by Joe Jackson
Solaris was already busily rebuilding the burned western portions. Kari was briefly held up by the guards at the gate, but allowed to pass without incident. Without her dog tags and in a different set of armor, she opted not to announce who she was. She and Aeligos were allowed to enter the city after only a routine inquiry. The look he gave her once they passed the guards said he was agreeable to not announcing themselves. Better that Annabelle and Zaliskower have to put their minions to work searching.
Kari’s first order of business was to approach the keep of the city’s council and request an audience with Peri, assuming the elven druidess was still visiting. She would most likely know if Ashurinax the Black still resided in Laeranore. Kari hadn’t seen or heard from her old friend since her prior life, but she was pretty sure that if anyone could help them – directly or simply by putting them in contact with Alamarise – it would be the black dragon. As far as she knew, he’d lived peacefully with his elven neighbors since swearing his oath to Kari, so chances seemed good he’d still live in their lands.
The demonhunter and the rogue attracted little attention as they made their way through the city. Kari supposed that in the dingy, stained old plate mail complemented by her wings, she probably just looked like another half-demon to the common eye. Whatever acceptance the serilian-rir were gaining in recent years, they were still considered by many to be dangerous and not to be trifled with. In this instance, Kari was glad for that; one person spreading gossip about her returning to the city could bring down another, more insistent and deadly attack by their dragon and vampire enemies.
“Official business only,” one of the guards at the keep told them, barring their way.
“We’d like to speak with the elven ambassador, is she still here?” Kari asked.
“What’s your business with the elf?”
“It’s a private matter,” Kari nearly growled. In that moment, she gained a new appreciation for how much more authority and respect she received when acting as a member of her Order. The guard didn’t seem impressed, merely smirking at her and exchanging a glance with his partner across the way. “Can you at least deliver a message to her?”
“I doubt that prissy elf would waste her time on a couple of tramps and vagrants,” the human scoffed. “Why don’t you lot run along and hunt some tree goblins?”
Kari’s balled a fist, but Aeligos stepped forward and held out his hand toward the guard, clutching something. The guard opened his hand, and Kari watched her companion drop one, two, three, and finally a fourth gold coin into the guard’s hand. “If you could inform the lady that a couple of adventurers have invited her to dinner at the Pyre Peaks to discuss passage into the elven lands, we’d appreciate it.”
“Sure thing,” the guard said, biting one of the coins before he dropped them in a pocket.
Kari stared hard at the guard, but her gaze had softened from fury to disappointment. If she found any of her Order’s people extorting bribes out of people to do their job, she’d toss them headlong into the dungeon to rot beside Joaquim, her former assistant who’d been selling secrets to their enemies. The guard still had that obnoxious smirk on his face, and Kari imagined knocking it off with a right hook and then cutting off his asinine goatee with her dagger. All it would have taken in that moment was for him to make one more gesture, like blowing her a sarcastic kiss, and she might have done just that.
Aeligos turned and made his way back northwest, toward the Pyre Peaks, and Kari fell into step beside him. “Where did you get money?” she asked.
“I guess Annabelle and Zaliskower had no use for it; there were a couple of coin purses amongst all that armor and weaponry,” he answered. “Good thing it jingles, or I would’ve never found it in that darkness.”
“You really didn’t see the light that was leading us?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I thought you could just see a little better in the dark than I could. You were following some kind of light?”
“I think it might’ve been an angel or something,” Kari answered with a nod, and speaking of it made her smile. “Remember when Se’ceria’s spirit came to commune with her daughter? It was a little bit like that.”
“Really? Hmph. Wonder why I couldn’t see it…?” Aeligos mused with a shrug.
Kari patted his shoulder and they continued onward. The day was mostly gone, so it was time to enjoy a long overdue bath, a hot meal, and a bed. Kari was hyperaware of her griminess at this point, especially when a meeting with an elven druidess was looming. She was dirty and streaked here and there with dried blood, some of it hers, some of it their enemies’, and some of it from whatever poor soul had worn this plate mail before her. She was pretty sure the gnolls they encountered might find her attractive at this point.
Tomorrow would require significant resupplying. When she thought of her equipment, Kari thought primarily of her armor and her swords. How quickly she had grown to miss the simpler things like her bedroll, a blanket, or her canteens when forced to live off the land. The elves may have taught her the ways of the ranger, but she still never got used to sleeping on the cold ground or subsisting only on what she could find on any given day. She’d need all the sundries and more: her armor requiring fitting, cleaning, and polishing.
The innkeeper fixed them with an appraising gaze when they entered and approached the bar. Aeligos put a handful of gold coins on the polished wood surface, and that changed the man’s disposition immediately. Kari was so used to the instant respect that being a demonhunter usually evoked in people; having to pay them up front or outright bribe them made her remember her own sordid past. Even once she’d cleaned herself up and gotten respectable work with the help of the demonhunter Mick Jacobs, Kari still had to buy most of the respect she got as a teen, even from her employers.
Kari let Aeligos handle the talking, and soon they had a room with a private tub, and two hot meals with drinks lined up. They went upstairs to get washed off first, and Kari realized yet another thing she missed having: spare clothes. A quick search of the room’s wardrobe turned up a set of his-and-her robes. It would take some finagling to get them to fit their winged forms correctly, but it was better than putting the dirty armor back on after getting washed.
Servants brought up hot water and filled the tub to a good temperature. Kari supposed it was more important to her than to Aeligos. As soon as the door closed behind the servants, Kari stripped off the dirty armor and her soiled undergarments and hopped in the tub. As much as she wanted to soak in the steamy water and try to recover the warmth she’d lost in the castle of shadows and sleeping on the cold ground, she set to washing off quickly.
The tub wasn’t large enough for two, so Aeligos got undressed and leaned on its edge while he waited. As much as he avoided looking at her, Kari could see he was aroused, and she found that rather strange. She and Aeligos had been close for years, training martial arts and living together, but he had always been so professional and their relationship completely platonic from her perspective. To find him aroused, especially dirty, bruised, and battered as she was, came across as extremely out of place.
“Have you always been like this around me, and I just never noticed?” she asked, trying not to sound too condescending. She did have a habit of walking around naked in front of her family; did all of them find it as uncomfortable as Aeligos apparently did?
“Not usually,” he said quietly, folding his arms across his chest. He still wouldn’t meet her gaze. “It’s just, well…I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but…Grakin asked me to, ah, take care of your needs if it came up. Said he hasn’t been able to for months. And as much as I hate to admit it, since he said that, it’s been difficult to get out of my mind, being this close to you.”
Oh, Grakin, Kari thought. Why put your brother in such an impossible position? She couldn’t help but think of Aeligos’ words during their last night here at the Pyre Peaks. Grakin had to know his brother had feelings for Kari, and to even suggest th
at he wanted them to share intimacy for her sake seemed unfair. Grakin was trying to do the selfless, compassionate thing, she knew, but it had caused tension between them.
“I know he meant well, but that’s not going to happen,” Kari said dismissively. “We’re both either married or mated, and it wouldn’t be fair to anyone involved. Not to mention, things would never be the same between us.”
Aeligos shrugged. “Eryn and I see it differently. Sometimes sex is just sex, Kari. If you’re worried I’ll keep asking, I won’t.”
“It’s got nothing to do with that. Well, it does, but that’s not the biggest part of it,” she answered. “The way you look at someone changes once you’ve shared that with them. I think that’s why you rarely see people remain friends after a relationship has gone sour. You can say you’re still friends and that it doesn’t matter, but I don’t think it’s ever true. Or if it is, only in rare circumstances. If you and I have sex, I’m never going to be comfortable sitting in a room with you and Eryn together again. I can assure you of that. Hell, now I’m already going to wonder what she’s thinking every time she looks at me in the future.”
“I understand,” he said, managing to finally turn and look at her. “I know how to take no for an answer. I’m sorry to have brought it up.”
“It’s all right,” Kari said, not considering the sigh before it escaped her. “I do love you, Aeligos, but as a brother. And that’s how I want to keep it.”
Kari finished washing her hair and rose from the tub. Aeligos handed her a towel and she patted herself dry, then moved to sit on the edge of the bed to let the air finish drying her off. Aeligos climbed in the tub and started washing, and it only took Kari a moment to realize he was putting on quite a show for her, turning and strutting about. She put her hand over her eyes and laughed, then made her way to the wardrobe to try getting that robe to fit.
“You’re a horse’s ass,” she told him.
He chuckled behind her, but it sounded almost bitter. She hoped their relationship wasn’t going to be strained now. “Can I ask you a personal question?” he queried.
Kari looked at him over her shoulder, trying to convey to him with her facial expression not to ask the question she was afraid was coming. “What is it?”
Aeligos climbed from the tub and started drying off. Neither of them had managed to wash their wings well, but he seemed as pleased to be freshly bathed as she was. “Do you plan to remarry once Grakin dies?”
Kari looked down, closed her eyes, and sighed. That was a question she had avoided for months. What did she plan to do once Grakin was gone? She had family to help her raise the children, but with the duties of her position – especially if she became Avatar of Vengeance – she’d need a lot more than help. The children needed a father, but Kari honestly wasn’t sure what was to be done about that. Closing in on forty years old, and as a mother of two, she just didn’t think she would be very tempting to suitors. Here I am, a middle-aged woman with two children by another man. Oh, and I have a tendency to get sent on life-threatening missions all the time. Who’s going to be interested in a date, or anything besides casual sex?
She sighed again and worked to calm her nerves. “Did you have to bring this up now?”
“Well, we’re already talking about Grakin being concerned about you,” he answered semi-defensively. He approached Kari silently and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Trust me, this isn’t something I want to talk about, but he’s having trouble bringing it up with you himself. He’s worried about you, Kari. We all are.”
Kari tried to pull herself together, but the tears wouldn’t be denied. She sniffled as they fled down her cheeks. This was not what she wanted to think about or deal with, not out here on a mission. She had to focus on defeating Annabelle, putting a stop to the vampire’s reign of terror, and possibly driving away Zaliskower in the process. She was dealing with Grakin’s dying as best she could, but out here in the field, she couldn’t spare the emotions or thoughts on it. There was too much at stake. And yet her emotions overrode her thinking.
Aeligos turned her around to pull her into an embrace. All she wanted in that moment was to feel the warmth of Sakkrass holding her, but her brother-in-law would have to suffice. “I can’t deal with this right now,” she said quietly over his shoulder.
“Kari, you should…”
“Aeligos, no,” she snapped, the sorrow diving for cover under her fury. “If we go out there to fight Annabelle and I’m thinking about who’s going to help me raise my children, I’m going to die, and then Grakin’s going to be wondering the same thing. I cannot deal with this right now. We’ll see to it after the mission is done. But for now, drop it.”
“All right,” he said with a sigh.
“Get dressed. The last partner I had sex with during a mission ended up as a vampire. That’s not going to happen again. We need to focus.”
Aeligos chuckled, and Kari’s fury finally cooled off a bit. She could see he was still concerned. “So our plan is basically to recruit a dragon or two, rally the Red Mask, and overrun the place?” he asked.
“More or less,” she answered, finally tying the robe so it sat modestly, if ridiculously. “Right now, we need to ask Peri if she knows whether Ashurinax the Black still lives in the land of the elves. He’s a black dragon, but he and I became friends – long story. If he still lives there, we can either ask him to help us, or at least help us get in touch with Alamarise. Assuming he and Alamarise don’t hate each other. I have no idea about the politics between dragons.”
“What about the dragon riders you mentioned? Is there anything to that, or did it just make you think of recruiting a dragon to help?”
Kari shrugged and waited for Aeligos to finish getting his robe on the same way she had. He managed to fold his wings tight enough to his back to lay the robe over them, though it would still be obvious what he was even at first glance. “I figure if there’s anything to the legends, one of the dragons that lives here on Terrassia must know about it. I’m not sure how old Ashurinax is, but stories about Alamarise go back centuries, and Fireblade is fairly old, too, from what I understand. Not that we’ll be asking her for help, mind you.”
“That’s the red one you fought?”
They left the room and headed down to the commons. “Yes. We killed her mate and one of her children. There were five of them at the time.”
“I can’t believe you engaged five red dragons,” he said with a shake of his head.
“We didn’t. We engaged one, then we found out there were more. Well, we knew there were more, but we thought we’d caught one of them alone.”
“You’ll have to tell me all about it some time,” he said hopefully.
“Maybe on the road to Laeranore or wherever we go next. Oh good, it looks like Peri got our message.”
The elf looked up at the poorly-robed rir, but Kari made a subtle gesture for her to not get up and greet them. The druidess waited until Kari and Aeligos reached the table before she stood and addressed them formally. “Greetings. I understand you wished to speak with me?”
Kari bowed toward her stiffly. She had no idea if anyone recognized her and Aeligos; the innkeeper didn’t seem to when they arrived. Perhaps serilian-rir were more common here, and the inn saw a lot of them pass through. Whatever the case, Kari simply hoped word would not get back to Annabelle and Zaliskower too quickly that they had returned to Solaris. “Yes, my lady. Would you mind coming to one of the private booths to speak?”
Kari gestured toward one of the partitioned booths with a closeable door, and the elf preceded them inside. “What is with the deception, my friends?” she asked once the doors were closed. Partition or no, they kept their voices down to avoid eavesdroppers.
“We’re trying to make sure Annabelle and the dragon don’t know we’ve returned here,” Kari explained. “We were captured, and barely escaped with our lives. As it stands, we’ve lost most of our equipment and money.”
“Well, I can at least
help you re-equip yourselves,” Peri offered. “I am certain the Queen would be partial to your cause, and would gladly help outfit you on our account. I sense, however, that there is more to this situation; how were you captured?”
“They spotted us somehow,” Kari said, but she waved off the elf’s blushing. “It wasn’t your blessing; that did its job pretty well. I think we just got too close to that dragon, and he came out and…I don’t even know, breathed some kind of darkness on us, and we woke up in what I can only describe as oblivion, if not hell.”
Peri listened with wide eyes, and Kari continued, “We had the opportunity to try to kill Annabelle, but that dragon is simply too much for us. I can protect us from his breath, but that just turns any fight into a physical melee, which we weren’t equipped to handle. Certainly not against a dragon, even if he was grounded. I wanted to ask you if Ashurinax the Black still lives in Laeranore?”
“Ashurinax? Oh, not for some years now. While my people were never fond of him, and in fact quite distrustful of the onyx drake, we left him be after you secured his promise to bring us no harm. However, as I understand it, he left our lands not too many years after you left us. I do not believe he even lives upon Terrassia anymore, though it is difficult to be certain. Dragons are reclusive in the best of times.”
Kari had to wonder if Ashurinax was even still alive, or how she could find out. “What about the silver, Alamarise? What do your people know of him?”
“Alamarise is an interesting specimen. It is recounted among our tales that he was once a mount to what your people called dragon riders,” she explained, pausing for just a moment when Kari and Aeligos exchanged raised brows and smiles. “According to the legends, his rider was killed in battle, and Alamarise became a bit of a pacifist after that, watching events unfold from his cloud castle, but generally refusing to become directly involved. He is very rarely seen these days, though there was a time when his great radiant form could be seen flying high overhead, keeping vigil over our island.”
