“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yes,” he lied.
Her head righted, and she declared, “I’m going to make you commune with pixies tonight.”
And again, she was on about the pixies.
And…
Fuck.
Fuck.
Now he understood this feeling that plagued him.
He could fall in love with her.
“Cassius?” she called.
“Let us go,” he muttered, moving to round her.
But he stopped when her hand fell on the center of his chest.
The touch was light, but it burned through him like a brand.
She could stop him from a charge with a touch of her hand.
She could control his mood with the tone of her voice.
She was warrior and he could not strip her of that. It was not what she was, it was who she was born to be.
It was also magnificent.
But there was a very real chance he could lose her.
In the battle with the Beast.
In the battle for Airen.
In the giving to him of children.
Fuck, she could walk down the steps of the Citadel on her way to dinner, fall and break her neck.
Danger swirled around her and would for the rest of her days.
Her hair whipped his neck and he realized she’d come closer.
He tipped his eyes down to her.
And yes, bloody hell, she was closer.
He could take her mouth simply bending his neck.
“You’re not all right,” she whispered. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing. We must be away.”
He made to move again, but this time, she shifted so she bodily barred his path and he had to stop, or he’d come up against her.
And he could not have that.
Thus, he stopped.
“You are changed,” she noted quietly.
“I’m eager to be on our way.”
“We can delay if you wish to talk.”
“And what in the last two minutes of us speaking gives you the impression that is what I wish to do?” he asked.
“Well I know this Cassius. You’re being a cad.”
A cad?
He did not feel like laughing. Not at all.
But by the gods…
“A cad?”
“A cad,” she affirmed.
“And what is the word for a stubborn woman who pushes a man who does not wish to talk into talking by not letting the conversation lie and then calling him names?” he asked.
Her mouth quirked. “A concerned affianced.”
Oh yes.
He wanted to fuck her where they stood.
“Do pixies traverse the moors?” he inquired.
“Not often. They prefer the trees, creeks, streams, rivers, etcetera.”
“So if we stand here for eternity, I won’t be able to commune with them.”
With that, she smiled openly.
“Your point is made.”
“Excellent. Then shall we go?”
She shrugged. “Certainly.”
When he moved that time, Elena allowed it.
But she fell into step beside him and walked far too close.
He could take her hand, if he wished.
He wished.
But he did not.
And when she swung astride her horse and her tunic lifted, exposing the seat of her body stocking stretched lovingly across her rounded arse, he could have pulled her off her horse, dragged her to the trees and covered her, if he wished.
And he wished.
But he did not.
However, when she looked over her shoulder at him atop his horse and her gaze was a dare before she set her moccasins into her steed’s sides and bolted forward in a graceful charge, he wished to accept her dare.
So he set his boots in his horse, Caelus.
And he chased after her.
53
The Discipline
G’Seph
Seventy-Five Miles Inside the Southern Border
WODELL
Seph’s delight at seeing his confederate, G’Fenn, and the four other priests with him that Seph knew were of The Rising instantly evaporated when his fellow priest was within reaching distance.
For he did indeed reach.
Doing so to strike Seph across his cheek in a slap so hard, Seph’s head jerked to the side.
When he whipped it forward, his eyes were narrowed, and his temper had sparked.
“What—?” he began.
But he got no further.
Fenn slapped him again.
And again.
Seph lifted an arm to ward off the blows, only for Fenn to swipe it away and slap him again.
Seph started to retreat, his cheek stinging with pain and heat, but Fenn followed him.
One of the priests with Fenn rounded Fenn’s side, caught Seph again raising his hand in an effort to protect himself, and he held Seph’s wrist steady, which held Seph’s body steady for Fenn to continue raining blows.
Seph jerked his head away, bending at the waist to escape, shouting, “Bloody stop!” only for Fenn to wrap his hand around Seph’s throat and pull him upright.
His fingers held fast…and tight, as his brother priest put his face to Seph’s.
“You fool,” he hissed.
Seph realized he couldn’t breathe.
He further realized he could not escape.
Fenn was taller than him, he had more weight to him, more muscle on his bones.
He was also younger.
But mostly, the hold he had on Seph made Seph fear that if he yanked away, he’d come without his throat.
“How does it feel?” Fenn asked. “To be ruled with an iron hand?”
Seph opened his mouth but no words came out.
And no breath went in.
He started gagging, lifting his free hand to the wrist at his throat, wrapping his fingers around in what he hoped was a beseeching manner.
“How does it feel, to meet a brother, an equal, and have him,” Fenn tossed Seph to his knees on the forest floor, his compatriot letting Seph’s wrist go, and Seph dragged in breath as Fenn finished, “bring you to your knees?”
“I—” Seph tried.
“You bloody,” and Fenn’s boot connected with Seph’s face, causing a starburst to explode in his eyes as pain burst through his nose back into his brain and he fell hard to his side, “fool.”
Blinking rapidly, he pushed up to a hand in the cold leaves, turning his head, only to see Fenn’s face an inch from him as the priest bent over him.
“Our temple in Fire City is all but deserted. Our priests there scattered to the winds. And thus, the king and his men are now aware that it is Go’Doan who was behind the attack on the palace,” Fenn informed him.
This couldn’t be.
“What?” Seph asked, feeling the blood seeping from his nose, just as he felt it drain from his face and his stomach pitched nauseatingly. “That can’t be. I told them not to flee.”
“You told them, and you beat them, and you whipped them,” Fenn returned. “Have you not learned in the years of carefully carrying out our strategy that it is the carrot, not the stick that induces loyalty? Discipline is only for extremes. If you train a dog using pain, you train him only to fear and hate you, and when the time comes he has had too much, he will strike. But we are not training dogs, Seph. We are training and recruiting men. They have conscious thought and they have free will, and if they no longer understand and support a cause, they can,” Fenn landed a vicious, closed-fist blow on Seph’s cheekbone, causing him to grunt in pain, before he finished, “walk away.”
Seph dragged himself from his fellow priest only to run into something.
He looked behind him and up.
His back was against a set of legs and another priest that had traveled with Fenn was glowering down at him.
Fenn’s voice came back to him.
&nbs
p; “You are relieved of command.”
His gaze snapped toward Fenn. “You cannot relieve me of command. You don’t have the authority. Only the Golden Thomas has that authority.”
Fenn tipped his head to the side.
“I do not?” he asked. “That is most odd, considering I was dispatched on this journey for that purpose by Thom. Though not solely for that purpose as I’ve also been ordered to take up your command and find some way to repair the damage you have wrought.”
Seph scooted away from the man who was blocking his path and pushed himself to his feet.
“I heard no word of this,” he declared, his eyes on Fenn, but his attention was also on the four priests with him.
He should not have come alone.
Though how could he know he’d face such as this?
It was unthinkable.
“Yes, you did. I just told you,” Fenn replied.
Seph lifted his chin. “It is not you who communicates my orders. I get them from Thom direct.”
“Where’s Drey?” Fenn asked suddenly, making Seph’s stomach pitch again.
“Drey?” he inquired in return in order to buy some time for Seph was not heartened by this change of subject.
“Drey. G’Drey. The priest I sent to you from the gilded city to assist with The Rising. The one whose arse you whipped to the point there was no healthy skin left,” Fenn explained.
Oh, but he would find the soldier who had shared so freely, and they would learn his way how not to betray your command.
“I do not know,” Seph spat. “The last I heard was that he met an accident on the way to the school.”
“Did you know he’s my chosen one?” Fenn queried.
By Bedi.
This simply got worse and worse.
“No,” Seph forced out his lie.
“He sends no birds. No messages,” Fenn shared. “It’s most peculiar. Handsome, but so needy, my Drey. His father took being Dellish to rather an extreme. And thus Drey…” He shook his head. “So misunderstood. This is a lesson for you, Seph. For it took not much effort before I had but to look upon Drey with the expression I’d trained him to read, and he’d be down on his knees, sucking my cock precisely as I enjoy it most. He did this knowing I’d then fuck him precisely how he enjoyed it most. The carrot, Seph. Almost always, it leads to satisfactory results. Sadly, it got to the point where Drey was so eager to please, I’d become weary from it and needed some distance. Therefore, I sent him to you. However, I did so knowing eventually I’d want him back.”
Seph swallowed and took a step away.
Fenn took that step with him.
As did the others.
Yes, this simply got worse and worse.
“And he did not participate in the mass exodus you perpetrated with the ignorance of your command,” Fenn continued. “He was gone before you failed so spectacularly after being given such a golden opportunity. Having every important personage in Triton under one roof and hundreds of men trained and at the ready to strike a blow for The Rising that would have been felt throughout all Triton.”
Seph kept moving, as did Fenn and the others, and he did it snapping, “I did not fail. It was not me who scaled the palace walls.”
Fenn shook his head even as he replied, “I’m now seeing the problem. You give the command to sally into battle, success is not yours, it’s your men’s. But failure, G’Seph, if the men find failure, that is always the providence of the general.”
He did not have to take a lecture from the likes of Fenn.
Seph was practically there that day so many years ago that The Rising was conceived.
Fenn was but a boy back then, not a priest, not Go’Doan.
He was nothing then.
And he was nothing now.
Fenn could not tell him what his providence was.
At his end, Seph stood still and demanded, “Cease moving.”
The men did.
That was more like it.
Seph drew breath into his nose. “We shall return to the Dome City, after the assassination is carried forward on King Wilmer that I planned, an incident that will force Prince True to—”
“This attack has been abandoned,” Fenn told him. “The servant you commissioned to administer the poison has been persuaded to take it instead. In the jumble of the procession breaking up into four different parties, I assume his death will not be noted for some time.”
By the true gods.
“The procession breaking up?” Seph asked, and Fenn smiled.
“Ah, brother G’Seph,” he said jovially, as if someone told him something he found most amusing. “Your foolishness knows no bounds. You haven’t even noted how truly they all dislike you and how little they trust you. They’ve ridden in four separate directions. Liam and Jell know of this, and they rode with Wilmer to the castle.”
“I only don’t know this because you called upon me for this meeting,” Seph informed him.
“It was decided at breakfast, prior to me calling upon you, and it is now well past lunch. Even Liam and Jell did not inquire as to which party you would ride with. They simply rode without you.”
Seph clenched his teeth.
Liam and Jell, staunch Go’Doan, Liam worshiping at the altar of wisdom and healing, Jell simply being…Jell.
Both of them…
Useless.
Fenn’s gaze shifted momentarily to the priest at Seph’s back in a way that Seph did not like.
It then returned to him.
“And now for those extremes I was referring to,” he murmured.
Seph was about to walk away as he asked, “Extremes?”
“Those that require discipline,” Fenn explained.
The skin all over Seph’s body electrified and this meant he did not walk away.
He prepared to flee.
However, he did not get the chance to flee.
They set upon him, and although he fought, kicked and shouted, it took frighteningly little time to drag him to an old, weathered tree stump.
They forced him to his knees beside it.
By Bedi, they intended to whip him.
He felt his cock pulse as his skin again charged in a much different manner.
But when they pressed him to bend over the stump, it was not his chest held to the grayed wood.
It was his forearms.
With one man behind him shoving down with both hands in Seph’s shoulders, and two men to either side holding his forearms to the stump, Seph watched with mounting trepidation as Fenn moved off behind a tree that stood proud not too far from where he knelt.
Fenn returned with a long-handled ax.
Dearest Go’Chas.
No.
“Fenn,” he whispered.
“Now,” Fenn began, coming to stand before Seph at the stump, “which hand was it that you used to crop a loyal solider about the face?”
Which…
Hand?
“You cannot do this,” Seph told him.
“It doesn’t matter,” Fenn replied, “as I’ll be taking both.”
“No!” Seph shouted, twisting savagely, but inconsequentially, against his captors. “You cannot do this, brother! We are one! We are The Rising!”
“Do not worry, brother,” Fenn responded. “We are all trained. We will staunch the flow of blood and stitch you. You will not lose your life this crisp Dellish afternoon.”
But Seph wasn’t listening.
He was struggling.
The only priest not holding him down came forward to tightly tie a leather truss at the meat of Seph’s forearm.
The priest to Seph’s right shifted as Fenn moved into place and raised the ax.
“No!” he shrieked.
The next sound that came from him was also a shriek, but it was not a word, though it communicated perfectly the depths of pain that swept it out of Seph’s mouth.
Oddly, losing his other hand, Seph didn’t even feel.
Mostly because, seconds later,
he’d lost consciousness.
54
The Significance
Tedrey
Receiving Chamber, Manor of Lorenz, Captain of the Trusted, Fire City
FIRENZE
Tedrey sat on the plush cushion in the seat set in the window and stared out at the bustle of the street at the front of his master’s house.
Firenz citizens moved to and fro, carrying baskets in hands, on backs, on heads, or bags in arms (or on backs). Or their hands held the hand of a little one who trotted beside them. Or they sat atop a fine, sleek Firenz steed and cantered along the road, going about their business.
There were some who were smiling. Some laughing. Some frowning. Some expressionless and deep in thought or intent on whatever they were doing.
Life went on.
But weeks ago, their king’s palace was attacked. Men were executed publicly. But hours after that, their king took his queen in matrimony even more publicly and the city buzzed with excitement as the air rang with revelry.
And but a few days later, it was known and spoken about widely, of the quiet, private, but noble funeral that had been held for the wife of a traitor, a woman forgiven by a king and sent to the next realm with adoration and respect.
And today…
Nothing.
It was just any other day.
As the day before the attack on the palace was.
As the day after the royal wedding was.
And every day in between.
Life just went on.
It was all…
Insignificant.
“Tedrey.”
He jumped when he heard the deep voice growling toward him and turned his head to see the warrior, his master, and the owner of the manor walk into the room.
“My lord,” Tedrey replied.
Lorenz stopped and sighed heavily before he said, “You do not have to call me that, amico. I have shared this.”
“You don’t like master,” Tedrey returned.
“I do not for I am not that either, until I begin to take your arse again, and you can call me that if you wish while I’m doing it.”
Tedrey pressed his lips tightly together and watched Lorenz take another two steps into the room and stop.
“This,” he said, lifting his heavy arm and indicating what Tedrey would understand was his lips being pressed together with what Lorenz said next, “is why I’ve come to speak to you.”
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