Dreams of Fury: Descendants of the Fall Book IV by Hodges, Aaron (most important books to read .txt) 📗

Maya smiled down at him, and there was something in her eyes, a mocking laughter that he should have sparked something in him, something other than the awful, terrible shame. Yet there was nothing else within him, only an emptiness, a void where the rest of his mind had once been…

He begs for death, children, but am I not a merciful Matriarch? Maya spoke again. No, sweet child, I will not give you death, but life! I will grant you—

Maya…

The Old One broke off abruptly, her eyes swinging to the west, the colour draining from her face. For a second, Adonis felt a spark of something within, a flicker of life, of will…

Maya, where are you…please…so weak…

Raxion! Maya’s voice boomed across the open field, echoing through the minds of all present, searching, seeking. Where!

Images flickered through Adonis’s mind, of twisting corridors, of endless darkness, of waves crashing upon cliffs. He shuddered, seeking the source, the mind from which they had come, but the images were already fading, the presence withdrawing.

Please… a last whisper reached them. Others…hunting me.

Abruptly, the presence vanished, and Adonis’s mind returned to the field outside the human city. He gasped, the flickers of life returning to him as Maya’s distracted mind released him. She stood looking into the distance for a moment longer, eyes wide, as though contemplating what they had just heard.

Then she turned her gaze back to Adonis, and the vice closed around his mind once more.

Well, well, well, she said at last, her Voice thundering in his mind. What have we here? Perhaps I will not need your mongrel offspring after all, Adonis.

* * *

A mile away, standing atop the walls of Mildeth, Lukys and Sophia gasped as they came back to themselves, as they surfaced from the depths of the Sovereign gift. Lukys shuddered as he shared a glance with his partner, unable to believe they’d managed it, that their mad idea might have worked.

That ancient presence within was so utterly foreign, so unlike their own minds, a part of him screamed to hurl it from him. That mind had been an Old One like Maya, a Chead as it thought itself, but unlike Maya, it had chosen humanity over hatred. They had hoped the power of its Voice might be similar enough to Maya’s mate, Raxion, that she would not recognise the difference, not if they limited their words.

It seemed their gamble had paid off.

The trap had been set.

Now all that remained was to spring it upon the Old One.

30

The Queen

Erika watched as the cliffs rose from the crashing waves. They stretched high overhead, towering above the swirling ocean waters, making even the masts of the ship seem small by comparison. Ripples ran through the stone, lines of gradient colours that seemed more a reflection of the ocean below than true rock.

It seemed too strange to be natural, and yet…the truly unnatural feature of the cliffs lay not in the layers of stone, but at their base. There, the strata abruptly gave way to plain grey stone, untouched by the invisible forces of erosion. This was the stone that defied nature, refusing to bend before the will of mother earth.

The stone left here by her ancestors, waiting for its creator’s return.

For Erika’s return.

A rowboat carried their unlikely party ashore. Cara might have ferried them across one by one, but she needed to preserve her strength for what was to come. Even so, Erika would have rather been anywhere but a damp rowboat seated alongside the Flumeeren queen. For her part, Amina had said nothing on the voyage, even as she suffered the glares of Erika and her Calafe guard. One handed or no, Darien looked ready to drive a blade through the queen’s cold heart at a moment’s command.

Seated across from them, Maisie was similarly quiet. The Gemaho spy had said little since her victorious return, and Erika wondered what the woman had been through during her weeks of captivity. She doubted the Old One would have treated her prisoners any better than Amina. And yet…Maisie’s morose silence seemed to go deeper than that.

Perhaps it was the Anahera. While the creatures had professed their gratitude at the release of their children, the truth was, most were not warriors. A few had elected to fight with humanity on the walls of Mildeth, but many others had been needed to ferry their fledgelings to safety. And on this journey…

…well, of all the Anahera, only Cara was willing to face the presence of the Old One again. Erika just prayed their collective strength would be enough.

Clenching her fists, Erika shivered as she watched the light play across the threads of her gauntlet, and wondered if she should have done more. Perhaps she could have taken one of the fledgelings herself, as the Old One had. The Anahera would have fought for them then…

…but no, that would only have created a lifelong enmity between their peoples. If humanity was to survive, it could not be through darkness. They needed to be better than their ancestors, to rise above their terrible past and forge a new future, one where all could prosper.

The rowboat thumped down on the crest of a wave, shaking Erika back to the present, reminding her there was a battle to be won, before any could plan a future free of war.

The sailors deposited them on the shore not far from the unnatural streak of rock. The four of them moved quickly, scrambling from the rocking boat onto the exposed reef at the base of the cliffs. Maisie stepped onto the slippery surface with her usual confidence, while Amina still somehow managed to move with the air of a queen. For Erika’s part, she tripped stepping from the vessel, and would have plunged headfirst into the icy waters had Darien not caught her.

When she finally gained a purchase on the damp rocks, Erika did her best to ignore