Grimm pondered this but could find no explanation or motive behind Daemon’s behavior. Who could understand such a complicated soul?
Tryton leaned forward in his chair and placed a hand on Grimm’s knee. “Your father loved you, Grimm.”
He turned his face sharply away with a hiss. “Do not call him that. Never call him that.”
Tryton gave a long-suffering sigh, a weary sigh, and nodded sadly. He settled back into silence, where the only murmur in the room was the crackling of the burning wood in the fireplace. “Thus the Horde War is ended. The few remaining Daemons are without any master, weak and dying, unable to even feed. Their numbers are less than two dozen and our Hunters wager they will not outlast the month. It is over.”
“Yes it is,” Grimm agreed. “At long last, it is done.”
“Why then do I feel so empty? Shouldn’t I feel triumph? Or at the very least, relief?” Tryton, who had never shown weakness, now sought comfort from his friend.
Grimm was glad to have some small idea of how to offer it. “You have known nothing but war for thousands of years. It will not be an easy transition for you, moving forward into this era of peace. I think the only way you can fill your emptiness is to cleave to your wife and have many children.”
Tryton rewarded him with a half-smile. “That sounds like a good start. Perhaps I’ll adopt many dogs and cats too. My family loves animals and I have no lack of space on our estate in the Territories.”
“You like living on the surface.” It was not a question. Grimm knew Tryton had never truly acclimated to living underground—he had only done so out of necessity in a time of great strife.
“I had missed the sunlight and the ocean surf,” Tryton admitted. “After I pass the mantle of my Elder title to another, I can freely enjoy both without feeling guilty of neglecting my duties to either my people or my family.”
Sometime later, Grimm rose to leave when a promise he had made to Raine brought him up short. “There was a warrior Raine encountered in the final battle. She wanted to know if he survived. His name was Moros—can you tell me his fate?”
As The Elder of their people, it was one of Tryton’s duties to keep an official running record of all warriors fallen in battle. When his eyes darkened, Grimm had his answer.
“I am sorry,” Tryton murmured.
“It is Raine who will mourn him.” Grimm sighed. “She said she couldn’t worry about the welfare of everyone who fought, but she could worry about at least one soul. She met him on the field and now I must tell her that he is dead. One more casualty.”
Tryton nodded. “Raine is an admirable soul, Grimm. Her thoughtfulness never ceases to surprise me after all she has been forced to endure. It cannot be easy for her, all this loss and pain. But the years to come will bring her much-deserved joy. I look forward to seeing her smile.”
“As do I.”
“Without her, none of this would have been possible. We owe her everything.” Tryton looked on the verge of saying one thing, but settled on saying something else. “On one occasion, some years ago, I made the mistake of asking Raine how I could repay her for all she’d done. I will never forget the look on her face.” Tryton shook his head, pondering the memory. “It was a mixture of mortification, shame and absolute horror. Raine really has no idea how important she has been to us, does she? No inkling of her worth? It’s almost tragic, but utterly endearing all the same.”
“She knows how important she is to me,” Grimm said firmly. “And I will make sure to remind her every single waking moment of the rest of our lives. As often as I can manage it, I’ll remind her in her dreams too. When our lives are done, I’ll cross the Gray Land with her and follow her into the next life to start our adventure once more from the beginning and prove again how much I love her, because I’ll never stop. Our love is eternal—even the universe won’t outlive us.”
Grimm smiled and with a glad heart, he left The Elder, eager to join Raine and prove his words true again and again.
He knew they were true. During his rebirth he’d witnessed the future play out in the galaxies of stars that filled his eyes with their light, and in every life ahead of them, he and Raine found each other, loved each other, grew old with each other and they always lived as one soul, shining bright, happily ever after.
* * * * *
Let the only sound
Be the overflow…
—Florence & The Machine, What the Water Gave Me
* * * * *
Meanwhile…
Floating through the seas of time, he drifted inside the circle of the great god Mehen—the mighty snake swallowing its tail.
A cursed wanderer with no name, no past. Ages slid over and away from him like sand dunes in a vast desert. Did he sleep? If he did, he dreamed such vivid fancies; they were enough to build a million long, flawed lifetimes upon. But they were only dreams. Out here in the void of an inconceivably huge cosmos, where the galaxies numbered in greater sums than the drops of water in the Nile, he slipped into the horrors of nonbeing.
And he could not wake.
This was his punishment. It would be long. Befitting his crimes.
He was as Atlas Telamon, the celestial axis around whom the heavens revolved, but this was not too great a punishment for him, Lord of the Earth. Forced to navigate this void between the Earth and the Heavens, he endured all and this was not the worst of it, nor was it the worst to come.
Sometimes he worried and he did not know why. Worry had no place in nonbeing.
There would come a place in the cosmos, a time where he would be impressed upon to lay down this mantle of flagellation for another. He would awaken and take up arms again for good or ill.
Could a Titan find redemption? Was it worth the effort of hard toil to know that answer?
His dreams folded and faded, thoughts fleeing; darkness before a dawn, that bleakest moment.
All of these things and more would come later, when time wore thin. But not for a long, long while yet, and so the nameless ancient, the Punished One, dreamed and floated through the void, a ghostly Shade held tethered to life by the thinnest thread of empathy, shining dark against the starlight.
About Sherri L. King
Sherri King lives in the American Midwest with her husband, artist and illustrator Darrell King. Hailed by industry experts as an e-pub phenomenon, Sherri is the author of critically acclaimed series The Horde Wars and Sterling Files, as well as the horror lit-erotica, Venereus. She is currently at work on Traveler’s Kiss, book six in The Horde Wars.
Sherri welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Horde Wars 1: Ravenous
Horde Wars 2: Wanton Fire
Horde Wars 3: Razor’s Edge
Horde Wars 4: Sacred Eden
Horde Wars 5: Lord of the Deep
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Moon Lust
Moon Lust 2: Bitten
Moon Lust 3: Mating Season
Moon Lust 4: Feral Heat
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Shikar: Caress of Flame
Shikar: Ride the Lightning
Shikar: Winded
Sin and Salvation
Sterling Files: Selfless
Sterling Files 1: Steele
Sterling Files 2: Vicious
Sterlin
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Print books by Sherri L. King
Ellora’s Cavemen: Tales from the Temple III anthology
Horde Wars 1: Ravenous
Horde Wars 2: Wanton Fire
Horde Wars 3: Razor’s Edge
Horde Wars 5: Lord of the Deep
Lover’s Key
Magic Play anthology
Manaconda anthology
Moon Lust 2 : Bitten
Pirate’s Pleasure anthology
Primal Heat anthology
Rayven’s Awakening
Shikar: Caress of Flame
Shikar: Ride the Lightning
Sin and Salvation
Sterling Files
Sterling Files 4: Hyde
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Traveler’s Kiss
ISBN 9781419935992
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Traveler’s Kiss Copyright © 2014 Sherri L. King
Edited by Kelli Collins
Cover design by Darrell King
Cover photography by Shutterstock and iStockphoto by photographers Vietrov Dmytro and Nikolay Chernyshev
Electronic book publication February 2014
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