25. Chapter 23 Emyth

Chapter twenty-five

Chapter 23: Emyth

M y reaper magic is constantly pooled under my skin, begging to be released. I need to kill someone soon or I'm going to lose my mind. It rose to the surface the second Arden went missing and never receded. It's itchy, and uncomfortable, and I can't stand the way it feels.

Nevidian is sitting there with that smug look on his face and he would be the perfect candidate to release my magic on to. If he didn't potentially hold the key to finding my mate.

"Why do you think that Cyndair specifically wanted Arden and her sister?" Zorvan asks. "Does she know who she is?"

"At first, I thought so. I thought that maybe it was because she wanted some sort of leverage over Nuvian, but I don't think she knows that Arden is Nuvian's daughter. Or at least, I don't think she did before she took her. She probably does now. But if Nuvian came back and you somehow believed him, that would mean she had two dragons to face."

I desperately want to believe him about Nuvian, but we've been burned so many times that I can't. I decide to change the subject."Can we go back to Arden and Mandira?" I ask. "You said Arden is your niece. Not both of them."

"Caught that, did you?" He chuckles softly. "Mandira is actually mine."

"Sleeping with your brother's wife? That's low," Zorvan says coolly.

"Well, we were both dating Mariona at the time. He had been dating her first. I went to visit him in the human realm, and met her. We were both fated to her. She was already pregnant with Arden when I met her."

"What?" Esrend whispers. "Why did I never hear about this?"

"Millandra wouldn't allow it. She said that Mariona having two partners would draw attention because polyamory isn't widely practiced in the human realm. She demanded that one of us leave, and since I am younger, and Nuvian would be risking his life coming back here, I was the obvious choice. Managed to get her pregnant before I left, though."

"Does Mariona know what she is?" Rupert asks.

"She didn't until Mandira started having...issues. She's dragon kin, you know? Not a full shifter. She accidentally skipped a couple of doses of the suppressant. She sprouted horns in early adulthood, and they ended up here after reading Millie's journals."

"Why didn't they come find me?" Rupert asks, "I could have helped them."

"Millie left your name out of her journals. She just referred to you as her mate. Arden accidentally mentioned she was mated to more than one person. She tried to play it off as a mistake, but considering how desperate some of you are to have her back…"

We all exchange glances. I decide to speak first, "I'm also mated to her."

A small snicker evolves into full blown laughter, "You were engaged to her grandmother. What a weird turn of events. Anyone else?" His eyes shift around to the rest of them. There's a glint of knowing behind them, like he expects the answer he's about to get.

"All of my keepers are bound to her," Zorvan says.

"The Stars always did have a sense of humor. Anyone else?"

Zorvan is clearly trying to decide whether he should tell Nev or not. "She was fated to me, but I rejected the gift of the Stars."

"Of course you did," Nevidian says in a condescending tone. "You never did know when to appreciate things. Arden is a powerful fae. Did you know that the doctor in the mortal realm had to keep increasing her dosage for her suppressant to keep her from conjuring magic by accident? She almost shifted once.

"Her grandmother and father had to do memory charms on Arden and Mariona after scales cropped up across Arden's arms."

"Scales?" Zorvan asks, his interest is clearly piqued. "Does that mean..."

"That Arden is a dragon? We assume so. She never shifted completely, but considering how powerful Nuvian is, it wouldn't be a shock."

It would be hard to miss the look of loss and disappointment on Zorvan's face. He sent away the only female fae in the realm–possibly in all the realms–who could, with near certainty, carry his heir. Of course he's interested now that he knows she'd be of some benefit to him.

"Rein it in, Em," Lysander whispers in my ear, and I have to pull back on my reaper magic to keep from killing anyone.

Lysander rubs small circles on my back, soothing me. It helps, but it's not enough to scratch the itch. I'm going to have to go hunting again very soon.

We spend the next several hours discussing strategies for getting Arden and Mandira out. Nevidian knows the castle fairly well, but even with the eight of us, there's no way we're going to be able to breach the castle, and get Arden out unharmed.

"What if we got Nuvian back?" Livarius suggests at some point once we're all exhausted from talking in circles. "Use him to get the girls out. A dragon whose daughter has been kidnapped? That castle's security is no match."

"You would think that, but that same girl's dragon mate is in this room and hasn't done anything about it," Nevidian chides, clearly done with everything.

"Okay, and what if we got Ardeth involved? And rescue Mariona?" Livarius asks. He's desperate, and the only one naive enough to suggest these things.

"No. We're not rescuing either of Arden's parents. It'll take too much time that we don't have. Even if we found them, came up with a viable plan, and got them out they'd have to wean off their suppressants. It would probably take close to three months for us to pull that off."

"I didn't hear a 'no' to Ardeth," I say, also growing weary of our options.

"I sent him a letter ages ago asking for an audience with him, and he never responded," Zorvan sighs.

"No you didn't," Nevidian says.

"What?" Several of us ask in unison.

"My men headed off that letter and gave it to me," he says. "I forgot about it until now."

"Fucking hell. Okay. We can consider asking him. Things with Kildara are already on thin ice. I feel like we need some sort of proof. And if we approach him and say ‘hey, we found your great great granddaughters, but we lost them again, can you help us find them?' he may declare war on us."

"Did Cyndair ever give any inclination as to why she wanted the girls? Anything at all?" Jarrah asks in exasperation. We've been over this eight times already, and constantly talking in circles is giving me a headache.

"Like I've already told you, she said nothing of importance. I didn't plan on letting her have them, so I never worried about her reasons."

"Obviously she wanted to use Arden's lineage to make a hybrid. It's the only thing that makes sense. It's the only reason she would feel so scared and anxious all the time," Livarius says.

My death magic is about to take over. I can't take the thought of Arden being touched by anyone outside of this room. Especially against her will.

"I need to go," I grind out, "I'll be back later."

Everyone nods in understanding except for Nev. I'm sure the others will fill him in, but I need to go kill something before I accidentally kill my friends.

I've had to kill something every day since Arden's been gone. Sometimes multiple times per day. No matter how much I try, I can't get a grip on my reaper magic. Initially I was going to travel around and do some canvassing, but I couldn't risk it. Someone would have ended up dead, and then I would have been full of regret.

Unfortunately, not having any answers has been causing my magic to lash out more. Plants have been wilting in my presence. My friends have largely been avoiding me because I've been causing them to have headaches and nausea.

I'm a walking plague. My reaper magic is tied to my basilisk form, so I'm constantly on the verge of shifting. So to appease the beast I walk out the front gates. strip naked, and let my bones shift and bend until I'm no longer the six foot five blonde fae, but instead a twenty eight foot long black and green snake slithering across the front lawn.

My movements are frantic until I find my prey. Even most of the predators in the forest flee from me. That suits me fine because today I need something that will put up a fight.

Not far from the castle grounds there is a system of large caves that used to be inhabited by giants. Due to an illness that plagued their tribe, they were all wiped out. The caves have since been inhabited by some of the more dangerous beasts in Sangaris.

Frenzornals. They're bipedal, and when they're full grown they stand around thirteen feet tall. They have lizard-like faces, with large tusks protruding from their bottom jaw, jutting upward. My body moves silently as I approach the cave.

I'm not dense enough to go inside. They're beasts, but they have basic knowledge of how to create rudimentary traps and alarms to alert them to intruders. No. I have to wait if I want to be successful in taking one of them out.

They have photosensitive eyes, so night time is the best time to find them. I don't have to wait long for one of them to emerge from their dark cave. The Frenzornals indigo scales and violet spikes glint in the light of the moons. It begins trudging through the forest, likely on a hunt of its own.

I stalk it as silently as possible through the forest, the faint rustling of leaves occasionally giving away my position, but the beast doesn't seem to take note. Killing it is going to be a challenge, and it's a poor decision to be out here stalking it on my own. But of all the things I've ever been called, wise is not one of them.

We're about three hundred yards away from their cave when the beast stops. I realize too late that I must be upwind. It's bright yellow eyes land on mine and it lets out a horrific shriek as it barrels toward me, claws at the ready.

I hiss, and coil into a defensive position. My hardened scales will offer some protection, but if it gets me with one of those tusks, I'm done for; I'm tired of killing things that don't fight back. I want a challenge.

The Frenzornal swipes at me with its claws before ducking its head and attempting to gore me with its enormous tusks. I narrowly avoid getting impaled as I strike at its side and find purchase on its fleshy underbelly. Sweet green blood floods my mouth.

It hisses in pain and swipes a claw across my belly ripping four large gashes into my flesh. I ignore the burning pain and begin coiling around the creature, attempting to not stab myself on the spikes protruding from its back.

It lands an uppercut into my gut, knocking the wind out of me, and giving it enough space to try to pull my jaws apart. The fucker is strong, and I'm beginning to regret my decision to take this thing on alone.

It pries my jaw loose enough to get free and manages to get away from me. The smart thing for me to do would be to shift or to leave. My reaper magic can paralyze the beast, but that would be taking the easy way out. I need to feel its life drain as it struggles to survive.

But I should have chosen the easy way out. Because as I attempt to strike again, the Frenzornal lowers its head, and with one determined and forceful swipe of its head, a tusk sinks into my body. The world slows as fiery hot pain floods my body, my vision fades, and my final thought is that I won't be around to save Arden from whatever fate befell her.