by Marie Harte
Alandra recalled her Pare Rovu, remembered his kind eyes and the sticky taffy he brought whenever he visited between his jaunts abroad.
Lidra shrugged, her beady eyes glued to Alandra’s face. “Because of you and your mother, I had to kill him. Such weakness in a male is not worthy of a queen.”
Alandra stilled as a sudden suspicion dawned. Her parents had been killed together, supposedly caught in the crossfire between warring Djinn and Aellein outcasts.
“Yes, you stupid girl.” Lidra rolled her eyes and sent another blast of Darkness through her, one that did substantial damage this time. “I killed your father, your mother, hell, I killed my own sister as well. How could I let her live, hanging onto my lover as she did? Rovu never really loved her. He just wanted her because he thought she was prettier than me. Than me!”
She plumped her lips, and her brilliance flared. “You are the spitting image of Nara, Alandra. And every day you’ve taken breath, I’ve been just waiting for the opportunity to rid myself of your presence.” Lidra’s face turned ugly, her features twisted with hate, and Alandra wondered how much of it was the Dark and how much was Lidra’s unruly jealousy.
“How fortunate, then, when I openly accused you of allying with the Dark Lords,” Alandra said stiffly, still trying to sort the awful truth Lidra had spouted that she, honestly, wished she didn’t now know.
“Oh, yes.” Lidra shot at her again, but this time Alandra managed to avoid the blast by ducking behind a nearby boulder. Pain from her other wounds throbbed in her side, where the numbing Darkness coalesced. Her mind, however, ticked at a record pace, trying to figure out how to do the most damage to Lidra as possible. “Your accusations did more than open the door to my vengeance. You see…”
As Lidra blathered on about one corruption after another, Alandra continued to dodge her advances. Shoring the Light within her, borrowing from Shadow as much as she dared, she knew she’d never have a better chance.
“You poor, sad cow of a woman,” she said with false compassion and stepped out from behind the boulder. She needed nothing standing between her and Lidra when she attacked. Lidra stopped mid-sentence and stared open-mouthed. “How terrible to live in my great-grandmother’s shadow all these years. That even after killing her, my mother and my father, you still are not the prettiest Aellei in the land.” With a blinding brilliance, Alandra released the Light within her. “Rovu could never want a thing as ugly as you.”
Lidra shrieked and returned fire with everything she had. The pain was terrible, akin to the agony Alandra had suffered under Arim, but worse, as Lidra used the Dark to aid her.
Not willing to go the way her unfortunate parents had, and unwilling to allow Aelle to suffer the fate of the many dead worlds the Dark Lords raped and tore to pieces, Alandra allowed the love she felt for Aerolus to fuel her righteous anger.
As Dark met Light, showers of fire lit the grey sky. Cries and shouts feathered into her consciousness, but as their energies met and clashed, something had to give. A loud boom rent the air, and she and Lidra were thrown back. The sick crack of a broken spine made her look to Lidra, only to see her twisted body curdled with age, lying lifeless under a large tree now scarred by Light.
A constant buzzing filled her ears, and the taste of blood made her stomach sour, as did the smell of burnt hair. Glancing at the blurring image of Lidra once more, she saw her aunt’s once bright hair curling with flame. Then a seething, ripping pain tore through the Dark numbness that had settled within her. Agony, the stinging of a million needles piercing her brain, her magic, began to invade the places of Light within her. Her vision darkened, and she prayed Aerolus would find her.
He’d brought her back from the Next once before, but she feared if he didn’t find her soon, she wouldn’t wake to see his face for a very, very long time, if ever again.
* * * *
Tired and sick of fighting these cretins when his every cell called him to join his affai, Aerolus focused on the well deep within himself for ancient power. Winds and lightning raged, pouring from his eyes and mouth. Torrents of static flew from his fingertips, riding the same air that threw his enemy into a great vortex of wind so vicious that nothing survived in its path.
A sudden explosion in front of him told him to move, and quickly. Ignoring the burning in his body, the myriad cuts and blows he’d received battling an enemy that clearly outnumbered him, he rushed through the same winds that crushed his opponents, only to see Alandra and another woman shuttling through the air away from each other and him.
Alandra landed with a solid crash, jarring her slight form into a moan but not sending her unconscious, for which he was profoundly grateful. The other woman faired not so well. Her body snapped as she hit a massive tree at an odd angle, and as she fell to the ground, her body decayed into a decrepit creature more pulpy flesh and blood than whole.
Not wasting any time, he quickly reached Alandra as her eyes slowly closed. He called her name, stroking her head and cradling her to his chest, but she didn’t give him the slightest response. Worried, he tried to see her aura, but found, to his shock, he could no longer feel her power within or around him. Clinging to her, he began to waver, and finally realised what terrible shape both of them were in.
He was bleeding from more wounds than he’d ever had in his life. Darkness clawed at his core, breaking the Light within him into small, useless pieces. His head throbbed, and he kept seeing spots that he had to blink away to maintain focus. Yet he was awake and moving, while his affai was not.
Studying the face more precious to him than life itself, he saw her perfect cheeks bruised, her lips bleeding and her left eye slightly swollen. She had been struck, battered, and even now lay perilously close to death. He turned away from the thought she might already be dead, unable to accept even a hint of such truth without losing his tenuous hold on life itself.
Knowing of only one thing that might cure his affai and bring her back, he used every last reserve of energy he possessed and teleported them into Tanselm, into the shadow of Morn Mountain. Finally at his end, he laid her down as gently as he was able and toppled next to her. He reached out and clutched her hand, willing her to recover even as his soul struggled to separate from his body and seek the Next.
Chapter Fourteen
Arim worked to escape the whip of Darkness lashed around his throat, his eyes watering with the effort. He’d been fighting Lexa for nearly an hour, getting no closer to defeating her than she was to defeating him. Oddly enough, he sensed she meant to keep him at arm’s length, as if she had more in store than this simple battle.
“What do you really want?” he asked for the fifth time. He saw her eyes flash, a sight that never failed to stir him. At that moment he wasn’t sure who angered him more, himself for still being attracted to the traitorous witch, or her for being so…Dark. She smiled slowly, toying with him again. Annoyed he’d let his irritation with her show, he deliberately grinned at the pain in his neck, disconcerting her before she slipped her mask of hatred firmly back in place. Interested despite himself, he wondered just what lay beneath Lexa’s cold exterior.
Where had the shy, sweet girl he’d once known gone, or had she never really existed at all?
“Hmm, what do I want, you ask?” Her lips curled though her eyes remained flat. “I want you to die like a man, instead of the snivelling Light Bringer I know you to be. What a poor excuse for a mage.” She sneered and shot blue flame from her fingertips, scoring marks across his cheek.
He retaliated with a burst of Light, almost hitting her full in the face had she not dodged at the last minute. A sudden and foreign sense of shame hit him as they fought, an unfamiliar feeling that he was fighting a losing battle against a woman not his enemy. From where the thought had sprung he didn’t know, but a painful spear of Dark through his thigh cleared the notion in a heartbeat.
Ice burned at his legs, middle and arm, and while he struggled to undo the noose at his throat, he waited stiffly for anoth
er blast of blue flame to hit him. Surprised she would hesitate to take advantage of his weakness, he glanced at her face only to see her fierce expression now serene, her eyes closed.
Recognizing a vision when he saw it, he hurried out of her clutches and would have turned the tables on her when she vanished without a sound.
Shocked, he instinctively encased himself in a powerful shield and waited. The Lexa he knew had never fled from a fight, and he wondered what she meant to do next. Attack him from behind, draw him into the open searching for a vulnerability he didn’t intend to give? She’d caught the one weakness in his shield earlier, but he’d fixed that problem and—
“You have to see this,” Sava blurted from his right, ducking the ball of Light Arim instinctively threw. “Shadows, man, get a grip. You’ve obviously finished playing with Lexa. You need to see this, and tell me what it means.”
Grabbing Arim by his uninjured arm, Sava flashed them behind a large verum tree.
“Watch,” Sava whispered.
There, in a clearing littered with scarred tables and chairs, two Dark Lords battled viciously. Stunned, Arim could only stare as ‘Sin Garu and B’alen tore into each other.
“This makes no sense. They know we’re here. Why turn on each other when the smart thing would be to exterminate the Light Bringers?”
“I don’t know,” Sava murmured. “But they’ve been at this for some time now. Lidra’s dead,” he said grimly. “And Alandra and Aerolus are missing.”
Arim stared into his eyes, sensing no trickery, only worry for his niece. “You’re sure they’re not anywhere, their…remains not in the trees or over the ground in any way?” he asked in a gritty voice. The thought of Aerolus dead turned him cold, but he had to know.
Sava’s face softened. “No, friend. I swear by my sight they are not here. In fact,” he said, closing his eyes, “I can’t sense Alandra or Aerolus in this plane at all.”
Breathing a small sigh of relief, Arim turned his attention back to the Dark Lords, watching with fascination as they grappled and fought. Nothing was out of bounds as they clawed, fired blue flame, and brought pawns into their battle. Several decapitated and dismembered wraiths and Aellei lay scattered about the clearing, quickly joined by another two scorched Der warriors.
“Come, Brother, let’s end this now,” ‘Sin Garu said, sounding not at all tired.
B’alen, on the other hand, looked to be breathing heavily. “Fuck you, meh fre ak nahl sur.” He flashed his teeth and spat at his brother, the sting of acid landing on ‘Sin Garu’s cheek and making him howl with rage.
“That had to hurt,” Sava muttered.
“Look at his face.”
“No, I meant the ‘nahl sur’ comment. B’alen basically called ‘Sin Garu a creation of incest.”
“Nice.” Arim shook his head. “This is all well and good, Sava, and I can’t say I don’t enjoy watching our enemy take themselves out, but I need to check on Aerolus.”
“Lexa told me everything, you know,” ‘Sin Garu mentioned casually, drawing Arim’s attention. The wily Dark Lord avoided B’alen’s enraged attack to his throat. “Lidra would only have been convincing as Ravyn if you’d not turned her into a blood drinker. Haven’t you learned by now to think ahead, big brother?”
Arim stiffened. Lidra as Ravyn? Alandra hadn’t mentioned that. Imagining Lidra pretending to be his sister made him cringe, but knowing the Aellei might have succeeded had Alandra never made herself known to Aerolus had him rethinking any doubt he might have had about his nephew’s affai.
“Ingenious, really,” Sava said, echoing his thoughts. “If Lidra had succeeded, you would have had a Dark Lord imbedded in Tanselm before you knew what you were dealing with. It’s one thing to distrust the Djinn, but your overqueen? Hmm, why hadn’t I ever thought of that?” he asked lightly.
Arim shook his head, his immediate concern for his sister cooling at Sava’s humour. Lidra was dead now. But Ravyn would need to be told. Bad enough she’d lost her husband to the Next and her sons to a foreign land, she now also needed to worry about internal threats to Tanselm. Wonderful.
Weary, Arim rubbed at his neck. “I’m going back to Tanselm. Let me know what—”
He stopped as ‘Sin Garu suddenly impaled his brother with a spear of blue flame. B’alen gurgled and black liquid ran from his mouth. It appeared the Dark Lord threat had just taken a turn for the better.
“What’s that, Brother?” ‘Sin Garu asked softly. He leaned closer to listen to what B’alen said and narrowed his eyes. “She’ll pay, dearly.” Then, gathering several wraiths still alive and surrounding the fight, he drew a circle in the air. A blazing inferno appeared above him in a circle big enough to fit the small gathering of Netharat.
He gathered B’alen in his arms and vaulted into the maw, his wraiths in trail. The portal closed as quickly as it had opened, and the air settled into stillness.
“Helluva day.” Sava breathed deeply and made a face. “We really need to clean this mess up. Already the stench of rot is clogging my sinuses.”
“Not to mention so much death is unsightly,” Arim said sarcastically. “Glad you have your priorities in order, Sava.”
Sava glared. “I love Alandra, you sheel. But she’s on her own path now, one that takes her from Aelle into a greater Shadow.” He smiled, his eyes dark with threat. “Have no fear, old friend, I intend to visit her often in Tanselm, to make sure she’s treated well, as she deserves.”
“Save it, old friend.” Arim blew out a breath in disgust. “Alandra will be treated like a queen, as you well know. Aerolus would rather die than let anyone, including me, harm his affai. Not that I would,” he said quickly to forestall more fighting. The anger in the depths of Sava’s normally good-humoured gaze began to fade. “Trust me. Alandra will be most welcomed in Tanselm. And knowing my sister, Alandra will soon have a mother again, whether she wants one or not.”
Sava visibly relaxed. “Well, then.” He cleared his throat. “I’d ask you to stay, but you make my people nervous. They only know of the horrors you perpetrate, and not of your giving nature to us of Shadow.”
Arim snorted. “On that note, I’ll leave. Let me know when you’re coming to Tanselm,” he warned lightly. “I’d hate to kill you before greeting you properly.”
Sava nodded, a light in his eyes. “But of course. Must follow society’s dictates. And the next time you show up in my tower, you’d better have several gorgeous women on your arm, or at least a treasure in gold. No offence, but Aerolus isn’t exactly a valuable commodity here.”
Chuckling, Arim nodded. He gripped Sava by the forearm before taking his leave. Teleporting back to Tanselm, he searched for Ravyn to see if Aerolus had returned. He found her with Darius, Marcus and their respective affai in her personal chambers. She glanced up, hope in her eyes, in her wary smile. But seeing him alone caused her face to fall.
“Aerolus is in trouble,” she said, tears falling from her dulled gaze. “You have to find him, Arim. Find him and save him. I can’t lose my son. He’s not ready to see his father again. Not yet, not like this.”
She cried harder, and Tessa and Samantha pulled her close. Darius and Marcus ushered him from their mother’s chamber.
“We’ve searched the kingdoms with spells, a scrying tablet and on foot. We can’t find him, or Alandra.” Marcus spoke stiffly, worry leeching from his voice.
“He’s hurt, bad,” Darius growled, frustration lacing his words. “I’ve never felt so much pain. If we don’t find him soon—”
“There won’t be an Aerolus left to find at all,” Marcus finished softly.
* * * *
Aerolus couldn’t breathe. He knew he was in Tanselm, and that he lay next to his affai. Peace should have been in his grasp, but a sense of wrongness filled him, and with it, a worry that Alandra still faced grave danger. He wanted to turn to her, to feel her again. But he couldn’t move his hand, couldn’t feel anything at all.
Struggling, he tried to roll
to his belly, to reach for her, to use the winds as his aid, but to no avail.
He began slipping, slowly edging closer and closer to the murky warmth of something most unwelcome…
“Not yet.” A husky, familiar voice called him back. He felt cool fingers touch his brow, bringing comfort from the pain of almost losing everything. “You’re needed here, by so many who love you,” she said softly.
Images of Alandra, his mother, his brothers and new sisters flashed through his mind. The scents of iria, of musty, ageless scrolls and withered texts, of a fresh breeze lingering over the magic of Tanselm filled him with joy.
“Come back, sweet,” she whispered and kissed his lips softly. A humbling coolness breathed new life into his tired body, and suddenly, his aches and pains melded into vibrancy, into dire, urgent need for the one woman his heart would ever love.
A soft surge whispered over the wind, and he opened his eyes to find Alandra smiling down at him.
“There you are,” she teased, feathering her touch over his lips. “I’ve missed you.” Her eyes suddenly misted, and she kissed him with desperate elation. “Don’t do that, Aerolus. I don’t like it when you lay so still.”
“Then what would you suggest, affai?”
Seeing his perfect bride, her eyes filled with tears and her lips trembling with love, for him, broke through his calm. A zeal to reaffirm life, to embrace the magic and passion of his love, caused his blood to surge as incredible lust overwhelmed him. Spelling the clothes from their bodies, he lifted Alandra over him and filled her with his heat, stealing her words before they could be spilt.
She moaned and ran her fingers through his hair as he licked and nipped at her full, distended nipples. “You’re so big inside me.”