Page 29 of Shadows of Air and Earth (Remnant Archives)

“ T o your right!” Ri’s air whispered along my ear and I ground my teeth to focus on my power and not the hot shiver his breath created.

Slowly controlling the crashing buildings in the distance, I could practically feel Remnant’s glaring look of disapproval as the basilisk tore through the city in search of her…or us. That much was still uncertain.

"So any ideas on where this firestone seal is?

" Ri breathed again, as we crept quickly along the shadowy alcoves, my power retreating from the landslide of rock deep into the marbled road.

It was somewhere below—I could sense it.

But there was so much of the firestone laid within that I could not pinpoint an exact location.

"Why would they build this goddess damn town from firestone?" I tugged on my hair, stretching my power to feel the ebb and flow of the earth beneath my feet and all around me. "All it takes is one naive wielder to light up this city."

"I find myself suddenly thankful that you are not naive, terrella."

I gave him a sharp look and his mouth curved upwards in a half-cocked smile. "You are onlythankful now , Dragoon?"

Winking, Riley wrapped his air around me, pulling me flush to his body, and I gasped. His heat flooded into my skin, enveloping me in the safety of his air. "I amend my statement…" he murmured, the mint of his breath a refreshing breeze upon my face. "I am more thankful than ever before."

Leaning forward, I closed the distance between us, planting a soft kiss on his smiling mouth, his hand instinctively cupping my exposed face. "So am I, Dragoon…" I whispered, then tilted my head up with a smirk, "For you to raise me up to a better vantage point, that is."

Together we peered up the stone wall of the high tower where a bell hung, hauntingly silent.

He quirked his brow. “An unusual request for you, your feet will no longer be on the ground.”

I licked at my lips. "There is too much stone blocking me from finding the artifact. The seal must be pure firestone but I cannot pinpoint it while submerged within the city—"

A finger pressed against my lips and Riley smiled down at me. "The last and only time I’ve ever seen you this nervous was when we stole the Empedolces staff."

Slapping his finger away, I shot him an annoyed glare.

"Ri, she is out there on her own facing a goddess forsaken basilisk, she dragged me out of that Faerie ring alone with her heart bare and untold dark confessions on her lips.

All for us." I shook my head, my gaze falling to the ground and I shifted uncomfortably.

"It's the least I can do for her," I confessed.

Riley grunted, pulling my chin back up, determination set in his eyes. "It's the least we can do terrella. Now hold on tight."

I inhaled at the stirring of his element swirling around us, my hair blowing further across my face before he pressed the full length of my body against his. His chest vibrating with a low groan just moments before he shot us straight up into the air landing whisper light on the tower’s ledge.

"Sweet goddess," I gasped, eyes widening at the view of the city and the general just a few streets away.

She walked confidently down the smooth marble path, its yellows and oranges glittered like hot sparking embers reflecting in the sun, and not fifty feet in front of her stood the most grotesque and enormous monster I had ever seen.

As tall as the building around it, the basilisk's shrill crow shook the city, windows shattering in a spray of glass raining down on its great rooster head. Ending in a hiss, a great forked tongue slithered between a serrated beak full of sharp fangs. Bright red feathers that trailed down its serpentine-like body trembled with its rage, only to be accented by its unfurled leathery wings. Clawing at the street with razor sharp talons, bigger than my forearm, the beast’s beak dripped with saliva, burning holes into the stone below.

Instinctively, I pulled Ri to me when without warning, it screeched, streams of fire shooting upwards into the air.

A warning sign to the shadow fae that faced this creature without fear or hesitation—and without sight!

"The goddess is playing tricks with my eyes,” Riley cursed, “please tell me she isn’t blindfolded, Xi?”

Unable to lie, I simply stared. Remnant Dark was blindfolded and with no weapon in hand. Her only defenses were the shadows licking at her feet like dark flames rising from the depths of Sheol. They set her arms ablaze in shadow, excitedly anticipating their next task.

"We need to get down there—" I hissed right before a streak of violent lightning crossed the cobalt blue sky, drawing our attention outward, beyond the town’s borders to the waves of green grasses below.

The Goddess plains rippled, and with it, large marshmallow clouds rolled in, thundering upon each other, battling the skies with its great storming wave.

Riley leaned out over the ledge of the bell tower, his gaze fixed past Remnant and the basilisk, his face darkening gravely. "That’s no natural storm," he growled.

“Ri!” I hissed, my hand snatching out to grip his thick arm, nails digging into his soft flesh, jerking him back to where the most immediate danger was. That fucking storm could wait—in fact I knew that storm was waiting.

"The goddess damn me to Sheol and back," Riley breathed, his gaze turning on what mine could not look away from. Now just feet away from the basilisk, Remnant Dark bowed low, genuflecting to the great beast's monstrous form while the shadows enveloped her body.

Its talons pranced, scraping harshly on the marble under her lowered gaze and a long serpentine tail wound across the street, curling around the bowed shadow fae general who never flinched.

Tilting its large beak downward, its tongue slithered out around her head, slathering its acidic saliva upon her, burning holes in her shadow shield—and still she did not stir in fright.

"Is she…?" I brushed my hair back fully, needing both my eyes to comprehend what I was seeing.

"Speaking to it?" Riley finished my sentence, shaking his head. "Yeah, she is, in ancient fae."

I sputtered, my heart racing, when the basilisk beak dipped lower still, its head twitched, cocking sideways to listen. "She is veritably mad. What in the love of the goddess could she possibly have to say to that…that mutilated creature."

Riley snickered, "It’s a good thing you're not the one negotiating with a beast of origin."

I licked at my lips, unable to take my eyes away, my breathing short and slightly erratic. "Shut up Ri and tell me what she is saying."

Chuckling still, he bent slightly, his warm breath at the shell of my ear.

"She says…" he stalled, inhaling markedly before I felt his lips widen in a smile. I was unable to tear my eyes away from the incredible display of bravery…or was it insanity? With Remnant, I wasn’t sure anymore.

"She is just…exceptional. The legends don't do her justice Xi. "

Grinding my teeth, I dug my nails into his arm harder. "What? What is she saying, Riley Dragoon? Goddess help me, don't make me bury you within this bell tower."

His grin grew wider and for a brief moment I thought I would have to follow through with my threat, but when he spoke it was the words I wanted though not what I fucking expected.

"She says, My great beast brethren , I see your pain and your rage.

I know you had no control over the fae you killed here and in the other towns.

I have not come to fight you, for you are fierce.

No. I have come bowed before you to help you so that I may take your pain away without violence and the cost of more lives. "

I inhaled sharply, watching transfixed as she rose, her gaze meeting the lowered great eyes of the basilisk. "What? What other towns?"

Riley grunted beside me. "She did say we needed to hurry to get here."

"No. Goddess no." My hand covered my mouth. All those fae…we could have saved them if I hadn’t been so foolish. Guilt burned through my veins like the acidic poison dripping from the beast’s mouth.

"There was no way we could have known, terrella," Riley said softly, his voice solemn and distant, straying just as mine did with the thoughts of hundreds of fae meeting their end, frozen in stone, because we were too late.

Swallowing hard, my breath caught when Remnant’s hand stretched blindly outward. Gaze steady, she stroked the fierce beak of the basilisk without hesitation. I did not need Riley's hearing ability to know that she was cooing to an original beast like a babe.

Opening its jaw wide in invitation, her arm disappeared inside the beast’s mouth, amongst the serrated fangs. Tail coiling around her defensively, my heart began to pound in my ears right before my hearing was shattered by a blood curdling screech.

I didn't wait. I didn't hesitate. I jumped straight from the bell tower, the air roaring around me while I dropped, the ground rising up, rumbling beneath my feet, propelling me into a forward sprint.

“No!” I screamed, watching fire burst around both beast and fae, its brightness blurring my vision.

Blindly I continued to run, praying that I was not too late, that there would be something left of the shadow fae that I now had the honor of calling my friend.

When my feet came to a hard stop and my body abruptly pitched forward, I cried out.

Reacting on instinct, I softened the earth, weaving it into coarse sand before landing with a muffled grunt, saving my face from being crushed by marbled stone.

Sputtering out the gritty earth, I stilled, tasting a unique energy within the ground—a pure, concentrated form of smoldering hot rock.

"You've got to be goddess damn kidding me," I sputtered, thrusting my hand deep into the sand, my pulse thundering in my head.

Coaxing the earth to shift beneath, I soon felt a disk-like object, heavy and thick, settling into it.

I grinned in the dirt, chuckling madly at my bit of luck—except there was no luck in Faerie.

"Uh Xi," Riley said dryly, "I hardly think this is the best moment for playtime in the sandbox."

Wrenching my hand from the ground, I held out the pure concentrated form of firestone, gold and glittering against the darkened sky where the rolling clouds still waited ominously.

Riley pointed, "Is that—"

"Ah, you have found the seal, well done." Remnant's calm, unfazed voice drew both of our attention forward. A pale arm stretched out to me, blocking my vision. I blinked at the beautiful and precise scrolling tattoos etched along the flawless skin, following it up to Remnant’s soft smile.

It was then that I knew I was getting better at reading her—because beneath her bright emerald eyes, I caught a flicker of trepidation before it disappeared into a careful mask.

She wriggled her fingers at me, indicating to take her hand, "I can't help but think you were worried about me, Xi. Apologies for tripping you up. I did not want the basilisk to be frightened by your presence." She tilted her head, “Or were you just looking for an excuse to play in the dirt?”

I snorted and heard Riley's failed attempt to smother his laughter. "I think that is very much an understatement, Rem," I drawled, slapping my hand in her own, the shadows releasing my feet while she hauled me up effortlessly, despite my being almost double her height.

Riley stepped closer to us both, his eyes first scanning her body for injury before turning to the street behind her where one very pissed-off basilisk was now missing. "What in the goddess fuck happened?"

Remnant waved a large fang, forcing us both to rear back from the venom flicking off it. "Rotten tooth. Once I removed it, the basilisk left. I suggested the far southern mountain ranges for its new home. Hopefully the Roc won't mind. They are closely related, you know."

I gaped at her and the tooth she held proudly in her hand, happiness glittering in her emerald green eyes. "Right, they may as well be twins even. I'm sure the eagles would love to know they are comparable to an unsightly half-rooster snake."

Tossing the fang up into the storm ridden air, she chuckled as she watched the shadows hungrily snatch the deadly tooth, pulling it into their dark embrace.

Shifting uncomfortably, my eyes narrowed. "So that's it, then?"

She nodded, biting at her lip before releasing it with a pop. "Yup that's it."

I tugged on my hair, pulling it back across my face. "Goddess help us," I breathed exasperatedly.

"Hate to break up our cute little team bonding moment, but this is certainly not it and there is no goddess who can help us now," Riley said, staring upwards, the rolling thunderclouds we had seen earlier blooming over us.

Faerie's cobalt sky faded into shades of deep blue and black, as if the very atmosphere had been brutalized and bruised.

Riley had been right before, this storm was unnatural but so was the rage spreading across his handsome features.

My stomach fell. Our past had caught up with us…

in the form of family we wished we‘d never had.

I narrowed my eyes at the town’s gates, sensing her there, waiting. Birth bitch had come to play but this time I would make sure her games ended here.