Voices of Blaze

by H. O. Charles

  Once back at his wife’s side, he prepared to administer the potion to Artemi, but hesitated.

  “What troubles you?”

  “Did this taqqa make you so ill?” he asked. “Perhaps it is not the cure.”

  “No, I need it-”

  Morghiad withdrew the needle and shoved it back into the box with all the other apparatus. “We wait another day.”

  “I need to get back, I need to get back, I need to get back…” she murmured.

  “I fear more time has passed for you here than it has in the Darkworld. Another day here will be minutes in our home. We can wait.”

  But Artemi let a soft moan escape from her throat as she reached toward the box. “No- please?”

  Morghiad shook his head and began wringing the sponge in the bucket of water he had brought. “It is possible to take too much of this stuff, yes?” he asked as he began washing her skin clean of dirt. Even the area between the mottled patches and underneath the few rags she wore she was filthy.

  “That is what they say,” Artemi whispered. “Tallyn spoke to me in one of the dreams – a waking dream. It was so real.”

  He knew he did not have to ask if the Law-keepers had agreed to revive their dead son. The answer was evident in Artemi’s tone of voice.

  “Did you get your peace, my heart?” she asked.

  “I did.” The details of it could wait. She was in no condition to properly rip off his head, which he had been rather looking forward to.

  “Then you have completed your mission, while I have failed mine. I am sorry, Morghiad.”

  “It is not a competition,” he hissed, and it was the Law-keepers’ fault besides. What they had done to her was unforgivable.

  When Artemi was washed and clean, he curled up beside her for several hours and held her while she made demands for taqqa. Her protestations became louder and increasingly frequent the more lucid she became, but Morghiad remained steadfast. It was not unlike nalka, he thought to himself, but the bond was formed with a cruel thing rather than a person.

  By the next day, she was lucid but shivering, and could sit up and stand without aid. Morghiad managed to find some less ragged clothing for her from a discarded pile outside of the nearby inn, and after some moments of fidgeting, he decided now would be the proper time to tell her what had gone on in Hirrah.

  “There’s something you need to know,” he began, “A bargain I had to make to get the peace.”

  Artemi’s dark eyes fixed upon him, and she said nothing. She knew. It was obvious she knew.

  “Queen Dorinna-”

  “Her!” Artemi spat.

  “Yes, she… demanded that I lie with her or she would not sign the treaty. When I threatened to kidnap one of her sons to make her do it, she said that she would tell the world I had only done so to force her to come to bed with me. It would have been my word against hers, and not many trusted my word in that place.”

  “And you did it? You gave yourself to her?”

  Morghiad nodded.

  For a while Artemi seemed lost in thought, and it was hard to tell through her strange new features, but she looked to be… sick.

  “I thought of you.”

  “Shut up,” was Artemi’s response. Her voice was hard as iron, and she seemed utterly lucid now, as if taqqa were some old fad that had been forgotten decades ago. “Why didn’t you just kill her?”

  “Kill her? She was needed to make her husband sign the treaty, and if I had been caught…”

  “You should have slit her throat and chucked her out of the window! Her blazed sons could have signed it. She has plenty of them to do it, and they ought to have enough brain matter between them to work out how to hold a quill! Follocking blazes, Morghiad, are you an idiot?! Is this how it is with us? Months apart, and we both lie with other people?”

  “It was not what I wanted, Artemi. I love you. That has never changed.” He placed his long-fingered hands at her waist and pulled her close so that he could stroke her hair. Even here it fizzed gently against his skin. “I never felt anything for her. It was a transaction, and I felt dirty afterward for it.”

  Her lips thinned, she pushed his hand away and spoke through her teeth. “We return now, and we find her. Then, I am going to tear out her innards, organ by organ, and make her watch it happen. I will strangle her with her own guts! Mirel taught me one or two things, my husband, and now I have good reason to use them-”

  “You can’t.”

  This time she gave him a shove into the wall behind, causing several small pieces of rock to crack and break off. “Protecting her, are we?” Artemi asked with a hiss.

  “No. Mirel… Mirel escaped, and she killed Dorinna.” Morghiad fully expected his monsters to rouse into a chorus about Mirel’s tortures, but they did not. They had been completely and utterly silent in this place, which was unprecedented. Morghiad could not remember the last time his mind had been quiet for so long, and it almost felt lonely.

  “Mirel is…” Artemi swallowed. “I am in no condition to fight her. Our children-”

  “They are fine. For now. But we need you back. I need you.”

  “She has taken my vengeance away from me.” Artemi slumped onto the grain sacks, her hands and wings lax on the floor beneath. “I always used to think those in love were fools for punishing the other recipient of their spouse’s affections – the mistresses and cicisbei and the paramours – that they should punish the one who had strayed. But this is different – Dorinna – whore! If only there were a way to bring her back so that I could kill her again! Fires, did Mirel make it painful for her? Tell me it was painful.”

  Morghiad could still see her head mounted upon the end of the roasting spit, its ravenwood hair falling limply around its morose features. “Dorinna wanted to be loved, but she could not have it – not even from me. She was unhappy at the end, and Mirel… tore her head off.”

  “Good. How was it torn off? All in one motion? Or with slicing?”

  “Artemi!”

  His wife’s features had regained their animation and colour, and her eyes now sparkled. “Tell me.”

  “Mirel cut her neck partway, and tore the rest.”

  “Beautiful, beautiful,” Artemi said, rubbing her hands together. She looked to be… was she salivating?

  “My heart, we need to return now. Mirel may be quenched, but she is still dangerous.”

  Artemi nodded and grinned. “Agreed.” She was still licking her lips and rubbing her hands as if she had just eaten the most delightful meal imaginable, and the sight of it made Morghiad’s insides knot up. Artemi had always enjoyed the dance of blades, but she had never been hungry for blood. Was it life in the Nightworld that had made her this way, or was it simply because the subject had been Dorinna?

  His had been a selfless act, but hers had been utterly motivated by selfish curiosity. What thought had she given for his feelings? None. Artemi knew she was no longer worthy of being called wife, but the rapidity with which Morghiad had accepted and forgiven her misdeed troubled her. It was not right, and nor was her growing anger at him. Artemi had insisted that they find food before they travelled back to The Crux. Her husband not only looked hungry from all the riding and journeying he had done, he was having trouble walking without stumbling on every other step. Part of her wished to push him over and watch him fall into a suitably muddy puddle for what he had done. Perhaps a puddle full of spikes. The other part worried about him deeply.

  She regarded him as they sat down to a table in a hidden corner of the tavern. He had not translated badly at all in this world; his hair was still woven in black braids, his expensive black clothing had changed to fit his new body snugly, and his wings were large and exquisitely shaded. Even his eyes had retained their lucid green colour. Artemi knew now what Rav had been telling her about when he said she had looked pure and clean but weak. Morghiad was well built for this place, but he would not have stood a chance in a fight against either Rav or Learkin. Blazes, where was Rav now?
Artemi could not recall the last time she had seen him.

  “So you forgive me? For what I’ve done?” she whispered as a meal was set before her. She decided it would be best not to tell Morghiad what the meat was. He would never have understood.

  “Yes.”

  “Just like that? Nothing else? No anger? No irritation? Ask me to beg … or hit me or do something-”

  “Hit you?”

  “You’ve let me off too easily.” Artemi glanced back at the maid who had served them. The only reason they had been able to get this meal for nothing had been because Artemi had just bested the woman in a fight. Morghiad did not seem to understand the logic of that either, and had tried to intervene. What curious people Darkworlders really were.

  “All I want Artemi, is you. To know that you love me and to have you back – to have you back at my side. That is all I have ever wanted. You do still love me?”

  Artemi found herself lost for words, if only for a moment. “To the very depths of my soul, yes. But this – this is ridiculous! I am furious about your… engagement. And yet you are not furious with me, when I was under far less pressure to do what I did than you were.”

  He pushed his food about on its plate before he said, “But I understand why you did it. It makes sense to me. You had your curiosity, you explored it, and I am not angry.”

  “Burn you and your rationality!”

  Morghiad released his cutlery and took hold of one of her hands in his. “This thing that has happened will not happen ever again. I can see you don’t want it to, and I fear I have made too grave a sacrifice for the sake of a blazed peace treaty. As far as I am concerned, I will let the world burn before I see this look in your eyes again. I trust you implicitly. Trust me.”

  “So that is it?”

  “What is?”

  Artemi pulled her hands away. “You feel secure because I cannot betray you. Not physically. Not without killing someone. How reassuring that must feel for you.”

  “Artemi, that is not fair.”

  “Bloody right it’s not!” She stabbed at her food and stuffed a large piece of it into her mouth. Only the fact that it was so large prevented her from cursing at him further.

  There was anger in his green eyes while he looked at her chewing, though it rapidly dissipated with his own words. “I feel secure with you because I have felt you ogle more men than I care to count, but never feel for any of them as you feel for me.”

  Artemi swallowed the food, though it did not go down easily. “I do not ogle.” Blazes, she did not, did she?

  “You are a passionate woman with passionate thoughts. That’s one of the many things I love about you. It’s in your nature. I’ve accepted it, and it means nothing so long as you love me.”

  What he was saying was beyond stupid. “You think I have a roving eye?”

  “No… you just… have an eye for attractive men.”

  Artemi tried to think if she had ever seen or felt Morghiad do the same around other women. It would have been incredibly arrogant for her to assume that she was the only woman he found enticing, but then, she could not recall a time when he had felt true lust around another woman. Sunidaran queens excepted, of course. She had detected some warm feelings from him when he had spoken with Selieni, but even those had been placid and unremarkable. Perhaps it was that Morghiad sourced his excitement from aspects of her that did not match the things she sought in him. Now that she thought on it, wasn’t that a little peculiar - for a man not to feel the most basic form of lust for other women?

  “I know you admired my first father,” Morghiad said slowly.

  “Hedinar was not-” But she paused before she said anything further, and tried to rearrange her words. “I did not love him. Admiration is different.”

  “And King Marteus?”

  That man had died over three-and-a-half thousand years ago! Artemi felt a rush of heat fill her veins and her head, and if she could have wielded in anger at that moment, she almost certainly would have done. But instead she tried to think of the home she would return to, and all of the things about it that she had missed. “Marteus and I were never lovers. It was a friendship; nothing more,” she said eventually.

  Morghiad wore an expression that she knew was meant to convey his disbelief, but she ignored it. He had not been there; he could not possibly have known.

  “Why do you accept me when you are so different? Not that I’d have you any other way.” Blazes, she’d have hated knowing precisely whom else he was attracted to!

  “It is in the nature of fire to burn people, yet the fire is beautiful. It would be a hollow, meaningless thing if it were not dangerous.”

  She smiled weakly in response, but could think of little else to say. In the years before, he had demonstrated such devotion to her as to risk the lives and wellbeing of all the people of Calidell just to see that she was safe. Even as a young woman without her memories, Artemi had possessed enough morality to be furious at him for it. She had thought it a sign of madness. And now that he had done the right thing for countless others – now that he was a true hero – she felt only sadness at it.

  Morghiad was no longer hers alone, and that knowledge hurt her more than any infidelity. “I suppose I must accept your nature too. You are just the sort of man to do the right thing for the greater good, even if it hurts us.... You gave your neck to Dorlunh, and now your body to her. As much as I despise both acts, I would not change the selflessness within you that gave rise to them. I would not-” Burn it, she was beginning to cry! “I would not alter you.”

  But Morghiad did not nod in agreement. His lips were compressed into a thin line, and the creases upon his forehead were multiplying. “I am not selfless, Artemi. Or good. And know this: if any man who is aware that you are my wife – if any man so much as touches you, I will see him dead.”

  “Then we are in agreement. The same goes for any other queen or peasant who tries what Dorinna has done. If I ever have the misfortune to see one like her again, I will carve out her throat and shove her eyeballs into the hole and follocks to your precious peace of nations!”

  “Best you don’t meet one then.”

  “Best I don’t.” Oh, but it would have been so easy for Artemi to find this Dorinna, had she lived. Few others would be idiotic enough to anger an assassin - an assassin who had been specifically trained to kill obnoxious royalty, no matter how many guards or stone walls or peace treaties they had to protect them! Artemi began to plan exactly how she would have reaped her revenge in that imaginary world. Even if she was unlikely to meet another woman like her in any lifetime, it would be good to have a plan. Very good indeed.

  “She stays,” Kalad said firmly, and placed his hands upon his hips.

  Danner’s eyes appeared greyer than usual, but also larger and wetter. Fool man, Kalad thought to himself. Wolves could not cry.

  “You either leave this house, or you get used to having her around.”

  The wolf shifted his weight between his front paws as if to make a half-hearted attempt at stamping.

  “You cannot spend all day, every day on that spot in the garden,” Kalad said firmly. But it was worse than that. Danner growled at Mirel when she came near him, and there was every chance that the animal would try to bite her. It was not acceptable, or safe, especially for Danner. It would only take one nip for Mirel to be provoked into killing his wolf, and Kalad did not want to go through all of that again.

  “Fine. You must leave.”

  Danner looked to the mountains beyond, and then lowered his head onto his paws.

  “Go,” Kalad said.

  His wolf whined at him.

  “For Blazes’ sake, Danner, Go!” Kalad kicked at the grass for emphasis, which at least prompted the animal to get to its feet.

  “LEAVE!” Kalad bellowed, and this time the wolf obeyed. He slunk away with his tail between his legs and his muzzle lowered.

  “It’s for your own good,” Kalad muttered quietly enough for only a wolf to hea
r, “Just don’t come back.” The pale fur of Danner’s backside had vanished into the shadows by the time the last word had left Kalad’s mouth, and he felt a moment of relief. Their years together had been fun ones, filled with adventure and hunting and companionship, but now Kalad was a settled man. Sacrifices had to be made if he ever hoped to be happy.

  Danner would be far more content without Mirel’s scent filling his nose, and Mirel would be happier without the fear of being mauled everywhere she went.

  “He is gone?” his wife asked when he returned to the manor.

  Kalad nodded, and kissed her on the forehead.

  “I know you shall miss him,” she said softly, “It is a great sacrifice you have made.”

  Kalad dug around in his wardrobe to find a clean shirt. He needed something more sensible to wear to the dinner he was hosting. “Please. Do not remind me.” Blazed light, he had never thought he would one day be hosting dinners! He looked down at his gut while he threaded his arms into the new clothing. He had not grown fat yet, and that ought to have been a sign he was not turning into too much of a fool lord to have any sense. He sighed, and recalled an old wish he’d once had. As a boy, he had so wanted to be as good as his brother and sister with the sword, but each successive year of lessons had demonstrated that his skills did not lie there. He had become bored by the repetitive nature of it all, and worse, frustrated. At the very least, those lessons had kept him fit and strong, which he most certainly did not feel now.

  “You must lose those worries, dear husband,” Mirel said as she smoothed the fabric of the shirt over his arms. “I shall take them away if they are stubborn.”

  “Sweetheart?”

  Mirel smiled handsomely at him. “Darling?”

  “You need to stay fit to be able to fight as a Kusuru fights, yes?” If Kalad’s memory of his mother and Tallyn Hunter’s obsession with running about the practice yard served him, exercise was something those people breathed.

  She nodded slowly. “Of course. But my blades are all gone, and I cannot wield, so I could hardly describe myself as one of The Dedicated now.”