The fourth quality I have to grade myself on, sadly, is the one I fail at miserably. That is the ridiculous subject of love. I am faelock; I am not a base creature who is slave to the bondage of flesh. I am supposed to fall for mind, fall for inspiration, fall for altruism, fall for bravery. Did I? No. Did my brother? Yes. He wouldn’t accept it, but he did. He never won; he was never better. How, then, did I become the superficial one?
I awoke, standing tall on my knees. There were manacles on my wrists. My right—I saw Malcolm, also on his knees. I looked away; he was very angry. My left—Katrina was there, seated with legs crossed, her eyes were closed. I doomed us. This was my fault. I heard a voice, high-pitched but elegant.
“These are the ones?” I looked up and saw the queens. Angry. Hate me. Messed up. Stupid. My brain smacked these words back and forth like a racquetball. As far as I can remember, we were in a large open room, set down on a wooden floor. The queens were seated a few yards ahead of us, but I could not focus on them. Bare legs descending velveteen steps beside where they sat, that was all I saw.
I heard heaven; I heard the love of Aegis personified singing to me. I don’t believe in Aegis. “Yes, these are the ones my brother-in-law told me to expect.” Please, keep talking. Why did she stop?
“You look distressed,” the other queen spoke. Was that the younger one? It didn’t matter, for Camilla opened her mouth again.
“Oh, it’s nothing important. He told me a faelock would be here, and there is, but it is not my knight. A handsome faelock knight saved me years ago even though I was an enemy. I wanted so much to see him again.”
“It was I!” No, stop, shut up. Why? Why was I acting so stupid? Pain, back of my head, the hilt of a sword. Was she looking at me? She was. She was studying me; she was coming close…. She was laughing.
Her laughter, it sounded cruel, but she kept walking over. Did I get hit more? I don’t know. Were the queens still there? Were Malcolm and Katrina? I don’t know. She was almost here. Round face, dark, beautiful eyes, rouge on her cheeks. Could I smell her yet? Yes, it was rose water. Yes, I smelled mint and a hint of clove. Camilla, speak, I need to hear you.
“You… you are my knight, aren’t you? And you love me? How long did you know me, pureblooded faelock? It couldn’t have been longer than five minutes. How strange….” She was above me; her long raven hair was within inches. Please… please lean down just a bit more.
This was when I should have spoken, commanded that we be freed, pleaded with the queens. What the hell was happening to us? Why didn’t I care? I was being a godawful faelock. “We fall for whom we admire, those who amaze us….” How did I say that? So many words, they made sense, but those were not the right words. Those words did not matter.
“Yes, but I was barely conscious when you saved me, knight. How could I garner such admiration so fast to gain the lasting, unshakable love of a faelock?”
Do not ask me this. So stupid. Don’t tell her. No. “Your body, it was the most immaculate thing I’d ever seen. Your face was true beauty, the likes of nothing else. I was amazed with the way you were shaped, the impossibly perfect human form. I could not help but admire and love you, even if it was only your outside; that is how beautiful you are.” Ridiculous. Idiot. Why? Malcolm, I knew he was laughing; why couldn’t I hear it? He was much too angry.
I saw it! She blushed; she was flattered; I made her happy. “Adorable!” Speak more Camilla, your sound… “Oh I was so looking forward to meeting my knight, and you are truly such a white knight, so chivalrous and sweet. Why did you have to go and be a woman? I was in a tizzy, thinking I’d get to experience making love to a pureblood, to see how true those rumors are. Aegis, why do you trick me so often when it comes to love?”
Crushing defeat, I was done. Let me disappear; take me away.
“That is not important. We do not care about this, and you are wasting our time,” lectured the older queen with shorter time as monarch, Mayleil. I needed to show respect. Instead, I was crying. I was impossible. I fell down to my knees, disgraced.
“Right, sorry, so unprofessional.” Camilla laughed and swished her hair around her body. Thankfully, I could see it no longer. “This is part of the group that invaded the castle, attacking the cardinal, abducting and killing the prince. There is no doubt a plot to get to his sister, Margaret, as she is now the only heir. It is such a shame. Micah was nearly twenty and coronated at long last.”
Alark was the younger queen and the one to my left. She was elected queen at age five, a strong and remarkable woman. She was bound to her spouse Mayleil for life. She spoke calmly. “We shall question them ourselves, as they are current prisoners of Alafor, not of Knox nor of the MortiAegis Church. I thank you, for your warnings and your support. Feel free to leave now.” She was abrupt; I was lifted to my feet.
An Alafor guard, not the military police like before, was holding me. Cold hands were touching cold metal touching my wrists. My face was up; I could see her. Camilla was angry, not with me, with the queens. They were rude, but why? Why was she there? Why did Knox care? Why did they know what we did?
I was pushed along; Malcolm was beside me, a row of guards behind us. Alark appeared in front of us. Her face was kind; she wanted to help. Did she not believe Camilla? “This woman, let her go. I sense she has shed no blood; she was not in that palace. She will stay with us, and we will question her ourselves.” Mayleil agreed. She was holding Katrina’s arm. Kat smiled at them; she was such a good girl, they were right.
They started to walk off, and I was screaming. I wasn’t screaming anything moronic like before, I was wailing in pain. I thrashed out my arm, and the guards threw me down violently. I was getting used to this pathetic position on my knees.
Katrina ran to me, and I saw Malcolm in the corner of my eye as I watched her. He hated me so much right then. I hated me too. “Leke! What has happened?” The queens were beside her and looked concerned. Alark was holding out her hand, bidding the guards to go easy on me for a bit.
My hand was seething in pain, crunching, ripping pain. Or was it a stabbing, cutting pain? “It is Zan,” I yelped. Something had happened. Didn’t he know I had plenty of my own problems? Was he still unable to take care of himself? I wasn’t really one to talk in this instance, but I was quite angry with him regardless.
“Is he okay?” The queens were holding Katrina’s shoulders as she cried. I found myself actually wanting to be in a cell, away from this, from her tears. I wanted to be away from Camilla, or closer. I wanted to be anywhere but where I was.
“He—” Again, it crushed and it cut, and my hand spasmed. The guards allowed me my fit this time, screaming in pain. I flailed but I hit nothing. I was a harmless fool. “His hand, something is happening to it. He lost fingers? I don’t know, Katrina. I am sorry.”
She fell apart, and the queens were done indulging me. They began to walk her away, and I was picked back up. Malcolm was finally laughing before he was hit to shut up. I was one of many who disliked my brother; this laugh was for him. I was not yet forgiven enough to have him mocking me.
We had been in the throne room, but I saw nothing but flashes of faces and Camilla. I took in none of its splendor, and all I saw getting pushed to the dungeon were stone walls. It must have been the servants’ tunnels.
I thought hard as I walked to my imprisonment. Camilla, she was an officer of Knox. She was married into the most affluent family of Enox, yet they had no real power there. The church was the only one who ruled in that country. She said her brother-in-law informed her of us, someone in Enox? Why would they care about Casperland? Why would they know anything? No, this brother-in-law must’ve been in Drummond. He must be in the Mortanion Brotherhood, the only ones bound to either Enox or Knox. What was Aldrious’s surname? I could not remember; I could not remember if I ever knew. They knew we would come here, yet they say we killed the prince. Was Knox going to attack Casperland, to ally with Alafor? Were we to be responsible for its destruction?
> This was too much; I needed answers. I hoped she would be gone. I needed my head clear to deal with this. I could not be a babbling fool, for it was on me to undo this damage.
Two cells stood in front of us, solid walls, not bars. The steel doors were swung wide open. They pushed Malcolm into the first cell. He fell hard on the ground. They did not take the shackles from his hands; he would have a lot of trouble getting up. For my turn, they pushed me in gently before slamming my giant door behind me. Whether it was mercy or fear that made them polite, I couldn’t tell you.
I sat on the stone slab I assumed was my bed. There was a crude chamber pot in the far corner, near a bucket of water that looked quite clean. They were actually decent to their prisoners here and there was a small lamp lit on the wall. They did not intend for us to rot in darkness, as Casperland did for its captives.
I swiveled my body around on the hard surface so I could swing my feet up to join me. The six days of walking had been quite tiresome. I was thinking of Katrina. I hoped she was all right. I couldn’t bear to think of what her reaction was to my foolish display. I felt a bit of relief, at least, knowing it was her and not Jessica who was with us. If my situation had been any more ridiculous and embarrassing, I would have been smashing my head against the stone wall I leaned on.
My thoughts turned again to war, what moves to make, how to contact the prince. I thought, perhaps if I hurt myself badly enough, Zan might realize this was not a safe place for the prince. I chased that thought away quickly, remembering again what a horrible faelock my brother was. I conceded that if they killed me, he could at least get the message that way.
I don’t know how much time passed before a clanging at my door disturbed my pondering. I’d guess a few hours; it would be the dead of night, if so. I thought it was my turn for interrogation, but I was wrong. The person struggled at the door for at least a minute before it swung open. The smell came first, clove, mint, and rose. Camilla stood in the shadow of that large door. There was another strong smell with her, the fermented musk of wine.
“’Ello, my knight!” she said cheerfully, still holding a bottle of red and clutching it against her chest. She was wiggling her hips a bit, I think trying to entice me.
“You are intoxicated,” I said plainly but was unable to stop the smile forming on my lips.
“Well you are incarcerated!” This retort made her laugh so frivolously she stepped from the door, allowing it to close hard and trap her inside my cell.
Something about her being so drunk allowed my mind to not act like it was too. Feeling sane in her presence was a miracle in itself. “You know there is no handle in here? We are both incarcerated now.”
“I can think of worse places to be, worse company,” she replied as she looked around my cell. She must have seen every stone in it at least three times. She had studied the walls over and over to avoid looking at me.
“Am I that awful to look at?” I could not stop staring at her, like I did each time she was in front of me. I was the one who was rude, behaving like an ill-mannered lech. I began to look over the stones too. Perhaps that was the right way to behave.
“You are not. You are carved of marble, a sculpture of pure muscle, agile and thin. Your armor before, it obscured your breasts….” She was looking at me finally, trying to match the me now to the me then.
“I don’t have much of them, anyways. My friend Billiam calls them mosquito bites. You must have been staring quite hard to notice.”
“Cheeky! I like it! You can finally speak to me? You aren’t going to clamor and cry?” She teased me, but it didn’t seem cruel. Her shapely legs, two smooth, golden pillars dancing across each other, began to move toward me. She wobbled a bit.
“Have you a key for these? Or are you here to punish the murderer of Prince Micah?” I asked, displaying my manacled wrists. She was still so far away. Why would they make this cell a mile wide?
“How could I do that? I am not in Drummond,” she sang playfully, setting her bottle by the chamber pot before skipping over to me. The cell was tiny again. She had some strange type of blade in her hand; it turned molten with the push of a button. She cut my cuffs easily and grabbed them off, throwing them to the ground.
“So you know of your own lies?” With my arms now free, I turned, setting my feet down on the ground and my back against the wall. She took this as an invitation to lay her head in my lap, as she got up on the slab with me.
I looked down at her, a goddess of pure beauty, grinning up at me like a foolish child. “I have known a lot of things, for a long time.” She became briefly serious before she touched the cuffs on the ground, giggling. “I guess I could’ve left those on. Are you a kinky sort, my knight?” She hiccupped. It was cute and proof she really was human. In all my memories, she seemed ethereal, untouchable. She was solid, she was warm, and she was gassy. This delighted me. I don’t know why.
“No, not particularly, and you seem in no condition to be handling a captive anyways,” I answered and let out a small laugh. Why was she here? Why would she say a thing like that to me? “I am terribly sorry I disappointed you so, not being a man and all. I did not expect to see you again after you found out. Why did you come?”
She looked up at me, and her eyes were so happy. Her cheeks were even pinker than usual, the wine’s fault. Some of her lipstick had come off, and I was able to see the soft mauve color they really were. She smiled; I got to see her whole smile. Every tooth made of smooth pearl; another hiccup fell from under them. So perfect, yet she was so human. “You told me you loved me. I wanted to hear that again.” She was nuzzling into my lap, her warm breath reaching everywhere.
“Why? Your husband Arrikos, cannot he tell you that?” I had given in; my hand finally went through her hair. I dropped my other hand on her stomach, feeling that dress. I learned it really was velvet, not a liquid that refused to fall.
She was frowning, but she was still lovely. Did I hurt her? Could she even be hurt? “I do not see my husband. We are married for political reasons alone. I suppose there was lust at some point, but never love. Actually, I don’t think we ever really liked each other. He has a weak mind. The Dalgarie are terribly inbred. He left to live a new life, I think about three years ago. He had a dream to fulfill or some rot. I still do not understand why he stole so many of my gowns.” Her chin began to tremble, and she was growing quite upset. I had a feeling it was for her gowns, not her husband.
“So you want to hear of my love because you cannot have his?”
“No.” She reached up, grazing my cheek. Her skin, was this the first time I felt it? It was, other than her lips on the battlefield. It was soft like a peach, smooth like glass. Was such a thing even possible? “I meant it when I said I had looked forward to meeting you. Yes, I thought you were a man, and that is what I was prepared for. No matter what you are, you are the knight I see when I fall asleep. Every night since the day you saved me, I see you kiss me once again as I drift off. I cannot simply turn that image off because of your anatomy. That is not how it is working, at least.
“The test fire that day, it was my fault it went so wrong. It was supposed to blow up you knights, but instead I blew up my own damn base. It was lucky I was flung so many yards away. If I were not that far from the others, you wouldn’t have found me, saved me. I still… I want to know why.”
“I thought I already told you?” My hand was at the back of her head now. I was on a mission to touch each strand of hair, each of them precious, each of them Camilla’s.
“What, because I am beautiful? You like my shape?” She shouted, though quietly, snorting out a laugh. “You really saved me for such a reason, putting your existence and the lives of your allies in danger?”
“I am probably the first faelock in all the world to fall in love at first sight, and that is only because it was you I saw. The reason, it sounds stupid and pointless, but the feelings I felt when I saw you were not lust. They were created by your physique, but they were still pure
love. I could not leave you. I needed you to be safe.”
She pulled down my head at last. My lips finally pressed against hers. They were pillows. No, they were softer than pillows. She tasted like plums. That’s it—her lips must’ve been plums, so sweet and juicy.
Inches away, she looked up at me and whispered, “I do not know you; you came out of nowhere. I had always been fascinated by your kind…. You appeared out of my childhood dreams. I always knew a human man would never love me like a faelock. Perhaps that’s why I cared so little that I was marrying for power. I didn’t think I could have the love of a faelock—a love that is earned by only one and cannot be broken; the love so fierce it has both caused and ended wars. I don’t care the reason for why I earned it. It is something far too precious to ever reject. Please, just tell me again.”
“I love you, Camilla. I loved you when we first met, and I will love you forever, you alone.” I kissed her this time, reveling in more plums, more sweetness. I wanted to stay here forever; I wanted her to stay here. I wanted us to be lying, I wanted to hold her close. This was what my heart screamed, and my body began to obey, shifting so that we both could lie. She was in front of me; we barely fit on the hard stone bench. I was forced to hold her closer, and I was grateful to the bench for that. Amazingly, my brain worked still. It won out for a moment, and I asked, “Camilla, is Aldrious your brother-in-law?”
Defiant Revival Page 22
