by Viviene Noel
An explosive combination, these two.
Such a shame so much had changed in the last couple of years.
Emmerentia caught Mahena’s discreet glance, the girl lost in her thoughts at the sight of the camp. She knew she needed Mahena in her life, as much as she needed her twin, the thread that pulled her closer only intensified with each passing day. The trust was there—the way Mahena’s eyes widened at the sight of everything, from the smallest animal running across a plain to the scents of nature, from the lack of practicability in the wild to the strange way she spoke sometimes. Down below, where her twisted guts reigned, it was too much not to believe, despite the mist of strangeness floating about the woman.
The last weeks had liberated her from a weight she thought would cling to her for the rest of her miserable life. She’d never been scared of getting caught, of having to answer for her crime. She was furious about having to potentially stand trial for only avenging the death of her beloved.
Yet she’d looked behind her shoulder at every turn. As the days passed, whether they’d been quiet or entertaining or draining, that heavy clasp on her chest lifted further, inch by inch.
If it wasn’t for the respect towards her brother, she probably would have crossed many other lines already.
The conversation they had had in Kordobàr, it had only been a test for a reaction.
Darios turned to her, his eyes glinting with a spark she knew too well. ‘And you must be the infamous sister.’ He glanced between the two of them, as if marking their faces and establishing the physical resemblance.
A smile ghosted across her lips at the possibility that spark offered and died as the captain pulled her in tightly.
Emmerentia froze, her body stoic at the touch. No one had access to her personal space unless she granted it. She looked sideways at her twin, attempting to look semi-comfortable at that embrace.
Fàaran shot her an incredulous look. Her twin was still, despite their unrealistic bond, struggling to understand the drastic changes in her mind over the years, and the glimpses of that past behaviour resurfacing in her around Mahena.
Darios broke the contact, bringing her back to the present.
They desperately needed this man to cooperate, to aid them. Old ties and blood paths were binding contracts to Fàaran. Hopefully, they meant the same for his brother-in-arms.
Darios detailed them one by one, an expression Emmerentia failed to describe hidden in his eyes. Finally, he said, ‘You must be famished. Join me for dinner and we will talk once your bellies are full.’
32
Fàaran tried to suppress the warmth, the enticing joy shoving its way up his insides as he stared at his old, probably most trusted, friend.
A gurgling noise echoed in the war tent as they all pulled the chairs around the dinner table. Darios’s face warmed as a smile stretched his lips when they all heard an audible growl. He looked to Mahena with mischief in his eyes. ‘Sounds like you’re hungry.’
Her chin dipped, her cheeks blushing slightly—her eyes, on the other hand, gave the impression she was forcing herself still before the platter of meat laid in the centre of the table. Fàaran winced at the quantity—too much, too much when they were guests and he had an army to feed.
Darios caught his stare and inclined his head, then motioned them forward to serve themselves. ‘Eat your fill, it seems you still have a long journey ahead.’
Mahena’s fingers launched into the plate, all dignity erased. Emmerentia, on the other hand, hesitated and tugged at their bond with a glance beneath lowered lashes, but Darios insisted.
‘There is food aplenty, the hordes and packs haven’t yet left the forest.’ He seized a piece of meat and bit down. That was most likely why the camp had been raised here. ‘You know they always come first.’
Fàaran tensed ever so slightly at the casual comment that hinted at the depth of his history with Darios, as he was certain Mahena was monitoring all words, despite what she might like to pretend. He hadn’t risked exposing unnecessities in his note and had only mentioned their estimated time of arrival.
‘Oh my god, it’s delicious! What is this?’
Fàaran, Emmerentia, and Darios whipped their heads to Mahena. She smiled broadly, her mouth half-full with chewed meat. Slowly, Darios’ lips parted, his chest heaved a little, and a laugh echoed through the tent.
Darios shared precious information long into the night—solid, factual, numerical. And the terrifying, infuriating truth was they could not hold these lines forever should reinforcement not arrive.
‘Why would they ally with her?’ Mahena asked, her hands braced on the table, as the Dartassi went over the last numbers. ‘Who would want a world plunged in darkness and terror?’
Darios studied her face, the lines of it, and Fàaran knew he was trying to decipher how much he should divulge, if she’d even ever been stood in a war tent.
Fàaran spared him the question. ‘Promises she most likely will not uphold. Power if she wins, no interference with their business. They get scared, and in dark times the human race proves sometimes weaker.’
Mahena retorted, ‘Can you blame them if they believe it will save their people?’
Fàaran flicked his brow. Not at the words, but at the tone. The assurance in her voice. He angled his head, and he could see she felt the surprise on her own face.
‘Regardless of your age or experience of warfare,’ Darios replied, ‘with the knowledge the whole continent possesses of their means and motives, no one should believe a word the queen or her emissaries profess. She wants lands that do not belong to her and wants to take them from nations who have welcomed and accepted her kind.’ Each word was laced with growing anger that echoed Fàaran’s own—his voice deepening, tightening, the wounds of the countless losses echoing. ‘They all deserve to burn alive, and that would be merciful compared to the treatments they inflict.’
Fàaran bit his lip—too softly for anyone to notice—as his heart pounded at the words. Demeera, Demeera, Demeera. The bond tugged and pulled and softened. He reined himself in.
When he looked back at the gathered company, his sister had a similar wary frown on her face. What is it.
She shook her head.
‘Have you witnessed it done?’ Mahena pushed softly.
Darios swallowed hard, his features shifting from anger to rage, and his answer iced even Fàaran’s own blood. ‘Yes, and I do not wish that misfortune upon anyone—except for them.’
Mahena’s throat bobbed at the tremor in the captain’s voice—they had told her the fate bestowed upon any falling in the clutches of the Shadows.
His stomach twisted as his thoughts strayed to the demon he knew reveled in it.
When the girls had nestled into one of the cots provided, Fàaran jerked his chin to the captain towards the flaps of the tent. They took a stroll through the camp, into the fresh, crisp night air—and let the sounds of a slumbering camp seep through his skin as memories upon memories of the Flatland campaigns flashed behind his eyes.
‘I miss it, you know, our time together—’ he encompassed the tents, and the stories being told around the fires, ‘this.’
Darios raised a brow, silently suggesting all the other aspects that accompanied the campaigns. They walked in silence for a moment, until they reached a remote spot and slumped onto the ground, backs against a robust oak tree.
‘It has been a while, my friend,’ Darios said as they sunk into the dim quiet of a depthless night.
‘I am glad to see you’re not dead.’
‘My sentiment exactly.’
As if he knew Fàaran would never judge, as if he realised he had finally come into the presence of someone that would in no circumstances think of him as weak, Darios shoulders dropped low, a long, exhausted sigh quietly whispering out of him.
When all the tension had released
from his shoulders, when he knew his friend would listen, Fàaran asked, ‘Why are you helping us?’
Darios frowned deeply—an angry, insulted frown.
‘Don’t get on your high horse. You have more important things to do.’
‘There isn’t much I can do, anyway. But I suggest you don’t insult me in my own camp.’
They looked at each other, and quiet laughs escaped their lips. ‘It’s bad, Fàar’, worse than what you might think. I could use you.’
The guilt surged through him like a tidal wave and he found his lungs caging themselves for breath. For his sister, for his sister, for his sister. ‘You know I would have been here since day one if I could have.’
‘What happened to you? And who’s that girl? You weren’t entirely forthcoming in that dispatch.’
Fàaran’s eyes bore into the distance, into the infinity of the night, where he’d buried his feelings and his overwhelming, raging guilt. He never trod there, never dared open that cursed box—because he knew if he did he would leave his sister and never look back. So he tugged on the lock, ensuring it was sealed for a thousand men not to break and angled his head to the man he considered a brother.
‘Long story. The girl, on the other hand, an even longer one.’
‘You don’t like her, do you? You don’t approve, at least.’
‘I don’t approve of much my sister does these days,’—Darios’ eyes furrowed—‘but it is something vital to her. That much, I understand and support.’
‘I remember how guilty you felt for not bringing her along during the campaigns.’
‘Oh, she made well enough for herself without me.’ A pang of anger—even if the pride he felt for her accomplishments was equalled by none.
‘Brand me curious. But,’ Darios slung a bottle of what had to be mead from his coat pocket, ‘before we get to this side of the reunion, tell me what you need of me.’
‘We need to get to Vassalis.’
B
They stayed for two nights at the camp. One to rest, the second to prepare for ‘the most suicidal and reckless mission heard in a long time’ to quote Darios’ specific words when Fàaran shared their itinerary plans.
The first day and night saw both men disappear together on errands they didn’t disclose, back only for dinner.
Emmerentia dragged Mahena through the field, forcing her to face what might become of her life, of their lives, should they be unfortunate in the days, in the weeks to come. They offered help where they could and spoke little. The emotions running through her made her brain burst. She pained to contain the whirlwind of feelings at the sights. It was pain, and fear, and anticipation, and pride, and more she found had no place within her heart. Mahena lost herself in that strange reality, in the world she knew always existed and had been lucky to never face.
Yet...
That fog returned and, on the first night, as the silence of darkness embraced the camp, she was dragged into another dream.
They had been sparse in the past few weeks. Few had ripped her from sleep, tears sliding down her cheeks and tight chest as she’d risen in a panic. The remaining ones had been quiet, more like whispers on a wind.
This one, the young woman didn’t know what to do with it.
She stood, bloodied and battered, on the top of a hill, looking down at a field of corpses. The sun started its slow ascension into a new day, unbothered by the suffering that had taken place throughout the night. They had destroyed the last outpost, and she had been a part of it. She wiped the crimson end of her sword against her trousers and dabbed her face. Such quiet now reigned, an insult to the life that had beckoned mere hours earlier. The soldiers prowled down below, dim figures in the climbing morning, the sun reflecting on their weapons.
They laughed and feasted.
She surveyed the prairie where that arm of the army had camped, scanning the expanse for a silken curtain of darkness. Where was she?
Filthy hands closed around her eyes. Mahena threw her elbow back. The motion was stopped and she was being spun around.
Red, burning eyes bored into hers. Her lips curved into a smile that sent men running. ‘You fought well today.’
‘This was unnecessary. They needn’t die as a sacrificial feast for your coven.’
The gaze brightened, swirls of different shades creating an inferno that bore into her soul. ‘My promise is to you only,’ the woman whispered as she stepped closer.
Her body began burning, screaming, as it did every time she was near.
They stared at each other for eternity, bathed in the light of the rising sun. There was no describing their connection, the link flowing between their souls. It was deep, twisted, fiery, and it sent her consciousness to a dark hole beyond her comprehension.
The woman’s grin deepened. She pulled her closer, shutting out her thoughts with a kiss of raging victory. Her body went up in flames.
The screams of the men they had just butchered became a distant memory she didn’t care for anymore.
Mahena never knew what to say of those dreams. She never saw her own face, therefore could not claim for a fact that they were erased memories. All of her dreams felt real, they always had. It was easier to believe they belonged to someone else, and she was only the receptacle.
As the thought of an impossible forgotten love loomed, Mahena stared at Emmerentia over a bowl of porridge as they shared breakfast on the second morning. The men had vanished already. Darios had informed them that they were welcome to use any of the training yards and fields, and join in a session if they wanted to. There were several spaced out around the camp.
The twin hadn’t brought up the subject of Ashaàr Vallegian, or how Sheya and him were connected. The name plaque on the front door flashed before her eyes at the memory. Weeks had passed, yet the event had stuck in Mahena’s mind.
It was so, so not her business. But, it was too much not to mull over. The twin had made it clear that that conversation never happened as far as she was concerned. But—she really, really wanted to ask. Because the fragments from that dream were...interesting.
A fighter, whose life tightly intertwined with the female twin. Two swords, the vines decorating the pommel of the more elegant one on top. It wasn’t much, but it had sparked her curiosity when she’d made the connection between the dream and the twin. The very rough sketch she’d drawn in her journal was a representation of the design engraved on Emmerentia and Fàaran’s swords. It had taken her that long to make the connection.
Mahena had theories, of course. The potential past lover who was more than just that stood at the top of her list. Although a predictable possibility, she failed to imagine what else could ignite such a strong reaction.
‘You’ve had another dream, haven’t you?’ Emmerentia asked as she placed her empty bowl back on the table.
‘What makes you say so?’ Mahena replied, speaking a little louder than usual.
The camp was louder this morning; the sounds echoed through the large war tent.
‘You were talking in your sleep. Fast and tense. And sweating a lot.’
Mahena paused. She didn’t automatically report her dreams. Usually, if they didn't ask, well, she didn’t say. Would they consider that unworthy of their trust?
‘It is hard to understand whether it’s meant to be me, as I never see the face of who I am.’
‘Describe it. Maybe I can help.’
Mahena hesitated. It felt like a violation of her privacy, in a sense.
No. No. The little voice urged. No. No.
So Mahena evaded the details. ‘I was on a battlefield. Whoever the people were, we just butchered an entire valley. It might have been a camp or a village, I can’t remember.’
‘What did you feel? Do you remember?’
Mahena lifted her eyes. ‘There was a woman. I don’t remember what she look
ed like, but I was angry at her for the slaughter. I believed it unnecessary.’
‘And then?’
Mahena felt her cheek flush as she remembered the anger and the passion, the burning of her body.
Emmerentia burst out laughing. ‘You fucked on a bloodied battlefield?’ Her eyes went wide and her laugh deepened. It echoed in the tent, somehow reinvigorating, as pure as her brother’s when they’d arrived. The twin wiped the tears at the corners of her eyes, exhaling loudly. ‘I might be underestimating you if these are your memories! I thought I was bad, but that must be pure thrill.’
Mahena swore the little voice grinned inside. She rubbed her eyes. ‘That’s what you take out of it?’
‘That’s the interesting bit, that’s what will remain. The butchering part?’ The woman shrugged her shoulders. ‘Maybe there was a reason. We’ve all killed before, it is no big deal.’
Mahena cocked her head, the last words resonating within her. She should be outraged at that last affirmation, should protest it. Killing was a big deal—she was no murderer. Yet, it sunk in, settled comfortably into the part of her that had simmered over that thought for such a long time.
‘How is such a thought acceptable?’ she murmured, more to herself than in expectation of an answer.
Emmerentia caught it. ‘You do what you must to survive. It is rather simple.’
Mahena looked up to her. ‘How many have you killed?’
She seemed to count. ‘About twenty. On the top of my head. It was them or me. Don’t dwell until you know the reason.’
‘Why did they want to kill you?’
‘I might disclose that after we know your true identity.’
Fine, fine. ‘Then tell me something about you that would not be compromising.’
‘Is there nothing else you would rather do in a war camp?’
‘Why would I want to gawk at people that might die tomorrow knowing I am skipping town?’
‘They might share valuable information.’