Anuit drew back, pulling her cloak tightly around her shoulders. “She’s sick.”
“Where is she?”
The sorceress shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. She won’t want to see you. It will break her heart.”
She took a hesitant step forward. Something was different about her. He wasn’t quite sure what. She smelled different from the charges in the blood bar. Maybe it was the dark magic of her sorcery that she constantly channeled.
“I… I was looking for you,” she said with a tentative note in her voice. “You weren’t in the safe house when I came back. We thought you might be dead. But it’s worse, isn’t it?”
“No!” he protested. “I’m more alive than ever, Anuit! If only you could feel what I feel! I would turn you and then you would see, but I can’t force it on you. It’s not like we thought.”
“It’s not?”
“No. It’s just a disease, nothing more. It can be turned into such a gift! We’ve learned to control it, and the count found a way for us to coexist!”
She seemed skeptical, but at the same time considered what he said. “It sounds… too good to be true.”
“I know,” he pressed. “But look at me. I’m still me. I can feel just as I felt. The Bloodsworn give me their blood, a little each night, and it keeps my hunger in check. And I have power! There are so many things I can do now that I couldn’t before.”
“Never to see the sun?”
“Is that too high a price for immortality?” he asked. “Isn’t that one of your sorcerer secrets? There is no afterlife? Now I can live forever. Come with me! I can petition the count to let you join us!”
“Oh, Danry,” she said, stepping towards him. She laid a soft hand on his chest, and he smelled the blood pumping through her veins. The heat of her cheeks and tops of her breasts intoxicated him. “I wish you had not been so quick to take my ‘no’ as final when we traveled together.”
He jolted in surprise, and then a rush of pleasure filled him. “I was meek then,” he said. He lifted her chin with his finger. “Now, I am not.” He leaned forward and kissed her. Her soft lips parted slowly at first, ever so slightly, and then she opened her mouth to him and their tongues tasted each other.
His fangs extended, and she drew away quickly. “I’m afraid,” she said.
“Don’t be,” he said, and he pulled her back into his embrace. She did not struggle, holding him tightly as he bit into her neck.
Her blood tasted as different as she smelled. Instead of wholeness and balance, he felt a rush of lust and the kind of fear one has when falling from a window and catching oneself at the last minute. It was exhilarating and disturbing at the same bittersweet time. The serpents within him coiled through his veins, as if alarmed by the taste of dark magic in her blood.
He pulled away finally and moved to seal her wounds.
She pushed his hands aside. “No,” she said. “I want you to leave your mark on me. Then anyone else will know that I’m yours.”
He could barely think straight through his giddiness. “Come with me,” he said.
“No, no yet. I must see to Arda. Meet me in the east garden tomorrow night.”
“Okay,” he said as she stepped into the shadows and vanished.
Danry could not wait to see her again, but he had no luck in finding her or Arda before dawn. He returned to the small apartment he had been provided outside the castle and fell asleep at the sun’s rising.
He opened his eyes the moment the last of dusk’s light surrendered the world to the night. The sleep of a vampire was dreamless. He had no recollection of the time spent between nights, and as far as he could tell, he opened his eyes as soon as he closed them.
He rushed to the east garden, and as promised, found Anuit there waiting for him under the trees. The sight of his mark on her neck excited him. She took his hands, and he wondered again at her newfound friendliness and affection. He grinned. Humans found vampires irresistible.
She held her wrist to his mouth, and he bit into her skin. He drank from her again, watching the expression of pleasure on her face as he pulled her blood into his mouth. The same unusual rush filled him from the dark sorcery, and he knew he wanted more of it. It made him feel sluggish, as if he were drunk on wine.
“Tell me about what it’s like,” she said when he finally pulled away. “I want to know what it’s like to be you.”
He had been told that the vampire venom from his fangs would fill his charges with feelings of love, loyalty, and devotion to him. He was pleased to see that her sorcery did not make her immune.
“It’s wonderful,” he said, “even with the limitations. I’m stronger, faster, see farther and hear more. I can become a living mist and fly through the night sky with the clouds. There is no pain, and no fear or guilt. I am accepted by the Liberated and loved by my charges. There is almost no way to kill me and I heal quickly. You can have this too if you let me ask the count.”
“What about the limitations?” she asked. “What would I need to worry about to protect my life with you?”
“Well,” he stroked her hair and held her head to his chest. “There’s the obvious. Sunlight and fire. A blade is only lethal if it removes our heads. But there are little things, too. We can’t enter someone’s home uninvited. The Bloodsworn always have invited us, but hanging garlic over a door or window seems to rescind a previously given invitation. Wood or silver through the heart paralyzes us. Most everything else we’re immune to. And of course, we sleep during the day. Much of this I had already guessed from my travels, but here’s an odd thing they’ve told me. I haven’t had to test it yet, but I’ve no reason to doubt my Liberator.”
“What is that?”
“It seems we must sleep in the soil of our homeland.”
“What does that mean?”
“If I cross the border into a foreign sovereign land, I must transport earth from my home with me. If I don’t, I will die at sunset.”
“What about when a king dies or borders shift?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand the magic behind it, only that there are certain conditions that our blood must meet to continue living. I suspect it has to do with the sovereign land at the time of our Liberation.” Danry’s face lit up in realization. “That must be why the count keeps his daughter alive and names her queen while he keeps a lesser title! And I’m afraid that means I cannot leave Astia without a coffin of Astian soil.”
“That’s not so bad,” Anuit said. “We could be happy here, forever.”
“Yes,” he purred. “Yes, we could. Come with me!”
“Not yet!” she said. “There is still Arda. She wants to leave for Erindil, and she’s asked for my help. I’m still her friend. Come with us! Let all three of us go there and see if it’s true that Taer Iriliandrel has returned! She’s your friend, too! She just needs to see that you’re still hers. Then you can have both of us!”
That did sound appealing.
“You’re Covenant!” she persisted. “You can make things happen. Have a ship sail for Erindil, and put all of us on it.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
She smiled. “I know you can do it, my love,” she cooed. She undid her dress and let it fall from her brown body. She wrapped her naked arms around his neck and coaxed him to the grass. “I want you to bite me when you enter me,” she said.
He would do anything for this woman.
Strange. Who had entranced whom? He didn’t care.
“So she wants to go to Erindil,” Count Markus mused. Danry stood silently, hands clasped in front of him. “I had heard the Taer Iriliandrel reappeared but the tower was empty. There is no Kaldor.”
“It would be good to convert both of them,” Queen Iristine commented. “The Kaldorite is the real prize, but another sorceress in our ranks has its merits. The Kaldorite would go far to support legitimacy in the people’s eyes. And in other nations.”
“Indeed,” her father agreed. “Da
nry, you know these women. When she finds the empty tower, take advantage of her disappointment. This is important. I would see it myself, but I have other matters with the seelie in the north that require my attention. I’m trusting this to you.”
At the mention of the light elves, a powerful burst of hatred and malice filled the bard such that he had never felt before. He did not understand the cause of this irrational feeling, but the blood in him slithered in agitation. His lips twisted in anger and he nodded. “I will not fail you.”
“Very well. There is a trade ship already scheduled to sail to Erindil with supplies for the Covenant missions there. Have your charge prepare some coffins for you with Astian soil and add them to the ship’s cargo. See if you can turn both of them in your travels. Also, report what you see at Taer Iriliandrel. If there is any sign of the old Dragon, I want to know about it.”
At the thought of the incarnate Dragon, another twinge of hatred and revulsion filled him. “I understand, my count,” Danry bowed.
“That is all,” the count dismissed him, turning his attention to his daughter’s dove-white neck.
The next night, Danry met Anuit again. She seemed more alive than ever, despite the many unhealed bite marks he knew lay hidden beneath her dress. “Is it done?” she asked.
“It is,” he said. “There is a ship that leaves just after dawn. My coffins are being loaded as we speak. Both you and Arda have been added to the manifest. You need only be at the pier after daybreak, and the crew will know you from your descriptions.”
She almost squealed with happiness. “Oh! I knew you would come through for us! Arda will be so excited, too. I think you’ll be able to convince her that humans and the Covenant can coexist. Are you sure both our names are on the list?”
“I am,” he confirmed. “Can you take me to her? I would very much like to see her.”
“What is the name of the ship?” she asked.
“The Harvest Bounty.” The serpents in his blood twisted uncomfortably. A nagging suspicion started in his mind.
“Follow me,” she took his hand. “Maybe I can convince her to let you have a little sip. Then she’ll see there’s nothing to fear.”
The thought of tasting Arda sent his blood slithering in greedy anticipation, shoving aside any sense of unease. He followed after her with an excited spring in his step.
Anuit led him to a nondescript residence. He suspected the Kaldorites had several safe houses throughout the city.
She opened the front door. “Inside here,” she said, gesturing for him to enter ahead of her. “You’re invited.”
“Come in, Danry,” Arda’s clear voice sounded from within. With a surge of joy he stepped into the house, sensing the barrier melt away at the paladin’s invitation.
Arda stared at him for a moment, standing at the far end of the room. She didn’t seem at all hurt or sick.
“You’re right, Anuit,” Arda said. “I can’t do it. I thought I could, but I can’t.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Anuit said. The sorceress’s voice came from behind Arda.
The paladin turned her back on the man and walked out of the room. Anuit stepped from the shadows of the back door from where Arda had just left. She looked sad.
Danry froze in fear, and he realized what he should have picked up on earlier. He had felt the barrier to entry fall away at Arda’s invitation, not Anuit’s. Something wasn’t right.
He turned and saw the first Anuit standing behind him in the front entry, a perfect doppelganger of the one to whom Arda had spoken.
“I have to say,” said the Anuit who had led him there. “You were much easier than I thought you would be.” She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. The illusion melted away, and now he saw her true form, with demonic horns, wings, and a tail. The lilt of Bryona’s voice was utterly captivating. “You forgot to add one weakness to your list,” she grinned, green eyes sparkling. “Desire.”
“I’m sorry, Danry,” the real Anuit said. “For our friendship, we owe it to you to free you from this curse.”
Danry roared, fangs extended and eyes glowing as he turned to do battle with the sorceress. She would not find him so easily defeated.
The last thing he saw was the hellhound’s toothy grin, and his final thought was one of surprise at how painlessly its jaws separated his head from his body. He descended into the fiery oven of the hellhound’s stomach, and then nothing.
PART 2: SUBMISSION
12 - The Messenger
The white falcon descended from the sky and landed on the stone garden wall. It was late afternoon, and the sun had already dipped low enough to cast mountain shadows over all of Windbowl and its surrounding flatlands embedded within the ring of the Windmane Mountains. A young elf girl played with clovers in the grass surrounding a flagstone path leading from her stone cabin. An orange tiger lazed on its side beside the girl. Its tail flicked at her face every once in a while.
The falcon felt pride as she watched the girl make floral crowns and bracelets, stacking them on her head and wrists like so much gold. The girl had dark blue eyes and long emerald hair, which she wore bundled up into twin ponytails. Her skin was a soft sage green, and her ears swept back almost as high as her ponytails. Her green hues had earned her the name Fernwalker. When she ran out of clovers, she waved her hands over the ground and more sprouts emerged, budding into flowers within seconds.
Fernwalker sat in the grass and clover patch, adding green stains to her white wool dress. She had eschewed the leather belt Attaris had made her and instead cinched the waist of her dress with a woven clover rope. She had already mastered enough of the druidic arts to keep the clover fashion accessories alive, green, and strong. Now she tied and wove flowers together to make little dolls, two larger ones and one small one.
Fernwalker looked up from her play and noticed the falcon. “Hi, Mom!” she said.
The falcon spread her wings and drifted to the ground, and then shifted into the form of a tall elven woman. As she transformed, long green grasses, purple flowers, and soft fronds flowed up from the ground and wove themselves into a gown over her body. The silky strands of plant life were so fine that they appeared as spun fabric. Her skin was moon white with the faintest hint of lavender, and her chin-length silver hair had wild-cut bangs. Unlike her daughter, she had red-crescent body markings down her shoulders, back, and the sides of her legs and arms. The deep brown irises of her eyes shone with glowing, green striations.
The first of the seelie race had come to the world of Ahmbren nine years earlier. When Klrain died, the world of the faerie, the Otherworld, collapsed in upon itself. The broken world’s fragments and faerie souls were captured by the sparks of the Green Dragon’s soul when she sacrificed herself to save Ahmbren from being torn asunder by the shattered shards of the Otherworld. Instead, they shredded the Archdragon’s soul, and then condensed around its pieces into wisps of light as they descended to Ahmbren. From those wisps, the original seelie manifested as grown adults in a magical birthing called lightfall.
The first seelie held within them disconnected memories of all the dead faerie. The essence of the Fae revealed itself on their skin in colored body markings of various geometric shapes. The closer the Fae personalities came to dominating the mind of the elf, the larger and more prominent the markings became. The markings receded, and could even vanish, if the elf proved strong enough to banish all vestiges of the Fae personalities. Every one of the first generation of seelie also held a spark of varying intensity of the Archdragon’s soul in them. This shown through their eyes in the luminous striations and rings in their irises.
In the time since their lightfall, many had had children of their own. Those born naturally did not have to contend with Fae ghosts inside their minds, and their bodies were unmarked. Their souls were their own, and they had no dragon spark to illuminate their eyes.
“I see you’re hard at work,” Aradma smiled at her daughter. Fernwalker’s father, whom the child h
ad never met, was a troll. Her skin had inherited his green hues. Aradma put her own fingers to the ground, causing a patch of buttercups to grow interspersed with periwinkle. “Some more color for you.”
Fernwalker grinned. “I can’t wait until I can do that,” she said. “I’m going to make a dress one day of leaves and flowers,” she promised, “and I’m going to keep it alive on me with my magic. Then I won’t have to wear wool. It scratches.”
“Indeed it does,” Aradma agreed.
The tiger raised his head and opened his eyes upon hearing Aradma’s voice. He yawned, stretched, and then lifted himself to his feet. His throat rumbled, and he exhaled air through his nostrils, chuffing a low growl of greeting.
“Hello, Ghost,” Aradma said. She scratched his forehead and he closed his eyes after giving her a gentle headbutt, and then lay back down, curling around beside her and closing his eyes to nap again.
“You’re home,” Suleima said from the doorway. The troll woman leaned against the stone doorframe and smiled. She had adopted the traditional clothing of a woman of Windbowl, wearing a gray wool skirt and a simple cotton blouse underneath a woolen autumn vest. She had creamy green skin and straight tomato-red hair. She had since abandoned the tribal braids of the Vemnai trolls, and let it grow free and long. Her cheek tusks were short, only an inch in length.
“Dinner is just about ready,” Suleima said. “It’s good to see you home safe. Attaris and Hylda are already inside.”
Aradma rose. “Good.” She laid the flat of her hands on her stomach. “I am quite hungry, now that you mention it. Fernwalker, go get cleaned up for dinner.”
Her daughter bounded off, long ears flopping in the air with youthful energy.
Aradma entered the house she shared with Suleima. It used to belong to Attaris and was the same stone home in which she had spent her first night asleep when he found her as a newborn woman after lightfall, nearly frozen in the winter snow.
When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 50