An Ill-Fated Sky

by Darrell Drake

  That she was half-div didn’t so much as register; neither did any of the things that might’ve been seen as ugly. To Tirdad, she was beautiful.

  Shkarag straddled him without pretense, but with a carnal grace, as if swooping down like a raptor in flight. He reached out to stroke her thigh for the first time, trailing scar and blood where she so often kneaded. Her stare, sanguine and intense, darted to his touch. She laid one hand on his and squeezed so hard he could feel a sliver of bone beneath the surface. She bared her fangs, but didn’t let up. Instead, she bent at the waist to press her lips to his, other palm coming to rest against his cheek.

  Strange. It was short-lived, affectionate. When she pulled back, the look she gave him was anything but inscrutable; it mirrored the kiss. That didn’t last.

  She gathered more of her blood, fresh and hot, and smeared it over her mouth, then his. Tirdad breathed it in, tinny and, perhaps because he saw it in her, arousing. Shkarag shivered in his lap, and next thing he knew she was kissing him with the same wanton abandon as she had while drugged.

  All the while, Tirdad felt as if he were in a dream—as if this turn of events were nothing shy of impossible. He took her lead, teasing her fangs as he had before to the same approving hiss, indulging in the stench of eggs that clung to her breath, abiding by her will even when she took him by the hand to plug her wound with his thumb. It was more than mere lust; it was the closeness of it all, the immense leap of faith it must take for someone like her to do something so intimate.

  A sizzling rose between them, which broke Tirdad away to find her untying his sacred girdle, hands burning all the while. “Let me,” he offered, moving to help.

  She bared her fangs, patently embarrassed, and kept at it until the girdle fell away. Shkarag didn’t fight when he took her palms, grimacing at the burns and gingerly pressing his lips to each, though she did avert her gaze.

  Her embarrassment was quick to fall to the scent of fresh blood that hung in the air. She took his lapel in her fists and pulled him up into a sitting position, peeling his tunic over his shoulders and heaving rotten-egg breaths into his face. She looked crazed, wild. Straddling the thin line between lust and bloodlust. He loved how true she was to herself.

  Once she had his arms free, Tirdad plugged her wound again, which elicited a delighted hiss and further encouraged her grinding. That in turn emboldened him to take purchase on her ass with his free hand.

  She froze.

  “Shkarag?” He pulled his head back to get a good look at her. She was boring into his chest. A glance was all he needed: Ashtadukht’s stamp seal. Fuck. It hadn’t even occurred to him—he never took it off.

  She reached up hesitantly, fingers in a claw above it, and somewhere in her heaving, trembling pomegranate-red, she was asking permission. Tirdad nodded, too caught up in the moment and his newfound love for her to argue.

  Shkarag tore it from his neck and flung it into the city below. With the stamp seal gone, all that remained was an untrammeled desire, an unlikely pair, and a night made increasingly sinful as only a daughter of Eshm could. Until she died.

  • • • • •

  What followed was two months described by routine. The wait was made pleasant by Shkarag’s company, not to mention their incendiary relationship. While Tirdad still had his reservations, he knew they’d crossed a line—one they often revisited after training sessions. Waking up beside her would take some getting used to. This was the same half-div whose pranks had been endless, who couldn’t recall the past without clamming up. But death had changed that. The phylactery that brought her closer to who she used to be also dismantled the wall she’d erected against her struggles. Remembrance is a double-edged blade. Tirdad doubted she’d ever get over her paranoia or withdrawn nature, but that was Shkarag, and it made the care she did show all the more meaningful.

  He reflected on that as they travelled the long road to Dvin. She rode beside him, resting against the mane of her charger, scarf spread over her to provide shade. The more the garrison had witnessed their evening training, the more he and Shkarag walked the streets of Ray, the more comfortable the citizens were with her presence, until the scarf was only ever worn around her neck. Tirdad liked that she still wore it. From beneath her cover, she returned his stare as she was wont to do: darting and inscrutable.

  “Messenger’s here,” said Chobin from his left. “Wonder what it is now?”

  Tirdad looked up in time to see the messenger raise his right hand in salute, which both he and Chobin returned.

  “What news do you have for us?” asked Chobin. Burdened with anxiety over his command, he’d been less jovial the further along they were, though he was careful to wear a smile when around his subordinates.

  “The King of Kings, may he live forever, commands you to turn for Nisibis. Dvin is ours for the time being, and Nisibis is under siege.”

  “Goat-fucking—” Chobin screwed up his face before ironing a grin back on. “Thank you. Get some rest. You’ve no doubt been riding hard.”

  Once the messenger departed, he turned a strained grin on Tirdad. “What’d I fucking tell you? They retook the sturgeon-kissing city, and here I am empty-handed with neither glory nor loot.”

  Tirdad opened his mouth only to be cut off.

  “And don’t tell me there’s glory to be had elsewhere. This is my first meaningful command besides what your cousin forced on me.” Chobin deflated at his misstep, removing his conical cap to run his fingers through his hair. “Sorry. Damn insensitive of me.”

  Tirdad waved the apology away. “You don’t need to mince words. It won’t change what she did. But take it from someone who spent the last decade wallowing over what he should’ve done: it won’t get you anywhere. Nowhere enviable anyway.”

  “Hah!” Chobin slapped his back, spirits so effortlessly lifted. “Ah, but it got you here with me. A world where we aren’t comrades isn’t one I’d like to entertain. Not to mention you’re threshing a daughter of Eshm to boot!”

  The marzban leaned in. “I confess to peeping once or twice. Thought some of the pleasure women I’ve been with were inventive. Turns out they were amateurs. I’m not one to judge, but something is fucking off with the two of you.”

  Tirdad turned a knotted brow on Chobin. “You watch?”

  The marzban shrugged, grin growing by the second. “What do you expect when you’re going at it in my backyard? Figured the show was part of the deed. Sure as fuck wasn’t the only one to get tight in the trousers over your displays.”

  Head shaking yet unable to stifle a chuckle, Tirdad turned to Shkarag, feeling more embarrassed than he let on. “Hear that?” he asked. “The goat-fucker’s been getting off on us.”

  “. . .” She flicked her eyes from one to the other, lips parted and arm limp by her horse’s side. “Only see,” she replied at length, voice hoarse. “Only see the pomegranate-red when—” She coughed. “—only see it and—” Another dry cough.

  Tirdad put his waterskin to her lips, from which she took a gulp and finished her thought.

  “Only see the pomegranate-red and . . . and you.” Her attention found somewhere in the distance to flee to. “Maybe.”

  He offered her one of the regular smiles he hoped she saw. “Come to think of it, I guess I should be grateful you haven’t revisited that insult of my being pinecone-arsed, trying to make it a reality.”

  Still trained elsewhere, her lips grew marginally more crooked—not a smile, but it’d do.

  “Something is definitely fucking off with the two of you,” said Chobin, amusement plain. “All right. Let’s change course for Nisibis. We’ll make Hrom rue the day it went rabble-rousing.”

  Tirdad signalled one of his subordinates over, relaying the order and feeling out of sorts in doing so. He’d never actually held a position of authority, and likely never would have even if his family hadn’t been disbanded. “What’s the plan?” he asked once the subordinate was off to further relay the order.

  “So
mething they’ll remember,” said Chobin. “Want them to have second thoughts about besieging our cities and conspiring against us in the future.” He flashed a full-toothed grin. “Don’t know how yet, but now my blood’s boiling for it. You and me, Tirdad, we’re going to rout them and gain the favour of the King of Kings.”

  “Not sure what I’d do with that,” said Tirdad. “Besides, power is like a bird, jumping from branch to branch. I’d rather be the tree than try and please the bird.”

  “What would the tree be?”

  “Uh,” Tirdad scratched his head. “Ironwood? That isn’t the point. You struggle to gain the favour of one king only to have him replaced by another. Or your House dissolved.”

  “Birds shit on trees,” Shkarag countered. “Paint them whites and greens and blacks. Do you . . . saying you want me to shit on you? Not against it. Might just work. I think.”

  Tirdad bunched his nose at her. “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m telling you something is fucking off,” said Chobin.

  • • • • •

  They kept the Iranian plateau to their right, Drafsh regiment of one-thousand cavalry to their back, and plotted a course northwest until they reached the escarpments of Hayk—sheer and tenable—upon which they veered further west. This deposited them into the fertile plain known as the Land of Rivers. To one side a limestone range engraved a deformed boundary into the sky. Reminiscent of Shkarag’s grin, its crimped, snowy ridges were livened into plumes of powder by a constant gust. Where its incline leveled to plain, vast swathes of farmland stretched as far as the eye could see, their golden-brown harvests dominating the southern horizon except where incised by a wide river.

  Moving as a force, loaded with gear, combat imminent: resting their horses every few days was made all the more necessary. One such break had them camping in a gap in the ridge for cover.

  Tirdad had been waiting for the chance to strike out into the pastures and forests harboured by the mountain chain, and while fortune had favoured him with an encampment on its threshold, it sought to balance his good luck with torrential rain and an untimely chill. Still, he was determined. Chobin in tow, he scoured a grove of oaks not far from camp.

  “So,” asked Chobin, pulling back his hood now that they were sheltered by the canopy, “what now?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” said Tirdad. He squinted up into the broad-leafed oaks, rain pattering against leaves and crowding his eyes, the crisp scent of a nearby fir companion to the earthy aroma of rain. “There have to be some eggs around here somewhere.”

  “Have to say, searching after sundown and during heavy rain is not the brightest idea you’ve ever had.”

  “Sound reasoning, but the opportunity hasn’t presented itself. Between marching during the day, her always being around, and the scarcity of forests on the plain, this is the only chance I’ve been given.”

  Chobin craned to join him in squinting. “See anything?”

  “Nothing,” said Tirdad. He pressed further into the grove, searching branch after branch for a nest. “Oh, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask. She’s always gone at night. I don’t want to pry, but can’t help but wonder if your scouts have brought you any reports?”

  “Truth be told, I sent a few out whose only orders were to track her.”

  Tirdad broke his search to scowl at the marzban. “What? What in the seven fucking climes are you doing that for?”

  Chobin lifted his hands, palms out, and put on his most disarming grin. “Didn’t you just take a roundabout approach to asking me if I’d done just that?”

  Tirdad expelled a frosty sigh. “Yeah.”

  “Can’t blame a person for wanting to know where the div you’re harbouring is disappearing to at night. Not that anything came of it. Skink-slicker outpaces my best trackers. Guess it’s true the night embraces them.”

  Tirdad could blame him, and he did. “You don’t trust her.”

  Chobin’s grin strained. He found somewhere else to look. “Well, no.”

  His palm snapped to his ram’s head pommel. It urged him to act. His frosty breaths grew intense, became plumes. Deep red tinged with purple bled into his vision. A heat like mad desire swept over his skin, making his hair stand on end as it passed. Her voice came to him, quiet and understanding, laced with an accent he never could place, with a gentle hiss insinuated in its depths. She said his name. He remembered her in the busy thoroughfare, searching his eyes for something she recognized—something she knew intimately.

  He had his sword brandished, its starling-black menacing and aimed at Chobin.

  “Tirdad?” the marzban asked as if it weren’t the first time, smile gone, and having gripped the hilt of his own sword.

  Cold rushed in, quenching the fire that’d spread over Tirdad’s skin. It freed his mind. Whatever had him under its thrall retreated. Tirdad blinked. He cast from his blade to Chobin and back again. To its dismay, he sheathed it. He glanced from trunk to trunk, feeling out of sorts as if he’d left and instead of returning found another world. This one was like his, but not his. Not the same. Disturbing as it was, it passed as swiftly as it’d come.

  “Tirdad?”

  He blinked hard and shook his head. “Sorry.”

  Chobin visibly relaxed, a smile softening his features. His sword hand hung loose by his side. “What the ever—what happened there?”

  Tirdad shook his head again. “I don’t know.”

  He didn’t, and that troubled him. Perhaps Shkarag could tell him. She seemed to know more than she was letting on, though he didn’t believe for a moment she withheld it out of malice if so.

  “Really had me worried there,” said Chobin, trying to sound amused but failing to smother his concern. “You looked ready to cut me down. Didn’t like my odds after all the training you’ve been doing.”

  “Let’s just finish what we’re here for,” said Tirdad. Chobin prying would only make him all the more frustrated by his not knowing. He crossed further into the grove where it ran along a cliff, watching the treetops as he did. “You need to trust her,” he said after they were well into the forest. “She deserves as much. If not for me, then for what she did for your city.”

  “I know,” Chobin eventually replied from behind. “I know all too well. She saved our sturgeon-kissing asses back at your estate, too. But, Tirdad, have you forgotten that mere months ago she was the right hand of another half-div who brought so much death and destruction to the lands under my protection? To my people? Try as I might, I can’t just forget that.” He paused long enough to draw up beside Tirdad.

  “You love her,” he stated. “That much is evident, has been since before you were threshing. And that’s why I’ve went as far as I have in tolerating her. Because I respect you, and because you deserve to be happy even if it’s with a half-div. But I must keep the well-being of my people in mind. That means keeping tabs on her.” The marzban let out a self-deprecating laugh. “Not that I’ve had any success.”

  Tirdad couldn’t logically argue the assertion. Chobin was acting duly as marzban and protector, and with good reason. He knew as much. But it still irritated him, because even as he told himself it was irrational, the truth remained that people didn’t operate rationally. The wedge she drove between them deepened, if only marginally.

  “Good,” he said, now more interested in her eluding Chobin’s scouts than knowing what she did while out. He returned to his search, scanning everything overhead. “I’m not sure what’s in season. Think we’ll have better luck with the trees or the cliffs?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I’m only here as an extra pair of eyes. Eyes that can’t see worth copper in the dark, but eyes.”

  “You have moonlight,” replied Tirdad.

  “What moonlight? It’s pouring.”

  “All right. I admit this was an awful idea. She cooks for me every morning, so I thought it’d be nice to return the gesture.”

  Chobin laid a hand on hi
s shoulder. “Your heart is in the right place, my friend, but your mind leaves much to be desired.” Tirdad cracked a smile, tempered by his wish to be upset with the man. He was just too damn charismatic, too friendly.

  The clouds parted, throwing light on the grove and adjoining cliff as if the moon had overheard their conversation and refused to let its honour go undefended. Initially, the only difference it made was that his abortive search was now illuminated. Further drawing his scrutiny over the rock face, it glistening with the silvery sheen of rainwater, he made out the shadow of a recess. In that, a nest.

  “There,” he said, pointing. “My mind’s keen as ever.”

  “Clouds literally parted they felt so sorry for you,” Chobin mock-grumbled, squinting and following his finger. “Hard to tell, but could be a nest. How do you propose we reach it?”

  Tirdad deliberated the question, stroking the ram’s head pommel as he did. “The rock’s going to be slick, not that I’d be all that confident climbing even if it weren’t. Think the trees will support us?”

  “Us?”

  “Me.”

  “Maybe,” said Chobin, as if with a shrug.

  “Well,” Tirdad reckoned, “we’re wasting moonlight. Better try before it decides to slink back behind the clouds.” He approached the oak nearest the nest, went to remove his sword belt, realized how much of a mistake that’d be, then set to climbing. The oak bore him well, its wet branches not much of a hindrance. Tirdad scaled its trunk without trouble until he was level with the recess and the nest it held, relieved to find his eyes hadn’t deceived him. There were a pair of birds in the nest, obscured by shadow but with silhouettes that didn’t belong to a raptor. An important distinction to anyone looking to steal their eggs.

  He hadn’t actually considered how he should go about the task if the parents were around; he’d never really entertained the fine details of the act. Shkarag seemed to get along well enough, but how did she manage without being pecked and mauled?