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Chapter Ten

Part Eight

Kyle teleported to Darya’s side as soon as he felt his heart friend’s scream of  rage and distress. Ystelyan’s goblins were scattering in every direction to get away from the violent swirling waves that were bursting out from Darya, who was curled up in the centre of the large cavern and sobbing. Talira was kneeling on the other side of him with her arms around his shoulders, holding him. Kyle reached down their bond to try and find out why his heart friend was so distressed but the roil of confusion, distress and anger made wringing coherency from Darya’s mind impossible.

“Darya?” Kyle also knelt down and laid a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

Darya just continued sobbing, but Talira looked up at him with worry-filled green eyes.

“One of his imps just came back,” she said. “The one he had watching his family. Something’s happened to his mother, but that’s all I could glean before he exploded.” She gently handed the merman over to Kyle. “I’ll go and fetch our mirian and one of the healers, they’ll be able to give him something to calm him down. We shouldn’t move him until he stops surging like this.”

“I know.” Kyle nodded reluctantly. He really wanted to get Darya somewhere where his hysterics would do less damage, but Talira was right that wasn’t possible.

“I’ll be right back.” She stood up and vanished in a swirl of blue fire.

Kyle turned his attention fully back to his heart friend. “Damn it, Darya! Get ahold of yourself before you kill someone!” He grabbed Darya by the shoulders and shook him. Darya gave an angry yell and tried to shake him off. Damn, he was pretty far gone not to recognise his own heart friend. Kyle steeled himself and slapped Darya hard across the face. His heart friend gave a surprised cry and his hand flew to his cheek.

“What? Kyle?” Darya blinked in confusion and stared around at the mess he’d caused. “Oh.” He gasped in a breath and the waves subsided as Talira reappeared with Ystelyan and another dragon Kyle didn’t know.

“Here,” the strange dragon held out a goblet to Darya, who still had tears trickling down his cheeks and was obviously only restraining himself from another surge with effort. “This will help calm you down.”

“Thank you.” Darya took the goblet and downed the contents, gagging slightly and pulling a face at the taste.

Ystelyan knelt down on the opposite side to Kyle. “Give it a few minutes to work,” he said. “And then you can tell us what has happened to your mother. It must be worse than when the Dark Warrior speared her in the shoulder. You just broke some crockery to calm yourself down that time.”

“It is.” Darya said flatly. Then he looked around at the mess he’d made and winced. “Damn, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Indeed. Rill’s right, I need to work on your self-control. Both of you lose control far too easily.” Ystelyan waited a few more moments, obviously waiting for the roiling in Darya’s aura to subside to a reasonable level.

Kyle also watched his heart friend’s aura while he rubbed Darya’s shoulders. “Come on,” he whispered. “Pull yourself together.”

It took several more minutes before the spikes in Darya’s aura settled down and he nodded. “It’s that bitch Sirin she…” He trailed off and gasped in a few more breaths.”She’s helping Prince Maran in some kind of coup but Valeria had left mother in charge and… and…” He started sobbing again but Kyle had caught the images from his mind. From the snarl Ystelyan gave he’d seen it too.

“And Speakers dare to call us evil!” Ystelyan punched the floor. “I have never… would never… Did that nymph who grabbed her get her out safely?”

Darya looked up and nodded. “From what my imp saw she evacuated to Caerdu, but she was… I don’t know…”

Kyle rubbed his shoulders some more. “I’m sure she’ll be okay. Dariad has good healers.” He looked over at Ystelyan. “Can we find out for sure?” He clenched his fists. “And can we go and deal with the people who did this to Lorelei?”

“We can and once he’s pulled himself together, you can. Not that Valeria will thank you for it.”

Kyle just shrugged. “Who cares about that?”

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