Dillon arrived exactly on the hour. “I have said farewell to Amir for now,” he said. “Anoush will be very jealous when I tell her that you have given me a horse of my own, my lord. Perhaps one day you will give her one. Og tells me that Amir’s dam has just given birth to a little white filly.” He looked hopefully at Kaliq.
The prince laughed, ruffling Dillon’s dark wavy hair. “We shall see,” he replied. Then he drew out the rolled parchment and handed it to the boy. “For Magnus. Now, I will return you to the little chamber from whence you came, Dillon. I hope you have enjoyed being with me in Shunnar.”
“Very much, my lord prince, but I am disappointed that I learned naught of magic here,” the boy replied.
“It is not yet time for you to be educated by me, Dillon,” Kaliq said. “Remember that you were not to come to Shunnar at all until you were twelve. Your mother was not pleased when I told her you were here. But perhaps you can visit now and again.”
“But it does not really matter, does it, my lord? You will remove the memory of my stay from both of us shortly,” Dillon said with a grin.
Kaliq laughed. “I can see that you will be a fine pupil,” he told Dillon. “Are you ready now?” When the boy nodded, the prince gave a wave of his hand and his companion was gone from him. Kaliq sighed. He had enjoyed Lara’s son very much. He would miss him but the time would come soon enough that Dillon would return to be taught by the Shadow Princes. Leaving his library, he went to see if Lara was comfortable.
Entering her apartments silently he went directly to her bedchamber and saw that she was sleeping peacefully. He sat by the bedside and watched as she slumbered. Of all the women he had ever known, of the few he had loved, she was the most unique. It was not simply her delicate beauty, it was her indomitable spirit that reached out to him. Had he not been fully aware of the destiny that had been chosen for her he would have never let her leave Shunnar all those years ago. He loved her, a fatal flaw for a Shadow Prince, for while his race believed in love above all, they rarely gave their hearts to any one woman. Yet he had been fortunate in that her faerie nature had allowed her to accept him not just as a casual lover and friend but as her mentor. Kaliq slipped from the room as quietly as he had entered it.
When Lara awoke she could see, looking out into the gardens, that the day was almost finished. She stretched lazily and realized that she felt more rested than she had in months. Since the night she had been stolen away by Kol. The air about her was warm with the desert heat and fragrant with flowers. And then she saw Kaliq coming across the garden that separated their apartments. Rising, Lara went to greet him.
“Have you slept well?” he asked her, taking her into his arms and kissing her forehead. “I looked in on you and you appeared at peace.”
“I slept amazingly well considering my ordeal,” she told him.
“I am going to bathe you,” he told her with a smile.
“Magnus would not like it.”
“Magnus is not here and you will not remember this interlude,” he told her. “It is up to me to treasure you and help you to regain your equilibrium. Come!” He took her hand and brought her to the little bath that was part of her quarters. “We will not go to my palace’s baths. It will just be the two of us as it used to be.”
“I well remember how it used to be,” Lara replied with laughter.
“Do you?” he asked her, and his bright blue eyes scanned her face.
“I remember very well,” she said softly. “There is not a moment of that year I spent with you that I cannot recall if I choose to recall it,” Lara told him. “I was happy here with you and your brothers, Kaliq.”
He reached out and unfastened the robe she wore, his supple fingers undoing the embroidered front closures. And when they were all opened he pushed the garment from her. Then he removed his own robe and they stood together naked as they once had done. The bath was silent; there was no servant to aid them. The prince took Lara to a small indentation in the marble floor and stood her there. Then he took up a large sponge that he dipped in a large bowl of soft soap. He began to wash her, slowly, thoroughly, drawing the sponge across her shoulders and down her back. Rotating it about her buttocks and then stooping to do her legs. Lara lifted each foot for him, setting it back down again when he had finished. He brought the soapy sponge back up the front of her legs, over her belly, around her breasts, her chest and slender neck. Her mons had grown a bushful of golden curls over her months in the Dark Lands. Kaliq had always preferred his women denuded there, so he spread a creamy depilatory upon her mons. It would remain until he rinsed her body free of the suds now caressing it. Lastly he washed her long golden hair.
When he had finished, Lara took the sponge from him and dipping it into the bowl of sweet smelling soft soap began to wash him. It was not easy keeping her mind on the business of cleanliness, she found, when his manhood began to burgeon and swell with her touch. “Kaliq,” she scolded him, half laughing.
“We are going to make love, Lara, and you know it,” he said, pulling her against him and kissing her mouth with soft little butterfly kisses.
“I am Magnus Hauk’s wife,” she reminded him.
“You are more faerie than mortal, my love,” he reminded her. “And faerie women take lovers. Besides, as I have previously told you, the memory of this interlude will be gone by the time I return you to the Dominus. There is no harm in what we do. But come and let us rinse the soap from our bodies.”
They stepped from the bathing area and into separate indentations in the marble bath floor where small geysers of warm water rinsed their bodies and hair free of soap and the depilatory that was smeared across Lara’s plump mons. Lara closed her eyes as the water sluiced over her head, freeing it of its lather. Stepping from the small rinsing hollows they made their way to the little square bathing pool and soaked in the warm, perfumed water for a brief time. Lara had brought a thick drying cloth with her and now toweled her hair before pinning it up with a small gold pin she snatched out of the air. Then she dried Kaliq’s dark wavy locks.
“You never change,” she said. “You are as handsome as ever.”
“And you, my love, do not change, either,” he told her. “You are as beautiful as the first time I brought you to Shunnar.”
“I feel cleansed of the Dark Lands now,” she told him. “The baths there were dark and over-humid. I did not have the lovely soaps, creams and oils, or even the thick drying cloths that a civilized house would have. I’m afraid I am a very spoiled faerie woman, Kaliq,” Lara said with a little laugh.
“There is one more thing we must do, my love, to complete your transformation,” he told her. “Come, stand in the center of the pool with me.” And when he had her there he took her arms and raised them up, bringing her wrists together.
Suddenly Lara found her wrists bound with silk padding and her body was raised up just slightly above the water. She was not afraid, for she had perfect trust in Kaliq, and was more curious as to what he was up to now. Her curiosity was quickly assuaged as he took each of her feet in turn and began to kiss them, his tongue pushing between her toes. Then his hands slipped up her wet body, sliding around to clasp her buttocks. He drew her toward him and kissed her newly smooth mons, his tongue slowly following the shadowed slit separating her nether lips. Pushing his tongue between those lips, he sought and found her love bud, teasing it until it grew swollen and tingled.
“Ahhh,” Lara said as a frisson of delight raced down her spine. “Oh, Kaliq, that is lovely! Don’t stop.” She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensations he was engendering within her heated body as she hung above the bathing pool.
The prince snapped his fingers and she was lowered just slightly. Lifting his head from her sweetness he sought her breasts, laving them with slow strokes of his tongue. One hand freed itself from her buttocks. The other repositioned itself to hold her steady as he began to nibble and suck upon her nipples. His free hand moved to push between her nether lips. One finger. Two
fingers. Three fingers thrust into her love sheath, swirling about, moving in a leisurely fashion.
Lara murmured. “I want more of you,” and as the fingers withdrew from her she was lowered back into the bathing pool and the padded manacles about her delicate wrists dissolved. Lara put her arms about the prince’s neck. She wrapped her legs about his torso and felt his talented manhood sliding into her love sheath. “Ah, yes, my lord Kaliq,” she purred in his ear as they caught the rhythm and pleasured each other until they were both drained.
Her golden head then fell upon his shoulder, and he carried her from the bathing pool, and laid her down upon a thick drying cloth that had been spread upon a high bench. Patting her dry, Kaliq then poured a dollop of fragrant oil of lilies into his palm and rubbing his palms together he began to massage her as she sighed with delight. “I want to do you next,” she said, “as we used to do.”
“Not tonight,” he told her. “Tonight I will erase all the suffering you endured at the hands of the Twilight Lord. Tonight I will teach you the joys of passion once again.
“There will be nothing left burrowing in the deepest corner of your mind, Lara, that will ever niggle at you with a questioning. You will never wonder if something happened that you cannot recall. You will only remember that love between two people who genuinely care for one another is a blessing,” Kaliq said quietly as he continued to massage her.
Lara grew silent and let his strong fingers do their work. Her memories of Kol’s hot and endless lust were indeed beginning to slip away. There was only Kaliq and the sweet passion that they had always shared together. For the briefest moment she thought of Magnus Hauk, but then she realized that now was not the time to think of her husband. When he had taken a faerie woman as his wife he had sworn that he understood what that entailed. But he really did not, Lara knew. Magnus was a mortal with all of a mortal’s strengths and flaws. Soon she would be home again and her memories of the last year would be gone from her. In the meantime, she meant to enjoy this respite from the world.
She had earned it. Soon enough she would pick up her responsibilities as Domina of Terah, as Magnus Hauk’s wife, as a mother and as the daughter of Ilona, queen of the Forest Faeries. But now that she had fulfilled a part of her destiny, did she have any other purpose, Lara wondered? She must remember to ask Kaliq.
8
LARA REMAINED in Kaliq’s palace at Shunnar for several days. The desert sun warmed the chill of the Dark Lands from her bones, her mind and her heart. She spent the days being pampered by Kaliq and his servants. She and Og enjoyed several hours renewing their acquaintance. Lara told him of the giants who lived in the Dark Lands. “I did not see them a great deal, but Kol spoke of them, for they are bound to him in fealty. I recall he told me the name of the giant lord was Skrymir.”
When she said this Og grew pale. “Did you say Skrymir?” he said.
“Aye. The giant lord was Skrymir,” Lara repeated. “Kol told me that the giant race was a small group of about fifty—and more men than women. Why?”
“Where do they live in the Dark Lands?” Og asked.
“One mountain with its forests belongs to them,” Lara explained.
“My father’s name was Skrymir,” Og said. “He was not there the day the Forest Lords came to slaughter my kind. He and a party of hunters, both male and female, had gone hunting several days prior. My mother, although she was a fine huntress, did not accompany them that day, for her belly had begun to show. They never returned to the forest or my mother would have been saved. Or if they did return, they did not come near where my mother hid herself and so she did not know.” Og sighed. “Skrymir is not a common name among giants and is only used among the Forest Giants. How odd that in a forest so far from Hetar there should be another giant race and a lord who is called Skrymir as my father once was.”
“If your father and some of your people were not there the day the Forest Lords came, perhaps this giant lord who is called Skrymir is your father, Og. If your mother told you that the hunting party did not return, then perhaps they did, saw the murder done and fled Hetar. Giants can possess magic, too, Og. Who knows how they reached the Dark Lands? But it is possible these giants are your own race.”
“I shall never know,” Og replied sadly. “I would not go there, Lara. It is too dangerous and I am a small giant who is not very brave. I will live out my days here in the desert of the Shadow Princes with the horses I care for, and with my wife and my children. It is a better fate than I ever anticipated,” he said with a little smile. “I never knew the Skrymir who fathered me on my mother. I know of him only through what my mother told me. She always said he was a good man. It is a better memory to hold on to to than that of a giant lord who gives his loyalty to the Twilight Lord of the Dark Lands.”
“I never met him, so other than a name I can offer you no information,” Lara said. Nay, she had met none of Kol’s people but for the servants. Alfrigg, Skrymir, Dain and Hrolleif were but names to her. She had never seen them except at the Completion Ceremony. Lara shuddered at the potent memory and understood why Kaliq was keeping her in Shunnar and had become her lover once again. He wanted to soften those memories for her before he had them entirely erased from her mind and her heart. Lara doubted that she would ever truly forget. But to her surprise, as the next few days passed, the trauma of her sojourn in the Dark Lands did begin to fade.
“It will soon be time for you to return home to Terah,” Kaliq told her one evening as they sat together across a game board playing Herder. “Your husband grows anxious for you.”
“How will you erase what has happened, Kaliq? You can let the Munin take those memories away from me but what of the rest of Terah?”
“It is as simple as I have already told you,” he began. “For all of you, all of Terah, there will be no definitive memories held by anyone of the year that has just passed. There will be nothing you can quite put your finger upon and say, ‘last month when we went to…’ Nothing will seem out of the ordinary, Lara, for any of you. You will pick up your life where you left off. As for Hetar their memories of your disappearance will be taken from them, too. It was never public knowledge to begin with.”
“And what of the threat Hetar poses to Terah?” Lara wanted to know. “What reason will Gaius Prospero give his subjects for wanting to invade Terah?”
“You are still the reason,” Kaliq said with an amused smile. “Your magic has grown to such an extent that Terah now poses a danger to Hetar. You must be captured and stopped before you can conquer or destroy Hetar’s independence.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Lara cried. “Terah wants nothing to do with Hetar, and nor do I. They are a decadent and decaying society whose legendary greed has brought them to the brink of their own destruction. How can Hetarians believe such babble?”
“Since you led the Outlands to their victory over Hetar in the Winter War nothing has really been the same for them. There was already too much poverty and unemployment, not just in The City, but in the surrounding provinces, as well. It was you, Lara, who marshaled the Outland clan families into fighting back. It took Gaius Prospero over five years to regain his people’s favor and another two years to get himself declared emperor, thus weakening the High Council. But even acquiring the territory that had belonged to the Outlands did not solve the problems that beset Hetar. The magnates and merchants have gotten more wealthy. The poor suffer worse than before.
“Until almost two years ago when it was announced that no more mercenaries were required for the interim, every farmer’s son who chose not to farm came to The City to make his fortune. And once they discovered there were no fortunes to be made, each of those young men joined the Mercenaries. Their ranks have grown over the years, but there was no work for them until the Outlands were opened up for settlement. The mercenary ranks thinned a little then. And they are the constabulary of the Outlands which has taken some pressure off Gaius Prospero.
“But there are the Crusader Knights to consid
er. With no wars to fight there has been no tournament to select new candidates for seven years now. The tournament where your father won his place was the last one held. Their income grows scarce. Too many in their ranks are aging and need care. The upkeep of their homes in the Garden District is not what it once was for there are more important needs to consider now. And the Crusader Knights, like the Mercenaries, sit idle for the most part.
“The City decays around them all, Lara. The wealthy do what little business they can and continue to play. The poor drink Razi from Lord Jonah’s insidious kiosks in order to forget their troubles, and the fact that their bellies are empty and their children are crying. They steal from whoever they can, even each other,” Kaliq said. “The Hetarians are beginning to murmur against their emperor, but even ridding themselves of Gaius Prospero will not solve their problems.”
“People always believe that changing the government will bring them a change of fortune,” Lara pointed out. “Yet it rarely does because it is the people themselves who need to change first.”
“Exactly!” Kaliq declared. “But people don’t want to change, don’t want to make the effort. What they want is the good old days back so they may go on as they always have. So to save himself, to save his power and to direct the people away from their miseries, Gaius Prospero must first work on their fears and then offer them a solution to those fears. In this case he has spent months convincing Hetar that Terah poses a great and imminent threat to Hetar because you are the Dominus’s wife.
“It is no secret that your powers have grown over the last few years. Gaius Prospero has most Hetarians believing that unless you are stopped, you will use your power to invade Hetar, slaughter and enslave its population, destroy the very fabric of its civilized society. Of course, to slay the daughter of a Hetarian hero and a faerie queen would not be wise. So the emperor wishes to reeducate you in Hetarian ways. But to do that the threat of Terah must be removed,” Kaliq concluded.
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