[Subjugation] took her refusal apart with the same violence his fist had destroyed her face, and Aelindra felt her own thoughts bend toward pliance with a sickening inevitability that hollowed her out from the inside. She fought it, genuinely fought it, her will pressing against the bond's grip until the thoughts themselves started tearing at the edges.
In the next moment, her mind opened.
Aelindra's eyes found him from the ground, and the satisfaction in them was worse than the hatred had been.
Sera's feet connected with the rebuilt lower face.
"Actually, I don't know why I was wasting time rebuilding your foul mouth. You're better off without it. I'll just stop the bleeding then tend to my love's injuries." The impact hit the patchwork tissue with a wet crack that sent Aelindra's head snapping sideways, freshly healed skin ing undone.
The sound that ripped through [Master's Link] was raw and animal. Aelindra's body curled around the agony with both hands clawing at her own face, blood running between her fingers.
"Not another word from you until prompted." Sera stood over her with golden light still on her hands and murder in her eyes.
Aelindra went silent.
He looked west, where the war sprawled across the slopes in fire and steel. His girls were down there, scattered across fronts that stretched further than his eyes could track, each of them fighting something that could kill them in a single second.
Then he looked further, toward the horizon where the Elvardian capital sat beyond his sight.
Two pulls. He couldn't answer both at once.
Sera watched his face for less than a second before she understood everything in it.
Her voice came through [Master's Link].
The responses came fast.
That was Lucille, simple and immediate.
Vex. Then Ayame.
Her voice came through the bond from wherever her blade was meeting Kaede's, calm and clear despite the fight she was in the middle of, and the words carried a weight the others hadn't reached for.
The invisible crack forming in Quinlan's chest sealed shut, and the hesitation left his body the way tension left a bowstring.
a chorus of feminine voices urged him.
He turned to Kaelira. The shy smith stood where she'd been since the fight ended, both shields still raised, blood from her split lip drying on her chin.
She'd heard everything through the link. Her eyes were already on the battlefield below.
"Help them," he asked her.
Kaelira nodded to Quinlan once, cracked both shields together hard enough to send stone chips flying, and dropped off the ridge toward the nearest front without a word. "Sera." He turned to Seraphiel. "She'll need healing."
Sera didn't need to be asked twice. The moment his arm reached for her she was already moving, closing the distance and jumping into his hold with her arms around his neck and her body pressed against his chest like she'd been waiting for permission to be there.
Golden light bloomed from her palms immediately, pouring into his battered torso from where her hands met his skin, and the sound she made against his neck was soft and fierce at the same time. She healed him as he held her, her fingers tracing the worst of the damage with a tenderness that belonged in a bedroom, not on a ridge soaked in blood.
Then he reached down for Aelindra.
His free hand found her hair, long and black and matted with drying blood, and his fingers twisted through it until the strands wound tight around his fist. He pulled upward without ceremony, hauling the elf off the ground by her scalp, and the roots tore against the pull in a way that added a fresh layer of agony to the symphony already screaming through her skull.
Aelindra's hands clawed at his wrist, her feet barely scraping the stone as her body weight hung from her scalp, and the sound that ripped toward [Master's Link] was a white-hot shriek the bond wouldn't let her voice. Her freshly ruined face contorted around a scream she wasn't allowed to release, tears and blood mixing freely down the patchwork skin.
One woman cradled against his chest with her arms around his neck, healing him with warm hands and adoring eyes. The other dangling from his fist by her hair, bleeding from a face he'd destroyed, choking on agony he'd ordered her to swallow in silence.
[Warp Gate] tore reality open ahead of them, the dimensional seam connecting to one of the elite scout souls he'd sent to the Elvardian capital a couple hours ago.
He stepped through with Sera against his heart and Aelindra in his fist, and the gate collapsed behind them.
...
AN: Shorter chapters today, needed to do a lot of planning. Also, I did a little oopsie and randomly decided it was night time from around chapter 1697 when it was in fact daytime. Apologies for the confusion, chapters have been edited accordingly.
Reviews
All reviews (0)