The Scarlet Heron

by Sharilyn Skye

  I have thought about this moment a thousand times during my captivity. Had she not fed me that night, I would not have survived my kidnapping, for even though their intent was to take me alive, their actions did not guarantee that. The added strength and power I get from a feeding is amplified a dozen times by her blood. Had she not fed me, I would not have survived as long as I have, hanging here in this place like a side of meat. It has been a blessing and a curse. The blessing comes from the flashes I get from her. The Cold Iron keeps them from getting through, but I get enough which means she does, too. I know she is looking for a way to find me and I must hold on until she does. I have looked for my own way out and continue to do so. I am held by Humans, though it was not a human who subdued me. I am trussed up like a butchered animal with Iron chains stealing my magic. I was injected with liquid iron when they took me and that has made me weak. This is a method of torture I had not yet experienced, even under the practiced hands of my own kind. It is the same thing they did to Lara, I am guessing, as I suffered similar symptoms as she. I was ambushed. Injected. Chained. Taken. And here I hang.

  My captors left me for a space of a few hours then began to drain me of my blood. They come twice daily and milk me like a cow, placing rubber tubes in my veins that drain the blood into vials. They do not speak to me and rarely to each other in my presence, but I can hear their conversations in the distance. I can smell the blood of their Master in their veins and now I know how I came to be here. I have planned my escape and if the opportunity arises, I will take it. These chains that bind me should not. Of all the magic I got back, I am unable to weave or unmake as I once could, as that is the magic of life and I am hardly alive. Had I worked on finding out all I could still do with my power after Lara healed me, instead of having meetings with politicians, perhaps I would not have fallen victim to their crude attack. I am a quick study and have learned where I went wrong, I cling to the hope that I may yet get myself out of this. All it will take is one chance and it will go my way, or so I thought. Then the days passed and I began to see all was lost.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  I met her in a white room. I have no idea how this happened. Perhaps it was her magic, her desire to locate me that brought us together. Perhaps it was the Goddess. It could not have had anything to do with me. I was beyond weak by this time and had very little hope remaining of leaving this place alive. Perhaps it was a dream. I have shared those with her before. I cannot say. She looked amazing, her eyes sparked and glittered their determination. She wore a white silk sheath dress which skimmed her body like a kiss. I could smell her, sun, salt and sea. It gave me strength. In the darkest possible moment, it gave me hope. Her hair lay long and curled against her back and her skin glowed soft and warm from within. Her smile was sad and I could feel the loneliness leaching out of her. She reached across the barrier between us easily, after I tried and failed to do the same. I found strength in the simple touch of her skin.

  She told me that everything had fallen apart. She worried that she made too many mistakes. She worried about me and my People. Never once did she say she was tired when I could see on her face that she was. Never once did she say she was scared, which I could also see. Never once did she mention the danger, which I know exists. She simply said, “I am coming and you will hold on, or else.” Then she gave me that look. I wondered how many patients refused to die even though their time had come because she gave them that look. And so I hold on. I dare not do otherwise. With the final bit of mental strength I had, I showed her the last thing I saw before I came to this cell. Maybe the white room was real. Maybe it was not. I will never know. I should have kissed her. I should have told her I loved her, instead I told her that I was dying. I regret this. I regret many things. I regret that I did not do more to ensure the safety of my People and that I placed so much faith in my ability to hold the reins of power that they had no preparation for this eventuality. I regret that I learned, too late, what home meant to me and what I was willing to do for it. I regret that I was able to show Lara what love could feel like and then I had to leave her. I regret that she will not know what I felt for her.

  We are born missing a piece of ourselves, I believe this. We spend our lifetime looking for it and while some find it, others never do. She makes me everything I am not. Stronger, weaker, crazier, smarter, she fills me with pride and makes me humble at the same time. She makes me sane. She brings me joy and makes me want to see another day. In her light I am grounded and by her power I am set free. She makes me a better person and drives me to want to be better still. That is how you know that what you feel is love. How I know it is love. When the other person elevates you to a higher plane than you could ever reach on your own, you have found the one who will complete your core. I had thought I found it once before, but I was wrong. It took me two thousand years and a hundred million moments to find my missing piece. So many regrets, but perhaps the biggest was that I had never told her how much I love her. These were the thoughts that I held to as my captors tortured me, draining my blood day by day until there was not a drop left. Not one. I hung dry, desiccated and alone. I have only died one time before and the details of that death are a bit muted with time, but I felt again that the end was near, if not by the hand of my captors then by my own. Nothing is immortal. Not even myself. Take my head from my shoulders and I will die. Perhaps I could be Healed, even from that, but not in this place. Their intention is to kill me soon and they will succeed. I hang in my chains and begin the process of letting go, of committing the Faerie version of suicide. I will extinguish myself, cast my flame out into the universe and ask the Goddess to take it into her breast. I can take no more. My previous experience with torture makes me less inclined to tolerate it longer. I am ready and they are coming to finish me anyway, they have said as much to one another across emptiness between us. When it is certain the battle is lost, it is better to fall upon your own sword than to fall upon the sword of thine enemies. Lara will understand this.

  It was then, when all hope was lost to me, that the doors to my chamber were ripped off their hinges and thrown back behind the Goddess that rescued me. She stood for a moment illuminated by the first rays of the rising moon, I smelled the blood of my child in her veins and the blood of my enemies upon her gown. A soft gray thing with a scarlet bird threaded through it. It was a match to a bed covering I owned. The covering that was on my bed the first time she gifted me her blood and saved my life. I wondered if she realized she copied its design when she made it, for no one else could have created such a piece, it was a gown woven with her aura. Magic only three creatures in the world know and it was not I that taught Lara to do this.

  When I was a small boy, I went hunting alone on the fringes of my village. I carried a long bow bigger than I and stalked a strange stag, oddly marked with brown and white spots. I had never seen such a stag before and wanted to take the animal down. The meat would be helpful to my foster family and the skin would warm me through the coming winter. They had been kind enough to take me in when my mother could no longer care for me and I hated to be a burden to them. I had tracked the creature beyond the bounds of my usual hunting area and became disoriented and then lost. Talamh na Sithe is not the place one should become lost in. There are dangers and creatures the likes of most planes will never know. Faerie was still in the apex of her power and and the place was wild beyond dreams. Having lost the trail of the stag, I concentrated on finding my way back home, only my own tracks had disappeared and no matter how I looked, I could not pick them up again. I became afraid. My foster mother would be worried and angry if I was not home soon and I feared I may never get home at all. Fearsome Dire Wolves roamed at night and my long bow would be no protection from them. As the last rays of the sun settled beyond the horizon, I came across a small lake of vivid blue. Tall marsh grasses bordered the water and I thought to stop and drink from its crystalline edge. As I approached, a large, brightly colored heron stepped out from the grasses and faced me
. The thing was taller than I by a foot with elegant long legs a white so pure as to be almost blue. The plume on its head reached to the middle of its back. I had seen Great Blue Herons and White Egrets, but never a Heron colored red such as this. The tips of the plumes raised upwards, bringing the creature to an impossible height. I dropped my bow and stared in wonder at the thing. It was magnificent. Large quills came down from the creatures breast, rippling the water around it and that was the only movement around us, for the night had grown impossibly still. In the distance the Dire Wolves began their nightly chorus and my heart sank with terror. My power had not grown to any significance and would not protect me from their savage jaws.

  The Heron stared me in the eyes, hypnotizing me with its beauty and the fear shrank to a small worry. Deep from the throat of the bird came a sound that can only be described as a bark. It barked twice at me then rose on impossibly wide wings and flew, looking over its shoulder, drawing me after it. Grabbing my bow, I ran without question. I ran through thick fog under the thing and followed its barking cries until I reached the edge of my village and safety. The bird circled once and then flew away.

  I awoke the next day, convinced I had dreamed the entire event, until I went to get my bow and go in search of the spotted stag. In my quiver rested a single long red feather and I knew then that I had not dreamed the bird’s rescue.

  I never saw it again. I searched the area far and wide for years, on horseback and on foot, as a teen and as a man and never found another trace of the scarlet heron that had saved my life. I kept that lone feather. Until the day of my punishment and the madness it brought, I kept that feather always with me. Even after, I remained infatuated by that one creature and eventually built an empire around its mythology.

  And here it was again, stitched on the front of Lara’s gown, red thread glinting in soft glow of her skin. The plume of the bird erect and even if only an outline, the eye of the thing watched me even as Lara searched the darkness unseeing, magic covering her from head to toe.

  I knew then that many things had changed since I was taken from that field. She had been to Talamh na Sithe and survived. She had bonded with my daughter, likely saving her life and survived. She had recently fought at least one of my enemies and survived. I knew also that every one of these battles was my fault. Had I not allowed myself to be taken, this Warrior Goddess before me may not have been born. For better or worse, I had caused this. She searched the darkness, not yet seeing through the blackness around me.

  I could speak no warning, but did not need to. In the moment that one of my captors attempted to slide behind her with a semi automatic weapon trained at her head, she turned, pulling my sword from behind her back. It was smaller now, remade to her hand and pulsing with her rose gold aura. Without hesitation she screamed a scream filled with agony, frustration, rage and sadness. It was the scream of a true Warrior. She cut him down from the side of his neck to under the ribs on the opposite side and he fell in two pieces at her feet, before he ever got the rifle steady on her. She spared him no glance as she turned back to the darkness.

  She found me then, the blood of yet another of my enemies splashed her face and I could look upon her no longer. I did not deserve to. Dropping the sword, she ran to my side. “Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God” was all she said over and over as her hands roamed the sharp contours of what was left, looking for a way to release me. She saw my hands tied to the ceiling and scrambled around my tomb, looking for something to use to release me. Boxes and boxes filled with vials of my blood lined the wall and she growled low and fierce when she found them, raising the hair on my arms. Those boxes would not hold her weight and she could not reach my chains.

  I kept my head on my chest and my eyes lowered. I did not want her to see me this way; naked, empty and filthy. It was disgusting. She did not seem to notice as she bent at my dangling feet and wove a set of stairs from the dirt floor with her new magic. When she was done, she climbed them, placing her body against mine, reaching up over my head to grasp the chains that bound me. She had no care or worry that she had placed her bare neck within reach of my fangs. Around that neck she wore a silver filigree locket that looked old and glowed with no small amount of power. I have seen it before, but could not remember where. It seemed very important that I remember this, but I could not. All I could think about was her heartbeat. I could hear it slow and steady. She had no fear. Still, she has no fear of me. As I hung in the dark, at the edge of my control, with barely any strength to ignore the hunger that would have given me the strength to drain her dry. She worked to free me. I could not understand why. Why would she do this? She had no reason to be here and yet here she was. Where were the others of my kind? Someone from my House should have been here, not the tender child before me. It made me angry. I knew she had begun to love me in the months we had known one another, but this? Never had I experienced this level of loyalty or determination, even from those bound to me. The things she must have done to come to be in this wretched place working to free my broken body. She saw me as I was, as I could be, at my absolute worst. She had killed for me. No one that was not bound to me had ever killed for me before.

  She spoke, though I did not hear the words, only the beating of her heart and the sound of blood rushing through her veins could I hear. She smelled of Sun, Salt, the Sea and Home. She talked to me low and soft, soothing me. Again. Always taking care of those in need. All the broken things she gathers. And it worked, my hunger eased and I waited. I could feel my freedom coming and was calm, grateful I had managed to hang on to some semblance of sanity while trapped here. Finally, reaching the uppermost part of my wrist where chains of Cold Iron dug in, making me powerless, she placed her hands on them and turned them to dust with Unmaking. If she noticed the bite of the metal herself, I cannot say. It seemed to have no effect. They fell away. I dropped to the ground at her feet. She came down her stairs, reaching for me, but I did not rise. I sat on my haunches and did the only thing I could. I let the strings of my hair fall around the back of my neck and I offered it to her. I paused giving her a moment to take my head. She should have. She paused in her descent whispering no, no, no, no, no, maybe understanding what I offered and maybe not. It was only when she reached down to me, trying to pull me to her that I dissipated into the night.

  I found and drained dry the remaining five captors on the grounds. Four men and one woman died in my arms and I made it as horrible a death as I could. It was not rape, for they were not innocent, they had declared war upon myself and my House and to the victor goes the spoils. With each one, my strength returned and their deaths became more gruesome. I filled myself past the point of gluttony. I had to vomit the fourth to take the fifth and I did not care for the waste of life. My senses were sharper after and I could smell her on the night air. I could smell my daughter too, tucked safely away at the top of the hill. I gloried in that even as I wondered what that safety had cost them both.

  I left her at the farm that had been my prison. I heard her frustrated screams as she destroyed my cell, the sound of glass breaking rang through the night. Bright light came from the hole in the ground as she set my tomb on fire and the velvety feel of Lara’s magic rippled across the land and caused my raw skin to ache. I could not face her. I would not. Not like this. I would go home. I would talk to my people, I would put together what had happened and then and only then, would I make this right. Whatever it took, I would do it. I needed to understand though, what had led up to this moment because many things did not add up. I needed to understand the events that had forged this new, fierce force of a woman that had once been Lara. I would figure this out and then we would talk it through. I did not deserve this level of determination from her, but by the Goddess, I would be worthy of it anyway. I would do what it took. I had given my oath to a Guardian and the Goddess in my prayers and I would uphold that, upon my life I would see her secure.

  My mind shifted, it was a visceral feeling that shook the core of my soul, like dej
a vu, but far more intense. The world had changed in the time I had been gone, but it has changed many times in my long life. I would change with it; I would learn from this. I had risen from ashes before and would do so again, only this time there would be no mercy for my enemies, no quarter for any who crossed me. I had tried to be kinder, gentler and more inclusive with those of my kind in order to build a new way of living for us all and that experiment failed. Never again would I allow my weakness to cause harm to those I loved.

  Smoke filled the night air and I knew that I must go, Lara would come in search of me now that her destruction was complete and this was not the way I wished our reunion to go. I turned one last time toward the place that had been my cell and for a long moment, I watched the fire burn.

  Dear Reader,

  Finished reading Aedan’s Tale? Please consider leaving a review! I read them all and appreciate your feedback, plus reviews help more readers find books. Book Five is coming along and I promise you will finally get the romance you have been asking me for! It will be worth the wait. This Series will probably finish at Book Six, or so Lara says. Airmed, the tale of Lara’s mother, is coming soon and will be out before the next Healer Series book. Airmed is a reverse harem fantasy and is the first of ‘The Eight’ series. Let me tell you, those books are fun to write!

  Check out my No Fangs Children’s Book: A County Spring written with John Lipscomb.

  Thank you so much for being involved in this process and don’t forget to follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Goodreads and my plain old website.