“Protect them,” Florence instructed her slithers, each of them giving a nod. Valeria recognized the olive-skinned woman that turned her around earlier in the party. Florence turned her attention away from them than towards the demons pouring in as she ran at them. Her dress melted into blood, and the blood daggers materialized into her hands. Valeria watched as she effortlessly slashed her way through the demons, cutting them down swiftly with a focused swing. The way she fought reminded her of the way Florence danced.
“Wait, what about Emalia? We’ve got to find her. Dad, do something,” Valeria said, looking to her father that was still trying to calm down Henrik who sobbed harder once their mom left the circle.
“I’m sure she’s fine. Callan is with her,” Derik replied, but the vampire didn’t look convinced. Her father’s eyes were flitting around the courtyard where a blood bath ensued, the same look of dread on his face that echoed her mother’s earlier expression. A flame roared over the yard as Xander entered the fight, his phoenix fire attaching to his back extending into blue flames looking every bit the deadly warrior he was. Xander blasted blue flames into the entrance of the portal, catching the demons as they flowed through. Veronica was beside the portal with purple energy surrounding her in what Valeria assumed was spells trying to defuse the portal. Zoar joined the fight with a loud war cry, his vines ripping through demons as fast as Florence could cut them down. The elf killed rapidly without taking a breath, he cut down the demons as if in an uncontrollable trance. The only one missing from the fight was Callan. Valeria looked around furiously for any sign of her sister or Callan, but she couldn’t see them.
“Dad, I can’t see them,” Valeria cried the little resolve she had breaking as the panic from earlier entered her system again, “I need to go out there. Someone has to help Emalia.”
“No, Valeria. You are forbidden from leaving this circle. Am I understood?” Derik snapped, grabbing onto her with his free arm, his eyes blazing as he gazed at her. There was no room for argument in her father’s eyes.
“But Emalia, we have to help her,” She sobbed, the worry for her sister overtaking her body once more clouding her mind.
“Valeria, look at your mother,” Derik answered calmly, his eyes gesturing over to where Florence cut through the demons her face was surprisingly calm, “Does she look worried?”
“No, but she could just be focused on the battle, where’s Callan? You know he’d never leave her if she was hurt.”
Derik’s next words were drowned out by a howl that echoed over the crowd before a humongous brown wolf entered the fight. It tore through the throngs of demons, ripping each of them apart in his wake, “See, there’s Callan. He wouldn’t be fighting if something happened to Emalia. She’s fine, Emalia is fine.”
The last statement seemed to be more of a reassurance for him than it was for Valeria. She sighed in relief as her father’s words washed over her. The next thought she had was, why hadn’t the slithers tried to get them out of there? Could they not leave?
“Why aren’t we leaving? I need to get my children away from this chaos,” Derik questioned the slithers, taking the question out of Valeria’s mouth and all the slithers exchanged looks, all looking at the slither standing in front of her father. She recognized one of the slithers as the woman with blue hair, the one that Henrik called Blue.
“I’m sorry your highness, but the exits are blocked with debris, and we can’t risk drawing attention to ourselves. So far, the monsters have ignored us,” The slither in front of Derik responded, he was an elf that had one ear cut in half.
“Not that I’m not happy about that, but why? demons kill anything in their path, they don’t have any other goal than murder,” Derik responded, his face was calm, but his voice reflected how nervous he was.
“Something’s not right here,” Blue whispered, causing a few of the other beasts in the circle to murmur amongst themselves in a tongue Valeria couldn’t understand.
“Why aren’t you helping with the fight?” Valeria asked watching as only the members of the Six took on the horde of demons. The slithers fell silent and shifted anxiously.
“Our job is to protect you, Duchess,” The slither in front of her answered, their tone sharp as they looked to the battle, “Those are our orders.”
Just then, the circle opened slightly before Ivan was shoved through.
“Ow, ow, ow, rude,” Ivan exclaimed, falling into Valeria as the circle closed around them again. Ivan, just like the rest of them, covered in ashes but he had little cuts across his cheek and uncovered arms. Valeria could see bits of glass embedded into his arm as he stood straight, “Honestly, I could help them.”
“If you so much as release an ounce of fire magic, you’ll be confined to prison for the rest of your existence and you’ll never see Nova again,” Derik stated, grabbing Ivan’s arm to stop him from pushing away from the slithers, “They’ve got this.”
“I don’t doubt the strength of my beloved or yours, but they are outnumbered twenty to one,” Ivan responded, Valeria could see the anxiety in his eyes and the way he shifted restlessly. Even though she knew her sister had to be safe, that didn’t stop the same feelings from sinking in her gut. If Emalia was safe, where was she?
“They have had worse odds,” Derik responded lowly, his eyes trained on Florence, “They’ve got this.”
“Daddy, are we going to die?” Henrik whimpered, bringing his face out from Derik’s neck to look at their father. The frightened expression on her little brother’s face broke Valeria’s heart. He shouldn’t have had to see any of this.
“No, my love. We are not going to die,” Derik said stroking Henrik’s face lovingly, “I swear to the Creator and all the stars that light the sky that we will make it through this night. All of us. When this is over, we will find your sister and go back to the manor and have all the bloodsicles you want. For now, though, I need you to be brave. Can you do that for me?”
“I’ll try, Daddy but can I not look and still be brave?”
“Of course, you just hold onto me, and everything will be okay,” Derik replied, and Valeria wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry.
“Kalissan Guard should be here by now,” One of the other slither’s snapped drawing Valeria’s eyes away from her family to the elf next to her. She did a double take as she noticed a familiar mark. On the back of their neck was the same scar that was on Edith’s face, the same mark that she saw tattooed on the beast who set off the bomb. This was the Demon King. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t recognized it before. Valeria had been right, this was the anniversary the voices spoke of. The anniversary of the end of the Demon War. Valeria couldn’t help but think that this whole thing was her fault. As she looked around at the carnage around the courtyard, although the dead were mostly the demons, innocent beast’s were still injured. Valeria could have prevented this. Suddenly a wave of nausea overtook her, but she held herself up, it would do her no good to dwell on this now, but what was she going to tell her mother? She had to confess to her parents, it was the least she could do.
“They’re targeting Riley. Protect the High King,” Xander shouted over the roar of the fight, Florence pulled her daggers from a demon’s neck, looking up at her comrade before zipping to the High Kings side. Callan did the same, grabbing a demon between his jaws throwing it up so that Florence could sever its head. Xander was right, the demons were heading straight for the High King, ignoring everything else in the courtyard for their target.
“How much longer on the portal?” Florence shouted to Veronica as she dodged the jaws of a demon. The sorcerer’s hands were moving in a blur of purple light and sweat sliding down her face.
“Three minutes,” Veronica responded before having to pause to shoot a spear of magic at a demon heading her way, “Two minutes if you can keep the demons off me.”
“Zoar, protect Veronica,” Florence hollered to the elf, Zoar did not seem to comprehend her, and she shouted again. The elf finally seemed to
understand, moving quickly beside the sorcerer and defending her back. One by one, the demon’s fell at the hands of the legendary golden six or what remained of them. Valeria understood why they were the chosen ones. This was the reason the Creator chose them to be their weapons. Not an army of thousands but five warriors who worked like the magical currents of the planet. She wondered what it was like when Adella was still alive when their sextuplet was complete.
As soon as the battle had started, it had finished. The remaining members of the Six stood covered in ashes and blood but victorious. The demons were slain, the High King was safe, and they had successfully protected Beastmora again. All but Zoar stopped fighting, the Elven prince was still beating a demon into the ground viciously. Xander sighed and made his way over to the elf.
“Zoar, it’s over. You can rest now, brother,” The phoenix urged, pulling Zoar away from the limp body. Valeria held back a gasp at how bloody the elf appeared. As soon as Xander’s hand touched the elf, he let out another war cry and lunged at her Uncle.
“Zoar, no,” Veronica shouted as the other Six jumped in to pull Zoar off of Xander who held his hands up in defense. There was a flurry of movement as the five of them wrestled on the ground to separate the two.
“Zoar!” Holland shouted, scrabbling up from under one of the tables, at the sound of his mates voice, Zoar stopped, his entire body deflating as he took in his mate’s form running at him. The other members slumped to the floor with weary sighs as Holland kneeled in front of Zoar.
“Holland?” He questioned, his light eyes confused as he blinked and looked around them, “Where are we? What happened?”
“We are at the Demon War Anniversary celebration,” Holland responded softly, touching Zoar’s dirty cheek, “There was an attack.”
The elf looked around at the dead bodies of Demons, his eyes wide before looking back at his mate, “It happened again, didn’t it?”
“Yes my dear, It did,” Holland answered, wrapping an arm around his shoulders before leading him away from the others, sending them a strained smile.
“I’m done here,” Veronica spat out before turning on her heel and walking off in the opposite direction as Zoar and Holland.
Once they were gone, Florence looked over at the circle where Valeria and the others stood, when the head slither gave her a nod towards the stage where another wolf with a long scar down his face crouched in front of it. Her mom took off towards it as the slither helped two other Wolves out of the crevice. One of them was Emalia and the other Maria, the two omegas were covered in dust that stood out, especially in the bright orange hair of her sister. A weight was lifted off Valeria’s chest at the sight of Emalia, her sister didn’t appear to be wounded. She watched as King Riley began to speak to Emalia only to be pushed aside by Florence as she pulled the wolf to her. Valeria listened in to the conversation as Derik started to check her over and tell Henrik he could look now.
“Are you okay?” Florence asked urgently, her hands patting over Emalia, checking for any injuries, “Are you hurt?”
“No, Mom,” Emalia responded with a weak smile, “Just a few bumps and bruises but nothing that won’t heal by the next nightfall. I’m okay, Mom.”
Florence sighed in relief before releasing her to Callan, who held Emalia just as tightly as her mother had. The two Wolves whispering things Valeria couldn’t make out as the mates held onto each other. Florence’s eyes flickered back to where Valeria and the others stood, flashing over them all before scanning the rest of the room.
“Thank you, Mamoru,” Callan said to the wolf who’d opened the door under the stage. This must be Emalia’s slither. He was more attractive than Valeria imagined him even with the scar on his face.
“Well it is my job,” Mamoru responded with a nod, his blue eyes lingering on Emalia for a second before he looked to Florence for directions.
“Let’s get back to the others,” Florence responded, putting a hand on both Emalia and Callan urging them toward where Valeria stood, “I’m sure your father is about to burst a blood vessel.”
As soon as they had reached the circle, Henrik had practically jumped from Derik’s arms into Florence’s, and her father pulled Emalia into a fierce hug, repeating the same check Florence had done moments prior. Her mom was talking lowly to Henrik, giving Valeria a once over and she knew as soon as she was done coddling her brother, she was next.
“Report,” Mamoru said looking to the other slithers and Valeria realized that he must be the leader. They lapsed back into a language Valeria couldn’t understand. From the corner of her eye, she could see her mother watching Mamoru intently soaking up everything that was said. After the others were finished giving the report, Mamoru looked to Florence. She spoke in a language that Valeria couldn’t identify before they dispersed, following the orders she had given. Florence turned her attention to Valeria, brushing ashes from her cheek and smoothing the strands of hair that had fallen into her face.
“You’re alright,” She murmured, it was not a question but a statement or more accurately, a reassurance.
“What language was that?” Valeria asked, looking imploringly at her mother, but she looked towards Henrik where he was watching them from his father’s arms.
“Fae,” Her mom responded, reaching over and brushing Henrik’s wild curls behind his ear. Valeria noticed Florence’s blood armor hadn’t receded yet, but the blood that had splattered on her had absorbed into the armor.
“V, are you hurt?” Emalia asked, running her eyes over Valeria’s form.
“I’m fine, just a little shaken up,” She replied before pulling her sister into a hug, “You were so close to the explosion, I thought something happened to you.”
“It’s okay the ashes protected us just like you, Henrik and Dad.”
“Ashes, what do you mean?” Valeria looked at her sister like she’d grown another head. The ashes didn’t appear till after the explosion how could it have saved them.
“Tatiana’s ashes,” Emalia said putting a hand over her necklace, the one that was identical to all of their siblings own, “Mom separated Tatiana’s ashes after her death and gave everyone in our family a necklace containing them.”
“Oh, I guess I never really noticed,” She murmured, holding onto her own necklace. Wolves ashes had protective properties against magic. When a wolf died, the magic still clung to their bodies, so they burned the body to use the ashes as a protective barrier around their pack’s territories. Valeria had never heard of putting the ashes into objects to protect the wearer. Her mother really was a genius.
“The Kalissan Guard has finally arrived,” Ivan scoffed from his place beside Xander, Valeria looked over and sure enough both medics and guards had entered the courtyard, “Glad they could show up after everything is taken care of.”
“The magical blast fried everyone’s communicators,” Xander responded, holding up his wrist to show the dead device, “They could not have known.”
“So the surge of magic and explosion wasn’t enough of an indicator?” Florence muttered Henrik who was still clutching onto Florence looked up.
“Are you hurt, Mama?” Her brother asked softly, Florence smiled softly down at her son, and Valeria looked her mother over. She was still veiled in ashes but didn’t appear hurt.
“A little,” Florence responded soothingly, squeezing her son lightly, “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I was brave,” Henrik said with a smile, “I only cried a little bit.”
“I know, and I’m so proud of you,” Florence answered, pressing a kiss to his forehead, “I’m sorry you had to be brave. I wish you hadn’t seen that.”
“It’s okay but can I sleep with you and Daddy today?” Henrik questioned earning a nod from Florence.
“I saw them at the museum, but I didn’t… I didn’t expect the smell,” Valeria answered honestly.
“Quite foul, isn’t it?” Florence mused, “I don’t believe they practice good hygiene.”
Valeri
a laughed despite all of it, “Yeah, I don’t suppose they do.”
“The members of Team A and B or the ones that weren’t here should be showing up soon,” Florence added with a sigh, adjusting her son on her hip, “No doubt we will be forced to go through a medical check-up.”
“How long until we can go home?” Valeria questioned, anxiety filled her again. She needed to tell her mom what she heard but did she really have to? What good would it do now?
“That depends on who is leading the medics,” Florence responded, “Statements are unnecessary because of the Archivists present. They always have protection on them, even from a blast.”
“Like what we have?” Valeria questioned, touching her necklace again.
“No. Archivists use a magical stone called the Archivist Stone, it allows the Archivists to record an event without being injured or disturbed. It is powerful magic, fueled by the planet of course and the stone is only distributed exclusively to Archivists,” Florence explained nodding towards a merperson who stood in the corner, unmoving and his eyes glazed over in white as he observed. Around his neck was a white stone that emitted a bubble around his person, “Nothing can get inside that bubble, not even the Destroyer themselves.”
“Why wouldn’t they use that to protect the cities?” Valeria questioned.
“They do,” Florence responded quietly in Old Vampiric, “If someone from the inside opens a portal, the stone does nothing to stop it.”
Valeria’s eyes widened at the implication, “Someone here opened the portal.”
“The Archivist Stone has only one loophole, the secret is only exchanged among sovereigns and Archivists,” Florence said, her eyes were scanning the courtyard, watching as the medics healed the wounded and carted out the dead. Her eyes stopped on the corpse of a demon, her eyes drew calculating.
“What is it?” Valeria inquired, still soaking up the information, and her mother silently handed her Henrik before she moved towards the corpse. This drew the attention of their group and a couple of others. She kneeled beside it before placing a drop of blood on her finger and examining it. Whatever she saw caused her eyes to widen.
Beastmora- The Golden Six Page 19