Free Dearest Mother of Mine (Overworld Chronicles) by John Corwin Page A

said. He looked tired, but seemed to have caught his breath.
    "That's not our biggest problem," Elyssa said. "It's Seraphim. If Daelissa is somehow making angel whoopee down here, she won't even need to fix the Grand Nexus."
    "Somehow, I doubt she's getting it on with leyworms," I said.
    "That does seem improbable considering the size differential and other physical incompatibilities," Cinder said. "Provided, of course, female Seraphim do not have extremely flexible—"
    "I'm going to stop you right there," Bella said, giving him a warning look.
    The small leyworm hissed and growled at the leviathans. The other two dragons regarded us before making low rumbling noises, which I prayed were assent.
    "They look exhausted," Meghan said. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of something beyond.
    I followed her gaze and my stomach flip-flopped.
    "You've got to be kidding me," Adam said.
    Beyond the two leyworms were more babies than any mother could survive. At least a dozen angel infants crawled, bawled, wriggled, and drooled. The scaly red coils of the dragon which had spit out the baby formed one half of a protective semi-circle, with the purple hide of the other dragon completing it. Several younger leyworms formed a loose inner perimeter, preventing the babies from wandering outside.
    "What beautiful scales," Bella said, admiring purple dragon's diamond-shaped plating.
    "Dah nah," cried out a cherub as it wandered in from the dark, making a beeline for the babies who began wailing at the tops of their lungs.
    The small leyworm streaked for the creature, and using its long snout like a club, batted the cherub toward the purple dragon. The creature opened its gaping maw and swallowed the disgusting form whole.
    "What the hell is going on down here?" Shelton said, staring aghast at the monstrous dragon.
    "If I am correct, a baby angel will eventually emerge from the gullet of the dragon," Cinder said.
    Heads turned toward the golem.
    "Explain," I said.
    "In your account of the Vadaemos incident, leyworms swallowed a great number of the cherubs." Cinder took out his arcphone, and projected simple three-dimensional image of a leyworm swallowing a cherub. "As you know, leyworms seem to feed directly from ley lines."
    "We don't know exactly what they do to it," Meghan said. "The prevailing theory is they help keep the planet healthy by managing the flow of aether. Kind of like earthworms do for soil."
    "Perhaps," Cinder said. "Inside a leyworm, the aether takes on different properties. You once mentioned the incident of a Templar swallowed by a leyworm, being irradiated by something like malaether."
    Meghan tapped a finger to her chin. "That's right. Aether in its natural form isn't harmful, but whatever a leyworm does with the energy makes it dangerous, at least to most of us." She shrugged. "Whether it's identical to the malaether thrown off by the Cyrinthian Rune when it was trapped inside the arch, I don't know."
    "I see where you're going with this," Shelton said. "And I don't like it."
    I stared at the image of the leyworm swallowing the cherub. At the sheer volume of aether suffusing the beast. It didn't take much of a leap to see what Cinder thought might be happening.
    "You're saying there's enough light essence in the leyworms to reverse the husks. To turn them back into angels."
    "Precisely," Cinder said. "It must have started happening after you left."
    "I witnessed leyworms swallowing dozens of cherubs," I said. "And I don't see nearly that many babies."
    The young leyworm blinked at me, and rumbled. It led us into the space between the giants. We followed it far back to the opposite side of the obsidian slab. Bones the size of shipwrecks jutted from the floor. Adam directed the glowballs higher. I noticed small infantile forms littering the area. I jumped back, expecting them to attack, but they lay motionless. I walked closer, knelt next to the body of a cherub. Shelton prodded it with his staff. It clinked.
    I ventured