Love, Blood & Fury

by Melissa J Kincaid

  ~~~

  Arii pushed her mount to breaking point, flying across the land at a breakneck pace, the earth moving beneath in a blur. Her mount was breathing heavily as the golden castle peaked over the rise, and once within distance of the bridge, she led her horse into the trees and out of sight. Sliding from the mount’s back, she lifted her hood and headed towards the castle, her steps swift and intent.

  Guards lingered before the castle gates, heads lifting as she approached. After a quick assessment of her face, one man motioned to another upon the wall, and soon the gates were opening for her. Luckily after her time training on the grounds, the guards knew her well enough to allow her swift entry.

  There was no sign of an attack, no sign of distress as she slipped into the castle halls, heading swiftly for the throne room. It was late afternoon - the sun was just beginning to slip behind the mountain peaks, bathing the land in brilliant shades of apricot. The light filtered through the windows, making the golden lining of the walls shimmer.

  It was odd, now that she was back within the warm hued halls, she realised how much she had missed the golden goliath of a structure. The distant hum of the waterfall was a sound she had become used to.

  As she closed in on the throne room, her keen Fae hearing picked up the murmur of voices within. She paused, throwing her back against the wall and veiling herself in magic just as the door opened and a small group of soldiers exited.

  A guard meeting? She supposed they were assigning more guards to the King and his family. Well, that was what she hoped. As the men marched down the hall towards the barracks, she closed her eyes, her senses flaring out tentatively to survey the throne room. She felt her breath release as she felt only one presence. Humming, and heavy.

  Elijah.

  Swiftly she slipped into the room and closed the doors gently behind her. Elijah was leaning over the sturdy mahogany table where the King often took his meals, a map spread over the surface, his fingers splayed across the parchment. As she stepped forward, he removed the hood from his head, sighing deeply. She paused, surveying his broad shoulders, the mass of dark hair on his head, the pointed ears she knew he hid underneath. No wonder he had allowed his hair to grow, had hid under the hood of his uniform for so long, building a mysterious persona that hid his face from everyone.

  Elijah turned to her, his silver eyes widening with surprise.

  She almost wept at seeing him unharmed. She had braced herself to find the castle in ruins, the people she had come to know - come to love, nothing but mindless husks of their former selves.

  “Arii?” he whispered.

  She stepped towards him, feeling the air sizzle with a familiar energy. Her eyes drifted closed, her lips parting as breath blew from her lungs. She thanked the Gods that Lorch was not in the room for what she was about to say.

  “The night you received those scars on your back, what do you remember?” she said gently, and Elijah stiffened.

  “Nothing, I’ve told you this.”

  “What is the earliest thing you can remember, before you came to live in the castle?” she urged, taking a step forward.

  Elijah’s keen eyes tracked her step, and his eyes flew back up to meet hers. He missed nothing. His expression was instantly guarded.

  “Colleen’s face when she found me in the forest between Viridya and Amberbourne - Arii, what are you doing here?”

  She ignored him and stepped closer, hands up and palms towards him, the pink skin of her wrists visible to his gaze.

  “Do you not feel like you are different, Elijah? Your speed, your strength - faster and far stronger than any human or elf.”

  Elijah’s voice dropped an octave as he spoke. “Stop.”

  The air hummed between them as she inched closer.

  In the beginning, she had believed it merely to be a product of his mysterious presence, the feeling of being in proximity of a powerfully trained bodyguard. She had also thought it were a strange sort of air of attraction, a tether drawing her to him, invisible strings of fate pulling them to one another. Now she realised it was far more than that.

  “And your canines?” She opened her mouth, pressing fingers to her own elongated two teeth. “Do they not resemble mine?”

  “That’s enough,” he bit, voice laced with cool anger.

  Now she was before him and he had not moved a muscle. She gazed up into his eyes, noticing the chocolate tinge in his dark locks as the afternoon sun bathed his hair.

  Sweetness coated her tongue like honey.

  “Can you not taste it, the strange sensation on your tongue? Can you not feel the roiling of something beneath your skin? I know you can feel it, it is how you found us the night Ingrid attacked Sybell in her rooms.”

  “No...” he whispered then, moving from her and pacing a few steps away to the middle of the room. Golden light streamed in the cathedral windows, blanketing the colossal room in hues of red and orange. Arii remained where she stood, watching as Elijah shook his head in denial.

  “Arii, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I have never been so sure, Elijah. You may not know, but I do. I know who you are...”

  Elijah’s silver gaze met hers, and she saw the darkness of thunderclouds rolling behind his eyes. The fog hazing his mind, the doors firmly locking memory just out of his reach was slowly cracking open. Her voice was soft, but it seemed to echo about the room as she finally said it.

  “Eliverus Herington.”

  Dead silence, before a boom of thunder sounded in the distance.

  Odd, there had not been any signs of a storm minutes ago.

  “No.”

  Elijah’s voice was low, guttural, barely a whisper, the syllable laced with something Arii could not understand. She stepped forward, watching as Elijah’s shoulders began to shake, his entire body humming, hands balling at his sides.

  Power, untapped and unbidden, pressed in upon the room. The air was so thick with it, Arii almost felt she was wading through water.

  Magic.

  This magic though was unlike anything she had ever witnessed or felt before. It was as if the air was becoming harder to breathe.

  “You have been suppressing your magic for over twenty years, Eliverus.”

  Elijah whirled on her then, his face twisted in agony.

  “Don’t call me that!” he bellowed, the cords of his neck straining as he pressed his hands to his temples, the rolling boom of thunder sounding closer now. “That’s not who I am, I’m-”

  “I can feel it, taste it in the very air of this room. Your magic is brimming, churning, and straining against the very fibres of your being. You cannot suppress it much longer, or it will kill you.”

  Gods, it was killing her to see him in so much pain, pain from the truth as memories slid from the darkness of his mind. Elijah made a sound like a groan of anguish as Arii stepped forward. Her face slowly morphed to mirror the sympathy she felt – her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

  She had to do this, had to tell him the truth of what she had pieced together.

  “It was the iron - the iron in the claws of the Kryvern that left those scars on your flesh. It must have suppressed your awakening, keeping it within you and that may have resulted in your amnesia. You survived the night your family was slaughtered. Elijah, you’re the last of the Herington bloodline, the true heir to the throne of Fythnar.”

  “No, no I’m not... I’m not some lost Fae prince!”

  “Gods, the Reaper! Your magic drew the Reaper to the castle when it attacked Sybell,” she whispered, eyes widening as realisation dawned.

  Elijah groaned again as he said, “Gods, it isn’t true.”

  The cathedral windows shuddered above, and Arii’s head snapped up to the sound. The golden chandeliers swayed as flashes of lightening strobed beyond
the towering windows.

  She barrelled on, feeling every muscle in her body tense as power rippled through the room. “You could be the last hope we have to stop what is about to be unleashed from Bonemire, Elijah. You’re the only surviving male Fae magic wielder.”

  Another shudder, the goblets rattling as one fell on the nearby table, spilling wine across the dark wood, causing a shadow to bloom across the map of the continent.

  Perhaps an omen for what was to come.

  Elijah suddenly jerked, hands flying to grasp at his tunic as she felt a snap of magic on the air. Her breath inhaled sharply, the air in the room rapidly thinning. The floor rumbled beneath them, as if something were threatening to break through the surface.

  His expression of agony told her that he knew what she said was true, the memories were flooding back with such intensity that he was losing grip of his magic, loosing grip of himself. He had kept his magic on such a tight leash for so long, kept it buried inside himself, wondering what he truly was but knowing he could not allow anyone to see.

  It was pressing upon them, pressing against her chest as if she were being gripped in a vice, and Arii knew they were seconds away from a cataclysm.

  Elijah’s eyes were wide and glazed as their depths began to glow with blue light. The air about them snapped with energy, and Arii saw her hair begin to rise as if invisible fingers tugged at the strands.

  Arii let her feelings show, her eyes pleading as thunder boomed above them. Elijah’s face was a crystal clear picture of anguish.

  “Let me help you,” she whispered desperately.

  Then, the doors to the throne room flew open, the wood crashing against the stone walls with a resounding crack. Valdis entered the throne room, flanked by five soldiers of the Red Guard.

  Arii spun, facing the man. As his eyes surveyed the scene, she saw rage twist his features into a look of pure fury.

  “You!” he snarled.

  Thunder boomed again and silver light streaked the cathedral windows, the glass within rattling as the entire castle seemed to shake. The guards gasped in alarm, steadying themselves as Valdis stepped further into the room.

  Arii’s pulse thrummed in her ears at the sight of the cause of her torture, the man who had almost shattered her body, her mind and soul. She had never known hate so acidic as it washed over her, making her fingers itch and shoot to the dagger at her hip.

  Her hand paused above the hilt as Lorch pushed into the room behind his father.

  Arii’s heart hitched as the King stopped, his expression one of confusion, and then when his eyes slid over her and Elijah, it changed to something unreadable. She saw the beginnings of pain flicker across his face.

  “Arii?” he said, stepping forward. “What is going on?” His eyes darted over her pure unveiled features, her luminous skin, her vivid purple eyes and to her pointed ears as her hair levitated around her.

  “Lorch,” Arii whispered, hands rising to the daggers on her belt as the earth quaked beneath them. “I can explain…”

  Lorch’s brows scrunched, his chin lifting ever so slightly as he surveyed her with apprehension in his eyes. Then there was the tiniest shutter in his blue eyes. He shifted, his hand gently rising in a clenched fist.

  A flash of glowing gold.

  She noticed then with a slow dawning horror that it was her golden thread from the Tapestry of Life, laced over his clenched knuckle, touching his skin with warm gold light.

  No, he could not find out – not like this.

  Before she could explain, Lorch’s eyes widened and darted over her shoulder, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

  Behind her, Elijah groaned, and as Arii turned to him upon the dais, the rumbling of the waterfall beneath them slowly faded before it just…

  …stopped.

  It was as if the world outside the castle had suddenly fallen completely and utterly silent. Arii felt as if her ears had been covered with pillows - as if someone had just ripped hearing away from her senses.

  She watched, eyes widening as Elijah dropped to his knees, his hands flying up to clutch at his skull as he yelled in pain.

  Something snapped in the air, as if a final tether came free…

  And the colossal glass cathedral windows above the throne imploded.

  ~~~

  Her magic flared just as the crackling force hit, palm snapping out to erect a swift shield of magic in front of her as the room exploded into a glittering, electrified whirlwind of untamed power.

  She glanced back to see Lorch’s eyes widen in sudden realisation, and the momentary distraction had her magic ripped from her palm and the breath smashed from her lungs. Her body was lifted and thrown across the room as her vision blacked out.

  Moments later, Arii’s head lifted from the cool marble floor, her vision blurring then slowly coming into focus. The guards, Valdis and Lorch had all been thrown across the room too. Her ears rang, her movements disorientated as her hearing slowly returned amongst the shrill squealing of her burst eardrums.

  Blinking slowly as if in a dream, she glanced to where Lorch lay flat on his back, a line of blood trickling from his ears. Her hand gently wiped at her own ears, coming away red.

  Her eyes darted to the dais, where Elijah remained knelt with his head bowed. Movement drew her eyes to the side, and she saw Valdis had recovered far quicker than anyone else. He was rising on shaky legs, unsheathing his sword and heading in the direction of the dais.

  No.

  Elijah!

  Arii felt as if she were wading through thick oil, her movements sluggish as she rose, boots slipping on shards of glass. Her muscles bunched and she sprinted for the dais, her hearing returning with the sound of Valdis’s enraged roar.

  His sword came down, aimed for Elijah’s head.

  Her boots skidded again on the glass, her daggers shooting out to intercept the sword. Steel clashed and her arms shuddered at the impact, her crossed daggers stopping his sword in its tracks.

  Valdis’s face was twisted with rage, his lips peeled back in a snarl. He leaned forward, so close that she could see the whites of his wide eyes, the tiny cuts scattered across his skin from the glass, blood trickling down from his ears. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

  “You are going to wish you had done far worse,” she sneered back, pushing her energy into her legs and thrusting herself forward. Valdis was shoved back, sword jerking to the side before he brought it back down upon her with an enraged yell. Her blades flew, deflecting the steel as they broke into a swift dance of sword against daggers.

  Valdis was quick, but they were both still slightly disorientated and she had to admit he was keeping up with her far better than she thought him able.

  Arii spun, dagger narrowly missing his arm as Valdis jerked to the side, before swinging the sword savagely at her thigh. Blocking just in time, Arii slid steel on steel until the blade of his sword met with the cross guard of her dagger, using it as leverage to twist his sword away, making an opening for her to attack.

  Her blade sang through the space, slashing across the man’s gut before she sheathed her dagger in one swift movement, spinning in a pirouette before slamming her palm into his chest. With a cry of anger, she threw a punch of magic into her palm, causing the man to fly back with force and crash to the marble floor below.

  When Valdis’ sword skidded across the floor and the man did not rise, Arii spun to Elijah. They did not have long.

  She sprinted to him to clutch at his face, raising it up.

  His silver eyes met hers, swimming with a look so pained, so haunted that it stole her breath away.

  It was then that Ariiaya Trillia made her choice.

  “We have to go - now!” she whispered urgently.

  When Elijah did not move, she growled a cur
se and grabbed his arm, sliding underneath to help lift him. She was strong, but not strong enough to carry him completely.

  “Eliverus!” she yelled, jerking his bulk against her, and attempting to rise.

  He seemed to respond then, slowly rising with her help. He was in shock, she knew that. When she was a young girl and her magic awoke, the feeling was as if something had exploded within her, like a supernova within her soul. That was from roughly a decade of stored magic in the body of a child.

  Elijah had just allowed over twenty years of pent-up magic to break free, magic that he had held suppressed the entire time, magic he had never learned how to control.

  She could feel his trembling, the static radiating from his body as he shuddered. They moved from the room, stepping over the bodies of the guards.

  Arii stole a glance at Lorch, his prone form laying sprawled on the glittering marble floor.

  She felt pain unlike that inflicted upon her in Bonemire. This was something else entirely - the beginnings of her heart’s severing.

  She wanted to take him with them, but that was impossible. She could feel her heart breaking, a fissure splitting it in two and she stifled a sob.

  Overhead, alarm bells began to toll.

  The entire castle would be on alert now.

  They stumbled down the castle hall, gold a blur either side of them as they ran. Ahead, two guards entered the space with weapons drawn. Arii drew one dagger after another then cocked her arm back before letting the steel fly. The metal buried itself in one man’s chest, the second spearing through another’s jugular.

  Another soldier appeared, sword drawing before Arii threw a burst of magic, causing the man to fly back into the wall with a sickening crash. She grunted, still bearing some of Elijah’s weight as they passed, her hand flying out to grab the dagger lodged in the guard’s chest.

  They could not escape through the castle gates; they would surely be overrun. If Elijah fought alongside her, they would stand a chance. She knew he was too far gone at that moment to be of any assistance.