by Devon Vesper
Kerac’s head shot up and he frowned. “Valis…”
“I need something to do, and it will give us vegetables.” Mostly vegetables for him since that was the bulk of what he could eat. At least he could start helping out with finding his own meals. He adjusted his sword belt on his hip and moved to one of his packs to get a pouch to gather his findings in. Before he made it to the pile, Kerac grabbed his arm and spun him around.
Rage built in Valis’ gut and chest like a surge of fire, and he pinned Kerac with a glare that made the Aesriphos flinch. Never before had Valis fought so hard against the urge to punch someone as he did right then. He loved Kerac, and he had to firmly remind himself of that fact. “Let me go.”
His hand went lax and dropped to his side. “I worry, Valis. Please, don’t go.”
“You’ve said that the past month daily,” Valis spat. “More so in the last three weeks! I’m tired of hearing of your worry.” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “What is the harm of gathering roots, flowers and leaves?”
Kerac’s jaw tensed and relaxed as he clenched his teeth. He drew a breath that Valis came to know as the Aesriphos gathering his patience. “It isn’t the roots, flowers, and leaves. It’s the wolves, guards, and thieves.” He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “And other things. And what do you hope to find in the middle of winter? It is barren!”
Rolling his eyes, Valis went to get that pouch out of his packs. “You just have to dig deeper. And what other things?”
He counted down the list. “Your continued lack of appetite for one. You have lost considerable weight. You aren’t sleeping well. You have black circles under your eyes. Your skin is too pale. You’re overworking yourself in training. You’ve become paranoid, Valis, and you were never this angry and hateful before.” He leveled a sad, worried look on Valis that made his insides quiver. “What if you fainted in the forest? We would have trouble finding you if the snow picks up and covers your tracks. Please… please stay.”
Valis snorted and tied the pouch to his belt. He fought not to growl as he repacked his things and tied the flap of the satchel shut. He fought harder as he stood to dust the snow off the knee of his weathered pants. “I have a lot of things to be angry over. And I’m not hateful. I’m just frustrated and feel like I’m always about to erupt.”
The Aesriphos’ face softened a little, and he nodded. “I can somewhat understand that.”
“Can you?” Valis snapped.
“You have been through a lot in a short time,” he said gently.
That gentle tone stoked the fire of Valis’ rage and he stalked off toward the edge of the clearing. Again Kerac caught his arm and stopped him.
“Let me go, Kerac,” he growled through clenched teeth. “I’m not going far.”
“No, you are not,” Kerac said in that even, paternal tone of his. It made the fury boil over. “You are going back to the fire, and we will wait for Darolen to return.”
Valis yanked his arm from Kerac’s grip. Two more strides and Kerac caught him again. He heaved a sigh that Valis had never heard explode from him before. “I won’t tell you again, Son.”
That grip on his arm tightened, and the world tinged red. Valis spun around. His hand balled up into a fist, and before he realized what was happening, his knuckles cracked across Kerac’s cheekbone.
“You are not my father!” he screamed.
Kerac staggered back, his hand to his cheek and eyes wide with shock. His mouth worked to form words but none came. A wave of deep hurt flowed across his face. His lower lip quivered before he firmed it in a frown.
“No,” he said, barely a whisper. “No, I am not that piece of filth who killed your mother and tried to kill you. I’m not the man you feared all your life. I’m not the man you hated and avoided.” Tears rolled down his cheeks as he fingered his swelling cheek. “I’m the man who loved you.”
With that, he lifted a hand in defeat and turned to stride back toward the camp fire.
Valis reached out. “Kerac—”
“Go.”
The word came so hard, without any of the inflection or kindness Valis took for granted. He didn’t look back as he made his way to the fire. Valis watched as he knelt, back to him, and started preparations for dinner.
Gritting his jaw, Valis spun around and stormed off toward the tree line. The first hundred yards in, he didn’t bother rooting for edible plants. Fuming, he just walked, his pace swift and clipped. The third hundred yards in, he snarled. He balled up his fist, reared back and punched a tree. Punching Kerac brought no satisfaction, but that tree and the pain brought some.
He punched it again. And again, and again until his knuckles were swollen and bloody. He screamed his rage in a gut-wrenching bellow that left his lungs burning for air.
Thudding his forehead against the trunk of the unforgiving tree, he growled at himself. Weak. A twig snapped to his left, and Valis whirled around, drawing his sword at the same time in a well-practiced move. Nothing stirred the underbrush. No animals darted from view. Whatever ghost it was, now was gone. Most likely just the burden of the snow snapping a brittle branch. Nothing to worry about. Right?
Something washed over him and he shuddered. The hurt and grief that twisted Kerac’s expression loomed into his mind’s view. It twisted his gut until he trembled. I did that. Gods, I’m a monster.
Monster. That word rolled around in his mind like a snowball, gathering heft and girth with each passing round until it filled him up. Frustration filled him to bursting. His blood boiled and expanded until his penis grew hard and aching. The sudden wave of lust sickened him. The arousal confused him. He savagely ground the heel of his palm against it as he growled at himself.
He punched the tree again with a curse, both at the pain and at his arousal. While he rested his weight on his knuckles, he fumbled with the laces of his pants and jerked them down to mid-thigh. He stroked himself furiously. The better it felt, the more he hated himself. The hotter that hate grew, the more aroused he became. The bitter cold of the air mixed with the intense heat of his abused hand nearly had him undone in seconds. Growling curses and utterances of self-loathing, he switched hands. He squeezed until he felt pain. He tugged so hard it felt like he might accidentally rip it off. The more abuse he caused, the better it felt.
Valis stroked himself so hard and so fast that his arm burned all the way up to his shoulder. Tipping over into orgasm, Valis’ knees buckled as he shot his seed in burst after powerful burst that left him drained and his mind blissfully blank, even for only a few seconds. He fell over to lie on his side in the thin blanket of snow and panted as he waited for the white haze and vibrant stars flashing in his vision to subside. He didn’t have the energy or the care to do anything more than lay there, spent and panting, with only his winter cloak between his bare ass and the freezing snow beneath him.
He stayed there, shivering but curiously warm, staring up at the leafless skeletons that clawed at the sky for a long time. His mind remained blissfully blank. For the first time, he felt somewhat sated.
Then that little voice crept back in with the whispered word: Monster. Only a monster would get hard in anger. Did father masturbate after beating mother and I? Did he get off on hurting us?
He scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to get the image of his father masturbating out of his head. His stomach pitted so hard he nearly gagged, but he ignored it. Too much had happened these last few weeks. Too much that he didn’t care what happened to him.
When he lowered it again and thumped his head back onto the ground, footsteps crunched into the snow. Something compressed his chest. He struggled for breath. Squirmed as he tried, unsuccessfully, to sit up.
A shadow fell across his face, and he darted a glance to his left and what little breath he could draw into his lungs caught in his throat.
“Hello, nephew.” Rygas grinned at him, his clothing perfect as if he’d just exited his house in Kachren, east of his farmstead in Vau Taun. The d
eceptively kind smile turned into a lecherous leer as he roved his eyes down Valis’ body to where his penis, soft from his abuse and release, still hung out from his open pants. “Ready for me, I see. Unfortunate that we haven’t the time to play.”
Valis tried to fill his lungs with enough air to call for help, but a wicked gleam entered his uncle’s eye, and he twitched his head. “Oh, no. You won’t be calling for them this time. Just enough air not to die. Perhaps enough to keep you from fainting. Nothing more.”
All the air rushed from Valis’ lungs, and he struggled to get even a sip. Then it felt like something, some being had hold of his lungs and worked them for him. He had no control, and when he tried to speak, not even a grunt left him.
Rygas smirked as he watched Valis try to wrench control away, try to get any air he could to scream. He glanced down and frowned. “While I do love looking at your beautiful assets, we really must get you back in order, hm? I would hate for it to freeze and fall off. It is rather cold out here, and I quite like you just the way you are.” He frowned as he took a longer look along Valis’ body. “Though, you have lost considerable weight. We will have to remedy that once we are in safety.”
The conversational tone he used sent shivers down Valis’ spine that had nothing to do with the cold. It made Valis see endless days of misery the likes of which his father hadn’t even dreamed of. Or had he? Had he just been waiting until Valis could give him a solid fight so the victory would be sweeter? Or had he needed a virgin sacrifice for Qos? Or hadn’t it mattered since Valis was supposed to be dead by now.
He struggled to sit up, to draw his sword and cut the head off the man who seemed to enjoy watching Valis writhe on the ground, helpless and subdued. Rygas did nothing for what felt like forever. Just stood watching him, a carrion bird surveying its prey. But then he knelt, and with almost tender care, tucked Valis back into his trousers with only a mild caress to his spent sex, and pulled up and laced his pants.
“You know, your father was so abhorrent that he couldn’t even enjoy you. All he wanted was power. Anything to make himself more powerful, more important, more necessary to our cause. His ego always needed stroked, but you… you were necessary to all his plans in all the wrong ways.”
He lifted Valis up as if he weighed less than a sack of flour and tossed him carelessly over his shoulder. “But you, my lovely boy, are far more important alive. The power you can give to us doesn’t have to be all at once with your death. And why give it to just one when you can be drained over the course of your entire life for the good of many?”
Rygas stalked into the forest. Not far stood his angry roan, shabby and rank from travel. Three pack horses were tethered to each other with the lead tethered to the roan, all burdened with things Rygas would need for hard, long travel. Valis tried not to choke on the horse stink when his uncle flopped him unceremoniously over the roan’s rump. “I will have to procure another horse for you once we reach the next town. It won’t do for you to be damaged. Not until I have had my fun. And I’m not so cruel to overburden my poor pack horses.”
Terror clawed at Valis’ throat. If he didn’t do something, he’d end up his uncle’s toy. Nothing more than a living energy cell for him and whoever he approved of to drain and use for their own ends. He shuddered and was surprised that his entire body convulsed with it. He tried his fingers and toes, found they obeyed his will. His chest still felt tight, but he could draw in a breath.
Had his uncle lost his grip on the magic? Valis didn’t dare hope. He just had to act.
The horse under him sidestepped. The stirrup jangled. Valis took a slightly deeper breath than he was previously able. Shifted. Everything went fine so far. Just another moment. The saddle shifted, and Valis moved. He swung his left leg up and over. His shin cracked painfully against something hard and fleshy. Rygas let out a startled yelp. Something thudded to the ground with a sickening wet snap. Valis didn’t wait around to see if that was a particularly wet twig, or his uncle. He didn’t have time and couldn’t afford to let the opportunity pass him by. Thankfully the roan hadn’t moved much more than to awkwardly prance in place and did it again with a jingle of tack as Valis slid off his rump.
He glanced to the side. Rygas, face white with pain, curled around his arm. His entire body glowed a virulent black with a nauseating black-veined blue haze. The miasma made Valis’ wish he’d never seen it, as if the very air had exposed its nerves and tender, diseased flesh to full, gory view. The magic brought on more than a wave of pure animal revulsion, but a tingle in the base of Valis’ skull that he didn’t want to explore. Rygas was healing himself, and this might be his only chance to escape.
…If he could only get his feet to follow his screeching mind. Part of that spell had to still be working, because even though he stood there, panting for every breath, filling his lungs to full capacity after only being allowed controlled sips of air, his feet wouldn’t move. He tried to lift one, only to find it so heavy he couldn’t move it more than an inch. He tried the other, sweat erupting from his brow, upper lip, in the pits of his arms, soaking the back of his shirt with the exertion. Nothing worked. But now he shivered as the sweat started to freeze his skin.
“Please, Sovras,” he whispered under his breath. Rygas’ color was starting to return. How much longer would it take to heal his arm?
His sword… Valis tried his hands again. They moved with little effort. He rolled his shoulders. Rygas sat only a few feet away. Easily within arm’s reach if he bent at the waist, bent his knees. He tested that theory. Both were possible.
Valis took a steadying breath, counted his heartbeats to try to calm himself. His mind went blank. The only things that existed were his sword and the delicious flex and release of muscle. The moves were so well practiced as to be infantile—like breathing or sleeping. He drew his sword, swung low. Put his entire body into the arc and form.
The blade cracked hard in the air. The black haze flared into a solid shield that made his sword rebound painfully, setting his bones on edge. He cursed himself inwardly. Hadn’t his father used similar shields? Hadn’t he seen this over and over again as his father trained out in the paddock? Hadn’t he seen just how effective they were against all weapons during the village attack five years ago? He shuddered and flexed his arm, trying to get the jarring sensation to abate.
More color flooded into his uncle’s face, suffusing his skin with the appearance of perfect health. Something broke in Valis. His legs no longer felt like heavy stone slabs. His body felt light, youthful, strong. For a moment, a single second of clarity, Valis thought he saw a golden glow on the edge of his periphery. Thought he felt Sovras’ arms wrapping about him, his breath ghosting across his ear, his words tinged with warning, “Move now!” That single glimpse and those words, real or imagined, gave him a feeling of safety and urgency.
Rygas still hadn’t uncurled from his fetal position. Now or never. He spun around and ran. He wasted precious seconds aiming for camp. Kerac would protect him. Wouldn’t he?
Kerac’s face, harder and more unrelenting than Valis had ever seen it before, jaw set and eyes hard hove into Valis’ mind. Betrayal. Valis had betrayed him. There was no hope of Kerac rescuing Valis now. He didn’t deserve it. Hadn’t earned it. And by heading toward the camp, he was leading danger straight to one of the only two people Valis had ever honestly trusted in his entire life.
He changed course, heading deeper into the forest. His calves and thighs burned from his effort and speed. He dodged trees, keeping his sword in hand in case he needed to defend himself or clear away underbrush.
Then he realized he hadn’t tried to scream. Not since Rygas was forced to release control of Valis’ lungs. He took a deep breath. Rygas would easily be able to pinpoint his location. Would be upon him soon no matter how far or how fast he ran. He choked on the first lungful, his breathing ragged from running. The second, his voice rang through the woods, “Kerac! Darolen! Rygas is here! He’s here!”
He didn
’t dare scream for them to help. Not after the way Darolen had returned from that one battle. If the two of them had only barely escaped that one night, they would have no chance of succeeding with as divided as they were today. Was his uncle really that powerful? Or had the two Aesriphos been so unprepared they couldn’t handle a single Qos adherent?
He shivered. His frantic run combined with the sweat and the winter’s chill sent his skin to freezing even worse, making his joints stiffen even as he worked them. An ache started to build in his right side, making his run flag. A fallen log blocked his way. He vaulted to the other side, staggered a step when his legs threatened to give out.
Something hot and hard slammed into his back. Invisible bugs crawled along his skin. Inside his eyelids. Down his throat. He gagged, but couldn’t stop running. He didn’t dare.
Another hard hit, and Valis fell forward. Stars exploded across his vision. The contrast of white snow against the dark, forbidding forest swapped places for a moment. His head spun, his mind blank. He struggled to sit up, to crawl forward.
The invisible bugs became insistent. They crawled over his eyes, blotting out the strange contrast the forest had taken. Blotted out the sounds as they stopped up his ears.
The ringing turned into an angry buzz that set his teeth on edge.
And then everything went silent and cold.
Chapter Seventeen
Sounds started trickling in first. Then the intense cold. Something huffed and puffed not far away from him. Then everything came rushing back. His uncle, the chase, his fall. Valis kept himself as still as possible, ignoring the sharp pain in his head, the ache in his limbs from the cold, and the buzzing in his ears. If his uncle thought he was still unconscious, it may give Valis some time to plan.
