The Heartstone Saga

by Archibald Bradford

  The big Amazon immediately bowed, her sheer presence almost seeming to dim in the face of the angel’s.

  “As you say, Dominar.”

  “Now you’re overselling me.” Miranda complained; “All I did was give him some advice and the occasional boot in the ass.”

  Paul snorted in amusement, having given the young man in question his share of both as well.

  Volka surprised her then by wrapping her in a hug, the warmth of her golden wings nearly a match for that of her soul.

  “Both things that he desperately needed.” She murmured into the gruff woman’s ear before giving her a sudden kiss on the lips and releasing her.

  There was a brief silence to accompany a few amused smirks from those that had witnessed the exchange, but then Paul asked the Valkyrie what they were all thinking.

  “How is he?”

  Volka drew in a steadying breath as she felt the rawness of her husband’s mental state.

  “Resting. He will be slow to recover from this. What he went through to save those girls... there is simply no precedent for it. And on top of that it will not be easy for him to adjust to his new situation.”

  “My people will aid with this in any way we can.” The Matriarch pledged immediately.

  Gone was the cold titanic warrior that Escrya had met in the Darkwood, the Matriarch as smitten with the angel as any of them.

  Volka smiled and placed her hand on the Amazon leader’s bicep.

  “Thank you. And if I might add my thoughts to this matter, I believe Escrya’s colony idea is a good one. It will be a great comfort to our husband to know that your people are so nearby. He loves them dearly.”

  “Who are you kidding? That guy loves everyone dearly.” Jan said with a grin.

  “True.”

  “Seriously.” She insisted; “It’s a miracle that I’ve never humped his leg!”

  “Jan, behave.” Miranda said almost habitually.

  With the serious part of the discussion obviously more or less over with, people began to leave to see to their duties, Volka amongst them.

  “A moment, Dominar.” Booker stopped her as she spread her wings; “With everything that has happened, with my Yana. I will be stepping down from the Aegis council. She needs me now. And it’s time for new blood to take over anyways.”

  It was obvious that it pained the proud man to admit it, but she understood his reasoning. All of the original councillors were dead, and by the hand of his bond-mate no less, that coupled with the injury to his leg during the Ogre raid and it was clear that his days of service to the Aegis were coming to a close.

  “I am sorry to hear that, but what-”

  “The provisional council and I have already agreed that you should replace me.”

  She lifted one eyebrow at him as she waited for him to elaborate.

  “We made the decision before we even left Garland. It was unanimous. There wasn’t even really anyone else to consider. You were right about the Aegis: somewhere along the way it became far too reliant on human leadership. And if we have learned anything from this nightmare, it’s that your people were born to lead.”

  Her lips pursed in thought and it took her a few seconds to formulate a response.

  “Thank you for your trust, Aegis Booker. But I must see to my husband’s wellbeing before I can commit to anything.”

  “Of course. It’s a standing invitation, which is enough for now. I’m sure Commander- pardon- Councillor Morrow will follow up with you later.”

  “She is welcome to.” Volka agreed, but then smiled suddenly; “Just let her know that even assuming all goes well with my husband’s recovery, I still have some promises that I must keep.”

  A bit confused by her words, Booker watched her fly off before hobbling over to Yana and Juni.

  The Amazon had not been able to bring herself to meet Volka’s gaze even once.

  Chapter 56:

  Beginning Again

  Having claimed one of the houses in Wayfelt as temporary shelter for her bond-mate, Nina slept next to her hammer in the corner of the bedroom upstairs.

  She wanted to be able to defend him at a moment’s notice, but with all of the swinging she had been doing with it lately her murder arm needed a break.

  Not far away Ophelia was sitting on a chair and humming a lullaby over Nameless’s prone form on the bed where he slept wrapped in Volka’s wings and softly glowing aura.

  The Flutterby was just as weary as anyone, but she couldn’t bring herself to sleep, too afraid of the haunting dreams that would likely come if she did.

  Dreams of Nameless’s lifeless lips against hers.

  “How’s our boy?” Paul asked quietly from the door, the only one brave enough to enter the house.

  She looked up at him and smiled a tired smile.

  “Still out of it. I don’t know when he will wake up.”

  Left unsaid was whether or not he even would: after reprimanding them for getting angry with Volka, he had fallen so deeply unconscious that they couldn’t rouse him.

  The other girls were downstairs, forcing themselves to eat even as Helena, Milly, and Erica comforted Escrya after her loss, the four of them surrounded by Cockatrices.

  Disturbed by the noise in the room, Volka shifted slightly; her golden eyes opened, but upon seeing that everything was safe, soon closed again.

  Ophelia and Paul both lowered their voices.

  The old man came over to the bed and put his arm around the Flutterby’s shoulders, squeezing tight and giving her a reassuring little shake.

  “You should get some kip yourself. You look ready for it.”

  She smiled again, but didn’t look ready to comply, so he didn’t push it.

  There was a long minute of silence, wherein the farmer pulled up another chair to sit in vigil.

  In fact there was a hush all around them, enforced by the ring of fierce Amazons standing guard outside the house, hell-bent on ensuring that their Valkyrja-datta’s rest remained undisturbed by the goings on of the world.

  The only reason they’d let Paul and his flock inside was that Helena was with them, and even then they’d entered under threat of violent death should they break the rules.

  He would find the whole thing bloody hilarious, if worry for Nameless hadn’t prevented it.

  Ophelia drew in a deep breath as she absently stroked her bond-mate’s cheek with the back of one finger.

  “We’d like to take him home, if that’s alright.” She finally sighed as she looked to Paul again; “None of us have any interest in going all the way back to Garland right now. And technically we’re homeless anyways.”

  He snorted as he took up his carving knife and began to whittle away at a random stick he’d picked up outside, making sure that the shavings all landed on a little cloth he had laid out in his lap.

  “Not so long as I’m breathing. I already did the paperwork, cottage is his. Truth be told, it’s just about been his since he and Milly first set foot in it.”

  Unsurprised, the Flutterby simply nodded.

  Even if Nameless took it somewhat for granted, she knew how much he meant to Paul.

  Moving with care she lay down on the bed, half of her body on top of her bond-mate, Volka’s wing shifting to give her room.

  Things were still a bit strained between them, but they both knew that they would get past it, eventually.

  “It will be good to be home again.” Ophelia slurred as her eyes drifted closed, the Flutterby trusting the beloved old man to watch over them.

  __________

  In the days that followed the historic battle outside Wayfelt, a great many things happened.

  For one thing, the massive pressure that was within Garland eased off as fearful refugees returned to their homes, though a few of them had actually made a life for themselves there and chose to remain.

  Their numbers were more or less balanced out by others who now struggled to recognize the broken streets as the city they once knew, the pain of
loss clinging to the very stones of the place and making it impossible for them to remain.

  And yet more felt that they did not belong anywhere at all anymore.

  Such was the case for Adrian Shaw.

  His task was done, and now he had nothing left to keep him going.

  With no bond-mate and having already endured so much, he’d been assigned to protect the city when Volka led the others to face Evadne.

  Which was just as well, because returning from the wilds to discover yet another enemy that needed to be dealt with was too exhausting for Adrian to imagine.

  Everywhere he looked there was evidence of the troubled times: destruction wrought by the Ogre raid on the city, a couple arguing in the street, a small child crying for a mother nowhere to be found.

  It soon overwhelmed him and he sank onto a damaged bench, his weight making it shift and creak beneath him.

  Despite what Volka had told him, it was so much easier not to care.

  He didn’t want anything anymore.

  There was no more life left in him, just dark thoughts and dark emotions.

  Were he left alone in that moment it was very likely that he would have followed his beloved Truffle into death.

  But fate had other things in store for him.

  A hand settled on his shoulder, clawed fingers gently squeezing him to rouse him from his spiral.

  “Are you okay sugar?”

  He lifted his face out of his palms to see a cream-coloured Katje looking down at him, a worried frown on her face and compassion in her eyes.

  Some small part of him must have realized that he made for a sorry sight, so Adrian wiped at his face and stood up, the Katje’s hand falling away from his shoulder as he did.

  “I’m alright.” He tried to reassure her, but there was no energy in his words.

  She nodded slowly at his obvious lie.

  “You guys have had a rough time of it lately.”

  It actually took him a minute to remember that he was in uniform and he shifted on his feet self-consciously when he did.

  “Oh, um, yeah. I guess it has been kinda rough.”

  It was an enormous understatement, but the beautiful monster girl accepted it without complaint.

  After a few seconds of awkward silence, she extended her hand, a coy smile spreading on her face.

  “I’m Grace.”

  He took it without thinking, introducing himself almost reflexively.

  “Adrian Shaw.”

  “Nice to meet you... Adrian Shaw.”

  He opened his mouth to say the same, but paused when a pair of rounded ears poked out from behind the cat-girl’s hip, soon joined by two yellow eyes set in an adorably rounded face.

  Noticing his attention, the Katje reached behind her to pull a cautious Dormaus into view.

  “This is my daughter, Mishka.”

  There was a joke there somewhere about a cat raising a mouse, but Adrian couldn’t find it, instead he plastered a smile on his face and strove for politeness.

  “Nice to meet you, Mishka.”

  After the briefest of handshakes, Mishka sniffed and rubbed at her noise, then spoke with all the tact of a child.

  “Your face is too hairy.”

  Grace rolled her eyes, but her daughter’s rudeness was exactly what the unshaven Adrian needed in that moment, the fake smile he wore becoming genuine at the cheeky girl’s complaint.

  “Yeah, I guess it is huh? I’ve been out of town for a while.” He explained.

  Learning much about him from the short interaction, the former whore pulled her daughter to her hip and squeezed her tight by way of chastisement.

  “We were about to have lunch, if you’d like to join us?” She suggested with vulnerable hope obvious in her tone.

  Adrian opened his mouth, but closed it again just a second later.

  He was going to politely refuse, again out of reflex, but some faint spark of life inside of him prevented him from doing so: a voice in his heart woken by Mishka’s endearing temerity and screaming at him not to blow it with her mother.

  A voice that sounded just like Cheri’s.

  He swallowed the familiar lump in his throat at the memory of his deceased Truffle, but nodded at the kindly Katje’s offer.

  “I think I would like that very much.”

  A short while later they were enjoying a pleasant walk together through the rubble strewn Divinity Square, their bellies full and Mishka chattering between them with one of their hands in each of hers.

  Theirs was not the only meeting in the city either.

  Amongst the Ogres that Nina fought was Tora’s mother, and it was a small mercy that she survived the conflict with relatively minimal injuries.

  Their emotional reunion was so raw and poignant that those that witnessed it had to turn away.

  A scant few days after the battle, the survivors of the Ogre clan left the city together. At Volka’s urging they had decided to settle in Wayfelt and lend their strength to the foundation of Escrya’s colony.

  After much internal debate, Kriss opted to accompany her friend Tora, ostensibly to keep the Ogre out of trouble, but also so that she could get her head straight about Nameless.

  While their initial entry into the city had been under the worst imaginable circumstances, the Ogres’ dedicated sincerity and hard work in helping the residents recover meant that there were a great many tearful embraces when they left Garland, their days of ostracization for their centuries-old sin against the Aegis hopefully over with.

  __________

  “The trick is to not show any fear.” Jezebel insisted; “Even if the guy is bigger and meaner looking, just be like. ‘Watch it buddy! This sandwich is mine!’”

  She had her legs wrapped around Rebecca’s waist, her ass essentially sitting on the bemused bunny’s pelvis, while her little green hands were interlocked behind her neck to hold the Gripau in place in front of her.

  “That’s… good advice?”

  The frog didn’t weigh much, but she wasn’t made of feathers, so the Lapine had to constantly lean backwards to keep from toppling over from the way Jez had hold of her.

  It was something she would have to get used to.

  “I’m serious! The cafeteria here is a battleground! And if you don’t stand up for yourself, you’ll starve!”

  Along with Miranda, Jan, and Kala, they were standing in front of the Aegis academy, the four of them seeing Rebecca off before she started the first few notoriously hellish weeks of her training.

  Given that they wouldn’t see her again until she came out the other side of them, they were lingering perhaps a bit too long.

  “I’m going to be alright Jez.” Becks promised; “And if anyone tries to take my lunch, I’ll drop your name to make them think twice.”

  “Oooh! Good idea! Because if anyone messes with you, I will kick their butt!”

  “Alright froggy, my turn.” Jan insisted, pulling her bond-sister off to hand her to Miranda before kissing Becks by way of farewell; “You take care of yourself. And enjoy the mud! There’s gunna be a lot of it!”

  “I will think of you every time I’m coated in it.” The Lapine swore before turning to face Kala.

  The Amazon kept things a bit more composed; kissing her newest bond-sister and gripping her ass tight without saying a word.

  Mostly composed.

  Then all that was left was Miranda, Jez seamlessly hopping out of her arms to land on the Amazon’s shoulders.

  The grey-haired woman’s advice was as useful as it was succinct.

  “Make your bed neat, do as you’re told, and try not to talk back to the instructors. You’ll make it through kiddo. I told you before, you’ve got the stuff.”

  After she spoke they shared a lingering kiss; the Lapine’s pierced tongue exploring her bond-mate’s mouth for a good long while before they finally broke apart.

  With nothing more left to say, Rebecca turned away from her loves and, spirit bolstered by their embraces and the
ir words of encouragement, promptly marched into the wrong building and got yelled at by the instructor inside.

  Everybody had to start somewhere.

  __________

  As Milly had so stoutly declared to the demon possessing Evadne, life begins again and again, and after the conflict was over this proved to be as true as she promised.

  But Nameless was not the same man that he was.

  He was blind and he was broken.

  The price that had to be paid.

  After the initial shock was over, he was lucid only for a few hours before the weight of his deeds pulled him under.

  Every waking and dreaming moment he was more or less catatonic, while the black voice of despair that had been Evadne lived on in him, whispering and dragging him inexorably towards cold oblivion.

  But throughout it all his bond-mates were there to coax him back to life.

  Milly all but drowned him in her life-saving milk, the only thing he could stomach for weeks. Erica massaged his temples and purred when his head ached. And Ophelia’s familiar voice soothed his nightmares as she wiped away his sweat when he awoke from them.

  Nina, strong, fierce warrior giant that struck down the last Chimera, held him tight and informed him in no uncertain terms that he was going to live even if she had to beat him to death to make it happen.

  Even then, the despair that he lived with was unfathomable.

  He would likely have fallen to it, and taken all of his bond-mates down with him, had Volka not constantly wrapped him in her golden wings and forced desperate hope into his chest.

  The last Dominar of the Valkyrie sustained them all through that dark time.

  As for Escrya... duty called her elsewhere: with so many dead Saenga warriors from the various conflicts, she needed to return to her village with Myrina and the others to lay her mother to rest.

  But she left with the promise of a swift return, intent on establishing the Amazon colony in the ruins of Wayfelt.

  And so the final month of the most violent summer in a millennium passed, and as fall descended the people of Kettering began to prepare themselves and their homes for winter.