by Eric Vall
“Sorry,” I mumbled as I released the half-elf. “We’re about to start the branding if you guys wanna come with.”
“Where are you putting the runes?” Aurora asked eagerly. “Not on your face.”
“Not on the face,” Cayla immediately agreed. “Or the chest. I like your chest like it is.”
“Not the neck either,” Aurora added with a coy smile. “That’s ours.”
“Anywhere below the waist is absolutely off limits, too,” Cayla decided.
I raised my brows. “Okay so … what part of me doesn’t have your names stamped on it? Just so I know.”
Something about the smirk on Cayla’s face told me I already knew the answer.
“Do you think you ladies could spare an arm?” I asked.
“You should’ve done it without them there,” Haragh sighed. “They would’ve just giggled and said they loved it anyway.”
Aurora punched the half-ogre in the arm, but he hardly seemed to notice. Then the two women looked me up and down on both sides and finally nodded their approval.
“The arm is okay,” Aurora decided, “but all on one. The right one.”
“No,” Cayla said firmly. “I like the right one, it’s his shooting arm.”
“Exactly.” Aurora winked. “He raises his gun, and the runes are lined down the forearm. It’s hot.”
Cayla raised her brows. “Yeah, that’s sexy,” she agreed. “Okay. Right arm.”
I chuckled at the satisfaction in the women’s eyes, and they both sent me sparkling smiles.
I couldn’t resist testing the waters, though.
“I’m gonna say left arm,” I countered smugly.
Both women looked deeply disappointed, but they actually relented to the switch, and the look on Haragh’s face was about as shocked as I felt.
“Wow,” I laughed, “Okay, I was just checking to see if I had any kind of say anymore, but good to know. We’ll do the right arm, don’t worry.”
The two women grinned immediately as I wove my arms around their slender waists, and I didn’t miss Haragh’s massive eye roll as we turned for the cave.
“Of course, you have a say,” Cayla purred. “We just care more about having a say than you do.”
“Fair point,” I allowed. “I don’t give a shit where the runes are. As long as they work.”
“There you go,” Haragh grunted.
The four of us headed back through the dim halls of the fortress, and we found Dragir back in the bloody chamber.
The elf was laid out on the stone table and staring at the ceiling again, and when we walked in, he blinked slowly.
“Silence is very nice,” he mumbled in a daze. “I forgot how quiet it is without any runes around. I can hear everything and nothing at the same time. Even my skin is quiet.”
“Should we get Shoshanne?” Aurora muttered uneasily as she stared at the blitzed elf.
“He’s fine,” I said with a shrug. “Hey Dragir, you still seeing tails on your arms?”
After a long moment, the elf lifted an arm and moved it back and forth in front of his face.
“No tails.”
“Cool,” I chuckled. “Let’s do this, then.”
I took a seat on the stone table once Dragir had slid back to his feet, and Cayla fidgeted nervously with the edge of her leather bodice.
“Does it hurt?” she asked the elf.
“Yes.”
Cayla whimpered to herself and hopped up beside me.
“All of the ways you get injured, but this you just walk into,” she muttered.
“Hey,” I tried, and I slid my hand along her thigh to ease her nerves a bit. “Just remember, these runes are gonna save my ass. Both of your asses as well.”
“My ass?” Cayla asked. “What do these runes have to do with us?”
I’d been avoiding the topic ever since our run in with Yvette in the cove, but keeping my concerns from the women would never help in the long run. I didn’t want them to worry, but if it hadn’t occurred to them yet, it was probably time I pointed out the obvious.
“If you were the Master,” I offered, “and you didn’t want to kill me, but you wanted to catch me or lure me in, what would you guess was the easiest angle? What’s my weakness?”
The two women furrowed their brows to think it over, but Dragir didn’t even hesitate.
“Easy,” he decided. “Your women.”
Cayla snorted. “You’d have to be an idiot to try that one.”
“No,” Dragir countered, “only observant and possessed. For example, based on my experience and my observations, I would abduct Deya first because she is clearly incapable of defending herself. Presumably, I am a minion and do not know about her runes, but that is as simple as removing her necklace. If Ruela was there, though, I’d go for Cayla because I would only have to disarm her, and then she has no powers to turn to. This is not an easy feat, obviously, but someone else might not realize that. Next would be Shoshanne. She’s a healer and therefore more inclined to not want to harm another person. However, she would only suffocate me instantly, so she is less of a concern. Overall, I believe Aurora is the least likely to be attacked. Outside of Nalnora, anyway. She walks as if she is prepared to kill anyone if she has to, and this works in her advantage. It’s most likely her many years of training.”
I sighed and scruffed my beard as the two women paled, and I could tell the truth of Dragir’s words was hitting them like a damn train.
“Dude,” I muttered, “I was trying to ease into the conversation.”
Haragh snorted as he made himself comfortable against the wall.
“My mistake,” Dragir admitted, “I thought we were having an open discussion. I do think you should consider these things, though, because the truth is, none of that matters. I managed to capture all of you with only a few darts, and you were all heavily armed at the time.”
I cleared my throat loudly before the elf could carry on anymore.
“Look, the point is, I can’t keep you all tied around my ankle,” I explained. “Anything could happen, and if something did happen, or the Master found an opening and caught one of you … I’d never forgive myself. And you know I’d rather walk right up to him and let him brand me than leave any of you at his disposal. These runes ensure none of that can happen. They’ll keep me from being too injured to protect you, and with heightened senses, I’ll be able to tell if something’s wrong, even if you’re not right next to me. We’ll all be safer.”
Cayla wove her arms around me to pull me into a kiss, and Aurora quickly hopped up on my other side to loop her arm around mine.
“I love you, by the way,” the half-elf said quietly.
“Me too,” Cayla added.
“Then can we all agree it’s really not a big deal that this is going to hurt?” I chuckled. “It’s worth it.”
The two women agreed, and I rolled up the bloody sleeve on my right side. Cayla clamped my forearm to her thighs to keep it steady, and Aurora tightened her hold on my bicep as she sent me a nervous glance. Dragir’s very honest input had clearly shaken both of them up a bit, and I tried to lighten the mood as I turned to the half-elf.
“You think I’ll be able to hear better than you?” I teased.
Aurora finally relaxed a little and rolled her eyes. “If you can, I’m going to be so jealous.”
“You could always get branded,” I pointed out with a broad grin.
Both women swiftly shot down the idea as Dragir came over with one of the branding rods, and I felt like the runes had somehow gotten bigger since the last time I’d looked at them.
“You are absolutely sure about this?” Dragir asked. “The Master aside, I cannot stress enough how nice this silence is right now. Just listen to it for a moment. Think about how quiet it is.”
As Dragir’s gaze drifted skyward, I had to laugh at the man. Secretly, I hoped he stayed this chill for the rest of his life, but once I assured him I was fully committed to the three runes, he nodded haz
ily and began to gauge his aim of the branding rod near my forearm.
“Umm … ” Aurora cut in, “doesn’t that need to be heated?”
“Right,” Dragir snorted, and he held the rod toward Aurora. “Would you mind?”
The half-elf stared at Dragir like she wanted to slap him to sober him up, but she only locked her jaw as flames sparked from her fingertips.
“If you wreck Mason’s arm, I will burn all of that silver hair right off your head,” she warned.
“I’ll just shoot you,” Cayla informed him. “I mean that.”
Dragir looked uneasily between the two lethal women, and I sent him an apologetic smile.
“It’s cool, they’re just tense,” I told the elf. “Go on.”
Dragir nodded and stepped forward, and after Aurora had heated the iron to a glowing orange, the elf carefully lined up the rune right below the crook of my elbow.
He didn’t count to three or pussy foot around about it. Before I could even take a bracing breath, the iron abruptly seared into my arm, and white-hot pain shot straight through me.
I jolted as my skin began to broil, and the smell of burning flesh made my stomach churn. Cayla tightened her hold on my arm to hold it steady, and as the pain increased, a heavy weight pushed down on me.
It was like someone dumped a bucket of melted lead over my whole body, and strange Elvish voices began screeching in my ears. They were much louder than I’d expected, and they echoed in a tinny way that made me cringe.
Between the pain of my burning flesh and the freakishly loud voices, I felt like the room had turned five times over, and the disorientation had me seeing double by the time Dragir removed the iron.
“Fuuucking shit!” I growled, and I looked down at my smoking skin.
A perfect replica of the rune for accelerated healing was blazing in a blistering red around the edges, and a dense ditch of seared flesh gaped open to form the looping lines.
Haragh gagged loudly from the corner, but he managed to not hurl.
I focused on taking deep breaths while the pain gradually became less acute, and the voices in my ears seemed to be settling down as well.
They didn’t disappear, though. They whispered far in the back of my mind, and even without understanding their language, I could almost feel their meaning. They were tied to me all over the place, and they held me together in a way that was definitely weird to experience, but not uncomfortable. It was like someone drew an incredibly elaborate dot-to-dot under my skin, and I could feel not only the dots, but the lines, too.
“Well?” Aurora asked in a tight voice, and her soft blue eyebrows crinkled with worry. “Is it horrible?”
“One moment,” Dragir muttered, and he pointed to my arm. “It should be soon.”
I looked back down, and sure enough, the smoking had stopped. The blistering red was paling right before my eyes, and the raw ditches left by the heated iron were already building themselves up into scar tissue.
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “It’s healed.”
The pain was completely gone, and a triumphant grin instantly spread across my face.
Cayla let out a harried sigh, and when I turned, she was deathly pale.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
The princess nodded and stubbornly clamped my arm back down.
“Just hurry up,” she muttered through gritted teeth.
I kissed her on the cheek and nodded to Dragir to continue, and the elf quickly pulled the next branding iron from the table for Aurora to heat the metal.
Within seconds, the next bout of pain shot through me, but this time, I was immediately distracted by something else. The voices from the last rune rose all at once, and an overwhelming surge of power coursed through my body. It forced my eyes shut and blocked out everything around me, and I knew the rune was already fighting to heal my searing flesh.
Still, the new rune on the branding iron was creating its own chaos, and I gave in to the disorientation of the process without fighting it.
When I opened my eyes again, I was doubled over, and Aurora had a tight hold around my shoulders. The pain subsided in seconds though, and the voices quieted down shortly after.
“What the fuck was that?” I mumbled as I blinked my vision back into place.
“That was rune magic,” Dragir said with a smirk, and he tossed the smoking iron down beside the others. “You will always hear the elements of your first rune more loudly when they are called into action because it is a rune that goes dormant, in a way. It holds you together even when it is not needed, you can feel this I’m sure. But when your body is injured, the rune is designed to take this as a personal attack on itself. It will lash out, and in this case, lashing out is healing your body as quickly as possible.”
“What about the other ones?” I asked, and I furrowed my brow as I began to decipher the difference between the two runes muttering in my mind.
“The enhancing runes are constants,” Dragir explained. “They will never quiet down, but they will never overwhelm you like the other will. You’ll get used to the power of the first as time goes on, do not worry. Right now, your body is still assimilating.”
“It can’t take over my mind though, right?” I clarified.
Dragir shook his head. “It is nothing like mine or the Master’s rune,” he assured me. “You will remain as yourself. Just remember, an attack on you is an attack on that rune. This is why you feel the effect so strongly, just like when you removed the other runes.”
“So,” I mused, “if I tried to remove it, would it tear my body into pieces?”
Dragir stared blankly, and his brows slowly furrowed.
“That is an interesting question,” he admitted. “Do not try to remove the rune, okay? Let me think about this for a while.”
I let out a deep breath and decided rune magic was gonna take some getting used to, and then I pushed the muttering voices to the back of my mind as best I could.
“Alright,” I sighed. “Let’s finish this up.”
Dragir picked up the final branding rod, and just as Aurora sparked her flames, Shoshanne came strolling in with Deya close behind her.
The two women froze when they realized what we were up to, but none of us noticed their reactions much.
The giant Halcyan staff Shoshanne held in her hand was a little hard to ignore. Especially with the deep purple gem mounted on top that pulsed steadily like a beating heart.
Chapter 3
“You’ve already started?” Shoshanne asked anxiously, and she rushed over to get a closer look at my arm.
Deya joined her in fretting over the new runes, but Aurora, Cayla and I just stared at the healer’s staff.
The half-elf tapped gingerly at the sharp point that spiraled in thin sheets around the gem, and the purple glow caught in the strange Halcyan veins to make the material even more ethereal looking.
“Are you alright?” Shoshanne demanded as she placed a hand on my arm. “What do you need?”
“Huh?” I asked blankly. There wasn’t any pain in my arm at all, and the mesmerizing gem had taken my full attention. “Oh. They’re healed. What the hell is that?”
An awkward smile came to Shoshanne’s face. “This is what Qiran wanted to see me about.”
“It’s a healing staff,” Deya added. “My father wanted to honor Shoshanne’s service to House Quyn.”
Aurora didn’t bother to hide her irritation.
“Shoshanne’s service?” she clarified. “What about everything Mason’s done for your House? He saved you, your father, and Dragir. He helped decimate the Master’s attack on House Quyn, he--”
I silenced the half-elf with a kiss, and she let out a tense sigh.
Then I motioned for Shoshanne to continue, but the healer looked genuinely embarrassed.
“She’s right,” Shoshanne decided. “This staff should be yours. You’ve done so much--”
“Nope,” I interrupted. “You know I was ready to leave House Quyn for good,
but you were determined to help Qiran. I changed that soil in his garden for you more than anything.”
Shoshanne clearly wanted to argue this point, but we both knew it was true. If she hadn’t been in tears over the thought of leaving Qiran to die of Pura Rubrum, we would have been gone within hours of arriving in the south.
So, Shoshanne nodded her agreement and glanced sheepishly at the staff.
“Qiran is an incredibly sweet man,” the healer muttered.
There were so many things I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue instead.
“I’m sure he is,” I allowed.
“I know you two aren’t on very good terms,” the healer admitted, “but I think your personalities just don’t suit each other well. When I went to see him, he told me no human has ever tended to the injured warriors of an elven army before, let alone treated a head of a House. His Pura Rubrum has completely subsided, and the Naticea is growing beautifully in the gardens. I helped him with a few minor adjustments to his dose since he’s doing so well, and when I was finished, he presented this staff to me. He said his grandfather forged it himself over a thousand years ago.”
“Damn,” I mused. “That’s a hell of a gesture.”
“Isn’t it?” Shoshanne said as she blushed lightly. “Qiran told me the staff is meant to assist me in my work, but I can’t imagine how. Do you think I’m the first human to receive a gift like this from an elf?”
“Yes,” Dragir informed her, and I craned my neck in his direction.
“You knew about this?” I asked the elf.
Dragir nodded. “I didn’t know he had made up his mind about it,” he admitted, “but my father mentioned his wish to give the staff to her. We are all grateful for what you have done. You greatly impressed our healers when they returned to House Quyn after the battle, but healing my father was more than any of us could have hoped for. Not to mention your assistance with my own rune.”
Shoshanne blushed an even deeper shade. “It was nothing,” she insisted modestly, and I admired the glint of pride in her warm brown eyes. She had been impressing all of us ever since we met her in Eyton back before she realized she was an Aer Mage, but knowing she’d managed to impress even the elves gave me a flutter of pride as well.
