by E E Everly
I slipped into contemplation. A peace sifted through my core. My life felt driven. Empowered. Pieces settled into place. Possibilities. A home. Friends to love.
Kelyn edged up beside me. “Are you sick of nights on the road?” He took a long swig from a mug before jiggling it at me. “Warms the blood. Would you like a sip? Cian makes a throat-burning brew.”
I shook my head. “I’m plenty warm.”
“You’re always warm.” He set his mug on a stump and studied my unadorned tunic, neither thick for protection during combat nor quilted to retain heat. Kelyn wore a padded long-sleeved jerkin under his wool surcoat, but he still shivered on cold evenings.
“It’s my light,” I said dreamily, watching my puffy breath, imagining it sailing on the breeze to a sunny place.
“What does it feel like?” He brushed a wisp of hair away from my face, and his fingers lingered along my jawline.
I closed my eyes while my mouth relaxed open. My shoulders dropped, and the tension from the day’s ride slipped away. “Like warm water coursing through my body, soaking through every pore, under my skin and into my bones. It’s like lying in the sun, cocooned in a black blanket on a frigid winter day. The blanket absorbs the sun’s rays until I’m toasty enough to melt, but instead, I drift off into a blissful slumber.”
“Show me,” he whispered near my ear.
My eyes popped open at his request, and his mouth descended over mine before I could respond. I reveled in his gleaming eyes for the briefest second before they closed.
A whimper wrenched through me as the plumpness of his lips smoothed over mine, swallowing the eager participants who were soft and pliable to his touch.
Kelyn. Kelyn.
I gripped his arms and pressed harder into the kiss, daring my tongue to trace the swell of his upper lip.
This was not like me.
I had never kissed Aneirin, and here I was, kissing a prince.
A mortal prince.
My heat grew as I was caught up in the sensation. Fire started in my heart-center and flared out to my fingertips and into my lips. Kelyn. He wanted to know what my light felt like. I gave him a taste.
My mind flashed to ages ago, to the man in the village who’d planted a hungry kiss on his woman.
My heart skipped a beat.
I was acting human with my kiss.
But I couldn’t stop.
My energy diffused into Kelyn’s skin. I envisioned my light dripping into him like honey drenching a sponge cake.
Kelyn groaned. His hands cradled my neck, and he angled my head back so he could drink more deeply from the light I so generously shared. He whispered my name over and over between his breaths.
I felt wonderful. I felt euphoric. I was soaring over oceans and mountains. Canyons and waterfalls.
Take my light. Need my light. Want my light—want me.
Oh, Deian… My conduct was reprehensible. Dirty. Immoral. With a little whine, I pulled away, knowing these feelings caused trouble. They were trouble.
Corruption, my conscience whispered. How was kissing Kelyn and feeling this way wrong?
“Kelyn…” A pain ripped through me. He tasted too good. I shouldn’t have been so fervid in the bestowal of my light or of my affections, but I wanted to be loved by him, by someone.
My earlier feelings of peace slipped away. The unrest that Kelyn inspired coiled through me. The familiar sensation of the bomb waiting to explode returned.
Wickedness.
I wrapped my arms around my torso, telling myself this behavior couldn’t be disgraceful, but Kelyn brought every desperate want to the surface, plucking the cords of my heart.
I wasn’t ready for these feelings.
Not after Aneirin.
“You’re absolutely right,” Kelyn muttered. “By the stars, is this what being with perfection is like?”
My brow crinkled. “I’m not perfect. You’re mistaken.”
“I’m right. You’re perfect in every way. Can’t you see it? Those things you call imperfections are what I love about you.”
“Stop.” I stepped back. “Don’t say it.”
He stepped closer, determination bolstering him. “Don’t say what?”
“Don’t say it!” I clapped my hands over my ears. Master of Light, don’t let him say it. The mortals’ ways—they just belted things out. They expressed how they felt in insignificant words, not realizing they couldn’t possibly describe what lay in the heart. But what did my heart feel as he kissed me?
Kelyn couldn’t read into my soul as I read into Aneirin’s, but Kelyn would say words without a guarantee of reciprocation, so carelessly.
No. No! I could promise nothing.
He laughed and pulled my hands off my ears. “You don’t need to fear my love, Niawen.” He gathered me in his arms. “Love is never anything to fear.”
“I fear it. You wouldn’t understand.” Love hurt. It scraped. It gouged.
“Let me love you, Niawen. I’ll give you my whole heart.”
“Kelyn, you don’t know what giving me your whole heart means.” He couldn’t. Could a mortal bond with an immortal? I didn’t know. It was too soon to find out.
I’ve known him for only a few weeks!
He buried his face in my hair. “I have an idea. If it’s anything like the past few minutes, my Niawen, then I know all too well.”
My breath caught. My Niawen. He was claiming me—for his own, as if I could be his.
I felt light-headed.
Shutting my eyes, I allowed my head to spin as I nuzzled deeper into Kelyn’s chest. I loved the attention I received from him. Being loved was wonderful, but giving love… so much harder.
I studied my heart-center. Tell me what I should do?
Nothing. Do nothing, my soul murmured. Now is not the time for decision.
Before I could argue with my intuition, I was distracted by the nearby village’s lights. They started moving—fast. Scrambling, scattering. I reached for them with my light.
Alarm. Confusion. Chaos.
The village was in danger.
I pulled away from Kelyn as I caught the smell of smoke. Fire.
Seren’s sight encroached on mine. She was arriving at camp, bringing messages from home, generously flying back and forth every few days to bring reports. She had a clear view of flames licking rooftops, families running off into the night, and men, on horses, lighting homes with torches.
The rabble had descended on their next target.
“Alert the men!” I shouted. “A raid’s happening now, to the north.”
Kelyn leapt into action, shouting commands. He turned back and grumbled. “It’s fifteen minutes away by horseback. The village is as good as destroyed.”
“We’ll get to them in time.”
“Our position must have spurred the enemy to act.”
I drew in a breath. “To draw us into a fight. It’s a trap.”
Kelyn was going to climb onto his horse. I grabbed the reins. “Leave him.”
“I must.”
“Seren will fly us there faster.”
She landed beside me.
Beads of sweat popped out on Kelyn’s forehead, but he didn’t hesitate. He climbed behind me onto Seren as he yelled at Lord Mathonwy. “Meet me there. I’ll try to limit the damage until you arrive.”
Lord Mathonwy nodded. “Yah!” He spurred his horse on, and his company followed.
TWENTY-FOUR
Thick pillars of smoke lifted from every rooftop. The glint of fire filled the corners of my vision, hiding the stars in the madness.
Women and children screamed. Armed men fought against each other. Axes against pitchforks. Unjust. Unfair.
My heart kinked, and a putrid feeling crept through me. What sort of beings could do this? Who could light up the night sky? Who could set blaze to a peaceful landscape?
Cruel men.
“Niawen, you should help the women and children. Take them as far away as possible,” Kelyn said.
I couldn’t still the overwhelming surge of emotions. Terror rolled through me. Pure terror. Desperation and pain. These feelings were coming from the victims.
I felt something entirely different from the attackers. Lust, greed, sadistic fury. I clutched my stomach. Never had so many vile and gut-wrenching emotions clawed through me. Not ever in Gorlassar. Not ever within its magnificent valley where no war touched.
A man in black leather, with his double-edged axe held high, charged Kelyn and me. Kelyn drew his sword, but before he raised it, I blasted the man to the ground. In the flare of my light, his blood-streaked face—it didn’t hold an ounce of remorse or regret for whoever’s blood it was.
A harrowed woman, dragging a toddler in her wake, lurched up and seized my arm. “Please, Lexa, my baby, she’s inside.”
As the woman pointed, I turned, to what used to be a house, to what was a wall of inferno.
I threw her into Kelyn’s arms.
“Niawen, there’s nothing you can do!” he yelled.
I was already running.
Don’t die. Don’t die, little one.
I pulled light around myself into a shield that guarded from the onslaught of debilitating heat. I had never shown any mortal this. Emrys were firewalkers. Heat wouldn’t touch us if we didn’t let it.
Ducking under the flaming doorway, I saw nothing but orange in my vision. A child. I was searching for a child. I moved to the rear of the house. The flames colored the walls and, what might have been, curtains. I scanned the room, grateful the flames hadn’t engulfed the entire structure. In a basket upon the tabletop, with fire raining around it from the ceiling, was the baby.
You’re alive. You’re alive.
Relief almost buckled me.
I scooped her up, tucking her against my chest, within my safety of light.
In a hideous crash, the front of the room collapsed behind me. I cowered with my precious bundle. With no other exit, I created one. I blew a hole in the wall. Flames filled the gap, but I leapt through into fresh air—as fresh as the air could be with a village disintegrating to ash.
I raced around the side of the house where Kelyn held the hysterical mother.
Thrusting the baby into her arms, I said, “She’s fine. She’s fine. Look.” I uncovered the infant. Streaked with soot, but by the Creator’s grace, breathing. I dove inside with my light. Her lungs were fine. Impossible. But they were.
I had just saved someone. Adrenaline pounded my blood. All my senses heightened. This was real. This was battle. This was saving people.
Some of them. More would die.
The mother blubbered thankful words.
“Niawen, get them out of here! And anyone else you find.” Kelyn ran toward the village’s center.
I couldn’t bear watching him go, but as his blade sank into the belly of an assailant, I knew he was strong enough to take care of himself.
“Come on!” I led a growing number of women and children to a cluster of trees beyond the town, hidden behind a hill, to obscure them from the image of destroyed homes and falling husbands. Others had arrived before us. The children’s sobs and the mothers’ stoic grimaces were too much for me.
Tearing back to the village, I knew I had to stop the violence. No one, especially not innocent farmers, should have been subjected to such horrors.
I wove around fallen bodies, ignoring the blood splatter. Most were peasants, evident because of their crude attire. These people worked to provide for their families what meager comforts they could. And it was all taken. Anger swelled inside me.
Swords clanked together. Where were Mathonwy’s men? I pressed on, running faster than any mortal. In the center of the village, beside the crumbled walls of a well, a dozen men—Kelyn among them—fought. Kelyn’s soldiers, the guards stationed in this small village, or what was left of them, fought the miscreants.
They’re almost there, Seren said. Mathonwy’s driving his company with haste. Seren was doing her best to take out the enemy at the edge of the village. I was sure they didn’t expect a towering beast with deadly claws.
The village was farther away than we suspected. This wasn’t good. The enemy would be gone and the damage done before Mathonwy arrived.
As I neared, Kelyn ran his sword through an attacker. His chest heaved as he whirled to face another opponent, taking no pause for the life he took, not now, not in the thick of battle.
Would he feel remorse later? A life was a life, was it not? No man, whether good or evil, had the right to take life. No man could pronounce judgment. Could they?
Mortal men are evil.
The truth slammed me. I had stepped into a barbaric realm of men who believed in destroying wholesome, wondrous life.
Every contest, every mock combat and training scenario I’d engaged in hadn’t prepared me for this corrupted exhibition, this display of human brutality and vulgarity. An ache for home spread through me and penetrated my very being. I shouldn’t have come here. How could Deian have created this people—this frail race of mortals—who killed with no thought? Their inferiority waved through me.
Maybe they deserved their fate.
Even as Kelyn struck a man, even as I thought about the friendships I had made, I knew mortals weren’t mere dogs. Humans had worth. Owein’s amused heart and cheery eyes filled me, along with Kenrik’s hope for love and family, and Brenin’s innocent smiles and giggles. The poor bricklayer and his friends who feared for him. These people had worth. And Deian saw that.
Whatever worth he placed on the attackers, I didn’t know or care to see.
With a dawning understanding, I weighted the scale of justice in my mind. I understood how men believed they could do the same. Judgment was birthed from a division of right or wrong. One person believed he was correct, and whoever felt otherwise was judged unworthy.
But I could stop them—all of them. I could end the death.
Though I didn’t want to ever engage in combat again after seeing these monstrosities, didn’t want a man to fall because of my actions, I found myself stepping between two assailants.
Without second-guessing myself, I immobilized them. My light wrapped around their bodies, cementing them in place. I grabbed the wicked man’s double-edged axe and whipped it into the air, embedding it into a wooden post. I released Kelyn’s man and urged him to help his comrades.
I met the enemy’s eyes, for only an instant. The black cruelty behind his mind and in his heart slammed into me. I knew, without a doubt, the man was no man worth saving. I left him immobilized and fought on, working my way to Kelyn.
He spotted me and yelled words that were lost behind the scrapes of combat.
“What?” I yelled.
His blue eyes surveyed the carnage around me. “Protect my men! I know you can shield them. Please. Too many lives have been lost.”
I nodded.
Before I could turn, my world slowed.
Seren was too late to warn me, even though she saw the danger from the outskirts of the village.
A wall of darkness, thicker than sludge, filled my vision. I gasped. Alarm stabbed my senses. The enemy was closing in, circling us, and I felt their ugly spirits.
They wanted Kelyn’s people dead. Slaughtered.
“Kelyn!” I had no time to alert him.
I blinked and brought the carnage back to my sight—that was all it took.
An offending arrow, a massive splinter of death, struck Kelyn’s chest.
“NO!” I should have shielded him. Oh, Deian. No. The arrow might as well have been in my chest, for all the pain I felt.
Kelyn’s eyes were paralyzed. In his shock, his hands went to the arrow and wrapped around the shaft.
I stumbled toward him. “Don’t! You’ll bleed out.”
He didn’t have a chance. Kelyn dropped. Lifeless.
Around me, the enemy, with bows drawn, surrounded us. Kelyn’s men surrendered their weapons, which landed in the mud with a finality.
I gla
nced at Kelyn but glared at my attackers. I carried no weapon on me. I was the weapon. I closed my eyes.
You will not die in vain.
Light discerned light.
I will avenge you.
The bandits possessed no light worthy of my notice, so I separated the fear of Kelyn’s men from the evil in the bandits.
The sentence is passed. I judge you guilty.
I spread my arms wide. Fire burned in my fingertips. In my mind’s eye, the attack was careful and calculated. In reality, I reacted in two seconds.
Daggers of flame shot from my hands as I spun.
Dazzling streaks—lightning strikes to their hearts—dropped every bandit dead before they hit the ground.
In my outrage, in my fury, I killed them.
First time for everything.
It is done.
With my hands throbbing, I held them out from my sides as if they were caustic.
The world spun in a hollow tube around me. I was trapped in a funnel. I heard nothing. I turned my sight within, trying to ground myself.
It is done. My stomach heaved as I saw my core.
My heart-center was black, as if I had struck myself with the lightning. Charred. My beautiful, glowing, violet heart-center hid underneath a shroud, as if my deeds had shamed it.
My breathing grew shallow and rapid. My lips tingled. Like paint across canvas, my vision smeared. My mind was detaching from reality, attempting to cope as I gazed at the blurring corpses I had made.
Niawen, Seren said. I’m with you. Hold on.
My father’s prior words haunted me. “The mortals are corrupted. If you ever leave Gorlassar, you’ll become like them.”
Black. Ugly.
Corrupted.
“But why’s the rift there? Why is the way opened?” I had asked.
“It does not matter. If you leave our realm, there is no return.”
Ringing. Whooshing in my head.
You are not this. Stay with me, Niawen, Seren said.
“My lady!” Soldiers surrounded Kelyn.
“No return,” my father echoed.
