Faeswyn hugged her back. “Sweetie, I’ll miss you. But you have to be there. You, Draedon, and Theoch. It’s your destiny. I won’t leave my farm. I love it here. But this isn’t the last time I’ll see you. I promise.”
“Okay,” said Draedon. “So it’s settled. We have our documentation taken care of tomorrow, and head to Yaesdrah tomorrow evening?”
Theoch nodded. “It’ll only take ten hours if we drive straight through. We can be there on the morning of First day. It’ll give us an extra day just in case something comes up.”
The news report was still on the TV. It was then that they all became riveted to what was being reported. “In other news, the manhunt is still on for two former royal guards. Naihr, son of Ghalguod, and Draeis, son of Veldulinahr.” Naihr’s and Draeis’ 3D holographic images were displayed on the screen. “King Gaeldos of Teveoch has stressed the importance of finding both men. Naihr was a royal guard at the Gonwrath Tombs, and is thought to have helped in the escape of Draeis, who was held as an inmate at the time. It is…”
All hell seemed to break loose. “Inmate!” Theoch immediately drew his weapon, as did Draedon.
“You’re a fuckin’ prisoner?” Draedon yelled, pulling Glywyn behind him.
Draeis held his hands in the air along with Naihr. “Please. Let me explain! Let me explain!”
“We can explain!” Naihr pleaded to them.
“I knew we shouldn’t have believed them!” Theoch shouted.
“Everybody, calm the fuck down!” said Faeswyn. “Put your guns away,” she said, glaring at Theoch and Draedon. “Seriously? If I can recall, you three are also wanted by King Gaeldos. I didn’t release my dogs on you the first time I met you, did I?”
“Chickens,” said Glywyn, still being guarded behind Draedon. “They were chickens, Faeswyn.”
“Whatever,” said Faeswyn, looking around at all of them. “The fact remains, I heard you out. Let’s hear them out.”
Theoch put away his gun, giving Draedon a nod to do the same. “Fine,” he said. “But if we don’t like or believe what they’re saying, I want them out, Faeswyn. For your own protection, and the protection of our wife.”
Faeswyn stared at Draeis and Naihr. “Agreed?”
Naihr and Draeis nodded. They put their hands down as Draeis sat down in one of the chairs near the dining table. “Naihr was a guard at the tombs,” Draeis said to them. “I was attached to the fifth regiment at the palace.”
“The honor guard,” said Theoch.
“Yes.” Draeis nodded. “I was assigned to walk the palace, stand guard over the royal jewels—minor shit that means nothing. I was attached to the Seventh Infantry before that, but after the death of my father, I had the choice of either taking leave or taking a new position. I took the position. Being a royal guard is something I’ve always wanted to be. It was a position planned for me since before I was born, as you both know,” he said to Theoch and Draedon. “My mother is the events planner at the palace. She’s highborn, as was my father. But it was a position in society they never truly liked.”
“Your mother is Yaearlithahl?” asked Draedon. “I knew her somewhat. She always had a smile for anyone walking into the palace.”
“Yes,” Draeis said. “My sister, Tithia, has the same personality. She’s sixteen. She’s beautiful, but I suppose that’s just a big brother’s opinion. But she would come to the palace sometimes to have lunch with my mother, and me, if I had time. I started to notice these two guards staring at her at times. They were the king’s guard.”
“Oh,” said Draedon with an understanding nod.
“What’s the king’s guard?” Faeswyn asked.
“Gaeldos’ handpicked guards that answer only to him,” Draedon said. “The privileged guard.”
Draeis nodded. “Yes, the privileged guard. They could do anything they wanted. They robbed, beat, raped, and the king did everything but give them medals. One day, Tithia was supposed to meet my mother for lunch. Mom came to ask me if I’d seen her. So I went looking—looking for her.” He swallowed hard as Naihr put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I-I-I found her. They—the two guards had my sister—my sixteen year old sister—in one of the offices off of the throne room. They’d beat her unconscious, and were…” He grimaced, and tried to hold back the tears that began to stream down his face. “They…um…They’d…I saw red. I just tore into them. I started beating on them. I didn’t stop until more of the king’s guards ran into the room and restrained me. I killed them. The two guards. They were dead. I didn’t care. My sister was alive. She was taken to the hospital. She spent a week there. What they did to her put her in the hospital for a week. But I didn’t have a trial. The king made sure of that. I was immediately sentenced to life in the tombs and taken that very night.”
“I heard that Draeis was being transferred to the tombs, and I couldn’t believe it,” Naihr said. “We’ve been the best of friends since we were kids. Yaearlithahl was like a mother to me. So when my mother died in battle, she took me in until I was ready to go to college. Draeis and I are as close as brothers. We served together in several battles. I know the kind of man he is. I also know that if it had been me that opened the door to that office, I would have killed the two guards also. But to not have a trial? Draeis was denied justice because the men were a part of the king’s guard. Like I told you before, the tombs are no place for any human being. The only men in the tombs are monsters. Right before they brought Draeis in is when they’d begun to bring in the families. Several of the guards—I won’t name who they are—wouldn’t have any part in it. So when some of the families were brought in, they used their hovers and whisked them out immediately. They were taken to safety, outside of the tombs, and the counts—the prison population counts—were forged. Not for long. We all knew it wouldn’t fool Gaeldos for long. But it was worth it. It came to me to use the same course of escape with Draeis. It would’ve been impossible if the other guards believed what he’d done wasn’t justified. If they hadn’t tired of the king’s cruelty and sadistic actions. I’d heard that many of the warriors were walking away from their post in Jroan, in the desserts near Tulor, and along the battle lines west of Valwithia. So when I saw Draeis dropped into the pit, I knew what I had to do.”
“The pit?” asked Glywyn. “What exactly is the pit?”
“It’s what we call the general population of the tombs,” Naihr said.
“The inmates knew I was a royal guard,” said Draeis. “The first night in the pit, I just hid, and tried to stay out of sight. They eventually found me. For the first few days, all I did was try to survive. The men in the pit are no longer men. I tried to protect some of the families that were brought there. There are holes—areas that can be dug out in parts of the walls. I would find one, and put a family in it. But then, the guards started to hover lower, dropping messages to the families. Telling them to be in a certain place to be taken out. Then one day, one of those messages was for me, from Naihr.”
Naihr smiled and slapped Draeis on his back. “I saw what the other guards were doing for the families. It was dangerous for them. They had to hover low, and take out the children, mothers, and fathers. There’s only so much a hover can support. But with Draeis, it was quick in and out. It didn’t matter where we went after that. I just needed to get Draeis out of that hell hole.”
“I was an inmate because I killed the two men that raped and tried to kill my sister, and I would do it again,” Draeis said to them. “But I am not one of those monsters that belong in the tombs.”
“But you’re a murderer,” Draedon said.
Glywyn glared at him. “He did what he had to do, Draedon. Those men that came for us in the transport when we were running last year. You killed them to protect me. Theoch, the guards that came for us at Pleidon’s farm? You both would have killed them to protect me. He killed those men that raped, and more than likely, were about to kill his sister. We’ve all done things we aren’t exactly proud of. But like he said, h
e isn’t a monster. And neither are you and Theoch. I wouldn’t be in love with you both if you were.”
“You should’ve told us the truth in the beginning,” said Faeswyn. “We have a tendency to jump to conclusions. They do,” she said smiling, with a curt nod over to Glywyn, Draedon, and Theoch. “I usually like to weigh out the possibilities.”
“We’re sorry for lying,” Naihr said. “But the first time I met you, you both held your tracers on me in the bedroom,” he said to Draedon and Theoch.
Theoch chuckled as he nodded to Naihr. “Yeah, I guess we did. But you held yours on us, too.”
Naihr smiled back at him. “True. Trust us both, as we trust you all.”
Theoch nodded to him. “Well then,” he said, standing up. He walked over to the sofa, holding his hand out to Glywyn to help her stand. “If we’re going to head out tomorrow night, we need to get over to Aiolidahr’s.”
“Faeswyn?” Glywyn said, turning to look questioningly at her. “You coming?”
“Oh, um… No. I better stay here. I need to show Naihr what he’ll need to do while I’m gone,” she said, smiling at Naihr.
Draeis excused himself and walked down the hall to the bedroom. He was feeling tired as his body tried to overcome the effects of the thrihn cat toxin. But his heart was lighter. He hated to lie. He was a man of conscience. Naihr was right. Sometimes the truth was the best option. It might have been the lie that kept him awake the night before. Or it could have been the thoughts he had about Faeswyn. And as he lay in the bed, it was those same thoughts of her that played in his head as he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Four
Queen Balaedras didn’t scare easily. It was one of the reasons why Gaeldos had no hold over her. All of his threats, all of his warnings for her to do as he said, or follow his demands, fell on deaf ears. Gaeldos was weak because she knew all about his lies and his truths. She could control her guards with threats. They feared her, but even as tall and menacing as they were, she never felt fear around them. She felt fear now.
She sat stone still in the chair at the end of the long marble table, staring around her as the four women moved about the room. In the months since Draedon and Theoch had eluded her and Gaeldos, she’d enlisted the help of some of the beings around Ai. Wind witches were controllable. They wanted the freedom to roam Ai at their leisure. In the past, laws were enacted to keep the witches on the Thaingrais plains. An agreement of sorts. If they stayed on the plains, restricting their hunting to those lone travelers that happened along, then they weren’t beheaded and burned. It was a simple agreement that the witches had honored for a millennium.
But Balaedras needed their help. King Gaeldos was almost frantic in finding Draedon and Theoch. They needed to know if the two men were alive. If they were, they needed to be killed, and the knowledge they had—what Draedon had unwittingly learned about Gaeldos— killed along with them. Balaedras would do everything in her power to hold onto the status and position she held. Which was why she had reluctantly agreed to contact the women in front of her. Glaon fairies. They had been led into the meeting room, a separate room on the first floor of the palace building, only after all male guards were removed. The room was now being guarded by some of the best and most menacing female guards available. It still didn’t relieve the fear surrounding her by being in the same room with them. They were beautiful women. She could see how any man would be drawn into their trance. But even though they had an appetite for men, she also knew they would occasionally kill women if provoked. She was trying her best not to provoke them.
The fairy high priestess pierced her with her pale blue eyes, her long blue hair trailing over her shoulders. She only appeared to be a woman in her early twenties, as did the other three, but glaon fairies didn’t age. Once they reached what appeared to be their twenties, they stopped aging. Balaedras knew the fairy queen and her ladies were at least four hundred years old, if not twice that age. Every hundred years or so, they would take a man for procreation. They’d kill and eat him afterward, but only after they got what they wanted.
“You lied to me, Balaedras.” She spoke in a soft whisper that amazingly echoed around the room with a prolonged hiss as the other fairies with her whispered their agreement.
“She lied.”
“Lie.”
“Kill her, Shahlmach.”
“Kill her.”
“Yes, kill her.”
Balaedras swallowed hard, licking her lips as she shook her head. “I did not lie, Shahlmach. We had an agreement. That agreement has not been fulfilled.”
“Our sisters are dead!” said Shahlmach.
“Onassa!” hissed a fairy to the left.
“Daeloraenas!” said another.
“Kilbahthora!”
“Duahthena!”
“That was not the deal, Balaedras!” Shahlmach screamed.
Balaedras took a deep breath, trying to quell the fear that threatened to have her running from the room. “I know what the deal was, Shahlmach. You and your sisters were to capture Draedon and Theoch if they were found alive. I don’t fuckin’ care about some guard or escaped convict from the tombs. This Draeis and Naihr that the king wants killed is only to save face. His face. I don’t give a shit about what he wants. We need Draedon and Theoch dead. They weren’t Draedon and Theoch, am I correct?”
Shahlmach traced her finger along the edge of the table, walking threateningly close to the end of the table where Balaedras sat. Two of the guards standing beside her took a step closer, glaring menacingly at Shahlmach and the three other fairies that had begun to move closer.
Shahlmach only smiled as the sound of jingling bells and rocks scraped on glass resounded in the hall, with her giggling to the other fairies. She almost drifted back to the other end of the table. “Are you afraid of us, Balaedras?” Shahlmach taunted.
Even though she was, she knew to never admit that to a fairy. It was like catnip to them. Once they were assured fear, they fed on it. Literally. “I’m cautious, Shahlmach. You ate three of my guards when I sent them to deliver a message for this meeting. You could have used the TCD I gave you—”
“Your manmade technology is not the way of the fairy. Fairies can communicate with our minds, unlike you humans. We only use them if needed. It wasn’t needed,” Shahlmach said with a sly smile on her lips.
“You are the one that insisted the message be delivered in person, and now I know why. So excuse me for being…cautious.”
Shahlmach pointed a long-nailed finger at Balaedras. “You promised us men. I was only taking our rightful payment.”
“You were taking payment before the job was finished. Now, do you or do you not know if Draedon and Theoch are alive?” Balaedras’ eyes darted around the room, hearing the soft whispers from the other fairies for Shahlmach to kill her.
Shahlmach shrugged. “Not at this time. But you still owe us payment for our sisters’ lives! I will not let their deaths go without payment!”
“You already stated that was why you killed the three guards that were sent to you. You will have no more. Our agreement is for you to continue to search for Draedon and Theoch. Kill them if they are found. Other than that, you will not be summoned here again until the job is finished, or there is no longer any need for our agreement. You may leave now.”
Shahlmach’s pale blue eyes suddenly flared to red as a sudden wind entered the room, making her gown and hair float about her wildly. “You will not dismiss me!” She opened her mouth wide to show row upon row of terrifying, sharp, pointed teeth.
A guard began to remove her tracer as she started to walk toward Shahlmach. Shahlmach turned her gaze to the guard, sending her slamming into the wall behind her where she fell to the floor and was still. Balaedras held her hand up for the other guards to stay at their posts. “I-I understand, Shahlmach. Please, forgive me. But I ask that you honor the agreement that was made. If you find and kill Draedon and Theoch, each of you will be given three men to feed upon. I will honor that
part of the deal.”
Whispers and hisses were heard from the other fairies, but Shahlmach nodded. Her eyes turned back to the pale blue they were before, and she closed her mouth on all of those teeth, smiling sweetly without showing any evidence of her true self she’d revealed. “And what of the two guards? Naihr, son of Ghalguod, and Draeis, son of Veldulinahr?”
“Can we eat them?” a fairy whispered.
“Yes, we want to eat them.”
“Eat them.”
“I want more,” a lavender-eyed fairy said, flitting effortlessly over to Shahlmach. “He was delicious.”
Shahlmach began to laugh along with the fairy. “Aianaesa had a small taste of the one called Draeis.”
“I want more,” Aianaesa whined seductively.
“More.”
“Give her more.”
Balaedras shrugged. “I don’t give a shit what you do with them. Gobble them up, and spit out the bones. But know this”—she stared at Shahlmach with what she hoped was a convincing look—“if in the process of you getting…more, and more of your sisters die, it isn’t on me. Understood, Queen Shahlmach?”
Shahlmach dipped her head to Balaedras. “Understood, Queen Balaedras,” she said, lowering her blue eyes. “For now,” she said with a piercing glare at Balaedras before gathering up her fairy sisters and leaving.
Balaedras finally relaxed, breathing much easier now that she wasn’t surrounded by the mistrustful fairies. She looked over to where the guard was still lying on the floor by the wall. “Is she alive?”
Another guard walked over to the body on the floor. She shook her head. “She’s dead, your highness.”
Balaedras nodded. “Take her body out to the wildwoods and leave it there for the vaem wolves. Give her family a hundred thousand drokols, and tell them she was killed in battle.”
The doors to the room were thrown open as Gaeldos stormed through them. “Glaon fairies! You had glaon fairies in my palace! You’ve lost it, Balaedras.”
Faeswyn [The Maidens of Mocmoran 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 5