His beloved adopted father’s face.
One he had not seen in half a decade but he remembered it perfectly. His father’s face was screwed up in pain. There was no relaxation of death upon it though it was clear to Declan he had been dead for some time. No, the face showed agony. And fear.
There was a rustling ahead of Declan down a path that Aquilan had not gone. There was a rustling behind him too. But Declan didn’t move. He just stood there. Staring.
He had not known what had happened to Tyler Wilde. He and Finley had assumed that his adopted father had been killed somewhere in Lightwell. They’d theorized vaguely that maybe Tyler had been taken to the Under Dark. But neither of them had really believed that.
Or rather, neither of them had wanted to believe that.
But here was proof of what had happened to his adopted father. Tyler had been snatched from his home and taken by monsters to a place where there was no light. He then had been cocooned in this terrible place where the Leviathan had fed on him for who knew how long. Hours? Days? A week?
And Tyler had clearly suffered. Up to the very end, he’d been terrified and in pain. The very end…
They’re here for you, Declan. They’re here for you.
But they had taken Tyler instead. They had taken Alexia. They had taken so many lives…
No more, he thought in a voice that was and wasn’t his. No. More.
The rustling was more insistent. It had become the hissing of coils. The sound was all around him. He thought he heard Aquilan call his name in alarm. But the Sun King sounded so far away.
And Declan was glad. Because he didn’t want Aquilan anywhere near this.
Without conscious thought. Without trying at all. Declan brought his magic to life. Cold flooded him in a tidal wave of power. The jewel in the end of Ardreth burned as bright as the Sun, but it was red. Red as blood.
The Leviathan converged against him all at once, thinking he was distracted or worse. But he was waiting for them. He didn’t even have to move Ardreth to cut them down. They simply disintegrated when they came within a foot of him. Fangs clanged all around him. There were violent hisses, shrieks, roars and more as death spread out in waves all around him and the power of those deaths fueled Ardreth.
He knew the moment it was enough.
He brought the sword up almost leisurely, languidly, slowly.
Alarm was running through the nest. More than alarm. Terror. The Leviathan were racing away from him, deeper inside, thinking to hide themselves from his wrath. But there was nowhere they could hide from him. Nowhere at all.
Magic pulsed inside of him and flowed into Ardreth, adding to its impossible power. The sounds the Leviathan were making were deafening. Declan slowly sliced Ardreth through the air in front of him. A graceful, almost gentle motion as if he were performing a kata. Magic erupted from it. Red. Crimson. Fire. Destruction. It blotted out everything else.
And then there was silence.
From roars to nothing in a second.
Declan’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness again. He blinked once, twice, more and the world resolved itself once more. The cavern was clear. No more nest. No more Leviathan. The lichen were fine. But nothing of the enemy remained except the single cocoon with Tyler’s remains. It stood upright for a second, but then started to fall. Declan grabbed for it, but as he touched it, the cocoon broke apart into a sea of white ash. Tyler’s face disappeared into a mass of white-gray. Declan let out a sound that was thin and low.
Rahven. His father was suddenly in his mind. He had never left, Declan realized. He had never left. His voice was kind. So kind. Nothing like before. I am sorry for your loss.
Declan was on his knees. He was covered in gray-white ash. The currents in the cavern caused the particles to dance. His eyes closed. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he cradled nothing. Tyler Wilde was no more. Just like the Leviathan in the cavern.
Maybe I did kill Ashryn, Father, Declan sent. Maybe I did.
He collapsed just as Aquilan reached him. The Sun King dove down to him just as he fell. Unconsciousness welcomed him with open arms.
Iefyr
Darcassan was hiding something. Elasha was certain of this. But what?
She’d kept her eyes on him the whole time… Except for a minute when they’d all split up to get the weapons that Helgrom indicated they could take. Each one of these weapons was worth a king’s ransom. They would have been considered the greatest works of any Aravae House, but here they were scattered around in abundance as if they were nothing.
She’d hustled after the set of daggers that were like silver shards of moonlight, a long sword fused with gold and silver running through it, and a shield that when she looked into it didn’t reflect her face back, but another elf’s. She stared at the countenance of a female elf that could have been her mother’s twin, but for the white-blonde hair and seafoam green eyes. The elf stared back at her in a measuring manner before the face was obscured by clouds. Elasha wasn’t sure if she had been approved of… or completely found lacking.
But the point was that she had moved like lightning, dumping the weapons and shield by Glom’s reptilian feet, before dashing after Darcassan. She’d been in such a hurry that she’d brushed against a suit of armor that had bumped against him. Darcassan–who had been taking down the two black bows from their racks that Helgrom had indicated for him to pick up–turned around and gave her a raised eyebrow.
