by Oxford, Rain
“Kiro is working with Dylan on something else.” Though I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. “If Janus did act first, he must have known something was happening. When he is found, I want to know what tipped him off and why he didn’t warn Dylan.”
“Is Janus our friend or enemy?”
“He is our friend until proven otherwise.”
“Hey!” Hail said, poking me hard in the arm and pointing off to a crowd behind me. “Someone just vanished. Like Dad and the gods do, some woman just disappeared.”
“Did she look familiar?” I asked.
He hesitated. “I only saw her out of the corner of my eye.”
That is not an answer to the question, Rojan thought. Suddenly, we were standing in a desert valley, surrounded my dark caves. Rojan made a soft purr of delight and Hail rolled his eyes.
“Not now, Rojan, we have demons to hunt.” The words were barely out of Hail’s mouth when fire spewed from the nearest cave. Demons, once again in human form, spilled from the cave. Although they were obviously driven away by the fire, they were uninjured.
More demons were forced out of other caves until we were the ones surrounded, then people emerged to block their cave entrances.
Malta, Rojan though. This is the fire tribe of Malta.
At least it isn’t the water tribe. “These people can use fire, but no other magic. All of the people of Malta I have met so far have been warm to foreigners,” I said to Hail. He nodded. Instead of creating a shield, I grasped Hail by the arm, pulled him closer, and created a fire tornado around us.
This was powerful enough to cause the demons pain and drive them away from us, but not to kill them outright. Then Hail reached his hand out towards the fire. Something formed in my fire that flashed like tiny pieces of metal. This time, when a demon tried to cross the fire, he burst into ashes.
Hail aimed his bow, his arrow notched, and released the string. The arrow shot through the eye of one demon, who burst into ash, and kept flying into the heart of another demon, who also burst into ash. Once the arrow hit the ground, it vanished and reappeared in his quiver.
Two more tried and each met the same fate. The remaining dozen realized that they were outmatched and vanished. I let my fire recede. “Why are the demons running so easily?” I asked.
“They are testing the strength of Dylan’s defenses as well the extensiveness of it,” Emrys said, approaching us from one of the caves.
The man hadn’t aged a day since I met him. His hair, which drove Ron nuts, was a primarily brown, but with blond, black, and red as well. Oddly, his eyes changed more than Ron’s hair did. This time, they were sea-foam-green. His clothes, which were simple and black, were the only thing that didn’t draw attention.
“So there have been a lot of---” Except I was talking to thin air; we were now on a different world. “That’s a bit rude, cutting me off mid-sentence,” I said, as if Vretial could hear me.
“Vretial doesn’t have a lot of manners,” Hail agreed.
We were in a forest with a small tribe of people. There was no time to ascertain our location before the demons attacked. They were more difficult to defeat because we had to be careful of the people. With sword and magic, I fought for what felt like hours before the demons were vanquished.
Next, we were on a small island of… women. There were only gorgeous women with very scant clothing and nothing to defend themselves with. Hail took one look at the women and lowered his bow. I could smell his hormones going wild, which was my first clue as to what these women were. Hail was always strongly attracted to fae.
They spoke quietly with fear as they surrounded us. If it were not for the brilliant white hair and elegant wings, I would have assumed they were people. Each of them had soft, innocent faces and bodies that could be the fantasy of any man. Some of them had white wings while some were iridescent.
The woman who approached us first was completely naked with huge white wings that fluttered with nerves. When she tried to kiss Hail, I drew my sword. She stepped back with her hands out innocently and spoke in an elegant language that sounded like silk from her lips.
“Wait, wait,” Hail said quickly. “She says she just wants to communicate.” She was speaking as he translated. He spoke back in the same language, which clearly shocked them all. Three women reached out to stroke his back. “They learn language through… apparently kissing. That’s brilliant.”
“Ask her if she knows anything about…” I stopped myself because Hail wasn’t listening.
He reached out, snaked his hand around the back of her neck, and pulled her into a deep kiss. She gasped with shock, but after a second, she closed her eyes with a moan. Her wings changed from white to iridescent, which I couldn’t imagine was a good thing.
I growled when he ran his free hand across her chest and then openly groped her. Other women around us looked completely confused as to what has happening, further proving my theory that they were entirely innocent.
Hail was about the stroke the woman’s fluttering wings when another woman tugged on his shoulder to break the two up. He turned to the impatient woman, leaving the first woman dazed and panting. The second woman kissed him with more enthusiasm than the first had shown and pressed her body flush against his.
Ron was going to be pissed.
One of the women approached me, obviously with a kiss in mind, but I held up my hand to stop her. She halted mid-step. “No,” I said. She took a step back.
Why not? Rojan thought.
This isn’t the time to be distracted.
While Hail was only sixteen, he looked a good three or four years older and was built as if he did manual labor for twenty years. The woman currently licking Hail’s teeth broke away and turned to present her iridescent wings in their grandest display. He reached out…
An explosion shook the trees. Hail stepped away from the woman, pulled an arrow from the quiver, and notched it. When the demons attacked, they were in the form of dragons, which I found ironic and a little bit insulting. If these women were most frightened of dragons, I couldn’t expect them to be okay with being saved by one. Nevertheless, I stripped out of my clothes and shifted. The fae screamed and dived for cover among the trees, which was a good thing as I was huge and needed space.
My opponents were copying the image of smaller forest dragons, extremely similar in form to Krayer. One lounged himself at me and I grasped him by the neck in my teeth. As he tried to strike me with the spike on his tail, I caught it with my left front paw and then crushed his windpipe. Blood spilled an instant before he reverted to ash.
The dragon fight was much easier than a sword fight because it was instinct instead of training. One of the demons changed into a person and tried to pick up the azurath sword, only to find it too heavy. I laughed as best as a dragon could and stepped on him. He burst into ash.
Hail was able to take out his fair share of demons with his bow and used his power more to show off than anything else. The women, of course, ate it up. By the time the demons were defeated, Hail had a major fan club. How he ended up with his shirt off, I had no idea, but the fae were pawing at him and pressing against him like they had never seen a man before.
“Tell them to leave you alone, or else I will get out the baby pictures,” I threatened, pulling my clothes back on.
His eyes widened in fear before a deep laugh filled the space. Xul appeared between us. “I would really love to see those myself.”
“What did you find out?” I asked.
“Nothing so far, I just thought this might help you out,” he said, holding something metal out. I took it, confused. It was Dylan’s pentagram. “I know you can’t be with Dylan right now, so I figured you couldn’t draw his magic, either. It’s full of his energy.”
I nodded. “Thank you.” It was a good possibility that I would need Iadnah energy, and Dylan’s was the only Iadnah energy that I could use.
“Also, I really advise against touching their wings, because that will mate y
ou to them for life,” the Ancient said, then vanished.
Hail crossed his arms with his hands under his armpits. “Good to know. We are on Raktusha, by the way,” he said.
Vretial’s world… Figures.
“What did you promise him in order to heal me?” he asked.
“What did you see in your vision that you were so afraid to tell me?” I asked.
Suddenly, we were back in Dylan’s cabin. “Rest now, while everything is peaceful,” the god’s voice whispered in my mind.
It was difficult to unwind knowing my brother and my young nephew were out there fighting, but I knew I was of more use when my mind was clear. I took a bath to heat the knots from my muscles and then checked on the two teenagers. They were in the same bed, but Hail was responsible enough that he wouldn’t do anything without carefully considering the consequences… but just to be sure…
“If you get Sari pregnant, Ron will neuter you,” I whispered into the dark room, “with glass, dirt, and fire.” After that, I went to bed.
* * *
I stood in the center of the room. Three walls were white while one was clear glass showing an identical room where Sydney stood. She looked so alive, but she didn’t acknowledge me or move at all. I turned when I sensed someone appear beside me.
He looked disheveled with a tall, thin build. His eyes and hair were dark while his skin was pale, as if he had never seen the sunlight. Rojan growled and my fire stirred angrily. This was an evil man… or dead man. I scented no life on him, but he didn’t smell like a demon, either.
He grinned as I studied him. “Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Dleso Atos, High King of Dios, and I have come to offer you what you want more than anything.”
Instead of answering, I looked back at Sydney.
“Her soul has been saved. I knew what it would take and I managed to save her from the destructive forces of the void. If you want her back, you need only do one simple thing,” he said. I turned back to him. “I want you to bring Dylan to me.”
I opened my mouth to reject his offer.
“Mordon!” It was her voice, causing my entire body to shudder with longing. “Mordon, please help me! It’s so dark here.”
My mouth opened as Rojan took over with more force than he had ever used on me before. “I will do it, but you must give my mate back to me first.”
The man smirked. “You do not trust me?” He laughed when Rojan just glared. “I cannot bring her back until the war, and I will not do so if you do not bring him to me. You have until Dylan sheds a drop of demon blood to bring him to me if you ever want to see Sydney again.”
Chapter 8
Ron
“The third weapon is the battle axe, which is on Mulo. To acquire it, you must go to the monks, who will give you three tasks. How long they take and how difficult they are depends on your own skills,” Alice said.
We were standing in a dark place, which made sense to me; Mulo was a cold world, so the population lived underground. “I need more than a dark cavern to go on to flash here.”
The four torches on the walls flared up to spill more light into the room. I realized we were in a stone tunnel with a round, stone door right in front of me. A symbol was etched into the center of the door. I recognized the pentacle with lines crossing and looping through it as the symbol of Mulo because Hail, Mordon, Dad, and I signed all the books.
* * *
The sound of arguing woke me from my sleep. Annoyed, I opened my eyes and sat up. Sen and Drake were at it again, and I wasn’t any more interested in their problem than I was the first time.
Where are we?” I asked, sizing up the six-by-eight room we were in. Curious about the rough look of the cream-colored walls, I reached over and touched them. They were an odd, vaguely repulsive texture similar to paper-mache. The floor was dusty concrete, the bed was smaller than a twin, and there was nothing in the room aside from the bed. Worse still was the fact that although there was a doorway, there was no door.
The only redeeming feature of the room was the fabulous, deep red blanket, which had a fabric as smooth as silk and a ridiculously soft filling.
Drake and Sen, who were in the hallway right outside the doorway, turned to me. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you,” Drake whispered, as if that would do any good now. “When you fixed everything in the museum… you sort of passed out.”
How embarrassing.
“Elwyn was very grateful that you came back to help, so she let us stay in her room,” Sen explained.
“And you decided we should stay in a closet instead?” I asked.
“This is not a closet,” Drake whispered.
“No, you’re right. A closet this size wouldn’t even hold all my clothes. Anyway, we have work to do.” I stood and reluctantly released the lovely blanket.
“They also invited us to breakfast,” Drake said shyly.
I couldn’t imagine that Enep had anything in the way of food to offer that I could stomach. Maybe rock soup or turnip pie.
“We need to get the next weapon as soon as possible,” I argued.
Sen stuck his bottom lip out. “Please, Ron, I’m hungry,” he whined.
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Fine, but I’m not being polite if they try to serve us mud pies.”
Seimei waited for me in the hall and followed us. Apparently, Drake and Sen knew where to go, because after a few minutes of walking through endless narrow, dirt hallways the space opened up to a larger room. Although it was larger and had more torches, it was just as dreary as the rest of the place. I hated underground worlds.
In the center of the room was a heavy wooden table piled high with trays of bread, meat, and vegetables. I was curious as so how they managed these ingredients.
People surrounded the table, chatting happily with each other as they ate the food with their hands. We took a few open seats and since nobody seemed to notice us and everyone else was already eating, we helped ourselves.
First of all, the meat was lukewarm at best. Second, I realized immediately upon tasting it that both the meat and veggies were boiled. Third, these people had never heard of seasoning before. I honestly didn’t know food could be so bland. The bread, in fact, was at least a week old, or possibly made with some foreign ingredients that should have been outlawed for public safety.
“Screw being polite. This is gross,” I said.
Drake kept his eyes forward and took another bite of the bread, clearly trying not to gag. “Shut up, shut up, and smile like you like it. We cannot offend these people. You have no idea who might be a supporter of your dad.”
“Hey, what is this meat?” Sen asked.
I shrugged. “Well, we know the Arcani can die. Perhaps they don’t really know how to take care of the bodies so they figured they could kill two birds with one stone… or eat them in this case.”
Drake leaned away from the food, very nearly vomiting. When he finally seemed stable, he sat back up. A few people noticed the commotion, but quickly returned to their conversations.
“You look kind of pale,” I pointed out, noticing Drake’s lack of color. As I spoke, I felt Regivus’s presence press against my mind impatiently. Although he was being lenient on me, I had way overstayed my welcome.
“I have been underground for too long. Really, don’t worry about me.”
But I couldn’t help it. I still saw him as the tiny boy who was recovering from cancer, loved superman, and wore soft wool hats. “I think I have eaten enough. Let’s go,” I said. We went back into the tunnel and walked for a few minutes until we were sure we were alone. Then I flashed us, not to Malta but to the hot springs on Duran.
The sun was shining brightly overhead and the water was crystal clear as usual. “Wow!” Drake said, lifting his face to feel the sunlight full on. “It’s beautiful here.”
“But why did you bring us here? This isn’t Mulo.”
“Because I wanted a break,” I lied. “I’m not used to working so much.”
<
br /> He was skeptical, but Drake stripped down and jumped in the water before Sen could come up with a decent argument. Sen joined him and I chilled out in the sun with Seimei for a while before going for a swim as well. An hour later, we redressed somberly. None of us wanted to go to another underground world.
I flashed us to Mulo, where the symbol was etched into the wall. Four torches lined the hallway and illuminated the space weakly. Drake and Sen looked at me for direction when the door didn’t immediately open.
Seimei gave a small chirp and pawed at the door. Dad would say there was always a way in and always a way out. Movies never interested me on Earth, but the ones Dad insisted I watched were somewhat instructional. Of course, I also enjoyed staying up late when Dad was at work in order to watch movies I wasn’t actually allowed to see.
I stepped to the right of the nearest torch and pressed myself against the wall before tugging on the lead torch ring. It gave, followed by a two-by-two section of floor to sink. Trap. “Drake, pull that one,” I said, reaching for another torch.
“You’re joking! They’re obviously trapped!”
“Not all of them. Just be careful.” Before I could pull the torch, I noticed small holes in the wall around it. Trap. “Wait!” I shouted. Sen had pulled the last torch without hesitation.
Seimei heard my warning— or sensed danger— and moved faster than any of us. She flattened him, narrowly avoiding the thin blade that shot out from the wall and would have sliced his head off.
When the blade slid back into the wall, Sen slumped against Seimei with relief. “Pull the damn torch,” I told Drake.
“Absolutely not!”
I stomped over to him with my best flounce and pulled the torch. The door separated down the middle and split open to reveal a bright room.
“Sen nearly died!” Drake exploded.
I huffed and flicked my hair. “He didn’t nearly die. Sen is half dragon, half mage; he’s tough. Aren’t you, Sen?” I asked.