The Devourer: A Reverse Harem Fantasy (Airshan Chronicles Book 3)

by Nhys Glover

  “I know Flame is tastier than food but you need to eat,” Landor told Zem dryly, and I loved that he was learning to tease.

  “I can always eat. I can’t always do this,” Zem answered suckling my earlobe until my insides turned molten. If he kept that up we’d be heading for another round of love-making and I wasn’t sure I was up for it yet. For every climax my men had, I’d had several. And even I had my limits.

  “Eat. I haven’t the energy for what you have in mind,” I said, squirming to escape him.

  He laughed, the sound light and youthful, as he removed his arm from my shoulder and returned to his meal. But the heated glances he sent my way had me regretting my practicality.

  “So The Jayger didn’t have to be here to know about our attack on the Devourer’s ship. It might have seen what happened to Sky through a Devourer’s eyes. But It wouldn’t know how badly he was hurt or that he’s now healed unless one of the other seers saw it for the monster,” Laric went on as if the conversation about my tastiness had never happened.

  “I’d have to know, surely,” I said around a crunchy leaf.

  “It depends how many they have left and what they ask of them. Unless they specifically ask for what is happening with us... It might think Sky is badly injured because one of Its sea creatures saw him being dragged across the water. But It might not know I healed him,” Landor pointed out.

  An idea flashed into my mind that was so audacious it took my breath away. “What if we could run a con? What if we could convince The Jayger that Sky was dead? If It believes It has nothing to fear from the Goddess’ Key, It might become overconfident and careless,” I mused aloud.

  That had everyone’s attention. Four pairs of eyes looked at me with a mixture of disbelief and astonishment.

  “How?” Zem demanded.

  I shrugged. “Stage Sky’s death. If the Devourers and the sea creatures witnessed the battle The Jayger knows he was hurt and that we had to drag him back to land. It may not know our healer was able to fix his wounds.”

  I broke from the thought and turned my mind to Shardra without realising my men weren’t with me. But somehow they were, because in the next instant I was in her mind where she sat by the crew’s fire with Sky, Redin and the others, laughing at a story a crewman was telling.

  ‘Shardra,’ I said into her mind and felt her jerk with shock and fear. ‘It’s only me, Flame. Can you tell me how much the hag knew about Landor’s healing ability?’

  “Oh, Flame, you scared me! You are getting very good at this, are you not?”

  I noted that the men around the fire suddenly fell silent and turned to stare at Shardra, who was seemingly talking to herself. Holding back a smirk, I tried to get us back on task.

  ‘Yes. I did this without my men consciously focusing with me. I think we have become so attuned to each other that it’s automatic. So, what did the hag know?’

  I could see her calling up one memory after another, which I witnessed as if they were my own. In none of them did I see Landor healing anyone.

  “His healing ability was unknown to me when I met you all. And I do not think she ever saw it after. But mayhap another of the seers did.”

  I mentally nibbled on my bottom lip. ‘Thanks, that’s really helpful. I’ll let you get back to your meal. Apologise to the others for this weirdness.’

  She gave a little laugh. “They are getting very used to all our weirdness. Just call on me if I can do anything else.”

  ‘I will. Good night.’

  For a moment the others were silent so I could process my thoughts. Maybe they were aware of them without me speaking them, but I did it anyway, more so I could get them straight in my own head.

  “So The Jayger may not know we healed him or even how badly he was hurt, we might just be able to convince It he died. What if we could get into the minds of one of the seers and direct their attention to Sky’s funeral. Once the Devourer priests have seen him ‘dead’ they won’t think to look for him again. As long as we keep him at a distance and all communications are kept through mindspeak... we just might be able to con them and their master into believing they had succeeded in removing the Goddess’ Key to the underworld.”

  “By going into their essence and planting the suggestion they need to look at what’s happened to Sky?” Zem asked, though it really wasn’t a question.

  “Exactly. It might take a while to find one of the leaders, but now we know what we’re looking for on the Nether Plane we can do it. Or I could piggy-back with Shardra again, if she has another vision. All we have to do is turn their gaze on Sky and show them his funeral, complete with a sobbing and inconsolable Shardra. Sky can then hide in the forest somewhere out of sight of the ocean and us.”

  “Then what?” Prior asked.

  I let my mind run over the possibilities. How would I run this con if The Jayger were a real man? It came to me in the next instant.

  “Then we challenge It. If I can get Airsha to make the challenge, make it seem as if she thinks Sky is still alive... because, after all, how would she know what is happening here? If she taunts It in her desperation, and from the authority of the Goddess, to come to us and take us on, It might think It can’t lose... After all, the Goddess couldn’t kill it. All she could do was lock It away in the underworld. If It thinks there’s no way for It to be imprisoned again, It might just enjoy besting the Goddess’ champions. Rubbing it in the Goddess’ face. And if It takes the bait we might just have a chance.”

  “It won’t come anywhere near us if It even suspects Sky is still alive,” Zem said thoughtfully. “It will take a lot of work to create a con this realistic.”

  I grinned. “You have no idea what my mother and I used to do to run a con. People are more gullible than you think. And The Jayger was once tricked by the Goddess, so It’s gullible. Maybe even more so now It’s nothing more than furious energy and madness. Logic won’t enter into it. If It can beat down the Goddess’ champions, then It’ll want to do it.”

  I warmed to the idea as the pieces fell neatly into place.

  “How long to get something like this together?” Prior asked.

  I shrugged. “It depends. But I think we should be able to manage it before It reaches Its peak power and begins Its campaign of annihilation. Maybe we could make It see destroying the Goddess’ champions as the perfect starting point for Its conquest. Cut Her down, steal all Her hope from the very start, and then gloat as She watches Her creations dying, one after another.

  I grinned. Oh, aye, this could work. This could really work!

  Chapter Fourteen

  SHARDRA

  I stood before the huge hole in the forest floor the crewmen had dug. All day we had each been playing a part in a huge performance that had its culmination here at the funeral of my beloved. And even though I knew it was an act, that Sky was alive and breathing beneath the folded wings that surrounded him, it reminded me too much of those first moments in the eerie, glowing cavern when I had stared down at him like this.

  Back then I had been so worried he was dead. So sure that I had misunderstood what I had been experiencing since I was five suns old. I believed he was not on another plane of existence he had created for himself, as I had thought, but dead. Really dead. And only his spirit remained there, not knowing his physical existence was over.

  But he had been alive then and he was now. Yet, if we were going to pull off this intricate con, I had to feed the feelings of loss from that day into my part as a grieving lover now.

  Over the last few days, since Sky had been injured and then healed after the attack on the Devourers ship, Flame and her men had been putting together a plan that seemed too impossible to pull off.

  First, she had gone into everyone’s minds and told them that soon they must start acting as if Sky was dead, talk about it with each other, worrying about what would happen next if we no longer had a way to open the underworld. The more they talked about it, the more chance the Devourers would witness and b
elieve it.

  The next part of the plan had been to get Redin to take Flame to the Nether Plane again. Their task was to find as many of the remaining leaders of the Devourers as they could. It had taken a full day of gruelling work to plant in enough minds the idea that they needed to see what was happening to the Goddess’ Key.

  Most hadn’t known about the attack on the ship, so Flame had to plant the idea in a way that got them to look at what was happening now, not what had happened to cause the death. If the seers looked too closely at the ship’s destruction and Sky’s injuries, they might also see his healing and our hoax.

  But we’d done the best we could to cover that possibility by having me ‘discover’ Sky dead this morning. My hysteria had been easy enough to feign. I was on the edge of hysteria most of the time these days anyway. Knowing Sky did not expect to live past the opening and closing of his portal filled me with a desperation I had never before experienced. Every spare moment, I sought to come up with another plan that would leave him unharmed. But there was nothing I could think of that would save him from taking on this final, lethal task.

  And if he failed. If he died before he could close the portal? Then The Jayger would be free again and the world would end. That thought only filled me with terror when I imagined Sky dying along with me. If he was already dead... well, it would be a kindness to let me die and follow him into whatever came next. Because there was something that came next. I had explored so many realms that I knew any one of them might be the final destination for the souls whose bodies had given out.

  It was growing dark, which was exactly what we required for the final act of this play. The ship’s captain, dutifully sombre, looked across at me and then down at the feathered mass on the ground before me.

  “Lower the body into the grave,” he said hoarsely.

  Sobbing, I watched six crewmen step forward and gently pick up Sky and lower him into the waiting arms of several more members of the crew already in the hole. Once he was placed as he needed to be, with his wings expanded out to provide as much space for air as possible, the crewmen began to fill in the hole.

  All the while the captain intoned the last rites used for seamen, personalised for Sky. “This creation of the Goddess was known to us for so short a span of days, but in that time we came to know and like him well. Some, such as Lady Shardra, came to love him and will miss him greatly. But the Goddess takes to her all her creations at their passing, from the smallest beastling who crawls across the earth to the mighty giants that swim the seas. May the Goddess take Sky, her beloved servant, to her bosom and to his eternal rest.”

  I sobbed again, deep raking cries torn from my very depths. They hurt my chest and my throat. Flame, who had been standing quietly on the opposite side of the grave with her men, came quickly over to me and took me in her arms.

  “You’re doing beautifully, Shardra,” she whispered. “Remember this is not real. Your love is alive.”

  “But for how long?” I moaned into her shoulder, my head growing dizzy as my breathing became more erratic between tearful sobs.

  “Come away now,” Flame said, turning me from the grave where more and more dirt was being thrown onto the silver-winged mass at the bottom.

  I knew the dirt would not be packed down. I knew Sky would have enough air to sustain him until we had all left. Then he would dig himself out of that hole and refill the grave. Finally, he’d fade into the undergrowth to a hiding place we’d discussed.

  For the next days I would be without him. I had to go through the motions, as if he were really gone. At night I might sneak off and find him, but during the day I had to remain alone, acting as if I was grieving. It would go on like that until we were sure the seers had lost interest.

  Over the last days, Sky had gone in search of a suitable campsite away from the main areas we occupied. He would have to hunt, but he would not do that from the air. All his actions had to be stealthy, and I knew how hard it would be for him to do what was required. Almost as hard as it was for me to do my part.

  Sitting by the campfire as we had done every night since landing on the island, I missed the warm presence of Sky at my side. Redin, dear Redin, occupied Sky’s place and tried to comfort me. I let him as much as I was able. But it felt strange to feel another man’s arms around me.

  Redin was part of me in a way that was hard to define, but what I felt for him was nothing like what I felt for Sky. If the rest of us survived this, but Sky did not, and what was playing out now proved simply a dress rehearsal for Sky’s real passing, I would not sit as I was now, letting Redin comfort me. I could not. Nothing would console me. Nothing!

  In the last few days... was it merely a quarter moon? I had lived the kind of life I had only dreamed of. No longer living in a cave, torn apart by the hag and my own visions. No longer an ugly, madwoman unable to tell what was real and what was not, her only reprieve the times she spent with Sky in his realm.

  Since finding him, every moment had been precious and special. I had felt truly alive for the first time. Alive and beautiful and loved and.... joyous. Oh, yes, joyous. So joyous it felt like my heart would find a way to escape my chest and fly free into the sky along with my beloved.

  When we made love... oh, there was nothing so sublime as those moments when he buried himself deep inside me and we became one, our chests pressed together so tightly our hearts beat in tune with the other.

  I knew beyond any doubt that the halfling daemon I had called my comforter all my life loved me with all that he was. As daunting as it felt to realise all his choices in life—helping the Goddess by sealing The Jayger in the underworld, and then remaining locked away for an eternity until he was needed again—had been for me. Even what he would do next was all for me. All so I would survive. Even if he did not.

  Did he know what he would be doing to me? If he died and expected me to live on without him? Did he know what torture he would be condemning me to if that were to happen? To live out the rest of my life without him was almost impossible to contemplate. It was like contemplating my own mortality... but worse. Because death would come quickly and this... this endless loneliness would go on and on for many suns. I would want to die, but I would live on, because that was what he had given his life for. It was so ironic. So terribly ironic.

  Flame squeezed my shoulder, and I looked up to meet her hazel gaze. “It will be all right, Shardra. The Goddess is loving. I have experienced Her Being first-hand, and I know what I say is true. She is loving and She will care for Sky, who has sacrificed so much for Her. Trust Her and keep strong. For Sky. Keep strong for him.”

  Her words were meant to be for a grieving lover, but she actually meant them as comfort for what was to come next. When I would need to be strong. So much stronger than I had ever been in my life.

  Sometimes I imagined myself as a sapling buffeted this way and that by forces far greater than myself. It seemed my whole life had been like that, me never having the strength to stand up tall and strong against those buffeting winds. But what was coming, what would be expected of me... I would have to stand strong. I would have to stop being that sapling and become an oak tree, with roots extended deep into the ground. Nothing could blow the oak down. It always stayed straight and strong, no matter the storm.

  Could I do it? Had Sky’s love given me the strength I would need?

  I did not know. All I could do was hope so.

  After what felt like forever, we prepared to find our beds and settle in for the night. Just as everyone rose, I felt the world shift under me and change. With the part of my mind that was still me, I realised I was having a vision. There had been few since leaving the cave. The last one Flame had shared with me. Would she share this one?

  I looked around me. I was in a barn-like space surrounded by chanting Devourer priests. In the centre of the circle of blue-robed figures sat a lad who was mayhap ten suns old, no more. He looked sick with terror. In his outstretched hands he held a scrying bowl, and the surfac
e of the water rippled like a wild storm because his hands shook so badly.

  “Tell me of the master’s nemesis. Tell me of the Key The Five went in search of,” demanded a priest who hovered over the lad.

  Did he not see that by standing so close he was making the childling’s fear even worse? If his hands shook much more he’d drop the bowl.

  I wanted him to do so, but that was selfish. The lad would be punished, and this moment was important to my people. We had orchestrated it. So the lad had to stay strong and see what we wanted him to see.

  As if at my word, the priest stepped away a little and the lad calmed.

  The air was filled with the noxious odour I associated with these sessions. Something burning, foul and acrid, which would have made my eyes water had I really been there. It made the lad’s eyes water as he looked down into the bowl and tried to see what was required of him.

  I peered over his shoulder into the bowl. The mist rolled over the surface in that oh-so-familiar way I associated with the hag. When it cleared my heart lifted with satisfaction. The scene that was revealed was of the gravesite when the dirt was being shovelled into the hole to cover Sky’s feathered and motionless form. The vision then followed me as I staggered away from the gravesite, Flame holding me up.

  It was always disorienting seeing myself this way. And I looked terrible. Had I not known my grief was an act, I would have believed I had lost my greatest love.

  Time moved forward quickly as words of defeat were spoken around the fire. I saw myself fall to the ground and Redin’s arms gather me up. He stared down at me as if his heart was breaking.

  “Lady Shardra is overcome with grief. Losing the Goddess’ Key like this has been too much for her,” Zem declared, looking suitably worried.

  “She loved him too much,” Prior said, playing along. “We should have been able to save him.”