History of Beauty

by Meraki P. Lyhne

  Nol-Plydon nodded.

  “I support this. But know that it must be done before war as the strongest of your people must be the ones helping us feed the newborns if they are to get over the feeding frenzy fast enough for you to build an army.”

  Build an army. Elakdon was building an army and claiming freemen to become Cubi. “What I just proposed is an act of war, I think.”

  “Oh, it is. But as you said, it will be those you subjugate that you choose from first.”

  Elakdon nodded, not really liking his own idea, but he knew they’d have to take drastic measures at some point. He also hoped to find willing among the villages where coexistence worked well. “But first, I must find allies.”

  “And today, we shall ride to the Earl and see if you can earn his respect and thus his favor in the war to come,” Nol-Plydon said.

  The war to come. There was apparently no way around it, and Elakdon knew at some point he had to get that through his head, even though he hoped for a peaceful solution. He was not Foldon. He was not a man who saw his one journey in life with Valhalla as his only destination. Would he die in battle defending his people? Absolutely! If needed be. But he had to think differently than a warrior. Looking at Yggdrasil and what colors the leaves had finally turned, he thanked Odin for the wisdom to think of life to be lived outside of battle, too.

  “Is it unwise of me to let the Earl know of my rise before we know his opinion? If I am hunted for the mere fact that I am a Royal?”

  “A people will always look stronger in the eyes of others if they have a strong and visible leader,” Nol-Plydon said. “Our people feel stronger when they have an active Royal of their own. Even though all Royals will work together on securing a Kingdom without a Royal by coming and sharing our doses to keep the people strong, then your rise will unite your people in a way they haven’t been since the fall of the last Royal. The humans will recognize this by seeing you standing…like a proud wall between them and your people.”

  Elakdon felt strong and capable at the old King’s choice of words. He felt accomplished at the pride he’d seen in Father’s eyes as he told that story of Elakdon the silent wall. And he finally understood what had changed the night before when he’d felt Father quake in orgasm in his arms and watched his blissful expression afterward. High Father had become more than the respected and slightly feared authoritarian. He’d become a full individual to be revered.

  “Yes,” Nil-Savadin whispered. “The young Prince definitely grows stronger.”

  “I smell it, too.”

  Elakdon looked at them. “Smell what?”

  Nol-Plydon winked at Elakdon, then placed his hands on his shoulders. “Come. Let us go see about your first human ally. Let us present them the flame that all the Cubi people will follow to build a new and strong Kingdom.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Around noon, fifteen rode to the hall of Earl Trygve, all but Father, Elakdon, Nil-Savadin, and Nol-Plydon being Royal Guards.

  Knowing that a Royal was hunted, he didn’t like the idea of announcing himself to the humans. Yet, the fact that a Kingdom had a Royal made them stronger in the eyes of a human. Thus, the revelation of his rise would make the individual Cubi less likely targets in fear of an all-out invasion, made him dig deep after the courage to be that wall. And he wasn’t alone in it—he knew that. He had a Royal hird who’d trained their whole lives to get good enough to kill anything, and their free time was used getting stronger by humping and getting dosed heavily.

  Other than the fifteen with them, the woods were trampled by Cubi in disguise by magic. That and their eyes were the only magic they held. Other than the dose of course.

  Malte rode to meet them, stopping his horse perpendicular to them so that they had to stop.

  “You come many this time, Harrodon.”

  “I do.”

  Elakdon bit back a laugh. Father’s contempt for the human was so obvious that it was almost funny.

  “Why is that?”

  “It is for Earl Trygve to be told. I have announced us days ago.”

  Malte looked displeased by the answer. Maybe because he hadn’t been privy to the information? Elakdon could only guess. That Malte kept looking at Nol-Plydon and Nil-Savadin was probably due to their eyes. Finally, he looked long and hard at Elakdon’s eyes.

  “I see…preparing a feast in the honor of his eyes taking magic?”

  Father didn’t answer. He merely stared at the busybody.

  With angry movements, Malte tugged at the rains, making his horse dance around nervously before it set off in a sprint toward the Earl’s halls.

  “Brunta,” Nol-Plydon mumbled.

  “A what?” Elakdon asked.

  “It is a Cubi word that is…derogatory,” Father said. “We have known only one in my House, and you may not remember him, but I disowned him and showed him off my lands.”

  Elakdon definitely remembered that. The Incubus, a green growing into his purple, had fought Father in the halls, and Elakdon remembered his mother having shielded him with her own body as a longtable and benches shattered under the strength of the two.

  Once Father won, he had strapped the Incubus up outside, taken a whip to every limb of him, then marked him with a sign Elakdon had never seen since. Father and two other purple-eyes had held him down while someone had tattooed that symbol between his eyes. Three days to heal, and the Incubus had been sent off the land with nothing but bread and water and told never to return.

  “Is that what the sign meant?” Elakdon asked.

  “Yes. It means outcast.”

  Other than remembering his mother’s whimpers as she protected her child, and the sound of wood splintering and clay breaking, Elakdon didn’t remember anything prior. At least not in context. “I don’t remember what he did.”

  Father looked haunted by the memory. “He dosed a thrall. She was sixteen.”

  “A Changeling?” Nol-Plydon asked.

  “No, had she been, I would have killed him. Also, if it had been a free girl,” Father said. “But he had been warned once before.”

  They made it into town, and humans looked up as they rode past. Some smiled and waved. Father waved back, looking less unapproachable than usual. Elakdon even noticed he winked at a woman, and she blushed.

  As they passed the blacksmith, Elakdon tried to see if he could spot his dad, but he wasn’t there. In fact, it didn’t even look like the forge was lit. As they stopped to get off their horses, the Royal Guard ended up around them in a half circle, and a few remained behind to hand the horses over to the Earl’s thralls to take care of. Dendon and two others entered the Hall first before allowing the rest entrance.

  Now Elakdon knew why he couldn’t spot his dad. He was present, and he smiled at Elakdon as he came in, yet he had that brave smile that hid worry. “Hi, Dad.”

  “Hi, Ela.”

  Father came to stand next to Elakdon and nodded at his dad, smiling. “Maybe you should sit with him until…”

  Elakdon nodded and took a seat by his dad, who put a hand on his shoulder, rubbing it with his thumb. “Why are you at a Ting that Father called?”

  “It is a normal Ting. But it is a first for you because you are an Incubus. Had you been a human son of mine, you would have attended with me for ten years or so.”

  “Do you think it bad that I haven’t attended before?”

  “Considering why you are here today with red eyes? Yes. But High Father has his reasons to not let you participate earlier, and I’m in no position to speak out against that. You belong to a man closer to the gods than I, as you are a child of me and the gods. Who am I to speak out against them?”

  Elakdon smiled at his father, happy to have grown up loved and honored by his human father. He still worshipped Elakdon’s mother for having given him a child of the gods, and every year on Elakdon’s birthday, he would bring her offerings, be it tools or homemade mead. And he’d always have a toy for Elakdon. As he grew older, it became a knife and fina
lly a sword. That had been the day he’d grown into a man in his father’s eyes.

  “I have never told you how many humans I allow in your part of town, or what kind, so what makes you think it would be in your place to dictate my side?” Father sneered, his tone ripping Elakdon from thankful thoughts about his human father.

  “I would just like a heads up! You feed on humans, don’t you? They sometimes grow worried that you will…you will…”

  “Shower them with physical pleasure?” Father finished.

  “And then leave them.” Earl Trygve said.

  Silence followed, yet Elakdon noticed the glance the Earl cast at Malte.

  “We are not like you,” Malte said, his tone calm but loud in the sudden silence. “When in a focus that intense, humans grow emotions that you don’t care about after we’ve fed you.” More laced Malte’s voice. Pain. Experience.

  “One day, I will beat him stupid,” Elakdon’s dad said, surprising Elakdon.

  “You fell in love with her,” Father stated. “And you’re wrong, Malte. We do care.”

  “Then why did she never come back to me?”

  “Silence, Malte!” Earl Trygve ordered, apparently no more impressed at the whining tone than Father who all but rolled his eyes. But what surprised Elakdon was the angry snort that escaped his dad.

  “What don’t I know, Dad?”

  “It is not for me to tell you this as it is before my time.”

  “I cannot answer for her,” Father said. “At least I shouldn’t answer for her.”

  Elakdon felt left out because he had no idea who the Succubus was. Then again, it was his first Ting, and he apparently had a lot to learn, so he remained quiet and waited for more information.

  What caused the feeling of it all being off was the fact that Malte kept glancing at Elakdon.

  Father finally drew a deep sigh and looked at Elakdon. “The Succubus we speak about is your mother.”

  Elakdon gaped.

  The look on Malte’s face was a mixture of all sorts of emotion, and the expression on his wife’s was one of feeling second. Oh, everything had become a dance through a hornet’s nest.

  “This is not a topic for Ting, this is one to be spoken about when alone,” Elakdon said, his sympathies going out to the woman married to a man who obviously still loved another woman.

  “You are the one I least of all want to speak to, and I will never talk to the child of her about it!”

  “That may be!” Father said. “As it is, we are not here to talk about your love life or what daughters of Loke and Lofn you have chosen to feed, Malte.”

  “But it is the topic,” Malte persisted.

  “It was the topic,” Earl Trygve exclaimed. “And now we move onto why there are suddenly many Cubi here. As Malte has explained, the newly arrived has been to town to find humans to feed with.”

  “Has anyone?” Father looked at the King and Queen.

  “No, High Father, we have seen to that,” Dendon said.

  Father turned to face Earl Trygve again.

  “Malte came to me with names of your household who have shown the newly arrived around.”

  “Has anyone?” Father asked again.

  “Yes,” Dendon said. “Windin has introduced Gorm-in to an old friend.”

  Elakdon’s father smiled. Gorm-in. It wasn’t often Elakdon heard his father’s pet name uttered by anyone than his mother. He who honors the goddess, Succubus. Maybe that was where Dendon had the name from, and he didn’t know that his name was something as simple as Bo.

  Bo stood. “They stayed at my house for supper. My wife and I both fed them.”

  Elakdon looked around for Randi, finding her with a few other women. She looked happy about it, and Elakdon was fortunate to be fathered by a human who found love in a woman who revered his Cubi child as gifted by the gods. She spoiled Elakdon like her own when he visited, and he loved her like a surrogate mother.

  “Does she know?” Elakdon whispered as Bo sat again.

  “It is not for me to tell her, so no. But she will be very proud of you.”

  Elakdon smiled.

  “Now, even though I don’t want to waste time on rumors and half stories, then I feel it important to stick with this one,” Father said.

  “That is new for you, Harrodon,” Earl Trygve said.

  “It is. I have always, and I have never hidden this, thought Malte to be a fool whose tongue is against him as his wits are clearly not to hold it when he should.”

  Snickers erupted, and Malte looked offended. He was about to speak, yet Earl Trygve sent him a glare that tamed his foolish tongue.

  “And why do we need to continue this on Ting?”

  “Because it has come to my knowledge that Malte’s tongue spreads lies.”

  “If you intend on calling me a liar, then do so to my face,” Malte sneered.

  Father turned full front to Malte, then bellowed. “Liar! You spread lies about my House, about the ones living there, about my guests, and about a goddess whose pleasure your weak mind could not let go of, and you stand there and ignore your now wife when speaking of Windin!”

  “I have never!”

  “Earl Trygve, I have never spoken of this as I found Malte to a nuisance at best, but I do not come here with eighteen in tow to Ting to discuss a triviality. I come here with guests because they have sought your audience, and what we have witnessed Malte spreading of lies can only be because he wishes to drive a wedge between us to hinder further growth together.”

  “You do that quite well on your own, Harrodon,” Trygve said.

  Father culled his temper—Elakdon had seen it enough times to know what that looked like.

  “We have not always seen eye to eye, that is true, but we do have more important matters to focus on. Something new is happening.”

  “And you feel threatened?” Malte asked arrogantly.

  “If you are referring to the men of the one God, then we all should,” Father said.

  Anger momentarily crossed Earl Trygve’s features, and Elakdon felt hope and dread stir in equal measures as it could both mean that the Earl was opposed to what they brought, or that he was angry at Father thinking them a threat. Elakdon knew too little as the Earl had only been someone Father disagreed with, or someone Elakdon saw from afar as he came or went from Father’s Hall.

  “But my guests did not seek an audience to discuss that. They bring news.”

  “I think that the Earl has been quite well informed about your guests,” Malte said.

  “Malte, tie your tongue!” Earl Trygve exclaimed, sounding tired and annoyed. “Harrodon, continue.”

  Father held out his arm, and Nol-Plydon and Nil-Savadin stood. “May I introduce Nil-Savadin, Queen of the South Kingdom, and Nol-Plydon, King of the East Kingdom.”

  The assembled humans erupted in murmurs, while Father bowed to the two Royals and left the floor.

  Earl Trygve stood, staring agape. His gaze cut to Malte, who looked as taken aback as the Earl did.

  Elakdon made out whispers about their eyes, but that was about it before Nil-Savadin spoke.

  “I am Nil-Savadin, Queen to the children of the gods living to the south. Considering your surprise, I must surmise that you either did not know that there are Royals among us, or you had no idea just how many gifts Loke and Lofn gave mankind in return for the murder of the beloved god, Balder.

  “As it is, this Kingdom saw the death of their King over one hundred years ago. Upon his death, Nol-Plydon and myself divided this Kingdom between ourselves to guard. That makes us your allies when you and the gods are threatened. We come now as we, in our Kingdoms, my own in particular, are being threatened by a one God. We ask you, Earl Trygve, where do you stand?”

  The Earl sat back staring at her, his expressions not revealing any thoughts.

  “You took our Kingdom?” Malte asked.

  “Malte, silence your tongue! You have come to me with information to try to gather warriors against the sons and dau
ghters of Loke and Lofn, yet it is a King and a Queen who come to offer us their assistance! You have not come to me with information, you have used their arrival to cause strife!” Earl Trygve stood and closed in on Malte. “I wonder about you now.”

  Malte stepped down from the platform that marked the Earl higher at Ting.

  “I wonder what else you have told me over the years that was only to further strife between Father and myself.” The Earl looked at Father. “Is there more?”

  “Much, Earl Trygve, yet I never found it my place to tell you who to trust and who not to.”

  Earl Trygve looked like he’d just bit into something sour, and why wouldn’t he now that Father had formulated a sentence to brand him a fool listening to gossip.

  The punishment was swift, though, and Elakdon was totally unprepared when Trygve pulled his sword and ran Malte through.

  Bo put his hand on Elakdon’s shoulders as he jumped from the surprise. “This is normal for treason, son. And Father was right in not calling Malte out, as it has never been anything but gossip and a gullible Earl.”

  Those words alone were fighting words, so Elakdon understood why Bo whispered them to him.

  “Strife has now been killed!” Earl Trygve sat back on his high chair with the bloody sword resting across his lap. Elakdon glanced at the dead eyes, thankfully not looking directly at him.

  “As Strife has seen his end, then may I introduce to you Hope,” Nil-Savadin said. “We, the King and I, come to announce the rise of a new King of the North. We come to offer our assistance not only to you, but to the King that rises to take the place of Nol-Graydon.”

  The Earl stood again, fear and confusion crossing his weathered features. “A King has taken over this land?”