“Yes! You’re torturing him! You’re a murderer!”
Lips curling up with disgust, an evil laugh barked out of him. “He’s no better than me, when all is said and done. Why, he’s just a stupid-”
“You’re wrong! And the only beast in this room is you!” I screamed.
Troll stilled on top of me, slumping, and Trystan’s men easily pulled him off, letting him fall on the ground in a crumpled heap.
“Roll him over. Let’s get this over with.” Pulling a long, bejeweled dagger from a sheath at his side, Trystan smiled a twisted, warped grin, kicking Troll’s leg as his men pushed him flat on his back.
“No!” Eyes wide and bulging, I struggled to stand up, lunging at all of them as I kicked my feet out, shoulders screaming in their sockets, trying to distract them from what I knew was next to come. “You can’t!”
“Oh?” Trystan raised a brow haughtily and paused. “And why not?” Eyes trailing back and forth been us, he worried the tip of his blade with the end of his index finger, hate filled eyes trailing leeringly over my filth ridden length.
“I... I won’t let you!”
“Hah! You’re going to stop me, then?” Snapping his fingers, he ordered the men to release me.
Once my arms were free, I ran to Troll, ignoring the sting of a thousand needles as my arms gained circulation. Scrambling across the short distance, I collapsed beside him, running my fingers over his nape, searching for any sign of a pulse. It was there, but faint, and I scooted closer, cradling his head on my lap.
“Oh, how touching.” Scoffing, Trystan snorted, nudging my ass with his foot. “Now move.” Tapping his blade impatiently against his arm as he smirked down at me disdainfully, I glared up at him defiantly.
“I won’t let you,” I ground out quietly, hovering over my troll.
Surprise flit across his features, but he hid it well.
“Move. No.”
Glancing down to my bonded’s beaten face, the words were so low I barely heard them, faint but urgent.
“What?” I asked quietly.
“Move. No. Let... Let...”
“You want me to move?”
Weakly, Troll nodded, wincing at the effort.
He wants me to just stand by and let Trystan stab him? “No, I won’t.” Ignoring everyone around us, I gently placed his head on the ground, scuttling around his side to place myself, as carefully as possible, atop him. “You’ll have to go through me first.”
Shrugging nonchalantly, Trystan raised his dagger high. “So be it.”
With what little strength he had left, Troll roared out and tried to turn us, but I held him down, hoping to protect him from the killing blow.
White hot pain lanced through my back, gut wrenching agony filling me. Howling, I fell back, choking and gasping on my side on the floor.
A rage filled roar rent the air, and the sound of men’s screams, of death, filled my ears. Soon enough, it grew silent, and warm hands clasped at the ache along my spine.
As my vision started getting blurry, a familiar grey skinned face filled my line of sight. Instinctively, I reached out for him.
“Stay with me, luv. Stay with me! Ye hear?!” the voice begged, clasping my ice cold hand to his furnace hot chest.
“Why... why were we here? What... what...” I mumbled, a bubble of blood clogging my throat.
“Sacrifices... makin’ sacrifices of us, is what they’re doin,” he growled starkly.
“For... w-what?” I coughed in between words, my chest rattling loud.
“Fer lovin’ me,” he whispered against my blood stained, ashen lips, voice heavy and choked with emotion, wetness bathing my face as I greeted oblivion.
Depths
Clutching at the open air, I awoke with a start, jumping up as the deep grass underfoot tickled across my tingling skin, my face pressed into a startlingly green wet patch, crinkling against my naked flesh.
Hopping around on muddy feet, spinning around while alternately trying to touch the unblemished flesh of my back—no stab wounds or puncture marks to be had—I paused, wrapping my arms around myself in an odd embrace, a sigh of relief whistling out of me nosily.
Then, upon digesting the fact that I am indeed only wearing the skin God gave me as I gave my mortal, wound-free self a congratulatory hug, my hands slapped about my person in the bright morning sun, trying to pick which parts to cover, and which parts I could handle, should someone just so happen to stop by.
“Cursed is thee who gives too free. Doubly cursed are ye who too freely take, yet never give. You’ve a good heart, Nugget, she who bonded Gersthart.”
At the sound of the pleasant yet foreign voice, an almost musical quality to it, I glanced over the small pond I’d ran to earlier this night, blinking in disbelief.
A beautiful, ethereal woman with long blonde hair was walking on the surface of the water, gliding gracefully across. The skirts of her clear blue dress rippled in her wake like waves, her long white locks shining like silvery bits of light from the moon as they swayed around her lovingly.
“You must take the organ—keep it safe.” Her voice easily crossed the distance, and though it was low, a soft, vibrant hum, it was like she was whispering right in my ear. “Ignore the missive—reap the fate.” Pausing, she ran a delicate hand over the rich miasma of a thousand different shades of blue, mingling along the folds of her long flowing gown, silver and gold shimmers rippling across it like a thousand sparkling diamonds in her slender fingers’ wake. “Will you keep it?” she crooned quietly. “Hold it safe?” Cocking her head to the side as I frowned, disconcerted, a slow smile tilted her Cupid’s bow, light pink lips.
Organ? Keep it safe? Glancing down, I yelped and huddled into a ball, tucking my knees to my chest, hiding my nudity. Yeah, I have a few organs on display... I’ll just tuck them in for safe keeping. Will that work for her?
“No.” Her chiming laugh hit me hard and I found myself staring up at her, dumbfounded. “It beats like one, lit with passion’s fire, but only for you. You see?”
“I don’t... follow.”
Nodding, she knelt down, fingering the surface below her feet gingerly, staring into the water’s depths sadly before she glanced up. Deep, clear blue eyes, solemn and lonely, aching with an intense longing, didn’t escape me. “No, but you will.”
My skin chilled at her tone, prickling, and I shivered.
“Heed the warning. Do not forsake the curse of the Ornthren. Hearts once filled—gone hollow,” she lifted her pale, translucent hands to her breast, blue veins clearly visible along her flesh, swaying slightly, “only death will follow.”
Still not quite understanding, my mouth slowly opened and closed a few times, trying to make it work, but the words didn’t come.
“You talk in riddles,” I finally mumbled out, “I’ve only understood every other word you’ve said.”
Standing, she gave a slow bow and a nod, flinging her hand out at me so fast I didn’t have time to react before the blue bolt shot out and zapped me, sending me reeling back, sprawled out naked across the newly sprouted grass, thick shards of ice and fat icicles stabbing the dirt all around me, close but never touching my flesh.
Choking on a gasp as I scrambled to sit up, rolling over with a bit back groan, a roaring, like the ocean, over took my hearing, slowly petering out to a dull, muted hum.
‘Think on it, little one. Soon enough, you will see. But, for now...’
Squeaking in shock, I slapped my hands over my ears, ignoring the sharp prick in my skull and deep within my chest. She hadn’t spoken aloud—her lips haven’t moved. She’s in my head!
“How can you...” trailing off, I watched in wonder, marveling as the lady on the water closed her eyes, lifting her face to the sky in supplication, arms raising up as a magnificently colored wave, frothed and foamy, swirled up and around her, enveloping her before she swiftly yet quietly sank beneath.
Stunned, I just sat there until it all became too much.
Crawling towards the edge when nothing else happened, at least a half hour or more having gone by, I peered over the edge, staring into the crystal clear, shimmering depths.
Nothing. She was gone.
Curious to catch a glimpse, anything, but unwilling to dip even a finger in, I leaned in a little closer, dirt encrusted hands gripping the muddy lip rimming the small body of magical water set out before me.
As I just sat there and watched, something, like a faded light from below, faint but still flickering, caught my eye. Pulling back a little as I squinted down at it, it quickly morphed into two large, burning orange orbs, rushing up towards me.
“Gersthart,” I whispered, swallowing hard as a tear slid down my cheek, remembering my nightmare in the dungeon, shuddering at the memory.
As I sniffled, waiting for him to surface and show me that he was indeed alive, and I was most definitely having a really weird dream, my chest heaved with repressed emotion, tight and aching.
As he drew closer, a sound caught my attention, a plop-plop in the water. Glancing up quickly, I didn’t see the slender arms that reached up and out, before I could react, nabbing me and yanking me right in.
Elemental, My Dear Phedaenya
This wasn’t at all like the other dreams. I didn’t feel as if I were a participant, exactly, but merely a spectator, here for the show.
There was a woman, I noticed, the beautiful blue dressed woman—the lady in the lake—and she was staring up at a handsome looking man as he gazed down into the lake longingly.
As the man whispered something I couldn’t make out, a fervent wish, shutting his eyes tight, he flicked something in before he stood, and I watched as it floated down, down, down, until it reached her.
Startling as it brushed her cheek, her hand reached out, marveling as it slowly drifted down. Catching it and twirling it around between her fingers, the lady of the lake smiled, clutching the trinket—a small silver locket—tightly to her chest.
Lifting her face towards the sky, locket still pressed to her bosom, sun light shimmering along the lake’s bottom, her legs swiftly kicked up. As she surfaced and greeted the young man, stalling his retreat, the dream sped up, fast forwarding, like one of those flip picture books that creates the illusion of movement, when in fact, everything is still. Emotions ran right alongside them, as if I was the lady herself, experiencing everything, scene by scene, as if it was all my own.
There was interest, as the young man spent long hours talking with the young water sorceress—that was the only way I could think to describe her—a water manipulator, magic wielder—a witch—and then the beginnings of what I could only describe as love, quickly followed by desire, as time passed and he managed to coax her out of the water, then slowly into his bed.
The scene shifted.
There’s worry, but I can’t quite understand what has happened, no words to go with the swiftly shifting array of emotions and moments. By this point, I was catching them in flashes, speeding past me faster than I could keep up.
The lady of the lake gives her beloved—her bonded—the gift of her protection, a tether to the sorceress herself, a syphon to protect him from grievous harm. She shielded him, I realized, the runes, similar but different from the ones I wore, dusting across his skin as his lover embraces him one last time, enveloping him in her love and devotion.
With the man, he didn’t appear hurt or damaged by his new markings, the only thing to give way to any sign of pain a mere grimace of discomfort.
Hah. He’s either a very good actor when it comes to hiding his pain or my... initiation—yes, that’s a safe word to call it—was much different than his.
Time passes, and the man does not return. The lady waits, a child soon showing as it grows, safe and content, loved, in her womb.
The man, on his quest to conquer new lands, all in the name of his king, and his own personal gain and glory, grows vain and calloused. In his thirst for more, the young man—the King’s favored black knight—hardens his heart, poisoning it with his gluttonous, insatiable greed, paving the way for a dark path of destruction.
Painting village after village with the blood drawn from his sword, another gift from his lady, littering the countryside with dead bodies and lost souls, some more innocent than others, undeserving of such crude desecration, all left as they’d been slain, rotting out in the open, carrion for the birds.
The woman of water senses the change in her long absent lover and withdraws her tokens of affection, summoning the sword back to her lake, severing the tether their mate bond allowed.
Upon the loss of his gifts, the knight becomes grievously wounded in battle, severing his arm from his shoulder. It was close, the knight had lost a lot of blood, and his body succumbed to infection.
Miraculously, with the help of the King’s physician, the knight survives, but bitterness courses through him.
Once healed, the young man returns to the mysterious lake, entreating his lady wife to once again favor him, come to her beloved, but she isn’t fooled. The bond was strong when formed, and emotions ran clear, from him to her, as if she was feeling them for herself. Much like, I might add, I’m feeling right now through her.
Angered at his mate’s refusal to make him once again whole, a feat even she could not accomplish, nor would she return his favored sword, or the tether-syphon that once connected them so thoroughly, the man storms off, renouncing their child, promising to make her pay.
Time went by slowly for the lady as she patiently waited for her mate to come to his senses, their babe’s time quickly growing near.
The man, bitter and disheartened, soul darker than ever before, acid thrumming through his veins, began a crusade against his lady-wife, bedding any maiden he happened upon, drinking himself into a drunken stupor every night until he couldn’t remember who or where he was.
Furious, the lady lashes out at her bonded, bitter herself that she couldn’t denounce her adulterous mate-husband.
For me, this is where the dream became stranger yet.
Odd, flashback images faded in and out until they rushed back, crystal clear, and as the lady of the lake cried out, her voice rang loud and true.
Crying out to the heavens, she raged, begging the Fates to intervene, storms rolling in and out for weeks, pulled straight from the surrounding sea. Cursing her mate soundly, she called up monsoons and hurricanes, rainstorms followed by snow storms. No one was left unscathed, no one escaped her wrath. Crops freezing, livestock dying, disease and death rampant, she slayed her lover and all those that followed, any and all who dared get caught in the enraged lady’s weather’s wake paying the ultimate price.
It went on and on, the lady herself uncontrollable, long after her lover was dead and gone, until no one in the small village nearby was left.
On the eve her child was to be born, the lady was granted what she’d wished for that first fateful day, her calls for the Fates to intervene soon answered, but not how she might have envisioned.
As the lady labored hard, the sisters Fate appeared, three identical looking females of eternal beauty. Deathly pale skin, long white hair, and identical frosty white irises, absent of pupils, over jet black orbs, materialized in a cloud of mist and smoke, calling as one upon the will of the other Elements to bear witness for Lady Niniane’s atrocities.
“You have broken the first Elemental rule,” Lachesis whispered softly, small, thin hands clasped tightly in front of her. The deep golden cape over her pearl white linen shift swished quietly as she watched the woman before her emotionlessly, swaying gently from side to side in a sort of odd trance.
“You must answer for your crimes against that of man,” Clothos rasped, her voice scratchy and catching, as if from disuse. Long white hair shadowing her face, trailing along her back to cascade over her rich purple, floor length cape, she stuffed her hands into the deep pockets lining the sides, pulling out a long spool of thread and twirling it ‘round and ‘round in her fingers as she eyed Niniane’s contrac
ting stomach avidly.
“We call you be judged, Niniane, Lady of the Lake, what say you?” Atropos demanded, her curt, hard voice ringing across the open clearing. The cowl over her blood red cape was pulled up and over her head, masking her expression.
“So must it be,” Niniane panted through gritted teeth, tears slowly streaming down her cheeks, “but I ask only one thing.”
The Fates, as one, all cocked their heads to the side, nodding that she may speak. “I ask- No, I beg, that I’m given a chance to bear my child first, that he may have a chance.” Her voice was quavering, fear slipping through.
“Elementals decide. It’s out of Fates’ hands,” Lachesis sang quietly.
“You will have your say,” Clothos put in.
“I summon the others,” Atropos declared, glancing up towards the full moon starting to loom high overhead.
“Fire,” Lachesis giggled in a small, child-like voice, flames tipping her finger tips as she held them out, blowing them out as she smiled prettily.
“Earth,” Clothos snapped, lifting the hem of her cape, exposing her small bare feet, digging her naked toes into the moist earth beneath as she muttered something under her breath, flicking up dirt and gravel in her wake.
“Wind,” Atropos grumbled, blowing out a long breath, not bothering to look up, pulling out a long pair of shiny black scissors and a small soapstone.
“Hephaestus. No, wait. It’s... Oh, uhm, it’s Phaestus!” Lachesis cried, quieting at the identical looks of censure her sisters shot her. Shoulders slumping, the golden caped sister clammed up. “I remembered,” she grumbled petulantly, teasing the end of her cloak as she twirled it around in her fingers.
Phaestus, fire embodied, burst in on a ball of roiling, riotous orange and red flames, scorching a long strip of earth, steaming and crackling heatedly in his wake, melting everything in his path as he rolled to a sudden, jarring stop, several feet of distance separating them.
As his large frame unfurled from its curled up position, an imposing man with unimaginably thick, wide shoulders, tree trunk legs, freckled from head to toe, and sporting a long, thick, blood red beard, was revealed. Caste iron leg clinking heavily in his wake, Phaestus dipped his head respectfully in acknowledgement as he silently paid homage to the sisters three.
The Toll Page 25