by Jack Whitney
“Has he been like this since getting back?” Aydra asked as she took a seat next to Lex.
“I’ve only heard him whisper a few words to Balandria. Nothing more,” Lex answered. “I didn’t realize he and Dunthorne were so close.”
“He was his Third. The strongest of the pure Venari born,” Aydra knew. “Also one of his greatest friends.” She looked up and watched him a moment, watched the flames flicker in the shadows of his face. “I cannot imagine his pain. It would be as if I lost you,” she continued, meeting Lex’s gaze.
Lex reached over and squeezed Aydra’s thigh. “Never,” she promised.
Aydra gave her a small smile, and she laid her head on Lex’s shoulder with an audible sigh. Her eyes were beginning to droop, the length of the day finally catching up with her aching body.
“Nadir told of their funeral rituals,” she said, sniffling a yawn. “We should rise with the sun to find the river, watch as their boats float up river.”
“Do you know how to get there?” Lex asked.
Aydra yawned audibly and shook her head. “I don’t. Hoping you could use your instincts to take us there,” she said as she smiled sleepily at her Second.
An amused huff left Lex’s lips. “You should get some sleep if we’ll be rising so early,” she told her.
“Not yet,” Aydra groaned. “Have to send off the Dreamer captain first. Where is he?”
Lex gave an upwards nod towards the other side of the fire. “His bags are packed. He was just waiting on you to come back.”
Aydra sighed heavily and stood again. “I suppose I should get rid of him then.”
Lex smirked at her. “Have fun.”
Aydra made her way across the field to where Ash was standing. He greeted her with a full hug, obvious that he’d been drinking with some of the Venari who she was sure were simply making fun of him.
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, the slur of his eyes gazing down at her. “You’re as beautiful in this forest as you are in your own kingdom, your majesty,” he cooed in her ear.
Aydra’s jaw set. “Come, Ash. I’ll escort you out.”
She tugged on his hand and led him away from the clearing. In silence, they walked through the darkened trees, all the way to where his horse had been taken and left. The cold of the forest circled them, and she eyed the Venari who were above them in silence in the trees.
“You fought well today,” Ash told her as they reached his horse.
Aydra ignored him. “You’ll go to the Village and then I will meet you back in Magnice in seven days. We must report to my brother what went on here.”
Ash frowned, his balance only wavering a second as he stared at her. “You’re staying here another day?”
“I have some things to take care of with the Venari and Honest commanders. Myself and my Second will leave in two sunrises and go straight back to the castle. I expect you there when I arrive.”
“Wait—” he grabbed her arm as she started to turn, and he pulled her closer. “Is that how you would leave me? After going into battle today, slaughtering men at my side… and you would let me leave with as cold of an attitude as the winter frost?”
The prickled facade on her face didn’t fade. “What would you like, Ash? A private fuck here on the forest floor?”
He smirked at her, and then leaned forward to whisper, “I’ll save it for when we’re back in your bed,” in her ear.
The kiss he pressed to her lips then, she didn’t savor. She pushed just slightly on his chest as he started to deepen their embrace. His eyes narrowed down at her, and she pulled her faux facade from the bottom of her core to the surface.
“Don’t get too hasty, Captain…” Her hand grazed the front of his pants, and she felt him quiver in her arms. “You’ll never make it to your Village in such a state.”
He smiled and took a wobbled step back, kissing her hands before letting her go. “I’ll see you in a week, my Lady.”
Once Ash’s shadow disappeared into the forest, Aydra pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. She closed her eyes and allowed the noises of the forest to fill her core.
Crickets. Birds. Wind rustling the leaves on the ground. There was a peace to it that her being craved. Different from the peace of the kingdom that she so despised. This was an urgent peace, one that both calmed her and filled her with adrenaline.
Ash being in the forest that day and on the battlefield had made her uncomfortable. It were as though she were on the field with someone scrutinizing her every move, trying to shield her from the dangers that she knew how to handle. The last thing she ever wanted was for someone to think she needed help as he’d treated her that day.
She honestly wished she’d accidentally sliced his throat.
Maybe then the mess of it would be over.
The Venari and Honest would never had said anything different, and none would have been the wiser. Her brother would have perhaps listened to her then, but then again… he also may have thought the Venari to have done it on purpose, and sent an army to the south.
She groaned inwardly at the thought of having to go back to him.
—“He treats you as a possession.”
Aydra’s eyes opened, and she turned just slightly as Draven came walking up around her side, stepping over the fallen trees and limbs on the forest floor, hands shoved in his pockets.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“The Dreamer,” he explained. “He treats you as though he is your savior. You know he even tried to step in and save you once today,” Draven added with a shake of his head. “And then you chopped the man’s head off.”
Her lips pursed at the memory. “I’m aware. But I don’t need saving.”
“I know you don’t,” he replied. “But he acts as though his being allowed to conquest in your bed makes him some higher authority than his lonely rank as captain.”
“I have never been anyone’s conquest,” she growled. “The only reason any person finds themselves in my bed is because I allow them there.”
“Nevertheless,” he said as he stepped over the last fallen tree towards her, “He thinks he owns you.” Draven paused in front of her. “You deserve better.”
“How would you know what I deserve?” she breathed haughtily.
“Because you’re the fucking Queen,” he said as though it were obvious. “And I don’t just mean the title of it or your birthright. That display today, you leading the attack on those men… you’re more of a Queen than your brother will ever be a King. As much as I would have loved to watch you cower before the men running at you in an attempt to kill you, the fact remains that you battled them with more ferocity than even my own Second. You deserve someone who matches that, someone who will treat you with such an equality and recognize your true core.”
His eyes darkened as his weight shifted in front of her.
“You deserve nothing less than someone who would burn this entire kingdom to the ground for your salvation.”
His voice vibrated her insides. His stare didn’t leave hers, and for a few moments she found herself unable to blink. She crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin up to meet his.
“Sounds like a fantasy,” she finally managed. “Where would I find such a person?”
“Perhaps the Berdijay is looking for a mate.”
She couldn’t help the smile that rose on her face. “You’re utterly ridiculous,” she told him. “What are you doing out here anyway?”
“Had to take a piss.”
“Ah. Right.” She shook her head as a small chuckle left her. “Where at so I don’t step in it?”
He huffed under his breath, and when he looked down, his hair fell over the left side of his face. She watched his hand reach out, and he touched one of the flowers that was still in her braided hair.
“Honest kids had a bit of fun with you?” he asked.
“Something like that,” she replied, feeling her heart begin to warm as he stared at her.
“What’s this?” he asked as the back of his finger grazed her cheek.
Her breaths danced at the touch of his skin against hers, the way he was staring at her. “One got lucky. I took his head as well.”
Draven scoffed and shook his head. He took a blue flower out of her hair then, and he pushed it behind her ear, the graze of his skin on hers making her nearly forget about the events of the day. His eyes darted over her face, and she thought for a moment he would say something more about the flowers, but instead, he simply turned and held out his arm for her.
“Come,” he beckoned. “Nadir is keen on swapping war stories with my men. You’ll enjoy his tales of bloodshed.”
Her heart fluttered at the quirk of the first smile she’d seen on him since the battle, the touch of his skin against hers when she took his arm. And when she took the deepest inhale of the day as they walked back, she felt the familiar butterflies fill her stomach. The memory of how he’d looked at her earlier on the field made her thighs squeeze. And when she remembered the look of him in the phoenix skull, she felt the goosebumps rise on her flesh. She could have given in to him right there, pulled him to the forest floor and fucked him in the dark.
But she didn’t.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
DRAVEN’S QUIET FIGURE only woke her the next morning when he was getting out of the tub. He didn’t say anything when she sat up in the bed, when she wrapped her robe around her and made out for the balcony. She knew it was funeral day, and he would be laying one of his closest friends to rest. She didn’t want to crowd him or start any argument. So she stayed quiet and waited for him to take the steps down before she called for her raven to find Lex.
The Venari funeral included walking the hour to Duarb’s roots. Aydra and Lex followed at the back of the crowd as they walked through the forest to their giver’s tree.
The noise of water rushing caught Aydra’s ears as they neared their destination. A few of the Venari parted off to the east, including Draven and Balandria. Aydra tugged Lex’s arm to follow, wanting to see the Honest boats that Nadir had told her about the day before.
The smell of fire caught her nostrils, smoke wafting through the forest. She’d never seen the Impius River before. It was broad, cutting through the darkened forest like a blade cutting through flesh, splitting it in half. Rocks lined the banks of it.
As they approached the large river, the sight of four boats coming down through the middle of it struck her gaze. Long boats ablaze with soft orange and yellow flames. She could still see some of the flowers they’d laid around the bodies in the boats.
The Venari who had decided to adorn the edge of the river in salute to their Honest brothers all laid their fists across their chests to the left, where the mark of the Honest would have been were they of their kind. Aydra and Lex did the same.
Once the boats were out of sight, Draven and Balandria turned and led them back into the forest towards their giver’s tree. The forest swallowed them once more. Aydra’s raven flittered from tree to tree above them as they walked. Within minutes, she could see the Forest begin to open up again, and the sight of the largest tree she’d ever laid eyes upon sat in the middle of the only open clearing in the forest.
Lex grabbed Aydra’s arm as they approached, and both of them stopped to stare at the beast of a tree before them.
It was practically a monster. The trunk of it was greater than any tree in the forest, thirty feet in diameter and black as the dead of night. The sunlight that had just graced the canopy seemed to hide upon their reaching it, despite there being an enormous gap between this tree’s canopy and the trees around it, as though the trees around it were terrified of their branches curling with this one’s.
The limbs were thin and twisting upwards, ivory instead of brown. The trunk, as black as it was, she knew was not made of wood, and neither was the limbs hovering over them.
Because the trunk was made from the tongues of his dead children, overlapping one another and wriggling in the still air like snake tongues.
And the limbs were a twisted mix of vines and curled bones of all the beings Duarb had ever taken back into his roots.
This was the curse Duarb had been forced into a hundred years earlier.
She wondered if his tree had been as beautiful as her own giver’s tree before he was cursed.
The fire torch Draven held in his hand, he waved over some of the curling roots jutted out from the earth. The roots seized and shriveled upwards, as though in fear of the fire over them. His men brought forward the ones they’d lost, and each was placed beneath Duarb’s roots.
The fire touched to cloth the men were wrapped in, and the flames engulfed the air. The ground rumbled. Lex grabbed Aydra’s arm.
“You don’t think…”
Aydra watched the roots wrap around the bodies then, and the ground quaked again. “I do,” Aydra whispered.
Duarb took their bones back from where they were born, and the fire engulfed their flesh.
Draven shifted, and he lifted his arms up in front of him, his forearms touching, fists in front of his face. They watched every other Hunter do the same, and saw the phoenix markings converge together to make up the whole bird on the backs of their arms.
The Venari people did not stay the entire time to watch their friends burn. But each one went up to Draven and placed their hand on his shoulder or hugged Balandria before making their way back to their homes.
Aydra stayed until it was just she, Balandria, and Draven left in the clearing. Lex left her and walked back to the home with a few of the friends she’d made. Aydra wasn’t sure what to say. The flames were dying when she finally mustered the audacity to step closer to them.
Balandria saw her out of the corner of her eye, and she gave Aydra a nod. Balandria squeezed Draven’s arm and then kissed his cheek, before turning and disappearing into the darkened forest.
Aydra pressed a hesitant hand to Draven’s shoulder and came around his side a few moments later. He did a slight double-take, and he swallowed hard as he met her gaze. Her heart ached for the pain he was going through, and she reached up to his reddened cheek, feeling her own tears rising in her eyes at the sight of the strongest man she knew breaking in front of her.
But it was when he dropped the torch and sank his arms around her that her heart shattered for him. He buried his head in the crook of her neck, and she felt the wet of his tears on her skin as she held him there until the flames completely died. She settled into the comforting vulnerability of his warm body, feeling her own relax against him, her hands stroking the back of his neck.
They didn’t speak, even after they parted and she pressed her lips to his forehead, they said no words to each other. She held his hand as they walked the hour back through the forest together. Every few moments, she would look back at him, watching his darkened expression as he strode with one hand in his pocket. She would squeeze his fingers and rub the outside of his hand gently when she saw him in a daze, and he would look up at her with a solemness in his features that she wasn’t sure how to take. But it was when she heard laughter and the sound of drums ringing in her ears from his forest kingdom, the noise of it echoing off the trunks of the trees, did she turn to him with a confused frown.
He huffed amusedly under his breath, the smallest of smiles rising at the corner of his lips, upon hearing the noises of his brethren. “Celebration of their lives,” he told her. “We eat their favorite foods, dance their favorite dances, tell our favorite stories of them…” He swallowed hard as he looked through the trees towards his home. “It’s our way of showing appreciation for the life they were given.”
“I like that,” Aydra said, returning his smile.
She started to walk again, but he tugged gently on her hand, her heart startling at the squeeze of his fingers, and she stepped back towards him with a slight frown. “What?”
His hand ran through his hair, and he pushed it over to the left side. “Thank you,” he said simply.
He fumbled with her hand a moment, thumb caressing the top of her knuckles. The sincerity of simply his hand toying with hers made her breaths shorten. As to how he brought her to a surrender by such a delicate touch, she didn’t understand.
“Holding him while he died,” he started. “Fighting with my people when you didn’t have to. Not saying any smart comments while the tears ran down my face—”
“Draven, you’re the strongest person I know,” she interjected. “If you need to weep, by all means, weep. You don’t have to be strong all the time. Especially in front of me.”
He chuckled softly, eyes darting to the ground and then back to her. He was silent for a brief moment as his hand squeezed hers again, and the intensity of it pulsated up the back of her arm. She could see his mind working behind his darkened sage eyes, and her heart began to beat loudly in her ears at the gaze he stared at her with.
“Aydra, I—”
“My king!”
The noise of one of his men startled him. His daze broke, and he stared past her into the forest. Aydra turned to find two of his men hanging on each other, drinks in their hands, and it was obvious the party was well underway.
Aydra bit her lips together to keep the laughter at bay as she crossed her arms over her chest upon their approach.
“My king!” one of them repeated, nearly tripping on a root. “You’ve to come with us. Bael has proposed a drinking challenge as Dunthorne liked to do. You must be the one to judge it.”
The other shoved a drink into Draven’s hand and clapped his shoulder. “You know, he cheats—” the man did a double-take at Aydra standing there, and then he held his arms open wide, to which Aydra’s eyes widened at.
“Sun Queen!” the man exclaimed. “I forgot you were here! Come—” he wrapped his arm around Aydra’s shoulders “—you can judge as well.”
Aydra’s eyes met Draven’s as the Hunter started to lead her back towards their home, and Draven openly laughed at her.
