by Susan Faw
Cayden stood back up and jerked Ziona into his arms, his mouth coming down on hers in a crushing kiss that forced her lips back from her teeth. She did not resist but instead wrapped her arms around his neck and melted into his hold.
His tongue darted into her mouth, the kiss thorough, long, and sweet. He pulled apart and then scooped her up into his arms and carried her back to her cot. He placed her on the bed and then began to remove his clothing with jerky, halting movements as though he still fought the control of the Soul Fetch.
Do not resist, Cayden. This is not a bad thing, Ziona whispered to his mind. She held up her hand to him. “Come to me.”
Naked and shuddering with relief, he followed her down onto the bed. In a corner of Cayden’s mind, the part that realized what he was about to do, he was ashamed. Not for the act of loving Ziona. Never that! But that he was being forced to make love to her in this fashion. He had dreamed of this privately, of being with Ziona, but not in this way. He was revolted that he could not fight back and that a part of him didn’t want to. Guilt raged in him as he pulled her shirt off and slid her small clothes from her body. His eyes widened as his eyes slid over Ziona’s perfect body, and he groaned aloud as he struggled to resist Alcina’s command. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Suddenly he had no desire to resist Alcina’s manipulation, as it was perfectly aligned with his own desires. Pleasure raged in him, and the combination became a different type of agony. A tear he did not know he’d shed, rolled down his cheek as he kissed her.
Ziona wiped the errant tear away and kissed the corner of his eye. She trailed a hand up his strong arm, the muscles rigid with tension, and then let it wander over his bare chest. Cayden shuddered violently. Ziona’s last coherent thought was if she was to die in the morning, there was surely no better way to go.
***
Alcina looked up as Darius re-entered her tent and bowed deeply. “Well?” she barked, ignoring him in favour of adding an extra dollop of honey to her tea.
“He has been placed in the Primordial’s cell. We have doubled the guard on the tent door as commanded.” Curiosity flared in his gaze, but then his face blanked. Alcina smiled knowingly. She knew he was dying to know what she had planned.
“You are wondering why I put the two of them together, rather than letting you have your way with the seeker wench? Perhaps you resent it?” She picked up her cup of tea and studied him over the rim, eyes taking in his lithe form, the breadth of his shoulders, his narrowed hips. She took a sip then placed the cup down on the small spindle-legged table beside her chair.
Darius stood, hands clasped behind his back, freckle-faced and red-haired, a slight sunburn brushing his cheeks. He strove not to fidget under the queen’s intense gaze, but he felt a blush creeping up out of the collar of his uniform despite his tight control.
Alcina’s smile widened as she witnessed his embarrassment. “Perhaps I have better uses for your talents.” Darius kept his eyes fastened on a point beyond her chair up and over to the left.
Alcina stretched, observing the way his eyes unconsciously followed the arch of her body and the way the tightening of her dress outlined her breasts. She stood and walked around him, trailing a finger across his chest and up over his bulging bicep and then along his back as she slowly inspected him, like a prime cut of beef in a butcher’s shop. Darius gulped and shivered slightly when her finger trailed up over the exposed nape of his neck where the blush betrayed his desire.
Alcina laughed at the shivering shudder that wracked his body. “Yes, I can find better ways to test your talents. Let Cayden rut with the Primordial wench. He will despise himself, for his honour will not allow him to seek simple pleasures in the arms of a woman. And as for the Primordial, she is nothing more than an object on which to test my control over him. Pleasure can also be torture. A sweet kind of torture, but it is still torture for those who it is inflicted on. She will hate him, and it will crush his will. He still fights the Soul Fetch, and I will have his soul fully in my grasp before I unleash him on his people. Now, I tire of politics. Come entertain your queen.” She tugged on Darius’s hand and led him back to the secluded room at the back of her tent. He did not resist.
Chapter 24
Genii
HE WATCHED HER CLIMB the stone pathway to the entrance to Helga’s lair, careful to remain hidden in the shadows, even though he knew there was no way to hide. The dark of the cave was as daylight to the dead. For those like him, the undead, well, it was perpetual twilight wherever he went. Yet, he longed to rush after Artio, to grab her hand like in days of old; to hold her and kiss her like he once had. Occasionally, a flash of poignant memory would surface, usually prompted by an emotional trigger. Those very human longings were still a part of him, part of the memory of who he once was, who he had been before the change, before the betrayal of the moon.
He could not disobey his mistress though, for she had bonded him body and soul. He could not run after Artio. His mistress had forbidden it. He vaguely remembered the desire of his mortal days, the longing to be with this godling yet he was held by another, her sister. He’d managed to cage away a small section of his mind and of his heart, and when he was truly alone, he would take it out and examine it, turning it over and over. The pull was still there, deep down.
He watched her vanish over the lip, and he twitched, his body actually taking a step in her direction before the impulse abandoned him, submerged under his mistress’s command.
He felt a presence, and then Helga materialized beside him with a purr. “Doesn’t she look fantastic? Why, my sister is lovelier as a bear goddess than she was as a human hybrid.” Helga drifted around in front of him. Reaching up, she pushed back his dark hood to reveal his still classically handsome features, unmarked by time.
Genii remained silent, accustomed to the leading questions, the digs in an attempt to get a rise out of him, to make him respond. Helga had tested him from day one, and initially he had resented the questions. How could his mistress doubt his loyalty or his devotion? In the early days, he could think of nothing else but how to please her, how to win her favour. There had been nothing he wouldn’t have done, including dragging the body of his former love out of the circle of the sacred stones and staking it out for the vultures to pick clean. There had been no one to compare with Helga’s magnificence or with her beauty.
Eventually, he had come to see that she was driven by fear, a fear that he would no longer love her, that he would somehow walk away from her love. Absurd as it was, he knew she still harboured these thoughts and so she once again tested his loyalty, and he once again gave her the answers he had learned by rote.
“She is nothing compared to your beauty, my love. She was never anything but a lover of humans, too weak and paltry to be a goddess. Yours is the only face I wish to see. You are my moon, my universe.” He reached down and took Helga’s face in his hands and kissed her, deeply. Helga wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to the ground with her.
“Time to reinforce the reasons I command your loyalty, and pleasure is so much more effective than pain.” She nipped at his earlobe, biting down until a moan rose in his throat. “Come, forget the outside world.” And for a time, he did.
***
Genii took the right fork, and the path began to ascend, twisting this way and that before eventually widening, spilling out into a cavern dimly lit by twitching flames flickering on the eddies of fresh air drifting by. Genii felt a refreshing breeze stroke his cheek, cooling his blood and bringing sanity and self-awareness to the surface of his mind. He paused for a moment and pressed his fevered cheek against the moist stone wall, then drew a deep steadying breath.
When the insanity took over, he lost all sense of himself. His fractured memories were commandeered by Helga’s will and drowned before they had a chance to float to the top. He came here, to this special cave, as the distance from her lair weakened her hold. Sometimes he’d surface enough to grab a gasp of air he did not nee
d and regain a fraction of his lost soul.
Well, not his soul—he was undead, after all—but a fraction of his consciousness as a human. Flashes of distant memories teased his mind, and snippets of images rushed along the long disused pathways. The urge would occasionally overtake him. When it did, he climbed the final passage that emptied out into the light of the outside world. But his steps always faltered at the last moment. The light was blinding and he was unwilling to test what it might mean to be exposed to it. Yet he longed to try. Artio was out there. For some reason, that was important to him. Gut-wrenchingly deep, the truth of that bubbled inside of him, although he could not say why.
Genii pushed off the wall and strode down the long passageway, firming his resolve. A circle of light shining on the far wall showed the exit to the light of day. He walked to the circle, careful to keep out of the direct rays reflected on the stone floor. The brightness made his eyes water, or at least they would have watered, had there been any moisture to form tears. He blinked but his eyes could not process the light. He looked away and instead stared at the distorted reflection shimmering on the water-slicked rock wall.
A wriggling reflection of trees just outside the shadowed opening zigzagged up the wall, impossibly green and brown and alive. He ran his hand over the image and suddenly a memory of striding under trees—real trees—floated to the surface, and a voice, tinkling on the breeze, laughing.
“Genii! Isn’t it a glorious day? Look at how the sun makes the seeds sparkle in the air! Dance!” she commanded, giggling as she spun on the spot, dislodging more seed pods that burst with the force of a mini-explosion, tossing more winged seeds into the air until she twirled in a feathery maelstrom. Genii laughed out loud, both in his memory and for real. The sound was odd in the dark cave, his voice rusty from disuse.
Unbidden, her name rose to his lips. “Artio, my love,” he rumbled. He clutched his chest, fingers curling into his shirt at the sharp spike of sensation where his stilled heart lay. Pain lanced through him with the acute throb of longing and despair.
***
Artio stood at the base of the falls and recalled the tornado. The mists parted and the swirling mass of water collapsed into the rocky pool. The falls resumed their normal coursing, tumbling into the basin and splashing over rapids as they roared away, destined to join the meandering River Erinn. Artio plucked a leaf and tossed it into the waters and watched it bob and spin, thinking over her encounter with Helga. She had thought to find an ally, not an enemy. She had thought that Helga would champion alongside her, but something was off. Artio looked back at the dark mountain fortress, and a crease formed between her brows. She strolled along the bank and gazed at the rock, willing answers from its stony face, but it remained silent—silent as the grave. She stared at it for several long minutes, arms folded across her chest. With a growl, she opened the furled note and read the words scrawled on the paper.
You will find Alfreda riding toward the Crystal Caves, formed when the moon collapsed. She rides with a mortal you should find interesting. Caerwyn is a guest of my puppet, Alcina, and it amuses me for him to stay with her for the time being.
Artio crumpled the note and tossed it into the waters. The second it hit the water, it flashed into flame then sputtered, sinking below the surface and out of sight.
So, I must return to the scene of my demise, but is this by accident or by design?
It bothered Artio to blindly follow Helga’s instructions, but the desire for revenge overshadowed her caution. She turned her back on the cliff face, and a shadow slid across a cave opening several stories above her.
Friend or foe she did not know, but it was past time for lingering. She strode away from Helga’s realm without looking back.
Chapter 25
Decisions
MORDECAI PACED THE CONFINES of the squat circular tent set up as the meeting hall for the Kingsmen. In one hand, he held a book and in the other, his focus stone. It glowed softly and provided the only source of light in the otherwise dark tent.
In the early morning hours after Cayden’s disappearance, they’d searched the surrounding woods for his trail. Scouts followed his faint path until the trail became unmistakable, trampled by the hooves of many horses. It was a simple matter to follow the all-too-obvious trail to the outskirts of the legion before turning back. No attempt had been made to disguise their passing. There was no sign of a struggle, no sign that Cayden had not joined up with them willingly.
Denzik stood on a raised four-square wooden platform that put him about half the height of the crowd taller, his hairy forearms folded across his chest, and stared impassively at the milling, muttering Kingsmen. The scouts fidgeted, their feet shifting at being the center of attention in the camp and the object of their fellow Kingsmen’s displeasure.
“But, Captain, if the king joined them willingly, would he refuse to leave if we mounted a rescue?” They knew where he was being held, but how to get him out was still a point of argument amongst the Kingsmen.
“Don’t be daft!” snapped Fabian, brandishing a towel snatched from over his shoulder where he had flung it as he dashed away from the camp kitchen. “Cayden would no more join them than I would volunteer to cook for the former queen.” He smirked, as he had done that exact thing to originally assist in rescuing Cayden, but it was unlikely to work twice. Denzik’s lips twitched at the comment and then settled back into their straight line.
“Then he was taken!” shouted another from the crowd.
“There were no signs of a struggle,” volunteered a red-haired scout, “and no one came into the camp. No one got past the guards. He simply walked away.”
“Maybe he was invisible!” shouted another.
Nelson growled deep in his throat. “Listen, you lump-heads! Cayden cannot turn invisible any more than you or I can. He is as human as any of us and can die just as easily. He would not give himself willingly to the enemy, especially an enemy that wants him dead. He wouldn’t do it.” Nelson divided his silver-browed glare equally amongst all present. He brandished a long-handled spoon as he would a sword, challenging anyone to doubt his words.
Muttering arose from the Kingsmen, each man talking to his neighbour and waving his arms to make his opinion heard, divided on how to approach the rescue of the king. Denzik heard snatches of “guards asleep on the watch” and “the king has magic—I saw it” and “Alcina is a witch and can turn herself invisible”; but the most outlandish one of all was “Cayden became the eagle. He can transform, you know.”
Denzik unfolded his arms and held up his hands, shouting over the din. “If you will all quiet down, there is someone here who knows what happened.” The murmuring trailed away. Once silence descended, Denzik motioned Mordecai forward.
Mordecai sensed Cayden through the stone. He had found it in Cayden’s tent, whether abandoned or forgotten he did not know, but it had performed as expected. The stone was meant to provide interference against the Soul Fetch to allow Cayden to retain control of his mind, but now that he had been taken and the stone abandoned, it provided a perfect beacon, a link that only he could trace. Mordecai had no need of the Kingsmen to locate Cayden. Since the beginning—the real beginning—he had been able to find the Spirit Shields by the stones. It was not because of any special ability he had, but because of a stone he’d possessed.
Once, Mordecai had owned many such stones, but the very first stone he had found as a child, he’d kept inside a special box, black as coal, from which light did not escape. The rarity of such a box had escaped his understanding as a child, having been passed down from mother to daughter, daughter to grandson. He had always had it but had never seen its like in the kingdom in all the hundreds of years spent serving the royal family of Cathair. His father was long dead, and all of those who now lived had forgotten that he was also of the royal house, a sidelined branch of the family tree.
One can always locate family.
Mordecai mounted the platform and stood before the assembled
Kingsmen, expectant faces staring at the rarity of a wizard. Silence fell.
“My good fellows! Locating the king is not the difficult part. Rescuing him is a possibility, yet it is fraught with danger which you do not understand. Cayden is a captive of mind and soul, not of body. What you seek to free is his person, yet what holds him captive is his mind. This is not a foe you are equipped to battle. Swords will not free him, nor will stealth be able to sneak him away. He is enslaved. To free him, we must break the bond that holds him. But mark my words, the breaking of that bond could kill him as well as any blade.”
The Kingsmen shifted their feet and more than one face crinkled in bewilderment. Men of action rarely knew how to respond when the foe was not brandishing a sword in their face.
“Alcina knows this and made no attempt to hide their actions for this very reason. If we are foolish enough to challenge her hold on Cayden, to boldly attack her and the legionnaires, she can snuff out his life before we set the first blade to throat. We would never reach him in time, and we would find a lifeless corpse when we did.”
Angry, frustrated voices flashed between the men, fingers flexing on sword grips as they fought the urge to draw blade and dash out to engage the enemy.
“No, we must be very wise in what we do.” Mordecai held up his hands to indicate silence, but Denzik bellowed, “Quiet!” and silence fell once more.