Chapter 14 In The West
In The West
“So there was a nest?” Vesslan pursed his lips before taking a sip of the chilled sparkling wine.
Even though it was only afternoon, Aquilan had suggested the wine to relieve the tension in his elder brother as he told him some of the truth of what had happened in Illithor. Oh, and to keep him away from Declan. Far away.
For his part, Aquilan nursed his own flute and simply nodded. They had made a semi-picnic out of this meeting in the garden. Not a nude picnic however. He could imagine Rhalyf screwing his nose up if Vesslan actually took his clothes off and joined one of their nude picnics.
“I’m off my food,” he imagined his best friend saying and nearly snorted.
Despite Vesslan being firmly clothed, Aquilan hadn’t even touched the food though it looked delicious.
There were delicate cream cheese sandwiches with paper thin slices of tomato and cucumber, curried chicken salad rolls with crisp lettuce, and cured ham with melted swiss on mini sweet rolls.
Fresh cut fruit filled iced bowls and there were several small cakes.
A certain white cream one with raspberry filling was his favorite, but he had no appetite.
Declan was still deep asleep despite Rhalyf having freed him of the constraining spells.
White hair. Red eyes. I haven’t seen those yet. My Shadow. Lovely. But will he wake up? Of course, he will. Vex wouldn’t leave him if he were that ill.
“Well! The Radiant Council will have to be told, I suppose?” Vesslan turned that into a question. It should have been a statement.
“You think they shouldn’t be informed of a giant Leviathan nest? Ten times the size of any we’ve ever encountered?” Despite his detailed–and very disbelieving–response, Aquilan was only half listening to his brother. His magical senses were stretched upwards and towards the West.
My bedroom should be in the East like Declan said. But I’m glad it is in the West for now so that he is more protected from the light. Rhalyf spelled the room so no illumination will get in, but still… Is he comfortable? Is he in pain? Is he–
“You handled the problem. The nest is no more,” Vesslan said with a shrug.
His elder brother then devoured a cucumber sandwich in a few bites.
His eyes half closed for a moment with delight.
These were human dishes. It made more sense to eat the local foods than to import everything from the Lieran plane.
Evidently, Vesslan enjoyed some of humanity’s offerings.
He dabbed his mouth with a napkin then continued, “So the threat is gone. We don’t really need to bother the Council about it, do we? It seems like unnecessary drama.”
Just as Vesslan said that, Aquilan felt a trickle of magic that became a flood. Like night casting its inky fingers across the world. Declan was awake.
My Shadow!
Aquilan half rose from his chair, ready to fly to the young man, but then Vesslan’s words registered and he sat back down again. Declan was awake. Declan was awake! But he was king. And as king, he needed to address this.
It’s not just the Leviathan, I have to think of Illithor. Of Vex. Of what this all means us being a rift away from the Kindreth after all this time. But just as Vesslan doesn’t think the Council needs to be told everything, I do not think he does either.
“Merely because we eliminated one nest, does not mean the threat is over,” Aquilan corrected his brother.
He had not told Vesslan that Declan had been the one to destroy the nest. He had left that purposefully vague.
Vesslan, of course, drew his own conclusions and they didn’t include a seeming human having such power.
“The fact that such a large nest was present at all is disturbing and worthy of concern. Not to mention that there are rifts between Illithor and Earth. Ones that were said to be impossible.”
“Luckily, there are no Night Elves still in that cursed city.” His elder brother ate another cucumber sandwich almost angrily before he let out a moan of pleasure at the end.
That’s not exactly true. There were at least two Night Elves there. And now there is one here in the palace. In my bedroom. What would you think of that, Vesslan?
He tried to give his elder brother the benefit of the doubt in many areas, but about Declan? No. Declan was his Shadow. His to protect. He’d already failed to give the precious young man that protection so far.
He is the Night Prince. He is under my care. That has far greater implications, too.
Again, Aquilan reached for Declan and felt the cold rush of the young man’s power.
What Declan had done to the nest was incredible.
For one as young as him to do that meant his ultimate power would be…
well, godlike. Would Vex simply leave him alone to live his life separately as Declan wished?
No. Not even he, in his most positive moments, believed that.
Vex simply didn’t know how to behave with Declan.
Declan isn’t like what he expected despite him likely watching the young man for some time. Declan is… somehow more mature than even myself and definitely more so than the puckish Vex…
To think of Vex as “puckish” was rather ridiculous on one level. He would never have suspected that. But Vex’s honest confusion about how to handle Declan simply not being interested in power, money or position had flummoxed him. And yet, Vex didn’t seem to care about those things himself.
Every relationship he likely usually has is transactional. With Ailduin it was not, because Ailduin was the Sun King. A power in his own right. He was with Vex for friendship’s sake.
It was still impossible for him to think of himself as Ailduin. He could not connect to that part of himself. His eyes flickered to Vesslan and back down at that moment. What would his brother think of him being Ailduin reborn?
He will not take it well. But it will be nothing compared to how he will react to Declan if the young man chooses to openly live as a Night Elf.
Aquilan would support whatever he wanted of course.
But if he reveals himself–even as a common Night Elf and not the Night Prince–he will be viewed with suspicion and hatred by many.
And though I will do everything to protect him from that threat and any other, the truth is that such prejudice is unstoppable with physical force.
Which brought him back up against the fact that although Illithor was in some far flung plane it was also just a step away. One single step through a rift… And so was Vex…
“Illithor being breached like this is problematic,” Aquilan murmured. He had not told Vesslan about Vex, of course. Absolutely not.
“Why? Night Elves could march out of any rift in the Under Dark. The Illithor ones are the least likely to have them, yes? Has not King Vex himself forbidden anyone from going there?” Vesslan asked, clearly remembering the old stories, which happened to be true in this case.
“Yes, but the nest–”
“Is gone! How long will it take the Leviathan to rebuild one half that size? If they dare to do so? I mean, as you said, it was in the very shadow of Illithor. It must have taken even those dumb creatures’ last vestige of courage to create it there and you turned it to ash,” Vesslan snorted.
Declan turned it to ash and then the person he hoped to save became ash… I wonder who that was?
Vesslan picked up one of the ham sandwiches. Bacon had been a revelation. His elder brother’s eyes hooded with anticipated pleasure. He was oh so glad they weren’t having a naked picnic with this fare.
“So telling the wider Council will only alarm them unnecessarily,” Vesslan said. “We’ve just drawn down the war effort. To put us back on that footing… well, it would delay things.”
By “things” he meant the divvying up of Earth into large sections to the great Houses.
As payment for their assistance in the war.
That would be a flashpoint with the Separatists as he was certain that Vesslan himself would want the land around Tyrael, which would include Chicago…
But after seeing the Pedway and all that darkness and all those rifts, Aquilan wanted the ruins gone as well for different reasons, obviously, but he doubted that Duke Rohannan would make that distinction.
“The Leviathan may want revenge, Vesslan,” Aquilan realized.
None of the ones in the nest had survived the sweep of Declan’s sword, but there could have been others nearby who witnessed what happened, took note of who had destroyed their young, and became determined to do something about it.
In the war, he had noted that the Leviathan were particularly vengeful.
They would attack certain warriors who had done well against them in previous battles, seeming to want to punish them most of all.
So he had no doubt that some might plot against Declan.
“Yes, they might! And that is actually a good thing.” His brother suddenly had a broad smile on his face. “And maybe I was too hasty in suggesting that we withhold all of this from the Council.”
Aquilan blinked at the sudden turnaround. “I don’t understand. What–”
“It gives us the excuse to get rid of those ruins, Aquilan!” There was a slyness in Vesslan’s expression that Aquilan didn’t quite like.
“That thorn in my side, Duke Rohannan, has been rattling his saber at us if we touch them! But can he continue to do that when we come with proof that they are a massing ground for the Leviathan? He won’t have a leg to stand on!
He’ll lose all credibility! It will be a brilliant blow against him. ”