Page 12 of Leviathan's Song
I lost the fight with a few tears, and she pulled me into a tight hug. She gave the best hugs.
After a few deep breaths, I sat up, and she announced, “Come on, time for some hot tea.” She made her way to my tea cabinet and stopped to pull a vial from her pocket. She set it on the kitchen table and started the process of making tea as I picked up the vial and inspected it. The liquid inside was a light amber color and viscous looking.
“This is the venom?” At her nod, I popped the top and took a cautious sniff. The smell was faint but acrid. It was supposedly from a beetle that lived in the dunes around Dry Gulch. In ancient times, it had been used as a sedative for medical work but had eventually fallen out of favor for more modern drugs. I replaced the cap and went to retrieve my wasp construct.
Sidney huffed while staring into my tea cabinet. “Are you ever actually going to drink all this tea?”
“Probably not, no. How much of this is a dose?”
“Ten grams should do. Is the stuff in the white packages from the neighbor lady?”
“Yeah.” I got out my scale and some bottles and began measuring out the venom.
Sidney grumbled and started tossing my neighbor’s tea into the compost. She knew my quirks. I felt too guilty to get rid of the presents myself, but she had no such qualms. A small smile tugged at my lips.
Sidney brought me tea and left to get ready for bed, while I filled the chamber inside the wasp that I’d retrofitted for the venom, then stored the rest. Placing the wasp on the table in front of me and taking its abdomen in my fingers, I focused on its heartstone and modified the intent I’d originally given it.
I instructed it to defend me upon request, to administer its venom via the newly added stinger, and to keep the venom chamber magically chilled. I wasn’t terribly skilled in elemental modifications, but for something as small as the venom chamber, I could make do.
Alone with my thoughts, Levi’s words came back to me, and I gritted my teeth.Someone like her. I never wanted to be defenseless again.
I was going to make anentire armyof wasps.
* * *
The next nightSidney talked me out of making dinner in favor of dropping in on Hyrak, a mutual acquaintance from college. He ran the bar in an upscale establishment in my neighborhood called The Silver Tongue Brewing Co., along with his little sister Sabine.
We made our way through the small, swanky eatery, past a cozy fireplace and intimate tables for two, heading back toward the bar. Sidney perched easily on the towering barstool, though for me, it took a little climbing to get myself situated, earning a few glances from the older gentleman next to me.
Why is everything made for giants?I frowned to myself as my legs swung free in the air like a child in an oversized chair and turned to gaze longingly at the specialized dwarvish seating near the end of the bar. Sidney would never fit.
“Sid! Elara!” Hyrak called as he came out of a door in the back and leaned on the bar top, wiping his hands in a perfectly white cloth. “What can I get for you ladies?” His voice was deep and rumbling, a good fit for his large bulky frame and friendly disposition.
Both he and his sister were very large people, having some orc ancestry, though he was considerably taller than Sabine. They shared the enlarged lower canines, tusk-like bottom teeth common among orc peoples as well as the slightly luminescent green eyes, and their skin was the much darker shade of the lowlands orcs, but that was where their similarities ended.
Where Hyrak was calm and laid back, Sabine was feisty and gregarious. While she also had dark green, nearly black skin, Hyrak had a condition called vitiligo, which caused patches of his skin to lose its pigment. When I’d met him at the start of college, he’d only had a few small patches of white on his hands and face, but now there was a large patch on his right cheek that spread up over his eye, and most of his body was covered in piebald-like patches.
In many places where the pigment had gone missing, he’d had tattoos of various ancient orcish texts placed. His skin was a riotous cacophony of texture and contrast. He kept the sides of his head shaved, and the rest of his hair in a top knot.
Sidney air-kissed his cheek and then took the drink list, humming slightly as she browsed. He cast me a smile, which I shyly returned. “I just want a Flaming Pearl,” I told him while we waited, catching a glimpse of a ring on his hand I’d once made for him. I was pleased to see it still looked great, even though I suspected it took a beating here at his job.
“Evil Pecker, just for the name,” Sidney ordered abruptly, slapping the menu down.
Hyrak chuckled, taking the menu. “Pearl and a Pecker, coming right up. Try not to blow the place up while I make them okay, El?”
“That wasone time,” I called to his retreating back, immediately forgetting my shyness. “I blew up the labonetime!”
“Technically it was two or three,” Sidney replied lightly, drumming her nails on the counter, “and that isn’t even counting the Great Golem Catastrophe.”
“You’re supposed to be my friend,” I grumbled, my cheeks flaming. “I don’t even have a golem here.”
“Iamyour friend. I didn’t say it wasn’t awesome. And you’ve got your wasps. Those are golems.”
“I can’t bring the place down with rogue wasps.” Sidney’s eyes widened as she stared into the distance and the corner of her mouth dropped into a frown as if the thought of my wasps going rogue had only just occurred to her. I smacked her arm lightly with the back of my hand. “That hasn’t happened in years.”
Hyrak returned, and I felt his elemental magic climb a bit, rising from vague impressions of a chilly morning to biting frost-covered tundra, as he chilled the drinks in his hands to the exact temperature he wanted. He could freeze or chill things simply by touching them. He set them in front of us, mine a smoking rum and liqueur cocktail with a tiny ball of white suspended in the middle.
“Take it easy on that one.” He nodded toward Sidney’s. “It sneaks up on ya.”
