Birds and Prey

by Lexi Johnson

  When they were ready to go, Haytham took the charm the princess had given them.

  Laire had told them first to go to the temple: the majority of the Bright Elves would be there. Taking Haytham’s hand, Sade closed her eyes.

  Another flash of heat passed through her body…

  And then she was caught in a wave of dancers. They moved almost as though they were one body around her. One, taller and broader than his partner, spun towards Sade, who was a touch too slow to keep the elf from smashing into her. Sade coughed, the pain of the impact knocking the breath out of her.

  Stumbling, she lost her grip on Haytham. Sade turned, looking through her mask’s tiny eye-slits to find her partner. But the river of dancers in their masks and flowing silk all blended together in a cacophony of color and movement.

  It was too hot in here. Sade did her best to stay in step with the other elves, who were moving counterclockwise around the floor. If she could just get to the outer edge of the dance, she’d be able to get out and find her bearings -- find Haytham.

  A dancer stepped nimbly in front of her, and before Sade could protest, took her hands. “My Lady,” he said. His voice was familiar, though Sade couldn’t figure out why.

  The elf was tall, with thin fingers like a violinist…

  An image of the instrument flashed through Sade’s mind, and her stomach lurched. Something I was supposed to have forgotten, she realized, as the stranger pulled her to follow him around the floor, in the dance.

  Sade had no choice but to clutch his hands, and tried her hardest to stay upright as her partner guided her this way and that, through steps and spins.

  Desperately, Sade reached for her connection to the wind, so that she could, at least, move gracefully. But the music and all the other elves drowned out the wind’s song, and Sade couldn’t keep from stumbling.

  Finally, the music slowed. Sade bowed, and tried to step away from her partner. Instead, he hooked his arm beneath hers and guided her -- thankfully, at last -- from the center of the floor.

  Along the side of the dance floor, elves milled about, socializing, circulating, laughing, as servants hummed between them on translucent wings. Sade looked at the wings with keen interested. Was this what Naira and Melda’s wings would have looked like, if the Edenost elves hadn’t clipped them? Perhaps the Bright elves were kinder than the ones Sade knew… Although, surely, it was equally possible that they merely displayed their cruelty in different ways.

  Her partner flagged down one of the servants. He handed Sade a flute of wine, and took one for himself. Sade held the glass awkwardly, as her partner lifted the base of his mask up to drink. A vague nausea had taken control of her body, and Sade swallowed it down fiercely.

  The elf spoke again. “You dance the mask of the Fool most elegantly, my Lady.”

  “Thank you,” Sade said, barely listening. All she could feel was the pressure on her to get out of here.

  The elf cocked his head. “Your voice…? We’ve met, but I admit I’m having difficulty remembering where.”

  “I think that’s the point,” Sade said brusquely, stepping away from him. She might not sound as elegant or flirtatious as a Crystal Court elven lady should, but she didn’t have time for this. “If you’ll excuse me…”

  “Wait!” The elf grabbed her gloved hand. In a mischievous, playful voice, he said: “Allow me first to risk the wrath of the Gods. My name is Meldigur. And you are?…”

  It was as though Sade’s skin was cracking like an egg on the inside. Shards of her past ground into her present.

  Meldigur. She knew him, somehow….

  Desperate to escape, Sade yanked her hand from his. In her haste and alarm, she wrenched herself free of the glove, but, not stopping to retrieve it or look back, she pushed away, into the milling crowd of elves.

  “Wait!” Meldigur shouted after her. “My Lady! Your glove!”

  Sade pulled the edge of her long sleeve over her bare hand to obscure it from view. The nausea was getting stronger. She was going to faint. She was going to vomit. Some of the wine from the glass she held in her other hand had spilled, soaking through her remaining glove. Where was Haytham? And where was her target -- the prince? The faster she could end his life, the faster she could leave this awful, gleaming, shining hell, and return to the cool and silence of the mountains and the wind.

  She seemed to have lost her pursuer. Sade pushed out from the center of the crowd to the edge, and, skirting its fringe, hunted for both her lost partner and her elusive target.

  As she moved along the edges of the crowd, the Crystal Court’s temple came into sight. It was a stark edifice of sculpted crystal branches. At the entrance stood a silver-bright gate of two, unadorned pillars; a third, inverted arc sweeping over the top.

  Globes of light, like lanterns, floated around the gate. A large flight of steps led up to the entrance, where, beneath the gate, stood two ornate chairs. One was empty. In the other sat a stately elf, wearing a golden circlet on his brow.

  Sade’s first thought was that it had to be the prince. But this elf seemed too old. The prince’s father, perhaps – the elven king.

  The prince was nearby, though. Not only had her soul-bond stopped hurting, but now a gentle warmth radiated from it, filling and soothing her, relaxing her whole body with a sense of well-being.

  “There you are.” Haytham’s voice was a comfort, and Sade relaxed as he materialized out of the flickering shadows. His firm hand on her arm was steadying.

  “Have you seen him?” he asked. “The prince?”

  “No. But he’s near.” Sade glanced at the entrance to the temple, where the great chairs stood. “I think that’s his father.”

  She felt Haytham’s hand tighten on her arm, and he drew her further back into the shadows. “If that’s true, we can’t just stand here, or trust to luck,” Haytham said. “You’ll need to try and feel him – try to track the prince.”

  Sade closed her eyes. She could feel the bond. The feeling was warm and pleasant, for the first time in her memory. She knew the prince was near – she was certain of that -- but that was all she knew.

  “I don’t know…” she began.

  Then she heard Meldigur’s voice shouting. “My Lady! There you are.”

  “Who’s that?” Haytham’s whisper was harsh in her ear.

  “Aranion’s friend,” Sade said without thinking. How did I know that? she asked herself.

  “Then,” said Haytham, “maybe he can tell us where the prince is.”

  Sade wasn’t sure that was such an excellent idea. But she didn’t think there was any way for them to avoid Meldigur, either, as he was walking right toward them, with a gesture of greeting.

  Better to acknowledge him. “Yes,” she said, trying to sound polite but dignified.

  Meldigur bowed to her. “You forgot your glove.”

  Between the noise of the harp and the press of people, Sade couldn’t even hear the song of the wind.

  “Thank you,” she said. She hesitated for a moment, then handed the glass with the remains of her wine to Haytham, and held out her gloved hand, palm up, to accept her second glove.

  But instead, Meldigur said, “Let me,” and without asking for permission, reached for the draped sleeve where she was concealing her bare hand.

  Sade shifted her body away from him. “I can do it.”

  Meldigur hesitated. “I know your voice,” he said, a second time. His manner was still merry and flirtatious, but there was a slight note of uncertainty now.

  Time to end this encounter, and quickly. “Thank you for returning my glove,” Sade said. “If I could have it back?”

  Meldigur shook his head. “Ah, my Lady! I sincerely doubt you’re as devout as you pretend.”

  Sade wanted to slap him. Whatever connection she’d had with Meldigur in her previous life, Sade doubted it had been pleasant. The man was too flighty, and took far too many liberties – especially right no
w, when time, and concealment, were so crucial...

  But maybe Haytham had been right. Maybe Meldigur could direct them to her target.

  “Have you seen the prince?” Sade asked, mustering all her charm to make her manner and light and airy as Meldigur’.

  “Oh! You My Lady, you won’t stand a chance of bedding him,” said Meldigur. “Surely, you’ve heard that his grace was soul-bonded to a mortal.”

  “I’d heard,” Sade said. “But that was short-lived. I suspect the prince’s glad to be free of it now.”

  Meldigur hesitated a moment. His brows drew together. “I don’t think one gets free of a soul-bond,” he said.

  “Well,” said Sade, “surely if one's partner dies.”

  “What do you want with His Grace, anyway? Even before the mortal, Aranion wasn’t one for casual dalliances.”

  “He wasn’t?”

  The words filled Sade with a sudden, reckless hope. Laire hadn’t said that the elven prince had had a string of women, after all. Only that he had betrayed the princess.

  Maybe…

  “Surely,” said Meldigur, “you know how a soul-bond works?”

  Sade didn’t, but before she could ask further, Haytham – with infernal timing -- took her by the arm. “This isn’t a good joke, Marid,” he said with a laugh that sounded forced. “We should go.”

  He bowed to Meldigur. “The wine has gone to my sister’s head,” he said.

  Meldigur tensed. His jaunty tone lost much of its friendliness. “Festival wine does not intoxicate. Who are you, and what business do you have with Aranion?”

  “It’s nothing,” Sade said.

  They had to get away from Meldigur. Away from all of this. It was all falling apart. The place where her soul-bond rested was getting hotter and hotter...

  Desperately, she reached for the wind’s song.

  To her left, beyond the temple gate, there was a break in the trees. Beyond that lay the open air. The wind. Sade focused, and, inside, something stirred.

  Meldigur made a grab for her again, but Sade easily avoided him. Slipping past the elf and Haytham, Sade lifted the skirts of her elven dancing costume and ran.

  “Guards!” Meldigur shouted behind her, but Sade barely heard, and didn’t really care. The running pushed wind into her lungs, and her chest burned, not with the ache of her bleeding, broken bond, but with life. Movement.

  Is this what Haytham feels when he flies?

  It was a wonder he ever let his claws touch the ground.

  Sade reached the opening in the foliage that bordered this immense space of elven design. She held onto a thick branch with her ungloved hand, and used it to steady herself as she leaned forward, teetering into the open air. The wind whipped through her robes, pushing them back so that they fluttered behind in a wave of emerald silk. She let the wind fill her, taking away the confusion, nausea and pain.

  It was at this moment that Sade realized she wasn’t alone on the ledge.

  Seated with his legs dangling over the edge was a young man, slender, almost painfully thin. He wore a mask, and his shining hair looked like that of all the other elves in this court. But Sade knew – with absolute certainty, beyond a doubt – that this was the prince. Her bonded mate. The man she had come here to kill.

  The prince looked up at her from behind his mask. He froze, staring at her. Sade stared back.

  “It can’t be,” the prince said, slowly. His voice cracked.

  He reached out to her. Sade’s heart lurched to see that his wrist was skin and bone. “How--?” he tried. “How--?”

  Sade’s hand dropped reflexively to the hilt of the heart’s blade at her waist. She’d concealed the blade in her sash. Now it slipped easily into her hand. She felt her hand tingle with the blade’s power, an aggressive rush it had never shown during her months of training.

  “Stay back!” Sade said.

  The prince removed his mask. Sade was struck breathless at his beauty.

  Beauty worn down to its essence. His features were sharp: high cheekbones, narrow lips, a straight nose that dipped at the tip, and wild, grey-blue eyes. The eyes compelled her, reminding her of her last storm on the mountain-top, when she and Haytham had stood together naked in the driving rain. The charged air had lifted the hair on her arms as the wind whipped over them, around them, and pierced them through.

  This, then, was the man who had betrayed her. The man who had made her a captive. And yet the naked joy and longing on his face also seemed real.

  “Sade…” The prince stood. He seemed shaky on his legs, and yet there was also a radiance lighting him up from inside. “Sade, how did you escape? I walked for weeks to find you, but I never thought I’d see you again!”

  Sade reached for her anger, trying to lasso her wildly surging emotions.

  “You did this to me, didn’t you?” she demanded. “You betrayed your word to Laire, and broke your promises to me, and cursed me with this soul-bond! It was you!”

  The prince looked shocked and confused. “I’d never have sent you away! Never with them! Never.”

  Sade blinked. Elves could only speak the truth...

  But there were too many things that might be true, and it might be that none of them were true enough. What she did know for sure was that the knife was warm and alive in Sade’s hand. With the wind singing through her, it would be easy. So easy to kill this beautiful man.

  Behind them, back on the platform, she distantly registered that Haytham and Meldigur were fighting. At the edge of her vision, she saw their blades glinting in the fey light as they slashed at each other.

  “But you’ve returned,” said the prince, beside her. “The Gods must have decided they’ve punished me enough. Please, Sade -- let me see your face!”

  He reached for her mask.

  Sade whipped the blade in front of her, slashing at the palm of his hand. A line of red blossomed from the wound. Pleasure sang through the arm that held the heartblade.

  “Sade!” Aranion shouted. “What are you doing?”

  Sade dropped into the first step of the wind-dance. She held the blood-stained heartblade out in front of her.

  If only she could get away. She didn’t want to kill this man: she knew that now, suddenly and clearly.

  But the blade wanted blood. And the dance was inside her now, mixing with whatever enchantment the princess had put on this weapon.

  “Stay back!” Sade shouted. “I’ll kill you!”

  Images came tumbling through her mind. Horseless carriages. Her brother, Charles. A forest hollow; Aranion’s fingers brushing over her back; the rightness of his touch, the heat of their union, and the gentle moments that had followed….

  He had saved her life!

  The memories were shards of glass falling inward. They ripped through the spell of forgetting, and Sade cried out, bleeding, in memory and pain.

  Still, her body danced. The wind and the blade moved her body, even without her will.

  And Aranion, the fool, was running toward her as though he could negotiate with the storm.

  Sade was weeping now. Her vision was blurring through the tiny eyeholes of her mask, and she couldn’t breathe. But the wind was inside her, so when Aranion came close enough to touch her, she stepped out of his grasp.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Sade said. And, as a truth, that meant something. Hurting him was hurting herself, and the pain of the bond – the pain Sade had been experiencing all this time -- had been the pain of their separation.

  Laire had known this and kept it to herself. But it had been Laire who had taken Sade. Laire who had ripped her memories away and trained Sade to serve the princess’s every whim.

  Bile rose to the back of Sade’s throat.

  Desperately, she tried to open her hand and drop the knife, but it was a part of her now. She saw, with a sense of inevitability, that the hilt had fused into the flesh of her palm. The knife was using her as its weapon now
.

  And, if Aranion kept coming at her, the knife would use Sade as its instrument to take her soul-mate’s life.

  The dance moved through Sade -- faster and faster. The guards were coming now. Good – finally! Maybe they could stop her. She certainly couldn’t stop herself.

  But Aranion -- the lovesick fool -- cried, “Stay back! Don’t touch her!” The guards stopped, then warily took up positions in a loose semicircle around the couple.

  “I can’t stop it,” Sade told him. “You have to run!”

  Sade had only three steps until the knife finished its work, and Aranion was doing nothing to defend himself. Nothing to get away. He stood before her, in front of the gap between the branches, and opened his arms.

  He said, “I’m not living apart from you again.”

  She hated him. She loved him.

  These were the final steps of the dance. Sade drew the wind into her for one final strike.

  ‘You are his greatest weakness,’ the wind whispered.

  That was her answer.

  In the silence that followed the wind’s declaration, Sade ran.

  She ran past the prince. And, though the knife wrenched her arm towards him, spinning her backward, her momentum was still enough to carry Sade over the edge.

  The knife, still eager for its target, ripped itself from her hand, taking with it a strip of flesh, but without a body to fuel the knife’s will, it too fell.

  Sade closed her eyes, and opened her arms to the wind.

  She was, at long last, free.

  Chapter 12: Wind Dancer’s Choice

  Perhaps because Haytham too was tapped into the song of the wind, he felt the moment when Sade chose to jump.

  He whirled, leaving Meldigur behind, and shifted as he ran. The agony of his change overcome by the terror that when Sade died, it would be too late to save their mission, too late for him to redeem his freedom. He refused to acknowledge the deeper fear: the loss he would feel without her.