Chapter Thirty
THE GENERAL
As soon as Rue left, I stalked out of the room, suppressing a growl.
I’d been a dying man since the day Xuri found me.
As solid a truth as the beat of my slowly poisoned heart.
Letting someone in now, when I was so close to death, was a stupid, selfish thing to do.
Bowen’s familiarity with Rue scraped away at my resolve.
It revealed a possessiveness I couldn’t restrain. The growl emerged anyway.
I turned a corner and barely missed running into a warrior. His powerful tail stalled as his cobalt-blue hair floated forward, slightly obscuring his face. He swiped it aside and offered a respectful bow. “I’m Trent. I’m ready when you and your companions are.”
An array of blades outfitted his torso. A trident lay secured to his back, the strap stretched tightly across his chest. The trident’s iron prongs formed octopus tentacles that wound around each other at the base, extending out into triple lethal points.
His body carefully honed into its own deadly, muscular weapon.
“I was just coming to find you. We’re ready.”
Aydrielle emerged from behind Trent and offered food for our trek. Likely various fish, maybe some kelp in varying states of brininess. I accepted it with thanks, though my taste buds recoiled. She slowly grazed her finger down my arm.
“I hope we meet again, General,” she intoned.
With all politeness, I offered a respectful nod. Foka, I was glad to be getting out of here.
Queen Thaleia arrived to see us off and informed us that after we portaled out of her realm, her and Aydrielle’s magic would no longer protect our air supply. Rue would have to take over to keep us from drowning.
We secured our weapons and bags to belts and straps. Daggers lined Rue’s thighs. I stole glances at her as she absently traced the hilts, her shoulders softening with the movement. The siren queen wished us well, and then the portal appeared as a menacing whirlpool.
Rue reached out and my hand found hers. She peered at me gratefully, her brow furrowed in concern over the swirling water before us.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered. She steeled her shoulders as we moved to the portal, Trent leading the way.
An onslaught of rushing water consumed us. Rue’s fingers made a viselike grip around my hand as I felt the pull within the portal seek to rip us apart. I gritted my teeth, suppressing my own apprehension. And then it spit us out.
The light from the surface reached our depths, even though we were still far beneath the sea.
My lungs and nose tingled as the last of the nymphian magic dissipated.
Rue kept her wits about her and immediately had a bubble of air around our heads, offering a seamless transition from Aydrielle’s power to her own.
She slowly relaxed and released my hand. Though my fingers were relieved at the reprieve from her panicked grip, a tendril of disappointment wound through my chest at the loss of our connection.
She pulsed the current around us to assist with her search, her eyes narrowed in concentration.
Finally, she stilled, a smile slowly transforming her face.
Her hand extended and magic rippled outward, twining with shimmering threads that were barely visible in the streaming currents.
She rotated in her position, stopping after she found me.
“I found it! I found the bridge. More of it is intact than I expected. It’ll take me some time to mend, but I know I can.” Her joy rivaled the warmth of the sun. She laughed, and I knew in that moment there was nothing I wouldn’t do to hear that sound again.
Her magic swirled through the seawater and a walkway took shape. It formed an ensorceled bridge that was more tunnel than open path.
“How are you doing that?” Bowen asked her.
Couldn’t he see her magic? I glanced at Finn who also appeared perplexed at the formation of the bridge.
Rue simply cackled at their confusion and continued pouring her affinity into the path between our realms. I hovered in the ocean, transfixed at the beauty of Rue creating something amazing with her power. She was so much more than she realized.
Bowen startled beside me as a blur of bubbles and shadow streaked across my line of sight. Trent unsheathed his trident in the turbulence, its menacing arrowhead points casting a purple glow. I lunged for Rue, but the watery environment slowed my movements. She floated beyond my reach.
The figure came into focus right as it slashed its way through the water.
It used its filmy wings to thrust itself forward, acting as both propeller and rudder.
Blackened scales covered its body, similar to the dreki; however, this had limbs far too long, like its body had been stretched into grotesque proportions.
Rue shot forward, placing herself between me and the Nokt, distracting it from its advance toward me. My magic flew out as my stomach dropped. I wouldn’t reach her in time.
Acid hovered around the Nokt’s body in a gray-green fog. It did not dissolve into the water, but rather lay suspended in tiny droplets of toxic oil. They fizzed when they made contact with her leathers. My shadows surged faster.
She did not back down.
Alarm crashed through me at her bold recklessness. Her movements turned frantic when her magic didn’t respond as she expected it to. The ocean’s salinity slowed the formation of her ice shield, and she threw her arm up in defense at the beast’s thrashing claws. It attacked with unnatural speed.
Rue’s scream flipped a switch within me. Her blood clouded the water, smoking upward in an inky, crimson haze. She gripped her leg as her ice shield finally formed an enclosed defense around her. The Nokt howled in response to the barrier.
Rage consumed me. I pulled my longsword and slashed at the creature as its claws rent the water.
My sword eased through its skin like butter, releasing black ichor, but not before his other razored hand cut across my chest. The scaled leathers prevented their penetration, but the drag of its claws near my side and across my bicep punctured the skin of my arm in a stinging laceration.
Tiny droplets of acid singed my arms and face.
Distantly, I registered that Trent had cast his trident toward the beast’s chest. It struck true. The Nokt thrashed, frantically removing the weapon. It searched for its attacker, its black eyes seething.
“Dom,” Rue’s pained voice pierced my concentration, reaching out for me in a desperate plea.
The weakened state of her drew all my focus in her direction.
I whirled toward her, trying to determine the severity of her injury.
My heart pulsed erratically as fear for her threatened to overtake me. Her shield fell away at my approach.
I scanned her purple-blue eyes, unfocused and dazed. Her long hair haloed around her. Blood spilled from a gash across her thigh, cut nearly to the bone. Strips of torn muscle and ragged flesh drifted in the current, barely attached to her body.
Unsheathing my dagger, I cut away a part of my tunic.
My adrenaline and fear surged to a feral level.
Using the strip of fabric, I wound it tightly around her leg as both a tourniquet and bandage.
I channeled my magic to her wound, calling on the iron in her blood to clot and stifle the rapid blood loss.
I pulled her body to my own, shielding her in my arms. She didn’t even try to fight me on it. Foka.
“Why did you throw yourself toward the Nokt?”
“Better me than you,” she whispered.
I shook my head in disbelief, clutching her to me like she might disappear in my arms. Did she believe herself invincible, or worse, disposable?
Finn and Bowen had their swords extended as they closed in on the monster. Rows of jagged teeth flashed. Violence radiated off of it in suffocating waves. Trent whistled and his trident returned to his hands as though sentient.
“That’s a neat trick,” Finn muttered.
The creature’s movements turned sluggish, yet no less lethal. Trent served as our best chance of overcoming the monster, his powerful tail whipping through the water like a coiled cobra. His weapon acted as an extension of his body, moving swiftly and gracefully in methodical attack.
I expelled my shadows to surround and comfort Rue, then extended more in an effort to blind our adversary in thick darkness. Several shadows formed scythes, slicing and hacking at the beast.
It paused at the sudden darkness, confused by my bladed attacks, just long enough for Finn to attract its attention. Finn shot his gravitational affinity toward the monster, attempting to sink it, but it swerved away from him with preternatural speed. It veered dangerously close to Liora and me.
Without hesitation, I tucked Liora into my side, using my body to protect her, and swung my sword downward, effectively decapitating it.
Trent’s trident once more pierced the scaled creature through its shredded chest. It crumpled in on itself.
The demonic body floated limply as black blood oozed from its wounds.
Its wings drooped in deathly surrender. Its death did not impact my need to keep Liora at my side.
“I need to finish the bridge,” she panted.
My shadows swarmed her, upholding, supporting, shielding.
She sent me a grateful look and refocused her magic into the bridge despite her weakened state.
It gleamed silver as it took shape. Determination fortified her as her affinity aligned with faintly shimmering threads—remnants of the old magic last used.
It dipped into the deep and would connect the surface to the Nereid portal, which would remain open with the bridge’s completion and once the queen combined her magic with it.
The bridge solidified as though constructed of marble. Liora slumped deeper into my shadow’s supports as she emptied herself into the final pieces of the bridge.