The Heartstone Saga by Archibald Bradford (short novels in english .TXT) 📕

mourned, the overcast sky a grim reflection of the hearts of the sudden widows. Milly dragged her hands through the mud, her deep moos of grief echoing around them all, Erica reached out and the two clung to each other desperately.

Nina collapsed to her knees in the mud, her hands gripping the earth tightly.

“But I fought so hard.” She said pitifully.

There was a rapid patter of feet and suddenly Escrya was there, looking just as lost as any of them, Helena and Kaylee at her side, just as they had been from the beginning.

A good thing too, as they caught her under her arms when her knees buckled, holding her close as she began to hyperventilate.

This was not the reunion she had dreamt of.

All the while Volka held Nameless to her breast, her heart broken. But still she shed no tears, merely wiping the water from his face as the last of the rain fell.

“How?! How did this happen?!” Nina suddenly burst out, stumbling towards the Valkyrie.

Volka finally raised her head, drawing a heavy breath as she did. She had lost all of her sisters and now she had lost her husband. But she had endured, and would continue to endure.

Her duty was clear, and she had not forgotten his final plea to her.

She had to take care of them now.

But first they needed to know the truth.

“Our Husband… our love… his power is not limitless. With it he stirred the primordial laws and the laws of the divine. And such a feat could not come without cost.”

“Wh-what do you mean?” Milly sobbed out.

“You know what it takes for him to save a single Tenebrae Milly. Erica, and you Nina, you two especially know. Our husband saved thousands of monster girls today, excepting those that died on the field before we could reach them. Such a feat is unprecedented. It would have taken five hosts of Valkyrie at full strength working together with no distractions to accomplish this…”

“But what did you do?” Erica wailed.

“The only thing we could. He opened himself utterly to their pain, drawing in all of their false memories, all of their rage and grief, and trapping them within his mind.” She drew a shuddering breath, a single tear trailing down her cheek; “And then I opened the sacred gates within myself, as my sisters did so long ago to create the first Empaths, and I flooded him with my divinity. It burned away the memories that did not belong, and everything that he was. Saving them, and ending him.”

“You… you killed him?” Escrya whispered, finding her voice.

The look of absolute betrayal on her face was staggering.

But Volka accepted it, nodding slowly.

“He told me to, it was his choice, I will not ask for your forgiveness. It is what needed to be done. Our husband- no, our Nameless Lord... has ever been about what was needed.”

The Amazon stumbled away from Helena and Kaylee brought her fist up as if to strike the angel, but ultimately she couldn’t. In her heart she knew that she was right, they all did. Instead she collapsed into Volka’s arms, Nameless’s body shifting to one side as she cried over him.

“What is this, what’s all the fuss?”

Having passed off the task of retrieving Jonathan, too concerned with Nina’s abrupt race to her bond-mate, a limping Miranda broke through the circle of monster girls to see them huddled around him.

It was as if someone had knocked the wind out of her as she took in his prone form.

“Ah no… shit kid, what did you do?”

Her voice faltered as she slumped into Kala, who supported her weight while Jan took up position on her other side, nuzzling into her shoulder with a plaintive whine.

“He saved them, he saved them all.” Sadie whispered, her words filled with equal measure of awe and sorrow.

Coming from where the medics and Dryads were working, Ophelia flapped her wings in desperation to reach them.

She landed in the mud and was on her knees beside him immediately, her normally pale complexion somehow even paler.

“Ophelia...” Volka began.

“Get back!” She shrieked; “All of you get back!”

The Flutterby slapped her hands away and tore Nameless’s uniform open, exposing his scarred chest.

She seemed barely in control of herself, but she remembered her training and began chest compressions, Volka’s eyes closing in pain as she looked away from the futile effort.

At the Valkyrie’s side, Escrya sobbed at the very obvious pain her bond-sister was enduring, but she didn’t try to stop her either.

The Flutterby’s wings, already weary from carrying her around the battlefield in the heavy rain, were limp at her back as she bent over and began to breathe into Nameless’s mouth.

After three deep breaths she resumed pressing against his chest.

“You can’t.” She sobbed out; “You don’t get to leave us!”

“Ophelia, he’s gone.” Volka’s voice broke as she set her hand on the medic’s shoulder.

The Flutterby turned away from Nameless long enough to slap her across the face, hard, and then went back to her life-saving efforts.

It was a stunning turn to witness, but no one dared interrupt her again.

Even when her tears flowed so freely that they dripped off of her nose and onto Nameless’s face.

“Erica, my bag! Get me the big needle with the red plunger!”

The Katje didn’t move, still frozen with shock, but Milly did, rustling through the satchel before finally giving up and dumping its contents in the mud beside her motionless bond-mate.

If the Flutterby wasn’t giving up, than neither would she.

Ophelia snatched up the desired needle and clenched it in her fist, then splayed her hand out over Nameless’s chest to count his ribs.

Everyone watching flinched when she stabbed it downwards into his heart.

“You don’t get to die!” She screamed down at