“Fuck!” I said out loud. It was about four hours after lunch and Isslata would be here at any moment. If I passed out on the cold stone floor, or fainted, or did whatever I did when these black outs happened, she would ask me uncomfortable questions.
“You are still alive.” I couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement. But I recognized the voice.
“Iolarathe?” I sprayed blood on the inside of my visor when I tried to say her name.
My helmet? I smelled the leather and the metal of it, but how was I wearing my armor in my room in Nia?
“Can you move?” I felt pressure on my chest plate. It was a soft shaking that turned my head to the left. I saw her ornate, armored leggings and boots. They were engraved with thousands of small tree branches and leaves. Each leaf looked like it was another type of metal that had been attached to the gold plates with loving perfection. The ends of her sword sheaths rubbed into the grass next to a wicked-looking pole arm that the woman tossed on the ground beside me.
“I’m going to take your helmet off, Kaiyer. Do not move,” she commanded, but I heard concern in her voice. I felt my helmet twist and then it lifted free of my head with a rush of cool air. It was morning somehow. I was still lying on the floor of my room, but I could see the sunlight of late dawn before it turned into early morning. Her hair hung down into my face as she leaned over me from her crouched position.
She removed the armored mask and her beautiful face was only inches from mine. It had dried blood on it, as if she had caught the spray of someone else’s artery. The dangling strands of her hair tickled all of my senses and reminded me of the countless hours we had spent in the hay of the stables lifetimes ago. I tried to move my arms, I needed to touch her, to know that this was real and not a memory.
Wasn’t this a memory? Isslata would be here soon. I was in Nia. I had to find Nadea.
“You fell like a star. Like a burning black star. My troops are holding a retreat, but we won’t last. Your armies have broken us.” Her face looked like it had when I declined her proposal yesterday. Not yesterday. Thousands of years ago.
“How did you get here?” I coughed out. It was dry, so my body must have healed the bite I inflicted upon my tongue. I didn’t understand how she stood in this castle. Wasn’t she dead?
Wasn’t I dead?
“I rode for an hour north to where I thought you fell.” She smiled now and her gloved hands brushed my cheek. Her fingers slipped across my skin and I figured I was covered in my own blood. “It is the end. My people are no more. I wanted to celebrate my failure at the scene of your death.” Her hands moved back and stroked my hair. This also felt sticky and wet. I had probably hemorrhaged in my armor when I landed and somehow healed through the damage.
“But you are not dead. This leaves me with a difficult decision.” She smiled and I was reminded of when she had told me to clean her feet. Her lips were deep red and contrasted with her white skin in a way that made my own mouth water.
“Did you kill the dragon?” She raised a coppery eyebrow and licked her lips. All of her kind constantly licked their lips, but when she did it my heart fluttered instead of beating with rage.
“Recatolusti’catri?” I felt my arms and hips again. The fingers on my left hand grabbed the stone tile of my room’s floor.
“You know her name?” Iolarathe kneeled down and pushed my head on top of her legs. I saw her face easier now and she didn’t have to crouch.
“Did she return to the battle?” I asked instead of answering. My voice was getting stronger.
“No. She carried you away. Then you fell. I thought you killed her.”
“I don’t remember. She shook me loose I think.” My brain was muddy and the feeling of her armored legs and her gloved hands on my skull distracted me.
“That makes the decision easier.” She smiled in sadness.
“Why did you kill them?” I asked. I was the boy again who had collapsed at her feet along with their bodies in front of the smithy. Her wicked smile came to my memory and I heard her tell them to take me away.
“It would be impossible to explain in our last few moments together. Will you believe me if I say I didn’t desire their deaths?” She tried to plead with me yesterday, but now she looked deflated.
“It didn’t seem that way at the time. It seemed that you took joy in strangling Leotol.” I felt anger returning. I clutched my hand against the soft dirt I had smashed. Yes. I was getting stronger.
“I never knew his name.” She frowned and the sadness looked sincere. “All these years and I didn’t know the name of your brother or father.” She brushed her hair back so that it didn’t dangle in my face anymore. I felt the need to kill her again, yet I did not mind the long tresses filling my senses.
“Kai was my father’s name,” I spat out.
“Our kind enjoys killing, as does yours, Kaiyer.” Her right hand caressed the hair above my brow and her left pointed to the skulls emblazoned on the chest piece of my massive armor. “I made the wrong decision back then. At the time, I felt like it was the correct one, but I have come to regret my choice. I’ve regretted it every day since then.” She looked down at me and her silver eyes hid behind the thick veil of her long reddish lashes.
“It has been more than a fair exchange hasn’t it? The lives of your brother and father for my whole race?” She sneered suddenly but her hands continued to gently brush across my face.
“What about the others? We’ve been your slaves for our entire existence.” I felt my body ready for battle.
“That is not true. You don’t know the truth of the past. We were your servants back before your history was written. Before that, we both heeded the Gods.” She frowned.
“I don’t know what you speak of.”
“No. Why would you?” She slowly lowered my head and pushed herself away from me. I sat up by using my arms to press into the grass, but my legs didn’t want to work in my armor. I looked to my left and saw the door to my room and the stone walls of the castle, but the scene was like a faded picture reflected in a glass window.
“It would not suit your agenda.” She turned and walked toward her horse. The beast was a stark contrast to my own mount. It was white, sleek, and decorated with thin gold armor, colorful silk braiding, and golden bells that gave a slight ring when the animal stepped. Her foot moved past her discarded pole arm and the weapon seemed to spring off the ground and into her hands. The spear had a three-foot-long curved, pointed blade on one end that was guarded by rows of sharp spikes. The butt of the shaft ended in a point.
“My agenda?” I questioned her as she patted down the animal with one hand and attached the long weapon onto her saddle. I suddenly feared her leaving. This would be my last chance and my fucking legs still didn’t work.
“Revenge!” she turned and screamed at me. Her face looked terrible and beautiful. The screech seemed to echo off the trees that had luckily not impaled me when I fell. “It was always about you! It was about your pain! Why didn’t you just find me and kill me? You’ve known where I’ve been. You knew which tribe! Why didn't you murder me a few months after you escaped? You could have ended me.” My mind spun with her words. “You didn’t need an army; you didn’t need to kill millions of my people,” tears streamed down her cheeks and she sobbed, “for my mistake,” she finished with a gasp.
“This is not about you and me. This is about the enslavement of my people. It is about a life of terror, pain, and suffering. You set nothing into motion that would not have happened eventually.” I did not know if I was consoling her or myself.
“And now you have what you wanted, Kaiyer. Your family is avenged and mine is dust. Your people will live and breathe forever and mine will be forgotten. You will--” she stopped suddenly, interrupting herself before she spoke about what would happen for me. Her horse skittered to the side a bit, annoyed at her mistress’s tension.
“You will love now, and I never will.” She turned away from me and finished tying
down her pole arm.
“Wait.” I got to my feet hesitantly. My legs worked but were still wobbly.
“I’m not leaving.” She faced me and wiped under her eyes with her gloved hand. It was coated in my blood, the crimson smeared across her face like war paint. I must have looked confused, because she smiled slowly. “Our people came from the World. We bond with the trees and other plants which come from the Gods. There is nothing left for me Kaiyer. I tried to fight you and failed. You think that we are monsters that should be exterminated. But we love in our own way, create art, and serve our Dead Gods as they instructed us. We do everything your kind values. Our only sin is the need for servants; just as you use cattle and horses, we used the humans. Do the cattle have the right to annihilate your species?” She drew her sword slowly from its leaf-encrusted scabbard. I reached down to clutch my mace and took a step away from her. I did not feel like I was in any condition to fight.
“We don’t rape cattle. Or torture cattle. We don’t abuse cattle. And we are not cattle.” My voice came out in a growl.
She drove the point of her slightly curved sword into the dirt so that it stood up like a tower. Then she moved her shoulders around in a stretching motion. “I’ve never seen much of a difference, except that I love you.” She looked at me again and her eyes burned like they had when we made love. “You were all I ever cared about. The rest of your species held no meaning for me. Perhaps it is my nature. I won’t apologize for the way humans have been treated. I will apologize for the mistake that ended your family’s existence and forced you into this role.” I didn’t understand where she was going with this. It would only make me angry. Maybe she wanted me to fight her.
Maybe she wanted me to kill her.
“What now?” I stepped away. I knew the answer before she spoke.
“Now we dance. One of us will survive, and the other shall return to the soil.” She pulled her sword out of the ground in a fluid motion. “Are you ready, my love?”
“Stop calling me that.” I flipped open the tie of my mace with my left hand and grabbed the handle as it fell. I had repaired my shield but lost it before I jumped onto the dragon’s talon. Iolarathe’s mouth twisted into the smile that had haunted my dreams for most of my life.
“Hate the truth?" She stepped forward with a thrust that wasn't fully committed, and my mace smashed it aside easily. Her blade was long, curved and thin, capable of quick strikes that could rip through most armor. It’s shape actually reminded me of the sword Nadea used.
Was I dreaming or remembering? Was I awake?
"Truth depends on perspective." I shuffled my feet back with her next flurry of swings. These were aimed at my head and would have been difficult for me to block had I not used the armored gauntlet on my right hand to slap aside a few of her cuts. Sparks flew from her blade as it contacted my mace and the nightmare armor. She was fast for one of her kind, and her attacks came at angles calculated to force my blocking arm into awkward positions.
"Then tell me your perspective." She made a slash down to my legs that I stepped into and blocked with my mace. She must have guessed that I would make that motion because she dashed forward and slammed the side of her right shin into my face with a dazzling, quick round kick. I felt my head spin but I went with the movement, rolling to the ground and springing to my feet in time to block a high chop with her sword that would have split my skull into two pieces. I couldn't tell if I was sluggish from my fall or if she was really this good of a warrior.
"Don’t hold back," she prompted me when I lunged forward and tried to smash her torso with my mace. She danced around the clumsy strike and spun behind me. My body bent back suddenly and I flew through the air for two dozen feet before I slammed into one of the massive trees that surrounded us. She had kicked me in the back with strength I didn't think Elvens possessed.
"I hate you!" I screamed through a broken jaw that was already healing. "You took everything from me and then left me to die. I thought you loved me, but I meant nothing to you, you used me." Earth flowed through me with my anger and I felt my bones quake.
She hadn't pressed her attack. There was a crater in the grass where my body had landed. She smiled again and looked at the dent I had made in the soil. A slight breeze picked up and her hair blew back from her face like it was on fire.
"No." She shook her head and took a small step toward me. "You hate yourself because you love me."
Her sword darted at me and she made a quick dash. Her thrust would have pierced my heart had I not gotten my mace up in time to block it. It was a feint, and as soon as my weapon swung a wide sweep she pulled back on her blade. My parry passed harmlessly in front of her and she stepped against me. Her left arm caught my elbow, preventing my mace from returning to strike her, and then her right leg wrapped around the back of my left knee. She grunted and shoved. Suddenly I was on the ground with her on top of me. Her hair covered my face and shoulders, drowning me in the scent of flowers and citrus. Shlara did this same take down on me last week. How had I fallen for it again?
"I've watched you in battle, Kaiyer. You carve through my kind like a strike of lightening through the air." The point of her blade came up to my throat and pushed against the skin there. "My spies say that you've never been bested by one of your warriors. Is that true?" She licked her lips. The combination of her body pushing against me and her hair in my face drove me insane. I needed to get away from her and return to Nia.
Why?
This was where I wanted to be. This was the memory I was searching for. It was what I had dreamed about since Paug and Nadea woke me. Even in my memories, I was always thinking about the wickedly beautiful Elven woman who took me as her lover and then killed my brother and father. Wasn't this where I ended her life?
"I have never been beaten," I said. Her smile grew larger. I was drowning in her eyes. The silver matched the blade of the long sword she held to my neck. She had to twist her upper body away from me to keep from impaling me.
"Then why haven't you killed me?" Her eyelids fluttered and her voice filled with mockery.
"You've got me pinned to the ground with the point of your blade at my throat." I smiled and exhaustion filled my muscles instead of Earth. I didn't remember anything after the fall, but if it was morning, and we had fought early last night, it must have been at least fourteen hours. Was I done healing? I should be dead.
"I see," she said with a laugh. The music of her voice made my breath catch in my throat. She swung her left leg over my hips and straddled me but kept the weapon at my neck. "Let go of your mace." The smile faded from her face and her expression turned cold. I didn't move for a few seconds, and then she snarled and pushed the point of her blade into my neck, piercing the skin half an inch. I released the mace from my grip and grabbed the stone with my bare left hand.
"O'Baarni?" a voice called at my door. I sat up from the cold tile and looked over to the speaker. One of the Elven guards had opened the door to my room and stood with a foot inside while the rest of her body was protected by the oaken slab of wood.
"What?" I gasped. It must have sounded angry because the woman's expression turned slightly more fearful than it had been.
"We heard shouting. Do you need something?"
The guards never spoke to me. Isslata would order them to summon servants, and they complied with sidelong glances in my direction. Every thirty minutes, a third guard would come to check in with the two at my door. He or she would ensure I was still there, and relay the message to whoever was holding the duchess captive, keeping Nadea alive in half hour increments. This was the only leverage Isslata and Alatorict had over me. The only reason I obeyed.
"No. Leave me alone." I turned away from her and lay back down on the stone floor between my bed and the bathroom. My heart pounded like a racing horse. I took a few deep breaths and my body relaxed.
It had just been a memory.
I felt calm once again. Exhaustion had left my joints and dizziness had left my hea
d. I went to the table for some water, but the bottle of red wine next to the decanter of water suddenly looked much more tempting. I ripped the cork out, put the jug to my lips and drained half of it in a few satisfying gulps. Fuck I wished I could get drunk. The Earth was too intertwined with the beat of my heart after so many years of using it. Ignoring the flow to prevent the subtle healing that kept me sober required a horrendous effort. I was too exhausted to let myself get drunk.
The wine did succeed in making my head pound again. I staggered to my bed and sat down on the edge. I replayed the last few moments with Iolarathe in my brain until the words she said blurred. Soon I only remembered the sensation of her hair on my face and the sound of her heart beating in a calm cadence. The sun would set in less than an hour, Isslata would be here any minute and I didn't want to appear distracted. It had been a few days since she agreed to show me Nadea, but I still didn't believe that she'd honor the arrangement. She would lose all leverage and be left with nothing but my word and my desire to speak to the empress.
"You always did exactly what I told you, didn't you?" She bit her lower lip and then licked them. "Raise your left hand toward my face," she commanded again. I thought about resisting her, but I was curious. And I wanted to touch her. I slowly raised my hand and my exposed skin was covered in burns. Probably from when the dragon had engulfed me in flame.
Her gloved right hand grabbed my left as soon as my arm extended. She brushed her forehead against my fingers. Then she pushed her face down until I was caressing her cheek, her chin, and her lips. Her skin felt like I remembered, impossibly smooth and cool to the touch. Her lips were moist and a thousand memories of our lovemaking jumped into my mind. Her eyes closed and she made a soft sigh of contentment as she forced my hand to caress her face. After a few moments she didn't have to hold my hand up anymore. I was softly touching her temples, brow, eyebrows, nose, and mouth.
The Destroyer Book 2 Page 44
