by Ian Haywood
I know that he meant every word that he said and I immediately felt safer knowing that he was on my side.
Mortus moved a little closer to us while Gereziac remained still.
“You seem to be quite the hero!” Mortus said to Zephal as he approached Tanya’s body, “Your loyalty towards your cause is most admirable, but that sometimes is not enough to keep your life. As you can see, there is someone else with us in the room – unfortunately she cannot say much as she is dead. The body that you see is that of a woman who was very dear to me until she made the mistake of forgetting her place. So, I took the pleasure in reminding her not to cross me again and it must have worked because she hasn’t spoken out of turn since!”
And with that, Mortus kicked Tanya’s body hard enough for it to turn over and reveal her face.
Zephal immediately recognized her and it was obvious by his reaction that she was someone who had been extremely close to him, but Gereziac showed no emotion at all.
Zephal dropped to his knees and at one point I thought that he was going to break down in tears, but he stayed strong and turned his anger towards Mortus.
“What have you done to her?”
Mortus sniggered.
“Killed her, of course!”
Zephal looked towards Gereziac, who remained silent.
“He killed Tanya!”
But Gereziac’s reaction shocked Zephal.
“I can plainly see that! But in all honesty, after the way she treated you, you shouldn’t be shedding a tear for her right now! You have to admit that she was nothing more than a bitch in life! Women can be nothing but trouble at times Zephal and I spent ages trying to pick you up after she left.”
And while Zephal was still struggling to get his head round why Gereziac had reacted the way that he did, Mortus casually walked towards me and unlocked me from the chains – but this didn’t mean that I was free to go.
Mortus had gripped my right wrist to stop me from escaping.
Zephal could see how he roughly I was being handled right now and made a move to break Mortus’s hold on me, but he was stopped in his tracks as a sword suddenly appeared inches from his face.
And that sword belonged to Gereziac.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
The look on Zephal’s face as he realized that his friend had double crossed him was a mixture of both hurt and extreme anger, but most of all it shocked him so much that he could not react for a few moments.
Gereziac was relishing in this moment and he wallowed in Zephal’s pain.
“I would say that I am sorry that you had to discover my true intentions this way Zephal, but I would be lying because I don’t give a damn about you or any other person who I’ve had the gross misfortune to have met.”
Zephal looked directly towards me and Gereziac immediately turned his head back towards him with the blade of his sword.
“I know exactly how you feel towards my daughter, Zephal. Those who have read the Great Book know all about what the future holds for you two, but I am going to make sure that all that changes by giving my blessing for my daughter’s hand in marriage to the man who is holding her right now. It seems that you are destined for even more unhappiness when it comes to women. Mortus has stolen your chosen mate and the one you thought was the one many years ago lies dead at your feet!”
“How did you know Tanya?” I shouted to Zephal.
Zephal nodded his head.
“Yes – and she just left me one day without any warning and I thought that she had disappeared from my life completely, but the memory of her came flooding back when I spotted a picture of you and her in your house when I came looking for you.”
“She was Mortus’s lover!” I told him.
Gereziac stepped in.
“And I only recently found out that she was also the leader of the Disciples of Draig when Mortus and I began our secret negotiations!”
Zephal looked up at Gereziac.
“And Draig was the very man that you killed in battle because he threatened to destroy everything that you stood for!”
“Such a shame that was too. But nobody knows the true reason why he had to die, do they Mortus?”
Mortus nodded his head.
“It seems that my family have a thing for the women in your family, Gereziac!”
Gereziac laughed.
“I’m sure that my daughter has a lot more self-respect than her good for nothing mother not to be unfaithful to her husband!”
“I hope so – for her sake.” Mortus added.
Zephal looked at Gereziac in disbelief.
“Anna cheated on you?” he asked.
“She sure did, Zephal!” Gereziac answered, “But not a soul knew about her affair – not even you. To everyone she was the perfect Queen and they all loved her, including me. But she was not what I thought she was and I discovered one night by accident that she had been secretly meeting up with Draig.”
“My brother was always the lucky one!” Mortus added, “It seems that all the women worshipped the ground he walked on and would drop at his feet wherever he went – or should I say opened their legs!”
Gereziac continued after Mortus’s interruption.
“Well, in doing what he did to my wife, I swore revenge and of course the Great War broke out and that presented me with the ideal opportunity to make Draig pay for what he had done. Alaya was still suckling on Anna when all this unpleasantness was going on.”
Zephal now remembered that Alaya was Naomi’s birth name.
It had been a few years since she had been taken to the mortal world and even though Zephal was friends with Gereziac at that time, he had forgotten what Gereziac’s daughter had actually been called.
But Zephal would continue to refer to her as Naomi because he loved the way it sounded.
Mortus pulled me closer and whispered into my ear.
“But there’s a lot more to this story, my future bride! I could have ended your life at any time, but I had to wait for Gereziac to play his part before claiming you as my own!”
And just as Gereziac was about to continue speaking, a voice suddenly filled the room.
But this time it was a woman’s voice.
And it belonged to the mysterious woman who had once again appeared from out of nowhere – and judging by everyone’s reactions, I was elated to notice that everyone in the room could see her too.
“Please continue with your fairy tale, Gereziac! You have me totally captivated by the lies that you are telling!” she said.
The look on Gereziac’s face was priceless as he turned around and faced the woman and through shock, he could only manage to say one word – but I couldn’t hear what he said.
Even Mortus had loosened his grip on me in amazement as to who he was looking at right now and I took this opportunity to make a bolt towards the woman as she was seeming to be successfully keeping Gereziac and Mortus at bay.
Zephal had exactly the same idea and he was soon standing by my side and I don’t know why I did it, but I suddenly grabbed hold of his right hand very tightly.
And then it hit me.
Is this woman the Anna that Gereziac had just been speaking of moments ago?
If she was, then I was standing next to my real mother.
And that would logically explain why I felt at ease whenever she was around and also why she was able to speak to me through my head the last time that we had met.
But why did she just suddenly appear and disappear all the time?
Even then she could choose who saw her.
The answer to my question was about to be revealed to me.
Gereziac was still visibly shocked and the woman spoke to him once again.
“You seem incredibly shocked to see your wife again, Gereziac! I bet that I’m the last person that you would expect to be talking to you right now?”
Gereziac nodded his head.
“That’s because you are dead, Anna! I saw you burn before my very eyes. You were just a
pile of bone and ash when I saw you last!”
“I know I was,” she replied, “and you made sure that you turned everyone against me, didn’t you? You even made up a story of me being involved in witchcraft so that the Great Council would send me to my death.”
Gereziac had now answered my question - the woman was indeed Anna and it became clear why she could suddenly appear and disappear at a moment’s notice.
She was a ghost.
But the ghost of my real life mother.
I could feel Zephal’s body suddenly tense as he heard what Anna had said and he couldn’t remain silent any more.
“You son of a bitch, Gereziac! You lied so your own wife would be executed! What sort of a man does that? She may have made a mistake with Draig, but she didn’t deserve to die over it!”
Gereziac snapped back.
“She brought shame and disrepute to my name, Zephal! She had to pay!”
“By depriving her of a life bringing up her daughter?” Zephal replied.
Anna looked across at Gereziac and he knew that more was about to be revealed.
“You seem to be telling everyone that I had an affair with Draig when it was you who was using your power to pick and choose the loose women to satisfy your needs. You turned me sick sometimes with the things you wanted to be done to you and you went elsewhere to get it! You know that I was scared that war would break out at any moment and I arranged to meet Draig in an attempt to avert conflict, but of course you believed what you wanted to and when I stood up to you, you vowed that I would pay for my insolence! What sort of a man would do that to his own wife just to prove a point and even when I was sentenced by the Great Council to death, you met up with me in my cell before I was taken out to be burnt and can you recall right here in front of everyone, what I asked of you?”
“To protect my child.” Gereziac replied.
But then Anna’s voice boomed across the room.
“You liar! I asked you to protect our children! You hear me Gereziac? Children!”
Everyone in the room stood in shock at hearing that Gereziac and Anna had more than one child.
But Gereziac shouted out loudly.
“I only have one child and she is standing next to you!”
“Alaya is, yes.” Anna replied, “And look at how you have treated her?
But Anna’s next revelation would shake everyone in the room.
“Alaya is not your only child! I would never ever cheat on you and you know that! You should have protected them both, but you only sent Alaya to safety.”
Gereziac still stood defiantly.
“I only have one child and I have made sure that Draig’s seed will never bother me again! Ironically, she died the same way as you did – at the stake! And I can still smell the sweet scent of her burning flesh right now.”
Anna completely lost her temper and she seemed to glide incredibly quickly into the face of Gereziac.
“Alana did not deserve the life you gave her and if anyone needs to be killed, it’s you for depriving her of what she rightly deserved!”
I suddenly felt Zephal let go of my hand and in a flash he had managed to reach Gereziac and even managed to take the sword from his grasp.
And with one swift move, despite Mortus’s attempt to stop him, Zephal swiftly swung the sword through the air and just as he had mentioned earlier, he brought his best friend’s life to an abrupt end.
Gereziac’s head bounced off the stone wall and Anna turned her attention towards Mortus and in doing so, shouted towards me and Zephal.
“Get out of here as quickly as you can! Leave me to deal with Mortus – just go!”
Neither of us needed to be told twice and Zephal and I ran out of the room as fast as we possibly could.
And from behind, I could still hear my mother’s voice calling out.
“I love you Alaya! Remember that you are now a Queen!”
And almost immediately after I heard my mother’s parting words, Mortus’s voice boomed through the long corridor that Zephal and I were running down.
“But you will not rule for long! I will hunt you down and take the throne from you!”
Once again I was the hunted one.
But I have Zephal on my side along with all of the other soldiers who fight alongside him.
After all I am now their Queen.
And their allegiance is to me.
If Mortus wants a battle, then Zephal and I are going to make sure that he gets one.
I will destroy all that he possesses long before he gets to destroy what awaits me.
Naomi was now gone – replaced by Alaya.
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