"Daggers of Darkness, Book 2, The Heart of Élendor": Epilogue
#10 of Daggers of Darkness, Book 2, The Heart of Élendor
UPDATE 2018-11-20: Added the new cover art.
Here is the final part of "Daggers of Darkness: The Heart of Élendor", the Epilogue.
I'll be starting on book #3 in the series, "Daggers of Darkness: On The Trail of Legends" after this, so stay tuned!
Epilogue
When they left Terra to go to Élendor so that they could pick up the trail of the strange pre-civilization artifact known as The Heart, the crews of Nightwing_and _Se'nika had no idea where it would lead.
Visiting the unusual structure that had held The Heart proved to be an eye-opener. With the discovery of the life-sized relief images within the central chamber depicting beings that closely resembled G.E.L.F.s and humans of Terra and others, and the realization that the structure had been created billions of years in the past before life arose on Élendor Prime, and was completely untouched by the passage of time, gave rise to haunting questions.
Intending to make a quick side trip to the colony world of Élenswena to drop off Sa'n'sriel Læree'ahna, had quickly thrust both ships into combat with an invading alien species that struck fear into the Mûr Tua'ansa crew of the Se'nika_for they had encountered them before. During the battle, a strange vessel that bore a disturbing resemblance to a giant wolf arrived unexpectedly and saved the day, but then somehow dragged both _Nightwing_and _Se'nika thousands of lightyears across the galaxy in the blink of an eye--half the distance to the nebula known to Terran astronomers as NGC-2359.
Thor's Helmet--where the long dead world of Chenau-Ri was located; the place where Cameron Eriksson, Sy'k'rell Hauvri'ahn, and Arlan Schneider had disappeared while on an archaeological dig. Just how they had gotten to that world so quickly, nearly ten thousand lightyears away, was a mystery, but the clues were starting to come together.
With the enigmatic giant wolf vessel seemingly herding them along, the crews of both ships, the science team, and the two Élendorians--Miss Ja'f'darwe and Felix Canberra's now wife, Læree'ahn, went on to rescue students from the predations of raiders, a lively reptilian pilot whose ship had been attacked by members of the criminal element, and the future leader of a world.
The Heart had called to them through a shared dream. Lilly's dream, however, terrified her--would it prove to be prophetic, or was it just misunderstood symbolism?
The First Ones were preparing to once again walk openly among the Younger Races. Just as they had guided countless worlds in the universe they had come to when it was in its infancy, they now guided the path of those aboard Nightwing_and _Se'nika, who would discover more pieces of the puzzle laid out for them to solve. The world of Chenau-Ri, one of the earliest habitable planets in the Milky Way galaxy, now long dead and nearly forgotten, would provide the first tangible clues that will lead them to a fateful encounter with one of the most powerful beings anyone could imagine...
...a First One.