by Heath Pfaff
It didn't do me any good to dwell, though, and I forced my concentration back to the meal on my desk. It was a simple supper of stew and bread. Seeing it made me realize that I rarely saw Merrywin anymore, either. Training took up most of my days, and even now the sun was falling below the horizon. I ate my meal quickly, and readied myself to get a quick bath before going off to Malice's apartment. She had a room in a building similar to my own, near the practice yard. The entire building had been used for equipment storage, but she had cleared out one of the rooms to use as a living quarters and another as a formal meeting room. That is where I'd gone last time, when I'd received my private lesson on balance. My arms ached in remembered agony as I thought of that. I bathed quickly, rushing not for the sake of my meeting but for the sake of saving myself the wrath of Malice, should she be angered by my late arrival.
By the time I was outside again, the night had come and the stars shown clearly above me, far brighter for the lack of the moon that evening. Silent did not follow me across the yard, probably having been told by Malice that he would not be needed. That, I felt, boded ill for me.
The exterior door to Malice's building was unlocked, and so I let myself in, making my way down the dimly lit corridor to the door I knew housed her private office. My unease mounted with every step I took, and I had to force myself to remain calm. My four months at Fell Rock had given me the opportunity to meet many of the different Knights at the post and though most of them were intimidating, Malice still inspired the most fear in me. Had I been forced to wager why that was, I thought it might be because I had never seen her smile, and there was something inherently inhuman about a person who never smiled. I knocked lightly on the door to her room, hoping that she would not be there or that she might tell me to go away, having changed her mind about wanting to see me. It was not to be so.
"Enter." Her cold voice intoned. I took a brief moment to steady myself, and then turned the handle and stepped into my trainer's office. The room was much as I remembered it. It was nearly the same size as my own. There was a desk in the center, larger than the one in my room, but nothing extravagant. The surface of the desk contained a neatly stacked pile of scrolls, a quill, and an inkwell. There were a couple chairs about the room and a shelf featuring a few large texts that I recognized from my time as a loremaster. I tried not to let my eyes linger on that shelf too long. The next thing I noticed was a rack in the corner of the room near the door I'd just come through. Hanging from the rack was a Lucidil Cloak and a chain mail vest of the type I'd seen many Knights wearing. My eyes shifted to the woman at the opposite side of the desk, and I was more than passingly surprised to see that the cloak and armor on the hook was her own. She was dressed in a simple shirt of black that laced up the front and her deep auburn hair was not tied back as it normally was. It hung in waves about her face. I had never seen her in less than her full gear. Her face seemed calm, almost serene, as though she had shed her anger with the trappings of her job. With the look of rage gone from her features, the beauty of her face, generally hidden by her scowl, shown through brightly.
"Sit down, Lowin." She instructed me, holding her hand out to indicate the two unoccupied chairs in the room. I took the one across the desk from her and sat down, not sure what to make of the events to that point. I had come into the dragon's den expecting to be eaten, but it appeared I was to have a conversation instead. I was unsure whether to be relieved or suspicious. I chose the latter, preparing myself for a sudden change of fortunes.
"You have been here nearly four months now, and you have pushed hard to better yourself during that time." She began, and I could hardly believe the words, even as I heard them. "I have made things as difficult for you as I was able, but you have persevered and never offered me a complaint. I have trained many, and that is a rare thing. You are still weak of stamina and your balance is not what it should be, but these are problems that I believe you are capable of overcoming." I didn't know what had inspired this talk, but I could hardly believe what I was hearing. This was a side of Malice I had never seen before and hadn't even expected to exist. Compliments were a language I didn't think she could speak.
She stood up, and I noticed that the shirt she was wearing was all that she was wearing. It hung long, about a quarter of the way down her thigh, but below that level I could see the fur of her wolf-like legs protruding. I felt my pulse quicken, a mixed feeling of fear and physical excitement enveloping me. She approached me with a silky grace, walking around her desk, and as she did she slipped one of her clawed fingers beneath the laced knot holding her shirt closed and severed the cable with a single deft movement. Her shirt fell open, exposing her large, well-formed breasts, the nipples coming erect in the cooler air of the room. Her upper torso was crossed with scars, including one particularly nasty, purple scar that ran from the top of her chest, between her breasts, down to a point still covered by her shirt.
"You have been alone so much of the time you've been here." She said, and her voice held compassion, such a deep welling of it, in fact, that I wondered momentarily if I was really experiencing what was transpiring, or if I had fallen asleep in the bath earlier. The warm flush in my cheeks was far too much for me to pass off as a mere dream. "It must be difficult for you, but you don't have to be alone all the time." Then she was next to me, seeming to have closed the distance in a flash, and then she was on my lap, her breasts, warm and inviting, just a whisper from my face. I had never been with a woman. In fact, despite the closeness that Kye and I had shared, I had never seen a woman naked. I had certainly never had one approach me in such a forward manner. I was stunned, stuck between shock and fear. My body was responding positively to the advance but I knew, with certainty, that I had no right to what was being offered.
"I know that I'm different from other women, Lowin, but I'm still human. I've never been..." She said, apparently noticing my hesitation.
I stood up, pushing her from my lap. I did so as gently as possible, but I couldn't let things go any further. Such a resistance was far beyond me. I spoke, though I know not how I managed the words. "I can't, Malice, and I assure you it is not for your body." I probably didn't need to state that, for my own body indicated quite beyond my control, that hers had been very appealing to me. I made a vain attempt to cover up just how much the offer had tempted me, but there was only so much I could do while her shirt hung open and inviting, her pink crested breasts one of the most inviting temptations I had ever encountered. I worried that she would be sad, or worse, angry, but she did not seem surprised at all.
"It's Kyeia, isn't it?" She said, and to my surprise, the emotion I encountered on her face was sympathy. I didn't know what to say. I suddenly felt as though I'd been backed into a corner and there was no way out. She moved nearer to me, her arms going out around me. Standing, she was only a few inches taller than me, but that was enough to put her breasts tantalizingly close to my face. "Please, Lowin, don't go down that road. Don't let yourself feel for her." Her words raised my ire and I pushed her back, hard this time. She stepped back, though I realized later, with her strength it was only because she allowed me to do so.
"I don't understand the great taboo!" I shouted at her. Now that the truth was at the surface, I wanted to vent all of my frustrations. "I love her, Malice. She loves me. Where is the harm in that? We make each other happy, why are we forbidden from getting closer?"
Malice pulled her shirt closed with one hand and sat down in the second chair on the same side of the desk as I, though the strange way her legs hinged made it so she had to sit the chair in an unusual manner. She gestured towards the chair I'd recently left, indicating I should sit down as well. I did so, hesitantly. I was still in a position of terrible temptation, maybe even more so for now I could see the point where Malice's fur covered legs ceased to be fur covered, and reverted to the flesh of a normal woman. Only the slightest dipping of her shirt covered that most sacred portion of her female anatomy and, angry as I was, it was difficult to
keep my mind from that fact.
"The rule does not exist to make life difficult for you, Lowin. It exists to protect you, and to protect Kyeia, and to keep you both from suffering more than you need to." Malice said, and again I could sense her sympathy for me. "I know you feel for her, and what's worse, I know she feels for you. She comes to me every other day, at least, to check on your progress. The Bound Ones do not normally do that. I suspected that things might be escalating between the two of you..."
"Will Kyeia be in trouble?" I asked, suddenly realizing I had no idea what the penalty was for our relationship.
"There will be no trouble, at least not the way you mean, for Kyeia. I won't tell anyone, Lowin." Malice answered.
"Why must the rule exist, Malice? What suffering do we face?"
Malice surprised me than, she smiled, but I saw that she was not exactly looking at me. She was looking through me, her mind in a memory. A tear crept down her face, falling like a single drop of rain, from her right eye. She leaned towards me, coming close enough that I could see every nuance of her beautiful face, reminding me that she seemed only a year or two older than me. Her strange black eyes looked deep into my own. "Where do you think these eyes come from? We are not born with them. They do not grow on trees."
At this my mind seized up, and I repeated that in my head over and over again. "Where do you think these eyes come from?" I had never thought about it. I had never let myself think about it. I had wanted to believe that they were some form of magic, but I don't believe I'd ever really convinced myself of that fact. The truth, I realized, was so terrible that I'd refused to look at it.
"...they come from Kye's people." I whispered, my voice wavering with the horror I had just realized.
Another tear crept from Malice's eye. "They do, Lowin. For each of us, one of Kyeia's people must be sacrificed."
I shook my head, unwilling to accept a truth that terrible. Did that mean Kyeia would have to die for me to become a Knight of Ethan? I would never allow such a thing. I looked at Malice. She was sobbing now, her face flushed, and the tears flowing freely.
"I loved him so much..." She said, and the look in her eyes tore me apart. I realized, then, that she had been one of those few other Knights to have had a Bound One of the opposite sex. She didn't need to say more. I understood in just those five words all that she meant.
I went to her, and put my arms around her, for I knew nothing else to do. Her arms encircled me, and she sobbed into my shoulder. It was a full minute or more before I realized that I was crying as well. I found myself completely lost in emotion, but I now knew that in Malice at least there was one I could take solace. After a while, Malice stopped crying, though she stayed close to me. Her voice was soft when she spoke, not the authoritative rumble I was so used to.
"His name was Yulinel. He never really loved me, at least not the way I loved him, but my heart was his from the moment we first met. I did not know the truth of it until the day they took his beautiful eyes and put them into me. They were green... his eyes, but they are black now..." She sniffed and pulled away from me. I had managed to stop my own tears, but I knew my eyes were red rimmed, and I felt like I might break down at any moment.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come between you and Kyeia. I like you, though, and had hoped to save you this pain." She clenched a hand over her heart. "You're a good man..." She managed a faint smile. "Despite your many failings as a fighter." She paused for a moment, and then added once more. "I thought there might still be a chance to save you."
I shook my head. "I can't let it happen, Malice. I can't let Kye die just so I can become more powerful. What kind of creature would I be then?" I noticed a look of hurt on Malice's face, and I quickly corrected myself. "No, it's not the same between us. You didn't know what was happening until it was too late. Thanks to you, I can stop it." The look of hurt was replaced by one of sympathy. "You can't stop it now, Lowin. Kyeia is bound to you. The transfer between the two of you has already begun. Whether you receive her eyes or not, now, she is dead. She has been dead ever since she first held your crystal and accepted the bond."
I rocked back hard into my chair, the weight of her words hitting me as if a physical blow to my chest. "That can't be... she should have told me."
"They can't tell us. The pact is not merely an agreement between our people and theirs, Lowin, it's a magical binding that takes effect on those chosen to become Bound Ones. Kyeia is completely unable to speak to you about the nature of the pact. No matter how badly she wants to tell you, she never can." Malice's voice was rough now, obviously heavy with remembered pain.
I hung my head, defeated. "What can I do?"
"You can make the time you have left the best that it can be." Malice offered, though her tone suggested that she didn't see my chances for success in doing so as very high.
"How much time do I have left?" I asked.
Malice could only shrug. "A month, no more, probably less. Her people came two weeks ago to begin her preparations. That only happens near the end of the process. I'm sorry, Lowin, her time is almost over."
The breath left me in a rush. "So little time left..." I found myself back in Malice's arms, held fast as my resolve fell to pieces. I would like to say that I left her room then and returned to my own, to prepare to meet the new challenges in my life, but I did not. In the grief we shared, each of us took comfort from the other that night, bodies entwined in what was, for both of us, the first taste of the pleasures of the flesh. I could romanticize the experience and say that Malice and I found love that sad evening in our shared curse, but we did not love each other then. We merely needed comfort and took it as two who shared a bond of respect and suffering. I fought back the demons of my future and she fought back those of her past. Together we swept away the darkness until the coming of the dawn.
I awoke the next morning in Malice's bed, her naked body pressed pleasingly against mine. I turned to look at her and found that she was already awake. She was watching me and she smiled as I faced her, though it was a smile edged with sadness. Seeing a smile on her face was a strange and mysterious thing. Again I found myself hard pressed to believe that the beautiful woman curled close to me in bed was the same woman that had driven me to collapse over and over again on the training field. Other than her eyes, her arms, and her legs, she was every bit a human woman. She had been, over the course of the night, both emotionally and physically gentle and innocent in a way that I hadn't believed possible. Her powerful clawed hands that could have easily torn me asunder had caressed and held me with divine gentleness. She seemed to be almost two entirely different women in one body.
"We'll not be training today, I think." She said quietly, and for the first time I realized that the sun was already up and streaming in through the window. I couldn't tell exactly what time it was, but I guessed it was mid- to late- morning. "I have reports to write anyway, and I think we could both use a day to gather ourselves." She sat up and the blankets fell away from her, exposing her most fetching human characteristics. "I'd recommend that you spend some time on the training field anyway. It'll help clear your mind, and you could use it. Lowin..." She started, and I could sense she had something to say that she didn't necessarily want to. "Despite what happened between us, I can't go easy on you during your training. I have a reputation to uphold, and..."
I stopped her with a smile. "It's alright. I understand and I wouldn't change your techniques anyway. They have been harsh and there have been times when I was terrified of you, but I have always put forth my best effort."
She looked away, a light blush on her cheeks. "Two weeks ago, when I brought you here, I had intended to offer myself to you as I did last night, but I lost my nerve and I took my anger at myself out on you. Since Yulinel died, I have been so angry inside. I know it's wrong. It has been nearly two hundred years, and I still have not forgotten him."
I was momentarily shocked when I heard just how old Malice was, but I knew that the Knights of Et
han didn't age much after they ascended to full knighthood. I had heard as much from others. Still, it was hard to think of Malice as being much older than myself. "I don't know that I would have done any better. I'm just glad you were able to come forward this time."
She nodded once, and then seemed to be summoning her courage. "I apologize for that night, Lowin. It was wrong of me and I don't expect your forgiveness." She got up from the bed and grabbed her shirt, pulling it on and doing up the laces quickly. Obviously she had said all she was willing to on the subject and I decided that would be enough. I got up as well, dressing myself, and trying to decide what I needed to do with my life. My heart was full of grief that I might lose Kye in so short a time and it was tempered only by the fact that I knew I still had some time with her remaining. I was also filled with guilt, feeling that I had betrayed her by spending the night with Malice, but I refused to let that consume me. I hadn't done it to hurt Kye and I wouldn't regret what I had done either. I took no joy in my betrayal, but I also would not lessen the importance of the night with Malice by regretting it. What had happened between us had benefited us both.
Once we were both fully dressed, we said our goodbyes and I turned to leave. As I did so, I felt Malice's hand on my shoulder. I turned to see her as she usually was, dressed in her shifting cloak, hair tied back severely. I was again faced with the duplicity of her personality, though her face and the set of her eyes were still softened from their normal angry depth.
"If you ever need a friend again, my door is ever open, my bed always empty." She smiled, the barest lift of the corners of her mouth, and I leaned forward and put my arms around her.
"Thank you, Malice, for giving me the truth, and helping me through the night." With those words I released her, turned, and walked from her rooms out into the hallway. Once I was outside, the full strength of the sun beating down upon me, I realized that there was much I needed to think about. I felt as though all hope had been taken from me in the night, and while spending the night with Malice had helped me to an extent there was still a crushing weight upon my chest and each breath that I drew came with great difficulty. I made my way back to my room, noticing as I entered that Silent was off duty and had been replaced by Wisp. Wisp was a short Knight with chiseled features and close-cropped black hair. She had dragon-like forearms, and similar legs but her most notable feature, I thought, were the horns that protruded six inches from each of her temples. She was the relief shift for Silent. I didn't mind her company but she wasn't as well humored as Silent. I nodded to her, absently, as I went by.