Thank you, Finley smiled. I’m so glad you’re here.
They’d gone quite a distance from the garden where he’d found Rhalyf and his head felt a little clearer. He had moved back into Rhalyf’s arms. In fact, he was practically suction-cupped to Rhalyf’s side. He was leaning against Rhalyf, rubbing his cheek against the Kindreth’s robes like a kitten wanting petting. His mind went back to all he had done since he’d met Rhalyf. Finley blinked. And colored. He stopped the rubbing.
“Rhalyf, the pollen you keep mentioning…”
“Aphrodisiac, I’m afraid. Vex planted it all over the place to encourage orgies after the re-enactment of the Forever Hunt,” Rhalyf answered.
“Oh.”
Rhalyf sighed. “You mustn’t be embarrassed, Finley. I’m quite chuffed you think I’m relatively handsome–”
“Gorgeous. I believe the word I used was gorgeous,” Finley answered faintly.
“Don’t worry! I won’t bring that up. Too often,” Rhalyf chuckled, totally pleased with this.
Finley stopped in his tracks. He wasn’t sure why he was going to say the next thing he did to Rhalyf. Really the Kindreth had given him a perfect way out. The pollen had caused him to act this way with the elf! These weren’t his real feelings! He was just drunk on pollen and…
“I did mean what I said, Rhalyf,” Finley told the elf. Rhalyf was back to holding his hands again.
“Well, I–”
“No, please don’t say anything to deflect what I’m trying to tell you.” Finley grimaced. Rhalyf had gone silent and the joking smile was gone. His expression was unreadable. “I hope I didn’t embarrass you by what I said and did. You’re an elf. Beautiful and everything. While I’m just human.” With a skeleton army! “So I realize a human mooning over your beauty is likely–”
“Wonderful,” Rhalyf cut him off. “Because it’s you, Finley. And you don’t say or think those things about just anybody.”
Finley blinked. That sounded suspiciously heartfelt. Which was good. He lowered his head. “The pollen didn’t make me think those things about you. They’re true. I just hope I didn’t offend you by expressing those things to you so physically.”
“Offend me? Finley, I…” Rhalyf tipped his chin up so that they were looking at one another. “I was honored. And nothing you did offended me. But I promise not to read anything into you speaking them outloud or acting on them physically.”
That teasing smile was back, but this time it was welcome. It wasn’t dismissive. It was almost a challenge.
Finley opened his mouth. He wasn’t sure what he would have said right then, because there was a sudden roar, hiss, shatter, break! The sound was like a million rattlesnakes had suddenly come to insane life and were about to strike.
“Leviathan!” Finley gasped.
“Yes, and lots of them,” Rhalyf muttered. His head lifted and he pointed in a direction somewhere north of the city. “There! It’s coming from there! And I sense Aquilan and–”
“Declan!” Finley felt his best friend’s magical signature. It was like a supernova. “We need to get to them!”
With determination, Rhalyf growled, “Yes, we do.”
Ashes
Declan saw explosions of light up ahead of him as he raced over the dark stone, slicing Leviathan right and left as they came upon him from all sides. Time seemed to slow as he focused on the figure that appeared as a silhouette limned by sunlight. Long hair. Lithe muscular body. Flowing white robes with slashes of crimson. Golden sword.
Aquilan!
Declan put on a greater spurt of speed and leaned forward, becoming more aerodynamic in the process. A Leviathan struck from his right, trying to sweep his legs out from under him. He leaped over the smoky coils even as he brought Ardreth’s tip down and sliced through them. A roar and hiss were the response and then the familiar clunk of the fang left behind.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the red jewel at the base of Ardreth’s hilt was glowing brighter than it had been before. When he’d first unsheathed it–if that’s really what having it appear in his hand from his back was–there had only been a faint red glow deep within the jewel, but with each subsequent death of a Leviathan that glow had grown in brilliance, but had diminished in distance. Whereas at the beginning, the glow had appeared like a far off star, now it seemed as if the light was swimming to the very surface of the gem, almost as if it was going to break through. Burst out. Explode.
Another Leviathan came up from behind him, surging forward, thinking to catch him unawares. But Declan knew it was there. As a tentacle tried to tighten into a noose around his neck, he flipped backwards. That might have seemed like an odd choice to go towards his attacker. But it was so unexpected that the Leviathan froze. His body arched over the pursuer as he flipped head over feet. The Leviathan let out a shiver-hiss of anger as he was just out of reach of its coils. Ardreth swept below him, cutting the Leviathan neatly in two. Clank. Another fang fell and rolled away. Declan lightly landed on his feet and he was racing forwards again. Aquilan was much closer. He ran faster.
Two Leviathan sought to converge upon him as he was a dozen feet from the Sun King. He brought Ardreth across his front in an arc of death. Clank. Clank. The Leviathans’ translucent bodies were gone and he could see the glow of dawn only a few feet from him. He leaned towards Aquilan’s light almost like a flower starved for sunlight. The Adiva went cold against his chest, protecting him from the brilliant illumination that would have hurt him, but for its presence. But he didn’t care. He was like a moth to the moon with Aquilan. Ever straining to get to that luminous body.
He arrived at Aquilan’s side just as the Sun King sent a handful of what looked like glittering dust into the air all around him. It glimmered and sparked rather like fireworks that were falling to earth. But unlike those embers that would wink out before they touched the ground, when these embers struck the nearby Leviathan they flared, becoming brighter and spreading. Fire streaked through the smoky coils causing the Leviathan to shake and shriek before they became half-moon shaped fangs that clattered on the ground.
Aquilan turned just as Declan stopped his forward momentum. The Leviathan for fifty-feet in any direction were dead. They were alone and allowed to breathe for just a few moments. Looking into Aquilan’s beautiful face–luminous really–which was filled with joy at seeing him had Declan’s greeting sticking in his throat. What he felt was so large when he gazed into those crystalline blue eyes that he couldn’t get it out of the tight, too narrow slot of his throat. So he acted instead.
