Shelter of Sighs

by Bethan Johns

  He stared at me a long moment. “You inspired such passion in your mercenaries that they are able to physically manifest their fire magic. You opened their hearts, and yet you expect them not to want to protect yours. You cannot have it both ways Sierade.”

  He moved to leave the tent “Faust.” He turned. I smiled “I will keep my psychic link open to you if you promise to be silent”

  He grinned suddenly.

  I walked out into the camp, dressed in my burgundy leather gear. I had used black coal around my eyes and silver glitter along my cheeks and arms.

  Everyone was ready. The entire Rustlavayne Army was silent and still, I wondered how eerie it must look for over twenty thousand Howelltie mercenaries to simply stand in formation and freeze. I heard a summons coming through my psychic link to Torcelyn. I reached inside my head, picked up the stone with her name on it and threw it in one of my molten rivers. The summons silenced.

  Reaching into the earth, I called to Tundra. It felt my need.

  “Tundra, I am going to need you to rift my people. I will then let go, but I will call upon you if I need you.” I whispered.

  Tundra slid along me, delighting in the connection.

  I rifted my soldiers, every last one of them, to the camp in Howelltie.

  I looked to Faust. “May I share the visions you send me with whomever I choose?” he asked.

  I smirked at him. “You may, give me an hour, I’ll be home for dinner.”

  I rifted to the bridge in front of the Nephilim keep and saw that there were soldiers scurrying about in confusion about where the massive army had disappeared to so suddenly.

  I let my power pulse out of me. A simple beat of pure energy flowed over the entire keep and the encampment below.

  The two soldiers at the gate eyed me with outright fear as I walked towards them, I knew my eyes were shining and my aura was spiraling tendrils of silver dust.

  I walked up to them, lifted my hands and two ash swords appeared in them. Before they could react, I swung and slit both of their throats. They fell to their knees, blood splattering my face and body.

  I saw then the soldiers in the courtyard ahead of me turned and began running towards me drawing their weapons, there was about fifty of them. I threw my arms out wide with my swords in a sweeping gesture. An arc of my power flew out across the courtyard destroying all in my path.

  I rifted.

  I was in the dining room now. Standing in the armour that Reves had purchased for me, swords dripping blood onto the floor, watching him pace.

  At the gasps of some of the dignitaries and lords in the room he turned and saw me.

  “What the fuck Si? You need to tell me where you took your army.”

  “Oh? Do I though?” I strode towards him swinging my hips. “What if I were to convince you somehow that I didn’t need to tell you.”

  “What?” He sputtered. I saw his brows furrow and I knew he was receiving news of the fifty men in the courtyard I had killed.

  His eyes narrowed as he growled at me. “What have you done?”

  I rifted right in front of him. “Nothing you won’t forgive me for if I do this right?” I grabbed his crotch.

  He growled lightly, but stilled.

  I laughed quietly and leaned forward to kiss his throat. He shoved me away now.

  “Where are your mercenaries?” He asked.

  I waved my hand at him. “Don’t worry, they are back in Howelltie. Oh, that’s right. I was supposed to hand in our official resignation before I started killing your people.”

  I smiled. “Better late than never I suppose. On behalf of the Rustlavayne Mercenary Army I hand in our resignation from your contract.”

  I rifted in front of him again. Grabbing his belt, I growled. “Any and all agreements between us are void. Is that clear?”

  His eyes flicked to the lords across the room. “Don’t do this here.” He whispered.

  I pushed him away and laughed.

  “You know what the best part of all of this is? I thought you were degrading me because you thought you were powerful enough to, you thought you were more powerful than me. Now that I am looking at you I think you know that you were wrong.” I saw the truth of it in his eyes before I even finished speaking. “You sought to make yourself look more powerful?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Tell the truth!” I screamed at him.

  He again shook his head. He was staring at me beseechingly.

  I rifted in front of him and then rifted the both of us to stand in front of the large window overlooking the keep, overlooking his camps of soldiers.

  “I can show you Power” I whispered, and I raised my fist. Without taking my eyes from him I opened my hand wide, fingers splaying out.

  A pure silver blast emanated from me. I watched his eyes widen and turned to look now too.

  An entire legion fell to the ground. They simply crumpled. Thousands of his soldiers, gone in an instant.

  He sucked in his breath.

  I snapped my fingers and the breath was stolen from him. His voice was merely gone.

  “Are you familiar with the Howelltie customs surrounding revenge Reves?” I asked as I stalked across the room. I caught eyes with a few of the lords. “Are any of you familiar with them?” I asked them, raising my eyebrows and swinging my one remaining blade.

  I saw a lot of heads shaking.

  I paced slowly. I was biding my time here, wasting precious moments, drawing it out.

  “When you do wrong to someone in Howelltie, you are taking a gamble they say, weighing your risks against your reward. The risk is, of course, revenge, the reward can be many things. Power…” I pointed my sword at Reves. “…Was what he thought he would get through exploiting me.”

  I spun on him “for fifteen years you dragged my name through the mud, did you not think there would be consequences?”

  I waved my hand and he sputtered, his voice returning. “You just killed thousands of innocent men!”

  I smiled “You lost the gamble, don’t you see. This …” I waved my arm towards the window once more and my firedrake appeared from around the window out of sight and started blasting flames into the keep, killing soldiers and servants alike “…is you repaying that debt you now owe me.”

  His face was nothing but devastation as he roared at me, I saw him look again over me, at my appearance and I knew the moment he truly realised what I was, that there was nothing he could do to stop me.

  I smiled bitterly at him

  “It’s nothing I haven’t done before. Are those creatures more innocent than the ones on the battlefield? Why should their lives matter to me?”

  He shook his head and opened his mouth again.

  “Tundra, you are boring Reves.” I interrupted him. “The difference is, when I go out on the battlefield and come back soaked in other male’s blood, you get to reward your little attack doggy with your cock.”

  I rifted in front of him and held my blade to his crotch. “I don’t think I have seen you come back from a battle with blood on you yet Reves. Come to think on it, I think you deserve to bleed a little bit.”

  The doors behind us blasted open. I threw my magic down the hallway without even looking, instead I focused on his face, his flinch.

  I turned to see the damage and laughed. They had lined up hundreds of soldiers in the hallway outside the door. They were now crumpled to the floor. Gone. Instantly.

  “Really? Reves? This is what you come up with? I could take down your armies like swatting a fly.”

  He grimaced.

  I stood tapping my foot now. “Seriously though, the response time is terrible here.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Something interesting to happen.”

  There, I could feel a rumble coming up through the keep. Suddenly six Fae warriors appeared in front of me. I smiled before I started fighting with them. I looked down the hall for the power and saw Gaelen in hi
s full battle glory walking towards me, rain-bowed tendrils of aura flowing from him as he moved.

  Time to show off.

  I moved, fast. I easily took out three of the Fae, the fourth stabbed me in the gut with their ash blade and I felt it strike home and begin bleeding. I let my silver tendrils of power choke that one while I battled the other two. I threw my ash dagger into the eye of one and they dropped.

  The last tried to rift but, watching the energy of their life spinning away, I reached into the very air and gripped. I pulled the Fae out of oblivion and slammed him to the floor, the male’s violet eyes widened in disbelief as I slammed a sword home through his chest.

  I felt Reves behind me and I rifted, reaching around to hold a blade across his throat.

  Gaelen was standing over the last Fae now.

  His eyes roamed over Reves and, dismissing the threat I posed to his life, simply asked “Did you just pull this Fae out of a rift?”

  I smiled in response and sent a blast of silver energy at him. He winced slightly.

  I sent a much stronger one and he responded with a pulse of gold energy that all but nullified mine.

  I laughed, he was powerful. I couldn’t beat him. Not without summoning the Tundra. That power, I was not ready to show yet.

  “Are you here to arrest me Gaelen?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “And where will you be taking me?”

  “To a trial.”

  “Before the Queen?” I asked him, raising my eyebrows.

  He nodded slowly. “Against my better judgement. Yes.”

  I shook my head. “I won’t come easily.” I lied.

  “I know. Let Reves go, we both know you’re not going to kill him.”

  I shoved Reves aside. I lifted my hand and snapped my fingers. There was a deafening crash and the entire keep rumbled. I could tell that I had just destroyed at least half of his fortress and whoever had been left inside.

  I flared out my power at Gaelen and he slammed his golden energy into mine. I wanted to taste his strength, so I let it roil around me for a few moments before pushing me to the floor.

  I sent out flickers of silver light as though I was truly fighting against him and finally, I lay still.

  I felt him touch me and my magic flared of its own accord. I batted it down. I called my firedrake into myself.

  I watched as Gaelen pulled out special silver cuffs meant to keep Fae from rifting.

  Smiling, I breathed. “Do you really think those can hold me?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I know I can.”

  My shoulders shook. “Powerful, brave, Gaelen the Stormcleaver” I mocked.

  His eyes were obsidian, I saw his entire aura pulse red. “You just killed thousands of innocent people Sierade.”

  “Did I? Who decided their innocence? I’m not saying all of them were guilty, but surely almost none were innocent.”

  He scoffed.

  Reves spoke and I rolled my eyes. “You should try to break her off from whoever she is siphoning.” He sounded desperate.

  “She is not siphoning anyone.” Gaelen said to Reves.

  His jaw dropped as he looked at me. I smirked as Gaelen hauled me to my feet; I had withdrawn my power now and he had wrapped me in tendrils of gold. All shades of the rainbow pulsing down his wings and out into his aura.

  “That’s right Reves, fifteen years you’ve been sleeping with your cock in your nightmares. When I siphon, you had better flee the plane.”

  He ran at me and before Gaelen could pull me away he backhanded me. I smiled and spat blood across the floor.

  “I don’t care what Gaelen thinks he can contain. You are alive on my behest. I could blink at you and your existence would be wiped from history.”

  Gaelen rifted us.

  Chapter 12 – Exhaustion

  Year 10,340 AC

  Sierade

  We were in a vast chamber that looked like it had been carved from stone many eons ago. Gaelen and I were on one side of the chamber, through the centre ran a deep crevice that glowed a silvery blue. The entire roof of the chamber had runes and spells carved into it.

  I laughed lightly; Gaelen’s grip on my arm and the golden tendrils on my body tightened, they had brought me to a place of power.

  The runes were anti-psychic and anti-rifting meaning they were able to, at the whim of the current queen, be assigned to a single dangerous prisoner to question.

  I laughed because they had brought me here, of all places, to a place where the Tundra ran closest to the earth in Faery. To the place where I was probably at my most powerful, and they had no idea.

  They thought the power here would protect them. It did not care if they lived or died.

  Across the crevice, stood Elliot, Bryln, two other Fae guards, and the Queen.

  She was beautiful, her blonde trellis of curling golden hair trailed the floor and she wore a blue gown the exact shade of her eyes, a dark crystal blue. She watched me, and I watched her.

  She cleared her throat lightly and her voice rang through the chamber, light and lovely as bells.

  “Sierade Gwaynten, you stand before me charged with high treason, you stand charged with murder, and with resisting the arrest of a Nephilim high commander, along with the arrest of the Prince’s High commander. What say you?”

  “High Treason?” I guffawed “Against whom?”

  She snarled, “You know very well, I, Queen Aubliette, your Queen.”

  Sneering at her, “You have never been my Queen. How am I to be charged with high treason against a Queen I have no connection or allegiance to?”

  I asked the room dramatically. I got no reaction from my audience.

  She cocked her head at me. “Then to whom do you swear your allegiance? The Howelltie? The mercenaries?”

  I shook my head. “I swear my allegiance to myself,” She scoffed. “and to Faery, not some trumped up tramp child who waltzes around claiming to be a queen.”

  I saw her smile slightly then.

  I let my creation magic tunnel lightly into the earth. I found Tundra quickly and I felt the silvery ropes slip into place, I felt that I could tap into endless power. I knew that not a single one of the entrapments in this room could stop me.

  “Sierade Gwaynten, I hereby sentence you to death.” She smiled at me.

  I smiled back sweetly, she looked disarmed by my reaction. I broke Gaelen’s golden cords as though they were nothing. I stamped a rift anchor into each of the creatures in the room and I rifted myself to the queen. Her face was a mask of terror.

  “Do you? Death by whose hands?” I whispered, raising my eyebrow.

  “Certainly none here,” I said looking around at all the speechless faces.

  “Aubliette.” I said, now pacing. She flinched at the sound of her name. “This is wartimes, I committed an act of war. You will first, remove the charges from me, and second remove your pronunciation of my verdict.” I stopped and stared at her.

  “Is that clear?”

  She raised her chin, blanking the terror off of her face. “As this was an act of war, I have no jurisdiction to charge for an act of treason.”

  I nodded and as I passed Elliot, I smirked. “I assume that none shall speak of this incident outside of this chamber. It would be an embarrassment to think that one Female Fae, especially one as young as I, could not be contained by the Queen’s might.” I looked at her.

  “Has your power started failing yet?”

  She flinched.

  “You are not some child-queen, are you? You let them think you mad, don’t you? What is your end-game Aubliette?” I hissed at her.

  I saw Elliot’s eyes widen as he looked at his mother. Tundra told me I could go in the queen’s head and take whatever I wanted. I shook myself.

  I did not want to do that. Not yet.

  “The game is afoot.” I said slowly.

  She nodded “You know that there are repercussions to actions, even during war-time.

  I threw
my hand out at her a sword appearing in it with the end growing just long enough for a single drop of blood to drip from the hollow of her throat, there was a collective gasp in the chamber, it bounced off of the walls.