say, and her mind fell into a blank. 

I’d rather die here than becoming The Devourers. She thought helplessly. My death is near. 

The Roaring strand still ruthlessly echoed, booming with rhythm, like a grand symphony. She pulled the corners of her mouth and couldn’t help but laugh. The thunderous beating was more intense but somehow it made her calm. Her mind began to paint a picture of her being submerged again and again by the waves: giant waves, slapping down from her head, eardrums isolated from all outside sound by the sea water, only the brine was washing her constantly, like a hug. 

Disclaimer: This is an original English work of the site owner. All rights reserved.