Some of the males in the back coughed.
“He went to get sex from someone who wouldn’t judge him for who or what he was—male son of a mativa, rough soldier. It’s better than paying for someone who might live too close to home or maybe even blackmail a young man,” Kian explained softly. “Many Andinna, male and female, used to pilgrimage to those temples for their own reasons. Some wanted to learn the arts of love, some needed advice on relationships, some needed physical comfort.”
“Ah. I think I’ve heard that before, but thank you for the refresher.” It wasn’t information Mave ever intended on using, so she always half ignored those sorts of lessons.
“I arrived and…” Nevyn chuckled. “I was so uncomfortable, so awkward. Other than romps with other males, I hadn’t been with a female. Too much stress of joining a mayara and…well, Mat understands, I think, even though he dealt with that pressure in a different way.”
“Yup.” Mat kept his answer purposefully curt, but then, Mave knew all about his sexual history.
“What happened?” Mave asked, keeping her eyes on the dark red eyes staring down at her. Nevyn seemed bashful as if he was telling an embarrassing story.
“The Head Priestess recognized my problem immediately and called for Varon,” he answered. “I was barely able to make it to his quarters, absolutely terrified of what I was doing. Something had called me to that temple. I knew I needed that fresh, uncomplicated love, but I worried about dishonoring Amonora and letting Varon down. I didn’t know the protocol very well and made a complete embarrassment of myself, as young Andinna generally do.”
The males behind them all chuckled. Nevyn looked back at them, his eyes narrowing. They hushed quickly. Nevyn picked up his pace, and Mave followed, realizing no one else was. Kian and Mat each held up a hand, telling the males further back they weren’t welcome in the conversation anymore.
“That should do it,” Nevyn said softly, nodding. “Well, Varon knew I needed my nerves calmed down, and he…he, uh, sang to me. It was beautiful. I’ll…” He closed his eyes, a pained expression going over his face. “I’ll never forget that sweet music. Needless to say, by morning, I knew I was in love with him. We spent the entire—”
“He sang?” she asked, confused, her brain finally catching up as pieces of the story didn’t fit together. “He’s…he’s mute. What happened?”
Nevyn gave her the saddest expression she had ever seen on him. Her jovial comrade was marked by a deep and unsettling sadness.
“Mave, that’s our secret, and you’ll have to promise it goes nowhere. You can’t tell anyone outside the Company.”
“Of course.” She saw no problem with that.
“Varon wasn’t born mute. He was born blind.”
Mave’s chest gave several hard thumps. That made no sense.
“Do you understand?” he asked softly.
“No,” she answered with full honesty. She had no idea how that made any sense.
“He was consigned to the temple to live and die there. He couldn’t fly. Blindness…” Nevyn growled softly. “Blindness is normally a death sentence. Oftentimes…” He sighed. “This is going to sound harsh, but it’s with the best of intentions. When a baby is discovered to be blind, oftentimes, they are taken to a temple of Kristanya and given a peaceful and quick death, for they can never use the wings she gave them. It’s believed, in the afterlife, she raises them, children born to die and be her young because she’s a goddess of death and can’t have any.”
Mave’s stomach sank, threatening to eject the contents of her rations.
“Easy,” he whispered. “Mave, it’s always for the best, and it’s rare. There might be one blind child out of a generation thirty-thousand strong. Varon was lucky. His parents loved him so much, they took him to the temple of Amonora. He was their first child, and they refused to give him up. Since he could never fly safely, he could never leave. He was safe and educated. And he was there when I arrived.”
“How…how is that okay?” she asked softly.
“Imagine a life where you were doomed to never fly. You’re lucky. You never flew for a thousand years, but you knew one day you could. Varon lived for six hundred years, knowing he could never feel the wind beneath his wings and suffered through it, cursed to live in that temple for his entire existence. Imagine his pain.”
“Oh…” Mave nodded. “That’s…”
“The worst part of being Andinna,” he said softly. “I told Varon if we ever want children, we’ll adopt the blind ones. I can’t bear to think that another Varon could be lost to the world. You understand?”
“Yes, but then how…He can fly now. He’s the best archer in the Company, possibly out of the Andinna.”
“The night before I had to leave to return to Kerit and my unit with Kian and Senri, he gave a blood sacrifice to his goddess, proclaiming he loved me so much, he would give up everything to follow me out of the temple—her favor, his life, it didn’t matter. He would not suffer any longer. We fell madly in love that summer, and…and he was willing to die for me. Like I was willing to die for him by trying to take him by force to come with me.” Nevyn wiped his face. “Fuck, I hate this story…The High Priestess found him very early in the morning before I woke up. I was sent for, and there he was, lying at the altar, neat scars up his arms where he had cut himself open, fully intending to get Amonora’s attention or die trying.”
“By the Skies…” Mave wasn’t sure if she could believe what Nevyn was telling her, but by the earnest expression on his face and the utter despair in his eyes, just considering Varon possibly dead, she couldn’t imagine him lying either.
“When he woke up, it was as if he was staring into the sun. His eyes were wide and bright, and I knew the moment something changed because…he saw me. He saw me, and he tried to whisper something, and nothing came out.” Nevyn rubbed his face harder. “Amonora is not a goddess of creation, not truly. She couldn’t give him his eyes and let him fly without taking something in return. So, she exchanged them for his voice, the very thing that stole my heart to begin with. And so, my love, my true, beautiful, wonderful male, my priest, my light in the darkness, is now mute, but he can see, and he can fly. He followed me back to Kerit. Kian, Senri, and I taught him to truly fly. He became a warrior at my side. We blood bonded before the year was out.”
“The gods…” Mave shook her head. No, they couldn’t be real, not that real.
“Are very much involved in our lives,” Nevyn said ominously. “Don’t ever—”
“No,” Mave snarled. “They left me to rot for centuries in the pits. You don’t get to tell me now they have that kind of power. I refuse to…”
Nevyn looked stricken but said nothing as Mave started to stomp off, her mind reeling.
There’s no way. What did I ever do to them for them to leave me to rot like that? What did I do to deserve it?
Rage boiled in her, and she knew what she needed to do.
“Let’s go kill some fucking Elvasi,” she growled back to the males. Kian frowned, but Mat looked like he knew exactly what she was feeling. He had been there that day in the pits when she had turned her back on the Andinna dragon gods.
“Mave—”
“Let’s go,” she snarled.
Mave stood on a cliffside that night, looking down on the trail they had used to get there. Hopefully, the Elvasi patrols would find it and come for them. She needed that.
She also needed to do something else. Nevyn stood silently next to her, and everyone had avoided her the entire day after her outburst.
“I wasn’t angry with you,” she said suddenly, unable to bring herself to avoid it much longer. “I…” She clenched her fists. “It’s funny, hearing old legends and thinking they could be real but what you described…”
“Mat explained,” he whispered. “All of it. I don’t blame you for the anger. I can imagine there’s a lot of resentment in you for our gods. Just like you and the gladiators.”
She frowned
, still staring at the path. Was it resentment?
Yes.
“I leave the gladiators to their own. I let all of you pray to our gods. I always thought they just couldn’t, and if they could, why not me? What had I done to not gain their favor?” Mave chuckled sadly. “Killed thousands of their people might be one of those things, but I was just trying to survive and…”
“I know,” he said gently. “Mave, I’m not a priest. Varon would be a much better person to talk to about this. If I had known our story would set you off, I would have never said anything.”
“Your story is beautiful,” she said, emotion choking her for a minute. “It’s beautiful, and I’m jealous. They never cared about me that much.”
His arm wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her close, and together, they stood under the quiet night sky.
“Let’s talk about something else,” he said kindly after a long time. “We could be here for a couple of nights.”
“Yeah, we could—”
“You two hash it out?” Kian asked behind them. Mave smiled over her shoulder.
“Yeah. Are you coming to bother us?”
“I am,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets as he walked up beside her. “You know, I heard a little rumor from Matesh. Maybe he didn’t want me to hear it, but he was mumbling about it on the ride, and I’ve been dying to ask about it.”
“Oh, great. If you mention it in front of Nevyn, the entire Company will know, probably before we even get back,” she said dryly. “Let’s hear it.”
“You and Zayden,” he mentioned casually as if it wasn’t a big deal. By Nevyn’s sudden sputtering and removing his arm to cover his face, it was a big deal. Mave hadn’t expected that to be Kian’s topic of choice.
“Oh. Let’s not let that spread around. I don’t think he’s comfortable with the idea. We’ve had a couple of tense moments, and he’s reacted poorly. I want to give him more time.”
“So, you’re serious?” Kian seemed surprised, his eyebrows going up his forehead and under his black hair, cropped shorter than most Andinna’s. “Really?”
“I think I am,” she answered, shrugging one shoulder. “It’s not really that big of a deal. We spend a lot of time together, he lives in my home, and he works with my males. It’s…he’s already part of the family, I think. Whether he wants to stay in it and…” Mave swallowed. “I don’t really want to talk about this right now, not with you.”
Nevyn coughed louder, leaning over to wheeze. Mave gave him an odd look, wondering if he was going to be okay since it hadn’t stopped yet.
“Zayden,” he finally exclaimed as if the grouchy father’s name was a dirty word. “Never saw that one coming.”
“He’s…funny when he’s relaxed,” she explained quickly. “He smiles, and it’s like he’s centuries younger than the way he normally acts. He…”
He makes my pulse jump when he looks at me, and his sapphire eyes are glittering with happiness. I want him to be happy more. I want him to be happy with me.
“What did you mean by he’s reacted poorly to…tense moments?” Kian asked carefully. “You know, I am your father. I can answer some of these questions.”
Nevyn started to chuckle again. Kian reached around her and hit him. Nevyn swung back as Mave stepped away to get out from between them.
“Everything is fine until we’re too close, and there’s obvious attraction. Then he’ll find some excuse for the training to be over and leave. By the time we get back, he won’t need to train with me anymore, so I’m going to lose those moments with him.”
“Huh.” Kian frowned. “Zayden’s a really by-the-book male. If he was feeling even some sexual attraction, he would have mentioned it before.”
Nevyn nodded. “He would have. It also means if he feels he’s unwelcome, he’ll never bring it up again.”
Mave’s eyes went wide as the males both nodded sagely, looking between each other and her.
“Ah…” Kian slumped. “What happened?”
“It was…a year ago,” she said softly. “He said I was attractive. I thought it was funny. I laughed. I didn’t…”
Now, they were wide-eyed.
“Oh. You turned him down, then,” Nevyn said, groaning. “And here we are, Mave once again not quite realizing the full ramifications of what she’s done. Mave, if he expressed interest, and you laughed as if he was a joke, he’s not going to pursue you anymore. Living with you is probably torture.”
“What? Are you saying you males have a bunch of stupid rules I don’t know about? Color me surprised.” Sarcasm dripped from her tongue at the end as she settled into realizing she had once again messed up, thanks to some weird idiosyncrasy of Andinna culture. “What do I do to tell him he is welcome?”
“Well, the rules change. He doesn’t pursue you, you pursue him. You need to make it expressly known you want to…” Kian waved a hand at her. “Make him realize you’re okay with him now. If he’s still interested, he’ll respond. Sometimes, a female has to take a male by the balls and drag him into her bedroom before he’ll relent, but don’t worry, he’ll relent. You’ll know the exact moment he does, even if he’s still got a bit of fight in him.”
“You’ll also know the moment you need to stop because he genuinely doesn’t want to have you. He’ll make it clear, and if that happens, it’s best he moves out of your home,” Nevyn said quietly. When Kian glared at him, he shrugged. “It’s Zayden. Who knows if he’s honestly ready for a relationship, much less being part of a mayara? That male has his head so far up his own ass—”
Mave growled, cutting Nevyn off and silencing the insults. Kian smirked.
“Oh, yeah, he’s yours, all right,” her father whispered. “That’s the best advice I can give you. I hope it works out for you. He’s not a bad male. If anything, he’s what most Andinna fathers wish they could be. He’s hard on himself, and we’re hard on him as well, but he’s not a bad male.”
“Well, with that kind of endorsement, how am I ever to deny him?” she asked, going back to a bit of sarcasm. She already knew Zayden was a good male, a strong one, and while his overbearing nature on Rainev had once gotten on her nerves, now she respected it. He loved his son more than life itself, and that was special. He loved Rain enough to change himself, to force himself to live uncomfortably, so his son could be happy.
And he has a beautiful smile.
She smiled to herself, ignoring the two males with her.
One of them said something softly, and the other chuckled.
“We’re going to head in. A couple of the others will be out for watch, so we have a heads up,” Kian said finally, loud enough for her to register what he was saying. She nodded a little and watched them go toward the cavern they had claimed. Nevyn had the idea to repeat the circumstances of the failed scouting mission, but the difference was, this time, they were prepared. They weren’t trying to hide. They were hoping to kill, and if the Elvasi were stupid enough to follow the same sort of circumstances, they deserved to die.
Mave had no objections. As she stood, lost in her thoughts, four of the Andinna they had chosen came out and took their positions, all holding bows instead of their swords. It would give them the advantage to kill a few of the Elvasi before an attack ever started. Another missed opportunity of the scouting mission when only Varon had been prepared for archery.
“Champion, you can go in. We’ve got this under control,” one of them finally said to her.
With a sharp nod, she left them to their watch and headed inside.
Soon, very soon, she would get a piece of Elvasi flesh for the first time since the battle for Kerit.
27
Mave
“We saw a patrol fly by. We should get into position,” someone whispered in the dark cave. There was no fire lit, so their eyes could adjust to the red moonlight. Mave could see clearly enough, but discerning features to identify which Andinna spoke was impossible. It wasn’t one of the Company, so she didn’t recognize the v
oice. She quietly left her spot, feeling Mat rustle next to her, and they moved out of the cave together, the world growing brighter as they reached the mouth. The red moonlight lit the world like a thin layer of blood.
There was nothing more appropriate.
Mave climbed into a tree growing out of the cliffside. They had picked this one for its cover. Not many plants could survive on the sheer cliffs prevalent in the Dragon Spine, but some could, and those were enough. She let the foliage hide her, knowing all around her, other Andinna were climbing into position, hiding behind rocky outcroppings and bushes.
Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself. It was easy to get anxious and excited, waiting for the right time to strike, but she couldn’t let that lead her to make mistakes. Her left hand held the tree, keeping her balanced and still. Her right hand hovered over the hilt of her morok. She had only brought one. Fighting with two weapons in the air was trickier than it was on the ground. She had a dagger if she needed it.
The world was silent until a soft bird-like sound was heard. Talking in the distance meant they had caught the Andinna scents left for them to find.
Come, little Elvasi. Time to meet your makers.
Rustling in the trees erupted into several Elvasi on the backs of gryphons, pointing and talking, none of it intelligible. Below them, the trees still rustled, and the sounds of gryphons getting worked up were growing louder.
There was still talking, and one gryphon and its rider flew away, but the rest drew closer.
Maybe going for reinforcements. We’ll have to strike hard and fast, then get out of here. Nevyn will have noticed that, and he’s probably going to say the same thing the moment we’re done.
The Elvasi drew closer to the cliffside, unaware of the danger waiting for them. They searched the side, looking for possible hiding spots, and Mave saw the moment they noticed the cavern. They still had no idea there were over twenty Andinna waiting for them. Nevyn and Kian had talked about old hunting theories. If they covered the entire cliffside in their scents, it would make it harder for the gryphons to find one of them in the rough terrain.
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