Yeah. Fuck.
What do we do?
You stay put. If I can take it by surprise, I’ll have a better chance at taking it down before it scents us both.
You’re asking me to stay behind while you go try to take down a deadly daemon single-handedly?!
I glared at her.
That is exactly what I am telling you to do.
Screw that. I’m coming with you.
Source be damned. Of all the times for Arken to choose to be stubborn. I suppressed a groan of frustration.
Also, they’re not technically daemons. Not exactly. They came here from the Shadow Plane, but they originated on the Plane of Earth. All of the Leshen used to be dryads.
Thus their insatiable hunger. A single Leshy could drink Aemos dry of all the Earth aether that the realm contained and still want for more. Nothing could ever compare to the near endless font of Earth to be found in their homelands. How it is that the dryads came to find themselves on the Shadow Plane and become such twisted, corrupted versions of their once-peaceful selves was beyond me. It had apparently happened thousands of years ago. All I knew is that whatever had been done to the dryads produced something… evil. Wrong. Like they were agony and vengeance incarnate.
This wasn’t my first encounter with one, but every time, I begged the Source to let it be the last.
Thank you for the Bios lesson, Kieran. But seriously, what the fuck do we do?
If Arken refused to stay put, I was left with no choice. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—force her to stay behind. But if she came with me to take this thing down, I needed her to be an asset and not a liability, lest we get ourselves killed.
Do you remember how to summon those aetherblades, Little Conduit?
Yep.
Okay. Bring ’em out. And look at me for a sec, I instructed silently, waiting to catch her glance and confirm she was paying attention. Her eyes had been darting all over the forest, searching for the threat.
They’re faceless, but humanoid in shape. Aim here, I explained through the raven, pointing at the space between my neck and collarbone.Or here, I pointed at my midsection, just below the ribcage.
How comfortable are you with wielding the Light daggers so far?
We hadn’t even touched aetherblades in our training sessions thus far, but she had summoned one quick enough inthe alley with Anders. You know, the same exact day she had even learned how.
Comfortable enough,Arken replied.
Good. I’m going to keep you shielded to the best of my ability, but stay away from the talons. Their poison works fast. If you make a clean hit in either of those two places, though—light it the fuck up. Give it all you’ve got, Ark. Pull from me if you have to. Light will probably do some serious damage against it, given that they’re Shadow-aligned.
She gave me a quick nod of understanding, her brow furrowing with focus.
Follow my lead, okay? I’m going to cloak us and silence our footsteps as much as I can, but as soon as we’re within 15 feet or so, the Leshy will scent us and it’s going to be time to fuck shit up.
Let’s go fuck shit up, then, Captain.
Despite the danger and the intensity of the situation, I couldn’t help but return her wry smile.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Arken
I was admittedly putting on a brave face for Kieran, but the second he’d put the wordLeshyin my mind, my mouth went dry and it was an effort not to shiver. Even though I had successfully played it off, the hair on the back of my neck still stood on end.
I wasn’t a fighter. Regardless of the strength of my Resonance, a Leshy was so far beyond my skill set that I was half-tempted to listen to Kier when he told me to stay put, but I couldn’t let him go alone.
It was sentimental stupidity and I knew it. The same stupid urge that had me drawing my blade on Cragg a few weeks back when he’d been talking shit. It didn’t matter that Kieran was one of the youngest captains the Elder Guard had ever seen, or thathis martial prowess went so far beyond what I could ever hope to attain that it was almost laughable.