A War of Silver and Gold

by Minerva J. Kaelin

  She had refrained from eating the last weeks since she left her city to reach the Citadel. She ate a light breakfast and then starved herself, not intentionally, not even her stomach acknowledged it, her mind was fairly occupied.

  Her cheeks had hollowed, her eyes had lost their gleam and her hair had lost its natural shine. She was a fragment of what she was. Though she had never been a beauty to behold, there had been a time when she was presentable and not completely disgusting to look upon. She felt the tugging of that insolent guilt again. She was fraying away and she placed little thought on it.

  She cleared her throat, the little sound echoed through the empty room.

  She gathered her wits, took a deep breath and marched for the window. It flared opened and she climbed onto the tall window stall. The cold mountain wind reached into the room, reaching over her heated, agonized face as she straightened her back.

  The smell of clean, pure snow covered her senses as she closed her eyes to savour the feeling. It felt like freedom. It did. As if she ever knew what freedom felt like! She had never tasted it, not even for a bit. All her life she was bound to serve someone she held little respect for.

  It felt like freedom, cold, but at the same time the warmest feeling she had ever the privilege of feeling spread over her chest, in her soul.

  She didn’t dare one glance downwards in case vertigo took the better of her, but she opened her big mismatched eyes and glanced towards the mountains filling the horizon. It was snowing, in the mountains, at their tops, but no flake of snow fell on the city’s soil. Everything remained unspoiled around her.

  The cold bit at her skin, but she allowed herself to relax. Cassia, after all, had winter powers mostly. She reached her hands to hold from the window to her sides.

  The winds went by her, pulling her straightened hair back, away from her face.

  They sang to her, the zephyr, everything around her.

  Her skin crawled. Goosebumps rose along her flesh and her face turned white.

  She began chanting the runes over the winds. Her tongue turned cold against her mouth, her skin turned icy, her breath stopped coming in misty puffs around her.

  She was moulding herself with the frost around her. She forced her powers to become one with the climate. She tipped her chin up, no longer sensing the cold around her. She had become one with it.

  She was feral power. Icy power that scared everyone and everything away from her. Sealed her from being forced to tolerate the world.

  She cleared her throat, hands leaving the walls at her sides for she no longer had the need to hold onto something.

  She let her foot float to the void before her and when she was certain that she would not fall and die from the hundred feet altitude.

  She shifted her weight onto the floating foot.

  She felt her shields falling beneath her feet.

  She chanted on the air again.

  Her feet didn’t meet solid magic surface.

  She took in a deep breath and chanted again.

  This time her foot didn’t float, this time she rose out from her room, not falling onto the earth, but stepping into thin air.

  She kept chanting inside her head, concentrating on the path she had carved out through the air. She reached around the castle; her heart seemed to have frozen, just as everything else on her. She could barely hear a heartbeat.

  She took great care in destroying the path she had created. The windows around her shimmer with her reflection. She turned her head to the side.

  The eyes that met her were not her own, her usual mismatched stare was now white, just as white as the snow she had carved behind her. She averted her eyes from the monstrosity staring back at her and kept walking down the length of the west side of the palace.

  Griswold’s balcony door was paradoxically opened. She pulled to the side as she approached and held herself close to the wall on the balcony, trying to stay concealed in the shadows.

  If she hadn’t summoned her powers she would have sweated and her heart would have been pounding faster and harder than any other time. It would have given her away to him.

  She remained by the door for a moment, ensuring that she heard only a light snore and nothing else from the inside of the bedroom.

  Stepping into the room as soundlessly as she could, she came to realise how cold and desolate it was. The first time she was in there she had been fairly drunk and she had spared no thought to the chamber around her. Everything in this room seemed to be divided between pitch black and pure white and silver.

  There was a silver mirror across his bed behind a white desk and a black wooden armchair. She could barely see anything more; his room was dipped in darkness.

  She turned her head and glanced at the elf sleeping underneath those dark coverlets. His long, hair splayed onto the black pillows around his head and shoulders.

  She kept herself hidden as close to the walls as she could, but his silent, relaxed face made her take a step closer, just to remember that this harsh elf was not all bad and evil.

  A strange voice sounded through her head.

  Spare him...

  She shook her head. No, she wouldn’t let that voice take the lead of her actions. She wouldn’t let anyone cloud her judgement. No, nothing could have made her stay away from fulfilling what she felt was right to do.

  She pulled the daggers out from her sleeve, her fingers entwined between the prongs. She took a step closer to him; his breathing maintaining the same pattern.

  She pulled her dagger up. Cassia stopped contemplating whether she should kill him there in his sleep, or wake him up and let his eyes glance at hers as life got out of his worthless flesh.

  She braced her hand and raised the dagger further. A chill went up and down her spine.

  She shivered silently.

  Her magic was giving away.

  Her heart began pounding in her chest faster than it had ever beaten. She closed her eyes and breathed in.

  Cassia readied the dagger, directing it onto his heart. She was more than capable of committing such a direct murder. She let her hands down, the dagger hovering above his bare chest.

  One more inch and flesh would melt gold. One more...

  The door creaked opened. She jumped back, barely keeping her mouth shut. She hid in the shadows and out of the room, back to the wall by the balcony door. She shook her head and swore under her breath.

  Mersila...

  Mersila walked into the room.

  She closed the door behind her, her hair curly and long hanging about her lithe form. She stalked to the bed, pulled the covers up and snuggled into it. Griswold stirred at his side on the bed and sat up, he groaned and exhaled soundly.

  “Mersila,” he rubbed his face with his palms. “You scared me.” He said and slacked back onto the bed. The she-elf laid her head onto Griswold's chest.

  Cassia’s heart clenched between her breasts. She willed her insolent breathing to stop and she turned her eyes back to the pair on the bed.

  “Nightmares...” Mersila replied, her voice was terrified and almost trembling.

  Griswold placed a kiss onto Mersila’s head. “You are safe now, love.”

  Griswold was Mersila’s lover... By Nature...

  It was only logical. She remembered Aine telling her that Lord Griswold had killed Mersila’s father and had saved her. It was only natural for her to have her affections towards him. Only natural.

  Cassia should have gutted him when she still had time. She should have. But...but after witnessing this, she couldn’t possibly bring herself to harm him. Not when Mersila, that sweet and kind hearted elf, had pledged her love to him.

  Cassia couldn’t hurt her this way. Not her, not the one being in this whole world that admired her and looked up at her with those big eyes of hers.

  No, Cassia couldn’t hurt her. Guilt rode over her mind, hot and bothering her to the very extents of her soul.

  She turned on her feet and flashed away back to her rooms.r />
  35

  She slumped forward onto the floor, her knees meeting hard with the rough onyx surface. She wanted to hurl her insides onto the polished stone. Her mind screamed at her to go away, leave go back to the King because there was where she deserved to be, under his iron grip where he could control her.

  She let the pronged daggers fall on the ground with a loud clattering. She gazed at her hands, but she saw blood splattered over them.

  Crimson...

  So much blood...

  So much death...

  She couldn’t take it. Cassia couldn’t withstand it, that pain, that hate, all of this.

  Her mind and her soul averted their glances in disgust from her. She was an abomination, a monster that fed on the blood of innocents. She was the worst evil that had ever crossed these lands. She was worse than the old Lord of Feremony. She was a monster, a beast, something so atrocious that not even she could look at herself.

  She wanted to scream. She did. She glanced at her hands.

  So much blood...

  It drove her mad, mad with a distaste for what she was. Her self-control had finally snapped, but it hadn’t been unleashed on others, she had unleashed it upon herself. She deserved to be found dead in a dirty gutter, she deserved every whip, every lash and every wound.

  Monster...

  She had to return back to the Citadel. She had to. It was the only place that being a monster didn’t affect her. It didn’t drive her mad because there were monsters too, just like her. She didn’t deserve freedom, she didn’t deserve love and kindness, she didn’t deserve this life of prosperity.

  She deserved a good whipping from the King. She deserved to be left to rot in Birilla with the beasts and the criminals of Aethos. An abomination. Something so hideous such as her deserved to be eaten by the beasts in Birilla.

  I was going mad...

  There was blood everywhere...

  Then she felt it.

  Her shields cracking and the King seizing power over her mind.

  36

  The pounding in her head stopped. Everything still around her, the blood was gone and a silent feeling grasped about her soul. She stood, taking her fallen, devilish daggers from the floor; she pulled them back inside their sheaths along her arms under her sleeves. Her spine straightened and the feeling of contentedness took over her.

  Daughter...

  Then her blood chilled, for there was only one person in the whole Aethos that called her like that and he wasn’t her father. She should have shielded her mind with iron gates, keep it safely tucked underneath steel. She couldn’t though continue thinking of not talking to him. He had been the only family She knew even though he was wrenched, hateful, wicked and he had ordered her whipped multiple times.

  “Your Majesty,” Cassia replied, finally acknowledging him.

  Everything went very froze around her, even the air stopped pounding against the windows. She was on the brink of total mental destruction, believing that something had crossed her mind and he knew that she had betrayed him.

  Where are you being kept...

  She cleared her throat. “Room, guarded and warded. I am far too precious to them to whip me this time.”

  Bring me the Necklace of Adalon...

  “If I’ll find it.”

  She felt him flinching for a moment.

  You will find it...

  She shook her head as if he could see her. “Things have changed in this place, my Lord. I am afraid nothing is as it was.”

  What do you mean...

  “I’ll try to find the necklace.”

  What of the sword...

  “I have Leondir’s Diary.”

  He snarled then, inside her mind, a pain erupting in her veins. Bring me the sword and the neck piece...

  Then the world snapped back into its place. Her hate returned and the uneasiness in her stomach was still there as if it was never gone. She glanced around the room and felt the cold breeze coming in from her opened window. Nothing had changed.

  She closed her eyes and threw her reinforced shields out around her mind. It had happened two times and it was her fault that she let her pride lower her shields. That was enough. Enough for her.

  She had to find the necklace. The necklace of the First and Last King of the Adanei. The one that he used to win the War, the first War, hundreds of years before Cassia was born. The King who led the Adanei into a better future without monarchy and terror, the one that shared his lands with his Lords.

  She shook her head. The King wanted to get his hands on an ancient relic, the relic of his greatest enemy. He was that desperate, and not even his army of thousands didn’t sate his hunger, he wanted to annihilate the Adanei once and for all. He needed that and...

  In a life where everything was against her, she had to find the means to survive for as long as she could.

  37

  Next morning Cassia starved herself a bit more and returned back to her consuming fruits and nothing else for the day. Mersila stopped by her chamber in the morning, entered and closed the door as silently as she could. The frail she-elf approached Cassia and smiled as she sat on the bed. Cassia had to swallow a great part of her memory from yesterday night to fully look at Mersila without pitying her, or feeling guilty of what Cassia had almost done.

  “Do you want to train?” Mersila asked, glancing on the embroidered patterns on the hem of her dress.

  Cassia raised an eyebrow and managed a smile at her. She didn’t deserve to be maltreated, Aine had been correct about this. “If you come with me, I’ll go.”

  The smile Mersila threw towards the dark Heir was the most beautiful thing her wretched soul had witnessed. Mersila’s purity was unquestionable and that was the reason she didn’t cower away from Cassia.

  “Maybe you can train with me.”

  Mersila shook her head and chuckled. “I am a Lady.”

  “I believe I am a female too and yet I can fairly outwit a male in a brawl.”

  Her girlish laughter irritated Cassia, but she could barely do something to that she-elf, one look at her and all worries were gone. Sia shook her head. Maybe that was what Griswold had seen on the Lady.

  “Mersila, don’t ever think that you worth less than a male. Females are moulded to survive in the battlefield. I have seen men falling and women prevailing. So,” Sia cleared her throat. “You are worth a thousand males. My aunt, Princess Strigila was the heir apparent and the King’s most precious general, she brought down a dragon once wielding only a dagger. She is my own hero, my own idol.”

  Mersila smirked and sighed. “What happened to Princess Strigila?”

  Cassia shook her head, she hadn’t met her, never once in her life, she was dead long before Sia was even born, but tales of her might were still told in the Citadel. The King still admired his lost daughter far more than he had ever admired his son, Sia’s father, whom he had disowned.

  “It is said that she vanished one day. Some believe the gods took her because she was far too powerful, others say that she killed herself because her powers drove her mad, or that she is still alive between us, hiding because she couldn’t take the King’s atrocities.” Cassia nodded her head and smirked. “A few believe that she went away with her mate and lover but was lost in the Slit-Through-The-Ground.”

  Mersila shook her head. “That wasn’t very encouraging.”

  She laughed. “Oh! Shut up. I am trying to make you value your nature more.”

  Mersila blinked. “I haven’t held a sword in years.”

  Sia sighed. “So you do know how to wield one?”

  “I am Beathan’s sister, I don’t believe I could have done otherwise.”

  “Why?” Cassia asked and stood from the bench she sat. “Is he an accomplished swordsman?”

  “Only Griswold can rival him, I believe.” It was pride that engulfed her voice and Sia didn’t fail to notice it.

  Sia stuffed her daggers in her boots and stood. She had every intention of going to train t
hat day thus she was leather clad. She went to the corner of her room that her armour lay and grabbed her sword. She reached around and strapped it to her belt.

  “I am the best wielder in my lands. Then I shall challenge him to a duel and see who’s better between the two of us. I clearly am, but I merely want to make a statement.”

  Mersila chuckled and stood. “It should be a real delight to see you two sparring.”

  “If I am fortunate I will find him during the day and talk him into it.”

  “Well, if you can.”

  Cassia grinned and reached for the door. “If he is afraid then he would merely step aside.”

  Mersila came up behind her.

  “I’ll see you in the training fields after the meeting,” Mersila told her and left.

  + + +

  By the time Sia had reached the meeting room, the last Lord had. It wasn’t something that she hadn’t done before, but she had to talk either in private with Beathan or she should sneak in at night and rob his vault.

  She straightened her back as she bowed her head before the Lords. She was a member of their society by that time and she had to find it inside her to trust them, but something made her pull away from them. Especially Griswold.

  Handres sat beside Argoth. Hianos was beside her this time, Timus and Otho were together, Mithras and Mordas sat at the other side of the table and Griswold sat across her at his usual seat by Beathan. She had enjoyed herself that night in the city immensely, they had made her feel like she was finally at home, but yet on a glance at Griswold and she was running far away from them all.

  Argoth bit his lip as he looked up at the rest of them and spoke. “They are far more assaultive.”

  Otho gritted his teeth and asked, sarcastically, “What did you expect?”

  Argoth clenched his jaw and shook his head. “They took three of my soldiers, dismembered them and impaled them onto spikes.” He shook his head again. “They threw them in our camp...” He trailed visibly shaken because he had seen them, these three Adanei elves, were forged from the same flesh and blood the Nevdori and yet the hatred ran so deep and bold.