by Vi Voxley
“Gawen’s dead,” Aya reminded them.
“Yeah,” Iloya said. “And Faren… Faren.”
Both Aya and Leiya turned on their heels, since Iloya was staring, wide-eyed, straight at whatever was behind them. It was like she’d said. The coldest general in the Brion armies had just walked into their line of sight. He paused at the stairs leading to another part of the great hall, casting his merciless eyes over the gathered Brions.
It seemed like even the air had stopped moving, such was the silence of all those around him. Faren either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He calmly walked on to greet some younger captains and senators. Or rather, to be greeted by them. As much as it could be seen, he hardly said a word, as was usual with him.
“Oh gods, do you think he’s here for a gesha?” Iloya asked.
“Why else?” Aya intoned. “To mingle? Faren?”
“He must be,” Leiya said, rising to her tippy toes to see better. “Now that I think on it, I never heard of him binding.”
The three of them gave the ruthless general a curious look.
Leiya had to admit it was difficult to tear her eyes away from him, and she didn’t seem to be alone in that. There was something oddly attractive about him, alluring and a bit scary at the same time. He stood almost a head taller of all the rest, only other warriors catching up to him in height. Years of battle had honed his body to perfection, it was clear to see for all who cared. He simply exuded power in everything he did. When he walked, others stepped aside to let him pass without him having to say a word to make them do so. His reputation did everything needed, no one was aching to cross blades with one of the bloodiest of the Brion generals.
She remembered seeing him duel, a very, very long time ago when she still allowed herself to be taken to those displays of merciless murder. She remembered both twins really. They had both looked like they’d been carved from marble. Only where Gawen made it look rough and sharp in the edges, on Faren the build seemed more natural. His strength was obvious even in the simplest of movements, the muscles of his arms moving like a bowstring ready to unleash its powerful kick. That much was obvious too. For all his apparent calm, there was always the threat of violence treading behind him.
The general was looking over the crowd from under strands of his dark, black hair. He almost seemed bored, if any emotion could ever be assigned to one such as him.
“I know what you’ll say,” Iloya said at last, shuddering all forgotten, “but he’s gorgeous.”
Aya shrugged.
“Sure, for a warrior, he doesn’t look bad.”
Iloya rolled her eyes at her.
Leiya was about to agree with them, but all she said was,
“He scares me.”
They chose to move around a bit after that surprise, but of course Leiya immediately forgot the rule she'd thought of before.
Oh perfect. It’s not like there are many things to keep in mind when you’re at a reception. Keep an eye out not to miss your fated. And what else? Oh yes. Don’t lose your friends!
Despite knowing better, Leiya found herself looking around helplessly, not seeing her friends anywhere. But of course she’d lost them, what else could she possibly have done in a crowd of at least ten thousand Brions.
She made a hopeless attempt to look around to see if they were by chance close enough to still catch. As she walked through the crowd, she had the chance to talk to her audience. Most of them were nice, at least.
“Oh, yes, thank you! I would love to sing at the next reception too.”
“I write my own songs, yes. Hmm? Yes, I have a concert coming up very soon.”
“What? No! Does your mother know you speak to girls like that?”
“Thank you for saying that, it’s really very kind of you. I’m sorry about your hearing, that note is very high, yes.”
“Oh! Yes! I saw you from the stage! I’m so happy for you two! Yes, it can definitely be your song.”
It went on and on, but her friends were nowhere to be found. Instead, she bumped into Senator Primen. He wasn’t the High Senator anymore, but he was still her father’s friend, so Leiya stopped to talk to him for a moment. The man smiled to her at once.
“Ah, I was hoping I’d catch Briolina’s brightest star before she left,” he said. “I wanted to congratulate you on a marvelous performance.”
“Oh,” Leiya said, grinning. “Thank you. I’m glad you liked it, Senator.”
“I hear you’re planning a concert tour. I’ll be sure to come to listen.”
Leiya smiled.
“You and everyone here, it seems. I don’t know how you’ll all even fit the hall, but I’ll make sure you have a seat, Senator.”
Primen chuckled.
“Very kind of you, Leiya. It’s good to have you home at last. If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to come and see me. I’ll do my best to help.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The senator left her alone then with a last look that Leiya had no problem deciphering, but it was no matter. Many men in the hall looked at her like that. That was fine, looks didn’t hurt her. But only her gerion would have her.
There was little point in trying to keep looking for her friends. Besides being the place to meet your fated, receptions were also meant for all kinds of introductions. Some found business associates, some new friends. It wasn’t rare to just find a companion instead of their fated at the reception. Leiya had noticed potential suitors eying her friends earlier already and didn’t doubt that one of them had swooped in as soon as possible. So even if she found them, she would probably just be intruding.
As for herself, Leiya had little interest in companions. She wanted her gerion. The real deal. Someone nice and wonderful, someone she could laugh with.
Damn, I’m too short for these gatherings, Leiya thought, reaching to see over the crowd again. Maybe she could at least catch someone she knew and could talk to. No, that didn’t help either. She needed to climb somewhere. Climbing always helps.
No big deal, there was just the thing she needed. A small table standing next to one of the huge pillars supporting the hall, meant for drinks. At such a late hour at the reception, it was empty. She lifted her dress – I’m the beacon of modesty for sure – and climbed on top of it and looked around. Some people grinned to see her there, some applauded. She was no doubt quite a picture with her pretty yellow dress, looking over all of their heads now.
Gods, this is so embarrassing. Maybe they think I’m just looking for a stage, and since I can’t find one I’m just going to climb on a bloody table. Oh, I need to get off this thing. People I know, where are you…
There, Leiya said to herself then, stepping closer to the table’s edge to see better. She was pretty sure she saw one of Iloya’s friends and some other faces she recognized at least. Good enough. Maybe she could join them for the remainder of the night.
Just as the table vanished from under her feet, Leiya remembered that it only had legs in the middle with nothing to support the edges. Graceful as always.
At any other moment, she would have been concerned about the pain of hitting the floor face-first. At the reception, however, as she tumbled from the table like a fluttering yellow cloud, all she thought was, At least I won’t make a fool of myself before my gerion.
The intimate meeting between her face and the floor didn’t happen. Leiya the little yellow cloud found herself, against all reason, floating above the ground. It took her a moment to realize that she hadn’t suddenly gained the ability to float. Instead there was a pair of strong hands holding her in the lap of… the coldest general in all of the Brion armies.
Her blood ran as cold as Faren’s was said to be.
She was so stunned she forgot to ask him to put her down, and for some reason, he didn’t seem to be in a rush to do that either.
Then her mind went a calming, all-saying ohhhh…
It was his eyes, most certainly. Brions usually had dark blue or green eyes,
but Faren’s were the flashing, stormy gray of winter storms. Right now those eyes, merciless and cold at every other time, were flashing with an emotion of a completely different kind. There was some kind of a fire in them, one Leiya had never seen in anyone’s eyes before.
She was so lost in that wild, stormy gaze that it took her almost a full minute to look away and notice she was still being held. It didn’t feel bad, not bad at all, that was not the problem. Leiya found herself blushing fiercely at the idea she didn’t mind being held in those strong, powerful arms one bit. Only at some point, she had to get down, didn’t she?
“Um,” she said, graceful as ever. “Thank you, General.”
Please gods, don’t let him know all the things I’ve said about warriors, and generals, and him in particular. He’ll drink blood from my skull. I don’t want to be a blood cup!
Faren seemed to wake from some kind of a dream then, placing her gently but quickly on the ground. They stood there for a moment, then the urge to flee like her life depended on it got the best of Leiya. She curtsied, as she was once taught was the polite thing to do and turned to leave. She was suddenly very eager to put some distance between herself and the general. Her treacherous body seemed intent to further betray what her mind was refusing to think.
“My lady,” Faren said from behind her.
Her head was way too overwhelmed with trying to process too many things at the same time. Where was the stage awareness to help her through this one?
One, Oh gods Faren called me a lady oh gods why – wait, I am a lady…
And two, I must be imagining it, but did his voice just shake?
“Yes,” she asked, so quietly he couldn’t possibly have heard, warrior hearing or not.
Turning back to him, she repeated,
“Yes?”
Okay, better question – why is my voice shaking? My voice doesn’t shake!
The general’s eyes caught her in their hold again.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
Good question. Alright. Yes. No. Wait, what? Of course I’m alright.
“Err…” she began, hoping it sounded fine.
“Yes,” she then added victoriously, as if it was a great feat to say a simple word.
She felt no shame though, at least she hadn’t forgotten how to speak – that often happened to people around Faren.
The general nodded, still looking at her oddly, but then he was gone and Leiya’s friends appeared seemingly from thin air.
“Was that Faren?” Aya demanded.
“No,” Iloya retorted. “It was some other huge, towering warrior with a general’s robe and valor squares up to his eye line. Did you see how they pulsed? I thought something bad was going to happen. Weren’t you scared, Leiya?”
Leiya was still watching the general go, now apparently leaving the reception altogether. That look had been so odd… Her friends were talking over each other, trying to make sure they had every detail, but she…
She wanted to see those stormy eyes again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Faren
The reception hadn’t actually been as dull as Faren had expected. Not even close.
Seeing Primen had set off an anger inside him that he thought he’d managed to bury. There was no doubt in his heart. Eren and his campaign to send the Brions back to their dark days were dead, but pieces of it lingered. As long as Primen drew breath, Faren knew some of it lived on. He would need to find a way to make it right.
At some point. A much, much more urgent matter was suddenly on his mind. One he had expected, even hoped for, but apparently was completely unprepared for.
After talking to Primen, his mood had been terrible. For some reason, the thought of an innocent creature like Leiya in the hands of that traitor was unbearable to him. Faren had been starting to think his time might be better spent elsewhere. It had seemed his binding was clearly not going to happen that night when the young starlet climbed on the table. While she was looking at the crowd buzzing beneath her, Faren looked at her.
She truly was a beauty, he couldn’t deny that. Someday she might make a man very happy – but not a man like Primen – and of course not a man like him. Simply looking at her was like being dragged along with the current that she was, Faren thought. Her eyes just never seemed to rest, her whole body taunt with bubbly, wild life. He bet she didn’t even know she was swaying on the table, somehow making it look like a weird sort of dance, but…
Yes, she stepped on the edge of table and there she went, tumbling. Almost without realizing he’d moved, which didn’t happen to Faren often, he was there where she should have fallen. He found himself suddenly with a handful of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Just as he was thinking that if was very odd for him not to be perfectly aware of everything around him, it hit.
The moment caught Faren so off guard he nearly dropped her, although he doubted she noticed. She just looked so stunned, scared and interested at the same time, staring up at him. And he, he just held her. Held on to her.
He had wanted not to feel empty, but what he was feeling was on a whole other level. All the stories he’d ever heard of the fated couples started to make sense, but with that, he made less sense to himself. All his life, he’d never had his heart beat faster as it did then. For the girl in his arms, for the look in her big, green eyes. The meaning he’d lacked in his life was now right there, in his lap, looking so scared of him. There really was nothing he could do, it was the look on almost everyone’s face who met him. He knew what he was, and so did they.
The only thing he knew for sure was that it had happened. He’d found her. The emptiness within him was gone, replaced with such a surge of certainty he had never experienced before. No, this was the recognition, there was nothing more certain than that.
She was his gesha. Faren had to take a breath to clear his spinning mind, for the first time ever not in complete control of himself. She… wasn’t what he had imagined, exactly. For one thing, she was a human. And a minute ago he had thought that simply looking at her being so full of life was tiring. And then he was the man she was meant to be with for all of their lives, and that was something quite different.
He took a moment to truly look at her. It had been difficult before to focus on anything else other than the long, yellow dress that stood out from all the others in the hall. Now he suddenly ached to know what every inch of her body looked like underneath it. Despite himself, he found his eyes glued to her, as was expected from a gerion seeing his fated for the first time.
Her big green eyes popped under the wild curls of her blonde, very light golden hair. The strands fell over her eyes, as she stayed as frozen in place as he was. There were dimples in her cheeks, Faren noticed almost at once, because there was now a small smile playing on her full, pink lips.
She was short, not only compared to him, but to regular Brions as well. She might have been a healer if she hadn’t chosen singing. Her body was soft and lithe under his fingers, the curve of her breasts perfect as seen from her cleavage. He had to exercise his considerable self-control not to even slightly change his stance like he wanted to, only to feel more of her body under his hands.
“Um,” she had said, then. “Thank you, General.”
That brought him out of his daze at last. Faren put her down quickly, wondering if he’d intruded after all. She didn’t seem upset, though, just shaken like he was. Could she have known? The girl gave no indication that she did, but there was still the obvious fear in her eyes. She turned to go, and Faren almost let her, before he remembered to ask her if she was fine.
She looked confused by the question, but that was easily explained by that Faren simply terrified most people he met. With everyone else, it didn’t bother him one bit, but a gesha wasn’t supposed to feel that way with her gerion. Of course, she didn’t know that yet. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her just then.
The moment had knocked him off guard, and he needed to process
it himself before he could tell her. Not to mention he needed to find out what was going on with her in the first place, being a human on Briolina that no one knew about.
Finally, he suddenly realized that he truly had made a mistake. While every inch of him ached to bring her into his arms and hold her there, he had to force himself not to show emotion.
It was a joke, that’s what it was. Only he had never been good with jokes. Fate was apparently clearly upset with him. Not only had he been paired with this young human star that didn’t think living beings should bleed, while it was his entire purpose to make them do so. No, it had also made him expose his sudden weakness to someone he definitely shouldn’t have.
Faren had a keen sense of any room he was in, and he knew for a fact that they were being watched.
A joke, he thought, blood thundering in his veins at the sight of his gesha looking at him, bright-eyed and more innocent than any person he’d ever met. A joke. The one time in my life I need to keep my feelings in check and they do not obey.
It was his valor squares. All warriors took time to learn to control their emotions, to never let their weaknesses show. After all, the squares pulsed that information out for all the world to see. But Faren had never felt the need to learn that. He barely had any emotions at all.
The recognizing moment was different. It wasn’t as obvious as if he was screaming, but if Primen was anywhere near them right then… A senator with his perceptive powers would have no problem reading everything he needed from the situation.
The feeling of making a mistake was wholly new and not welcome at all to Faren.
He turned and left, leaving Leiya behind, feeling her gaze at his back as he went. He was resolved not to look back, not catch another moment of those beautiful eyes staring into his.
He’d gotten what he’d wanted, hadn’t he? A gesha. A weakness.
Faren had always known that he was somehow faulty, which was why he almost never trusted himself. It was like when he had suspected that Diego was keeping an eye out for the rage in him. He could see through everyone else, but he couldn’t be sure that he managed to see within himself. That had always been a mystery to Faren as much as he was a mystery to others.