The Heartstone Saga by Archibald Bradford (pdf to ebook reader txt) 📗

took up his bowl, giving up on appeasing the Witch and forcing himself to eat.

“I need to get back to Garland with these weapons. I’ve been gone for way too long and the Aegis needs to know… they need to know everything.”

He shuddered suddenly at the memory of the Trogs’ gory feast.

“You will not go alone.” Alcaia spoke from behind him, making him jump; “I will not allow the remainder of this lost-tech to fall into more hands such as these. And it is past time I found Myrina and my daughter. With so many of our people gone, I… they need to come home.”

He didn’t miss the way her voice caught, nor the stain of fresh tears on her face.

Thirteen of her warriors and four of the Troglodytes had perished, with another dozen wounded between them.

And that was on top of all that they had lost before the battle, when Tristan and his crew were posing as the Aegis.

“Thank you, Elda for your part today.” Alcaia continued; “I witnessed some of the things you did with Adrian’s blood.”

Olena laughed, low and dark.

“You should see what I can do with his cum.”

Nearly finished his food, Adrian choked and turned scarlet.

“We don’t need to talk about that. Ever.”

The Witch tilted her head to one side.

“I will accompany you as well.” She declared.

Seeing their surprise she shrugged nonchalantly.

“What? Despite this idiot’s death-wish, this has been the most fun I’ve had in years.”

Though Alcaia laughed bitterly at Olena’s macabre attitude, Adrian shook his head slowly; the death and destruction they had faced together could hardly be described as ‘fun’!

“Alright then, I guess we head back to civilization.”

But even as he spoke the two monster girls saw the conflicted expression on his face.

Tristan and his men had been about as much ‘civilization’ as the widower could handle.

__________

While Adrian dreamt of peace, far away a nightmare was playing out.

In a series of secret caves beneath the mountains south of Algrade, a lone human walked amongst a horde of Tenebrae.

Jonathan Pym was all skin and bones, unable to stomach food after the things he’d seen from his bond-mate of late.

Evadne had changed, and not for the better.

She had always been cold and driven, in her quest for revenge thousands had perished on her claws over the centuries.

But this was different.

She was more willing now than ever before to kill, in fact it was not an exaggeration to call it her default approach.

She didn’t leave survivors behind anymore; even at great effort she would root them out and extinguish their lives with deliberate intent, no matter how insignificant or even nonexistent the threat they posed.

Lipton Falls was the first time that Jonathan had truly doubted their purpose in decades.

He’d seen her kill children before, even helped her when it came to snuffing out the other Empaths, but when she massacred the small mining town she sought them out.

As if murdering them made the pain of her own loss easier to bear.

Jonathan wrongly blamed himself.

The technique they now used exclusively to create Tenebrae was to twin the minds of captured monster girls with Evadne’s, then force them to relive the death of her family as if were their own.

Which meant she had to relive it too, over and over.

But what Jonathan didn’t realize is that although it was true that she wanted to snuff out as many human lives as possible to placate her grief, Evadne wasn’t the one who had sought out the children in Lipton Falls.

He didn’t fully understand what it was that he had witnessed when he’d seen her black-skinned doppelganger.

The… thing, looked just like her, but had a massive cock which it used to ravage her body and soul until her flesh turned just as black.

Afterwards the blackness faded from her skin, but he swore that he still saw it sometimes, out of the corner of his eye.

Naturally she’d told him to forget about it, to focus solely on their task.

She’d never explained it to him, and he’d never dared to ask, so he remained largely ignorant of the source of Evadne’s dark power.

And his ego had convinced him long ago that it was him and him alone who allowed her to remain sane as a Tenebrae.

In recent days, he wasn’t so sure anymore; because while he did not understand what entropy was, he’d seen the effect that using it had on her and was therefore afraid of it.

He swallowed his doubts and his fears as he approached her.

“Eve, we… we need to talk about the queen.” He began carefully.

Sitting on a stool in the dark, Evadne didn’t respond, her eyes tracing over the horde that they had created together, mentally tallying their forces.

“She can’t keep this up much longer.” Jonathan licked his lips.

Finally she looked at him.

“What’s the problem?”

She had always been cold to him, but this was a new level of indifference even for her.

He used to feel things from her; annoyance or hatred, even the love that bound them together, deep, deep down in her heart.

Now he might as well have been telling her about his favorite colour for how much she cared.

“As it is, she won’t be able to come with us.” He explained.

“Then we leave her.” Evadne directed her gaze at the other monster girls in the room; “By then we won’t need her.”

With that Jonathan was dismissed, not in words, but he felt her attention leave him and knew that it was dangerous for him to try to regain it without a good reason.

He shuddered as he went back among the Tenebrae to finish his task for the day, leaving Evadne alone with her dark thoughts.

Well, sort of alone.

Taking so many