Shelter of Sighs

by Bethan Johns

  I rifted into the leaders’ tent at the Rustlavayne Merc Base Camp.

  Looking around the tent at the sturdy-looking long table I ignored all of their war notes; that was not why I was here.

  Sylek?

  I sent it out like a whisper, a very light pulse. I knew there were a lot of strong psychics around. I was not concerned with being found by someone else, I just didn’t want to waste my time with them. I knew he would find me.

  He stepped into the tent a few minutes later. I had pulled out a chair from the table and was sitting reading a book on Howelltie holidays.

  I held out the book, my eyebrows raised.

  He moved forward his arms tying his hair back from his head “Rislin is planning a Pudliven festival celebration.”

  I nodded and put the book down.

  “Why are you here Gaelen?”

  “I need to find her.” I said simply.

  “Why?” he sat down in front of me.

  “Because she has been destroying planets for decades. Billions of lives, Sylek. She may be some kind of goddess or other as you put it, but she is literally killing billions of people. They are calling her Planet Destroyer.” I answered baldly.

  “And what are you going to do to stop her?” he asked.

  His brows furrowed as he looked at me, he meant the question. It wasn’t a challenge.

  “Well I know I can’t contain her. So I’m going to have to kill her.” I said.

  He laughed and shook his head. “Then I cannot help you. I would not recommend trying to use your psychic offense tactics on me. You would merely end up making a mistake that would cost you the advantage of your abyss. You can not beat me, that I can promise you.”

  He stood. Tundra he was tall. Imposing really. I never understood how such a creature could be so large and so graceful all at once. Elliot was tall and graceful also, but Elliot was thinner, he was like a gazelle. Sylek was like a mountain.

  I stood. “I have no choice, you have knowledge of her whereabouts, this actually has nothing to do with the war. I need her to stop destroying planets.”

  I grabbed his shoulder and rifted us both into the barracks below the Prince’s estate, the prison cells here were not actually terrible. There were some poor folk who lived comfortably in the same conditions.

  “Sylek. Just let me go to her.” I said.

  “She will kill you.” He responded. He looked around the room and did not seem much perturbed by suddenly being imprisoned.

  “She doesn’t want me dead.” I responded.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, he then smiled. “Come to me.” He held out his hands. I took them, and he led the way for me to enter an antechamber in his mind. A section he left unlocked to show people things.

  Go to her if you wish.

  I zoned in on the location he was showing me, and I rifted.

  I was standing on the edge of a bubbling brook. The trees surrounding it swaying in the breeze. All I could hear was music, soft cascading music, growing with an orchestral forte and lowering into a chaste piano.

  It was breathing in and out. The breath of the very planet.

  It was entrancing; I let the sound wash over me, soak into my bones. I looked around and was stunned to find that the plane itself was making the music. The bubbling of the brook cascading down rock. The leaves on a tree working against the bark to play like a viola. Grasses rustling in the wind, the wind itself was like a bellows.

  Breathing in and out in different deep chords.

  I heard a soft sweet voice sweeping over the area then. It wrapped everything in a haunting melody.

  I watched as Sierade appeared, the haunting notes flowing from her mouth. Crystal clear and lilting in rich and vibrant tones.

  She sat by the edge of the stream and wiggled her fingers causing the sound to change slightly, she raised her other hand to point to one of the trees and it bent for her, the bowed instrument now sounding deeper, adding more bass to the symphony.

  This was her symphony, she was creating perfection. I was witnessing it.

  Her hair blew gently across her face as she began to sing once again, and I again closed my eyes listening.

  A few minutes later, her singing stopped, and I mourned it for a moment.

  I opened my eyes to see her standing in front of me.

  “Why are you here Gaelen?” she asked quietly.

  “I am here to arrest you, for the billions of lives you have taken. For the planets you have destroyed.”

  She stood quietly listening to her plane. “No other living creature has ever stepped foot on this plane.” A single tear rolled down her cheek.

  “This was to be my only creation of true beauty.”

  Not the only one, I thought as Elatrin entered my mind. The prophetic artist did not often stray too far from my thoughts these days.

  “Will you come with me Sierade?” I asked her.

  She looked up at me sadly. “Have you figured out my destiny yet?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe we can figure that out together.”

  “Sorry Gaelen, it is not yet time”

  “Do you have the gift of prophecy?”

  She looked at me again, she had been distracted, it seemed as though she was far away.

  “No.” she replied. “I must go.”

  She rifted

  I cursed.

  I was back in front of Sylek.

  “Where did she go?”

  He watched me. “In between.”

  “Show me.”

  He again let me in. I could feel her, but it wasn’t her anymore. She was everywhere and nowhere. She simply existed still.

  I backed out of his mind. “What is that? Where did she go?” I asked him again.

  “In between is what I call it. The first time she did it, I thought she had died for a short time.” He said.

  “Will you notify me when she comes back?”

  “I might be willing to, but just so you know, sometimes she is gone for many years. Or for many years only appears for minutes at a time.” He said.

  I left the room, frustrated with myself for letting her distract me. For getting caught up in the beauty of the plane rather than ending her immediately.

  Chapter 18 – Ultimatum

  Year 10,499

  Sierade

  The time had come. I strode into the Queen’s bedchamber. I saw her sit up in her bed, she was with a male Fae who opened his mouth as though to scream. She snapped her fingers and he fell silent.

  I looked at him “Will he be able to speak of what he hears today?”

  She shook her head.

  I sighed. “I suppose it matters not. Queen Aubliette, I have come to tell you that by the end of this year, your war will be lost. If you do not negotiate peace and give the Howelltie and Elfin what they want, your entire army, every last one of them, will be decimated.”

  She scoffed. “Even you cannot be everywhere at once Sierade.”

  I pushed her down into the bed and held an ash dagger to her throat. “Yes. I can.”

  Letting her go, I straightened. “You will soon see Aubliette. You will have no choice. Destroy the bills you wrought, create new ones. I would get started now, the first day of the year 10,500 AC. Your battalions will all be dead should the war not be declared officially over, and it have been told specifically to me.”

  “I thought you were working with me.” She sputtered.

  “You are delusional Aubliette, you have always been working for me. I told you that from the beginning. See it done.”

  Her face was set in determination now. Shaking my head at her I said “You will soon see you have no choice. Where is Sylek being held?”

  She shook her head, her eyes watering, her face the picture of betrayal. I laughed. “Did you truly think I loved you? Do you think me capable of that? My heart has long since grown cold.”

  “And yet you are here looking for your lover. You are winning this war for him are you not? You have no allegiance any
longer. You need none.”

  “The firedrake that is my passion still lives inside my breast. Sylek is the only thing she still stirs for. She never batted an eye for you. Where is he?” I said growling now.

  She narrowed her eyes at me.

  I closed my eyes and reached into her head, simply punching a silver energized gauntlet through the walls of her mind fortress easily and scoured for Sylek.

  I found him, and I rifted away leaving her screaming and clutching her head in the bed.

  I rifted into Gaelen’s bedchamber and found he and Elliot sitting on his bed together drinking warm beverages. They looked like picture perfection of love and comfort.

  They both started at the sight of me and I slammed anti rift anchors down over the entire room.

  Gaelen looked to his prince fearfully as he stood.

  Elliot did not look nearly as fearful as he should have, he looked cautious and curious.

  “Sierade. It has been many years since I have seen your face.” He whispered.

  I looked at him. “I just came here from your mother’s bedchambers.”

  He looked as though he had been slapped and I smiled.

  Gaelen moved forward. “I assume that you did not kill her seeing as you appear to us not covered in blood.”

  I shook my head. “We have been lovers for a century now. She never told you?”

  Both of theirs eyes widened as they exchanged glances.

  Laughing, I continued. “She is attracted to power, she would throw away every scrap of honour she ever had for it. Where do you think she is getting her power? How do you think she has not waned down to nothing after five hundred years too long on the throne?”

  Galen frowned at me “You are providing her with power, what is she providing you with?”

  “Why the precious look on your face when you found out your queen has been involved in a century long torrid affair with your most hated enemy, of course Gaelen.” I began to pace the room.

  Their eyes followed me warily. “This can not be the only reason you are here Siera” Elliot said.

  I stopped in front of him.

  “No, it is not. I have two further reasons for being here.”

  He nodded.

  They waited.

  “The first is to deliver the same message I just gave to Aubliette. Your war is over. You have lost. She will remove the bills she passed and there will be peace declared by the eve of the last night of this year, or every single Fae and Nephilim in your armies will be decimated.”

  Gaelen paled. “How did she respond to the message?”

  I scoffed. “With far more diffidence than someone in her position should show someone in mine. It is no matter, you will all soon see. I know she intends to fight me. I will ensure that does not happen. Give me a fortnight.”

  “What are you going to do Sierade?” Gaelen asked quietly.

  “Nothing drastic.” I gave him a menacing smile.

  “Which leads me to my next point.” I rifted in front of the prince and slicing my wrist open, forced my blood into his mouth.

  I felt it travel through his body, the tundra energy in my blood travelling with it.

  Elliot struggled and Gaelen had frozen.

  I let go and pushed him away. I rifted in front of Gaelen and held an ash blade to his throat before he could run to him.

  I moved behind Gaelen, so we could both watch the Prince as I snapped my fingers, and Elliot’s entire body froze. In his hand suddenly appeared his own ash dagger which he jerkily slashed across his own arm.

  Tears spilled from his eyes as he raised his hand further and placed the point directly over his own heart.

  I felt Gaelen quake beneath me.

  “What would you give me for your prince Gaelen Stormcleaver?” I whispered breathily into his ear.

  I could feel the disgust and hatred for me pouring off him.

  “Anything” he responded in a gruff voice. “I would give you anything.”

  I sighed and moved in front of him.

  “Now I will always know where he is, I will always sense him.” I snapped my fingers and he pushed the blade a little bit into his chest, causing him to gasp in pain and fear.

  “I can make him walk off cliffs, I can make him rift into a volcano. I can simply make it so he can never speak or move again and he will just freeze and turn into a statue unless you save him the torture of that and kill him yourself.”

  Gaelen’s eyes were frozen on Elliot.

  “WHAT WILL YOU GIVE ME FOR YOUR PRINCE?”

  When I screamed at him those eyes jerked to settle on mine, they were obsidian and a single tear leaked out to rest on his cheek.

  I felt that tear like a punch to the gut. Gaelen fell to his knees in front of me, his hands gripping my thighs.

  “Everything Sierade Gwaynten. I will give you everything.”

  I studied him now, his bowed head leaning against my leg, his fingers digging into the fabric of my leather pants.

  “I will simply take my prince back.” I whispered.

  He looked up at me. “Sylek?” he whispered back.

  I snapped my fingers and Elliot crumpled to the ground.

  Gaelen ran to him and I watched as he looked over the Prince, he then stood and faced me angrily. “You know Sylek is here. You could have just gone and taken him. Why do this?"

  I cocked my head at him. “Because Gaelen, you just promised me everything.”

  I disappeared.

  ✽✽✽

  Sylek

  I felt her, I sat up from my pallet, the pallet in the dark cell I had been calling my home for nearly a decade.

  “Si?” I whispered into the dark.

  She appeared in front of me and smiled. “I’m getting you out of here.”

  We were suddenly in the command tent at Rustlavayne and Rislin cried out, standing from the table. It was the middle of the night here; she was alone.

  She looked between the both of us and understood. Her feet flew over the stones and threw herself into my arms. I held her gently while I looked to Sierade.

  It was Sierade that was my soul mate, Sierade that I would ache for, love passionately until the day I died.

  But Rislin had been my best friend and lover for centuries.

  I watched as the jealousy fizzled out into defeat in Sierade’s eyes. I knew that she wanted what Rislin and I had. Rislin pulled away and moved to Sierade and pulled her in kissing her on her cheeks and then her mouth. She pulled away “I know you did not bring him back for me but thank you Si.” She whispered.

  Sierade merely nodded at her.

  Rislin looked between us and went to leave.

  “Stay a moment Rislin.” Siera said.

  We sat down around the table quietly and Siera snapped her fingers for crystal cups of whiskey to appear in front of us. I sighed. It was something Siera from three hundred years ago would have done. When she was still cocky and full of swagger, when even with a mouthful of nails she could charm the pants of the meanest Howelltie. Now she had become silent, powerful, and terrifying to most who met her.

  “I have just delivered a message to the Queen that she is to destroy any bills of offense, surrender, and negotiate peace by the eve of the last day of this year. If she does not do so both the Fae and Nephilim armies will be destroyed down to the last solitary soldier within one day.”

  Rislin’s eyes widened. “How?”

  She looked at me then. “I will be summoning a show of force, one that she knows she cannot defeat, if a peace treaty is signed, I will simply make that threat gone. If she refuses they will destroy her armies and I will personally destroy her and her Stormcleaver.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Why?”

  She looked lost for a moment. “Too much time has gone by, I fear I can never be what I was, I have evolved now. Into something, darker, less Fae, less Howelltie. I want to do this for you Sylek. Before what is left of me burns out.”

  I watched her carefully. She did look drai
ned, she looked like she would soon just float away. I felt my throat constrict, I realised I had lost the Sierade of my childhood long ago, this creature was still she in part, but it was like looking at her through a sheet of glass.