Balance Of The Worlds (14 page)

Lothonos watched the females as they trained and he tried to be objective. He failed.

Nelciana was a strong female, brave, and loyal. Not to mention beautiful. But fighting with a sword was not a skill she possessed. And fighting against a better-trained warrior who happened to be a Laquazzeana was bound to make it an uneven battle.

He looked at his own hands and brought forth the magical skill that he had always possessed. If he wanted to he could melt the blades they both used. With barely a thought. He looked at the crowd behind them.

Ten thousand women, Nellana Witch Warriors all, prepared for battles he knew were coming.

These females fought for his. And for his son and daughter.

Wasn’t it time the gaps between the two Kinds of Druids, Lothon or Nellana, and the Nellana Witches was mended?

Together they could form one people, one Kind. Could share the knowledge, power, and ways, they had learned over the last five, or even ten, thousand years.

He considered it for a moment. Sharing meant surrendering some control. What male would do so willingly with magical females?

Not him. At least not easily. But it was truly the only option they had, wasn’t it?

Nelciana hit the ground again. And again.

She never gave up, but her sister was far, far more skilled.

He wished he knew more of Nelciana’s history.  Over the last one hundred years—since he’d decided she’d be the one to mother his babes—he had learned everything he could about her from the time she’d left Evalanedea and entered Gaia.

But that had only been five thousand years ago. How old had she and Kennera been when they’d came to Gaia? What had happened to her before Gaia? He needed to know.

He stepped out of the shadows, causing several of the Nellana witches to startle. To draw their blades as he passed.

Lothonos reached the two women easily.

He held out his hand for the blade the Laquazzeana carried. “May I?”

“Lotho, what are you doing? Why are you still here?” Her tone was filled with hesitancy, wasn’t it? Because of what they’d shared that morning? Or because of what she had said in front of thousands, binding their souls together forever?

“The mother of my children is determined to battle a war. My place is beside her, protecting.”

“That’s ridiculous. Your place is helping to protect everyone else.”

“I am working on that.” And he was. He’d spent the last four hours making personal contact with every top warrior in both his Kind and hers. After he found Eiophon he would be meeting with the Lupoiux, Dardaptoan, and Solestru leaders. He needed numbers and skills and any information he could gather.

He would not be resting anytime soon.

But he would always make time for his mate. And his babes. The futures of the worlds rested on their tiny shoulders, he would do all he could to ensure their safety.  “I checked on the babes two hours ago. They are guarded well.”

The sister handed over the weapon without question, a smirk on her face. “You know what you’re doing with this?”

“I have handled a blade many times before. I may prefer the cerebral, but I can protect physically that which is mine.”

“I am sure you can.” She looked at him again. “Take care of her, understand? I think the worlds need her, far more than you realize.”

He needed her, too.

They stopped training for the day—at least those who’d been assigned to train in the daylight hours. Av was not equipped to hold an army of close to thirty thousand, like had suddenly amassed outside of Eiophon and Kennera’s castle. They had split the groups into four. Two they had sent to the outskirts of the northernmost part of the city. One group would train during the day, one at night. It was the same for the inner parts of Av.

Nelciana had never felt as tired as she did when she and the others attempted to sit at the table and pretend that they didn’t fear war would come in the morning. She picked at her food, while everyone sat in silence.

Finally, her sister spoke.

“The Dark Sorcerer needs power.” Loren said. She sat her barely eaten apple on the marble and gold table. “He feeds from it. From us. I have been thinking about it. The Ancient Raijlun, he has obviously been fed from. What if the Dark Sorcerer kept him in the Gardens of Ihth as a source of food?”

“Is that even possible?” Lothonos asked. “He is Laquazzeana, are they bloodsuckers?”

“The ones I have met aren’t. Unless Nalik or Aureliana aren’t telling us something. I certainly don’t do hemoglobin.”

Nelciana did not find the idea so ludicrous. After Eiophon’s curses, Kennera had fed upon blood for millennia. Including Nelciana’s. Kennera’s Kind echoed that trait now, after all. “It makes a terrible sort of sense.  It was what it was. Everything needs to feed upon something doesn’t it? And what if…he fed on souls, as well? I have heard rumors today from the others who have traveled other worlds. And they spoke of how the Nellana were hunted by mercenaries, how rumors abounded that something was feeding upon the magic and the souls of our Kind. Maybe it was the Dark Sorcerer? It would explain some things.”

“We need to talk to the Dark Sorcerer’s brother,” Lothonos said.

“Haliophux,” her sister said. “Raijlun called him Haliophux. We should call him what he is, all Harry Potter-ish. Names, power, all that good stuff.”

Nelciana didn’t quite understand what her sister meant, but she got the basics. “He is called Haliophux, and he is an ancient Laquazzeana. He is nothing more than that. We shall not let him frighten us so much so that we forget that. He is Laquazzeana, and they are not infallible.”

“Yet we cannot be so foolish as to think that we can defeat him simply by wishing it so.” Lothonos looked at her. Nelciana wanted to look away, but the intensity of his dark eyes had her gaze stuck on his.

“No, and we will not think that. We are not foolish. We know what can be lost.”

“When? How? Where? What ways do you intend to fight him? I have heard the stories of your battles with this Haliophux, Loren of Gaia, and yet you were lucky. You were guided by the Fates—we cannot guarantee that they will continue to land on our side. They were against Evalanedea before, were they not?”

“Lotho…please?” She didn’t know what she was asking of him—maybe that he just speak with more tact than what he seemed capable—but she knew he would not heed it.

“The time for softness, for coddling is over.” His words were harsh, but she felt his fingers weave with hers under the table. “We need to confront the information we have, and gather that which we do not. He commands armies, yet who are those that lead them in his stead? What is it that he wishes to gain from his attacks now? What is his ultimate purpose? Where are our best chances of defeating him? These are all questions that must be answered. And where is the filthy bastard, and how did the fall of the barriers affect him?”

How were they to answer so many questions with so little information? “We need to find
him,
don’t we? Rather than wait?”

“I’ll ask some Solestru to search the worlds from the skies,” Acylias said. Nelciana looked at him. He shared the same dark eyes as Eiophon and Lothonos. He favored Lothonos, greatly. But where Lothonos was all dark and broody, Acylias often glowed. It spoke of his ties to the sun and the sky. “It may take them a day or two, but it is something.”

“Lothonos speaks the truth, but perhaps we have tonight to rest. Deal with this in the morning?” Kennera, always the gracious one, said. Nelciana looked at her friend. Nera had her son cuddled in her arms, while his sister slept peacefully in Jushua’s arms.

He had taken one look at his twin’s infants and been as soft as mush.

Her own daughter was strapped to her chest, and Nelciana kissed the downy soft hair lightly. Her babes were half the age and a quarter the size of Nera’s—no surprise considering the rate at which a Lupoiux babe was said to grow. All the babes, so infinitely dear.

So vulnerable. And possessing the blood of the Nellana or Dardaptos lines.

“The time for resting and waiting is past. The blood calls,” Phaenna said. She had spoken so little since the barriers had been broken.

She was starting to terrify Nelciana with her solemnity.

“Phaenna is correct. He said…to you, Loren, didn’t he? That he wants every drop of our families’ blood. He won’t stop until
all
fall before him. Until he consumes every drop. All we love. Including my babes. And Kennera’s. He will not take them, yet he will try.”

She felt the wave of anger that flowed around the room. It had the babes that were awake fussing, and those that weren’t shifting in their mother’s arms.

Nelciana comforted Nella with her free hand, and watched Lothonos do the same for their son.

“Talk is one thing, but if we never act, then the bastard will have the advantage,” Eiophon said.

“He already has the advantage. He knows where we are, he knows what he wants. Where he intends to go next. His ultimate purpose. We do not.” Lothonos practically seethed with anger, until Dres stirred against his chest. Nelciana saw the tension slip from his shoulders for a moment while he tended their son.

“Not yet. We need that ancient.” Eiophon’s tone told her all she needed to know. He was ready to find the Ancient and demand his answers.

“He is resting.” Loren was protective of the male she had rescued from the Gardens of Ihth where he had been kept captive for at least five thousand years. Though it had been less than a week since she and Jushua and Dekimos had been pulled by that male through several world barriers to land in the courtyard at Thrun. There was a connection between the Laquazzeana that Nelciana didn’t fully understand.

Nelciana hadn’t forgotten what she had seen that day. Would she ever?

“He may have to wake long enough to tell us what we need to know.” Eiophon said again.

He was the most hotheaded of all of the males in the room, and when one considered Jushua, that was saying quite a lot. Lothonos, at least, was a rational creature.

Lothonos looked at her for a moment and then at his cousin. “Let us go to him, then. Ask these things of him.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Loren said. “He doesn’t speak any language but ancient Evelanedean and something else no one can identify. Eaudne
may
be able to understand him, but I am not entirely certain. And if he is disturbed Estacles becomes distraught. Their souls are still woven together, and very tightly.”

“Estacles will live?” Kennera asked, and Nelciana had no difficulty hearing the worry and fear for her older brother in her tone.

“Mother does not yet know,” Jushua said, cuddling the babe in his arms close. “She rarely leaves his side—or the Ancient’s. I worry she will neglect her health.”

“She will know her limits,” Loren said, with a mysterious tilt of her head that told Nelciana her sister knew something the others didn’t.

Jushua growled at Loren, and her sister smirked at him. He leaned over and ran a hand down her sister’s arm. “Like someone else I know? There is an untapped amount of power housed within my mother’s soul—much like there is in my mate’s. Mother has long pushed the edges of what she should.”

“Then perhaps it is your mother we should ask the answers of? And your brother Dekimos?” Lothonos challenged Jushua. There was something there between them, but Nelciana did not understand that, either.

“Then let’s,” Loren said. “Perhaps that is how the Fates wish it.  Well…whether they do or not, at least it is action. I am sorry, Phae.”

The other Laquazzeana just nodded. “I will not tell anyone not to follow the path of the Fates if that is what they wish.”

“Screw the Fates. They are selfish bitches all.” Acylias said, from his seat beside Phaenna. He had taken to her, especially since the barriers fell. “Do what you feel is the right decision. Nothing is set in stone anymore.”

Loren nodded at the god of retribution. “Jushua, Eiophon, and the god of doubt, let’s roll. I sense none of you wants to sit around and wait for the answers any more than I do. So…let’s be decisive and actually make change. We leave in half an hour, then. That should be enough time to grab our goody bags.”

“I’ll need to speak with Brynnja and Jordan again—” Nelciana said.

“No. Absolutely not.” Lothonos’ reply came so quickly, Nelciana was at a loss for words for a moment.

“But—”

“You are to stay in this world, where our people can protect you. Where your own can. In Relaklonos you will be one of only a small number of Nellana Druids, targets for the demons and the mercenaries. Easier targets than in a world filled with others of your Kind. You stay. Behind the wards I have put into place, and in the care of my cousin Acylias. None will dare defy him.”

Acylias. The god of retribution. So many feared Acylias, would it be enough?

But a Gaian god was nothing compared to a Laquazzeana, was he?

Her sister touched her shoulder. “Perhaps ol’cranky-pants is right. Someone needs to stay here and be visible to the masses growing outside. They will look for a Nellana to lead them, won’t they? And you’ll be far better at that than I will. I am not used to guiding thousands. I’m a bit tactless, after all. And we will not be gone that long.”

Then why did the very idea of it fill her with a great sense of unease?

Like something was about to befall them all?