Chapter 63 #2
Elder Goyu glanced back only briefly, her face etched deeply with grief.
For a moment, however, she offered the queen she once tutored a smile before whipping around to strike another guard savagely.
Jathella’s arms tightened around the weakened high queen, drawing her away ruthlessly despite the sob that broke from his mother as the first spray of blood arched from the elder’s flesh.
Waena’s eyes widened at his mate’s attack, love and admiration brightening his eyes through his gut-wrenching sorrow.
Carefully, he bent forward and lovingly set his daughter’s head on the ground before urgently turning toward them.
“You must go now. Give me a velkat. I will aid my mate and delay them as much as possible.”
Meeting her sister’s gaze over Zathexa’s head, Jathella snapped her gavo as she turned toward Waena and tossed the male her weapon.
An approving smile curled her mouth as he deftly snatched it from the air before she turned and hurried to hoist the queen once more between herself and Kitanara.
His mother struggled in a desperate bid to intercede as Waena spread his wings and charged forward after his mate, but the healer, anticipating the queen’s intentions, rose up at her side.
“I would spare you from seeing what is to come if I could, your majesty,” she whispered, and she opened a vial under the high queen’s nose. “But safeguarding you will have to suffice. Vengeance may come later.”
Zathexa cried out in protest but strangled on the sound as she rapidly succumbed to the vapors and sagged between the guards.
But her eyes never left Elder Goyu, not even when Jathella and Kitanara began to carry her away.
Her eyes brightened with grief as she watched.
Her hand weakly reached for them, her mouth parting in denial as she was rushed to the corridor stretching ahead of them.
The guards surged forward, their voices rising in a shrill challenge as they pressed their attack, overwhelming the mated pair.
Therxian glanced back with concern. There was not enough distance.
He considered joining the fray to give his mother more time for escape but was startled when a shadow sailed overhead with a defiant shriek that drew his attention upward toward the female as she viciously snapped her wings and took aim as she brought her velkat up in front of her.
Buosoa!
Her wings stretched wide, she dropped head-first into the chaos, and the guards surged around her as they converged to protect Ferinia.
Buosoa dove among them, whipping her velkat in brutal arcs as she took her place at Elder Goyu’s side.
And they fought fiercely as if they were a violent wall holding back Ferinia’s tide of destruction.
Even in fleeing, Therxian could not entirely look away, his gaze returning again and again to them.
Buosoa fought viciously, bringing down guard after guard with brutal efficiency until at last Waena pushed her away as he quietly hissed a reproach that gave the female pause.
For a moment, Therxian was certain that she was going to argue with him, but Buosoa’s face tightened and she snapped her gavo before taking flight to rejoin her sisters and do her duty to the queen.
Of course Waena would demand it.
Therxian smiled grimly to himself as he dared one last look behind him. His falling upon the scene of the battle raging behind them.
Ferinia was no longer even visible behind the wall of guards protecting her, and the guards themselves had been pushed back to the farthest part of the chamber under the assault of Waena and his ashlava.
They moved as if they were dancing death, their bodies swaying hypnotically as blood arched and sprayed around them.
It was utter surrender to the primal forces of death.
They were now merely the hands of Shangla, their life bleeding from them as they delivered her vengeance.
Elder Goyu’s body whipped and recoiled with every blow, but still she fought, her mate guarding her and striking at her side.
As the distance grew between them, it was more difficult to tell how much of that blood was theirs and how much of it belonged to the traitorous guards loyal to Ferinia, but they were holding strong, providing the opportunity for their escape.
Therxian briefly squeezed his eyes closed in an attempt to control the overwhelming sense of regret filling him.
This was what it had come to. He had thought he had everything under some measure of control.
His mother had said that there were sacrifices.
But he had not yet tasted the bitter of sting of it...
until now. He knew that there would never be a way to repay them.
He would not even have the opportunity to properly thank them.
The sacrifice they made was one that there was no coming back from.
Already they were weakening as the blows multiplied with every ring of metal as the velkats crashed into each other and the wet sound of blood splattering on stone.
The sound was growing more distant, however, as they reached the opening of the corridor that led from the chamber into the main hall.
They were nearly through. Zathexa strangled on a wail, and he glanced back once more to watch as a guard swung high, drawing Elder Goyu’s defenses upward, exposing the tiring female’s vulnerable belly.
Waena whirled toward them, his velkat lifting, but not in time to stop the second guard that Therxian had not even seen spring forward from the chaos, her velkat slashing with deadly aim through the air, delivering a deep, wicked blow that sent the elder female crumpling to the ground.
A shrill shriek of sorrow and rage left Waena as he drove forward wildly, slashing the guards with abandon until the moment his offense was cut short by a blade driven into his belly.
His body stiffened and slowly he turned his head toward Therxian, his mouth moving silently, sketching into a brief smile as Zathexa was hauled through.
Therxian’s last glimpse of the male was seeing him turn and drop toward his mate’s side, his arm closing around her as his wing stretched wide, folding lovingly over her one last time.
Loss. It punched him viciously in the gut.
He did not know the elderly couple well, but he felt it all the same.
And it made him even more determined to survive and win so that he could honor their memory well.
He closed his eyes as he barreled forward, his body barely clearing the entrance as Ferinia’s enraged shout followed after him.
“Stop them! Do not let them get away!”
He smiled grimly as Jathella, having shifted the weight of the grieving queen to her sister, turned toward the entrance of the tunnel, her mouth opening wide.
She was immediately joined by Bousoa, and the shriek they gave vibrated the air and the walls as it began to rapidly tear through the foundation of the palace with its frequency.
Stones and beams fell, the walls crumpling in on themselves.
The tunnel collapsed on itself until it was at last sealed beneath a cloud of dust.
Jathella dragged in deep breaths in an attempt to recover as she looked over at him. “It is sealed. What should we do now?” she whispered.
“We go below,” he replied grimly. “Alex awaits, and in the elder palace we will find the way to make our return to bring Ferinia and her venomous council down.” He blinked in sudden realization. “Buosoa... my mate...”
The female met his eyes grimly and dipped her chin. “She was not there. But there is something else you must see.”