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

beginning but he had to start somewhere.

The mental image of Volka at his side shook her head.

She is royalty. She is owed allegiance and respect.

What? I called her ‘Queen’ didn’t I?

You mistake me. She is owed these things. She expects them. She is used to them.

Slowly Nameless clued in to what she was saying, or rather thinking, to him.

I gotcha.

This time when he cast his thoughts out into the chaos, he made sure to colour them with Nina’s bluntness and a fair bit of Erica’s sass.

Yo Avita! Get your skinny ass over here!

Neither of them was prepared for the vehemence of her reply.

All of her thoughts, and all of the thoughts of her many workers, turned inwards, until it felt like they were being glared at from every direction imaginable.

VENGEANCE FOR MY CHILDREN!!

The booming roar hit their bubble like a tidal wave, again coming from all sides.

But Volka stood firm, and thus so did Nameless.

They both balked somewhat though when the Antlion Queen’s meaning became clear in their minds.

They saw her hands reaching out, except they weren’t her hands, to caress the statues of ash that her children had become.

At his side Volka sucked in an ethereal breath.

By the light of my goddess! The pain of it! Steady Husband!

It hit him then as well, a wall of grief so black and all-consuming that it made him want to throw up all over the Antlion’s mind, which definitely wouldn’t have helped matters.

But the image of the Chimera’s children, dead and ash now for centuries, felt wrong in a different way than the tragedy it presented: it didn’t belong here.

Plain as day to him, the memory was not hers, it couldn’t be hers.

So he cast his thoughts out again, responding to the wave of rage and hate and sorrow with firm patience and unconditional love.

There is only one enemy here. And you know it, proud daughter of the house of Longinus. These are not your children.

With all of his focus he dragged the queen’s all-encompassing attention towards a single Antlion worker, currently being pinned to the stone wall by a grim-faced Milly.

This is your love. See her pain? See what you are doing to her?

He felt the mental sob as the queen broke, felt a chink form in her already fractured mental armour.

NO, I MUST... I MUST KILL EVERYTHING!

Why?

She didn’t respond, instead his simple question reverberated in Avita’s thoughts and he felt her confusion swelling all around as a result.

Outside of their shared minds the others were having a much easier time of it: the remaining workers had become dazed as their queen’s control slipped.

Emboldened, Nameless pressed on.

Explain to me why you must suffer for the Chimera’s dead children. Why must your workers fight? Why must YOU fight?

That was all it took.

Over the course of the next few seconds he watched as the multi-faceted mind of the Antlion colony cleared.

Though he was surprised by what was left:

Order.

A painful degree of order.

The unrealized structure of an entire society: rigid and unchangeable, but beautiful in its simplicity.

Worker, Soldier, Myrmidon, Queen.

But it was fading, and he knew why.

A whisper of a thought reached out to them, the queen’s final words as she slipped ever closer to oblivion.

Thank... you.

Chapter 24:That Which Sustains

Nameless and Volka returned to their own minds with a start, surrounded by the others.

He sprang into action immediately.

“Milly! Milk! She needs milk! She’s dying!”

“Wha-”

But Volka was already pulling her off of the worker, now slumped against the floor, and pushing her towards the young Antlion Queen.

“Beloved sister, there is no time! Even now she fades! Evadne and Jonathan forced her to produce far more workers than she was capable of sustaining, her body needs nutrients!”

“My daughter!” Julia wailed as she rushed to her side; “Please, the Dominar is correct, please save her!”

With her confusion gone, Milly shrugged the straps of her overalls off of her shoulders and pulled her shirt up to expose one breast.

With great care she held the emaciated queen to her chest, positioning her pink nipple at her lips.

“I don’t understand. They were so strong a moment ago, what changed?” Erica asked as she gingerly paced over to them.

Midway down, her sleek black tail was kinked at an unnatural angle from where an Antlion’s shovel had struck a clipped blow, but with the young queen fending for her life, she didn’t complain about it.

The Valkyrie had taken a step back to allow room for Julia to go to her daughter and turned to answer her bond-sisters question.

“The will to live... it is no mere thing. Poor Avita and her colony were filled with Evadne’s twisted purpose, her hunger for vengeance, the same hunger that has sustained the Chimera for so long despite the demon inside of her. And now that it is gone her body is failing.”

Milly didn’t give up, still pressing her nipple between the Antlion’s chapped lips and mooing at her gently as Nameless helped her coax some of her cream into her mouth.

Kala spoke then, her voice subdued as she inspected their surroundings.

“It’s not just her. Half of the workers down here are already gone.”

“Talk to her Queen Julia! I can’t reach her anymore, but you’re her mother, your voice-” Nameless settled his hand on the woman’s hip as he urged her to do what he said; “Remind her of everything that she is, and everything she wants to be!”

The tearful queen nodded as she cradled her daughter along with Milly.

“My darling Avita, my proud Avita! Live! You were forming a legacy of your own! You had plans, such grand plans! An underground network to connect all of our family’s colonies together! You used to