Legacy: The Unravelling

XL

Bloodstained cobblestones, several dozens of people crying over debris, some groups of cadets running around tending the injured and a pair of women shouting orders, their own clothing torn and shredded and their similar dark brown locks covered with dust and blood was definitely not the sight that neither Damian nor Darren expected to see as soon as they emerged from the now partially collapsed and sealed cave system.

The small wolf standing next to the woman in the left looked at them and started wiggling his tail when the remaining wolves walked towards him, the sturdiest of them carrying Fallon and James. The woman noticed and turned around to look at them, her mostly black tunic with sapphire hints flowing with the wind due to the speed by which she did so.

Her sapphire eyes clashing with sea-blue ones, both of which watched her with annoyance, though one of them was more angered than annoyed.

-What are you doing Lay! - Damian yelled at her, Matthew's eyes widening and his father's moving towards him with even more rage. - This is not what we agreed. -

-So you would have preferred I let the realm fall? - Layla retorted, her eyes moving towards the wolves before motioning them to a place where they had to take the injured, though she was momentarily frozen when she saw the muscular redhead that was her oldest son, watching her stoically. - I admit that I was not fast enough but I was indeed closer to here so I sent them out to gather as many people as possible... Sadly Eganis was already subdued. -

-What do you mean by that? - Henry asked the woman that used to be his daughter in law. -

-Do you not know what just happened? - she asked with a slight frown, watching Audrey who seemed thoughtful. - Addy, you didn't tell them? -

Audrey did not answer as the only thing in her mind was still her missing son.

Upon seeing that Layla's eyes started to scan the group and after double-checking their faces, the realisation hit her and her expression relaxed to an unreadable one for everyone there watching her movements.

"Viktor, Kiara and Renly..." she thought as she closed her eyes with a faint pained expression and turning around she motioned them all to follow her wordlessly.

Reluctantly they did and they ended up inside the HQ, or at least what remained of it. First thing they noticed were the people with clothing not representative of Khaeron and those from NZs nearby and towards the end Iris Black stood tending Fallon's injury, though she had already fallen unconscious and James continued to grunt every time someone tried to touch his injury.

Layla took a breath and she made her way towards her son who hissed slightly when he saw her.

-I am not going to hurt you James.- she told him, the latest watching her impassively.- Though I cannot promise you that this won't sting, so please try not to land a hit on me.-

-But...- James tried to argue back before he gasped when his mother finished tearing apart the torn section of his trousers, revealing a pretty extensive slash that sizzled and some redness that seemed to spread on his thigh.-

Layla frowned before asking some helpers to hold him down and she grabbed a bowl of water next to them.

And what happened next was something that nobody could understand.

As her hand touched the water it seemed to glow and turn luminescent, somehow she directed it out of the bowl and straight to James' thigh who let out a pained scream at first and that after some seconds his breathing seemed to calm down, his injury now closing, the burning stopping and a newly made scar was left.

-How did you do that? -Matthew asked and for the first time in a decade-or-so their eyes connected, but he quickly averted his own towards his son in an attempt of avoiding the guilt from striking him in that very moment.-