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

A tense silence fell as everyone waited, hope in their throats.

At her mother’s urging, Avita managed a single swallow, the rich cream from Milly’s breast reinvigorating her almost immediately, colour returning to her cheeks as she swallowed again.

Ophelia gently pulled Nameless back to take his placed so that she could reach the Antlion Queen and check her over for injuries, at least as far as she was able while the critical girl was still cradled in Milly and Julia’s arms.

“Not too much dearheart. She is starving. If you give her too much too quickly she might get sick. One mouthful at a time.”

Milly lowed in compassion at the thought of having to deny the hungry mouth on her teat, but she trusted Ophelia’s judgment above just about anyone’s and so pulled it away.

Avita swallowed again, stronger this time, then gasped in a ragged breath.

“What about the workers?” Erica asked as she looked back at the girl who had broken her tail.

Despite the pain she felt, it saddened her to see her unmoving on the floor.

Queen Julia shook her head.

“Focus on Avita, her workers cannot survive without her. And while it pains me to say so, it is what they would want.”

“My queen speaks true.” A nearby soldier agreed quietly; “Our lives are inconsequential compared to that of our sovereign.”

It was the first time any of them had heard one of the other Antlions speak, which made the words that much more impactful.

While Milly, Ophelia, and Julia tended to the fallen queen, Miranda looked to Nameless.

He sighed when he saw the expression on her face, desperately hungry for information.

“Jonathan isn’t pulling girls into his mind anymore, or invading theirs. He found a better way. A faster way. He’s forcing them into Evadne’s, twinning them like he did before with the Lambda and Lapine you rescued in Oakridge. By burying their psyches with hers he is forcing them to feel her pain at the loss of her children as if it were their own. Her grief... it’s unbelievable. Like nothing I’ve ever felt.”

What Nameless didn’t say was that her pain was as disturbingly familiar as Volka’s at the loss of her kin, but Evadne lacked the Valkyrie’s selfless courage and indomitable will and so had crumbled before it.

The angel’s expression was pensive as she followed his thought process.

After a steadying breath, Nameless continued.

“I knew that she lost her people, but this? Now I understand exactly why she became a Tenebrae, why she hates everything.”

“To experience what she did, I too understand.” Volka shook her head to cast aside any doubts; “But what she is now, this thing that she has become... the last Chimera must be stopped. And the demon within her heart must be expelled from this world.”

Nina shrugged in the midst of splinting Erica’s tail, unable to ignore the way her bond-sister’s chin was trembling from the pain.

“Sounds to me like nothing has changed. Regardless of how tragic her back-story is, I plan on hitting her so hard everything inside of her is going to be expelled from this world.”

They had all heard her make the same promise many times, so they were used to her blatant bloodlust by now when it came to Evadne.

“The big question then, where the hell is she?” Miranda asked, looking around at the crates of supplies that Jonathan had amassed to feed their growing army.

“Gone.” A coarse voice whispered, causing all eyes to turn to the downed Antlion Queen; “They... left me here. Made my workers hide the entrance from within... I couldn’t-”

“Avita! Save your strength my daughter!” Queen Julia urged.

The girl’s eyes were bleary as she took in the faces of those fretting over her.

“M-Mother?”

“I am here, darling!”

“I heard you... calling for me. They left... that way. The human and... her. Cold. She was so cold.” She finished in a whimper, one emaciated arm pointing towards a narrow doorway leading out of the room.

Inevitably though, she didn’t have the strength to keep the arm raised, and it fell to her side as the young Antlion Queen slumped into unconscious.

Julia cried out in alarm, but Ophelia was quick to reassure her.

“She should recover. But we need to give her time for her body to rest and absorb the nutrients before we can give her more.” She looked to Milly and nodded to reassure her as well.

Meanwhile the others spread out and began to search the place, and they did not at all like what they found.

“The crates in here are empty now, but it looks like they were full of food.” Jan remarked.

Jez held up an empty can, the preserved fruit within long since having been eaten before it was cast aside.

“They were! Apricots!” She agreed; “The ones that they grow special for canning!”

“Jez, that isn’t- never mind.” Miranda gave up immediately on correcting yet another of the frog’s misconceptions; “The amount of supplies they’ve gone through down here... if this was their base of operations we need to report on it, and soon.”

“You think they intend on coming back?” Nameless asked with some concern.

“No.” Nina answered as she came back into the room; “Pretty sure I found the way out that the little queen was pointing at. The ants sealed it up, just like with her colony. It’ll take me a few minutes to clear it.”

Volka nodded, taking a moment away from helping the Antlion soldiers tend to Avita’s surviving workers.

“By all accounts they have been using this place for a long time, and it concerns me greatly that they no longer feel that they need it.”

While the others searched the place Ophelia milked Milly into a number of bottles that the Antlions emptied of water to help with the young queen’s