The meager glow did little to brighten her spirits. Saule looked around the room, searching for some sign of what had happened to her daughter. The table and chairs sat undisturbed, the sheets on the bed were rumpled, but unbloodied. There were no signs of a struggle anywhere.
“Aldric, what is going on?” Saule demanded, her chest tightening until she could barely breathe.
The former vampire raised his face, his haunted eyes boring holes into her head. Saule shifted uneasily at the wild glint in his emerald orbs.
“You wanted to know why I hate you?” he asked softly. “You need more of a reason than your abandonment of my people?”
Aldric’s voice came out almost a whisper, but his eyes shone with something akin to excitement. The feeling of dread in her stomach grew heavier and Saule glanced side to side. Something was about to happen. She could feel it in the air like the raw energy before a storm.
“You are the goddess of the sun. You are supposed to bring warmth to our people.” Aldric’s eyes flashed as he shook his head. “But you are cold. You see only worship, never pain. You made us believe that you were a warrior goddess, someone who would protect us and keep us safe, but then you turned your back on us when we needed you.”
He took a sudden step forward and Saule imagined she could feel his hands around her neck, squeezing until no breath would come to her. Her pulse fluttered in her throat, fear coating her tongue.
“I do not hate you because my village fell. I hate you because when I came to you and demanded answers for why you failed us, you offered me empty excuses. You told me you could not fight in human wars. You did not shed a tear, your voice did not waver. You brushed it off as if it was of no importance. What sort of a mother are you to our people?”
The entire world seemed to slow down. Saule tightened her fist around the spear she held, adrenaline surging through her body. For as much as Aldric seemed to remember her as a warrior, he did not seem to realize how easy it would be for her to strike him down--to take away the life she’d given back to him. It would be a simple flick of the wrist . . .
The spear clattered to the floor.
“You are right,” she whispered.
The hint of a frown tugged at the corner of Aldric’s mouth, but he didn’t speak.
Saule took a deep breath and nodded. The mental fog that had plagued her all day began to dissipate. Baba Yaga had been right. She should have asked him sooner.
“I did not see your pain, Aldric,” she admitted quietly. “Perhaps I did not want to. I made my decision not to be a warrior goddess anymore and it was a hard decision.” Her voice broke a little, but she forced herself to continue. “But just as I never really asked you why you turned from me, so you never asked me why I stopped fighting. You cursed me for it, you threw my history in my face, but you never asked me why.”
She took a step forward, the echoes of the past dancing in her ears. Battles that had ended centuries ago whirled around her head, the screams and the scent of blood as fresh now as it had been then. Pain and sadness rode the wave of adrenaline as her memory came back like a familiar ghost.
“You remember the battle of Kaunas?’
Aldric nodded stiffly. “All of our people remember the battle of Kaunas. It is why we were so sure you would not leave us to die as you did.”
“But do you remember the battle that followed it?” Saule pressed, ignoring his barb.
A sliver of doubt flashed through Aldric’s eyes. His face tightened as he seemed to struggle to remember, but no recognition brightened his face. Saule shook her head.
“You cannot even remember the city, can you? But I remember. I remember fighting all day against an enemy that just kept coming. I remember watching the skies grow dark, waiting for my people to call on political allies, searching the horizon for signs of aid.”
She stared into Aldric’s face, letting the ghosts of the past stare at him through her eyes. “None came. None came, because my people never called for help. The battle of Kaunas had made them believe that I was all they needed. They stopped training their troops so vigorously, they stopped working to create ties with other cities. They stopped doing anything to protect themselves and just stood by and waited for me to save them.”
Her voice trembled as her mind tripped over the memories, each one as familiar to her as her own skin. “One thousand eight hundred and nineteen people died that day. All those deaths because when darkness fell, I was just another mortal. And I was the only mortal fighting.”
“You stopped fighting for our people . . . to make them fight for themselves?”
Aldric’s voice came out even, but there was a considering quality to his tone. He stared at Saule as if parsing out the truth of her words.
Saule stepped forward. What she had to say next was cruel, but it had to be said.
“Tell me, Aldric, when your village was being attacked . . . how many Russians did you kill?”
Ice frosted Aldric’s visage and he straightened his spine. “Since that night, I have killed--”
“How many did you kill that night? When you believed I would come and fight in your war, how many Russians did you fight? What weapons did you pick up?”
A frown pulled down the corners of Aldric’s mouth, his grand announcement of all the Russians he’d slaughtered interrupted by her questions. He stayed that way for a moment or two, considering her demand. Suddenly, his eyebrows rose, a trace of understanding lighting his face. Saule watched with a sliver of satisfaction as realization dawned on him.
“You thought I would come fight and so you prayed instead of fought. You were like so many others of our people, so certain I would bring you victory that you did not fight for yourself.” She angrily swiped at a tear rolling down her cheek. She was so tired of this pain, so tired of this anger. She would carry this burden alone no more. “I had to let you lose faith in me to make you realize you had to stand on your own two feet. I wanted to fight for you, every mother wants to fight for and protect her child. But every mother eventually has to let her child . . .”
Saule’s voice faded as the reality of her words sunk in. It wasn’t until that moment, saying those words out loud, that she realized her mistake. “Oh, what a fool I am,” she whispered. “Baba Yaga was right.”
She stared at Aldric without really seeing him. The entire world seemed lighter somehow, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “All this time I’ve been urging my people to fight for themselves, to stop relying on me to protect them. And at the same time I’ve been holding Valkyrine to my skirts, keeping her close where I could protect her instead of letting her defend herself. What a hypocrite I am.”
“You are insane,” Aldric growled.
Saule snapped out of her daze, her eyes widening in surprise at the venom in Aldric’s outburst.
“You say that you let your people lose faith in you as their protector, that you wanted them to lose faith so they would fight for themselves. It is all a very tidy explanation. But why should I believe you? Why should I believe that your sudden absence on the battlefield is anything more than the whim of an almighty goddess who believes herself too good for the bloody dredges of a war?”
Anger flared hot and bright and Saule narrowed her eyes. “Look at me and see that I am telling the truth, Aldric. You yourself are the perfect example; how can you tell me that you still do not understand?”
Aldric shook his head, his fury making the air around him crawl with tension. “No. No, if what you said was true, you would have told me when I held you prisoner in the Unseelie sithen. I have sworn vengeance on you over and over for over two hundred years, why wouldn’t you have given me this explanation sooner?”
Saule’s heart constricted, guilt and pity holding her tightly in their grasp. “Aldric, don’t you see that I couldn’t tell you? I couldn’t tell anyone why I stopped fighting; it would have defeated the entire point. I needed you all to believe that you could not rely on me to fight anymore. Only then could I be
truly sure that you would fight for yourselves with everything you had.”
“You could have told me!” Aldric bellowed. His eyes flashed as he stepped toward her, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I swore to punish you, swore it every night for centuries. Why wouldn’t you have ended that if you could?”
Tears tickled the corners of Saule’s eyes. “Oh, Aldric,” she said softly. “I am a goddess. You were a vampire, and now you are a human.” She fought to force out the words she had to say next, her heart pounding with dreadful anticipation of Aldric’s reaction. “You were never a threat to me.”
Aldric’s eyes widened, his lips parting in shock. Saule held her breath as a roar erupted from his belly, filling the room with his rage and frustration. Before she could react, Aldric raised his hand and hurled something to the floor at her feet. The sound of something shattering exploded into the room and then her world erupted in pain.
Chapter 8
“You were never a threat to me.”
Aldric’s chest heaved as he fought to breathe through the red rage clouding his vision and straining his lungs. His hand trembled at his side, relieved of the precious stone Chernobog had given him. He stared in rapt fascination as the creature that had been held within the crystal confines exploded into the room.
It looked like a living web. White ropey tentacles shot up from the floor, wrapping around Saule’s flailing body and flinging parts of itself to the walls and ceiling. Saule screamed as the creature leached away her energy, using it to fuel its own movements. Her scream echoed in Aldric’s ears, a music he’d yearned to hear for more than two hundred years.
He sucked in a deep breath, trying to regain a measure of calm. Less than ten feet away, Saule hung suspended in the web. Her body looked like a mummy from a child’s picture book, except for the neck up which remained untouched. Her blue eyes lost their sparkle, becoming the color of a cloudy spring morning. She winced as the creature tightened, her body drooping in its embrace.
“Ah, Aldric. You are a man of your word.”
The voice crawled down Aldric’s spine like a snake seeking a place to sink its fangs. He clenched his teeth against the sudden surge of dread. His gaze never left Saule. He couldn’t look away. He watched her eyes widen as Chernobog walked through the door.
“You.” Her gaze darted to Aldric. “How?”
“Oh, I have been watching Aldric for many many years,” Chernobog told her, his mouth curving into a Cheshire cat grin. “After all, he has grown so terribly interesting since you destroyed his village.”
Screams of the past erupted in Aldric’s ears as if on cue. He gritted his teeth harder, staring at Saule as if he could penetrate her mortal skin and see her soul.
“I needed you all to believe that you could not rely on me to fight anymore. Only then could I be truly sure that you would fight for yourselves with everything you had.”
She had to be lying, trying to save herself. Even if she wasn’t lying, her words didn’t change the fact that his village had fallen while she did nothing. It was all for naught. His loyal years of service . . . his devotion . . . all worthless.
“Where is my daughter? Where is Valkyrine?”
Saule’s words were commanding, but her voice was hoarse with fear. The sound should have pleased Aldric, should have given him a rush of satisfaction. Instead, his stomach only sank farther. Saule wasn’t wrong. Hadn’t he only recently cursed himself for praying instead of fighting? Was Saule right? Was staying out of human wars the only way she could force her people to be vigilant, to defend themselves?
There had to be another way. A happy medium, a point at which she stepped in. Sudden and complete abandonment had been going too far.
With his anger starting to melt away, Aldric had nothing to put between himself and the horror of what Chernobog would do. He grasped at the fraying ends of his temper. Chernobog was right. His village had still be destroyed. He still had every reason to hate her.
“Your wanton little flower child is rutting with two moras just over a mile from here,” Chernobog answered Saule casually. “Far enough that she does not have to become involved, but close enough that her attendance could be arranged . . ?”
“No!”
Saule’s cry snapped Aldric out of his daze. His promise to Anton rang in his mind and he frowned at Chernobog.
“Valkyrine is not part of this.”
The black god glanced at him. Still in his more human looking form, he quirked a brow.
“Surely you cannot argue that watching harm come to her Evening Star would be the greatest torture of all?” He slanted a glance at Saule, a wide smile splitting his face. “If we are to be honest, I am quite intrigued by you daughter’s appetites. I believe I would enjoy availing myself of her charms.”
“No!”
This time it was Aldric who shouted. He faced Chernobog with the fearless stance of someone who has reached a line he will not cross. “I have given my word that Valkyrine will not be harmed and I will not have my honor impugned on a whim.”
“A whim?” Chernobog echoed. “I told you I’ve been watching the girl. What makes you think that was not my plan all along?”
“No, please,” Saule begged. “I--”
“Valkyrine will not come to harm.”
Saule and Chernobog both stared at Aldric.
“Valkyrine is a vieschtitsa, black god,” Aldric said evenly. “And she is protected by two moras. Even if you could get past the two of them, Valkyrine’s flaming wings would keep you at bay, just as fire has kept you at bay for the entire history of humankind.”
Chernobog’s face tightened. Tension filled the room as the black god drew himself up, staring down at Aldric like a king viewing a treasonous peasant.
“You go too far, Aldric,” he whispered. “Do not let our little deal make you forget who I am.”
Fear slithered down Aldric’s spine as the black god’s gaze bored into his own. As he watched, Chernobog’s human visage began to melt away. He grew taller, broader. Huge shadows extended from his back, thickening and growing sharper. Giant gargoyle like wings rose high into the air. His eyes sank in until they disappeared, leaving empty black sockets. His mouth opened wide, revealing rows of jagged iron teeth. Aldric’s entire body seized with terror as the black god towered over him, his foul breath poisoning the air.
“Aldric!”
Desperately fighting the madness that so often came with terror, Aldric’s brain latched onto Saule’s voice. He couldn’t drag his gaze away from the nightmare snarling before him, but he strained with every fiber of his being to concentrate on Saule’s voice.
“Aldric, listen to me. You are free, Aldric. You are no longer my slave, no longer my unwilling priest. When I return to Sky Mountain, I will go alone and you may go wherever you wish.”
Aldric frowned, trying to process everything that was happening. Chernobog paused as if confused, his empty gaze swinging back at Saule. When the black god took his attention off of him, Aldric found he could breathe a little easier. He turned his head to face Saule.
The sight of her beautiful face was a balm to his spirit after the overwhelming horror of Chernobog’s monstrous form. She stared at him with tears glistening in her crystal blue eyes and his heart twisted.
“I’m sorry I did not see you, Aldric,” she said sadly. “I did what I thought was best for my people, but I just couldn’t face the damage done by my choice.” She took a deep breath. “I want you to know something. I didn’t . . . I didn’t . . .” She shook her head, closing her eyes. “I didn’t turn my back on your village. I didn’t turn my back on any of them. I stopped fighting, but only as a goddess.” She opened her eyes and the tears slid down her face. “I fought that day, Aldric. As a mortal, I fought. I died over and over, but I kept coming back.” She sucked in another breath, her body hitching on her own tears. “I know it doesn’t change anything, I know nothing will change what you lost. But I just . . . I need you to know that I was there.” Sh
e closed her eyes. “I heard you.”
The entire world seemed to tilt crazily on its axis. Aldric blinked and then shook his head, trying to clear the haze of confusion that had fallen over him. Between the fear lying thick in his throat from Chernobog’s unspoken threat to the ache in his heart caused by Saule’s tears, he could barely form a coherent thought.
“You . . . you were there? You fought?”
“I couldn’t tell you, Aldric. Please understand, please believe me. I didn’t think I had a choice, letting my people believe I would not fight for them just seemed like the only way to make you fight for yourselves.” Saule’s voice had turned to begging, her desperation vibrating in every syllable. “But I couldn’t just walk away. I was always there, Aldric.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You just couldn’t see me.”
Revenge in Vein, The Complete Series Page 20