Forest of Kings

by Jack Knight

  “Good, we have a starting point, what’s next?” Xara asked.

  “We fight through The Hand, one of us closes the portal from the other side, one of us closes the portal from this side, done and done,” Ava said confidently.

  “And, which one of us is going to be trapped in the Five Hells?” Sapphire asked. Before Xion could say anything, Sapphire spoke directly to him. “And, it can’t be you. You’re our only hope for defeating Draxis, you can’t be trapped on another plane.”

  “The Five Hells are a plane of darkness and fire,” Paarathax stated. “It is not a decision to take lightly.”

  “How about I go?” Xara suggested. “Fire isn’t going to bother me, and the world is in just as much danger from the demons as Draxis, so somebody has to.”

  Xion had still not completely come to terms with the fact that he had a sister, but he knew that he did not want her banished to the Five Hells.

  “It should be me,” Xion argued. “Maybe closing the portal from the other side is how I defeat Draxis.”

  Paarathax shook his head. “The prophecy says that decision will be made when you come of age. You have over two years left.”

  “Oh, come on,” Xion complained. “How do you know I’m not of age?”

  “You are fully grown, and an adult by human standards, but dragons don’t come of age just because they’re done growing,” Paarathax told him.

  Xion somehow felt reassured, but he still wanted to be the one to shut the portal from the other side. He did not want any of his friends to be trapped or in danger. When Ava had been captured was bad enough. He did not know if he would be able to retrieve someone from another plane of existence.

  “Can you get over your issues when the world isn’t in danger?” Ava demanded.

  “Alright,” Xion agreed, “let’s go.”

  “No,” Sapphire said and put her hands on his shoulders as he tried to stand up, pushing him back to the ground.

  “Did you miss that entire conversation?” Xion asked, laughing in surprise.

  “We can wait a while for Xion to recover, right Paarathax?” Sapphire pleaded.

  Paarathax nodded. “There is no way that anything is going to come through in the next few hours. Someone on the other side would have to be checking the door constantly. Everyone stay here and rest. I need to see if I can find out what happened to Xorn. Now that you are all done trying to get yourselves killed,” he smirked, “I figure you can handle a few hours without me.”

  “There, now rest,” Sapphire told Xion.

  Paarathax walked back into the forest from the direction they had just come, leaving them to sit in the rain and wait. Xion had a bad feeling that him leaving was not the best idea, but it was difficult to argue. Xion felt like, somehow, Paarathax was an authority figure. Even though he just showed up, helped, and then disappeared again.

  With them all left alone to rest, Xion moved himself to sit against a tree. Aurum walked over to him and curled up in his lap, he petted her absentmindedly, as the others settled themselves down. As ready as everyone had seemed to go rushing back in, the second they were told to rest, they all crumbled. Sapphire sat up against a tree near him, with Ferion on the ground beside her. Warren found a tree on Xion’s other side that had larger branches and more leaves than the others and was the only one of them that stayed relatively dry. Xara did not seem to care about the rain at all, she laid against a tree on the edge of the forest, letting it fall on her more so than anyone else.

  What stood out to Xion was Ava and Laira. They sat together, leaning against Tenebris. Laira had cuddled up to Ava, who wrapped her arm around Laira’s shoulders. Xion had never seen Ava so comfortable with anyone before, and something occurred to him.

  After about fifteen minutes of silence among the group, Xion asked, “Laira, how did you get Ava’s dagger?”

  Laira’s eyes had been closed, but at Xion’s question, they flew open in shock. “... She dropped it. I said that earlier,” but she sounded unsure and her face had started to turn red.

  “We know that Draxis won’t leave the portal, but there is every possibility that he could send The Hand after us any second. Is this really what’s important, right now?” Ava snapped. Xion would have thought that was a really good point, if her face had not flushed slightly when she spoke. Xion could tell she was just trying to change the subject.

  “Wait, he’s right,” Warren said, smiling widely. “Ava wears that thing when she sleeps. She never would’ve dropped it.”

  Sapphire looked like she was fighting a smile when she said, “You two were alone when we left you in that clearing.”

  “Would you just drop it?” Ava scowled, her face turning even more red.

  “Did you guys at least get dressed before the assassins showed up?” Warren joked.

  Laira hid her face in her hands, but Xion could still see her face had turned bright red. It took Xion a few seconds to understand Warren’s comment, but when he did, he could not bring himself to look at Laira or Ava. He turned his gaze to Aurum and tried to focus on her until he felt his cheeks stop burning.

  “How about we talk about who told Xion he was a dragon?” Ava demanded. Xion could feel the shift in the group’s mood.

  “I swear, I didn’t,” Xara answered urgently.

  “It wasn’t me!” Warren added immediately.

  “I figured it out myself,” Xion said, looking up at Ava. It still felt awkward to look at her after what he had just learned, but he did not want her to think that he was lying. “I saw my eyes, they looked exactly like the Blood Orb did when I was tested. And, exactly like the eyes of every dragon I’ve seen. I can’t be hurt by fire, I’m growing scales all over my body, and Paarathax confirmed it when he told me both my parents were half dragon. But, why didn’t you want me to know?”

  Ava glared at him. “Really? You don’t think that the fact that you’re part dragon might be something to worry about?”

  “No more than you being part demon,” Xion answered honestly. He had meant that it should not be a concern, but Ava did not react like he expected she would.

  “Right, I’m dangerous, but not as much as the only person who might be able to kill the guy trying to destroy the world realizing that they’re the same species,” Ava spat at him.

  Xion hesitated. He had not thought about it that way before. A part of the prophecy came back to him in that moment. “If Darkness is not that day faced, Darkness can never be replaced.”

  “What if I’m not destined to defeat Draxis?” Xion mused.

  Ava looked like she had been hit over the head. She was so confused, for once she did not know what to say.

  “What are you talking about?” Sapphire asked, her voice filled with concern. “Of course you are.”

  “The prophecy never says the word ‘defeat’,” Xion pointed out. “It says ‘replaced’.”

  Warren laughed. “You think the prophecy means you’re going to take over and be the new Darkness?”

  Xara laughed next. “I saw you back there, you could have just cut the throat of every one of those guys, but you just disarmed them and knocked them out. You would make a terrible Darkness.”

  Sapphire leaned forward and took Xion’s hand. “You’re not like him, no matter what your parents were.”

  Xion wanted to pull his hand from Sapphire, but it was comforting to have her support during his revelation. “Yeah, now. Draxis said I had more than two years left, a lot can change in two years.”

  “But, not you,” Sapphire insisted.

  “Shut up, you’re not really that stupid, are you?” Ava growled. Xion looked at her in surprise. “I just wanted you to shut up about me. You’re not going to go all evil dragon.”

  “You can’t know that,” Xion stated.

  “I’m not listening to you be stupid,” Ava said as she stood up. “I’m not sitting here, anymore.”

  Ava started to walk into the forest, but just then a large black shape appeared out of the trees and sla
mmed into her. Xion’s first thought was that it was one of The Hand, but it was not black armor. It was black skin, stretched tight over scales that covered its body, with large black leathery wings extended out of its back. Paarathax had been wrong, the demons had come out much faster than he had predicted.

  When the dark shape slammed into Ava, she was thrown to her back hard enough to slide several inches through the mud. The demon flapped its wings once and landed just outside the tree line. It slowly turned around on its clawed feet to smile at them all with pointed teeth and blink its glowing red eyes slowly, like it relished the sight of them.

  Xion waited for it to speak, but it was completely still, and said nothing. They all jumped up and drew their weapons, and still the demon did not react.

  Warren was first to strike. He spoke a quick spell and threw a silver orb of energy at the demon. Xion was sure that the demon would dodge or defend itself in some way. He was shocked when it reached out a hand with extra long fingers and sharp claws at the end to catch the orb. It squeezed the orb as if it were no more solid than water and it faded into nothing. The demon looked at Warren appraisingly and let out a harsh gravelly sound, Xion assumed it was either a growl or a laugh.

  “Okay, so that’s not great,” Warren said with a quivering voice.

  Everyone else struck at once. Laira fired off an arrow that glanced off the demon’s scales. Xion, with what little energy he had, fired an icicle out of his hand. The demon ignored it when it slammed into its chest and caught the ball of energy that Sapphire had launched at it. It then jumped up and dug its claws into Tenebris who had lunged at it. It slammed Tenebris into the ground, who let out a yelp of pain.

  Ava had jumped just after Tenebris, her dagger in hand. As soon as Tenebris hit the ground, Ava landed on the demon’s back and stabbed her blade into the base of one of its wings.

  The demon let out a terrifying screech and spun around with such force that Ava was launched several feet away and crashed into a tree. The demon jumped and flapped one of its wings, the other fell limply to its side, and it fell back to the ground just as Xion reached it.

  Xion swung his sword down just as icicles from Sapphire and Warren hit its chest. The demon threw up its arm to block the blade, none of the attacks seemed to faze the creature in the slightest.

  Xion tried to push it away with magic, but the flame inside him was weak, the magic coursing through him was running low. He felt a light tug inside him, but the demon did not appear to so much as notice.

  Suddenly, the demon’s other arm shot out and grabbed Xion around the neck. Xion expected the scales to be cold, but they were hot. Much hotter than any body heat that he had ever experienced before. It was like the beast was burning on the inside, with fire just beneath the surface of its skin. The grip was much stronger than Xion would have thought possible from a hand with such long fingers. It constricted his entire neck at once.

  Xion was lifted off his feet before he could even think, and his arm acted before he could consider whether or not it was a bad idea. He thrust his sword into the demon’s eye.

  He was afraid that it would glance off, like it had when it hit the creature’s scales, but the eye was soft, and the sword pierced it easily. The sound of the sword stabbing into the exposed organ of the demon was a sickening squelch that made Xion’s stomach turn, but the smell was worse. It rushed out of the pierced eye like wind, and hit Xion with an almost physical force, reminding him of rotten eggs and mold at the same time.

  Xion was thrown backward, without enough strength to hold the sword, it was left behind, buried halfway up the blade in the demon’s face. Xion crashed into the mud as the creature let out a loud, high pitched wail that made Xion’s ears feel like they were being stabbed by a million tiny needles. It only lasted a few seconds, and then there was silence, broken only by the pounding of rain against the leaves and ground and the crash of thunder.

  Xion took a moment to breathe before he tried to stand. His neck still felt like it had ropes wrapped around it, and his entire body ached from the impact with the ground, but he needed to make sure that his friends were all ok.

  Laira was with Ava at the base of the tree Ava had been thrown into, both of them looked shaken, but unharmed. Warren was busy trying to approach the dead body of the demon while holding his nose. Sapphire was kneeling with her hands on Tenebris’ neck, her hands glowing with magic.

  Xion was relieved that everyone was alright. Tenebris seemed to be the one who had taken the most damage, and he was confident in Sapphire’s ability to heal whatever had been done. He was about to let himself fall back to the ground when he heard Aurum’s voice in his mind.

  Sister.

  The word was urgent, like a shout. Where was Xara?

  He turned around to see Xara, yards farther into the forest, fighting with another creature with large leathery wings.

  “There’s another one!” Xion shouted.

  He ignored his aching muscles and ran back to the dead demon’s body. Warren was not overreacting by covering his nose, the smell coming from the demon was even worse than what Xion had smelled before. It was almost as if the body had been decaying for weeks, with hot rotten eggs and putrid meat boiling inside it. Xion ignored the urge to gag and he pulled the sword from the demon’s body and turned around to help Xara as quickly as he could.

  Warren was at his side immediately, and he saw Ava catch up with them out of the corner of his eye. He assumed that Laira stayed behind to stay clear of the fight, her arrows were no use. Sapphire was probably still trying to heal Tenebris, and Xion was completely fine with that. He wanted her as far away from harm as possible.

  Xion’s knees shook as he ran, as if they could give out at any moment, but he pushed himself onward. It did not matter if he was tired or in pain, he was not going to let Xara fight that thing on her own.

  “See,” Warren said between breathes, he was panting just as hard as Xion was, “we’re cursed.”

  Xion ignored him, not sure he would be able to respond if he tried. His breath was coming out pained, his lungs burned, and running through mud and around trees was difficult enough exercise all its own.

  When they reached Xara and the demon she was fighting, something about it bothered Xion, it did not look like the first one. This one’s skin was white, and not stretched out. It looked like an elf’s skin. He did not see any visible scales, but the demon was blocking Xara’s blade with its arms, so he was sure that the scales were there, just faded like Xara’s. Its eyes were not red orbs, but normal eyes, with purple irises, shockingly similar in color to Ava’s. And, the wings, though large and leathery like a bat, were half the size of the first demon.

  Xion stopped in his tracks, unable to believe what he was thinking could be true, but what he saw was undeniable. Xara struck at the demon again and again, each time the demon moved with blinding speed to block or dodge the attack, but never once did it strike out. It was only defending itself.

  Xion did not know what to do, he tried to call out to Xara, but he could not get enough breath to be able to form any words, let alone a shout. He could see that Xara was in no danger at the moment, but that could change any time the person she was fighting decided she was in danger.

  Luckily, Ava was not as winded as Xion was. Warren had stopped running when Xion had, but Ava took a few more slow steps and shouted, “Xara, stop!”

  Xara ignored her, she faked like she would slice at the demon sideways, and at the last second spun in a circle to attack from the other side. The demon moved fast enough that the feint, as expertly maneuvered as it was, was too slow to bring the thin black blade passed the demon’s arm.

  “Xara! You have to stop!” Ava insisted, her voice pleading.

  “Yes, child, stop this foolishness! I don’t want to hurt you,” the demon repeated the plea.

  “I won’t let you hurt my friends!” Xara cried, quickly attacking the demon three separate times in the span of her sentence.

  If Xion h
ad been unsure, all doubts disappeared the second the demon spoke. The first one had not formed a single word, whether it could speak or not, Xion did not know. It was clear though, that the demon had not thought to try to communicate with them at all. There was no threat, and definitely no plea to try to stop any of them from getting hurt.

  “Xara,” Xion finally managed to get out, “you’re fighting Ava’s mother.”

  Xara halted her sword midswing and stumbled a step forward. Ava’s mother swatted the sword away angrily, knocking it out of Xara’s hand and into the mud several feet away.

  “I thought I was free of the Hells,” Ava’s mother, her name was Venitia, Xion remembered, spat at Xara. “But, I come out and am immediately attacked by a little girl who can’t listen.”

  “You know you have wings, right?” was Xara’s only reply.

  Venitia looked at Ava. “This is who you’re with?” she demanded.

  “Nice to see you, too, Mother,” Ava replied sarcastically.

  Chapter 18: Respite

  Venetia became considerably less hostile once she was assured that nobody was going to start attacking her again. She agreed to go back to where the others were waiting to talk, assuring them that they had plenty of time before any more demons arrived.

  It was strange to see that Ava’s mother was so, for lack of a better word, kind. Ava and her father both seemed angry all the time. Xion assumed that her mother, who was half demon, would be the same. Except for the strange sight of her wings melding into her body, she was more normal than the rest of her family.

  When they returned to the others, Ava introduced her mother. Sapphire immediately tackled her with an enthusiastic hug, which Venitia returned.

  “It’s so nice to meet you!” Sapphire beamed when she pulled away.

  “And, you too, my dear,” Venitia replied, laughing.