“The symbol of a promise kept,” I explain, rising and looking past her to the young boy who peeks his head out from behind his mother. He remains silent, but those piercing eyes stare back at me without fear. He is used to my presence, to my monstrous form, the darkness beneath the cloak. I am his tutor and companion, his only friend when his mother leaves this dark mansion and returns to her mate and other children. “I have honored my word, lady. And in seventeen years…my debt will be complete…”
“Seventeen years?” she cries, “But what of now! Do you not know how my son suffers!”
My blue eyes are soft and sad upon the woman, for I know well how the little one suffers. For his mother, he is strong and silent and brave. But before me, he has cried and lamented his own form. His mother is beautiful and could not understand the agony of being despised. But those are the child’s secrets to tell or to keep, and she would not understand them anyways.
I reply in a low rumble, “We all suffer, lady. But his suffering will allow him a gift unlike any I have ever seen before…one who will turn his sorrow into joy…have patience.” I bow again and rumble, “Until then, Sorcerer Guardian…take good care of the gift you have been given…” And then I leave for the very last time.
Chapter Sixteen
Everything he loved was to be taken. Everything he ever hoped for, ever wanted. Alvaro knelt against the hearth and wept into his hand, unable to contain the sobs within his chest. He almost hadn’t heard it, the soft sound of a door creaking open. But he did, and he gasped, picking his head up. It couldn’t be, but…he turned his head to look…and indeed, it was not Keturah, but instead her young son, Jacob. The boy stared at the Guardian with such surprise that Alvaro simply could not move, helpless to do anything but stare back at the child, waiting for him to run screaming down the hall from which he had come, almost wanting it.
But instead, the boy swallowed and took in a breath before stammering, “U-um…are you okay…s-sir?”
Alvaro just stared at the child, horribly confused and trying to piece together his scattered thoughts. “What?” he rasped, and the boy jumped a little.
Even so, Jacob stood where he was. “You’re… crying… are you okay?…C-can I help?”
Alvaro just watched the boy and after, a moment, hid his face behind his hand and laughed just slightly, trying not to startle the child. Of course…Jacob was her son, after all. “No…no, I am not okay, Jacob…but there is nothing you can do…” Alvaro sighed and turned to sit with his back against the mantle. He looked down at his hands with an aching heart. She would be leaving soon…they would take her away from here.
Jacob stepped forward hesitantly. “Y-you must be… Lord A-Alvaro…”
Alvaro looked up at him, his heart both pleased and saddened that the boy was not too afraid to stay. “Indeed, I am,” said he, looking up at the child with soft, sad eyes.
Jacob nodded slowly and said, “Um…why are you so sad? I can go find mother…she’ll make it better…she always makes me better when I’m sad.”
Alvaro gave a pained smile and almost laughed with bitterness. “No…your mother is very angry with me…that is why I am sad…because she is angry and because… because she is going to be taken away.”
Jacob’s eyes widened. “But…but why? Did you do something wrong?”
Alvaro sighed and looked back down at his hands. “Yes…I lied to her…and now she will be gone…”
Jacob slowly moved into the room, moving closer towards the Guardian who sat in utter despair upon the floor. “I bet…if you go talk to her…she won’t be mad anymore…mother gets mad a lot…but if you say sorry, she won’t be mad anymore…and then she’ll stay…” Alvaro looked up at the child, and the boy gave a little smile. “I bet she will… mother says nice things about you…that you are really nice…and that you’re a good person…she’ll stay…”
But the man sighed softly, shaking his head. “It is not only that, Jacob…others are angry too…they are the ones who will take her away.”
Jacob frowned, watching him. “But…why?”
Alvaro looked to him hopelessly and said, “Because she is not what they want for me.”
Again, the boy frowned. “But…is she what you want?”
That seemed to confuse the creature who made a very peculiar face and said, “Of course…she is more than I ever dreamed…and everything I want…”
Jacob shrugged. “Then…why not tell whoever wants to take her away? I bet they’d listen.”
Alvaro gave a half-hearted smile and wished it were so easy. “I am afraid they won’t…”
“But why not?” the child insisted. “If they care about what they want for you then…then they should listen to what you want.” He put his hands behind his head, leaning a bit. “Otherwise, ta Hell with ‘em.” Alvaro almost laughed, quite certain that Keturah had taught him that phrase. “If they don’t care enough about you to listen to what you want, then you shouldn’t care what they think.”
“But…I have no way to stop them…” he said softly.
Jacob frowned. “But…mother says you’re one of the most powerful sorcerers there is…”
Alvaro looked back to him. “I am.”
“Then who can stop you?” Jacob asked, watching Alvaro sit there in silence, thinking with dread upon defying his family. He did not agree with his father, nor really any of his siblings. He enjoyed their company upon occasion, and he did love them, especially his mother. Defying them…it would be throwing away everything they were, everything they had worked so hard for. His own mother had sought out the Dark Sorcerer for him. How could he simply turn his back on them?
“Didn’ tha nice lady bring mother here?…She even knew tha’ mother was a girl.” Alvaro’s eyes widened just a bit. Yes, his mother had brought Keturah here. But why… “Then if she thinks mother should stay and you think mother should stay and I think mother should stay and mother wants to stay then…well…who cares about anything else?”
Alvaro studied the boy for a long while, and then closed his eyes and hung his head, smiling bitterly to himself. And then, he laughed. It was an awful sound, and Jacob trembled and took a step back, watching the huge beast warily as he covered his face and laughed softly. Jacob stood his ground, watching Alvaro very intently before the man quieted and stood very slowly. The boy’s eyes turned huge.
“You are…alarmingly wise, child…and straightforward …you are most certainly Keturah’s son…” He looked to Jacob who mostly just looked very uncertain. “Come…you are right…let’s go find your mother…I must speak with—” Keturah’s scream shattered every thought in his mind. It was not anger or even fear he heard in her voice. Only pain. So much pain. His heart nearly stopped and then slammed into his chest. The gardens. It came from the gardens.
“Keturah,” he breathed her name, and then he was running. He heard Jacob scream behind him and paused, looking over at the boy who had gone white as a sheet and was trying to catch up. With little time to be gentle, Alvaro scooped the child up. The safest place in the manor was with Alvaro, even if it was in the heart of danger. And so, with the tiny child clinging to his shirt, Alvaro burst out into the main room and leapt over the banister, not bothering with the twenty feet of stairs. He crashed into the main floor, and everything cracked and caved beneath him. The gardens. She was in the gardens. Keturah!
He saw the dark form as he ran into the ballroom, a huge, black form crouched in the gardens, and the doors could hardly open quickly enough for him to get through. “You!” he snarled at the sight of the Beast, and at the sight of him crouched over a very still Keturah, Alvaro released a heart-wrenching sound from his chest, a great bellow of a roar that shook even the mountains. All the glass in the manor shattered, and the cobblestone steps cracked. The whole earth hummed with the resonate sound of his cry, and Jacob lay trembling against him. Alvaro hit his knees before the creature, setting Jacob down and reaching for the pale, cold woman. He made a strangled, agonized sound.<
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“Mother!” Jacob cried, trying to squeeze between the two giants to get to Keturah.
She was so cold, her skin ashen white and her lips turning purple and blue in a few places. He could see blue veins in her neck and up into her cheeks, and there was no trace of breath or heart. “What happened?” Alvaro rasped, not even bothering at the moment with why the sorcerer was in the gardens, holding Keturah carefully. Surely this was worse than any fate he could have imagined. At least if she were gone, he could pretend that she lived some happy life, she and her son. But to watch her die…no, he could not watch her die…
“Alexzander. The man who hunts her,” the Dark Sorcerer snarled, and then Alvaro noticed the blood. The creature had sliced his hand open and pressed it to hers. His blood, ancient and powerful, ran through her veins, pumping through her heart, holding back the poison. Another roar shook the garden.
“Enough,” the Beast hissed, glaring down at the man who reached out and pitifully touched Keturah’s cold cheek. “She is not dead. But she will be soon. I am keeping her alive by a thread…but I cannot cure her.” The Beast had never so violently fought with death, but the two raged together in that garden. “You must find Alexzander and kill him. Poison is easy to deal with. Black magic is not. Kill him to sever his tie to her, and I can cure her.”
Alvaro met his gaze with so much hatred, not for him but for the man who hunted Keturah. “Where do I find him?”
He winced at a wave of pain and hissed, doubling over the girl in his arms. “To…to the west of Kaldir. It is called Ansliegan. There is a den of thieves there. The Golden Dragon will be among them.” Alvaro stood, but the Sorcerer rasped a warning, “He may not be as powerful as you, but he will kill you if you are not careful. Black magic is a dangerous game to play.”
Alvaro glared down at him without a shred of softness in his eyes. “No. Challenging me was a dangerous game to play. And now, I will answer him.” He said nothing after that, merely watching him turn to the boy and say quietly, “I must go, Jacob. Protect your mother.”
Jacob looked back at him, face red and covered in tears and snot. But the boy hiccupped and sobbed a bit before nodding. “Go kill Lex.”
Alvaro winced to hear such a thing from a child, but he nodded and rose once more. He left the gardens, out past the broken glass and into the courtyard. He lifted his hands, palms up, and the stone structures in the courtyard all shattered. He roared out his pain and rage, heart hammering with hatred in his chest. The rubble of stone gathered near to him, each finding its place in the form of a horse, and the eyes glowed red. Alvaro mounted the colossal creature and grabbed the reigns. “To Ansliegan!” he cried, and the stone horse screamed, thundering out of the courtyard with a trail of magic behind him.
◆◆◆
Ansliegan was not a close town, not in the least, but Alvaro had magic and a steed that required neither food nor water. He did not stop, not for anything. He thundered his way along the main road, not even bothering to notice when people ran from him, shrieking “Monster!” “Demon!” He had to reach Ansliegan.
Hold on, Keturah…
He reached Ansliegan by nightfall the next day, and when he rode his mount into the city, those still awake and outside screamed and ran indoors. The houses were all worn and old, clumped together in a little community of vices. The roads were filled with mud and filth and probably some blood and other excrements as well. A few men cried out in alarm and shot arrows at him, but they did not even scratch his thick skin, only tore slightly at the clothes he wore. More people came out, beginning to shout to each other, calling out. Alvaro ignored them all.
Finding the den of thieves was not hard. It was a tall building surrounded by the most haggard and deplorable looking creatures. The roof was split, shingles falling off, and the windows were little more than holes in the stone from which came the stench of death and black magic. He stopped there and dismounted. “Alexzander!” the Guardian roared, throwing himself from his horse to land upon the ground and his feet sank deep into the earth, his gravelling voice filling every crevice, every space within the town.
Alvaro counted the seconds, and on the sixth one, the door to the den opened, and out stepped the most pitiful looking man. He was barely even larger than Keturah, lean and lithe with that same impertinent air of opulent boredom surrounding him. Those golden eyes moved to him and assessed him with a calm, quiet arrogance. “Greetings, monster,” he said quite casually as Alvaro stared at the tiny imp of a man who had made Keturah’s life so very miserable. “I assume, then, that you are the beast. I saw you in her mind.”
Alvaro ignored him and snarled, “Death has come for you, Alexzander. You will harm Keturah no more.”
Something flashed in Alexzander’s eyes, something dark and poisonous. “Keturah belongs to me, creature. You brought this upon her. You took her from me. But she will always…be…mine.”
Alvaro roared in his wrath and gathered his magic to him, throwing it at the bastard. But Alexzander put up a shield of shadows, and it blocked the attack. Those who were mortal and fancied to keep their lives fled the pair of them, and the two stepped out into the open area before the den.
Those around them scarce could tell—and it could not be explained with words—what transpired next. There was a flash of blue, then of red. Spirals of light and screams of rage exploded between the men, and not only magic but form as well. The wind howled the way wind does not speak, the way only magic lives and breathes. Streaks of power split from the pair in between screams of agony and cries of vengeance. They struck houses and shattered solid stone, throwing up lights and smoke and engulfing the den in magic, leaving that place as a scar upon the earth.
Alexzander drew his sword and charged the giant, blending power and darkness with his swordsman skills. Alvaro had no use for a sword but instead forged a great ax from magic and cleaved at the tiny man, magic pouring off of him in waves. The blades struck and power crashed. The great creature, despite being so large, was swift on his feet and adept in eyes, able to follow the smaller man’s movements. Alexzander struck more blows than Alvaro. He came in quick for small, painful cuts—a jab to the shoulder joint, a cut to the thigh, a slice across the neck, a stab to the chest, a slice to the side, a jab at the hip. None bled enough to be of concern, but they were slowing him down, and the pain of them cut through Alvaro’s rage.
“You are beaten, monster!” Alexzander screamed when Alvaro stepped back, panting hard. And then, Alexzander went in for the final blow, dark magic swirling around him in a violent torrent of power. But Alvaro was more clever indeed. Although his ax slipped from the blood in his hand, he bore a mace in the other, and he twisted all at once, heaving the great ball of spikes straight into Alexzander. Thick, sharp spikes laced with magic pierced him through and through, and Alvaro slammed the creature into the ground, crushing him there and shooting out burst after burst of magic to mangle the body beyond repair, shredded by the giant mace.
All fell silent around him. No one spoke or moved. Alvaro breathed with slow, heavy breaths, sweat mixed with blood running down his face, burning his eyes. At last, he collapsed to one knee, then to his hands. His body trembled, spent and worn. Blood seeped from his wounds, and he did not have the magic to heal himself. Everything ached, and he was drained of power for the moment. “Keturah…” he rasped, staring down at the ground beneath him which spun and blurred and darkened in his sight.
“Grab the monster!” someone shouted quickly, and all at once, the little dung heap of a town began to move.
“Ky, get some rope!”
“Thane, secure a cage downstairs!”
“Someone knock him out!”
“Bind him up!”
Alvaro didn’t even care. Alexzander was dead…and Keturah…Keturah would be alright…he collapsed into the dirt, a soft smile on his face.
Chapter Seventeen
With Jacob’s help, the Dark Sorcerer managed to move inside with Keturah in his arms, his hand sti
ll clutching hers, blood flowing between the pair of them. Never had he ever dared such an invasive form of healing with anyone else before. His blood was pure and precious and inundated with magic. In comparison, Keturah’s blood was weak and stale in his form. But he pulled her blood to him, the poisoned blood, and he pushed his power into her form, keeping her alive, keeping her heart pumping.
Her skin had turned a transparent sort of white, the likes of which he had never seen. Her veins were blue and easily visible under her skin, snaking up her neck and into her cheeks. Her lips were purple now, and her hair had begun turning a silver color in certain parts. Strand by strand, each succumbed to the poison, silver taking over the black. It started at the front of her face, the hairs that lingered there, one by one turning white until a whole tiara of silver hair framed her face.
Jacob moved them inside, and the creature managed to heave each massive leg up one stair and then another, moving into Alvaro’s solar. She seemed safer there and more comfortable than in her apartment of rooms. He could smell her more strongly in this room than any other, and he tried to smile but only managed to grimace. He collapsed before the hearth, the fire still blazing with Alvaro’s magic. The whole room buzzed in his presence, concerned for Keturah and uncertain about the Beast who held her.
Jacob sat beside him, leaning his cheek against his mother’s arm and looking up at her face with such hopelessness and desperation. The child rubbed her arm, trying to be soothing, and after a while, the monster could hear him murmuring something, a song perhaps, but it was difficult to make out a tune or words past his sobs and sniffling.
For almost two days the Dark Sorcerer held her there just like that. He could feel no breath from her lungs, only the slow, weak beat of her heart as his blood pumped through her veins, holding her to this world. Neither of them moved. He could not sleep, nor eat, only hold her in his arms and pray that Alvaro was swift and victorious. He did not have the strength to kill the Golden Dragon and keep Keturah alive, and he did not have the strength to keep her alive for much longer.
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