Riftside 3 - Chapter 34

“Arclight, stop!” I shouted, hauling Eryn to her feet. I grabbed and pulled her back toward the others as the two Primal Forms tumbled from the dissipating black smoke in a blur of golden fur and dark purple scales.

They were a chaotic vortex of teeth and claws, rolling across the scorched earth in a tangle of limbs, kicking up clouds of dust and stone. The crackle of lightning, sound of claws on scaled hide, and roars of pure, unrestrained fury was horrifying,

“I taunt?” Knut asked, his axe now in hand. “Draw apart?”

“No! Wait!” I said, narrowing my eyes, trying to track their fight. “We don’t know what Arclight can do yet.” I held Eryn tight against my side, ready to be the shield between her and the warring soul weapons.

“They’re… they’re not drawing blood,” Eryn said.

She was right.

For all the ferocity, for all the snapping and slashing, there was no blood, no gaping wounds, no flying limbs... It was a brutal fight, but not one to the death.

Arclight, her small wings tucked in tight, twisted with feline grace beneath Roq’s bulk, her jaws snapping at his throat. He countered, his own lizard-like maw clamping down on her shoulder, but it was a hold, not a killing bite. Arclight's hind-legs kicked at Roq, but not a mark appeared. She wasn’t using her claws.

“Wait, are they… playing?” Eryn said in disbelief.

“If that’s playing, I’d hate to see them flirting,” Nabeeh muttered, her face a mask of wary fascination.

“Impossible,” Lan said, her voice a tight whisper. “There’s too much…biting.”

“My coin’s on the cat. She looks faster,” Katherine said.

The chaotic roll across the gully floor came to an abrupt halt as Roq pinned Arclight beneath him. His bladed forearms were planted on either side of her head, and his maw locked across her throat. Lightning crackled across her golden fur and sputtered against his hide. For a heart-stopping moment, they were still, a tableau of imminent death.

“Good! Hold her,” I said. “Eryn, can you, like, un-primal form her?”

“How?” Eryn asked. “I didn’t even summon her in the first place!”

Arclight spoke after lying still for a long moment. It was a low, guttural growl vibrating from her chest. 

“It’s impossible!”

Then Roq did something that made my jaw drop, and I grasped Eryn’s arm in reflex as he released her throat and, with a startling tenderness, began to lick the side of her face with a rough, fanged tongue.

“I am so, so sorry,” he rumbled, his voice thick with an emotion I couldn’t name.

Eryn stiffened in my arms. 

“Hey, you! Get off her!”

“Yeah… play nice, you two?” I said, my own mind reeling. 

Was he apologising for things done while they were both under the control of the Hive Mind? Or was it something else entirely?

Arclight’s growl softened, but her yellow eyes were still slitted. 

“You will make it up to me, Vannash.”

“Anything,” Roq breathed, his voice raw. “I will do anything.”

“What goes on?” Knut asked, his brow furrowed in confusion as he looked around as if searching for an answer in the air.

“I don’t have the faintest idea,” I admitted, my grip on Eryn loosening.

“You will destroy every single Hive Mind,” Arclight snarled. “You will burn their worlds, grind their cores to dust, and you will piss on their ashes!”

“Yes,” Roq said without hesitation. “I will.”

“Only then,” Arclight said, her voice dropping to a near whisper, “will I begin to consider carrying another litter for you.”

Carrying? Litter?

The word echoed into a sudden silence.

Knut blinked.

Nabeeh’s jaw dropped.

Even Lan’s mask of indifference shattered.

“Litter?” Roq repeated, tilting his head.

With a grunt of effort, Arclight kicked up with her powerful hind legs, sending Roq tumbling off her, and she twisted, rising. With a shake of her golden fur and a flap of her small wings, lightning flared around her.

“Litter?” Eryn asked.

Arclight looked down at her own paws before twisting to glance at the small, feathered wings on her shoulders, and let out a snarl that somehow conveyed pure self-loathing.

“This form… this unnatural shape!” she hissed. “The Hive Mind’s corruption runs too deep. It still twists my mind, my essence…”

My heart hammered in my chest. I followed Eryn as she took a hesitant step toward the golden beast.

“What are you talking of, darling?” Eryn asked, her voice soft with concern. “Are you alright?”

Arclight’s head snapped up, her glowing eyes locking onto Eryn. 

“No. The monster took everything from me. From… us.”

“From you… and Roq?” I asked, and the pieces of the puzzle finally slammed into place.

Arclight turned her gaze to Roq, who had picked himself up and was dusting himself off.

A strange, joyful sound, half-chuckle, half-rumble, came from my hamemr. 

“Allow me to introduce the finest mate the worlds ever saw,” he announced, his voice booming with a quality I’d never heard before. “Lorixa. My fire and my soul. Though…” he tilted his massive head, his orange eyes scanning her form, “You have let yourself go somewhat, my mate. Maybe you could lose a few pounds--”

My eyes went wide. 

Eryn gasped, “Roq!”

Lightning crackled and Arclight, or Lorixa, seemed to blur, appearing next to Roq. Her claws thankfully retracted, as a paw connected with the side of Roq’s head with a sound like a thunderclap. The king went flying, tumbling end over end. She was on him the instant he settled, snarling in his face, a golden fury barely restrained as he rose. 

The threat was clear.

One. More. Word.

Knut cursed, taking a step forward. 

“By North Star…”

I swiped out Blisterbrand. This felt different. This felt real. And while I didn’t want to harm Arclight, I wouldn’t risk her killing my Roq, even if he did deserve a good trashing.

But Roq just laughed and wiped his face with a bladed forearm, his comically small, scaled tail whipping back and forth in pure, unadulterated joy like a terrier. 

“There she is!” he rumbled, his voice filled with a love so profound it was almost painful to hear. “My Golden Treasure. The last Queen of Foraxia.”

Lorixa’s paw, raised for another strike at his first words, froze mid-air, and her snarl faltered. It turned into a low, uncertain growl.

Roq’s voice softened, as he said, “Tell me the truth, my Sunscale. Have I, too, not lost some of my lustre?”

Arclight made a strange, strangled sound. Followed by a cough. And another. And, then… she sounded like a cat trying to work up a hairball.

“She’s… laughing?” Eryn whispered in disbelief.

“I think so?” I replied, equally stunned. “What by the bells is going on? How could--this coincidence. It’s unnatural.”

Roq leaned down, resting his forehead against hers as her body shook with the strange, rusty laughter of a creature not made for mirth.

I glanced at the others. Lan was frowning, trying to solve the equation of it all. Nabeeh just shrugged, a look of ‘well, I’ve seen weirder’ on her face. Katherine stared, completely captivated. And Knut… Knut was smiling.

“You,” Arclight finally choked out, “Are the ugliest beast I have ever seen!”

“Thank you, my queen,” Roq rumbled. “And while no Ice-shard Mountain Snakes remain for me to slay, there are too many Hive Minds by far. And I vow to you now, my Golden Treasure, I will destroy them all, one by one, until I am once more worthy of your bond.”

“Acceptable,” she replied, her voice gaining strength.

“Now, what do you say we—” Roq stared saying, but Lorixa vanished into a burst of thick, red smoke. Roq stumbled back, coughing and waving a clawed hand in front of his face, hacking up the crimson vapor.

Then he turned to snarl at Eryn, his regal demeanor completely gone, replaced by raw frustration. 

“Bring her back! Bring her back this instant!”

“Roq… behave,” I said, stepping forward.

“I’m sorry!” Eryn said, chuckling. “I’m out of mana! The transformation… it’s drained me completely.”

“Useless bipeds!” Roq roared, raking his claws through the dirt in a fit of frustration.

When the smoke cleared, Arclight lay on the ground, once again in the form of a bow.

“Behave, Vannash,” Arclight said, once more in our minds, her voice calm and commanding. “Do not insult my wielder.”

Roq froze, turning his massive head to glare at the bow. After a long, tense moment, he grumbled, “Fine. But Eryn had better work on her mana pool.”

Nabeeh and Eryn burst into relieved laughter.

Amid the chaos, my gaze fell on Lan. She was staring at the bow, her face a heartbreaking mixture of raw hope and utter despair.

“I didn’t expect to be bored, helping your party with one of your crazy ideas, but this?” Katherine said, shaking her head as she let out a short, sharp chuckle. She looked up at Knut, her expression turning serious. “Northman, you need better armor. And more levels. A lot more levels.”

*

I sat on a rock in the gully, Eryn on my lap, my arms around her, staring at our weapons. The rest of the party sat nearby.

Roq was placed head down on the sand, and Arclight was leaned against his upright haft, a portrayal of quiet reconciliation. 

“I can’t believe you are here,” Roq said, softer than I’d ever heard it, stripped of its usual bombast and filled with a raw, aching disbelief.

“I can’t believe my kingly mate is now a hammer,” Arclight replied, her voice now less purr and more growl, though far softer than Roq. And while there was a hint of her usual predatory calm, beneath it lay something else. A warmth.

“Warhammer,” Roq corrected.

“Still a hammer,” she fired back.

“You’re a stick and string.”

“I shoot lightning, same as always,” she retorted.

“I kill things and forge, same as always.”

The exchange seemed loaded with history, one we weren’t privy to, and that was fine. They would either tell us one day, or not. It was up to them.

I held Eryn a little tighter, and she leaned into me.

This wasn't just a breakthrough. It was a victory. A reunion across time and tragedy.

“You used to be handsome,” Arclight stated flatly.

“I am a king!” Roq said without missing a beat. “A king is not selected for his look, but his mind and might and magnificence, of which I have enough for fifteen. Even as a hammer and a half-spider half-something beast, I am mighty. You saw me with the Emmet Queen. Tell me you did not feel a vibration in your scaled abdomen watching my fearsome display of brutal battle lust!”

“Hmm… We will see what you look like after a few more breakthroughs,” was all she offered.

Gravel crunched as Knut shifted, and he rapped his knuckles on his tower shield. 

“Roq, you say mate die with your world? Now you say kitty-cat is mate?”

Katherine pulled on his arm, as if to stop him. 

“Knut! Manners.”

“What? Is confusing,” he said, genuinely baffled.

“It is,” Roq agreed, his voice regaining some of its usual force. “I do not know how you are here, but I would recognise my Sunscale anywhere, anytime.”

“That’s monster crap,” Nabeeh said, waving her wine-filled canteen towards the weapons. “You’ve been chatting for ages, squabbling and quarrelling like…”

“An old married couple,” I finished with a chuckle.

“And you just figured it out now?” Nabeeh concluded, taking a swig before holding it out to Lan who just stared at it.

“I’d recognise the way she says my name, no matter what she looks like,” Roq insisted.

“She’s said your name plenty of times!” Nabeeh said, giving the canteen a wave.

Lan accepted it.

“Never Vannash,” Roq stated simply. “Only the one given to me by Ash.”

Nabeeh paused.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Guess I never noticed that.”

“And I only now found out who I was. Rotten flesh! Am, I mean. Who I am,” Arclight said. 

“My mate.” Roq said, the words coming out as the simple and powerful truth.

“That is who I was,” she corrected him sharply. “And maybe… maybe I still am. Though, you failed, Vannash. Me. Our brood. Foraxia.”

“Roq,” was all he said, the word loaded with agony.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yes. You are right. I have failed,” Roq said. “And while I didn’t know why at the time, Ash was right to disregard my true name. It carries too much shame. Only once we have our revenge will I once more accept the honor of the name given to me by our people.”

A sadness welled up inside me at my friend’s pain. It couldn’t have been easy to lose all he held dear along with an entire world and then be enslaved into a monster’s body. 

I’d known he had lost it all, and while reuniting with his mate was a miracle, it also somehow underscored all the loss. It pulled him out of his new self and forced him to confront who he had been. 

“Acceptable,” Arclight conceded after a moment.

“And what do we call you now, darling?” Eryn asked, her voice soft and careful. “Lorixa?”

“No. Roq is right. It was not only him who failed. The broodlings were with me when they died. While he was the King, I was the Queen. Arclight will do. For now.”

“Would you share story with us, Arclight?” Knut asked, his gaze fixed on the bow. “Of your survival?”

“I will,” she replied. “But first… wielder, how is your mana?”

“Full,” Eryn said, a note of confusion in her voice, “but could we perhaps—”

“Primal Form,” Arclight said.

“Whoho! Primal Form!” Roq boomed in delight.

The weapons disappeared in a simultaneous burst of black and red smoke.

From the roiling cloud shot Arclight in her golden form. Her small wings beating uselessly as she launched herself away from us, a blur of motion, paws pulling her across the ground. A heartbeat later, Roq erupted from the cloud, letting out a joyous bellow, rushing after her.

This time they didn’t wrestle. Instead, they ran. A crazed chase across the flat land, a reunion expressed not in words, but in the primal language of speed and power.

We watched them go, two impossible creatures dwindling into the dusty haze.

“Well,” Katherine said, breaking the stunned silence. “I suppose it’s best to give them a bit of space. To get… reacquainted.”

“I guess we’re about to find out what happens when I run out of mana and she’s far away,” Eryn said.

Lan shook her head and took a swig of the canteen, immediately bursting out coughing, sputtering droplets across the ground. 

“What Rift-scum is this?”

“Azbaran firewater,” Nabeeh said, snapping the canteen from her hand. “Puts courage in your chest and inflames your…erh…mana channels.”

“It’s horrible,” Lan said. 

“It’s supposed to be,” Nabeeh said, taking a long drink and sighing contentedly. “And I’m giving them one hour to sort out their cosmic-level relationship drama, and then I’m going home. This dust is playing hell with my complexion.”

Knut just grinned, a broad, happy expression. 

“Good. They run. Work out emotion with movement. We go Timberline. Eat big food. Drink much beer.”

“I could go for a glass, having witnessed this,” Katherine said. “Riftrot. I’ll have a couple.”

“We can’t just leave them,” I said, waving at the direction they’d disappeared in.

“Who’s going to take them? Anyone trying will have their faces ripped off,” Eryn said, chuckling. “And once my mana runs out, they’ll chat in weapon form until it regenerates.”

“Will it work this far out?” I asked.

“Why don’t we find out?” Eryn said. “Somehow, I don’t think they’ll even notice we’re gone.”