by Aja James
He hadn’t exactly treated the male with fairness. He hadn’t the right to ask him for help.
“He is far away, now, that I can take flight once more,” Rhys said, indicating that the eagle king’s will no longer controlled him given the distance between them.
“If we pursue them by road, it will take much longer. I can take you with me in eagle form. But only you. I cannot carry a heavier load for long distances.”
Ramses gave him a brief nod, his eyes showing his contrition for taking his fear and anger out on the Chosen.
The other male accepted his silent apology with a quirk of his lips.
“You should have told me she’s your female, King,” Rhys quipped. “I would have known to prepare myself for your wrath upon losing her.”
“She is not my female,” Ramses grunted. “Merely a Blood Contract.”
A pronouncement to which no one around him chose to respond.
“At the rate he’s flying, and with the Keeper being a lighter load, if we leave now, we’ll be a half hour to an hour behind them,” Rhys said, before transforming into the giant Golden Eagle with a flap of his great wings.
“You’re not fit to battle him again,” Maximus cautioned as Ramses braced himself for the eagle’s talons.
“Protect the Cove and keep the Nobles in line,” Ramses ordered. “I will endeavor to keep this excursion brief and communicate when I can.”
And then, he was flying.
Or rather, Rhys had a hold of him in his eagle claws and they were off in the direction where the Challenger had taken Eveline.
Faintly, Ramses heard Maximus mutter from the ground below—
“Not his female, my ass.”
*** *** *** ***
Is your name really Alend Ramses?
“The fuck.”
Ramses’ muffled explicative was all but lost in the wind. He immediately regretted the lungful of icy air when he opened his mouth to speak.
The eagle chuckled with amusement in his mind.
All Beasts and Lesser Beasts can communicate telepathically with each other. But it just so happens that I can communicate mentally with all Kinds. Call it part of my Gift. I’m an interpreter of sorts. I think I inherited the skill from…a friend of mine.
Ramses craned his neck to look up at the eagle’s feathered underbelly. Though he knew that Rhys’ wings were soft and smooth to the touch, they could stiffen into a casing as impenetrable as a steel-reinforced leather armor.
I thought your animal spirit is your Gift, he pushed the thought to his carrier.
It is, and it isn’t. It is simply who I am. Rather akin to the fact that you are who you are, Dark King.
And who am I? Ramses asked almost rhetorically.
An Earth Elemental, correct? I’ve never witnessed a telekinetic with powers like yours. You commanded the rocks in the falls as if they were extensions of your own body. The boulder hail flattened many of Queen Anya’s soldiers right on target, but left our side relatively unscathed. Or at least, with enough time to dodge them.
Luck.
I highly doubt that, my chosen king, Rhys rebutted instantly. You also shifted that jutting boulder in the middle of the rapids, directly in the path of my fall, out of the way. Even the water couldn’t have prevented me from smashing my skull in had I hit that thing straight on. I owe you for that.
Ramses ignored the Chosen’s gratitude. He considered them even for his unjust blame of the other male before.
After a while of silent flight, Ramses couldn’t prevent the question from escaping his thoughts.
Why did you bring her? She should have remained safe and sound at the Cove.
She was very convincing about the grave danger you were in, Rhys answered. And she was determined to save you.
A strange noise rumbled from Ramses’ chest. It didn’t sound happy.
She was all aflutter running down the corridors after whoever she could find to help her, Rhys continued.
Ana and I had just arrived back at the Cove per Maximus’ call. I don’t know what it was about her. Those eyes of hers…they are irresistible.
The rumble deepened into a threatening growl.
Calm, Dark King, the eagle practically snickered. I mean that your female’s eyes—
Ramses cleared his throat loud enough to be heard over the brisk wind.
—Your Blood Contract’s eyes, Rhys amended with a roll of his own eyes, though his king could not see, held a certain knowledge. It was hard to deny. It was as if I was gazing into the pools of Destiny itself. I felt like she would curse me if I didn’t do her bidding.
That, Ramses could well believe.
What did she think she could achieve by coming? Ramses asked, truly baffled, even though Eveline had, for all intents and purposes, saved his life.
He would like to think he could have escaped the choke hold in time, but he’d be lying to himself. His straits had been dire indeed. Locked in the Challenger’s unforgiving grip as he had been, Ramses hadn’t really fought back. His spirit hadn’t wanted to. There was so much shame and regret.
If the Challenger was indeed the Eagle King, then Ramses had done him a great, egregious wrong. He’d regretted it for many millennia—turning his back on his own Kind. The Elementals. And others as well, like the Animal Spirits. Once he’d seen the world without the blindness of his obsessive, destructive love for Ashlu, he realized that he’d betrayed his origins, his people.
At the same time, he felt a deep-rooted resentment for the Pure Ones and the Elementals’ weakness. Why couldn’t they rise up and fight back? Why did they allow the Dark Ones to spread and consolidate their rule?
True, not long after Ramses left the Dark Queen, the oppressed Pure Ones did rebel. And they’d succeeded all too well. Though it was contradictory and confounding to Ramses himself, he resented that as well.
He recognized now that his resentment was for his own failure. For he had failed them all. Pure Ones, Elementals, Animal Spirits, and Dark Ones too, in the end. For that failure, he deserved retribution. It was poetic justice that vengeance should come to him in the form of the noble king he had once defeated.
If it had been Ramses who had died that night, if the Eagle King had Mated Ashlu…would all the other immortal Kinds have suffered as slaves, exiles and hunted prey for the three millennia that followed?
She hoped to save your life, apparently, Rhys’ answer to the question he’d already forgotten he asked broke him out of his own reverie.
She appears to care for you deeply, Ramses.
More fool, she, Ramses thought to himself.
With all the mistakes he’d made, he didn’t deserve anyone’s care. Least of all the care and consideration of an enchanting, tiny, red-headed sprite. There was an innocence and naivete about Eveline that Ramses felt both protective and wary of.
Females like Jade Cicada, his predecessor, he could handle. Overtly sexual, confident in their charms, knowledgeable about carnal pleasures and how best to wield them to get what they wanted. With females like these, Ramses could form a connection, perhaps, and over time a deeper sense of loyalty. But he’d have no trouble keeping his heart detached.
With women like Eveline…
No, not women like Eveline. With Eveline, the more time he spent with her, the more out of control he became. Nothing was business. Everything was personal. Every word, every sound, every touch mattered.
Because she deemed it so. Because her clear blue-gray eyes reflected her feelings openly as she felt them. And he could not pretend to unsee them.
She’ll live to regret her erroneous care, Ramses said shortly in his thoughts.
I’ll make sure of it.
With that, he abruptly shut off all other communication with his winged escort, preferring, as always, to carry his burdens alone.
“Upon her choice, the future rests. To welcome the Darkness or create a New Light, only her heart can show the rest…”
—From the Zodiac Prophesies
> Chapter Fourteen
Eveline really couldn’t complain. As far as abductions by eagle-men were concerned, it could have been a lot worse.
There. She came to a compromise. She’s going to call him “eagle-man.” Which seemed much more respectful (and frankly considerably more attractive too) than bird-man.
Presently, her kidnapper left her to her own devices in a small nook carved into a mountainside.
What was it about mountains lately?
It had been just a few days ago that she was trekking through the Zagaros Mountains with Aella and Cloud. Now this. She didn’t know which mountain cave she was currently installed in, and she’d lost track of how far they’d flown after falling asleep in the eagle-man’s arms.
Rather incredibly.
It must be said—Eveline handled extreme situations and unexpected circumstances fairly well. This might not be a “Gift” per se, but she thought her calmness under duress was an exemplary quality.
Her abductor had been gone for just a little while. She didn’t know when he’d be back.
On the negative side, there was nowhere to go, unless Eveline decided to step off the edge and hurl herself down the steep ravine. The cliffside consisted of a relatively smooth rock facing that even the most skilled mountain climbers would have difficulty scaling with professional implements, never mind a librarian who mostly shunned outdoor and other physically strenuous activities.
There was no escape, except through a painful, plummeting death, in other words.
On the bright side, she was able to relieve herself in relative privacy earlier, and the eagle-man left her food—three fat rabbits. Before he left, he even started a small fire for her to roast the meat upon. She still had her backpack, in which, she was happy to note, there were various survival kits, including two full water canteens, first-aid, snack bars and freeze-dried meals-in-a-pouch.
She much preferred the rabbits.
The eagle-man had not communicated a single word or thought to her on the entire journey, nor during their brief landings along the way. She’d used those short stops to pepper him with questions. Logical ones like:
“Why did you kidnap me?”
“What do you want with me?”
“Where are you taking me?”
“When can I go home?”
“Are you looking for a bird-bride, because I have to tell you, we won’t suit. I have a thing against bird feet.” (Shudder).
He’d simply stared at her with those strange black eyes in total silence.
Ramses had dark eyes too. Obsidian, to be precise. She rather liked his beautiful, reflective, heavily-lashed, exotically shaped eyes. Not that she’d given that much thought, obviously.
But this male’s eyes were flat, as if there was nothing living behind them. Or half alive at best. At the same time, Eveline didn’t feel like he was soulless, though she couldn’t know for sure. Only the Pure Queen, Sophia, had the Gift to sense and interpret every living being’s souls.
He just seemed… Lost. And angry. And hurt. Yet, despite all that, there was an indomitable strength and confidence about him.
A kingly presence.
Judging by his actions thus far, he was also a “gentleman,” all things considered. So, naturally, Eveline decided she’d help him.
He needed something from her, she assumed, since he took her with him. She’d see what she could do to provide it. Within reason, of course. If he wanted to throw stones at her for tossing flaming scrolls at him, she probably wouldn’t stand still for it.
The backpack also had utility knives, a compass, and other tools, which she used to prepare the meat for roasting. She was happy to know this much, not being completely helpless when she had to “rough it.” After all, when she lived at the monastery in her human life, her chores involved cooking, cleaning and mending clothes.
She didn’t mind it, actually enjoyed it—taking care of others. Because she was quite adept at it, the monks let her stay despite her sex. And in any case, they were like her fathers, uncles and big brothers, and rather doted on her through her childhood years after taking her in as a babe left in the proverbial basket upon their steps.
They were the ones who instilled a love of literature and history in her very soul. Perhaps she was always intellectually inclined, and that added to her fervor for learning.
She loved to fantasize too, weaving stories in her daydreams as she went about her chores. She loved everything about words—how they sounded when spoken, how they conveyed meaning and impacted others, how ink spread across parchment when they were written, the beauty of ancient symbols and calligraphy…
Most of all, she loved the mystery of words. How they could be interpreted in so many different ways, how different nuances of the same concept could be conveyed through different combinations of different words. The possibilities were endless. She loved the process of solving puzzles and discovering new ones.
Words were magical. Eveline should know.
She didn’t have to say the words out loud, but sometimes, when her emotions were especially intense and she focused extremely hard, she…made things happen with her thoughts.
She wished her “Gift” was more predictable, however. There had been many occasions when she would have loved to use it, present situation included, but it didn’t work the way she intended.
Like during the attack on the Shield when her comrade and previous Scribe, Orion, had perished. She’d been powerless then. Useless. She’d felt an energy broiling beneath the surface of her skin, but she hadn’t been able to unleash it. Even when circumstances were so dire, she’d choked.
But her Gift had been quite targeted and effective since meeting Ramses. Twice now, she’d been able to accomplish exactly what she intended. The first time, out of intense jealousy; the second time, out of intense fear.
She’d tried earlier to think of a way to make the eagle-man do her bidding, or take her back to the Cove, or tell her what his plans were, but nothing worked.
Fickle, unreliable “Gift.”
For this reason, Eveline really didn’t feel like she deserved the moniker “witch” that she was sometimes labeled with when her “spells” were able to take effect. She certainly didn’t broadcast her sometimes-there abilities. Even the other members of the Dozen didn’t know about it.
But she’d blurted everything out to Ramses soon after they met, threatening to curse him, full of ire and bravado as she’d been. Ramses seemed to bring out the best and worst in her.
She hoped he was all right. From the little she’d seen of the Challenge before interfering, he’d no doubt sustained some brutal wounds.
She missed him. Or rather, she wished for him.
Perhaps it was the Blood Contract that made her feel so dependent and attached to him. Whatever the reason, she wanted him so desperately that her bottom lip began to quiver.
Stupid lip.
She locked her jaw and squared her shoulders. Ramses had made clear he didn’t want her in return. She was on her own.
After eating one of the cooked rabbits, Eveline pulled out the most important item from her backpack—the one remaining scroll she hadn’t flung at the eagle-man.
With nothing better to do than wait for her captor’s return (or dare she hoped, a heroic rescue by her friends) she began to pore over the neat columns of text, though they were written in a language she’d never encountered before.
As her fingertips passed over the symbols, the beautiful lines glowed, like the burning embers of a newly lit fire.
She gasped as her vision blanked and her senses crashed. She felt rather than heard the haunting words:
A Champion reborn
A King transformed.
A stone heart in fire
A soul dances higher
When True Love reveals
And old wounds heal…
Heal him, Angel of fire. Heal him when he comes for you. Take him. Take him.
Take him!
Evelin
e fell back onto her ass when the scroll practically blasted her with its words.
Well, alrighty then, she thought with a huff. Message received. She just wished she knew what it meant. Most of the time she enjoyed having the freedom to interpret things.
But given the urgent, prophetic tone she gleaned from these words, she prayed she’d arrive at the right conclusion.
*** *** *** ***
Mount St. Helens, Washington.
That was where they were headed. That was where, according to Rhys’ connection to his natural ruler, the Eagle King had taken Eveline. To the most active and dangerous volcano in the United States.
Ramses’ entire body turned to stone (figuratively, at least) with apprehension.
Located in the Cascade Range, the angry, grumbly mountain was part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, a segment of the Pacific Ring of Fire (aptly titled) that included over one hundred and sixty active volcanoes. Mount St. Helens was well known for its ash explosions and pyroclastic flows. While in modern times, it was most notorious for a major eruption on May 18, 1980, where fifty-seven people were killed, that was nothing compared to the mountain’s violently eruptive periods thousands of years ago. When red hot lava gushed endlessly like the blood of a mortally wounded Mother Earth.
Why did the Eagle King bring Eveline here? To draw Ramses into a reenactment of their battle millennia ago? But how could he know to use Eveline as bait? In fact, when the Eagle King had spotted and taken off with Eveline, it’s as if he’d forgotten about his Challenge with Ramses altogether, entirely focused on his new target instead.
But then, why would Eveline be his target at all? Other than retaliation for bludgeoning him with flaming objects?
Almost there. ETA three minutes, Rhys communicated telepathically.
He seems to have left her alone in a small cave on the north side. I don’t have a strong sense of his presence nearby, which means we have some time to collect her and make our getaway.
Rhys’ wings shivered a little from the strain of flying nonstop for such a long distance, making them dip precariously against the air current.
