He huffed in annoyance. “Can you stop thinking for a moment and just enjoy?”
She merely smiled and heavily ignored him as she shook her head and pulled back away from his chest, reaching out of his arms. She took a look around the pit and found that it had darkened more. The sun must have begun descending from the skies.
She sat down on the grass against her better judgement and leant her shoulders down on the grass. She closed her eyes, enjoying the crashing of the waters in the fall and the silent twittering of the birds. It was a rarity for her, this contentedness.
Ael sat down beside her as he grasped her hand in his, entwining their fingers and kissed her palm. Her eyes shot wide open. She glanced at him, pressing his lips against her skin. There must have been something wrong with this elf to like her in this way. He must have been either a fool or someone who went after her title.
She shook her head not wanting to think of the worst. She cleared her throat and tugged her hand back to her side.
“You never told me how you became Captain of the Guard.” She said, trying to make light conversation between them because this silence suffocated her.
He smiled sadly and glanced up at her face as he leant onto his one arm. “Through sweat and blood, after all, it was twice harder for me.” He patted his chest playfully. “Dark Elf.”
“It must have been hard.”
He chuckled softly and bit his bottom lip. “I wasn’t as strong as the rest of the highborn elves that opted for the position, but I had a sharp wit to assist me and the cunningness that paired well with my evil blood.”
She knew that he was being sarcastic, but that didn’t prevent the disappearance of her smile and the sadness she felt. She was Dark Elf too, more than he would ever be.
“Am I evil and wicked?” She asked as if her mouth had a mind of its own and didn’t obey to her orders of keeping this question to herself.
He frowned and shook his head. “No,” he answered as he let his head fall down onto the soft grass beside her. “You are not evil, I don’t think that someone with your heart and your ideas could be wicked and evil.”
She tried to contain her sardonic laughter by biting down onto her lips hard. “You barely know me, Ael. You don’t know what I have done.”
“But what you did, you did to survive.” He said and entangled his arm with her, turning onto his side. “They weren’t done out of your free will.”
She wanted to deny, but deep down inside her, she knew that he was correct. She knew it, but she still held some kind of responsibility for the greatest amount of the killings she had been forced to commit.
She shook her head. Sadness washed over her and as she glanced at a random leaf up from one of the trees, her mind became aware of how little she had seen of Ardan and Nadaon in the past days.
Her thoughts darkened as she remembered her task...
The Necklace of Adalon and the Sword...
Images of the King sneering shot through her mind and she could barely contain herself as she jumped up from the grassy ground. Thoughts of the King always flashed through her mind when something evil lurked in the shadows. She dipped down and grasped the dagger from her boot, holding the handle firmly between her fingertips.
She eyed the pit nervously, narrowing her eyes at the entrance a few times, willing something bad to come out of it.
The forest had grown suspiciously silent. The birds’ chipping had ceased into a formal humming and the waters in the waterfall had turned silent. Her keen ears could barely catch the once evident sounds of animals running through the forest.
She twirled about her feet; the once dimly lightened forest had turned a tad darker.
She could hear a breath from somewhere behind those walls that surrounded them, she listened to a steady heartbeat...
More than one heartbeat...
Then the smell of tar filled her nostrils...
She unsheathed her sword and turned to Ael who still sat on the ground and a frown over his brow. He glanced at her and tilted his him.
“What-”
She shushed him and shot him a glare. They should blend with the shadows in the pit and pray to whatever god they knew that they would never find them. Ael stood up, his hand over his sword’s handle.
She grabbed onto his arm and tugged him behind the trees, he didn’t complain. He must have smelled the tar in the air too. She pressed her back against the cold, slippery wall and glanced upwards, her hands ready to assault whatever would come down here.
She tuned her heartbeat, managed to take even breaths and keep silent, eyes watching upwards. She shot a glance towards him and whispered. “You failed to tell me that these forests were inhabited by,” she shook her head; she had years to fight one. “By trolls.”
“Trolls?” He whispered back. “There had been years since they caught a troll in the woods. They left for the north five decades ago.”
Something moved in her peripheral vision and she hushed him quickly. It was then that arrows sliced through the air and reached the other side of the wall of the pit.
A grunt and a loud cry reached around them. Voices screaming in the Northern Elvish Dialect echoed through the forest. Cassia’s ears listened to feet pounding against the forest ground.
She could make a few words shouting through the air, she had never been fully proficient in the Northern Dialect. The King had cut out of Nevdori culture everything that was Adanei. There was a loud shout through the forest behind the trees above the pit.
Between the leaves and branches, the wounded troll came forth. Its oily skin burning against the sun, but it looked already dead to care much about the burning of the sun. Its big dark eyes widened in fear, its shaggy arms and legs looked ugly against the light.
It fell –face downwards- onto the pit in a mass of miserable limbs and conceited thoughts. It grunted and winced, legs twisting underneath it. Its head was turned towards Cassia and Ael, the big eyes glancing with wonder, one last glance before death. She knew it could see them even through all these leaves which covered them.
A chill ran through her spine as it closed those big eyes and let out its last breath.
Ael tensed beside her, his body turning stiff. “Lams,” he whispered. “Lams killed it.”
Cassia gritted her teeth. The temptation of battle calling out to her. “I’ll go up, don’t follow me. If I won’t be back in an hour; leave and go to the palace.”
He shook his head. “I can’t let you go alone.”
She rolled her eyes. “Forgive me, Ael.”
She brought the hand with her dagger up and hit his head with the back of the hilt. He tumbled down onto the ground, his head slacking to the side. She couldn’t let him got caught.
She shook her head again. She shouldn’t care about him; he was just another pawn to be played along. He would have slowed her down anyway. She knew better than grow guilty for hitting him after one meaningless kiss.
The King’s training had taken good care on rendering her a mass of unfeeling flesh.
Her eyes scanned the place around the pit; the sprinting lams came closer by the second. She moved out of her hiding place and marched out of the pit through the curtain of leaves.
Before she could take another move, a sword was placed against her neck. She snarled and twisted about, her sword meeting with the blade of her assaulter.
A white haired lam wielded the blade fiercely against hers. The sharp edges were cutting through each other with spite. She glared at the Lam and narrowed her eyes against his brown ones.
It was a battle of wills as she shot him a glance of fire. He snarled back at her, baring those blood-sucking teeth of his. She twisted the blade meticulously, attracting his attention on the shining black silver. Cassia leapt down, her dagger slicing through the fabric of his tunics.
He winced and pulled away, fingers pressing against the handle of the sword in anger and pain at the wound she had inflicted upon him. She kept her mind and senses about her, never
lowering her shields.
She clenched her jaw and kept her face nonchalant. “Who are you?”
He tilted his head, pursing his lips firmly. “Filth, like you, has no place in this sacred forest.” He snarled back at her and lunged forward with the falchion blade.
She dodged the blow with the flamberge, dipping low to her knees as she dug the dagger into his thigh and pushed. He lost his balance and fell to the ground with a grunt.
“You should watch your tongue-”
A hand was placed over her shoulder suddenly and before she could turn around to look at the owner they were all flashed away.
+ + +
Her head held the normal amount of spinning she experienced every time after flashing. Disorientation kicked in and she braced her hands on her knees as she snapped out of the nauseous feeling of magic that was not her own.
Someone cleared their throat behind her. She turned her head and glanced at the red haired female, her canines prominent and sharp betraying her lam heritage. She glared at Cassia and pushed her down onto her knees.
Cassia felt the impact with a thud and a grunt as she tugged away from her captor’s clutches.
“I am afraid that’s not necessary.”
Cassia’s head rose towards the way the voice came, from the elevated floor before them. Her eyes widened as she glanced at the last person she would have ever guessed to hold the position of the Lam Mother.
Cassia shook her head chuckling.
That was overly absurd and comically impossible.
46
Aine.
“And here I thought this place had no humour.” Cassia chuckled and shook her head; an itch grew at the palm of her left hand, her sword hand. They had taken her sword. Those beasts had dared to take something so personal out of her hand’s reach.
Aine’s once braided hair around her head, now cascaded down her back, her muddy frock, Cassia had seen her in the last time, was now gone and in its place was a green gown, glittering against the clear light of the chamber. Her back was so straightened like the trunk of a tree, her head held high, her elegant chin up tipping up with the prestige that only belonged to a Lam Mother.
Aine was a lam. Cassia cursed under her breath. How the lam had managed to trick her, she still didn’t know. Cassia should have seen through Aine’s glamour, she should have seen her prominent canines, her lam thirst for shiny ornaments and, above all, her crystal honesty.
As Cassia let her eyes reach from the embroidered hem of Aine’s gown up to her eyes, she caught glimpse of a little polygonal ornament around the lam’s neck. A purple gem lay in the centre of it, lightly framed by pure gold, in whorls and curlicues elegantly carved and morphed in a magnificent pendant.
The Necklace of Adalon...
Cassia’s heart began to race again, the veins in her neck pulsed as she clenched her jaw to keep her feelings contained. It was either she acquired that neck piece or was deemed a traitor and was hanged at the centre of the Citadel.
“How did you wind up there with the circlet around you head playing the benevolent Lam Mother?”
Aine’s smile infuriated Cassia. No one glanced at her as if she were a simpleton. Not her, not Cassia, the Heir that could kill every living thing in the chamber with a single, well-aimed blow of green sparkling magic. Even though Cassia never wanted to admit it, her life would never be simple. She would never sample the warmth of the sun as someone with no meaning, with no life. Whatever blood coursed through her veins, it must have been special.
Cassia was no mere elf.
Aine took a step closer to Cassia and tilted her head, her hair falling around her eyes. “Such a fiery temper.” Cassia snorted and rolled her eyes. “And so talented with the sword, but we all question ourselves the reason this child has fallen in so ill hands.”
Cassia tried to stand, but the foolish red haired she-elf pushed her down. She grunted and gritted her teeth; this was getting far more interesting than she thought. Cassia honestly believed that red headed had a death wish.
“How about,” Cassia motioned with her head towards the she-lam behind her. “Give me my sword and let me go?”
Aine’s features dipped into nonchalance. “I don’t believe that is wise, not for today at least. You shall be my guest, Cassia Silverweaved. We have much to discuss, you and I.”
“Right,” Cassia snarled. “Like the game you are playing with Beathan Eathon?”
Aine twisted about herself and sat at the glass throne behind her, her circlet shining on the centre where a blue gem lay. Her hair spreading over her shoulders, her eyes cold and unmoving, unblinking, terrifying. She was a sight for sore eyes. She looked every bit the bloodthirsty, regal Lam Mother.
Aine waved her hand towards the red haired behind Cassia. “Show her to her chamber.”
“My sword,” Cassia snarled back. “I am going nowhere without my sword.”
Aine tipped her chin high and smirked. “Of course, give the she-elf her blade.”
Cassia’s eyes turned red, or they must have turned red. “She-elf,” she snarled and twisted against the hands of the bloody, red haired, lam harlot who dared touch her with that assaultive air of superiority. “I’ll so you she-elf. I’ll rip you apart and feed your pitiful-”
Cassia’s words suffocated in her throat as something hard hit her at the back of her head. A pain shot through her bones, her world was suddenly painted in hues of black as she tumbled down on the cold stones of the floor.
+ + +
Her head was sore as her eyes flicked open. The light was far too dim in this place; it must have already darkened outside. Cassia pulled her hand up and gritted her teeth as she groaned in discomfort. Her mind was fairly twisted in between screaming and escaping as silently as she could.
She let another groan escape her as she pulled herself up to a seated position on the mattress she had been lying on the past few hours. After that pathetic excuse of a lam had hit her head, her world had blackened out. They must have brought her in that room.
Cassia’s blade, to her great surprise, was neatly placed upon a chair along with her daggers. She rolled her eyes in annoyance. She had to get out of there, had to leave this place before anything...
The King. The Necklace.
The necklace was Aine’s possession. But how? Cassia remembered from the legends spawned here and there across the continent that the necklace was Beathan’s. No, Cassia didn’t need to know what had happened to it, or for what the King needed it. He must have been preparing another massacre to commit in the name of magic, anyway.
She could leave this place and tell the King –if he was ever to meet her again- that she couldn’t find it.
She shook her head.
The King would never have believed her. He could have had her killed in a heartbeat if he wanted. He didn’t need her sword or her fierceness and brutality in battle, he had generals that were a lot more sanguinary than she had ever been.
He needed her influence with the people. He needed her inveterate patriotism to keep his subjects in place and firmly underneath his iron fist. She was vital to him to a certain extent.
She knew fairly well that he would not hesitate if his judgement ever told him that her services were no longer required. He was a spiteful entity.
She rubbed her hands over her face and grunted loudly. She had to get the Necklace and the Lords must never know. It was to ensure her survival and hers alone. In such a war she could never care about the well-beings of others, especially people she had fought with iron and blood.
A low moan escaped her as she stood and went towards her sword and dagger. She winced for a moment at the pain in her head and cursed under her breath that blonde lam witch.
Once her sword was happily hanging from her belt and the sheathed dagger prickled against the skin of her shin inside her boot, the decision of investigating the place, she was held captured, kicked in her brain.
A knock on her door made her grunt in disapproval. She willed he
rself and answered it, still being slightly disoriented on the place around her.
Behind the door, stood a dark haired male, glancing down his nose with his violet eyes trained on her. His full lips contorted into a grin as he fidgeted the amulet around his neck. She raised an eyebrow willing him to speak.
He chuckled heartily. “You must be the Lady.” He said as he smirked. “Such a pleasure to finally meet you. Aine has been talking a lot about you for the past few days.”
She narrowed her eyes as she inclined her head slightly to the side in question. He had no fangs. He wasn’t a Lam. He was an elf and his eyes spoke of years that hadn’t been written over his perfect features.
Old enough to be twice her father... Aine had told her. Then this one before her was the mate. Aine’s mate was a Spell Teacher. She clenched her jaw.
“You must be Aine’s mate then?” Cassia asked as she bit down on the inside of her cheeks anticipating to be proved correct on her assumptions.
He smiled. “What a smart little lady you are, indeed.”
She rolled her eyes. “What is the meaning of this pleasurable visit?”
“My Aine darling wants to dine with you.”
She snorted. “And she sent her Spell Teacher to tell me.” She shook her head. “Bloody lams, I never understood them.”
“Hurry up then.” He twisted on his feet and began walking down the corridor. She stood there for a moment debating whether she should follow him or not.
She cleared her throat as she willed her legs to move towards him, slamming the door shut behind her. It was the wisest thing to do after all. She had to familiarise herself around the place.
She took a moment to memorise the path from her chamber to the one she was led to, she memorised the small hallways that were supposed to lead outside, she took a care to remember certain things like colours and painting that adorned the halls. It was fairly easy to leave this place, but after she had the necklace.
She bit her bottom lip and glared at the back of the elf’s head before her. “What’s your name, Spell Teacher?”
A War of Silver and Gold Page 38