Chapter 16 Dreams of the Past #2
He was about to turn his back on the nest and head to Illithor–the most likely place the Night King was at–when he saw something move out of the corner of his eye.
His head jerked towards movement. He expected a Leviathan or two or twenty.
His lips parted to speak words of power, but his mouth ended up simply hanging open.
His mother was standing there. He knew her face and figure as well as his own. He could always tell if the portraits of her were off compared to the real thing, so he was certain it was her that he was seeing now.
Honey gold hair that hung in glorious waves to her lower back.
The off-the-shoulder white and crimson gown with gold stitching he’d seen her wear many times, but so out of place for the Under Dark that he felt the need to throw his cloak over her.
The delicate diadem of diamonds that encircled her brow. The rose of her lips and cheeks.
But the words–all words–were stuck in his throat like shards of glass.
She was not looking at him, but away from him, into the nest. Her elegant hands were clasped together against her chest. Her fingers tightly woven together as she stared at something that gave her anxiety. She took a step towards the nest and that unfroze him.
“M-Mother?” he called.
She didn’t turn her head. She didn’t seem to have heard him.
“Mother?!” he shouted.
Had she and his father somehow gotten trapped in Illithor? Unable to either make or find a rift out of the Under Dark? Had they remained here hundreds of years? No. This just couldn’t be. There was no way that his parents would have remained here for that long. They would have found a way out so…
She was walking into the nest. He had to follow. Though this had to be some kind of trap, if it wasn’t… He had to get to her. He unslung his sword Glorandal–or Dawnbreaker as it was translated in English–and raced after her.
He moved like the wind in the trees. His step was light as a feather. He kept the light of Glorandal low. It, too, could burn with the Sun’s fire, but not yet. He had to find his mother or whoever that was.
The nest, which had looked like solid walls of spun silk, had an opening where his mother had disappeared.
He swallowed deeply as he stepped through it into the nest. He heard her step ahead of him.
His head jerked towards the sound and he saw the flowing hem of her skirt disappearing around another wall of silk. He did not call for her again.
It cannot be her!
He murmured a spell of renewed protection. If anything struck him a flash of sunlight would be emitted even as he was untouched. Such illumination would be deadly to any Leviathan or any other creature from the Under Dark.
The ground was stone so it was easy to move over without leaving a trace.
At first, the dark stone and the silver threads were all he saw, but then he turned a corner of the maze-like interior of the nest and came to an abrupt halt.
His heart leaped into his throat as he brought Glorandal up to defend himself.
But he stopped himself. This wasn’t a Leviathan.
A cocoon was before him. A cocoon in a familiar humanoid shape. He stepped towards it.
The head was almost even with his. The threads were seemingly wrapped tightly around the entirety of the body.
He could only see their silvery-gray color at first. But that was when he jumped back again.
What he had perceived as threads on the face were, in fact, not.
The person’s skin was gray. Desiccated. Mummified.
He drew close again and brought up a gloved hand to touch the exposed cheek.
It was impossible to tell if this was human, Aravae, Kindreth or some other race entirely.
When his fingertips brushed that cheek, gray ash suddenly rose up and the entirety of the face caved in.
Horror filled him as the destruction continued.
The whole body collapsed. The strands that had bound it also lost shape and they hung like an empty sack.
There was a sound to his left. He head snapped in that direction.
He saw the fluttering end of his mother’s hair deeper within the structure.
But he also saw dozens–no, hundreds or maybe thousands–of cocoons that stretched in all directions.
They hung in orderly rows and he lost sight of all of them in the gloom above.
My mother is not in this horrible place. Who is leading me like this? The Leviathan have no such power. So is it… Vex?
His hand tightened on Glorandal as he set off after the illusory figure.
He had to turn sideways at times to move past the cocoons.
No longer would he touch them for fear they would disintegrate like the first had.
He listened carefully for any signs of life, but he heard and sensed none.
This part of the nest seemed dead and not yet restocked and repurposed with food. He grimaced at the thought of that.
He turned a corner and nearly gasped. The nest, which had been narrow corridors, suddenly opened up into a cavernous-type space.
The ground was free of threads. There were no cocoons here.
But there was a white stone plinth that held a tablet also made of that same white stone.
It was completely different from the dark stone that filled the Under Dark.
In fact, he was certain that this stone was not native to this realm.
It is from the Lieran Plane. It is what the Eryas Palace is made of. What is it doing here?
But he thought he might know. After all, the books he was not supposed to read told him that Alduin had some role in creating Illithor.
Maybe this was something he brought down here to commemorate that.
But his thoughts on this matter got no farther as his mother stepped out of the gloom and put a hand on the tablet.
“You came,” she murmured, sounding grateful, awed and… afraid.
Aquilan opened his lips to answer her, but another voice spoke instead, “Yes, though I wonder why I should not kill you where you stand.”
The voice was dark and rich and filled with anger.
The figure it came from emerged from the darkness.
White hair, shaved on one side and long on the other.
Red eyes glowing like fires in the dark.
Pale skin was mostly obscured by tattoos.
Low cut silk pants that clung to his hips and flowed down to bare feet.
Magic flowed around this figure like a cloak.
Though Aquilan had never seen a portrait of the Night King, he knew this was Vex.
“I–I knew I was taking a risk when I came here. Using the secret way that only Ailduin could take,” she answered and her right arm curled over her stomach. It was only then that Aquilan realized that his mother was pregnant. “But I had no other choice.
Vex had just threatened his mother. His pregnant mother. He would not stand for it! Whatever was going on here, he would protect her! But neither his mother nor Vex acknowledged him and when he opened his mouth to shout nothing came out. When he attempted to move, he was stuck in place.
What is going on here?!
Vex’s eyes were fixed on his mother’s swollen belly. His expression–which had been so icy and remote–had become blank. The fires in his eyes became banked. He blinked.
“You are… you will give birth soon. Yet you came here? You seek me out? And you come with no armor, no weapons, no army? You are practically in your night clothes,” Vex said with a shake of his head.
“You are dressed even less formally and well than me,” his mother’s voice took on a trace of teasing.
When Vex stared at her stonily, she quickly added, “But I understand that is the Kindreth way. Your Blood Tattoos are all the armor and weapons you need while we, Aravae, do not have such protection.”
“You do not,” Vex said simply.
“Even if I did, would it make a difference? Even if I had come here with the entirety of the Aravae army, would I be any safer, King Vex?” she asked, head tilted to the side.
Those red eyes flared. “No.”
A simple “no”.
She smiled and nodded. “That is what I thought. But I am not here to invade your home or bring you harm. I am here, because I need your help.”
“My help?” Vex repeated and his eyes widened.
Aquilan felt the same damned way. What could his pregnant mother want from Vex?
“Do you know who this is?” She cradled her stomach.
Vex’s eyebrows rose. “Not even you know who that is.”
“On the contrary, I do know. I have… been dreaming. Our people say that we return from death. That we are reborn. My grandmother told me the signs to look for. And I have experienced them. Dreams and nightmares of another time, another place, another life that is not mine have haunted my every sleeping moment. And some when I’m awake as my due date has drawn near,” she explained.
Her hands moved protectively over her stomach as she gazed down at her pregnant belly with love, tenderness and concern. Vex had gone very still at her words.
“I dream mostly of you, King Vex.” She looked up at him with that same mixture of emotions. “And when I do this, I feel such… such love.”
Vex appeared as motionless as a statue. Aquilan wasn’t certain he was breathing.
His mother’s smile grew, but there were tears in her eyes that suddenly spilled down her fair cheeks. “And such sadness. Grief. Agony really. I dream of eons by your side and you by mine. Fighting, laughing, loving, building, ruling and more. A lifetime far longer than my own.”
Vex’s expression was blank.
His mother didn’t wipe away her tears as she smiled at Vex. “But these are not my dreams. This was not my life.” Her hands stilled over her pregnant belly. “These are his dreams. His life. His love.”
Vex slowly blinked as his eyes dropped once again to her stomach. “You think–”
“I know that Ailduin has come back to us,” she told him as tears fell off her chin and pattered onto her clothes. “But these dreams are so strong that he still thinks that his old life is ongoing. And his death… his death…”
Vex’s head snapped up. “He cannot dream of that! If he does, his spirit might–”
“Depart again? Yes, yes, exactly, King Vex. That is what is happening. I can feel that I’m losing him.
Before he will ever come into this world again, I am losing him!
” Her voice rose up in anguish. Her head tipped back as she suddenly screamed with that pain and grief. “And no one can help me! No one!”
Vex was suddenly in front of her. The fires in his eyes blazed but not with anger. His face was alight in a way it had not been when he had entered that place. His voice was filled with emotion as he said, “I can help you. I will help you.”
She looked up at Vex through tears. Her lips quivered into that tentative smile. “Please save my son. Save my Aquilan.”
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