Leviathan's King (The Search for the Brights Book 3)

by Aaron Thomas

  Daniel seemed to accept the answer but looked to be in a bit of distress, “Yes. Well, maybe we can catch up later. There are quite a few people waiting for you in the throne room.”

  Kilen reluctantly accepted the answer, “We will talk later then?”

  Daniel shrugged his shoulders before taking up his seat again, and Kilen slowly walked away as he saw the earth wizard Ria observing the entire exchange.

  She walked beside him as he entered the front doorway, now bearing two large wooden doors and black iron hinges.

  “It will take him some time to come to terms with his burdens. He killed a great many people in battle while under the hammer’s influence. He will not be the same for some time, but if you help him he may be able to recover faster,” She said as she led Kilen to a stairway.

  “Thank you for watching over him, Ria,” He said holding out his hand to thank her.

  Ria smiled, “My boy, you surely do have the best of manners. Do not lose it on the throne.”

  Kilen nodded and resumed walking in the direction she was leading when Brent cleared his throat stopping them.

  “Traveling gave me time to look over the books we found when we exhumed this castle. One of which has given me the proper knowledge of the castle that the king’s advisor should have. Please, Majesty, follow me,” Brent said with an air of arrogance to his voice.

  Opening his book he led them down a hallway to where it came to a T intersection and felt the cracks in the wall. Giving a large smile, he closed the book and suddenly the wall shifted and revealed a small chamber. He waved them inside, and the wall slid back into place at Brent’s command. Kilen almost lost his footing as the floor shuddered beneath his feet. He felt as if he were rising and then he saw the shadows moving inside the walls, all rapidly going down.

  The floor shuddered again and Brent gave an excited smile.

  “I welcome you to the throne room,” He said, triggering the second wall to shift.

  As it moved it revealed a room filled with people all talking at once. Two large ornate chairs sat with their backs to the chamber he was in. The room started to notice them walking out and fell silent.

  Many of the people Kilen recognized from his travels in recent months. Gortus and Ray sat close but not close enough to affect each other’s magic. Captain Lorusk sat in the front row with manacles on his wrists. The mayors of Humbridge and Basham whispered to one another. Jessica poured wine for those in attendance. The rest of the crowd consisted of nobles and wielders of times past. A surprising face gave him a smile from the back of the room; Jennifer Augustine was in attendance with a few of her wielders at her side.

  He scanned the crowd, and they stayed silent as he stood in the small chamber. Ria and Brent went to the seat they previously held before they left as Water and Earth Realm Council seats. Kilen finally gave a slight nod and stepped into the room. He was unsure how to conduct himself, not because of the position he now held but because he had never returned home to his wife. He had barely been married to her when he left and wasn’t sure how to act when he greeted her again.

  His stomach leaped up into his throat when he saw the slightest bit of blond hair peek over the top of one of the ornate chairs. Soon, Twilix’s entire head came into view and turned to see him standing there. Her face was not as stoic or unreadable as it once had been, but instead red with emotion. She smiled and cried at the same time upon seeing him. At the sight of her face, he fought back the same emotions. Instead of speaking he walked around the side of the chair to hug her.

  Twilix held before her a book and a blanket that she let fall away as he approached. The book slapped the floor, and Kilen stopped in his tracks. His wife's stomach was protruding and rounder than when he had left. She must have noticed that he was looking and walked to him, closing the distance. While he stood there shocked, she took his hands and placed them on her stomach.

  “You’re going to be a father, my husband,” Twilix said, nearly choking on the words.

  The emotion in Kilen welled up inside of him. Until this moment he had not known how much he wanted to be a father. His knees, even though strength imbued, almost gave way. He knelt down and put his head against where she had placed his hands. He heard her crying tears of what he assumed was joy, but he was no longer listening to her. He was listening for sounds of his unborn child.

  After a moment Brent’s voice cut through the crowd, “Long live Kilen Everheart, King of Leviathan and the Water Realm.”

  He ignored the cheering and applause that he received. Instead, he took Twilix in an embrace that he could have held for eternity.

  Epilogue

  Sahera woke once again in the cold darkness of the dungeon she was now being kept in. The pain in her chest was from a half healed and lethal wound. It had taken only moments for Stephen to destroy the Elder Wizards once her decoy soldiers fell during her unconsciousness.

  The spirit behind her husband’s face had probably planned the moment from the second he left her ten years ago. She should have known better than to let him live that day but just couldn’t bring herself to kill him. The father of her children and the man she fell in love with still had a spirit trapped in the body of her worst enemy.

  Pushing her ability out, she felt each of the individual soulless soldiers she had left. Each one stuck to the shadows and away from the populations of Zepher as the city tried to recover from the devastation both parties created. She urged them to continue their search for a way to rescue her from the darkness.

  Just as she finished her command, a torch lit the stone chamber. Three unknown persons were brought before her and forced to kneel. Stephen laughed as he entered the chamber and waved his elemental stone behemoth out.

  “You know my master will come looking for me now. He will be drawn to you and your power. You should have concealed yourself as I told you. Instead, you made yourself like a beacon to wayward ships,” She said between labored breaths.

  He knelt, smiling a beautiful smile, “Why don’t you just heal yourself? I know you still have soulless out there. You could easily end yourself of the pain you are in.”

  She spat some bloodied saliva at him, “I have dealt with far worse pain than you can imagine. Your small cut is nothing.”

  The smiled faded from his face as he wiped away the spit and blood using one of the innocent’s clothing. He patted the woman on the shoulder and turned back to look Sahera in the face.

  “Long ago I would have feared your former master. Instead of continuing to fear him, I sent word to him. I told him where you had been and what you were doing all this time,” Stephen said. “When I received word back I wasn’t entirely sure you knew the man at all. He simply said he was coming to bring his wayward daughter home. As a matter of fact, he should be here within the next few months. Of course, he said he would be bringing friends of his with him. Also, he is anxious to meet your children.”

  “If you invited him here, you are insane,” Sahera said. “He will consume the entire elemental realm.”

  He laughed, “Yes, he will. I figured that it would be better than just consuming me. We have come to an arrangement that if I captured you and followed his exact directions, he would let me be.”

  “His directions?” Sahera asked, finally concerned for herself.

  Stephen nodded, “He said he wanted his daughter back, the one he sent over here to conquer this world. He also told me how to get her back.”

  He patted the woman’s shoulder who was kneeling beside him, “That is what these three are here for. I am sure you will remember his lessons from long ago.”

  Sahera shook her head before Stephen began killing the innocents slowly and methodically in different ways. She felt their souls be consumed and did her best to fight the urge to want more.

  “We will do three more every hour until you beg for it. Then I will give you more, and more, and more,” He said with a sadistic chuckle. “For now we will hold these new soldiers of yours in the brig. Eventually,
you will want to close that wound, you might as well start by consuming these three.”

  Sahera started crying as his stone elemental dragged the now moving soulless bodies from the room. Her worst nightmare had come true.

  The end of book three of, “The Search for the Brights”

  To be continued in, “A Spirits Rule.”