The Choosing

by Darcy Sweet

  The rain stung my face, needles of icy water slapping the soft skin without mercy. I raised a hand to protect my eyes. The hand slapped my arm down. Fingers dug into my forearms. I fought. Struggled to free myself from their iron clasp.

  His face was masked by the sheeting rain. His voice cracked over the howl of the wind. “I told you bitch. I told you I would have you yet. Have you both.”

  “No,” I yelled over the pounding rain, “No Bandar. I am for Malchard. I am for the Queen. You cannot. You cannot.”

  “You think I care for Sarran deals?”

  He was mad. His eyes, I could see black and cold fixed only on his base wants. No reason lay beneath.

  If not reason, then would fear work?

  He feared the Masters. “The Masters will punish you. You cannot. They will hunt you down. Not the Sarran. The Dark Masters. Fear them Bandar. Fear their wrath.”

  He laughed. A shrill mad sound. I knew then that I had no hope. Neither reason, nor fear would shift him from his madness.

  I struggled again. His grip slipped on my wet arms. I ducked way from him, he followed. I brought my knee up as hard as I could. My wet skirts constricted the blow. I hit his thigh not his groin. He grunted in pain. I had at least connected hard enough to hurt. He faltered. I took the opportunity.

  Blood thundered in my ears, beating like a fevered dance.

  Run. Run.

  Mud and hail covered the field making it icy slick. I flailed my arms to keep balance. My skirts held me back, wrapping around my legs in wet bondage.

  He reached me fast, grabbed my arm, wrenching my shoulder, pulling me back. I smelt the burn of malt liquor on his breath. I kicked behind, my boot connecting with his shin with a crack. He slipped back, toppling over in the mud. I risked one look back and then ran. Into the night, dragging up my rain sodden skirts in a gripped fist. My heart pounded. I had no vision other than the flash of lightening that briefly filled the night sky.

  I gasped in air, sucking in the cold biting rain with each labored breath. My boots slipped in the black mud, ice slick. I could not keep my footing. Hands pawed at me from behind. Bandar. He’d caught me. He grabbed my skirt. I fell forward. The tether burned at my neck. It pulsed in a painful beat. He pulled up the wet length of my skirts. Fabric ripped at his coarse hands. I came up on my knees trying to push him back. I flailed my elbows back hard, trying to connect with any part of his body. Trying to push him off me. His laugh rang in my ears as his body pushed me down.

  “I will have you bitch. I will take what I want.”

  He bared my thighs to the bite of the rain. My drawers stuck fast to my skin. He pulled at the tapes to free them from my body. I fought. Hard, an animal pinned, I growled baring my teeth like a wolf in a trap. He gave up on the tapes, instead hooking his fingers in the waistband and pulling. The seams tore easily ripping the drawers from my thighs in one violent tug.

  Possessed by fear I fought. My elbow jammed into his face. He caught the arm and wrenched it up behind my back so hard it almost pulled it clear of the socket. He pressed his knee into the small of my back, pinning my hips into the sucking mud. My face lay flat in the mud but I was not yet done. I would not submit.

  I had more fight. I had more to give, but he stopped me. Stilled me with one sentence. “I have your sister.”

  “No. No. She is with Askel.”

  He laughed. “Is she then? The Sarran fool who is drugged asleep in his tent?” That Askel?”

  My fight shattered, broke and blew out into the wailing wind. “What do you want from me?”

  “So much bitch, so much. But we’ll start with you getting up. Run and Leia will regret it.”

  He dug his knee into my back pressing his full weight down in a vicious and painful push before rising to stand. I brought my hands flat and rose up out of the mud. I was black from cheek to foot.

  The rain had slowed to a fine curtain. “Walk,” he said and pushed me in the centre of my back. I stumbled. He laughed. I sucked in a breath and tried to still the panic that surged thick and fast in my veins.

  I labored one step at a time across the slippery ground with Bandar shoving me from behind. We reached the tree line and kept moving. The forest offered protection from the rain. It was darker here; apart from the intermittent flash of lightening I could barely see one foot in front. We followed a single width path through the thickness to a small clearing at the edge of the hillside. He pushed me to the hill until I was an arm length from the rocks.

  “Here,” he grunted.

  Where? I could see nothing but rocks. He pulled me to the side, into a crack barely big enough to slide through. A hidden cave.

  When my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw a small figure huddled near the wall.

  “Leia!” I moved before he could stop me. I was upon her in seconds, my hands running across her body to make sure she was safe and whole.

  “I’m all right Talia. I’m all right.”

  A sob escaped and then another until I could hold it no longer. I held her in my arms, rocking in time with my cries.

  “A touching little scene.” Bandar stood before us, hands on his hips.

  I moved in front of my sister, pushing her behind between me and the rock wall. “What do you want? What do want from me?” I was deliberate in my omission of Leia from his wants. He would deal with me and me alone.

  “I want you tethered.”

  “To you?”

  “Yes. Right now.”

  He was insane. I did not know the tethering ceremony. All I knew was that it was conducted at full moon. I did not argue, instead I said, “Yes, I will. I will consent to the tethering. First let Leia go.”

  “No!” Leia yelled, pushing at my back. “You will not protect me this way.”

  I shoved her back behind me ignoring her cry, keeping my eyes locked on Bandar. “You will have me only once you have let her go.”

  “You give me orders?”

  I’d made a mistake. A big mistake. I had told, not asked. His eyes shuttered. He went to a crazy place. I had sent him there with my demands.

  “I will take what I want. All that I want. What if I start with her? Right here. In front of you— with the music of your sobs?” He kicked me hard, his boot connecting with my arm and shoving me aside with ease. As I rolled to right myself he reached down and took Leia’s arm, dragging her up against his body. She looked so small, so fragile against his brutish form.

  I stood to face him. “No. Please. Please Bandar. She has no skills. I can please you. I want to. I want to please you.” With shaking hands I began to unclasp my bodice. Tiny pearl buttons slipped in my trembling fingers. He watched me, still holding Leia to his chest. My hands would not work. They fumbled until I gave up and simply wrenched apart the bodice, popping buttons on the packed dirt floor, revealing the wet chemise beneath.

  The fabric was sheer, clinging like a translucent second skin. Bandar loosed his grip of Leia and took a step towards me. I sighed in relief and continued to undress. The ties of my skirt freed easier than the buttons, the water weight dragged it to the floor the moment the ties were released.

  I wore no drawers. Those ripped off me by Bandar. The chemise clung from breasts to ankles. Bandar feasted upon my body with hungry eyes. My stomach rolled with the thought of what I must now do, but I did not stop. I reached down and tore the chemise, making a split right up to my sex. I pulled the wet fabric away from my body revealing to him what he wanted.

  “Come,” I beckoned. “Come to me.” Away from my sister. Away from Leia.

  Drunk with lust and madness he lurched forward, arms outstretched. One step, two steps until he was barely an arm length away.

  My eyes I kept locked on his, drawing him to me. I did not see her until she cried out, “No! You will not have her!”

  Bandar fell forward. Leia stood above him with bloodied rock still clenched in both hands. She’d hit him from behind with a force I never thought her frail form could muster. He lay flat on the cave floor
with blood gushing from his head. She looked up at me dropped the rock. It bounced from Bandar’s back to the cave floor.

  Reaching out a hand she said, “Come. Let’s go. Let’s go now. Now!”

  I nodded, stepped over Bandar and took her hand. She did not stop pulling me until we were in the clearing outside the cave entrance.

  “Where to?” Leia asked, looking up at me as if I had the right answer.

  “Anywhere but here.” I looked away, shielding my eyes from the rain, looking at the tree line for the path entrance.

  “To Askel?”

  I heard her hopeful question but did not get a chance to answer. She cried out and before I even looked back I knew. I knew that he had her.

  Leia was gripped to his chest. His face was bloody, streaked from the falling rain. Mouth set in a vicious grin, he bared his teeth like an animal. He held a knife to her throat, the point pressed against her pulse.

  “No,” I whispered the word, unable to muster anything more.

  “Sit,” he barked.

  I folded, bare arsed into the mud.

  I watched him bind her, wrap her wrists tight in twine at her back. When she was secure he came to me. He bound my wrists like hers, dragged me back to a tree and wrapped the ends tight around the trunk.

  He did not speak. He grunted. Animal sounds that filled me with bone deep fear. He was lost. Lost to the anger. Lost to his madness.

  What would he do?

  I watched, locked tight in my binds as he pushed Leia to her knees. He flipped up her skirt and pulled down her drawers.

  “No. No. Please no,” I moaned in desperate sorrow pulling on my bindings.

  He pushed her forward, her face hit the mud. He watched me, not her as he undid his breeches and released his thick hard cock.

  “No. No. No.” I could not stop the word. It poured from me, growing in volume.

  He laughed. Stroked his brutal hard shaft and laughed.

  “No. No. No. NO!” Each cry became louder. Stronger. Until over the roll of thunder my voice cried out. Booming.

  He dropped his cock and brought his hands to his ears.

  “No. You will NOT take. You will NOT take.”

  He cowered. His shoulders shook and he ground the heels of his hands against his ears.

  “No!”

  Power surged from the sky. A flash of lightening hit behind Bandar, sizzling the ground spotting fires quickly dampened by the rain. Steam rose around him. Anger coursed through me. Righteous fury. I shattered the bindings like fine spun glass. My arms and legs free slipped free without conscience thought.

  I came upon him, my feet barely hitting the ground. I surged forward on the wind of my hatred. He was on his knees, holding his head and whimpering. A gust of wind caught my torn chemise spreading it like the wings of an avenging angel. I raised my arms, my palms up to the storming sky. The lightening came. I called it to my hands. My fingers took the blast, from each side it rocketed through me, shocks of bright white light, burning through my bones.

  I laughed. Loud over the wind it came. I saw it. Saw the sound as it wrapped around his body binding him at my feet.

  My fingers, burning with the power of the light steepled at my mouth, my chest and my sex and then spread out, pointing at Bandar and blasting him with the white hot power of the sky.

  He fried. Cindered like the straw offering at the Summer Solstice Bonfire. I felt nothing. Nothing as I watched him disintegrate, but when the white light left me I fell to my knees at the ash that remained of his body and emptied my stomach in the realization of what I had done.

  I had killed him. Killed Bandar. With lightening from my hands. I rocked back and forth in the rain, both terrified and grateful.

  “What have you done? What are you?”

  I looked to see my sister up on her knees, trembling in fear. I moved to her and she cowered, falling back into the mud. I stood above her as she looked up at me with a mix of fear and revulsion that cut to my very soul.

  “Come,” I said in a voice as cold as the rain. “Come now. We must leave.”

  Chapter 9

  She would not meet my eyes. I brought her back into the shelter of the cave until the worst of the rain had passed. I felt her eyes upon me as I searched Bandar’s satchel for dry clothes. Each time I turned in her direction she shifted her gaze—afraid of me.

  I too had cold fear chilling in my veins, not at what I had done but at what I had discovered in Bandar’s belongings. The leather satchel held bindings, knives and instruments that I could not name but I knew to fear. Sharp, ugly—made for pain. There was food and several changes of clothes. He had planned to stay for some time. To torture us perhaps for days.

  Sadistic and insane—and yet she feared me.

  I dressed quickly in Bandar’s clothes, using the binding from his satchel to fashion a belt. I tied it off with shaking hands. “As soon as the worst of the rain has passed we’ll leave.”

  She nodded. Her face turned from me. I bundled up Bandar’s belongings, binding the satchel flap twice, just to keep my hands busy. “Leia, you need not fear me.”

  Tears swam in the fear filled eyes that finally met mine. “I know sister that you would never seek to hurt me, but the lightening…it came from your hands…it burnt, it…” She shook her head, unable to finish her sentence.

  I swallowed hard and pulled the satchel up onto my shoulder. “I’ll check outside, we’ll leave soon.”

  “To Askel? Should we go…”

  “No!” She jumped at my shout.

  She feared me but not Askel? That thought stung like a slap. The one responsible for bringing me to Bandar. I cleared my throat. “Askel cannot save us sister. He is part of the problem.”

  “He would not hurt me.”

  “No I do not think he would hurt you, but he would use you to get to me. I can’t risk it Leia.”

  “All right.” She nodded and squared her slight shoulders. “We’ll go then. Wherever you say.”

  She did not sound so certain, but her words gave me some comfort. “Thank you.”

  “Where shall we go?”

  It wasn’t until she asked that my decision was made. “The Night Palace.”

  “To the Dark Masters? But…”

  “To the Dark Prince and his son. We shall seek refuge there.”

  “Will you willingly tether to him?”

  “I’ll tether to no one sister. We shall not mention it again. There is no need for the Masters to learn of the tethering.”

  “Askel said if you…”

  I raised a hand and cut her off. She flinched again, cowering like a dog hit once too often. I lowered my hand to my side and clenched it in a tight fist. “Askel said many things. What I say goes now. We’ll not mention the tethering again. I can no longer hear the rain. Come let’s go.”

  * * * *

  I kept a brutal pace. Leia struggled, but kept it with me. Her breathing labored at times, I slowed but she shook her head and pushed on. Before the evening started to fall we paused to rest. It was the third such night we had done so. The cold dropped quickly like an icy shroud, I made a shelter but did not risk a fire.

  Leia huddled beneath the rounded hut I had fashioned out of tree branches. Autumn stripped, the low lying branches were fairly easy to break from the trees. I bent them into an arch, weaving them together for strength. As soon as I had the basic structure I shepherded Leia inside. I continued to cover the frame with branches and vines for insulation. The night was bound to be cold.

  “How do you know the way sister?” Leia spoke slowly, wheezing in breath between each word. The sound made me cringe.

  “To the Night Palace?”

  She nodded.

  “When we fled from the Palace Hatha taught me how to navigate.”

  “Your handmaiden?”

  I started to nod and then shook my head. “No, my friend. My guide.”

  She coughed, it shook her whole slight body.

  I crouched down. I had avoided thi
s for days but it seemed I could do it no longer. “Leia.” She looked up at me with big deep blue eyes. “You are sheltered well here. I need to leave you now. You need wortroot. I’ll go now before it is too dark and find some. I’ll brew it for you. Your cough will ease.”

  She grabbed my arm as I tried to stand. “Be safe sister.”

  I stroked a hand across her spun gold hair smoothing it down. “I will sister.”

  Before I left I camouflaged the shelter with leaves. If she could tamp down her cough she would be well hidden.

  We had passed a stream not a mile back. If I searched I would find the wortroot there, hidden between the damp rocks. I cursed myself that I had not thought to stopand collect some when we passed.

  It was not as easy as I thought to find the root and by the time I had made my way back to camp with the meager offerings I had collected darkness had fallen. The copse I had secreted my sister in was silent. I called out softly as not to scare her with my approach. I heard nothing in return. I called out once more, louder this time. Nothing again.

  I broke into a run. I tore apart the shelter, scratching my arms on the twigs and branches as I cleared away the cuttings.