Traitor to the King

by Clare SM Keating

Somehow Anouk had been able to move with incredible speed towards her home and she’d ignored every person that had dared to look in her direction. She seemed to move faster than she had ever done so before, in fact she was running home before she had realised it and her cheeks were starting to plaster with the familiar caress of tears. She had darted past the form of Jarl’s wife sitting and staring out at the pair dancing, she had ignored Lutas strolling around the library with one of his young friends and she had also ignored the form of Yeruell wobbling toward the bridges in search of the route towards the King’s palace and the Chamber of Reflection within the religious corridor. All Anouk cared about then was getting back home to a place she felt safe and screaming at the graves of her parents!

  In fact, when she did get past the waterfall passage and the edge of the gate towards the main household, she turned to the left and straight past the kennels. The Dreggs inside shuffled about in excitement to see her, but they could taste the salt of her tears and began to give wirrubs and chirps of upset at her sorrow. Their noises encouraged the three yellow Dreggs to bounce out of the house and follow Anouk away from the kennels and into a small cavern where the burnt ruins of her uncle’s living spaces remained. In front of this burnt wreckage were several long pillars of glittering crystal arranged about one another.

  To the far left of Anouk were the graves of her ancestors and people that had passed before her time, laid out in sequence and colour following the Klangschwert number they fell into. On the twenty-fifth row was the green crystal of her grandfather Barbanos, one for his wife, two for the younger brothers that had died and one for the twin of Anouk’s father that had been born without life. Anouk stroked the face of the tallest green spire lovingly before she turned to the twenty-sixth and a speckled white crystal that represented her father, another for her mother and one that had been painted with a blood-red eye to represent the treacherous grave of her uncle. It was in front of her mother’s crystal that Anouk sat on the ground and slapped the stone with a violent swear towards the universe for everything she was feeling right then.

  “Why do you punish me? Why must I suffer for something out of my control? Why did you hate me? I didn’t ask to be female… I didn’t insist on being created! All I ever did was obey and yet you always blamed me for everything wrong in your life. Why mother?” Anouk blurted at the air, tears spilling freely down her face for the first time in a very long while. She had not been so upset in years and it was nothing unusual for her to scream at her mother’s glittering gravestone.

  For Anouk, there had been no maternal care from the beginning and her mother’s reasoning was gender. In elder days the practice of leaving daughters to die was common amongst the nobles, but when the Sacred Women had taken the chance to intervene such a practice was outlawed. Noble daughters were given to them if a noble son came along or bartered off into arranged marriages; yet somehow Barbanos had blocked all such thoughts and actions regarding his granddaughter. The Benaga’s had never produced daughters before and though Aguilera had assumed herself at risk for having a girl, it had been a welcome surprise to the household. Barbanos had insisted on Anouk’s inheriting the title of Klangschwert and when Aguilera made a point to spurn her daughter, Barbanos and his step-daughter had found a willing nursemaid and with her father, Anouk had been brought up.

  Her mother had never given her another look and instead sought religious cleansings and penance to assist her greatest desire. Aguilera had gone to many ceremonies to attempt to produce a son, but it was never the case. After ten years trying she stopped and instead tried to dominate Anouk’s life; she’d been the one to insist on Scaropan’s harsh training and told the girl never to cry in public. She had been stubborn, unyielding and remarkably brave – in truth Anouk was very much like her and wore the same scowl. But Damara’s birth had changed everything – Anouk had become a servant to help her sister and had been forced to see the baby undergo all the ceremony and pomp Aguilera cherished so much. Damara had been paired to Jarl Kelvis before she’d been weaned and even that had been fought over by mother and daughter. Coming to blows had been easy, Aguilera was a hard hitter and her tongue was her sharpest weapon… she’d always feared Anouk though.

  In hindsight the fear and outward aggression made sense to Anouk now. Everything in the years before Damara’s conception had been chaos with Barbanos dying, Scaropan being prevented from teaching and Anouk’s demon incident. With the revelations of her dreams, Anouk could only accept that her mother was afraid for what had happened and jealous for the fact Anouk’s child, if it had been real, had been male! Even at the end, Aguilera had only told Anouk to protect her sister and once again Anouk felt she had failed here after all that had taken place in one day!

  “You told me I was cursed, but I wish you could tell me how? I have so much missing from my life and it was not caused by my infection. Things are becoming clearer and I’m scared.” Anouk stated, yelling at her mother served a greater purpose now she was dead, for though everyone remembered Aguilera as a model lady for all to follow… for Anouk it was a way to relieve her rage. But even as she stared at the speckled stone her mind tinged with pain and concern. “I know you can’t say anything now… but I have the feeling you meant Molwesa cursed me.”

  At the sound of her upset, the three Yellow Dreggs leapt about her, lapping her face and nuzzling against her. Ordinarily Anouk might appreciate the comfort they offered but not on this occasion as she spun about and snapped at them to leave her alone. They paused in their motions, clicking at each other with confusion over what to do about it all before lying down nearby with a few gurgles. Their sounds reassured Anouk of their devotion and wish to comfort her, but she warned them that the dead alone could ease her mind tonight and then her eyes fell upon her father’s grave.

  Once she had never dared to imagine that her father had been anything but benevolent to her. The same adoration he’d showered on Damara he’d developed with Anouk and she held memories of him teaching her to dance and showing her all the places of the city. He had loved to read and sought a variety of foreign books to share with her and he had travelled often as a diplomat when his father had been alive. Even though he did not have the same dominance as his father, he had been a great fighter, protective and loyal to the king. When Loteg and Anouk had begun to question things, he had welcomed their thoughts and encouraged it as a form of personal development. He had never thought it was anything more than Nabuto’s guidance and at heart he’d been a scholar as intrigued as they were, not a warrior for the cause.

  But if the stories from her dream were true, then Irophand had been an accomplice in the removal of her child and whatever spells had stopped her remembering fully. In her heart though, Anouk was starting to believe that the dreams were truthful and that out there she had a son... whom she knew was alive. It was the only answer she could comfortably accept and then she recalled the Karayan’s face and the markings upon it, the memory she had begun but cut off out of fear. He had come to her before, she knew he had and swiftly her mind chose to step away from the graves and up a hidden passage in the rock and earth, secured by wooden struts that led to the basement of the old barn. The Dreggs followed her with wagging tails, their great claws hooking into the wood as they scrabbled upward clumsily, pleased to be able to follow her this time. Anouk ignored them as she opened a hatch and slipped up onto the freshly cleaned barn floor where a lone stall held a massive bull that greeted her with a bellow.

  Still Anouk ignored it and the cooing Dreggs that began to chase the mice and rats they spotted scampering within the wooden rafters of the sunken hut. The bull’s great soft pink muzzle snuffled at her red hair in fascination and despite her wish to meditate she had to stop and stroke him. She remembered the great black bull that had inhabited this stall in her youth, an animal rescued from a fighting ring in Finanderi City, an Imperial stronghold towards the warm eastern coasts. The bull had been a gift to her father and it had been so aggressive and mad that she alone
had ever been able to go near it, when she’d been a child and happy cuddling her myriad of pets! She slumped down on the remaining straw pile near the newer, browner bull with its dopey expression and thick head. Despite how much it had failed for her in the past, Anouk was now sure that this time some spell had loosened its grip and she could force it out of her body through the memory embedded in the wood.

  * * * * *

  The sound ripped through her mind like a sword, causing her to sit bolt upright as she watched the high windows of her room rattle in the wind. The house was silent, yet she could feel the roar of pain echoing around her body and she feared it; how could anyone be in so much agony and still live? She padded out of her bedroom and into the hall, seeking a floorboard where a healing kit was hidden, and she pulled it out. Her long-pointed ears twitched in fascination as she recognised the sound coming from the surface; she knew the rules that she was not allowed up there on her own, but the cry of pain irked her onward. She stepped up the long flight of stairs in ignorance to the rules and to the motions of the Dreggs running about the hallway behind her. In their whines they ushered caution, but they did not tell her to stop as she reached the attic, slid the panelled window open and stepped out into the howling winds and freezing rains with only a small lamp in her hands for light.

  The child could not say why she was the only one above the surface responding to the call, to her the scream and pain was enough to make any person wake from the deepest sleep and vomit! Though her parents and her grandfather had not stirred from their beds, the Dreggs had reacted and as she galloped across the wet grass of the world outside, the lizards hissed and gurgled by the attic door. She ignored them; ignored how the rain soaked her red hair to a dark blood-like shade and she bounced to the barn and shifted the door of the roof open. Stepping inside with her small lamp, she closed the door behind her, shook her head and turned about with a sudden gasp of shock.

  There had been a creature upon the barn floor, coated in straw and hay where its blood had become sticky… its black blood. Anouk stood by the door, trembling in surprise at the strange creature that shifted from its collapsed position to react to her. It was a human enough body, it had two arms, two legs, a head, ears, eyes… all the usual things that she as an elf held, it was even wearing a tattered loin cloth to hint that it came from a village. However, unlike any other creature Anouk had ever seen its back held a great frame of bone and severed membrane… wings like a bat! As it rolled about to face her she saw clawed hands and feet, scales running up its arms the colour of pitch and yet the main portions of the torso and the head were tanned. As it shuffled to face her, she could see it was only probably a teenager, about ten or so years older than her perhaps but its mouth bore a pair of boar-like tusks, tattoos like tentacles around its mouth, terrifying citron eyes and down its back were massive sharp spikes. Like some strange mix of reptile and human it turned toward her with a hiss, flicking its forked tongue at her before it collapsed on its side with a groan. Its chest was ripped open, spewing blood and within Anouk could see a heart beating, revealed to the world by whatever had been strong enough to slit the boy’s chest.

  “You called me… but I don’t know what I can do to help you.” Anouk had stated and the creature had hissed toward her but in its eyes, had been a kind of hope. She had swallowed her fear and stepped to its fallen side, a little girl only about nine stroking away the matted black hair of its bloodied head. When she stroked at it the figure had become frozen and looked into her eyes longingly. It had peered into her soul although she could not have recognised it at the time and then it had stretched a hand to her chest and tapped at her heart. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m dying…” The figure had held a deep voice even then, hoarse and guttural as if she were standing beside some great reptilian monster. Anouk feared it, unsure what it was, but her compassion for someone so badly injured kept her still. She stroked at its face again and then it grasped her hand gently within its great claws. “If I’m connected to the strongest part of you… we can both live… or I would have to eat you.”

  “But you’re not a demon… you can’t eat me and you can’t have my soul.” She had stated, so matter-of-factly that the figure had split its face into a massive grin of delight, making her grin back at it. She was not sure why she knew he wasn’t a demon, but he was pleased all the same at her words. She then watched him peel away the piece of his chest and gently he grasped at his heart.

  “I give you half my heart… your body will heal it… you will give me half yours… it will heal my body. If you help me, I will serve you till death.” Anouk had shaken her head gently at its silly words, but she could see it was in pain. She was not sure why, as a child, she wanted to help him, but the pain had been visible and of all the beings to come to him it had been her. Maybe it was Nabuto’s will and she was being given a chance to help everyone by helping… whatever he was….

  Nervously, Anouk had grasped his clawed hand and brought it to her chest, he’d made a line in her body and great pain had burnt through her. Automatically she had stretched her hand into the wound in his chest, ignorant of the burning black blood that seemed to scald her skin and she grasped the left side of his heart and he grabbed hers. Through whatever process of magic was being used by the creature, she had pulled out the beating piece of his body and placed it within the gap he’d left in her own. It had settled straight in, linked up to the rest of her body and Anouk had collapsed. She had not known anything more except for being woken up in the morning, curled up in the straw with the black bull snuffing at her face and a teenage boy, not a half-reptile, standing beside her with a smile upon its face.

  “I will not forget you Anouk… when you next need my help your heart will call me to you. For now, you will sleep and forget me… it’s safer that way.”

  * * * * * *

  The Karayan shook his head in disappointment as he slowly followed the stairs down towards the partying elves in search of Damara and Jarl. He was aware of their history, but he had not expected to see something so abhorrent. Why would this foolish male dare to lose the love of his wife and her respect by kissing another woman? What pleasure was there to gain in knowing your actions could break the heart of another being? The Karayan’s jaws clenched and ground together beneath the mask and he strolled determinedly towards the enclave within the shadows where he’d seen them, careful not to get the attention of other elves and put them into more danger. He knew very well that the manners of the Deep Elves would point at Damara as the culprit and if Damara was in any kind of trouble then Anouk would be in trouble and Karayan owed them both.

  As he strolled through the crowds and toward a series of wooden frames coated in flowers and brightly coloured fabrics, he spotted the pair and stretched his arms over the wood. He pulled himself into it, seeming to shimmer and sink into the colourful selection of fabrics before he stood in front of the little stony enclave. When he stood before them suddenly like a judging shadow of death, the two kissing elves jolted in shock, grasping one another tightly in fear and backing away. They looked up at him with terror and embarrassment as their soft lilac faces turned bright red and Damara opened her mouth hoping to say something but could not.

  “Have you any idea the kind of trouble you could both get into?” The Karayan growled as the two figures trembled staring up at him. Jarl’s face was red, his arms wrapped about Damara’s hips and his eyes wide with guilt, shame and terror as the reality of it all fell upon him. Damara just lay trembling within his grasp, locking her arms about his neck with her head lowered as if she was shameful but faultless. The young elf did not want to leave this embrace as her mind was locked only in the pleasure of the moment; this had been what Anouk had robbed from her by agreeing to legitimise Jarl’s marriage and she was still resentful of it. Handsome Jarl, her handsome Jarl, still had feelings for her and still loved her very much and she was not ashamed to know that affection existed.

  But the Karayan glowered d
own at her, his eyes seeming to swell with some reptilian eagerness as if he were trying to hypnotise her into pulling away from Jarl and admitting guilt. Damara turned her head aside, stuffing her face against the soft blue robes of her lover and hid herself away from the painful stare of her friend and indeed her protector. Jarl wrapped his arms about her protectively at first until the figure loomed so close that his masked maul was only inches from the elf’s face. The hot breath of the being poured over them both like they were in the power of a predator and they both started to shrink down onto the ground, hoping the Karayan would back up and let them crawl out of his sight. His gaze did not change and finally Jarl was the one to release Damara’s body and step aside with his head low in shame. Damara straightened herself in response, looked toward her lover with disappointment and then turned towards the Karayan with an angry scowl, only to drop her expression as his neck seemed to crane downward like a snake to reach her eye level.

  “I won’t tell… you’re lucky only I seem to have noticed and Anouk didn’t… otherwise I’m quite sure she would have killed him.” The Karayan snarled angrily and though he seemed resigned not to tell there was such bitterness and upset in his voice that both the young elves felt themselves being slapped mentally. They had hardly been thinking about anything but their selfish obsession with one another, stoked and forged by the manner of their arrangement and their society. For Damara this was all she had been born and raised to expect and in kissing Jarl and being with him, she was fulfilling her pathetic purpose in life, but Jarl was the first to bow his head low towards the Karayan in respect. However, he was grabbed by the neck and pushed against the stone wall before he could leave or even think of escaping the beast’s rage.

  “Karayan don’t!” Damara squeaked and lunged forward, grasping the giant’s thick arm in her embrace only to watch his black robes ripple and shudder. The moment she noticed this rather sickening swarming motion she let go and stepped back fearfully, as if the shroud was doing the job of the bristled hair on an angry cat’s body. Jarl was not being choked by the Karayan, simply held and Damara swiftly tried to apologise for them both, but she could only see the rage within the Karayan’s form as the shroud seemed to jolt with spikes.