by Nichelle Rae
Suddenly Rabryn spat in Jaravel’s face. I was going to lose my mind! Didn’t he see what Jaravel did to me after I’d done that?
Jaravel screamed and frantically wiped it away. He grabbed the front of Rabryn’s tunic in a fist. My heart stopped. Jaravel brought his opposite fist all the way back and sent it full force into my brother’s face. I heard the sickening crack and shatter of his facial bones getting pulverized into dust.
And that was all I needed to hear.
The seam of my sanity finally burst. I opened my mouth wide and screamed at the sky. I screamed long and loud. The very trees seemed to shake with my voice as it ripped through the night.
Suddenly I was aware of a bright white light surrounding me, and I was no longer being held. My hands and arms were free. I was also on my knees now. I screamed until my voice became raw, then I looked at Jaravel. I took a moment to catch my breath, and I barely took noticed that I was in full White Warrior attire: white hair, glowing skin. My shoulder and broken teeth were healed.
I finally stood and walked over to Jaravel, who was on his knees, his face to the ground and his arms stretched out toward me. The area was a racket of noise as some of the Dirty 30 scattered, grabbing what they could from our packs before scrambling out of my way.
I paused in front of Jaravel and turned to Rabryn, lying on the ground with his facial bones so completely broken that his skin hung limp, swollen and deformed. I looked back at Jaravel, who seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“Please, White Warrior! Have mercy! I am your servant!”
When I pulled out my sword without thinking, I knew suddenly that I was in that strange, detached state of mind. In this same state, I’d lost control and cracked open Ortheldo’s skull. I didn’t trust myself when I was this way. I had no control over my actions!
My arm placed the tip of my sword against his neck. “You are no servant of mine, you blackened wretch!” my voice said, though I hadn’t thought to speak. “Evil consumes your heart. I can see it as clearly as I see the sun during the day and the moon at night. Now you’ll pay for what you have done with your life.”
Do it! Do it! I willed my arm to push. Just add some pressure and he’ll be done!
Instead, I spun around and had just enough time to see a man running at me with a sword raised, ready to strike. Suddenly his head jerked back in a strange way, as if the wind had grabbed a fistful of his hair and twisted his neck until it snapped in half. Crack! The man was dead.
As I stood there confused, another man ran at me. Suddenly he fell backward onto the ground, as if he’d run into a wall. When he sat up looking around dazed and confused, his neck was also snapped in two.
Norka! It was Norka! He must have gone invisible before we were ambushed. I wanted to scream in joy! He was saving us and no one even knew he was there!
My body suddenly spun around, but Jaravel was gone. Damn. When I turned around again, I tangled swords with two inexperienced individuals and killed them with ease. My first human kills…sort of. I wasn’t really killing them, but I would be if I were in control of my body.
Suddenly a high-pitched whistle caught my attention—it had come from the man holding Ortheldo. He was giving me an evil smirk and still holding Ortheldo’s own sword to his throat. “Didn’t want you to miss this.”
He dragged the sword across Ortheldo’s skin.
I only had time to draw in a breath and scream! My mind screamed, but my body didn’t! Ortheldo’s eyes went wide and blood gushed from the gash. I was running; I couldn’t think! All I saw was Ortheldo, bleeding! Bleeding, bleeding badly from his throat. I was screaming but my mouth wasn’t open. My body was just running toward Ortheldo as fast as it could. My world was a blur as I watched him bleed. It soaked his shirt and spilled onto the ground in a sight I’d never wish upon my worst enemy. I couldn’t lose him! I couldn’t! My body eventually dropped to its knees as if finally revealing the emotions I was feeling inside: shock and horror.
As I gazed helplessly, I suddenly saw bits of glittering brown magic form around the wound at Ortheldo’s throat. As I watched, it took the shape of a hand and the gash closed before my eyes, healing completely. Thank the Gods of Light!
Ortheldo fell to his side gasping and coughing for air, but the sounds of life coming back into him were drowned out by Norka’s screams of agony.
I was on my feet again running toward him to take away his pain, when I saw it.
As if in slow motion the creature holding Ortheldo’s sword slashed it across the air where the screams were coming from. My legs gave out and I fell to my hands and knees again as a spray of blood and bone appeared out of thin air. Norka’s hood fell back and he became visible as he fell hard to the ground.
My entire body was shaking. My temples throbbed with unreleased wrath, and I felt faint from the heat in my face. Beyond any will of my own, my palm came up toward the man holding Ortheldo’s sword. The rest of the stragglers had fled, but not this one. He was mine!
He had enough time only to widen his eyes before a stream of white fire shot like lightning from my palm and buried itself in the man’s chest. He arched outward, his jaw stretched wide open in a silent scream as the fire seeped into his skin. He looked at me in disbelief before his eyes turned downward, staring at his chest. His head suddenly jerked back and he screamed in agony for a long, long time. Bumps formed under his skin and traveled like snakes throughout his body. As the long, thin bumps spread into his face and head, his screams ceased. All that became of him was a red spray of blood.
I was stunned. I thought I was too stunned to think or move, but without permission my body stood and went toward Rabryn’s fallen form. I kneeled at my brother’s side and cut the ropes binding his wrists behind his back. I then rested my hands on his shattered cheeks. White fire enveloped my hands and I felt the bones in his face draw together and heal. They took the correct shape of his beautiful face and hardened into solid bone once again. The blood disappeared. He opened his eyes at last.
I could feel that I was about to snap back into control of my body, but I desperately groped to stay in White Warrior’s detached state. I didn't want to be the one to tell my brother his friend was dead. I wanted the other voice to do it. I wouldn’t be able to! Alas, I was soon in control again and trembling badly in my normal human form. Rabryn slowly sat up. One look in his eyes and I broke down into pathetic sobs.
He looked at me with concern. “Azrel, what’s wrong?”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. I sobbed a few times. “Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
I draped his arm over my shoulders and pulled him to his feet. Where do I take him? To Norka's body?
“Azrel,” Ortheldo called softly, “bring Rabryn. Quick.”
I looked up and saw Ortheldo kneeling next to Norka, holding his hand against his cheek. Norka was alive! I wanted to scream for joy! I could heal him!
“Come on,” I said, pulling Rabryn along.
Rabryn gasped when saw what was happening. “Norka!” He left my side to quickly go to him. He fell on his knees in tears, and I dropped down next to him.
Norka was gasping for breaths to stay alive as he looked at each of us in turn. I couldn’t keep myself from glancing at Ortheldo for a moment. He was alive, he was okay, but my heart sank at the price of that.
Rabryn’s teary red eyes looked at me hopeful. “Can you —”
I assessed the damage and wondered if I could reach that detached mindset again to save him. I had to try. I placed my hand in the middle of the two-foot-long gash that revealed bone and gore. I prepared to try to detach myself from…myself, only to have Norka place his hand over mine to stop me.
“Pleasse don’t,” he whispered after I looked up at his face.
“Why not?” Rabryn asked. “Let her try!”
Norka’s eyes stared deeply into mine. “Your sssister knowss why.”
I swallowed hard as I returned his gaze. Death was what he wanted.
I remembered the sad look in his eyes I’d seen since the day we met and realized it was gone, replaced by joy and hope. He wanted his painful life to come to an end.
“No! She can help! She will! She fixed me!” Rabryn argued desperately.
Norka took his hand from mine and placed it on Rabryn’s cheek. “Thank you, my dear friend, for making my lassst few days worth living.” Rabryn sobbed and clutched Norka’s hand to his cheek. Norka released Ortheldo’s hand and reached into the top of his black robes, taking out the beaded heart necklace his daughter had giving him. He sent a small stream of his brown magic into the leather thong, breaking it open, and handed it to my brother. “Please take care of this for me.”
Rabryn gazed at it a moment before he took it. He squeezed his eyes shut and managed a nod as he clutched it to his chest. “I will.”
My chin started to quiver as his yellow eyes turned to me. I had to bite back sobs. “See your Sword as the true gift it was meant to be,” he smiled. “The position of The White Warrior went to the right person.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, letting my white tears stream freely down my face. Please let me help you, I wanted to say. But I didn’t.
“Will you allow me to marvel at your magic onccce more before I go?”
My eyes looked to Ortheldo’s bashed-up face. He looked up at me in the same moment. He was alive.
“Will you use them to heal my friend Ortheldo,” Norka said, placing a hand on Ortheldo’s shoulder, “so I don’t have to again.”
Though he smiled and meant for Ortheldo to smile also, Ortheldo didn’t. Instead, he closed his eyes to restrain his emotions and started trembling from the effort. “I’m sorry,” Ortheldo whispered. He opened his eyes and looked at Norka. “And thank you for —” his voice cracked. I’d never seen him cry before, and he was trying very hard to keep it that way.
Norka’s smile widened a bit. “You can repay me by not letting me ssee your ugly face in the Sssky Sanctuary for at leasst another ssixty years. “Both of them chuckled softly. Ortheldo pressed Norka’s hand to his bruised cheek.
“Please, White Warrior?” Norka asked, looking back at me.
“Okay,” I whispered. I was about to grant his last wish when suddenly that detached state of mind came to me unbidden and my appearance gently faded into the White Warrior’s.
“You have done what you were sent to do,” my voice said. “Be proud as you enter the Sky Sanctuary, for you have aided me in my battle. Know that you will always be bonded to me in through the power of Goodness, my dear Norka.”
“Thank you, White Warrior.”
I felt my face smile, and Ortheldo and I looked at each other once again. He swallowed hard and then leaned over Norka to come within my arms’ reach. I placed my hands on his cheeks and white fire appeared around my hands. I felt all his wounds heal and the swelling go down under my touch. Even the blood disappeared, and he was restored to normal.
When I removed my hands from his face, he looked like his usual handsome self. I snapped back into my human state, and we both looked down at Norka; he had passed.
We buried Norka; I let Rabryn stay at his grave to think and compose himself over the loss of his friend while I helped Ortheldo pack up our stuff that the Dirty 30 had ransacked. We didn’t have much of value to begin with, so the criminals hadn’t take much. Afterward, Ortheldo and I burned the bodies of the men Norka and I had killed. Neither of us said much to each other as we cleaned up. But I felt like I had a lot to say.
The image of that sword slicing across Ortheldo’s throat haunted me. It played in my memory over and over again—his skin ripping open, the blood exploding from his neck and the look in his eyes. But most of all, the horror lingered that I’d almost lost him, that I should have lost him. The feeling that I’d had to watch helplessly and powerlessly tormented me. That creature almost took away something very dear to me. How could I go on without him?
Without him.
I suddenly burst into tears. I pulled the strap that held my pack to Forfirith and walked toward Ortheldo, who was packing Urylia. He looked at me as I approached, and I threw myself into his arms. He quickly and tightly embraced me with such eagerness that I would have blushed if I hadn’t been so emotional at the moment, so thrilled that he was alive and able to embrace me in such a way. I pressed my face into his chest and sobbed like a newborn as he kissed my head, my cheeks, and my hair several times, over and over.
“Why aren’t you dead?” I cried. “Twice now you’ve been delivered to me from death! First the Legan`dirs., and now the Dirty 30! How can you still be with me? How?”
“Are you disappointed?” he asked softly against my ear.
What was he saying? I jerked my head away from him and looked up into his face. “Gods, no! Why would you say that? Of course I’m not!”
He smiled and gently wiped my tears away. “Then what does it matter why I’m still here?” he said. “I’m just grateful that I am.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and rested my forehead against his chest again, trying to compose myself. He held me tight the entire time. I finally managed to calm down enough to open my eyes. I looked up at his neck where he’d been cut. I realized gratefully that there wasn’t even a scar. There was no trace whatsoever of what had happened to him. I reached my hand up and gently ran my thumb over the base of his throat to reassure myself that it was solid.
With a soft sigh, I finally pulled away from him a little so I could stare up into his periwinkle eyes. They were such a gorgeous, unique blend of purple, blue and gray. Of all the beings I’d seen, no other pair of eyes could compare to his. He was here, with me. He wasn’t a dream. He was really alive. I ran my hand around to the back of his head and clutched gently at his soft black hair. My other hand moved up to rest on his cheek and feel his warm, velvet skin under my touch.
Yes, he was real.
I brushed some of the front of his hair away from his forehead. “I’m grateful, too.” I said and pressed my forehead to his, feeling his warm breath on my face. I was so grateful he was still alive, more grateful than I ever thought I could be for anything.
We stood like that for a long time before he gently said my name. I pulled slightly away and brought my eyes up to meet his again. “I have to…I want to tell you something.”
I stared into his face and noticed he wore an intense, yet nervous expression. He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were lit up, shining like gems in the moonlight. “What is it?”
For the first time, I realized he had that intense look in his eyes; the look that warmed my heart to the point where my knees felt like liquid. I blushed and became confused about what he was trying to say with that look. It even frightened me a bit, and I would normally look away. But I didn’t want to look away this time. I wanted to feel the warmth that came along with the way he was looking at me. I’d taken it for granted until now, and I had been a fool to do so. I wanted to indulge in this feeling and be grateful that I could experience it, be grateful that I could say I felt it, because he wasn’t dead.
As my heart pounded from the excitement, I glanced at his lips and suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to kiss him. I wanted so desperately to pull his lips against mine, to rid me of the foul feeling left by Jaravel. I wanted to know what a pleasant kiss could feel like, a kiss given to me by someone I cared greatly for. I felt almost dizzy with the need to feel his clean lips against mine. But now wasn’t the time. Too much had happened. Besides, I had no right asking for a kiss, never mind making an attempt for one.
My eyes went back to his and the strong emotions I felt intensified, emotions I had yet to understand. I didn’t look away this time, but his eyes suddenly faltered the message he was trying to send. His confidence faded for some reason, and he looked away for a change.
“What do you want to tell me?” I asked gently.
“I just…well, I just wanted to tell you that…maybe we should, um, go talk to Rabryn. Actually. I’d really like to talk to him alone, if you don
’t mind.”
“Why alone?”
His eyes went down. “I just feel that maybe…if I had a man to man talk with him about losing a friend…well, hearing it from someone who’s been through it before, he might…well, it might help him understand.”
I’d never seen Ortheldo so unsure of himself. He was stuttering and darting his eyes in every direction. He was tall and muscular, and the mere sight of him had an authority of power to it; he was rightfully a king, after all. It just didn’t seem right for him to act so insecure. Maybe he needed the “man to man” talk for his own benefit as well.
I smiled and placed my hand on his cheek, caressing his skin. Ortheldo’s eyes dropped closed and he sighed. He opened them again when I stepped back. “Go on and talk to him. I’ll stay here and watch the fire,” I said.
I needed more! I dipped my hands under the water again and splashed it all over my face, letting it land wherever it would. I was soaked through but it still wasn’t working to cool me off. I splashed more water on my face and sighed heavily. So much had happened, but all I could think about was how she didn’t look away from me this time. I’d almost died tonight! And still all I could think about was how she didn’t look away. Norka gave his life to save mine and still the only thing on my mind was how much I loved her.
I had to force those tender thoughts of her from my mind and try to turn them to something else. I had too many pressing things to think about. I also desperately needed to talk to Rabryn, and it wasn’t about losing his friend.
Since the night she attacked me, I knew that somehow Azrel’s magic had gone haywire. But I didn’t know to what extent until tonight. In the brief words we shared as we buried Norka and made the fire, I gathered that she had almost zero control over herself from the minute she transformed, until she transformed back. For the first time, tonight, I saw a truly deadly side of Azrel. For the first time, I saw the White Warrior in her, and if she had no control over that, we could all be in serious danger.
