Darkness covered the room. Astrid smirked, knowing full well to whom the smell of jasmine and ice belonged. She pulled her ebony hood away from her blond hair and fell back on the chair, huffing loudly. Astrid cracked her fingers, easing the tension in the tendons and crossed her arms over her chest. She tapped her right foot onto the carpet, the fabrics absorbing the ticking of her heel, and raised her other leg onto the mahogany desk.
The window flared open, the night breeze wiped into the cringing smell of the Citadel’s underworld. Astrid wrinkled her nose in disgust. She should have been used to it by now, after all those years.
She rolled her eyes and looked back at the candle on the desk, waiting to hear the flapping of wings entering the room.
What a proper rutting swine he was! Always aiming for a dramatic entrance. Astrid did want to gut him and peel his smooth flesh from bones. She could feed him to the dogs, or to the dragons, or to whatever carnivorous animal she could think.
It wasn’t her job to speak with him or speak with anyone at all. She was there to kill, preferably gut, and continue until she had her hands on the King’s throat.
She had imagined it for years. For years, every night, before she went to sleep. She would bind him to that throne he loved so much, then she would start with whipping, every lash he had given her; she would reciprocate. Then she would cut him down limb by limb and bask in the sounds of pain and horror he would make. Then she would-
“Hello, princess.”
Her eyes widened, the blue irises turning gold. With impossible speed, she grabbed the dagger on the desk beside her and threw it at the cloaked male, silver flashing under the moonlight.
He took a step to the side with elven grace, dodging the blow aimed at his shoulder. He clicked his tongue, still covered with the cloak and remained concealed in the shadows at the corner of the room.
Astrid rolled her eyes and slumped back at the chair and said, “You rutting bastard. I could have killed you.” Then she added whispering, “Not such a great loss, though.”
He chuckled, still concealed in the darkness. “Such an impertinent she-elf.”
“It’s not my fault I am so brilliant.”
“And so modest.”
Astrid swore, a long, extravagant curse in the Neteteery language.
“With a dwarf’s mouth too.”
She huffed and sat up straighter, pulling her leg down from the desk. “I can recite you all the curses I know in every language possible.”
“Mouth like a fishwife.”
“Thanks.” She shifted in her seat and glared towards the shadows. “You know, you can show yourself, my Lord.”
“And spoil all the fun?” He chuckled and took a step. “Not in a million years.”
Astrid oohed and titled her head to the side. “I knew you fancied me. Everyone fancies me. I am so... fancy-able.”
“She is in Feremony.”
Astrid stilled and glared at the elf, willing her eyes to see beyond the veil of darkness. If Cassia had sided with Feremony, then things were bound to go bad. If the King knew his heir’s affiliations, he would hunt her down to the end of the world and back again, through the many realms, through gods and monsters. Astrid only prayed the Princess had taken precautions.
In all of rutting Underworld, Astrid hoped something, someone would watch over that she-elf. Not for Astrid’s sake, the gods had already forgotten her, but for the sake of the world who looked at the Princess with hope and will and the need for freedom. Maybe it was a family thing. Cassia had a knack for trouble.
“Right!” Astrid stood from the armchair and stretched her arms. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Even through the darkness, Astrid’s keen eyes caught glimpse of a long black elven cloak sweeping the floor, towards the wall. She heard the familiar whooshing of the blade against air. A slender, white hand reached forward, her dagger flashing silver underneath the faint light, the green eyes of the silver dragon beaming up at her with pride.
Astrid moved, taking the dagger from the male’s hand and sheathing it back on her belt. She took a tentative step forward and tilted her head. She didn’t like those Adanei nasty games, but she had to comply with them. They were, after all, allies in this common war of court and magic.
“North-western to the Harbour of Wrath there is a, shall we say,” he paused; Astrid felt his peculiar pair of eyes scanning her face for any indication she knew what existed that place. “Birilla, a prison of monsters.”
Astrid’s blue orbs glimmered with interest. “What kind of monsters?”
“Well, why would I know?” The male asked, secrets shimmering from underneath his words, secrets and arcane webs that Astrid didn’t want to tumble herself with. “That’s what your dear Cassia instructed the Adanei to look for, and you are a formidable spy. You may want to have a peek of whatever is there and report it to me.”
Astrid chuckled, her hands grazing over the white handle of her daggers, fingers caressing the tip as if daring the elf to take on the wrong step, to say one wrong word. She said, “You can bribe me a bit to assist you.” She smiled; white perfect teeth and shining eyes gazed up at him. “You know I always wanted to know what it was like to rut a dragon born.”
“You really have the mouth of a fishwife, or worse; the mouth of a male dwarf.”
Her eyebrows rose, she clicked her tongue. “You can’t blame me. I am just curious.”
“Name your price, anything but this.”
She tittered and tilted her head to the side, another mocking smile rising on her lush lips. “What’s the matter my sweet? Saving yourself for your mate?”
“None of your concern, Astrid.”
“What?” She threw her hands up in surrender and shrugged. “Did you expect I would be terrified of you?” She shook her head and rolled her eyes stubbornly. “In Orcus’ name, dear. I am Astrid the Bloodlust.” She huffed and folded her arms. “Bloodlust. As in I-like-your-blood-more-than-I-like-your-pretty-face. I do wonder what is the colour of yours.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Bloody sceptre of Ramos, no!”
A long pause intervened before the elf from the shadows shifted on his feet and dress closer towards the window. “Will you go look into Birilla?”
“Fine.”
Astrid was running out of choices. Not that she had many in her life. She had run out of them that day she faked her own death anyway. Her only comfort was that her vaults were still full of gold and away from the King.
The cloaked elf stood by the window. Astrid could do little to offer them help. She was a rebel Queen, now and nothing else. She had no influence in the Palace across the city, shining like a beacon of false hope. She didn’t particularly like she wasn’t so vital to the Adanei anymore. They had Cassia, what use could Astrid be to them.
Granted, she could kill slowly and silently. But apart from that, she didn’t know anything else.
The elf huffed loudly, gazing at the White Palace. “How long has it been?”
Astrid averted her eyes from the floor and gazed at the Palace. White, simmering, unspoiled. So unlike them, both of them, so unlike the King. It was all a facade, carefully placed upon the most horrific ugliness in Aethos. The monstrosities committed in there, in the name of that pathetic excuse of a peace the King gave to the world. Astrid wanted to be rid of him; she wanted to be rid of them all, she wanted to live in peace and silence of mind. Hestia only knew what Astrid’s life would be, weaving it on her great loom in a far, far away lands from there.
Astrid shook her head, not needing to be reminded of the past, but she answered, “Five centuries.”
The elf by the window shifted in a haze of gleaming white light. The familiar flapping of wings echoed through the room before the creature disappeared up, in the night sky, full of glittering stars.
Astrid could only pray the gods would forgive them all and accept them back after the end of the upcoming war. If the Adanei would win, if the light would prevail, if
the King’s head would fall on Astrid’s feet, contorted into a grimace of pain. Just as much pain as she had felt.
She turned on her feet and marched for her bedchamber.
She had a long way ahead of her. Birilla was a three-day travel through the snowing mountains of Pegos, down the lake of Silence. Flashing down there was out of the way, not with the King’s Shadow Breakers monitoring every bit of elvish magic used in the Citadel. She would have to get out of Citadel territory, past the lake and close to the Gorian towns of the White Beasts. She would take Arslan with her, just to torment him a bit.
From there they would flash to Birilla. If they’d make it out of the White Beasts’ liar.
Those Adanei were mad, indeed.
25
Bright, unrelenting light shed onto the room, poured an acidic essence, belonging only to the Mother. Cassia shifted under the warm coverlets of the bed. She grunted as soreness erupted from the dip of her spine. She turned onto her side, facing the opened balcony door. The silence too suffocating in the room. She cleared her throat angrily, desperate to make a sound, to bow down the tranquillity.
The cold, morning breeze swept inside the bedchamber in little waves of polychromatic tendrils, they grasped around Cassia’s uncovered skin and chilled the heated flesh as if ice had been rubbed onto her skin.
The sun was still partially covered with the tall mountains, waiting, prying upon the sleeping land. Over the sky, the minimal clouds, the colours of dawn had taken a strong unflattering grasp; orange, burgundy, purple and blue. Those little clouds, flying over the city coated in the hues of red.
From afar, somewhere in the city, towards the forest, the chirping of morning birds echoed throughout the valley. Cassia’s keen ears grasped the fleeting bleat of a sweep in the fields ahead.
Purity.
That place was bathed in pure shades of light, a place where darkness like Cassia had no claim.
She averted her face from the balcony. She twisted in her bed, lying on her back glancing upwards at the ceiling.
Her heart clenched in her chest.
A true master. A war lady, but nothing more, nothing less.
A growl emitted from her lips, her muscles stretched as she hauled herself up, standing on steady, sculpted legs.
There was no time to linger, but she clenched and unclenched her muscles, trying to ease the pain from her spine. She gritted her teeth and plunked herself on her legs. She dragged her unyielding legs into the bathroom, hands holding the dagger from under her pillow firmly. She took a quick shower, the dagger always at arm’s length should someone try to surprise her with a stab in the back.
Her bare feet slapped onto the marble floor of the bedroom, the black towel wrapped tightly around her chest, her hair up in a messy bun held in place by a leather strap. Hot breakfast awaited on the desk close to the bed, tea steaming from the pot and silverware shining against the sunlight. She grabbed an apple from beside the red glistening grapes and took a bite.
Besides the breakfast tray, a pile of white clothes stood silently. Cassia groaned loudly. Those instincts of hers were becoming slow. Someone had peeked into her room, brought her breakfast and clothes, and yet those polished, sharp, legendary instincts were useless.
She shook her head. If the Lords wanted her dead they would have already killed her in my sleep, painless and clean. They had the chance but wasted it. Pity.
She moved closer to the clothes and passed her hands over the clothes with a wisp of green magic, checking if they were coated in poison.
It was a reflex of hers, always alert for danger. The terror that everything might kill her. She swore. Courtesy of war camps.
Once satisfaction gleamed over her face that the clothes were safe to wear, she slipped into them.
The white, velvet, long sleeved shirt was a masterpiece on its own. Golden thread had been embroidered on the jacket and back down to all the tail, erupting in shapes and flowers, the cuffs were threaded with the same golden material, encircling her wrists. The pants were made from the same rich material but they lacked the golden embroidery.
Sia rolled her eyes. Whatever megalomaniac had placed those clothes there, they were full of themselves. It wasn’t something she would wear on daily basis, but it seemed the Adanei reeked of the need to coat everything in gold and silver.
She swore again, taking another look at the clothes. Gold vividly reminded her of the King. She had taken an oath to never wear that god forsaken colour.
She grinned and flicked her wrist. The golden threads turned to silver, and the white velvet changed into a rich green.
She placed the circlet over her head and straightened her back. She wasn’t their rug doll to dress and pamper; she wasn’t someone they could easily manipulate. She was never going to wear gold again, not then, not in a thousand years. Spite and hatred were interlinked with gold in her memory.
She had had enough of hate.
She grabbed both of the daggers lying by the breakfast tray, and twisting them in her hands; she stuffed them inside her boots securely. She closed the door of her bedchamber with a thud as she left the room, her hands limping at her sides.
“Have a fine morning, Lady.”
She turned around and shot him a deadly glare. She gritted her teeth. It was him. That infernal man, that bastard of a Lord. She needed him gone. She needed to wipe that smirk from his face. His eyes haunted her, haunted her sleep and left her with little slumber throughout the night. The roaring fire in her chest commanded her to rip that handsome face off.
“It was a pleasant morning, my Lord.” She brandished a smirk of her own. “Until you made the mistake of showing up.”
She took in his stance, his attire, his handsome face. The black loose shirt, the leather jacket and the leather tight pants embracing his strong thighs, his strong calves. Everything was covered, obscured by the black robes he seemed to favour parading in. He was a bat, a dark dragon and the onyx walls around him only adding to his arcane character.
Darkness only allured her, never repelled her.
He took in her stance as well, the clothes she wore and he smiled. She could do anything to whip that smirk out of his face. Anything.
“You do have huge control problems, don’t you?” His smirk broaden.
She huffed loudly and said, “My problems don’t concern you, apparently.”
He quirked a stubborn dark eyebrow and approached her. Heat radiated from him, anger and hot hatred. Her palms itched for a grasp of her daggers and murder him there, in the dark corridors of Feremony. With Nature’s help, no one would know.
“I take it you don’t like the clothes I chose for you?”
That bastard... Her palms did itch, terribly so. “You got into my room, you pervert?”
He rolled his eyes in annoyance and said, his stance and his face never showing an inch of emotion, “My mate insisted on taking them to your room.”
“Your mate?” Astonishment reverberated through her. That elf was worthy of a mate, while she wasn’t. She wanted to growl and scream and spit on the face of those damned gods. My mate was dead.
“Is it such a surprise to you?”
“By all means I would gladly wish to meet the being that can stand your snoring.”
He tipped his chin higher, his grey eyes taking in that little instinctive twitch of her brow and the narrowing of her eyes. He made mental notes of her reactions in tiny little part of his brain.
“Apart from today’s incident, I don’t believe I will let her close to you again. You reek of darkness.”
“Maybe she will need my help to free herself from your whip.” Her eyebrows rose, defying every bit of him.
“You think that I flog my mate?”
“Almost certain you do.”
He pursued his lips and stared down his nose at her. “I’ll let Lady Blackthorn know.”
He went off then, leaving her there between the corridors of black stones and a sea of itchiness to slap him.
; Prick!
+ + +
Ardan rolled his eyes dismissively as Cassia paced a hole into the rug before the couch in her bedroom. He grunted in boredom and played with a loose thread on his tunic. It had been an awful day, a god-awful day. He had to talk with that vile, spineless, shit Griswold and feign interest when Lord Argoth went over the details of Yrveny and how ‘glorious and wonderful’ it was.
He groaned and decided he had had enough of Adanei horseshit for a day. It was bad enough he had not been with his children and Anaysha would have thrown a fit already, maybe brought down the castle with her barks and demands.
“Are you even listening to me, Ardan?”
His eyebrows shot up as his eyes followed. Sia had planted her hands on her hips and was glaring at him hot, iron daggers. He huffed loudly and threw his head back on the couch. “Of course, I am.”
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “Can you concentrate for a moment, please?”
He nodded. “Look, sweetheart why don’t you relax for a bit and let us take care of the negotiations.” He pointed at Nadaon and Ael who sat with the same expression of boredom on the couch.
Ael snorted and said, trying to impersonate Cassia, “Certainly, she’ll leave you –a male- to take care of her business?”
Sia narrowed her eyes dangerously over Ael. Ardan huffed, seeing the debate in her eyes whether to skin the lycan, or not. “Why don’t you crawl back into Argoth’s robes and let the professionals take care of it?”
Ardan growled again, irritation taking the best of him and turned to Nadaon. “How about we creep in the kitchens to flirt with the maids?”
Cassia grabbed her dagger from her boot with feline grace and pointed it at Ardan, her eyes blown wide and the brown rim around her pupils shone through the dim lighted room. “One inch.” She growled. “Move one inch, and Ana will cut your thing and glue it on your doorbell.”
“Ana is rather fond of my thing.”
A wolfish growl came from Ael on at the other side of the couch and both Ardan and Cassia eyed the lycan suspiciously, their eyes shining with the same need to point their daggers at him.
A War of Silver and Gold Page 22