Love and the Stubborn

by Xenia Melzer

  Renaldo nodded at him reassuringly. “Nothing serious. At least not in my opinion. Casto is a prince, heir to the throne of the Twin Cities. He withheld it because he had escaped from there.”

  “A prince, you say? So many things make sense all of a sudden.”

  Renaldo had to smile. He thought exactly the same thing. Casto’s arrogance that was like an invisible cloak around him, his training, the superiority he radiated in everything he did, his talent to make even the Emeris feel like they were inferior to him, his polished manners that had won over Noemi and Hulda so easily—all of it was completely logical when one knew he was of royal ancestry.

  “Why has he never said anything? For a suitable ransom, he could have been free.”

  “He didn’t want to go back there. So far, I’ve only heard the short version of his story, but it’s already so ugly that I’d love to leave for Ummana this very minute to make those who made him suffer pay. And pay dearly.”

  Canubis furrowed his brow. “You’re very worried for Casto. But don’t forget, if he hadn’t been forced to run away, you’d have never met him.”

  “I know. Still, the thought that the crimes against him shall go unpunished is hard to bear.”

  Suddenly Canubis grinned maliciously.

  “If it’s sins you want to punish, I know a way for you. I haven’t taken the chance to confront the traitors directly yet. Why don’t we pay a little visit to the dungeons?”

  Renaldo narrowed his eyes. “I don’t like the idea of leaving Casto alone. Although I have to admit your offer is tempting.”

  “I thought so. That’s why I asked Hulda to come here. She’s going to look after your precious prince.”

  As if on cue, there was a knock on the door. Hulda entered with a wicked smile on her lips. “Don’t worry, Renaldo. I’m going to take good care of him.”

  “Careful, Hulda! He’s mine alone!”

  Hulda started to laugh. “I know, I know. I’m just teasing you.”

  Canubis grabbed his arm and dragged him outside.

  “The news about the happy outcome of your mission hasn’t reached the dungeons yet, I’ve seen to that. Do you think it possible to banish that goofy smile from your face for the time being and act as if you’d lost Casto for real? I believe that would be the easiest way to get our information.”

  Renaldo pulled a disappointed face. “What’s become of the noble tradition of brutal torture?”

  “I know. The good old times. We could indulge ourselves, but I thought you wanted to get back to your lover as fast as possible?”

  Renaldo raised his hands in defeat. “As always your arguments are convincing in their wisdom.”

  A truly wolfish grin was the answer. “I know, brother. If it makes you feel any better, I do plan to torture the dirty scum thoroughly, but that’s always better when you already have your answers. Then it doesn’t present a problem when, for instance, a tongue is lost.”

  “Wise words from a dangerous man. Sometimes I’m really glad you’re my big brother, Canubis.”

  Canubis placed his hand for a brief moment on Renaldo’s shoulder. “And I count myself lucky to call you brother. This world is ours, Renaldo. It’s time to remind everybody of that.”

  The door to the dungeons swung open, leading into a world that was a bleak counter to life in the Valley. All the laws that protected even the lowest members of the Pack were nonexistent down here. In the twilight of the dungeons, the law of the jungle reigned. Life was divided into those who could use their powers as they pleased and those who had to bow to it, whether they were willing or not. A reality from the beginning of time, buried in the soul of every human being but only truly alive in the memory of the divine brothers. It was a state of affairs they had emerged from and to which, should fate favor them, they would return. A world bowing to their will alone.

  The leader of the traitors, Damon, had his own cell where he was chained against the wall with his arms spread wide. He was naked; his body was covered in angry welts from a brutal whipping. Despite those marks, he showed no traces of further torture. On the orders of the Wolf of War, the wardens had grudgingly held back.

  When the two brothers stepped in front of Damon, he looked up at them with a smoldering look. Greedily he took in the sorrow in Renaldo’s expression before starting to laugh mockingly. “Let me guess, barbarian. You were too late.”

  The pain showing on the obnoxiously perfect features was enough for Damon. “So the triumph is mine although I’m here in chains. Your heart is dead, barbarian, and though I hoped to kill you at the same time, I can be content with my work. My mistress is going to reward me richly.”

  “How can that be?” Canubis’s voice was as soft as silk. “Ana-Isara is the Empress of the Dead, not that bloodless image of a woman you worship.”

  Again Damon laughed in mockery. “Now that your brother has lost his heart, it’s only a question of time until my mistress seizes power in this world. You know that as well as I do, barbarian.”

  Canubis looked indecisive for a moment. When he resumed talking, his voice was threatening. “Since you’re so sure of having defeated us, tell us how you did it. How did you know that Casto was my brother’s heart? What kind of dark magic did you use to get that information?”

  Damon regarded them for a long moment, unsure what to do, but then he decided it would benefit him to answer their questions. It would give him the opportunity to feast on the pain surrounding the Angel of Death like an impenetrable wall. Nobody had to tell him that his own life was forfeit. But before he met his surely unpleasant end, from which his mistress would redeem him, he might as well delight in the demigods’ pain.

  “I didn’t know. No magic is strong enough to break through the protection surrounding a heart. We weren’t able to do it with the witch either. But we knew when the heart was born, and our seers were able to tell when it would find the way into the Valley. I infiltrated you a few years before, so as to not raise suspicion and to cast the shrouding spell. When the time came, I was on the lookout.

  “First we thought it would be a woman as it was written in the prophecies, and we assessed all possible candidates. While doing that, I ignored Casto completely. I couldn’t imagine that he could be of any significance. Only when he escaped and returned on his own, and was neither killed nor crippled, nor even seriously punished by you, did I start to pay him more attention. I soon realized that he was at least important enough to you to be used against you.”

  Renaldo’s gaze was so shocked, it made Damon snicker maliciously. “Except for you, everyone in the Valley knew that you were in love with the little scumbag. So I had some leverage against you. I started to isolate him, a task that wasn’t too hard since you played into my hands so nicely. Even before his escape, the little bastard had no friends among the slaves, but afterward it was easy to stir their hatred.

  “He was all alone, so lonely and forsaken—so grateful for every scrap of friendliness. And you never noticed, did you, barbarian?”

  Now Renaldo’s eyes flashed in anger. “You damn bastard. I’m going to—”

  “You’re going to do what? Torture me to death brutally? Find something new. That threat is already old.

  “In any case, I started being friendly to him now and then. Nothing pushy, just enough so he wouldn’t feel threatened. Then I saw to it that he missed one of your training sessions. Both your temperaments escalated the situation, as I had hoped. But I would have never guessed that the arrogant thickhead would apologize to you—or that you would forgive him.

  “At that moment I realized he was more than just leverage. I started to see he could be your heart.”

  “But you weren’t certain.” Canubis voice was as velvety as flowing honey.

  The priest shook his head. “No, I wasn’t certain. But I had a strong suspicion. I trusted my instincts and started to inquire. Did you know Casto was the first slave in the history of the Valley to successfully flee? And that he was the only one to surv
ive an attempted escape? You two never let a slave get away with it. The others all died miserably.

  “The other thing puzzling me was the fact that he came back on his own. The arrogant little pup gave up his precious freedom and risked his death only to be able to return to the Valley. That was so totally out of character, it enhanced my suspicion. At that point, my doubts were already so great I was willing to question even the prophecies.”

  “Impossible. You can say whatever you want about the seers of the Ancients, but they never lied or made a wrong prediction. Never.”

  Renaldo felt his heart sink when he heard his brother’s words. Perhaps Casto wasn’t his heart after all, although he couldn’t imagine ever loving somebody else like he did Casto.

  Damon coughed drily before he kept on talking with a hoarse voice. “My thoughts exactly, barbarian. Which was why I took a closer look at the original. Since the first writing, the prophecies of the seers have been translated at least a dozen times. Language is a petulant lover, she can undergo dramatic changes in the course of time, and she influences our thinking to the point where we no longer realize how we think. In the times of the Ancients, for example, there was no distinction between the sexes. There was only one article, ana, to describe a person or thing. We always thought the hearts had to be female because that’s how the translators wanted it to be. They never spared a thought about the fact that ana blod brester stratatos means ‘kindred of the wind’ and therefore can also stand for ‘brother of the wind.’”

  “The brother of the wind.” Canubis’s voice was full of awe. “Of course. The Ancients really were careless in that regard. And we didn’t realize because we don’t make the distinction either, but everybody else in the Valley does. How stupid of us!”

  “I can only attest to that. It really was exceptionally stupid that you never thought about it. On the other hand, it doesn’t surprise me at all.” He shot a look full of hatred toward Renaldo. “You were so used to getting everything you wanted just because you’re beautiful, it had to be a shock meeting the bastard. If he hadn’t been as arrogant and righteous as you, I might have even liked him. Simply for the fact that he had thrown you off-balance.”

  Canubis’s voice was soft as he spoke to Damon as if to prevent a frightened animal from running away. “But Casto kept his distance, didn’t he? Although you were friendly, as you claim, he kept away from you.”

  Damon spat out, “He thought he was something better, too good to socialize with the likes of me. But I made him pay for his arrogance. He’s dead now, killed by the will of the man he so reluctantly loved. And you say the Good Mother knows no justice!”

  “Yes, you really showed him. With a very cunning scheme. How did you manage to get it going so smoothly?”

  Canubis sounded almost sly. He wanted to know at any price how the priest had managed to produce such beguiling proof and stay in the background at the same time. Silence descended on the cell for some time, and the brothers started to fear that Damon had stopped talking altogether, but then he raised his voice anew, no longer with contempt and glee but with naked hatred dripping from every syllable.

  “I wanted the idiot to pay for his pride. I wanted him to experience what it means to go against me. I wanted to take away from him everything he was so proud of with the very nice side effect that you would be eliminated as well, barbarian. Since you were away all summer long, I had enough time to come up with different scenarios to get rid of him.

  “I wanted him to die by your hand. For that, I had to make you jealous. Jealous enough so you wouldn’t be able to think clearly anymore. Luckily, Assani is a loyal servant to the Good Mother. It wasn’t difficult to win her over. But to be successful I needed watertight proof—which forced me to rely on Sic, the stupid oaf. He was the only one who kept being friendly toward the arrogant bastard, and he even defended him in front of the other slaves. It wasn’t easy to keep him at a distance to the blond idiot, but fortunately your master smith is an unforgiving master. All it took were some muttered comments, and dear little Sic had things to worry about other than the well-being of Casto.”

  As he remembered the trouble he had gotten the young smith into, Damon started to smile. “The little doggie didn’t even try to defend himself, although he knew the accusations were pure invention. He simply accepted the punishment his precious master encumbered him with.”

  “Why did he help you in the end?” Renaldo’s voice was tense. He wasn’t happy about what he was hearing.

  Damon regarded him with a pitying look. “Because I used his greatest fear against him. I threatened to kill Noran if he failed to do what I wanted.”

  Canubis’s eyes were narrow, thoughtful. “Why would he believe you? He knows Noran is Emeris.”

  “In the beginning he didn’t believe me. But after I killed a slave with magic, he surrendered. From that moment on, I had him under my thumb.”

  “It was a great risk to use magic in the Valley.”

  “I’d have preferred not to. But I needed Sic’s help, and he would have never come to my side willingly.

  “But after my little demonstration, I could force him to steal the jewelry I needed to break Blondie’s neck. The rest was easy: you reacted exactly like I planned, barbarian, and the shrouding spell took care of everything else. Although I have to admit that I was a little disappointed when you didn’t kill him with your own hands. But death in the mines was surely worse than anything you could have done to him. I bet he died with a curse on his lips.”

  “Damon, Damon, Damon.” Canubis shook his head as if he were talking to a misbehaving child. “So clever, so shrewd, and yet in the end you were discovered. Could it be your goddess is not backing you up in the way you’ve been hoping?”

  “The Good Mother only rewards the strong—she doesn’t tolerate weakness. And here in the Valley, her power is limited. Who’d have thought that the idiot Sic would gather the courage and go to Renaldo himself? I’d have bet my life that he didn’t have the guts to turn himself in.”

  Now Renaldo was smiling brightly. “He had the guts. And I’m sure you’ll be delighted to hear that Casto is doing just fine. At the moment he’s sleeping warm and safe in my bed, recovering from the strain of the past days.”

  It took a moment until the priest understood him. Then his eyes bulged so much, it seemed as if they would fall out. “He’s alive? How can that be? You tricked me!” With every short sentence, his voice got more hysterical until it turned into a squeal.

  Canubis patted Damon’s arm. “The followers of the Good Mother aren’t the only ones versed in the fabrication of schemes. My brother and I have been walking this world long enough to be able to participate in the game.”

  “No, it’s impossible. He’s dead. He must be dead!”

  Renaldo grinned maliciously. “I’m sorry, dear enemy. Casto is alive, and your goddess is not going to be happy with you. But I promise, in the days to come, you won’t have time to waste even one thought on the false goddess. You’ll be occupied with dying. And believe me, I won’t make it easy for you, not in the least.”

  With that parting shot, Renaldo and Canubis left their defeated enemy. Two absolute leaders who’d left the twilight of their reign to step back into the light.

  “What are you going to do now?” Canubis shot his brother a sidelong glance. Renaldo turned his gaze toward him, his face an impenetrable mask as always. But Canubis didn’t have to rely on outward appearances to understand his little brother. He could feel the turmoil inside Renaldo as if it were his own.

  “I’m going to talk to Casto. He’s always been quite skeptical about our ancestry, but it’s time for him to face the truth.”

  “Does he even know about the prophecy?”

  “If so, then not from me. I told him who we are, but he was so dismissive that I avoided the topic from then on.”

  Canubis smiled crookedly. “Well, it does sound strange. By the way, we’re two demigods who were waiting here in the Valley to be reu
nited with our hearts. After this has happened, we’ll be subjugating the world. I’d declare anybody who tried telling me such a tale a lunatic.”

  “You’re not the only one. We’ll see how he reacts.”

  Canubis looked pensive. “The only thing about this entire affair that I still don’t understand is the name used for your heart. Ana blod brester stratatos. Kindred of the wind. What does Casto have to do with the wind? Do you know if he has any siblings?”

  When Renaldo heard his brother reciting the passage from the prophecy, he suddenly felt as if a light had been lit inside him. “Of course! That’s it! Ana blod brester stratatos. Stratos! Lysistratos. Casto once told me the name of the stallion means ‘Emperor of the Storms.’ And you can believe me, he surely is. You should have been there when he carried me to the mines. Despite that, he and Casto are like brothers. That must be it.”

  His brother still seemed skeptical but agreed with Renaldo. “Could it really be so simple? But Noemi, too, was ana dragda slan, the daughter of the snake. And we’d been racking our brains what it could mean for so long because we thought the snakes had left Ana-Darasa.”

  “In any case, it all fits neatly. In some sense he’s the brother of the wind and you know about my feelings for him. I’ve never felt like this before, never. I only know this kind of intensity from you and Noemi. It would be truly strange if I harbored such feelings for anybody else but my heart.” Canubis smiled at his brother with fondness. Renaldo furrowed his brow. “What?”

  “Oh, nothing. You’re just reminding me of myself when I admitted for the first time that Noemi was more than just a passing infatuation. A wonderful feeling, isn’t it?”

  “Wonderful indeed. But also frightening. What am I going to do if he doesn’t believe me? Or even rejects me because he thinks I’m completely insane?”

  “He won’t reject you, no way. Remember, he called himself your slave today, which can only mean that he has accepted his fate.”

  “That, or he was so weakened from the journey he didn’t know what he was doing.”