Chapter Text
Lilith had never summoned a storm as large as the one she and Aimsir circled over the top of; hunting the venin and the wyvern she rode. She had never had the need to. The rest of the riot had scattered under the red-eyed glare of the venin and the horrid mind-numbing screech of the wyvern. The small riot Lilith had been leading was just here near Summerton’s wall to replace a failing wardstone within the ward wall barrier that protected them from the incursions of Poromiel and their gryphons, but the breaking of the ward wall near Summerton had lured the riot out, the squad had left the fort thinking they would be defending against a raid by the Poromiel gryphons and their riders, not these monsters. These monsters were not supposed to exist. Venin and wyvern were tales to keep children from misbehaving. Lilith had grown up on the stories. She loved hearing her husband tell the slightly disturbing tales to their two children when she arrived home late from the barracks to the family quarters. Soon, he would be filling the head of their third child with those same stories. The child currently doing flip-flops inside Lilith, as if the child could feel her fear.
A screech cut through the wind and the rain. It caused Lilith’s body to shudder; making her feel small, even as she was secure on the back of the giant brown body of Aimsir. That skeletal, red-eyed creature was hunting them. But, in the storm and rain, Lilith could not see it. She removed the green smoked glass goggles that kept her vision clear but irritated her as the entire valley and storm was a vibrant green color of the lenses, instead of her normal vision. She still could not see anything, as water ran down her face into her eyes. Swiping hard at her face and pushing dark hair back off her forehead before replacing her goggles. She needed to be able to see better.
Lilith closed her eyes. Taking in deep breaths to center herself and calm her heart rate. Opening her mind up, she pushed upon that barrier that separated her mind and Aimsir’s, slowly pushing into his. Lilith opened her eyes, the world came into view sharper and clearer though the colors were more muted than from her own eyes. Seeing the world from Aimsir’s eyes was a new trick they had been working on. It was hard to concentrate when the world was so different from how she was used to viewing it, but it allowed her to see sharper and farther away. Aimsir’s gaze darted around the valley and the walls of the storm clouds. The taupeish tinge upon the valley was disconcerting, but she forced her focus onward, looking for movement from within the haze of the clouds and the torrential rain.
There, in the farthest dip of the valley, she could see the faintest of sinewy movements. Aimsir attention narrowed in on the undulating movements of the wyvern, and he began to gain elevation, getting them to the highest they could go. They could not abandon destroying this threat or they would die trying. Moving upwards, Lilith’s short dark hair plastered onto her forehead, and she pushed it off once more. She felt the pull of Aimsir’s wing muscles as he began taking altitude, bringing them higher up the valley he wanted to hunt. The need to hunt was thrumming in him, the power pulsing off of him. There was the want to be high in the sky, scanning the dips and flows of the valley, hunting something ghastly that did not belong in their territory. The animalistic feeling swept over Lilith, and it was disconcerting. She had been in many combat missions with Aimsir before; they had hunted down escaping gryphons and their riders, defended Navarrian territory, running missions, but never had Aimsir more animalistic urges pushed through into her so hard previously. It was an ancient hatred that overwhelmed her, something that had laid dormant, never pushing past the barrier of their bond before now, before they were confronted with the venin and wyvern. This was something new to them both.
As they pulled higher and higher the air became colder, chilling Lilith down to the bone, through her riders leathers. The storm raged farther out into the valley. She felt the pull of the signet power within her stretching and pulsing further, sapping her strength. She needed to free herself from the storm she had made before it grew stronger from pulling at her power and weakening her.
A reverberating ululation sounded out from somewhere farther down than where Lilith sat on Aimsir’s back. Straining at the straps of her saddle, she leaned over to see the nauseating undulating movements of the wyvern, the venin standing without movement on its back, whatever magic was holding her in place as the body of the wyvern flowed like a flag in the breeze, incongruous with the winds of the storm. The venins dead silver hair fell around her in sheets, untouched by the rainfall. They were right above the wyvern and its master, but the element of surprise would not hold forever.
‘Aimsir, bring us closer as quietly as possible, we need to stay upwind of the gas when we attack.’ She had pulled in a strong storm after watching the venin release a horrific sickly green gas that had pulled down Tamsin and her dragon at the very beginning as they had begun defensive formations. As Aimsir glided down silently, using the fading wind to reduce the number of flapping noises his wings would make, Lilith became aware of a voice on the wind, growing stronger over the dying noise of the storm. Echoing reverberations of a strong voice chanting in a language she did not know, the voice seemed to enter into her mind pulling at her, through the bond she could feel the pull on Aimsir as well. It was a crushing emptiness that seemed to enter into her head and body, the need to listen, the need to obey.
A cold gust of rain slapped her wet hair back into her face, pulling her out of her trance, and as she felt that need flee from her head, relief flooded her that Aimsir was with her, and not continuing down into that darkness.
‘I am fine little one,’ his voice rumbling darkly through her mind, ‘I will be with you until the end. Our end.’
A tremulous shaky roar, a death rattle filled the air and as Lilith leaned over, she knew that it was not the wyvern below them that made the sound. No, that chant had summoned another wyvern, that disgusting creature had created another monster. Using Aimsir’s eyes again she could see something giant moving from the bottom of the valley, its movements undulating like the wyverns. Confirmation then. But as the new wyvern moved closer, Lilith’s horror grew. It was Muiren, Tamsin’s orange dragon, but her wings didn’t flap, great holes were torn through them as if they had been decaying for years. Her giant body was gaunt as if starved and the gleam and shine of her scales were gone, many were missing while others were dull or blackened as if with rot. And strapped onto her giant orange back was Tamsin, her waist still held by her strap, but her back had clearly been snapped at an odd angle, her body lolled as if rigor mortis had not set in properly as the resurrected dragon undulated exactly like the wyvern the venin was riding. Vomit made its way up her throat, she hadn’t even dealt with morning sickness but the thought of her dead friend’s dragon being resurrected with her strapped to its back, decaying as it flew toward her, and her own certain death made her ill. One wyvern and venin was too much to handle but how many dead dragons had the venin killed, how many could she resurrect?
Lilith had always known that the Poromielians were traitorous humans but that they would partner with such monsters was unthinkable. If it was the last thing she ever did she would rid the world of these monsters and those human scum across the border, no one would hurt her family, her friends or her country ever again as she would do everything in her power, stop at nothing to defeat this unholy union of her enemies.
Lilith needed a plan, but her only thoughts were ideas that would get her killed. She would never see her children again, never see her husband, and her baby would never have a breath of fresh air, if she followed these ideas through to the end. But there was not other choice, there was no running away from her duty, she had to protect the others. Her living children Brennan and Mira needed to live, and they had their father. They would be fine if she did not survive this, but if Lilith could not eliminate this threat then they would not have a future, even if it was one without her.
‘If you cut off the head of a snake, right?’ she asked him, as Aimsir drew closer to the wyvern, understanding what she wanted. The Venin’s head snapped up at her. The venin would have been beautiful if she had not sold her soul for power. A sharp angular face, beautiful cheekbones, but lifeless all of it. Silver hair fell dead around a pale face, abnormally wide colorless eyes glowing as the red veins around them pulsed ominously, sickly. Lilith’s cold fingers fumbled with the buckle at her waist and pulled herself into a low crouch, fighting against the wind that threatened to pull her off the wyverns’ back. She could not think about what she was about to do, the recklessness of her actions. Freeing herself from her straps and checking the distance once again.
‘It’s not a snake.’
She jumped.
A surprising rush of air escaped from her lungs as she hit the back of the wyvern, hands scrambling to find purchase. Sharp jagged scales and ridges cut through her black leather flying gloves, cutting deep into the flesh of her hands. Finally, she found a handhold on the tough scaled ridges upon the wyverns’ back, using them to pull herself up. It let out a roar of anger, fiercer and sharper than the noises from before. The venin had whipped herself around, staring at her with those horrible dead colorless eyes, the pulsing red veins trailed from her eyes down the side of his neck disappearing into the billowing black robes, like worms wriggling. She stood so unnervingly still on the back of the wyvern as undulated, its wings not beating, barely stirring, just hanging there limply as if paralyzed.
The wyvern began shifting, forcing his nose to the ground, Lith grasped at the spines on its back, the sharpness of the fins slicing through the leather of her gloves, but she could not let go, letting go meant falling to her death if Aimsir could not catch her before the ground did.
A horrifying crash to her right, had her twisting, as roaring and screeching pierced the air. Muiren had slammed into Aimsir, the dull lifeless orange intermixing with Aimsir’s deep bright green, a clashing riot of colors and sounds. Claws and teeth dug into each other scraping into scales. Muiren’s scales sloughed off like dead skin after a horrible sunburn, and the two dragons began tumbling toward the valley floor tangled in one another.
Looking back at the Venin, she stared at her, her beautiful face tilted at her. The black hood of her cloak had fallen back, and silvery hair lay dead, it did not move in the wind as if a void lay all around the venin, untouched by the world around her. Unnerved, she pulled herself closer, her hand going to her sword. Steeling herself, to the wicked smiling gaze, she lunged forward. The venin moved around the massive back of the wyvern as if the creature diving did not affect her, even as Lilith fought to keep her balance advancing on the venin slowly.
Again, the beautiful waspish venin said something to her, but she did not understand, her head continued to tilt to the side like a beautiful, overgrown monster of a child. A faded black tattoo sat on her forehead, a claw grasping at something. Lilith knew it from somewhere; it was unimportant at this moment. The venin lifted a hideous withered hand; the fingertips blackened, and they looked as if they needed to be chopped off to save the rest of the limb. Her fingers point to the slight but noticeable bump on her belly, and that smile somehow becomes crueler, more sadistic. A snarl lets loose from Lilith’s lips, helping to propel her forward with her sword in hand.
Snap! She could feel not so much as hear the snapping of her wrist bones in the thin gnarled hand of the venin. She had not even seen the venin reach out before she grabbed her, pulling her close to her chest. Weakened Lilith’s hand dropped her sword as his cold hand grasped harder. A rancid reeking breath washed over her face as she pulled her closer to her face, holding her still as the wyvern undulated continually. The pain of her broken wrist seared through her arm and up into her shoulder. She watched; caught in her grasp as her sword glimmered in the lightning as it fell, skittering off the scales of the wyvern’s back.
“Watch,” the beautiful, haunting Venin told her and she lifted her hand. The storm around them began to change, shifting. Lilith felt the power of her storm, which she created, shifting and evolving. The movement of the wind shifted, turning on itself. The rain lessened. Lilith’s mind burned, this venin had powers like hers. In a matter of minutes, her entire world had been upended. Venin existed, and they were so much more powerful than she could have ever expected.
“Ours!” The enmity of her words washed over Lilith even without understanding their meaning. Gritting her teeth she swung herself up in his grasp, bracing her feet against the venin’s thighs, trying to yank herself free. The venins grip remained steady and hard, not giving Lilith even an inch more to move her arm. The Venin only laughed.
“You and I, we are the same. Just different sides,” she paused, thinking over her next words as if nothing more important was happening, “but we could be on the same side?”
“No, you are evil. You have no soul.” Her voice was guttural as she continued to grit her teeth through the pain. Lilith knew she needed to end this fight, she could feel the power in the venins words, though unsure of their meaning. Was that how Venin worked their twisted magic, stealing power from the land, by chanting magic words? A perverse form of the power bond she and Aimsir shared, that all dragons and their riders shared.
“Or perhaps not, I can wait for your child,” the veins grin grew, spreading across her face like disease during a famine. “ Power calls to power. But I am forgetting my manners, you may call me Theophanie. I think we will be friends, or allie.”
Horror grew inside Lilith. Twisting in Theophanie’s grip, she looked around her, she could feel her bond with Aimsir, but could not see him. Attempting to slam her head into the Venin’s face only seemed to mildly irritate her as he held Lilith’s arm like a dirty rag doll. Pulling her closer, Theopahnie raised the pitch of her voice, the chanting, again, filled her mind. A thick layer of desolation and despair filled her head, overwhelming her, overwhelming even the pain that coursed through her arm from her broken wrist as she writhed in his grip. She needed Aimsir. She needed to escape.
Lilith’s left hand fumbled against her thigh feeling for her dagger, it was mostly just a pretty ornamental thing that her husband had bequeathed to her when she had been promoted to major but it was sharp enough. Unsheathing her dagger and pulling it up, her colorless eyes never showed a hint of fear, but her lips turned up into a casual smile as if nothing she did would ever bother her. She raised the dagger, letting the light catch the sharp edge, the gleam of the wardstone, blue and whole glowed through her fingers as she swung it down.
A nasty wet gurgling fell out of his mouth, along with a putrid black sludge drooling down her chin and down her robes blending into the black fabric. Surprise fell upon Theophanie’s pretty face, the disbelief evident as the wyvern beneath them began to caterwaul loudly, a cacophony of sounds spilling into the valley and echoing back to her. She looked back at the Venin as her grip loosened on her, black cracks grew along Theopahnies face, but her wide devasting grin remained as if she had succeeded even in her death. Her hand reached out to her, gently almost lovingly seeking her belly, and as those weathered blackened fingers touched her bump, she let out one last word and pain rocked through her. Horrible agony burned through her insides. Tears streamed in her eyes as the wyvern began to pitch and tumble through the air, falling towards the ground.
“Aimsir, Aimsir,” Lilith was screaming for him not in her head but out loud. As the wyvern continued to pitch in the air, she threw out her hands to catch herself, her broken wrist searing out with pain lancing up her arm, as she tried to hold onto the fins of the wyvern. Underneath Lilith’s hands, the wyvern’s scales dulled, sloughing off with the constant whining of the wyvern. She had to get back to Aimsir, as the wyvern dropped harshly, and her hands bled with sharp deep cuts from the scales she clung to so desperately.
Lilith stood, trying to keep her balance before tossing herself off the side of the wyvern, trying to clear herself of the body and wings, hoping she did not get whacked by its claws or tail as she fell through the air. He would catch her, he would. She would not die by falling.
‘Aimsir!’ she called, screaming through her mind as the air flew past her and the ground came closer and closer to her. She felt the heavy weight of everything pushing on her, the blackness creeping up on the edges of her vision, she felt the great power of the ward pulse over her, blue mixing with the black. She pulled the great power of the ward they had been transporting into her, feeling it flow into her as she fell, time seemed to slow. Pain ricocheted through her body, and the black overtook the blue. A distant roar faded into the whistling of the wind as she fell.