by Mark Albany
“Come on.” I pulled Leena’s hand from my shoulder and kissed the palm of it tenderly. “You need to get some rest too.”
She nodded, smiling. Kalna and Eira moved in closer. The shock of what might have happened to Leena was etched on their faces as they moved in to wrap the woman in a hug, drawing me closer too.
“We all need some rest,” Leena said as we broke away and started heading toward the house where we’d made camp.
Chapter 6
I was back where I’d started the night. I unbuckled the sword from my belt and laid it as far away as I could, while still keeping it within arm’s reach. I sat on a mat on the floor, staring dismally at the dwindling fire that Kalna and Eira had built. The voice hadn’t come out again, but the thoughts it had put in my head were still there. I couldn’t not think about them. If I hadn’t been in this tiny little hut, I would have been able to fight the monster off, and we might still have a ship to work with.
Well, maybe I wasn’t right back where I started, I realized as Leena moved next to me, laying her head on my shoulder. I smiled, wrapping my arm around her waist and pulling her closer.
“You’re still in a bad mood,” she commented softly, keeping her voice down so she didn’t wake Kalna and Eira, who were already asleep again.
I nodded absently. “It comes with the place we’re in. I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t have just stayed home, rebuilt the defenses, made sure that everything was well there first before rushing off for a fight.”
Leena nodded. “Well, the reasoning was sound. If anyone could survive a quick scouting trip to the isles, it would be you, and you couldn’t have made it here alone. Preparing for an invasion seems a little useless if we don’t know what we’re preparing for.”
I chuckled and nodded. “Still, we haven’t found any Trelans yet, and we’re already down a ship and most of our crew. And that’s on my shoulders.”
Leena looked up at me, her eyebrows drawn tightly. “Yes, absolutely your fault.” Her words were dripping sarcasm. “Those sea monsters and the monsters that control them are completely faultless in all this. It’s all on you to bear the blame of what happened to the people they killed.”
I shook my head. “I’m being serious. If we had stayed home and been better prepared for this trip, maybe none of this would have happened.”
“Maybe.” Leena ran her fingers over my cheek. “Maybe not. Maybe it would have been worse. I know you’re all-powerful now, but I know you can’t see the future. You just do what seems right to you at the time. I know you’re not greedy, you’re not bloodthirsty, and you don’t lust for battle. I know you through and through. You elected to do this because it was the right thing to do for everyone. We all know that. And we’re here to support you in doing it. Not unconditionally, of course. You can expect me to call you on any bullshit you try to pull, but I have your back, Braks. Always remember that.”
I smiled as she finished her speech with a light kiss on my cheek. The kiss lingered a bit, and my hands slipped around her waist as she pressed her lips to mine. It was light, tentative as she ran her fingers through my brown hair, pulling me closer.
I knew it was coming, but it still stung when she pulled away from the kiss after a few moments. I swallowed my arousal, pushing it away as she moved back to her seat beside me. She was feeling similarly stung, I knew, but there was something in her mind that was keeping her from fixing that.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, a hoarseness entering her voice. “I can’t. There’s just too much. You’ve changed too much. I understand that it’s been necessary, but I can’t come to terms with that. I know you, somewhat, but there’s that something inside you that’s always going to be there. Always a part of anything we do, and I’m not sure I’m willing to share anything between us with it.”
I nodded. I understood. I really did, even if I didn’t like it. I was still me, but now there was another part of me. Something dark and devious, hateful and infinitely patient, always in the back of my mind, gnawing at the darkness there.
“If it makes you feel any better,” I tried to lift the mood, “it doesn’t like physical contact of a loving sort. It has something of an aversion to it.”
Leena tilted her head, almost confused, and then she chuckled softly, covering her mouth to keep the noise from waking the other two.
“That is funny.” She smiled. “Thank you for understanding, Braks.”
I nodded and smiled. I knew what was coming next, and it hurt almost as much as her pulling away from me.
“I think I need to spend the night somewhere else.” She pushed herself to her feet. “We need to talk about this some other time, okay? I need some sleep, and I don’t think I’ll get it here.”
I forced a smile to my lips. “I get that. Sleep well, okay?”
She nodded, and with a look back at the slumbering duo, quickly walked out the door and shut it behind her. Something heavy sat in the pit of my stomach, and it wasn’t going away. It was painful, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and pushed the feeling away. I didn’t have time to deal with it right now. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep anyway, but I needed to think about something else. Something like, how we were all going to get off this damned island alive.
I moved over to a corner of the hut. There was a mat there, too. I sat down, leaning my back against the wall. It was hard to really place what was wrong with me. What was being changed. I could feel myself wanting things I wouldn’t have wanted before, doing things I wouldn’t have done before. I wanted to say it was all the Darkness, but I couldn’t. The proximity of minds and wills was starting to infect me. I could feel the enjoyment in the violence, and I wasn’t sure if that was just from the Darkness or if it was in me as well.
I could feel the Darkness trying to break the surface, add its thoughts to this mental debate, but I pushed it down savagely. I already knew its thoughts on this. I needed my friends around me, but I’d never thought about the kind of effect this would have on them. My demand for their help in controlling this didn’t come without a cost, and I was only just realizing that this might be taking a toll on them as well.
I wasn’t sure why Kalna and Eira weren’t talking about this to me as well, but maybe they just didn’t know me well enough to address it the way Leena had. Or maybe it just wasn’t affecting them in the same way. Eira had dealt with this power for much longer than I had, so maybe she was just used to it. And Kalna? Well, she’d been an assassin before any of this. Darkness had never been something she saw as a bad thing.
Maybe the two of them were just a lot more comfortable with the changes I was undergoing than Leena was?
My eyes had closed as I had become lost in thought, but the sound of movement nearby made me open them again. Only a peep. I was feeling tired and on the verge of sleep.
The fire had mostly died down, leaving the small, single-roomed house in almost complete darkness. But the thick black didn’t stop me from seeing Eira slipping out of the bed she and Kalna had been sharing. She was still dressed, but oddly, her crown was missing. I kept my eyes mostly shut, following her movements as she slipped quietly to the door and outside.
Maybe she needs some space from you, too.
I shook my head, refusing to acknowledge the voice as I leaned deeper into my seat and closed my eyes. Sleep came slowly, and it didn’t last very long, but I needed what little I could get. It had been a long day, but it was only the first of what I guessed were many to come.
Chapter 7
The sun was barely starting to light up the sky at dawn when my eyes opened again. I blinked, taking a deep breath. The temperature had dropped overnight. Maybe it was just because the fire died. I pushed myself to my feet and stretching with a low groan.
Soft breathing welcomed me from nearby. I looked around to see Kalna still fast asleep. She was alone on the mat, and it took me a few seconds to remember that I’d seen Eira leave the hous
e. She still hadn’t returned. It had to have been more than a few hours. Where could she have gone?
I moved over to the mat, kneeling down and placing a light kiss on Kalna’s forehead. My bridge with Eira was still intact and rather stronger than it was with Leena. I could feel her doing…something. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it was drawing from her own, not unsubstantial, pool of power. She was summoning something, and it was taking a lot of effort to do so.
I straightened back up, sweeping up my sword on the way and latching it to my belt before I exited the house. It was cool enough that I could see my breath in small, periodic fogs each time I exhaled. I narrowed my eyes and looked around. A gentle mist hung in the air. Not enough to cover everything, but certainly enough to give my surroundings a mystical, foreboding look.
The mist wasn’t natural. Nor was the cold. It wasn’t even this cold in Radon, especially not in the middle of summer, and the farther south we’d gone, the warmer it had gotten. No, there was something happening. And considering the amount of power Eira was expending, I could only guess that she was either fighting whatever was causing this, or she was the cause.
I brushed my messy hair back and started jogging toward the beach. I could see her in the mist, but she was a few steps beyond the shoreline. She was out in the water, her bare feet touching the solid ice that had formed around her. As I moved closer, the air grew colder still. Not enough to affect me, but then, I did have a powerful entity that liked ice stuck inside me.
She sensed me coming closer and turned to look at me. I’d noticed her eyes before, but there was something striking about them now. I remembered how my eyes turned black when I gave in to the Darkness, and I remembered the soulless black that had met me when I looked into Gelid’s eyes. This seemed different. Her eyes looked the way that I assumed a thick blizzard would. I could even see the moving flakes. I couldn’t help but take a step back, but she smiled to reassure me.
“It’s all right, Braks,” she whispered. Her voice sounded like it was coming from the air all around me, like the mist was vibrating with each word.
“What are you doing?” I took a step closer and, in a leap of faith, stepped out onto the ice.
“Summoning some help.” She turned back to look at the sea. I followed her gaze. At first, I couldn’t see beyond the limits of the mist, even with my improved eyesight. But after a few minutes, I thought I could see something moving. It was big. Almost larger than our boat had been, and for a moment, I wondered if she wasn’t using some kind of magic to repair the damage made by the monster.
Whatever she had summoned crashed through the remains of our ship, very narrowly avoiding our remaining parley boat, and I realized how wrong I was. The thing was truly massive, and it looked similar to the ice monster I’d summoned during the battle. But it was larger, much larger.
“What…the fuck…is that?” A nervous smile touched my face as I watched it move closer. Once it was a dozen or so paces from the beach, it dropped down to one knee, lowering its head.
“It’s a creature of the ice.” Eira’s eyes were still white but had lost that stormy property.
“Well, I can see that. How did you summon it?”
“Well,” she paused, clearly not sure how to word her response. “My power isn’t the same as yours, though it is founded on it. A pale imitation, really. I can’t form the ice; I can only lower the temperature to cause it. Just like I can’t create these creatures of ice; I can only summon them and bend them to my will.”
“So where did this one come from?” I tilted my head. I seemed to recall the one that I’d made melting into the water after the battle was over.
“It was part of the Peak.” She moved closer to it, almost gliding over the ice to run her fingers over the icy features that actually made it look vaguely human. “A remnant of the creatures Gelid used in his rampage. Mindless. A tool really, and one I intend to use.”
“To kill the rest of the sea monsters?”
“No.” Eira turned away from the giant. Her eyes touched on both Leena and Kalna, who had come out to see what was happening. I assumed they’d felt the power too, and came to investigate. My eyes didn’t waver from Eira, though.
“She’s leaving us,” I heard Kalna say, her voice still heavy with sleep. I frowned. I hadn’t sensed that. Then again, Kalna had always been more attuned to the connections between the four of us than I was, considering that she was the one that had formed them in the first place.
“I don’t want to,” Eira quickly defended herself. “But we need more than what we have, and we can summon more power from the Peak. Enhance your abilities and mine.”
There was something else, something she wanted to test, but I couldn’t quite make out the details. I could probably ask Kalna about it later, but I wasn’t going to make Eira stay. I could sense that she would if I asked her to, but there was something on the Peak that was drawing her, something that was powerful enough to warrant her needing to go there. And if she thought it could help us, well, we needed all the help we could get.
“We’ll miss you. I hope you know that. Our thoughts will be with you every step of the way.”
She smiled, reaching out to lightly caress my cheek. “That’s my hope. It should take us a few days to reach the Peak. I’m not sure how long precisely, but when you need me, all you have to do is summon. Call me in your mind, and I’ll fly back as quickly as I can.”
“Literally?” I raised an eyebrow. She laughed, leaning in to press a light kiss to my lips.
“No, not literally. I don’t think even you can manage that.” She smiled. I could see the ice monster behind her lowering a hand for her to use. “But it’ll be very fast, I promise you that. I’ll see you soon, Braks, Kalna, Leena.”
The other two women moved in close and kissed Eira too, Kalna gripping the ice woman’s firm ass possessively.
“Stay safe, okay?” The elf begged, and Eira chuckled.
“I will, beautiful,” Eira murmured and turned, climbing onto the hand offered by the ice monster. It unfolded carefully, standing to its full height again. Then it started moving back out to sea. I bit my bottom lip as I watched her leave. I could sense that she was feeling sad, but also excited to be heading back to the Peak. It had been her home for generations untold, so I could understand that.
As she moved farther away, the cold and mist seemed to dissipate in her wake. The sun peeked through, gleaming, once again illuminating the island behind us.
“How come she didn’t call me ‘beautiful’?” Leena pouted.
“Grab her ass next time, and she will,” Kalna answered with a playful grin.
We started to move back toward the village. I found my way between the two of them, giving their asses a firm, possessive grab.
“All three of you are beautiful,” I said playfully. They laughed. “And don’t any of you forget it.”
I felt Leena’s hand grabbing mine and giving it a squeeze.
“You’re pretty beautiful yourself.” She smiled and kissed my cheek.
“That’s an odd way of pronouncing ‘handsome in a manly way’.” I tilted my head.
“No, I’m pretty sure she meant beautiful,” Kalna chimed in, grinning.
I chuckled, shaking my head. “You’re all incorrigible. Though I do find that attractive as hell.”
The two of them grinned unabashedly. I was sure we could keep going like this for a while, and it felt nice to be on these kinds of speaking terms with Leena again, but the rising sun reminded me that we had larger problems to address.
The memories of what had happened to this village brought my mood down somewhat. When what was left of our crew woke up, we were ready to get into action.
Most of the morning was spent scouting the rest of the island. It wasn’t that large to begin with, but we didn’t want to have to worry about Trelan troops that might be stationed here. Thankfully, after a few long hours of climbing through dense forest, we found the island was deserted. No sign of
life at all, other than the trees.
In response to all of this, once we were all back at the village one of the islanders said, “There isn’t much life other than the trees on these islands anyway. The smaller ones aren’t large enough to support a population of anything big. Though, there should be a lot more birds this time of year. It’s their migration time, and it should be teeming with them stopping here on their way to Kalames, the largest isle, where our biggest city is situated.”
“Hopefully, they just sensed the death around here and tried to avoid it.” Kalna’s face twisted. There were hints of disgust and fear, but it was mostly anger I felt from her side of our connection.
“I’d like to get out of here as soon as possible,” Leena added, her fingers toying with her weapons. I couldn’t tell if she was itching for a fight or anticipating one.
“The parley boat needs fixing,” the man said. “It’s not completely seaworthy yet.”
I looked over what remained of our crew. Of the twenty or so who had volunteered, there were only five left: four of them islanders, and one merchant sailor. Cameron, the young man I’d spoken to the day before, wasn’t among the survivors. I hadn’t even noticed if he’d died in the attack while we were at sea or when we were already docked. I shook my head, feeling like an ass.
I could beat myself up about being insensitive later. The remaining crew were counting on me to get them through this. It was too late to save Cameron, but I could still save these others.
“We need to get that boat in working condition.” I stated the obvious. “And it’s best that we do it now, during the day. If we travel at night, I think we stand a better chance of going undetected since I’m sure the Trelans will be patrolling the waters.”
The islanders nodded. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but their easy acceptance seemed to indicate that it was.
