by Aubrie Nixon
Smiling widely, she mused, “You already know I am not a prude. I enjoy a roll in the hay as much as anyone.”
Daegan’s eyes danced with curiosity. “Oh? Alton is not the only lover you’ve taken?” he asked.
“That, Sir Knight, I will leave for you to ponder on, as it is none of your business,” she replied.
“Very well. I am certain you have more questions for me. It is much to take in. I will answer what I can.”
Sephera stared at him, her eyes narrowed in thought. “Everything in my training is telling me to kill you, but my gut is telling me you can be trusted. Can I trust you, Daegan? Or should I kill you?” She tapped her fingers together.
“I am very hard to kill. And before you say I’m being an arrogant ass, I’ll tell you I am simply stating a fact. The magic that has halted my aging grants my body extra defenses. Believe me, I have tried to get past them, but it is nearly impossible.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Then I will trust you. But if you betray me or anyone I love, I will do everything in my power to get past those defenses and put you down,” she snarled half-playfully, raising her lip in a growl.
“I would expect nothing less of you, Sephera. You are a cruel mistress indeed when it comes to those who have earned your loyalty. I do not envy those who cross you.”
She smirked. “Well then, you have been warned.”
They sat near the fire, watching the flames slowly begin to whither. When only a few embers remained, Sephera stood, making her way to her bedroll. “If we want to make it to the village by tomorrow evening, we should probably get some rest.”
He nodded, “I’ll take first watch.”
* * *
He gazed at Sephera as she drifted off to sleep, thinking how easily she had accepted his story. She didn’t even blink when he told her that he came from the Darkness. Perhaps it was because she harbored a darkness of her own. He loved that piece of her, the darkness that she had. It was glorious and strong. It was what had caught his eye. He had known of her for quite some time. He had heard rumors of an assassin as cold and dark as himself. But her fierce loyalty would be her undoing. He needed to gain her trust, to push her in the right direction. If she was who he thought she was, she would be his greatest weapon. She would bring balance to their worlds.
* * *
When Sephera awoke, she sat up quickly. She had been dreaming about Gregour, the man she had seen in her vision. His eyes were so cold, so full of hate. They followed her whenever she closed her eyes. Rubbing her eyes, she sighed. Would she ever again have peace? She searched the clearing for Daegan. He was sitting against a tree, sleeping. She watched him as he slept. He seemed so young, so different. He was from another realm, another time. She was taught to fear his kind, taught that they were consumed with darkness and evil. Yet, as much as she wanted to, she could not bring herself to fear him. He had said that everyone had a choice. She had understood that. She may have been born of the Light, but light she certainly was not.
She had always felt a pull between both, and she had never understood it. It was as though there were two creatures warring inside her, both struggling for dominance. It was exhausting. She stood, stretching her arms to the morning sky above. She watched Daegan, giving him a few more moments of blissful slumber before she cleared her throat loudly. He awoke, wide-eyed and alert.
“Did you fall asleep on your watch?” she mused.
He stood, straightening his dark leathers. “Obviously. I apologize.” His voice was filled with regret.
“We are both still alive are we not? It happens. No harm done.” She shrugged.
“Indeed. How did you sleep, Sephera?” he asked.
“Not well. The man from my vision—Gregour. I can’t seem to shake him. His eyes, everything about him. I feel like he is trying to tell me something. It's maddening.”
“I have never heard of any man called Gregour. It is rather curious, isn’t it? Perhaps we will find answers when we get back to the City of Light. There has got to be a record somewhere of this man, and the woman, Malina.”
“I hope so. But it's not important right now. We still have so much to do. Damn it all to hell, it's going to be a while before we can put all of this insanity behind us, isn’t it?” Sephera sighed.
“It is going to get a lot worse before it gets better,” Daegan replied dryly.
“Well, here's to forging our way through the impossible. Shall we?” Sephera said, waving her hand toward the stone path.
CHAPTER 20
Zad spent the day wandering the village. It was a quaint and charming place, resting alongside a beautiful harbor. He sat quietly in the market square, watching the shoppers flutter around from cart to cart. He closed his eyes, listening to their harmless, mundane chatter: a mother trying to calm her children as she shopped for their dinner, an older man haggling over the price of silk with a merchant. The merchant was cheating him, but the poor sod didn’t have enough skill with bartering to see it.
Zad’s memory peacefully drifted to the time when he and Sephera had gone to the shopping square near the Keep. It had been a particularly busy day, as thousands of merchants from all over Nostorra had flocked to the city for the annual Light Festival. The city usually had many merchants, but this had been a special occasion, one Sephera had been talking about for weeks. She had saved her wages for months, resisting purchasing even those blasted cinnamon cakes, though it didn’t stop her from begging Zad to buy her one every week. She had a particular item in mind—a curved sword, like the one she had seen the handmaiden of a foreign princess wielding.
She was so excited that she hardly slept the night before, pestering him to go with her. He hated going into the square during festival week. It was always overcrowded and filled with unknown dangers. It was hard to concentrate with all of the commotion and excitement. If there was a threat, he knew he wouldn’t be able to detect it until it was too late. He liked to know his enemy, to see them clearly. If he had to kill, he needed to know that it was for a reason. In a bustling crowd like that, anyone could be hurt. One mistake, and he could kill an innocent. But Sephera was relentless, and he refused to let her go out on her own. She wouldn’t care who she killed if she sensed danger. He wanted to be there, not only to protect her, but anyone that she might deem a threat.
She had stormed into his bedroom at dawn that morning and jumped on his bed. “ZAD! ZAD! Wake up! C’mon, you old lunk. It's morning! The market has been open for nearly an hour.”
“Getoffme!” he grumbled sleepily.
“ZADKIEL! If my blade is gone because you wouldn’t get out of bed, gods help me . . .” She hit him with a pillow.
Sighing, he sat up groggily. “Okay, okay, I’m up,” he said, his hands raised in mock surrender.
“I’ll meet you in the courtyard in five minutes,” she called as she rushed out of the room. She paused at the doorway. “If you’re not there in time, I will leave without you,” she threatened.
He smiled as she left the room, shaking his head. True, she was exhausting, but he still couldn’t help but follow her.
He stayed close to her side as they made their way through the crowded streets. The air smelled of sweat mingled with salt from the sea. He followed her to the far end of the busy square to an arms dealer’s booth. Zad eyed the man’s wares carefully. There were hundreds of daggers and swords with many different carved hilts. Most were just ceremonial and couldn’t do any real damage. Picking up an obsidian dagger with an ivory carved hilt, he turned it over in his hands, testing its weight on his fingers. It was beautiful, made of both dark and light.
“How much?” he asked the dealer. The man looked up from where he had been sitting, cleaning his fingernails with a small pick.
“Five gold,” he barked, putting the pick between his yellow teeth and chewing on it.
Sephera, who had been listening to the exchange, laughed. “Five gold? It's odd that you would sell such a small, meaningless dagger for such a price. Do
you have any idea who this man is?” She scoffed at the dealer in disgust. She shot Zad a look of quiet death, warning him to stay silent. Seeing what she was about to do, he exhaled shallowly and shut his mouth.
“Don’t know who he is, don’t care,” the man growled. “Either buy it or get the bloody hell out of my stall.”
Sephera cocked her head in that way she always did when assessing her prey. “Speak like that again to His Royal Emissary, and he’ll have your tongue,” she growled, glaring at the man as if she were about to devour him whole. To his credit, the man didn’t back down easily, a feat that even Baleem found difficult. When Sephera set her mind to something, she got it, consequences be damned. Zad had learned the hard way to just move out of her way and try to deal with the aftermath later.
“Four gold then,” the man had said, not taking his eyes off Sephera.
“Three gold, and that gorgeous curved blade and I won’t spill your guts on this table.”
The curved blade—their whole reason for venturing out into the day’s maddening crowd—was on a table in front of Sephera. The blade itself was made of Verreshan metal, one of the lightest, strongest, and rarest metals in the world. It had a blue-black tint that complimented the hilt of the weapon, which was made of carved wood inlaid with mother of pearl. Black leather straps wrapped around it, completing the design. It looked like pretty rainbows and unicorn shit, and it was worth a pretty penny all on its own.
The man's eyes flashed in anger. Sephera had counted on that. She was asking an insultingly low price for the dagger on purpose. It was clear to Zad that she was looking for a fight.
“Emissary or no, I will not have some bitch insulting me and making idle threats. Now, get out!” the merchant snarled.
Zad sighed and put his head in his hands. He almost felt sorry for what was about to happen, but the man had tried to cheat them. And he really hated that word, “bitch.” He took a step back from the stall just as Sephera leapt over the wooden counter. The man jumped back in surprise.
Sephera landed in the space he’d just vacated. She backed him against the stone wall, pressing a dagger to his throat.
“Apologize. You’ve hurt my feelings.”
In answer, the man spat on her cheek. He gasped and sputtered in small breaths, but he didn’t dare move beyond that. Sephera didn’t even flinch as she leveled a stare at him with her wicked smile. “That wasn’t very nice.” She clucked her tongue and wagged a finger at him. “I think it is time this bitch taught you some manners.”
She pressed the dagger to his throat, nicking his skin. Sephera was mesmerized by the small drop of blood that dripped onto the dagger. She brought it closer to her gaze, keeping the man pinned with her knee against his crotch. She stared at the single drop of blood as it slid slowly down the blade, the darkness in her eyes growing. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from it.
She was so entranced, she didn’t notice the man reaching for his weapon, but Zad did. “Sephera! Look out!” he yelled as the man threw her off, pinning her to the table. He had snatched up the curved blade and held it now to her throat. Anger shone in his eyes as he glowered down at her. Zad held tightly to his own weapon, ready to spring.
Sephera smiled darkly up at the man, her eyes twinkling. Then she pushed her lips into a mocking pout. “Now that's not any way to treat a lady,” she cooed. Swiftly, she kneed him between his legs and kicked him away from her. The man fell to the ground, clutching his crotch and gasping for air.
“Take it. Take it all! Just get out of here!” he rasped.
Sephera bent down to look at him. “That’a boy!” She laughed, patting him on the head like a dog. Grabbing the dagger and the curved blade, she leapt over the table and walked off.
Zadkiel shook his head as he followed after her, glancing at the merchant who was still groaning in pain and writhing on the dirty ground. She was something else, his Sephera. The pleasure she took in the pain and torment of others was appalling. Even though the man had been trying to swindle him, he never would have taken such extreme action. She was cunning and cruel, but he couldn’t stop himself from loving her.
He scrambled through the crowded streets in the direction she had gone. He was about to give up and head back to the Keep when he found her near the center of the square, sitting near the large ivory fountain. She was talking softly to a disheveled woman whose grateful and kind eyes were trained on Sephera. Zad watched as Sephera handed the woman a small package wrapped in red silk. Tears in her eyes, the woman lunged forward and threw her arms around Sephera, thanking her profusely. Zad laughed as Sephera’s whole body went taut, her eyes wide with surprise. Awkwardly, she patted the woman on the back and shrugged out of her grasp.
“He will never harm you again. I promise m’lady,” she said to the woman as she stepped away from the embrace.
“Thank you! You have saved my life. How can I repay you, mistress?” the woman asked through her sobs.
“Go far away from this city, make a new life, and never return,” Sephera said. “This place is full of poison. Get out while you still have a soul,” she warned before walking away from the woman.
Zad stood in stunned silence. He had never seen this kinder, more gentle side of Sephera. Before he could think better of it, he walked towards the woman. Still wiping tears of gratitude from her cheeks, she didn’t look up as he sat beside her.
“Excuse me, madam. What did that girl do for you?” he asked curiously.
“She saved my life. My ex-husband, the arms dealer, was going to sell me and my son to the slavers.” She paused and wiped her cheeks with a dusty cloth. “She just bought our freedom.”
That was the moment when he fell in love with Sephera. She may have put on a prickly, uncaring facade, but inside beat a pure heart, one that would bleed for the innocents. And there was the proof of it, light as day. He decided right then that he would do everything he could to bring her out of that dark shell.
“Use your new freedom wisely.” He left the woman to her thoughts.
Zad opened his eyes, smiling at the memory, the hubbub of the village market drawing him back to the present. He had never told her what he had witnessed that day. Even if he had, she would never admit to it. She was a living, breathing weapon, one that could destroy anything she touched. Or one that could protect and serve. But he still saw that girl at the ivory fountain—the one who could change the world, if she only dared. He sighed heavily. He needed to show her that she didn’t have to hold the world on her shoulders all the time. He could hold it with her, and together they could do anything.
He turned his attention to the water. The sapphire ocean reached out endlessly toward the horizon, immense and tranquil under the cloudless sky. Its waves lapped gently against the shore. He missed his Beasty and wished she was there, enjoying the view with him. He would have taken her hand in his and shown her how such a powerful, potentially dangerous thing as the sea could gently soothe the troubles of life away.
He shook himself from his musings. He was about to head back to the inn when a hushed conversation nearby caught his attention.
“I hear a deadly sickness is spreading throughout the land. My sister said that trade has been cut off completely from the north, and she has been having a hard time finding anyone who is selling spices for a decent price. She thinks it has something to do with another Dark Plague,” the woman said, speaking in hushed tones to her companion.
“Another plague?” her companion replied. “Pish posh! That is simply nonsense. Why do you listen to such idle gossip?”
“So you say, but I think there is truth to the rumors. After all, odd activity has been reported at the old ruins near the flour mill. I know it's just a legend, but I wouldn’t go poking my head around there after sunset. That place has a dark energy to it. The local children can’t seem to stay away. They return home every night with peculiar scrapes and bruises. Something dark lurks there, I just know it.”
The woman's companion rolled her eyes.
“You are ridiculous. It's just an old ruin. Children’s tales—that’s all they are. Now, let’s go before we are late for supper.”
Zad watched as the two women hurried off down the cobblestone path and disappeared. He walked back to the inn, determined to find out more about those old ruins. It might be their first lead.
CHAPTER 21
Sephera contemplated Daegan’s broad back silently. They had been walking for hours and hadn’t spoken since they’d left the clearing. He was a difficult man to read: callous and distant, with a disturbing habit of making her feel small. His confident bearing demanded compliance, but she was not the type of person to submit to anyone. She was certain he would betray her and Zad if it meant he could save his people, yet there was something noble and kind in that steadfast loyalty to those he cared about. The loathsome things he’d seen and done had hardened him. But beneath the strata of stone that had formed around his soul, she saw a man who was just as frightened as she was. Darkness consumed him, and still he held it at bay. The conflict within him called to her. Every small victory he’d gained over the blackness in his heart comforted her lonely and sometimes murderous soul. If he could fight the darkness within, perhaps she could as well.
Her eyes left Daegan to take in her surroundings. They had come to the edge of a steep ravine and would soon begin their descent down into the world below. In a few hours they would reach the village. The thought of a warm bath and a delicious meal filled her with delicious anticipation. She was ready to be done with gamey rabbit meat and charred snake. Her mouth watered as she recalled the savory spiced soup she had eaten at the castle before they left. Her stomach complained noisily at the memory, and she sighed in annoyance.
“Only a few more hours, Sephera. How do you make it through your missions in one piece?” Daegan asked. “That stomach of yours is insatiable.”
“Oh, shut it,” she snapped. “You’re probably just as hungry as I am.”