Derora

He'll pay for this, the prince will pay for this!,

Those were the thoughts that went through her head as she summoned another beast from the abyss. With her current state, she shouldn't be risking it, but she had to, it will not be said that she, derora, was defeated by a mere thorn of the elixtus. To open the portal into the abyss was not easy task, one would be contending with malevolent forces that would love nothing more than to grab the soul of the invoker, rip it from their bodies and drag it down into the depths of the abyss where unspeakable horrors would be done on such a soul, but derora was different, she had lived in the abyss, only the real denizens of the abyss would even think of trying such a dumb move on her.

Derora raised the portal and took her knife, a cut in her palm and a few drops of her black blood did the trick, she stepped back and whispered,

"Salaria invoteo terefia dratero"

"Salaria invoteo terefia veratu"

Derora continued for a while till the portal began to swirl faster, she could hear the voices of the creatures of the abyss, begging and pleading devoted servitude to her, all in the bid to get out of the abyss.

She continued for a while and all at once the voices stopped, the portal became slow and the creatures began to appear, first were the new batch of veratus derora summoned, she was going to create her own veratus, remodel them in a perfect manner, to cut all ties to herega, not that it was that easy to do, if it were everyone would be mass producing their own private retinue of abyssal soldiers. The very nature of the abyss itself made the process taxing on both the body and the soul, therefore any mortal stupid or foolish enough to try such would find their soul and flesh both siphoned in return, aging a virile young man to crippling old age in seconds, mortals simply could not pay the price for such a ritual, but derora?. She had bathed in the bloods of her enemies, absorbed their souls and vitality in the hundreds and therefore had enough to spare.

Derora slit her already healed palm again and moved forward, one by one she pushed her palm into their cores, willing the wound not to heal as more of her blood dripped out into them, they were ten in all.

They grunted and swirled in a black mist and finally they stopped, eyes no longer black but red, with the hate and vengeance towards all that stood in her path, the ritual did not even need any form of incantation, only the sheer will to overcome the spark of the will of the goddess that created them,

Easy thing for her really,

They knelt in submission and brought forth their blades, it was pure red, derora smiled inwardly. Derora finally did what no dark mage had been able to do, the ritual ties your essence to the veratus and unless you have an essence that came from the immortal spring of chaos, you'd literary burn to ashes.

A loud roar from the abyss brought her attention back to it, in a burst of flame and smoke, darathos the dratero, a dragon like being that looked like a cross between a sea serpent and a dragon with its long but muscular body and obvious sentience flew out of the abyss. Its skeletal wings flapping with flames and fury, it blew fire from the flaming animal skull head it had and burned in the sky. Derora watched as it gave an ear piercing scream and dove down while landing on the soft earth beside her,

Derora considered tying her force with it, Afterall it was hers, she created this beast, a very long time ago, eons really, during the centum wars against Rajul and the light gods, sealed it in the abyss to avoid its destruction and history did the rest with rumors that suddenly grew into facts about how a new beast was created in the abyss due to the sealing of derora

It nudged derora gently as she placed her hand on it, her blood gently binding it to her again,

"Derora, it's an honor once more" it said to her mentally,

"We shall ride as one and bring chaos to this wretched realm again darathos" she replied,

derora climbed on his back and held his two stubbed horns,

"You shall have vengeance on the descendant of Rajul who did this to you" she said,

"I would cherish the moment i tear at his flesh and he screams in pure agony" he replied,

Derora mentally gave an order to her veratus who spread out through the forests towards the village they destroyed earlier, as darathos flew higher and moved forwards she gave one last thought before resting on him to regain her energy,

"Very soon prince, very soon" derora muttered,

***********

Terrena

"Praise aether!, finally, civilisation!" terrena squeaked as daren laughed,

It's been a whole day living off fruits and she was hungry for a real meal and a comfortable bed, it looked like a town and way bigger than the former village obviously.

She moved automatically towards an inn she saw, daren followed wearily behind. It seemed deserted, maybe because of it was in the afternoon and people worked, a short plump woman came out of the room opposite us with a smile,

"What can I offer thee" she said in what seemed like a strong earthly Russian accent,

Terrena raised an eyebrow and turned to daren who had the same amused look in his eyes, she regained her balance,

"We need a decent meal and a room for the night" she said,

The woman beamed and clapped enthusiastically,

"Ve have ze best room in ze whole town madam" she said,

Yup, definitely a distant relative of the Russians she thought to mherself,

She took us to a room and handed us the keys,

"I vill bring your meals to you soon, we are also proud to say ze walls are sound proof in case you want to ahem, unwind" she said leaving,

Terrenas became red in the face as daren bursted in a fit of laughter, she threw a pillow at his face, he dodged and sat on the bed,

"It's really springy you know" he said wiggling his eyebrows as they bursted in another round of laughter,

Soon they had taken a nice warm bath and settled for the night, the woman brought in a plate of soup and bread with a suspiciously looking meat that daren made her neglect by saying it looked like a wild boar,

Terrena stood outside the balcony and stared in the distance, she wondered where Jason was. The argument had been foolish, she knew now that he did it to protect them, he knew she couldn't face derora with him, they'd just be a distraction to him. Terra had stupidly made a matter out of nothing and now..

She heard daren walk up to her, they were silent and watched the night life in peace, the dogs barking, the children running home, the teenagers moving about with the opposite sex and going into shady corners,

"You're thinking about him aren't you?" Daren said gently,

Terra nodded in reply and sighed,

"Its just, he's never been alone before, what if he's hungry or lost, or going in the wrong direction and meets another threat?, he could be injured or poisoned by a plant a knows nothing of, or-"

"Terra, calm down" he said silently breaking her theories of possible harm he could face,

He held me close as she began to sob, petting her like the big brother he always played,

"Don't worry, I'm sure he's on his way to the gates with a full stomach and a smile" he said,

I hope so daren, I hope so terra thought silently as she said a prayer to aether, Afterall he is the patron of jason.

They went inside and closed the doors to the balcony, daren put out the lights as they said their good nights,

"Daren?" she called silently,

"What is it?" He replied,

"Are we going to find jason?" terra said,

"Yes we are terra, I promise" he said,

And with the assurance terra turned to sleep, but she couldn't shake the feeling he was in a situation, eventually she drifted off to sleep.

***********

Jason

jasongrunted as he dropped the she wolf to the ground, he had to fashion a stretcher and pull her out of the wolf territory, they weren't safe there.

It was late in the afternoon and he had walked halfway across the island with her asleep

He gathered sticks and started a fire, the warmth seeping into his bones after the loss of the warmth brought by adrenaline during the fight.

Jason was thinking of finding dinner when he heard the snapping of bones and turned, he wished he hadn't. In his front was a half nude girl, clothed from the waist down, but the top...

"Shit, now I'm mentally scarred for life" jason thought as he closed his eyes,

She coughed as a signal for him to open his eyes, in jasons front was a fully clothed girl,

"How did you-"

"I'm royal ikir, i can produce clothing after the change" she said in a soft voice while cutting him off.

They sat around the fire, silence hung in the air,

"You know by now our family history" she said breaking the silence,

"Yes, I know" he replied quietly,

"And you know I'm sworn to protect you through the journey" she said,

Jason nodded, staring at her, her eyes had a cold blue look like ice, but burned with the ferociousness of a flame,

"I'm sure you have questions to ask" she said,

"If you're royalty, why do they treat you like scum?" he asked,

Jason wasn’t going to assume he knew anything about werewolf royalty, but anything with the world royalty didn’t get chased around by a mob looking to lynch or in this case rip them to shreds

"Did perilia tell you about lutia the alpha" she asked,

"Yeah, how come a female's the alpha" jason asked,

There was always an alpha male that headed a pack, at least that's what jason read in books, the alphas mate was the Luna or alpha female, of course what did he know?, he was just getting used to all this.

"That was the case before, lutia had a mate, the real alpha, until perilia divined through her priestesses once and told the loup-de-sang elders that the Lunas would be the leaders of the pack, this was to add a female to the five and basically her wish"

"So basically, she dethroned the male alphas just because of a little group issue" jason asked,

She chuckled in reply,

"Mostly, another reason was the increasing numbers of alpha pups" she said,

jason raised an eyebrow, she continued,

"Before, alpha males had the right to mate with whatever single She-wolf in his pack, they in turn would give birth to offspring that had alpha blood, thus the fight for the next alpha began" she said,

"Those that were lucky to survive ventured out and created their own packs, they in turn would lay with single she-wolves " she said waiting for him to finish it,

"And the cycle would begin all over again" he completed as she nodded,

"Soon the packs fought for territory and the blood shed was much, the council couldn't intervene, that's when perilia appeared for the first time in person and declared the females alpha" she said,

"This helped in the sense that females can't go sleeping around when they have their mates and their female pup would be named alpha" she finished,

"And your story?" jason asked,

"I was to be next in line, my pack were the royals of the loup realm, the elders however were manipulated by urak the alpha you met, who in turn served Marxis to replace me with his daughter to gain favour with marxis" she said,

"He was my mothers’ brother so he was royalty" she said,

"The elders were obliged to follow since the death of kelin your father, chaos entered the realm, his daughter ascended the throne and I was taken down in the ranks, a month later, the queen was dead and with no other heir, he took the throne although it was obvious who killed her" she said,

"You could have reclaimed the throne when she died"

"The elders denied me the privilege, even now they suffer the reward of the decision, the elders are no more, he killed them all" she said,

They kept quiet once more, jason in thought, if she really was to join him, it would be a great risk, she stood up sighing,

"The night is young ikir, I would search for a meal" she said leaving,

"Er...princess?" jason called,

She turned to him,

"Sorrena, just sorrena, I have no title" she said,

He gave a little smile,

"Where do you go from here sorrena?" he asked,

She raised an eyebrow,

"I thought it was obvious, I'm forever in debt to you, I would go wherever you go ikir" she said,

Jason poked at the fire with a stick,

"Was it because I saved you?" he asked,

She chuckled,

"So it is true then?" She said,

"What is?"

"You elixtus blame yourselves for everything" she said,

Jason just stared at the flames, she was right, he always blamed himself for everything,

"So why?" he asked,

She looked towards the islands,

"I have nothing left behind my king, and order must be restored to the realm" she said,

"What about the future, after all of this?"

"That's the reason it is called the future ikir, let it handle itself" she said,

With that she changed into her wolf form and went searching for the unlucky meal tonight,

Jason stared at the moon when he felt a familiar burn on his hand, he stared in awe as a twig formed, shining red,