Chasing Earth and Flame

by Adonis Devereux

  And then it was gone. The lethargy, the strength-sapping waters. His elements soared above him like a bird trapped too long in a cage. His airs sang out in joy, and his waters flowed in like a mighty tide, invigorating him. Melenius was himself again, complete in wave and wind. He must run and tell Nevia—

  Nevia.

  She had slipped beyond the veil of Nistaran while he was gone fetching snow.

  Melenius dropped the cup and ran. He had not been there when she died. Tears blinded him, and he stumbled, smashing his shoulder into a wall. Nevia was gone, and somehow he remained. The curse had been broken. They had misunderstood it. Nevia died, and Melenius lived. Cruel fate, to sunder two people who loved each other more than life! Nevia would wander Nistaran’s shadowy halls alone without comfort, her wailing ceaseless.

  Melenius burst through the bedchamber door. A man in battle armor straddled Nevia’s supine form, his hands throttling her neck. Nevia clawed at his forearms, but her assailant was undeterred. Nevia lived, and Belamal had returned secretly to Nirrion.

  Melenius did not think; he acted. He picked up the closest thing at hand, a small marble bust of Belamal’s father. He gripped it by the head, swinging it around so that the heavy, cornered marble base was brought to bear. He leaped at Belamal and struck him in the back of the head with the makeshift weapon. Blood soaked Belamal’s blond hair, but he did not release Nevia. He only growled.

  “Whore.” Belamal must not even have been aware of the blow, much less Melenius’s presence. “Belamal Triumphant? Gods, I can’t even conquer my own bridal bed!”

  Harsh gurgling filled Nevia’s throat. Her eyes bulged, her face purple.

  Melenius struck again, and the skull gave way beneath his assault. Belamal fell dead on top of Nevia.

  Nevia drew in rapid, ragged breaths, coughing and flailing as she did so. Melenius tossed the bloodied bust aside, then heaved Belamal’s body away. He caught Nevia’s face in his hands and inspected her.

  “Are you all right, Nevia?” Melenius’s gaze traveled over her face, neck, arms, torso, and legs.

  Nevia nodded, but it was clear she could not yet speak. Her blue eyes frosted over; her skin was cool to the touch.

  “Your fever is gone,” Melenius said. “Have your elements returned, too?”

  Nevia smiled as she continued to cough.

  “How?” Melenius wanted to fly up in the air, high above the buildings, and shout to the whole sleeping city his exultation.

  When Nevia had adequately recovered, she answered him. “Belamal broke the curse. My fires consumed him. When he drew near me, his complete lack of elemental influence deadened my Lorin nature. He stole not only my elements but the curse. It had nothing to work on. Then my elements returned in full force, but I could not affect Belamal. And he would have killed me if you had not returned.”

  Melenius crushed Nevia to his chest. “My snowflake.” He kissed her forehead. “If you had not inflamed Belamal, this curse would have claimed you.”

  “It makes sense now, but I could not have seen it before. Serendipity.” Suddenly Nevia’s cool skin turned to ice, and Melenius held her out at arm’s length to see what was happening. He sensed her earth moving through her, healing her birth trauma, revitalizing her spirit as well as her body. “There. Good as new.” Even the newly forming bruises on her neck disappeared.

  Melenius kissed her mouth. Nevia was reborn in her elements and in her womanhood. Her body rose to his touch; she sighed in his mouth and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her swelling breasts pressed against him, and her pelvis ground into his thigh.

  Melenius’s elements surged to meet hers, and his hands traveled across her breasts, down her sides, and found her damp sex waiting for him. They tore each other’s clothes off. Too long they had been denied each other, too long their elements hidden away, too weak to express their love.

  Melenius and Nevia unified themselves in body and element as they had never done before, and when he was inside her, he could not tell where he ended and she began; for just as he moved in her, she moved in him. They were complete, alone, together, bound within themselves in a manner far surpassing their merging in Vieta.

  ****

  The funeral parade ended at the Forum. The wide marble-lined plaza was more crowded than Melenius had ever seen it. People jostled for position; fights broke out; and mayhem was checked only by everyone’s mutual desire to see Belamal one last time. Lictors lined the steps of the Senate house, and temple guards stood with the bright winter sunshine glinting off their ornate breastplates. The sharp tips of their long spears jutted far above the throng, silently reminding everyone not to let things get too out of hand. State funeral or no, the guards would be merciless in their reprisal if there were any serious disruptions. So the citizens of Nirrion shouldered and pushed one another in an attempt to get nearer the funeral pyre, but clearly none dared test the resolve of the grim-faced soldiers.

  Melenius stood on the Senate steps and observed the confusion below. Around him chattered all his colleagues. They were clad in snow-white togas with deep crimson trim. Melenius alone wore his Faror colors, and though he detected other senators’ dirty looks, they did not bother him. Nothing could anymore. He and Nevia had shared and conquered the curse that had almost stolen all their elements. Now that they were recovered, they luxuriated in each other; even when apart, they felt each other’s presence, and so they never felt alone. Melenius was aware that he would age no more, and his wife would be forever timeless like himself. What petty tribalism, politicking, or jealousy could come between him and Nevia? What could distract him from his perfect felicity?

  Even the gold-clad figure of Judal centered before the magnificent columns of Jehiel’s temple could not disturb Melenius’s contentment.

  “Citizens of Nirrion,” the Basur consul called out and raised his hands above the agitated crowd. Slowly, the assembly came to some sort of order. “The Kindor are no more!”

  The crowd roared its approval, crushing against the double line of lictors that guarded the steps and Belamal’s pyre.

  “We come to honor our fallen general, Belamal Triumphant.” The consul raised his arms once more, cuing the applause.

  Annoyance shot through all Melenius’s elements as the consul repeatedly coaxed cheers from the people every time he cried out a simple sentence. He wanted to kick the senator in his pompous ass and tell him to get on with it. Melenius wanted to see Nevia. He assumed she was waiting inside a nearby temple for the right moment.

  After speeches by half a dozen senators, the crowd grew restless. They clearly tired of the pontificating and the sharing of glory that did not belong to the politicians.

  Melenius whispered in the consul’s ear. “You’d better get the widow out here before they throw you on the pyre.”

  The consul glared at Melenius but did as he suggested. Nevia was not announced, and it took some time for the assembly to notice her presence, but when they did, a hush like death fell over the crowd.

  Nevia stepped forward to stand before Belamal’s high-stacked pyre. She was dressed from head to toe in black, her head covered by a black veil. Melenius sensed the steady burning of her strong fires; he felt the earth sing at her touch. Nevia let some moments of silence pass before she raised her veil. Nevia’s frosty eyes locked on his just for a moment, but her elements spoke to him long after she addressed the crowd.

  “Here lies our brave general, hero of our beloved republic.” Nevia’s voice was soft, unlike the braying of the consul and other senators, but Melenius carried her words on his winds so that even those who stood in the marketplace, near the baths, and beyond the Arch could hear her. “He rode to Kelnapontum and showed those savages what Skenje are truly made of. And for that, they cursed him.”

  Melenius had hardly seen Nevia at all for several days because she had been in charge of the week-long viewing of Belamal’s body in her house. What private time they had been able to snatch had been short, so Melenius could not wait
for this funeral to be completed. Once Belamal was properly and publicly mourned, there would be nothing standing in the way of him and Nevia.

  “The curse took his body but not his honor. Nor his courage.” Nevia turned toward Belamal’s upright body supported on blocks of wood. He was clad in his best armor, his sword belted to his hip, his helmet lashed to his hand. An ornate death mask of black clay covered his face, the cypress tree symbol of Nistaran outlined in silver on the forehead. “Nay,” Nevia continued, “not even his body, for that he gave willingly in service to the republic. He told me before he went to war that he could imagine no happier death than in the defeat of his enemies. And that victory he has achieved.”

  Large, shallow-basined braziers burned all around Belamal’s pyre, and at the nodding of Nevia’s head, lictors lit torches from those crackling fires. They stood at attention with flickering torches as Nevia raised her voice to sing the widow’s dirge.

  “Arixus Kelar Belamal,

  General of Nirrion

  A father of Nirrion, a soldier of the republic,

  So lived Arixus Kelar Belamal.

  His prudence and his sternness,

  His gravity and his dignity,

  Attended his steps, and his virtues lead him

  Into Nistaran’s halls.

  A father of Nirrion, a soldier of the republic,

  So died Arixus Kelar Belamal.

  A husband who leaves a mourning wife,

  A father who leaves an orphan son,

  General of Nirrion

  Arixus Kelar Belamal.”

  Nevia sang, and the lictors moved with gravity to light the pyre. Melenius smiled in his airs at the generic nature of the dirge. Usually family members embellished the song, adding in personal verses, but Nevia had stuck with the standard form. To sing at all had been Melenius’s suggestion. Nevia had not wanted to, saying she was not Belamal’s wife, but singing was the expedient thing to do. He reminded her of that. For the sake of little Arixus, if nothing else, giving him the advantage of the Kelar heritage, to be able to trade on being the son of a beloved, dead hero, she sang. Arixus’s name would carry weight in Nirrion’s memory. Nevia told Melenius she had not blamed Belamal for his attempt to kill her. As far as Belamal knew, Nevia had been unfaithful. Besides, returning from any war impotent was enough to drive any man into a murderous rage. Was it so terrible that they had laughed at that thought?

  The flames roared high above the pyre; the wood blackened and smoked, and the crowd moved away like a drop of oil in water. Nevia, however, did not. Melenius knew the heat of the flames would have no effect on her. She was fire itself; why should she shrink away from it?

  The pyre was consumed, but Belamal’s body did not burn. Nevia knew it would not; she had told Melenius so. It did not take long for the people to notice. They pointed and murmured, but then, as the flames continued to lick Belamal but not singe him, the murmurs turned to cries, and pointing to upraised fists pumping the air accompanying shouts of “Alaxton” and “Belamal”.

  Melenius sensed Nevia’s amusement trickling through her earth like spring rain. This was playing out just as she had predicted.

  “Good people of Nirrion,” Nevia said. Melenius’s winds carried her voice. “Great Alaxton has preserved the body of Belamal.” A great cheer arose. “Belamal Triumphant. Belamal Incorrupt!”

  Melenius was glad in that moment that he was Lorin, lest the citizens of the city lynch him for doubling over in laughter. But it was a stroke of genius for Nevia to do this, to mold the people’s emotions as one would clay.

  The crowd stomped and chanted. They stripped and threw their clothes into the bonfire; they ripped apart nearby carts and tossed the wreckage into the roaring flames. And Nevia stood in the middle of it all, her face marble, her eyes blue ice.

  Melenius was more proud of her than words could express. His elements declared his esteem.

  Nevia let this furor rage as long as the fire did. Nothing could have stopped the madness below. She said nothing more; she merely stretched out her hand and coated Belamal’s body in gold.

  The people went berserk. The lictor lines were compromised, and the senators had to run for their lives. The temple guards were overwhelmed, and Melenius watched Judal’s small, gilded form flee into the darkness of the temple’s interior. Any man of rank or title – anyone who had anything to lose – fled.

  Melenius flew to where Nevia stood. “Nice work, but don’t you think that last touch was a bit much?”

  Nevia’s frosty gaze fell across the rioting crowd. “Perhaps. But this is one funeral the city will never forget. Our son’s future is secure, I think.”

  Melenius slapped her ass. “Well, if the Akar name is not enough, I’m sure he’ll be able to call on these fine people for support.” An amphora flew between them, shattering on a nearby column. Melenius wrapped Nevia in his arms. “Now, let’s get out of here before we get our heads broken for our trouble.”

  Nevia and Melenius fled as fast as his winds could carry them. The sounds of carousing, rioting, and partying carried into the night.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Nevia surveyed the bedchamber, the room where she had birthed her son, the place where Belamal had broken her curse only to nearly kill her, the bed where she and Melenius had coupled beside Belamal’s corpse.

  “Nevia?” Melenius’s voice brought her back to herself, back to him, and she put her arms around him.

  “I was not expecting you so early. Is everything prepared? Are you ready to depart?”

  “The Senate is planning to strip from you all of Belamal’s spoils.” He kissed her lips. “They made me the official messenger of their plot, probably because they assume you will not kill me.”

  “They blame me for the funeral riots.” Nevia laughed in her airs.

  “I blame you for them, too.” The stinging slap on her ass that accompanied Melenius’s words sent a rush to Nevia’s pussy. “Gilding Belamal’s body indeed.”

  “Well, your punishment I will risk. Not theirs.” Nevia leaned up and stroked Melenius’s beard. “The spoils that Belamal brought back are mine. I am the one who made Belamal, and without me the war would have been lost.”

  “True.” Melenius crushed Nevia against him. “But what will you do?”

  “Put on my finest black gown, my mourning veil, and get our son.” Nevia was pleased that little Arixus was still with her, not yet at her father’s home.

  “You’re going to go against the Senate?” Melenius’s waters were moved, and Nevia knew that her sauciness aroused him.

  “I am.” Nevia called out to the nearest slave. “Fetch my mourning veil and black gown.”

  “If you defy the Senate, you will be defying me.” Melenius’s hand lingered on her breast. “And that I can’t let pass.”

  Nevia did not answer. Instead, she stepped away from him as the slave removed her gown. When her white flesh was revealed to Melenius, he growled in his airs and pulled her away from the slave who was holding the black gown.

  “I have to go quickly,” said Nevia. “Or it will be too late to stop them.”

  Melenius did not let go of her. Instead, she felt his fingers sliding up inside her wet pussy. “Just a moment.” He snapped the fingers of the hand that was not inside her, and a slave brought something to him, a something Nevia did not see.

  But she recognized the sensation as Melenius put her favorite silver strawberry in her ass.

  “Now go, but know that if you do, I will be very angry.”

  Nevia’s pussy ached with need as Melenius withdrew from her. She nodded to the slave, who slid the black gown over Nevia’s head. The mourning veil soon hid her face, but she knew that Melenius was still watching her.

  “And here is little Arixus.”

  A slave handed Arixus into Nevia’s arms, and she smiled. Arixus was in black as well.

  Nevia set out from Belamal’s house, surrounded by her bodyguards and lictors to be sure, but she did not ride in her litte
r. Melenius was two minutes ahead of her, but she knew that he would reach the Senate a good ten minutes before she did. Her walk was slow. She had intended to go slowly, but the plug in her ass made each step a torture of pure arousal.

  She walked barefoot through the streets, all the way from the Nerivi to the Forum. She held little Arixus in her arms, and his very swaddling bands were black. As she walked, crowds gathered around her.

  Nevia smiled to herself. She had expected as much. Each street that she passed swelled the numbers of those who accompanied her. Soon, even those who could not see her could see the crowd from afar, and they came to join it. By the time she reached the Forum, half the citizens of Nirrion were around her.

  Then she ascended the steps of the Senate building. She stood at the top of the stairs, but she did not enter the building. She was a woman, and that would have been improper. More to the point, it would have been against her interest. Before she spoke, she swept her eyes over the gathered people, searching for Melenius. Nevia saw her father, standing in the doorway of the High Temple of Jehiel, but she did not catch his gaze. She saw the statue of herself, the one Belamal had commissioned. Then she caught sight of Melenius, standing among the Senators, and she saw his teasing elemental laughter.

  “Good Senators.” Nevia threw back her veil. “I am come to demand justice.” She knelt before them and lifted up Arixus over her head. The plug jostled inside her, and her waters quivered. “You would have me impoverish my son for the sake of your greed. You would take from this child the plunder which Arixus Kelar Belamal won by his own sweat and blood in Kelnapontum. I do not even mention the sufferings I myself endured because of him, no. That is nothing; I am but a woman, and all that I can give to Nirrion is nothing. But you Senators are men. You who remained here, in safety and security, would take from my son that which is his. You would strip a widow of Nirrion of all that is left to her. Belamal Triumphant took nothing from you! He gave, yea, with both hands! He gave to Nirrion!” Nevia could hear the roar of the crowd begin to swell behind her like the sound of many waters, but beneath it all she heard Melenius’s airs humming in her ears.