Passion (Book 1 of "The Fantasy of Life" Series)

Chapter 34

York

"How do you feel?" Valen asked.

"I feel okay, not great but okay." I shrugged.

"His healing worked?" He asked.

"Duh, it's Yorwek we're talking about. The edler nymph emperor can do a lot of magic." I smiled.

"Well, good." Valen seemed relieved.

"Hey, Cullen." I walked up to him and Ashanaya. "What'd you get from her indoctrinary? Anything useful?"

"I saw the dragon we're up against, but that was a long time before Shirajiin had the indoctrinary, there was a lot stored in it, I saw a bit about the mountain we're going to, and even more stuff I didn't really understand." He relayed what he had seen very warily. "There was a lot more in there than the othr ones I've used."

"Do you think her indoctrinary is part of what made her so strong?" Ashanaya asked.

"Maybe, we should get rid of it just in case." Cullen replied.

I held my hand out. He looked at me skeptically, then put it in my hand. I quickly tossed it in the air. It shook violently and then burst into thousands of tiny glimmering purple pieces.

"What'd you do?" Cullen asked, astonished.

"Just made the air squeeze it until it shattered." I shrugged. "Now shall we get moving?"

"Maybe we should check the other Ashen first?" Ashanaya said.

"Maybe I could see just how many Ashen Valerie has." Cullen added.

"Oh, yeah that might be a good idea." I nodded and together we all walked to them. They were all dead, probably killed before Valen and Kel came looking for me.

"I'm only gonna look at one of their indoctrinaries. I don't think there's any need to look at every one of them." Cullen stepped in between the small hill of bodies. He looked very disgusted with himself, which I didn't blame him, he was ruffling through dead bodies. Tainted or not, they were people once.

"Did you guys have any trouble taking all of these?" I asked.

"Not nearly as much as you with Shirajiin. Marhara had the most trouble." She said as she watched Cullen.

"Yeah, Oldie's the one who had trouble. Daft, that one." Kel spoke up from behind us. She seemed to be acting normal again which was good.

"I am not daft, I just don't have super-powers like the rest of you." Marhara rolled his eyes.

"Right, so are we just going to ignore the fact that York said he's part druid?" Kel said, sounding out druid carefully.

"Oh right, what was that about? Why didn't you tell me?" Valen stepped up beside me.

"People are intimidated by druids, besides, it's distant, I said my grandfather, which isn't a lie, but it's more my great, great, great grandfather." I wasn't sure just how far back it was but that seemed right.

"It seems strange the druids would have any involvement at all." Marhara said.

"I told you my family used to be important, I just didn't say how, before the druid we were purely nymph, my family only mated with nymphs. After the druid it became a little crazier and our family went downhill the generation just after. The druid blood in my family made us a big deal, for a short time. But then most of my family started going crazy, they blamed it on the druid blood. I thought it'd be better when the quarter-master at my water nymph haslan was half druid, but no, he called my family weak willed and unable to handle the power." I shook my head. "I don't really tell people anymore. If I did I probably wouldn't be here with you. The wood nymphs didn't know my families story persay, so they would've kept me around knowing I was part druid." I explained very nonchalantly.

"Well, it would've been nice to know. But I guess I get it." Valen sighed.

"Why would that have been nice to know?" I asked.

He put an arm around me. "It'd be cool to say I'm dating a druid."

"Don't push it." I fake-glared at him.

"Okay, okay." He took his arm off of me and held his hands up.

"Any update?" Ashanaya called over to Cullen.

"I think it's about 40 in total that she has, maybe more it's hard to tell, but she only really keeps about 15 at hand. We can hit her directly, I'd say the best time to go at her is late at night because then she has the most sent out, they can hide in the shadows at night." He looked over at me, his eyes still adjusting back to the real world.

"I think we could take 15." I said.

"I think you could take 15." Marhara smiled at me.

"Yeah! You made the ground swallow those Arse-en punks before, I bet you could do that again!" Kel bounced around in front of me.

"Well, I don't know about that, that took a lot out of me last time, and you guys are forgetting Valerie, just look at what Shirajiin did to me, Valerie is probably a lot stronger." I said.

"Yeah, and you killed Shirajiin, you and Ashanaya could take Valerie and the rest of us could take her minions." Valen moved so that he was in front of me. "It'd be easy."

"No don't say that. That's how people die, this will not be easy." I shook my head.

"What you do mean that's how people die?" He asked, still smiling but he was confused.

"You're underestimating her, she could have that dragon inside that mountain, you don't know, and this is probably gonna be really hard." I looked up at him. I was genuinely worried he'd think it'll be easy, then it comes along and he gets killed.

"He's got a point." Marhara stepped up. "This may not be hard, but we shouldn't let our guard down, if we do that then she's already won."

"What a load of-"

"Kel, listen to Oldie!" I snapped at her, she quickly shut her mouth.

"Okay, I get it. But I'm confident, we can do this." He smiled at me.

I sighed. "Maybe. Now we should really get moving."