by Heath Pfaff
The dinner was lavish and wonderful, though the conversation was stifled. Lucidil controlled the flow of dialogue, and kept Malice and me from saying much to Kaylien. I took every opportunity to speak to her that I could, reveling in how big she'd gotten, and how intelligent she was for a girl of her age. Perhaps it was just my pride as a parent that made me believe so, but I could not remember having met a child so young, with such quick wit.
"Alright Trillia, it is late. Say goodnight to our guests and return to the tent for the evening." Weaver finally said, after the meal had been mostly cleared from the table, and we had spent a good many minutes discussing the weather, and other mundane topics. We spoke nothing of the war, or the events at the castle. There was no talk of politics, and no discussion of what the next day might hold.
Kay, who had been growing more obviously tired by the minute, did not object too strongly to being told it was time for bed. She got up from the table, curtsied, and walked away from the center of the room, led by Ferocity. I watched her go, each step away like a knife in my heart, until finally she was gone through the tent flaps, and into the darkness beyond.
"She's smart and strong." Lucidil said, breaking my fixation on the exit through which my daughter had just left. "We've been training her in self-defense, and of course she is well tutored in scholarly matters as well. She is twice as strong as the other children her age, and she has shown she can learn anything she is willing to apply herself to." He smiled. "She has to be willing to apply herself, though, and that can be a problem. She has a knack for irritating her teachers to the point that they throw down their books and leave."
I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I should have felt something besides a sense of loss at that story, but all I could think of was how I'd never taught her anything. I had played no part in her upbringing, and had never gotten to experience the subtle joys of parenting. Lucidil and Ferocity, though they had abducted the girl, were providing the sort of life I had been unable to give. The time I had with her, I had wallowed in my own pool of self-pity at the loss of Kyeia.
"I've made preparations for the two of you for the night. There is a tent not far from here that is yours for the evening. I would insist that you set about your mission immediately, but I know that you have not rested well in a long time. So, for the night, you may recover yourselves. It's best to travel during the day anyway. Tomorrow, before dawn, I want you up and back at the tent in which we first met. There I will give you the rest of the information you need." Weaver said. He stood up from his place at the table.
"My servant will see you to your quarters. You'll find him waiting just outside the tent." With that, the king turned and left the room, leaving Malice and I alone with the servants who were finishing up the cleaning. We rose from our seats and departed, exiting the tent flap into the empty darkness beyond.
Tyvel stood in waiting.
I had not seen the ghost-like spy since my possessions had been taken away by the previous king, four years previous, when I had been imprisoned. To say that I was displeased to see him would have been an understatement, but strangely I felt little outward anger towards the man, or the remnant of the man, who stood before me. He met my eyes steadily, but with a look of cool defiance, as though he were expecting me to angrily yell and argue with him. He did not know that I had been aware of his betrayal for a long time, though I had believed he betrayed me to the old king, and not Lucidil. In the end, it made little difference. However, I didn't intend to disillusion him. When he realized that I wasn't going to say anything, he took it upon himself to speak.
"I did what I had to in order to protect my own life. You have no right to be angry at me for that." He said defensively.
It was Malice who replied. "You sacrificed others to prolong your own life. You cost Noble and I everyone that was dear to us, and stood by while one of those people was brutally raped and murdered because of the direct result of your actions. We have every right to be angry."
"You would have done the same thing in my place. You say that you are not afraid to die, but when your life hangs in the balance, and you are given a way to save yourself, you would do what was necessary . . ." Tyvel began, but I had heard enough.
"No, I wouldn't. Malice wouldn't. We look like monsters, but it is you, Tyvel, who have played the part of the monster in this." I said, and still I did not feel the anger towards the man that I thought should have been there.
"What they did to Wisp, I never intended. I didn't even want her to be hurt, but the stupid girl wouldn't . . ." Tyvel attempted to separate himself from the responsibility of his actions, but Malice would not let him do so.
"Watch your tongue, Tyvel. Wisp was twice the human you've ever been, and she paid terribly for your betrayal. You may never speak ill of her. You do not have the right to criticize that one. Now, what is your business here?" My green-eyed friend's voice was low and dangerous, though we both knew she could do nothing to the ghost.
"I am to escort you to your sleeping quarters." Tyvel said, his ever transparent features looking somewhat paler than normal. While ghostly, he was haunted by his own memories, I realized looking at his grim features. He might honestly regret the choices he'd made, despite his bluster. His regret, though, did nothing to blunt the damage he'd wrought.
"I'm not carrying your box." Malice snapped. "I've had enough of carrying betrayal with me."
"It won't be necessary." Tyvel replied. "My body is in this camp, and I have a much greater field of motion while near it. I can take you there without aid."
"Lead us to our tent, and then leave us in peace." I said, eager to be done with the ghost. I may have no longer felt rage towards the insubstantial wreckage of a man, but I also didn't savor his company. His presence brought back memories of a time in my life that was difficult to think of. Of course, since I'd become a Knight, and then a Broken Sword, it seemed that most of my life was composed of times that I would prefer not to remember. The death of Kyeia, the murder of Brutal, the death of Wisp and the loss of Kay, the battles of the Hungering, and the repeated betrayal by those I trusted, all of these terrible things were the lineage of my rise to being a Knight of Ethan.
Tyvel led us through the dark camp to a small tent, a little distant from the others. He stopped just outside of it, and gestured that we had arrived. I pulled back the flap and allowed Malice to enter first. I looked back to Tyvel once more.
"I think I hate you less than you hate yourself." I said, before I turned to enter the tent.
"For what it matters, I am sorry about what I've done." His voice was quiet, and there was a sadness in it I had not expected. I did not respond, because I was not even close to ready to forgive him yet. The tent flap fell closed behind me, and I was enveloped in the serene darkness of the space within. Though, as was with the eyes of a Knight of Ethan, the darkness was not complete. What little light existed was amplified, and I could easily make out the motions of Malice.
The inside of the tent was just large enough for two people to stretch out comfortably, which meant that it probably would have housed three soldiers in a less well provisioned army. For that night, though, it would house just Malice and me, and afford us at least some minor comfort in the form of blankets and a padded bedroll.
Malice, I saw, was stripping off the layers of her clothing, shedding them and dropping them to the floor at the side of tent. Even in the darkness of the inside of the tent, my eyes could make out every detail of her movement. I watched her, a blush on my face, though it was not the first time I'd seen her undress. She noticed me watching as she released the buttons on her shirt.
"I've been sleeping in my clothes for too long. Tonight, in this private place, I will be comfortable, and you should be as well." She said as she pulled open the front of her shirt exposing the bindings she wore beneath. The cloth wrappings kept her chest from becoming a burden while she fought, for she was well endowed. She released the knot with a tug, and the white cloth fell away exposing her pale,
almost flawless skin to the cool air. Her breasts were large and full, seeming almost too much for her frame. On her chest, between her breasts, stretched a long and frightening looking scar, the remnant of her own acquisition of a Kaziem wolf's heart.
I had no such scar from my encounter. I had always healed more effectively than any of the other Knights. Since taking the eyes, I had not received a single scar, despite having been in multiple situations that should have left their mark. I reached for the toggle at the neck of my cloak and pulled it free. I turned my eyes away from Malice's naked body, and began to undress myself. She was right. We had one night to rest, and we couldn't be certain when the opportunity would come again. It was best to be as comfortable as possible.
Without my cloak and clothes, and with no fire to warm me, the air was surprisingly chill. Even my fur-clad arms and legs could feel the winter cold. I pulled the blankets over me, but they too were chilled as well, not yet warmed by my body. I saw Malice, entirely undressed as well, slide into the covers at my side, pulling her blankets over her, but a moment later she was pushing her way under my own as well. Her body was as soft as anything I could remember. Everywhere our skin touched beneath the blankets was hot, like velvet fire.
I put my arms around Malice and pulled her closer to me. My lips found hers, and we kissed. I tasted salt upon her lips. My ears perked forward, and I noticed that I could hear a quiet sobbing. Her body was slowly shaking against mine as she cried. I kissed her cheek, and tasted tears. It was the culmination of a terrible day, I knew. Malice had been strong all day, but there, in the privacy of the tent, she could finally have her moment, and I would not take that from her. I held her to me as she sobbed quietly into the darkness. I stroked her soft hair, and kissed her face.
Crying in my arms, she seemed the most vulnerable girl in the entire world, and not at all the two-hundred year old, battle hardened warrior who had been the weapons master of the Knights of Ethan. The Knights had made a monster of a young and vulnerable woman, and she played the part to perfection, but at her center, Malice was still a human being, and humans cried. I could have cried as well, but I did not want to burden Malice with my tears just then. It was her time, and I would be strong for her when she needed me. She was so often my strength in the hardest of times; it was the least I could return to her.
After a while, her sobbing faded, and the chill of the night seemed to vanish beneath our blankets. Time passed quietly, though I did not sleep. Malice stirred against me, and I felt one of her hands on my chest and the other on my hip.
"I want to be with you." I heard her whisper, and suddenly she pressed against me closer, her breasts a very real pressure on my skin, and her lips a soft warmness against my own. I could feel the warmth of her most sacred place pressed against my own firming desire, and suddenly I wanted Malice as I had never before wanted any woman. It was a physical and an emotional ache in my chest. I responded to her advances with my own, covering her face and neck with fiery kisses, and the searing passion of my desire.
I pushed her gently onto her back, and she spread open for me, waiting and eager. I tried to savor the moment, to caress her amazing, full breasts, and live each moment of every kiss we shared, but neither of us had the patience, or the time, for slow advances. Her hips pressed upward unto me, demanding that I enter, and I would not - could not - deny them that which I also wanted. I dove within her, and we were as tightly bound as any two could ever be.
We pressed back the shadows with our ecstasy, and for one night, at least, we found some form of peace in each other's arms. When sleep finally took us, we were both fully spent, and finally at ease.
I awoke before the sun. My movement stirred Malice, and we both rose in silence, uncurling from each other's embrace. Our clothes had been haphazardly tossed across the floor, and I found it took a short while to locate and separate our similar apparel. The morning air was cold, but once back inside our shifting cloaks, the chill vanished. I watched as the softer side of Malice, the luscious figure of gentleness and lust, vanish behind the wall of cloth armor she showed to the rest of the world, and I felt a tinge of sadness. It seemed, as she fastened her sword about her waist and her edges became insubstantial beneath her cloak, that she changed into a different person entirely.
I wondered, then, if I was the same as she was, falling into the character of a Knight when my cloak was wrapped about me, and only truly being Lowin when I shed that outer layer. Perhaps it wasn't even an intentional change on our parts, but an effect of the eerie shifting fabric we wrapped ourselves in. Either way, we had shed our comfort, and once more taken the mantle of the warrior. When we each stood ready, we opened the tent flap and walked out into the darkness of the fading night.
I felt reborn in the dimness of the dawn before the sun. The night's sleep had chased away the last of my exhaustion, and I felt truly whole again for the first time in many years. Kay was safe, and though I couldn't be the father to her that I so desperately wanted to, I at least knew that Lucidil and Ferocity had gone out of their way to take care of her, and provided her with a happy life. Malice and I were alive and well, despite all that had transpired, and before me lay a great task. I had purpose, if little else, and that was more than I'd had during my four years of imprisonment.
We reached Lucidil's command tent quickly. Ethaniel was already waiting inside, standing stoic and quiet in the dim light provided by a single lantern sitting atop the cluttered table. His two sets of eyes, the gray and the black, seemed to take in every detail of Malice and I as we entered, but each with entirely different purpose. Though there was nothing in Ethaniel's stance to suggest he was hostile, those storm gray eyes on his forehead triggered a primal feeling of fear within me. There was something terrible and dark in the old Knight's second set of eyes. The black eyes looked on with sharp intensity, but none of the rage hidden behind the other pair.
"Malice, Noble." Ethaniel greeted us both, bowing his head slightly to each of us in turn. We returned the gesture, though I made certain to keep my eyes fixed on the winged figure before us. So long as his gray eyes watched me with such malignant design, I felt I could not let down my guard. I sensed no impending attack, but there was evil intent, and I could not force myself to trust those smoky orbs.
"You are earlier than I anticipated. I thought the pleasure of a private tent would keep you longer." Ethaniel said, ending the silence that had fallen uncomfortably about us. He looked from one of us to the other, raising an eyebrow in what I could only interpret as an expression of wry humor. For a moment, I saw the shadow of the Ethaniel I remembered from when I'd first joined the Knights, but as his look of humor faded, so too did that fleeting familiarity.
"The dawn comes too quickly." Malice said, surprising me with her candor. Rather than deny or ignore Ethaniel's tease, she had embraced it and made it her own, even smiling pleasantly as she spoke. I felt myself blush, remembering the previous night's activities. I decided to change the subject, and my tongue did the walking for me.
"Why do you serve Lucidil?" Subtlety had never been a strong point of mine, but my curiosity was a driving force. It was a question that had bothered me for some time. If anyone should have been given the crown in the absence of the king, since the king had no heir, I had thought that someone would have been Ethaniel. I was unclear as to how Lucidil had risen so far, so quickly.
Ethaniel cocked his head at the question, surprise evident on his features. His wings flexed over his shoulders before falling back around him like a great black cloak, and he stared at me. I wondered if he would answer, or if he would continue to stare, his four sets of eyes burrowing under my skin as though he were trying to determine my nature by dissecting me with his knife-like gaze.
"You make no excuses for your curiosity." Ethaniel said after what felt like a terrible eternity of silence. "That is a strange trait, but not necessarily an unpleasant one." He seemed to have just come to that conclusion, as though he had been trying to decide whether or not he
was offended by my question.
"I serve the king. Lucidil is the king, and so I serve him. What I think you really want to know, is not why I serve Lucidil, but how Lucidil became the king." Ethaniel smiled, though the expression only touched his first set of eyes. The gray eyes remained cold and hostile. His other eyes, those black eyes of the Knight's, took on a distant look as he remembered.
Twenty years ago, the lands of men were a very different place. Our king then, a good man, was doing what kings had done for countless years. He was expanding his borders, and fighting to maintain peace within those borders. His means were not always the most gentle, but that is what is forced upon rulers by the nature of the world, and the people within. Justice will only prevail if the land is ruled with an iron fist and a heart of steel. A good king must be willing to lay a terrible burden on a few, so that the many might lead simpler lives. Our king did this better than many other have ever hoped to.
He controlled the land with two primary military powers, the Knights of Ethan, and his human knights and guardsmen. He kept his human knights inside our lands, protecting the people, because they could do the job at hand without spreading fear amidst the masses. My Knights, his Knights of Ethan, other than the king's own private retinue, were stationed at posts near the borders of the lands of men, where they could be deployed quickly to fight any encroaching forces.