Until she was in his arms, clearly in the throes of some passion.
The only sounds that could be heard were that of their breaths and their stomping feet and their bodies.
But watching alone, it was easy to tell the music must have been vivid and demanding and faster and faster and faster, pushing towards some sort of climax. Some sort of finale. Their bodies said as much.
Tawny hair flew in the firelight, bronzed skin and tattooed flesh speckled with shadows, rippling with feline grace.
The pair looked utterly attuned, knowing each and every step—two sides of the same glorious, awful, terrible, wonderful coin.
༄
Delyth was an intruder, watching Tristan and Enyo dance. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. The previous night, she had begun to learn every slope of Alphonse’s body intimately, but now she moved in ways new and hardly imaginable, her beautiful hair spinning out behind her with every graceful turn.
“Fucking Gods,” she breathed.
The priestess had only ever practiced temple dances, but she wished she knew this one. It was full of the same wild abandon she felt while flying. The sort of freedom she wanted to share with Alphonse. Only, it wasn’t her hands on the healer. It was Tristan. And Enyo, in her mind.
Fucking Tristan. She hated every touch in his dance with the Goddess.
Should she even be jealous?
It wasn’t Alphonse that had joined him.
Beside her, Etienne seemed to shake himself, turning away from the pair. “I’ve never seen Alphonse move like that,” he said, and Delyth decided she didn’t give a damn if she shouldn’t be jealous.
She was going to tie Etienne and Tristan together and push them off the first cliff she found if they ever got out of the damned cave.
❂
Her chest was rising and falling, her hair streaming liquid sunlight over her throat and shoulders, clinging to her skin, a honeyed golden color in the small campfire. Perspiration lingered on her brow, and for once, this mortal body wasn’t cold.
Though it shivered in his grip.
Enyo was smiling as she ran her hands through Tristan’s hair, feeling the mold of his skull and neck.
A strong body.
A warrior’s body.
When their eyes met, Enyo felt time slow and stutter to a stop. Familiarity blossomed in her core, and she leaned forward, nose brushing against Tristan’s nose, mouth inches from his, breathing him in. Consuming him. She knew him.
“You—”
༄
“Stop!” Delyth called, her voice loud and cracking. Almost immediately, Etienne’s hand was on her arm, tugging her back. Had she stepped forward?
“Don’t,” he said. He looked like a coward. “You’ll piss her off. You can see that blizzard as well as I can, can’t you? She could bring the mountain down on our heads.”
“But that’s Alphonse’s—”
“I know.” Etienne was running his hands through his hair. “But it might not go far and—and we could stop them then…”
So she was just supposed to watch some man paw at her little bird?
Anger was dimming the edges of Delyth’s vision, much like it did when her skin came into contact with Calamity. Only now the sword still lay sheathed in their tent. She shoved away from Etienne and stepped forward again, but for once, he was faster.
“Enyo,” he said. “Will you teach us the dance? To—to honor you?”
Tristan shot the mage a shriveling look, tearing his eyes away from Alphonse’s lips. “You? You’re not worthy.”
⚄
The flicker of familiarity, of realization, faded in her eyes as the others spoke, and Tristan’s grip tightened. Tried to hold her attention. Only it was gone, the moment passed. She swallowed and looked away, remaining in his grasp, practically purring as she smoothed her thumb over his throat possessively.
“Will you dance, too, Ba’oto?” she asked, her voice silken and raw all at once. The storm outside sputtered slightly, trees straightening their branches in relief.
“The priestess won’t know the old dances.” Tristan’s voice was assured, for all that he should have known less of Enyo’s time than one raised by the temple. He didn’t care.
For a second… just the barest moment… Enyo had recognized him.
How long had it been since someone had known him?
It was getting harder to hide his true nature. To remember why he wanted to. And now, Enyo was looking away, dismissing him again like he was the equal of the barbarian priestess.
Delyth’s eyes were on him, though, not Enyo. She glanced at his hands, where he held the Goddess. Her face, still red from anger, showed a struggle for calm. She took a deep breath.
“Yes, Enyo. I will dance.”
Fuck her to the Cursed Realms. She only agreed to separate him from his old friend, out of jealousy for a simple, mortal girl.
“What do you know of it?” he demanded, his face uncharacteristically dark.
She swallowed. He could see desperation now, pathetic and human.
“I know it looks like flying,” she said. “All wild abandon. It calls to the wild in me too.”
✶
Enyo tsked at Tristan, patting his cheek affectionately before climbing down out of his arms, her thighs releasing about his hips. Etienne sighed in relief despite his earlier words to Delyth. The dance had been graphic in both violence and sex.
“I was just starting to forgive you, Crael, don’t make me regret it already. Your jealousy is tedious,” the Goddess said, stroking him affectionately before turning away.
Enyo approached Delyth and peered up into her eyes with an appraising manner as she reached to take Delyth’s hand, then dropped it, wincing. Etienne furrowed his brows, confused. Since when did Enyo have any problem touching Delyth?
“I will teach the mage, Crael, you may teach the warrior.” Without a backward glance, she turned and sauntered over to Etienne, suddenly nervous about his new dance instructor.
“The first thing about the duality dance you must embrace is the music.” She placed her hand over his heart, tapping it in a simple and addictive rhythm. One two three. One two three. One two three… four… and five. “If you always carry the music, then your feet will never get lost. Do you understand, mage?”
Etienne nodded uncomfortably, mentally repeating the rhythm. This was a far cry better than being on the other side of a raging Enyo, but he didn’t feel as though he was very far away from that fate either. It had been a complicated sequence of moves, and he felt as though disappointing the Goddess would be dangerous.
Over her head, Etienne could see Tristan nodding in agreement. “Did you hear that?” he barked at Delyth, who refused to answer him. Her face was stony, her arms crossed over her chest.
“A simple nod will do,” Tristan said. “If you can’t manage ‘Yes, Master Dancer.’”
Delyth rolled her eyes, but it didn’t seem to phase Tristan. He mimed the first couple steps of the dance with insulting slowness. “Now, you. And keep the rhythm. It's the most important part.”
Delyth started the motion a little awkwardly, and Etienne grimaced, turning his eyes back to Enyo. “Is that the same for both partners?”
“It is, and it is not. This is not a formal dance dictated by the human courts. It’s a dance of life. My life is different from yours. Your life is different from hers. We all walk the same path: birth, youth, maturity, decline, frail haggard age, and death. How we carry ourselves on the path, however…” She hopped and skipped the footwork, fast and joyful. She swayed and dipped. Slow and deliberate. She teetered and stumbled. Morose and clumsy.
“I cannot tell you what lies in your heart, mage. Only you can tell me. Show us, with your dance. What does your heart demand you to do?”
༄
Delyth stopped abruptly, turning to look at Enyo while she instructed Etienne. She cocked her head to the side for a moment, then turned back and scowled at the rogue.
“That ma
kes so much more sense than following your steps,” she told him bluntly. “How am I supposed to be free while pretending to be like you?”
She glanced back over towards Enyo only to see Etienne swallow. He looked as though the idea that this wouldn’t just be a feat of memorization was thoroughly unwelcome.
Delyth snickered a little maliciously, her temper foul. Did they not teach dancing in fancy schools?
Tristan was glaring at her. “Fine. Since you don’t need any more instruction, let’s dance.”
Delyth faced off with him, her shoulders tense. She didn’t want to dance with Tristan at all. She wanted to fight him, to break his mouth so badly that he’d lose his ability to give that infuriatingly cocky grin.
But Enyo had said this dance was about what her heart demanded, so why shouldn’t she give it what it wanted?
Delyth swung at Tristan, letting anger inform her movements and their dance became one of blows flung but not landed, of graceful, twisting movements and angry hooks.
For a few seconds, Delyth got it. The thrum in her ears. The abandon to animal feeling.
And then she lost the rhythm, driven off course by her ire. She tripped and fell, hitting a wing painfully against the stone floor.
✶
Enyo watched Tristan and Delyth for the first few steps and then turned to Etienne. She sketched her fingers through the air, designing the path they would take. “The fire is the center and the heart. If I am the sun, you are the moon, if I am the day, you are the night. When we meet again, we will portray the next step. Whatever that may be.” Etienne heard Delyth grunt as she fell to the floor. Enyo gritted her teeth, the storm picked up again, trees once more bending and yielding to her temper. “Find your rhythm, mage,” she instructed, feet already skittering across the cave floor as she started her arc.
Etienne wasn’t sure what his heart demanded of him at that moment. It hammered uselessly in his chest, a stupid, panicking thing.
He did know, though, that he was just about as different from Enyo as a living thing could be. In every way she was physical, he was cerebral. She was a Goddess, he a mortal. She did not fear. He did.
He was her opposite in this. He could prove that.
No. Didn’t have to prove it. He just was.
Etienne steeled himself as Enyo began her sweep across the cave floor, oblivious to the others. If they watched or began their own dance, it was all the same to him.
For her every movement, he was her reflection, a mirror that only showed exactly what the user was not. His steps were jerky, unbeautiful, but he kept the rhythm through his feet.
1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3… 4 and 5
His breath picked up, his shoulders tensed. Always, he kept away from Enyo. Letting her chase him. Following in her wake.
It was easier than he’d thought it would be, though filled with none of the uninhibited ferocity Delyth seemed to crave.
Enyo met Etienne at the top of their crest and grinned at him fiercely. She lunged, having no intent to actually make contact. He would duck. She’d spin to kick, and he’d block.
They fought each other in the air and then broke apart, panting, dancing the opposite way.
They met again, and this time Enyo caressed his arm, tender and sweet. She nuzzled into his own hesitant touch against her cheek.
Broke apart.
It certainly wasn’t as polished or dynamic of a dance as Enyo and Tristan had shared, but in some ways, it was more revealing of their natures.
༄
Delyth had pushed herself up to watch Etienne and Enyo, but now she turned back to Tristan, her face set.
“Let’s go again.”
Tristan had been watching the others as well, his expression calculating. Delyth didn’t care. She was going to get this, to feel this.
Tristan nodded, and she began again, starting in the same manner as before, her teeth bared in a feral grimace.
She fell even sooner.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” Tristan asked, his face pinched in a snide smile. “It's not enough just to know what you feel.”
For a moment, he wasn’t Tristan at all, but Chief Swordbearer Rhys grilling her and Tanwen for their mistakes in training. “Gods, Delyth,” he’d growled, half exasperated, half proud, “if you’d just think in these situations…”
Delyth stood again. Enyo had danced differently with Tristan and Etienne, so it must not only be about what she felt but how that fit in with her partner as well.
And the rhythm. She mustn’t forget that.
She looked at Tristan carefully.
He was annoying beyond measure. Cocky. Careless of Alphonse. She didn’t like him. She didn’t want to be like him…
He was a good fighter, though, and so was she.
Delyth nodded towards him. “Once more.”
She started slower this time, letting their tumultuous ‘fight’ build slowly, keeping the rhythm always in the back of her mind like she would if it was a count for some drill in the training fields of Glynfford. They weaved and struck, gave ground and took it.
Anger still burned, low in her belly, but she could think around its edges.
❂
Enyo was cradling Etienne’s body against her own as she glanced over at Delyth and Tristan. Their dance was wildly erratic, and she paused in stroking Etienne’s arm to study their movements.
It looked almost like a battle, aggressive and thrusting. Neither wanting to yield and yet having to because the dance demanded there be both take and give; the flow mattered more than pride.
She smirked as they came together in a final clash of wills, and Enyo plunked down on her rump beside the campfire to see who would yield at last. Etienne was dragged down beside her by the grip she had about his wrist, forced to sit and watch.
She had always loved dancing.
But more so, she had loved inspiring dance. Inspiring her people to great feats of emotion and power.
⚄
The big winged bitch had finally got it.
Tristan wasn’t sure whether to be glad, since he got to dance again, or disappointed since he would not be able to hold it over her head.
Ah well, the boy still had learned faster. That was something.
As the speed of their contentious dance peaked, his grin widened. They’d been skirting around this contest of wills for weeks now. He knew she wouldn’t stop. She’d be determined to put him down.
And what fun would that be?
At the last moment, Tristan simply stopped, forcing Delyth to veer awkwardly away, her wings thrust out for stability.
Pity. She kept her balance.
Tristan turned towards the fire and seated himself across from Enyo. “I think I’m done dancing for the morning.”
Golden eyes widened and then narrowed before she nodded slowly in some form of understanding and released Etienne.
At least she wasn’t in a roaring temper anymore. Nor wallowing.
No. Now, she seemed thoughtful. “Humans are baffling creatures, even to one as old as I. How they can love and cherish one another and yet hurt each other so very badly.” She tapped Alphonse’s heart in explanation. “I never thought I had the same propensity for cruelty.”
Tristan thought that was probably true. She was impulsive and vengeful but not mean for the sake of meanness, unless, of course, she was targeting Etienne. And who could blame her? The mage made an excellent target.
How could an avalanche set out to kill the humans in its path? It was unstoppable, and they were mere dots on the landscape forever to be changed by nature. And yet, how much more powerful might she be if only she took the time to direct that fury?
“You, mage, do you enjoy harming others? What satisfaction do you derive from it?” Enyo asked.
He gritted his teeth. “I do not enjoy hurting others.”
Enyo smiled slowly. “Just those you hold dear then? I suppose there is something satisfying in knowing you can tear one another asunder.” Her gaze flickered t
o Tristan in silent command.
Tristan grinned up at Delyth as she joined them, seating herself equally distant from himself and Enyo. A few strands of hair had come loose from the new braids and hung limply around her face. She looked ready to slit his throat.
His grin widened.
“I’m not too stuck up to admit that there’s some pleasure in the trick. In fooling someone less clever than you are.”
Enyo’s gaze lingered on his face for far too long. Even he was uncomfortable by the time she blinked and turned to look at Delyth.
“I know you enjoy hurting others, Ba’oto. I think perhaps you are the most vicious of us all, Tristan included. Trickster that he is, he’s not a cunning, cruel creature such as you.” Her smile widened. She looked like a snake.
༄
Delyth’s face paled, and she shook her head. “No—no, I don’t. I fight to protect others from those who’d harm them.”
It was true.
But not entirely.
In her mind, she again stood on the road before Glynfford’s gates, blood-drenched and shaking. Empty eyes stared up at her from corpses shorn of their limbs, painted with open wounds. There were so many of them. And beyond, Tanwen stared in horror. Not at the enemy.
At her.
Some part of her loved the fight itself. Loved to lose herself in the test of her will against another—her power against her opponent’s. Sometimes against the combined might of many.
She was a tool and a dangerous one. Something made for bloodshed.
But if that was true, then she meant only to protect those she cared for.
❀
The wind outside the cave shuddered and then slowed. The snow whipping by seemed to simply stop in midair and then drift to the ground. Enyo shrugged, no longer interested in their company.
She looked at Tristan one more time, smiling, and then closed her eyes.
Alphonse inhaled sharply and opened her eyes. Everywhere she looked, her heart stumbled. Etienne, who had been right about her. Tristan, who had danced so provocatively and somehow, had felt as if he were her only ally.
And Delyth.
Alphonse’s cheeks were painful as they flushed, and she looked away, not wanting to speak to any of them.
Vassal Page 28
