by Nichelle Rae
He tried to step past me but I quickly put myself in his way. “She doesn’t want to be checked.”
“Please. I’m an herbest. I can help her.”
He tried to get past me again, and again I stepped in front of him. He was my height, so it was easy to get in his face. “She doesn’t need help.” He had something to do with her nightmare; I know he did.
“I’d like to hear that from her, if you don’t mind.” Again, he tried to go around me, adamant about seeing her for some reason.
Just by being in the room he was too close to my sister. I quickly took up the front of his shirt with my free hand and held my knife to his throat with the other. “I’m not going to tell you again,” I warned venomously, my teeth clenched with barely bitten back rage. “She’s fine. Now get out.” I slowly forced him backward away from the bed and toward the door and shoved him out into the hall, slamming the door in his face.
I turned and saw Ortheldo in front of the fireplace pulling his pants on. “Couch,” he said as he buckled them. We each ran and took an end of the couch, lifting it toward the door and setting it down, blocking any entry.
We both went to Azrel and sat on either side of the bed; she was sobbing. I looked at her helplessly. In all the years that Azrel had lived with Mother and me in The Pitt she never cried. Not once. I never saw one single tear, though the monsters there often did cruel things to her that would make a grown man bawl like an infant; but not Azrel. Now, since this journey began, it seemed like all she did was cry.
Ortheldo rubbed her back. “Azrel, he’s gone.”
Azrel slowly lowered the blanket from her eyes and looked at the doorway to be sure, then removed it from her face and rolled onto her back. I brushed away some strands of hair that clung to her wet cheeks. “Why did you cover your face when he came in?”
Her eyes didn’t leave the ceiling. “Beldorn told me a long time ago, before I even met you, that if I ever found myself in a position where I had to cry, then I should hide my tears.” Her eyes slightly narrowed. “His words came so clear to me all the sudden, as if he was standing in that doorway screaming them at me himself.”
“Azrel,” Ortheldo said, resting his hand on her cheek, “why did you wake up screaming and struggling?”
Azrel looked at him embarrassed. “It was just a nightmare,” she replied dismissively and looked away.
“Just a nightmare?” Ortheldo pressed. “Tell me what happened.”
Her brows dropped as she looked at him again. “What does it matter?” she asked defensively. “It’s over. I’m awake.”
“Azrel,” Ortheldo said with obviously strained patience, “tell me what happened in your nightmare. I want every detail.”
Azrel’s eyes went wide with disbelief and panic that he was pushing so hard, and then she got angry. “Don’t worry about it! It’s over!” she cried, throwing the blankets off and storming over to the clothes rack.
“Azrel, please,” Ortheldo begged, standing up. “At least tell me if your dream involved a strange green light.”
I felt my skin crawl as I snapped my head over to look at Ortheldo in disbelief. Why was he mentioning something that had appeared in my own terrifying dream?
Azrel sighed and rubbed her hand over her face. “No,” she replied shortly, then began to dress again. “We might as well get going. I won’t be able to go back to sleep.” She bent over, pulling her boot on, and looked up at us. “Did you both sleep enough?”
Ortheldo and I nodded and made our way over to our clothes. I noticed Ortheldo looked a little troubled and dazed, as if he had something on his mind. When he caught me looking at him, he just shook his head to dismiss the matter for now. He’d probably tell me later.
Before opening the door to leave, I pulled out my knife lest that stranger be waiting around to torment my sister some more. I opened the door, poked my head out and looked up and down the narrow hallway. Nothing was in sight but that didn’t mean he wasn’t nearby. We crept into the hall single file, each of us looking both ways to be sure we wouldn’t have any trouble.
As we made our way down the stairs, my stomach suddenly growled so loudly Azrel and Ortheldo laughed. I smiled self-consciously. “I don’t suppose we could get something to eat before we leave?”
Chuckling, Azrel put an arm around my waist. “Of course. We can’t have you starving to death, now can we? Besides,” she looked over her shoulder toward the window at the end of the hallway, “I’m in absolutely no hurry to go back out in that!” Ortheldo and I laughed our agreement as we walked down the stairs to the common.
It was early afternoon, before lunchtime, so the common was nearly empty. The three of us sat ourselves in the far back corner, Ortheldo up against the wall between Azrel and me. The server girl must have sensed our starvation because she quickly came over to us.
“What can I get you gentle folks?”
There wasn’t much of a choice, roast beast or deer, but the ravenous thought of getting food in my stomach made me not care. After we put our requests in and she walked away, I suddenly wished I’d ordered some onion soup to go with my meal.
“I’ll go tell her for you,” Azrel said suddenly.
I shifted my eyes to her smirking face and chuckled. “Thank you.”
She got up and I shook my head, amazed that she could read eyes so well.
Suddenly Ortheldo gripped my arm so hard and so fast I jumped. I looked at him, and his expression was so full of alarm that I felt my heart start to beat faster. “Rabryn, we have to find out what Azrel’s nightmare was about,” he said in a low tone. “Please, somehow get it out of her.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
He released my arm and looked down. “Just do as I say,” he whispered.
I was about to ask why again when I saw Azrel coming back. Brilliant! Scaring me to death just before the best eye reader in the world sits down at the table. I forced a smile, which she would see through like the glass in the windows.
Her smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Ortheldo lied in a cheerful tone.
My mind raced; she wasn’t going to buy that. How could I get the details of her nightmare while burying this bone of worry she now had in her teeth?
“Guys,” she said in a tone of warning.
I knew Azrel. She had her teeth in this bone and she wasn’t going to let it go. Finally, an idea came to me. I let out an exasperated sigh. “Ortheldo, just tell her.” He looked up at me with eyes filled with sincere confusion, wondering what I was doing.
“Tell me what?” she asked suspiciously.
I sighed and looked back at Azrel. “He had a nightmare last night, too, but he’s afraid to tell you about it because he doesn’t want you to think he’s weak. But I think he needs your comfort more than he needs mine.”
I glanced at Ortheldo. The corners of his mouth were turned up, rather impressed with me as he caught on. Before Azrel noticed, he changed his expression to look ashamed, quickly frowning and getting into character. “Rabryn, I confided that in you, as a friend.” His hands fidgeted in an act of nervousness, picking at his nails and such. I had to hold back a smile.
“Since when can you confide in my brother more than me?” Azrel asked, clearly offended. “You’ve known me for more than half your life, and you’ve known Rabryn for barely over a week!”
“Azrel, it’s not that I didn’t want to confide in you. I just thought you’d see me as weak, like Rabryn said.” He paused and acted like he was debating whether to say the next thing on his mind or not. “I…it’s just,” he sighed and his shoulders sagged. “I woke up crying.”
I pressed my tongue tightly inside my cheek and kept my eyes on the tabletop to keep from laughing. I thought for a minute that Azrel wouldn’t buy that, but his performance worked.
“Ortheldo,” Azrel rested her hand on top of his and stopped his finicky picking. “I have seen the mighty side of you far more often than the so
rrowful side. I would never consider you weak. Please tell me.”
He and I glanced at each other. My idea wasn’t working. My mind raced, wondering how to get her to talk first. “Azrel, you never show weakness,” I said at last.
Her face went solemn. “I did upstairs, didn’t I?” Bingo! That’s what I wanted. She looked back at Ortheldo. “Would you feel better if I told you what made me cry?”
Both our eyes lit up, but Ortheldo kept his gaze on the tabletop so he wouldn’t seem too eager. “Maybe, but I doubt your weakness compares remotely to mine.”
Nice touch, I mentally congratulated him.
Azrel sighed. “It just might come close.” Her face scrunched in thought. “It was so real.” After a moment, she put her elbow on the tabletop and rested her head in one hand. She drew on the table with the other, seeming a little absent minded. “I’ve forgotten most of it already.” Ortheldo’s shoulders sagged with disappointment. “But what I do remember is that I was standing in a building of some sort. The details of the building are gone, but a man was standing across from me, clad entirely in black with a black mask on. He was watching me with this strange, alien, evil intensity. His eyes burned into me. We watched each other for a long time.
“Then he raised his hand, and snakes shot out from his palm,” she winced. “They were huge snakes with dripping fangs, and they came right at my face. They bit me and burrowed their way into my skin. One of them even went up my nose and another into my mouth.”
The table trembled a bit with all three of our horrified shudders. I found myself rubbing my arms to warm the chill that crept all over my skin from imagining what she was describing.
Her eyes narrowed as if she were watching the vision happen and wasn’t sure if it was real or not. “I could feel them. I could see them just under the surface of my skin. The long bumps of their bodies were swimming up my legs and arms until they got to my head. Then they started breaking my skull bones to get into my brain.” Azrel hunched in her seat and held her head in both hands as if she were feeling the snakes now. “The next thing I remember is that I was on my back on the floor. The man in black was on top of me.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “He was…inside of me, having his way with me.” Just as I was about to console her, she sniffed and shook her head. “Then I woke up.” She forced a smile at us. “It’s stupid to get upset about this. It was only a dream.”
“While he was…doing that to you, was he angry? Or was he laughing and…or something of the sort?”
“Oh, he was angry,” she replied with a firm nod. “No doubt about that.” I saw Ortheldo visibly relax at her response. He must have concluded something, but I was lost.
“It was so real. As tired as I was—as we all were—I was never happier to wake up.” Ortheldo and I both smiled. “Okay, your turn,” Azrel suddenly said.
“My turn?” Ortheldo asked.
“Tell me about your nightmare.”
“Oh,” Ortheldo shrugged. “It wasn’t as bad as yours, and I don’t remember much of it. All I remember is that my brother somehow came back to life and butchered all my friends and my parents, right before my eyes.” Before I could take that to heart, Ortheldo winked at me so Azrel couldn’t see. I had to hold back another smile.
“Oh, Gods,” Azrel said, taking his hands into hers. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” he replied, then put a sad, innocent look on his face. “I just wish Rabryn hadn’t forced me to tell you. Do you think less of me now?”
“Of course not,” she said gently. “I count on you for comfort when I need it. I’ll never hesitate to comfort you if you need me to.”
That look came into his eyes again—the look that would tell strangers miles away that he was hopelessly and deeply in love with her. Such love, to be looked at like that, would have burned a hole into the soul of any other woman, but not Azrel. She was blind to it. How she couldn’t see what Ortheldo felt for her was beyond me. What baffled me more, was how Ortheldo could keep such strong feelings inside. It seemed to me he should be on every mountain peak, screaming how much he loved her, at the very top of his lungs so the entire world could hear him.
Azrel smiled at him and then our meal was set before us. “Ohhh,” we all crooned in pleasure at the site of food. We each voiced our sincere thanks to the server girl and dug in heartily.
In the middle of our meal, I suddenly went rigid as I felt those cold, dark blue eyes on me again. I subtly shifted my eyes around the common, looking for him. I didn’t see him, but he was looking at us. I felt those eyes as we finished our meal. I felt them as we gather our horses. And I still felt them after we’d been on the road for more than two hours.
“What do you think?”
He shook his head then bowed it until his chin was resting on his chest. “I don’t know, and I dare not guess for fear of Lord Hathum’s wraith. He nearly choked the life out of me the last time I gave him false hope.”
“Jonoic, please trust me. It’s her.”
He looked up at me like a scared child. “You said yourself you searched her mind and found nothing.”
I tried to keep my composure. If I lost control he surely wouldn’t take my information to Lord Hathum. “You know how conniving and powerful the White Warrior is. She may have somehow hidden her magic if…”
“Not possible,” he interrupted with the most confidence he’d displayed since I called him to this mental meeting.
I bit back an urge to scream at him. “Jonoic, I know you fear Lord Hathum. Who wouldn’t? But you must trust me. Take my information to him. Tell him that he was right about the White Warriors companions and that only he can find her magic in…”
“I can’t,” he sobbed.
My thread of patience finally snapped. I punched him in the mouth, knocking him to the “floor.” “Stop blubbering, you damn fool! You sound like a little girl who just wet herself on stage!”
He looked up at me with big, frightened eyes, and I realized just how afraid of Lord Hathum he really was. No matter what I said right now, he wasn’t going to tell the Lord my information.
“Fine!” I shouted. “Take me to Lord Hathum then! I’ll tell him myself, and I’ll take the heat if I’m wrong, which I’m not!”
Jonoic shook his head and looked down shamefully. “You can’t get to Lord Hathum’s mind without my leave, and if you’re wrong he’ll kill me anyway, just for delivering you to him.”
I clenched my fists at my sides and absently started cracking my knuckles, desperately trying not to lose my temper on him.
“Please, Glessar,” he said pathetically as he finally stood up. “I just need proof. Then I will be more than happy to take you to his Lordship.”
I relaxed a bit. I couldn’t blame him for fearing Lord Hathum so much. I didn’t deal with him on a daily basis, so I wasn’t fully aware of what he was like; Jonoic was. “And seeing the white tears would be enough?”
Jonoic’s mood brightened, “Have you seen them?”
“No, but I almost did. I made her cry once. I can do it again. It should be easy enough, if that blasted Salynn stays out of my way!”
“What about the Dwellingpath heir that Lord Hathum foresaw?”
I smiled smugly. “That whelp may have royal blood, but he’s no throne heir. He’s little threat.” I considered Jonoic again. “Will you not reconsider telling the Lord that his visions proved true? He may accept that and go to her to find the magic that I couldn’t.”
The big man shook his head. “Lord Hathum isn’t too keen on his visions right now. He recently checked on two people that he foresaw crossing the White Warrior’s path, and both have vanished. He’s now developing a way to look at all his servants’ last few minutes before they vanish, so he might know what happened to them. He was hoping to also see what happen to the two already missing.”
“Which two are lost?”
“Jaravel, a known criminal, and Ibalissa, a peasant girl he mentally tortured to ensure her cooperation.”
/> “He doesn’t know what happened to them?”
His brows drew together almost defensively. “They’d have to be dead to prevent Lord Hathum from entering their minds.”
It made sense, but my patience was running thin dealing with this bonehead. “Very well, I’ll get the proof Lord Hathum wants. You just be ready to take me to him when I call you back to a mental meeting.”
I was about to pull back from my subconscious and end this conversation when Jonoic called my name. I looked back to see a sly grin on his face. “Is she attractive?”
I kept my face neutral. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I know Lord Hathum, and if this woman is indeed the White Warrior, I’m sure it would please him if she’s attractive.”
I smiled, that was certainly the truth. “She is beyond a sight his eyes have probably ever seen,” I stated honestly, “and I know how long he’s lived.”
Jonoic’s grin widened excitedly. “Can you show her to me?”
I smiled, then concentrated, and brought forth the image of the woman I was watching. Jonoic’s jaw fell open. She had hypnotizing bright blue eyes, long, brown hair down to the middle of her back and peach porcelain skin that shone with rainwater. The perfect shape of her body was exposed through her wet clothes clinging to those sinful curves. She smiled right then, and Jonoic dropped to his knees in awe of her flawless beauty. She then ran her fingers through her soaking hair and laughed as she pulled it to the side, and even I felt my knees go weak. If the Lord Hathum wanted the White Warrior to be attractive, he was going to be the farthest from disappointed he could possibly get.
“That’s the White Warrior?” Jonoic said in a breath.
I could only nod, not wanting to look away. My eyes went to her shapely hips and then settled on the Sword at her left side. That was the Sword my Lord Hathum was after, the Sword that held the element of the Light Gods, the power of Goodness. My jaw tightened. It was so near, yet so far away.
“Can I hear her? Please let me hear her,” Jonoic begged pathetically.
I curled my lip in disgust and pulled the image back out of view, leaving us surrounded by blackness again. The man looked distressed beyond reason as the image disappeared.