Chapter 19
Torrent
Lingering in one place in the shadow realm had a similar effect to soaking in the depths of the ocean, getting lulled by the rhythms of the currents. It was a lot less enjoyable without the more varied textures of the water and the endless tastes and sights that would pass by, but the sensation of time passing without my being able to track it was familiar.
Had it been hours since one of the beings standing sentinel at the entrance to the Highest’s vast hollow had told me to wait there and that they would speak to me when they were ready? Days? I hoped by all the water in the oceans that it hadn’t been weeks.
My only small comfort was that the leviathan clearly hadn’t gone through with his final plans yet if the Highest were still there in their home, immense presences that I could sense with an uneasy quiver through my essence even from a distance.
I’d told the lackey that this was an urgent problem that directly affected the Highest. Had she not bothered to pass on that part of the message? Did they not care? I adjusted my position in the shadowy currents restlessly, my tentacles twisting and twining.
I’d never spoken to the beings that were so old they were practically part of the realm itself before. I had no idea how they typically handled appeals from unexpected visitors. Rollick hadn’t suggested it was likely to take very long, though.
A more prickly thought rose up in the back of my mind that maybe it hadn’t taken them anywhere near this long with him. The lackey would have been able to evaluate me and report what kind of being had come calling. I was decently established, but not as ancient as the demon—and he had all his limbs in full working order. My physical disabilities had certainly worked against me before.
It wasn’t difficult to imagine that the most potent beings in existence might assume a being like me couldn’t possibly have anything all that important to say.
I drifted a little to the left and then to the right, pushing those self-recriminating thoughts away. I was what I was. I’d probably still been the best choice to make this trip out of the four of us. The realms only knew what Lance would have gotten up to if we’d sent him here and he’d been left to contend with this seemingly endless boredom. Or how gruff the gargoyle would have become by the time the Highest welcomed him in.
I’d be ready, whenever they got around to giving me the time of day. Or night, as the case might be. Neither really existed in this world.
How could that monstrous serpent really think it’d be better if the mortal realm was more like this one? All his years wandering the seas must have pickled his brain.
More time passed without any ability to measure it. Then a different being, one I hadn’t noticed before, glided over to me. He bobbed his head with its elephantine ears to me and gestured for me to follow him without saying so much as a word.
I moved through the gloom after him. My awareness of the gargantuan beings ahead of me expanded as I approached the deeper, thicker depths of their shadowy home. I couldn’t tell how many of them there were, other than there were definitely at least a few. I got the impression that their attention had fixed on me, so weighty it dragged me down like an undertow.
“What business have you come here with, kraken?” one of the beings demanded in a voice that echoed right through my bones. I had to tense my limbs to avoid wincing. “What is so important?”
So they had heard that I’d insisted I needed to see them quickly. Apparently they hadn’t believed my claim.
I drew myself up into as authoritative but respectful a pose as I could manage. “Thank you for seeing me. I’ve come because of incredibly severe troubles in the mortal realm. As you may already be aware, a leviathan has been openly slaughtering mortals, taking in human sorcery and using it to enslave his fellow beings, and?—”
A different, equally impactful voice let out a huff. “We are aware. Our loyal servants are monitoring the situation.”
Then why the fuck hadn’t they done more about it already? I bit back the bitter question and forced a brisk nod. “Good. But what you might not know, because a few of us only found out about it right before I came here, and only because we’ve managed to observe a lot of evidence and talk to the leviathan himself briefly?—”
“Get on with it,” another Highest said with a warbling growl that made every nerve in my body vibrate like a struck funny bone. My most recent deformity, the mangled end of my tentacle that Lance’s teeth and breath had damaged beyond repair, started to throb.
It took all my effort to hold an ingratiating if thin smile on my face. “His ultimate plan seems to be that he’ll compel you into the mortal realm using the sorcery he’s stolen. He believes he has or can accumulate enough to force you through a rift against your will—and that your arrival in that realm will permanently alter it to be more to his liking. There’s no telling how much destruction he might cause if he manages it.”
One of the Highest let out a sound that might have been a rumbly laugh. Another sneered in a harsh voice, “You think another being could command us? That is what you’ve come here to jabber about?”
I swallowed, willing my voice to stay steady in the face of their disdain. “I have no idea if he’s really capable of it. But I thought—we all thought—that you should be warned so you’re prepared in case he attempts it. And maybe you’d want to take some action against him, to ensure that there’s no chance you would ever come under threat.”
The next sound that emanated from the gathered Highest was more of a hiss, with a definite angry edge to it. “It sounds as if you’re threatening us. Trying to force us to deal with this being the way you’d prefer by telling us how we’ll be harmed if we don’t.”
Shock hit me in a chilly smack. “What? No. Of course not. I’m not making any demands. I’m just passing on the information to?—”
“Information about how frightened we should be,” another bellowed. “We will not stand for this kind of insult. You bring these threats to our faces and try to bend us to your will yourself, and you think we won’t realize?”
“That’s not at all what I intended,” I said in what was more of a babble now. My body instinctively pulled backward, away from them. “I promise you I?—”
“And now he tries to run. Don’t let him! Show him what happens to anyone foolish enough to attack we who own the shadow realm.”
“No!” The protest burst from my mouth unbidden. I whirled around, panic overcoming rational thought, my mind whirling with no idea whether I’d be better off running or attempting to prove my peaceful intentions by holding my ground.
I didn’t get a chance to decide. Bodies hurtled at me from multiple directions. Claws raked into me—horns gouged me—hooves battered me.
In our shadow forms, the pain didn’t radiate through solid nerves the way it would have in the mortal realm. But their presences tore at mine all the same. Agony spread all through my essence as the Highest’s guards shifted in turn without letting up their assault. Their ephemeral forms had enough friction against mine to choke and smack and pierce. My being frayed, life gushing out of me in billows in all directions.
Shadowkind couldn’t die in the shadow realm, but we could come awfully close.
I hurled myself away from the onslaught with every fragment of will I had left in me. Again and again, nothing in my mind but the searing pain and the need to get away. Onward, onward, dragging myself inch by broken inch…
I wasn’t even sure when the beating ended. By the time I realized no new blows were reaching me, my awareness of myself was so scattered and wrenching that they might as well have still been tearing me apart. With a guttural groan I couldn’t hold in, I forced myself to crawl farther.
Just a little more. Just a little more. In case they decided they hadn’t done enough. Get away. Get away.
Then I couldn’t move any farther. The agony simply short-circuited my brain. I curled in on myself, pulling together all of my essence that I could still hold on to, and held there as the particles of my being started to ever-so-slowly knit themselves back together.
More aches jabbed and sizzled through me. I had the sense of gritting teeth I didn’t currently have. But even through the pain, I willed myself to come back together, to heal, as quickly as I could, even if the speed amped up my anguish.
I had to get back to the others. I had to let them know that the Highest didn’t believe us—that they’d scoffed at the idea of the leviathan as a threat—that they knew what he was doing and were looking the other way in their pompous over-confidence.
I had to get back to Quinn. I didn’t even know how she was doing right now, whether her heart was failing faster, whether the leviathan had managed to launch another attack against her.
If I couldn’t make it back in time to stand by her side at least a little longer, to hear her bright voice and revel in her touch, to bask in her determination and affection, I’d rip myself apart. There was no pain I could imagine that would be worse than that.
The truth hit me then like a glowing beacon shining fiercely through a storm: I loved her. I did, with every shred of my being. The fact of it felt so true and obvious that I could have smacked myself for not acknowledging it sooner, for shying away from the words as if they were somehow dangerous rather than a statement of devotion. As if she’d be disappointed in me if I somehow didn’t make good enough on them.
She wouldn’t, and that was part of the reason I loved her. Quinn had embraced all of me—man, kraken, injuries, past, and all. The statement wouldn’t be a promise or a guarantee. It’d only be three words that she deserved to hear back after how freely she’d offered them to me and how deeply I felt them resonating through me now.
I had to get back to her and let her hear them. Let her understand that I understood just how much she meant to me. I wouldn’t let those hulking assholes with their even more inflated egos stop me from reaching her in time.
With that resolve coiling around me, I braced myself and pulled my essence together even faster than before, ignoring the torment of the sensation.