Remedy Maker

by Sheri Fredricks

  Rhycious—now there’s a contradiction. She huffed a nasal laugh to herself. Widely famed Remedy Maker, a powerful warrior trained to wield a sword. A man of peace and healing, yet searching for the villains who attempted to kill his queen and threatened their society’s structure.

  Like the human’s biblical hero, Daniel, who was thrown into the lions’ den, Patience found herself locked in obscurity when Rhycious pushed the rock door closed behind them. Her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark—she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face.

  Behind her, tumblers in the door’s lock fastened in place, resounding clicks broke the still, musty gloom. A trickle of water played off-key notes in the blind distance.

  And Patience’s heart began to pound.

  Twenty

  Patience’s eyes widened as she stared straight ahead. The stale scent of cold, wet stone filled the air. Dust sifted down, covering her hair and shoulders.

  “Go on.” Rhy’s hand touched her back.

  “Go where? I can’t see crap in here.” It was a game of Blind Man’s Bluff on a totally different scale. Not one to freak out in small places, her chest tightened with anxiety. “Ugh! Something touched my face.” She batted the empty air around her head.

  Rhycious’s heavy hand came down on her shoulder and she nearly made a deposit on the floor.

  “Close your eyes,” he said. Warm air washed over her ear. His other hand snaked around her waist and drew her against him. Moist heat seeped through the back of her thin tank top where their bodies touched. The surrounding rocks bounced her breath like sonar pings, rasping loud in the silent cave.

  Not that it’d make a bit of difference in the pitch dark, she closed her eyes. Warm dampness of a different type covered her mouth and took advantage of her parted lips. Fingers at her jaw tilted her head slightly to the side. Rhy’s lips formed to hers. His hands tangled in her hair, massaging her scalp as he kissed her. The dual action relaxed her tense body, slowed her erratic heart, and she realized he’d done it on purpose.

  “Open your eyes,” he whispered.

  Though dark, she saw they were in a narrow hall and it was marginally brighter.

  “Better?” His fingers continued to stroke her throat, caressing her collarbone. A shudder rippled through her when he covered her breast and played with a happy nipple.

  “You’re swapping one emotion for another.” Back arched, she pushed her breast into his palm, and her butt into the hard lump in his pants. “This is a much better feeling.”

  Rhycious kissed her, his lips insisting. He gently squeezed her breast before unwrapping himself from around her. “Give me your hand, agape mou.”

  He took her fingers unerringly, as if he could see in the dark, and led her across the bumpy ground.

  “How do you know where you’re going?”

  She listened in bewilderment to his chuckling, until the absurdity of her question hit. She tried to imagine him galloping full speed through the narrow passage, wearing his battle armor and weaponry. How the sound of hundreds of hooves striking rock would deafen in the hollow space.

  Patience cut the vision short before blood and gore splashed her mental canvas. Unable to imagine Rhycious in the gruesome scene, she shook her head. It didn’t make sense. Yet somehow, he had done it. Because as they moved down a sloped floor, she felt familiarity in his stride and confidence in knowing when to make turns.

  A shiver chickaboomed down her arms seconds before goose bumps broke out.

  Wood Nymphs walk into the hidden palace, but they never walk out.

  The frightful childhood tale whispered from her memories. Time to change her mental perception, or she’d completely freak out.

  “Look at this,” Patience said, scrabbling for a distracting thought. “There’s light glowing from specks in the walls. It looks like fire flies stuck to tree sap.”

  “It’s a type of crystal. You’ll see more of them in a minute.”

  Farther down the tunnel, around a corner, the temperature rose and the light increased. Humid air enveloped her and she welcomed the warmth. Geothermal heated groundwater perhaps, but she didn’t smell the sulfur usually accompanying it. Instead, she inhaled citrus trees in full bloom.

  At this point, she didn’t need his guiding touch, but she enjoyed the sensation of Rhy’s big hand cradling hers, so she let him lead her like a toddler. His fingers tightened around hers, giving a squeeze. Such a simple connection, yet her confidence was instantly restored.

  “Here we are,” he said.

  The dark passageway rounded a final bend and opened to an enormous, well-lit cavern. Neatly trimmed bluegrass covered the floor, absorbing the echo of a multitude of voices and hooves. Granite walls curved inward, rising three stories high and surrounded the circular room, their ancient pallor reminiscent of gray hair with white sparkling stripes.

  Over on the left, a marble fountain bubbled. Water spurted from a trumpet the rearing Centaur statue blew. Orange and lemon trees in giant fire-glazed urns provided an outdoor feel to the underground cave. No chance of taproots, she noted. Benches and seating areas clustered, giving the space a park-like setting. On the second floor, open balconies viewed the hub of activity in the courtyard below.

  “Rhycious. It’s beautiful.”

  He grasped her around the waist and tugged her close. Springy grass sank beneath her boots, a thick luxurious carpet. Scents of cinnamon and clove perfumed the air, though she couldn’t tell where it originated.

  “Come this way.” He led her through one side of a green stone twice-over archway, and then veered toward a huge double staircase. Each set of stairs curled around an open center in which stood a marble statue of Bacchus holding a flagon of wine. Posed next to him, one fleeced leg held in mid stride, Pan blew his flutes.

  “Holy toes of Bacchus. I’ve only imagined places like this in fairy tales.”

  Stationed near the arch, a sentry guard in true form stalked toward them with a scowl. Woven with contempt, the guard’s black tail swished behind him. “Are you insane?” Hateful black eyes glared at her. “Get that thing out of here.”

  Rhycious took a protective step in front of her, tensing as the guard approached. Patience would have taken a step back if Rhy had let her.

  Heavily muscled, aggression leaching off him in waves, the guard was the poster boy for steroids. And jeezaloo, the dude needed facial reconstruction. What remained of his nose turned a thirty-degree angle and lay flat as two-day-old road kill. Maybe the secret door didn’t open for him. Next to his flattened beak, cold ebony eyes were the only feature discernible, a bushy black beard covered the rest of his glowering face.

  The guard carried his flint tipped lance and took position in front of them, its sharp tip pointed diagonally toward the rock ceiling.

  “I’m here by orders of Her Majesty.” Taller than the sentry, Rhy took the opportunity to look down his straight nose at him. “My guest and I request entry.”

  “Denied. Now get that piece of shit out of here.”

  Patience sucked in her bottom lip. A glance took in the sudden still and quiet of the atrium, all eyes on them. Centaur mares with children stopped visiting with others, whispering in their foals’ ears, pointing fingers in her direction. Their stares were wary and distrustful. She leaned her weight on one leg, and then shifted to the other, closer to Rhy’s protective bulk.

  . . . and they never walk out.

  “We are here by order of Queen Savella.” Rhy’s voice rose louder, or maybe it just seemed that way in the sudden silence.

  * * *

  Rhycious narrowed his eyes, piercing the guard with every hostile cell he had. Liquor tainted the male’s breath, and that just pissed Rhy off. Slow to react, incompetent as hell, this Centaur needed a dressing down. The soldier’s use of profanity against Patience wasn’t unnoticed.

  Rhy’s right hand, the one he threw his best punches with, curled into a tight fist.

  Above them on the second floor, rhythmic taps from a s
ingle set of hooves rang out on the polished floor. When the Centaur reached the top of the staircase, the hoof steps stopped. Rhycious looked over the offensive guard’s head.

  Sculpted arms crossed over a buttery-soft leather vest marked with the royal insignia. Heavily armed as always, Kempor Hippolyte grinned down at him. Her chestnut coat gleaming, she reached a hand to prop against the balustrade.

  “Problems admitting the royal remedy maker, Corporal Gerard?” She called. The inquiry floated out and filled the vestibule with her voice. Definitely female, yet commanding in tone.

  “Yes, ma’am. He insists that this . . . Nymph,” Gerard spat the word, as if just saying it were toxic, “is here by orders of Her Majesty.”

  Patience’s huge turquoise eyes shot glances between him, Hippy, and Corporal Gerard. Tremors shook her body every few minutes, and that worried Rhy. He’d kept the walk to the palace at an easy pace, never pushing harder than necessary. After resting nearly two days in her taproot tree, she should have been physically rejuvenated and medically healthy. Concern for her well-being and undiagnosed shivers distracted his concentration. Rhycious tucked her closer to his side.

  “Hippy, would you inform this highly excitable guard that we have permission to pass?” Rhy shot a look at Gerard to match his droll tone. While he sent the impression of relaxed unconcern, his warrior senses remained aware. Another quiver passed through Patience’s stiff body, her breathing shallow and fast.

  Gerard angled his equine body, standing between them and the staircase. The gloved hand clasping the twenty-foot-long pike shook worse than Patience. Sweat popped out on the male’s forehead and his flattened nose reddened. Rhy didn’t know when the guard’s shift ended, but if the DT’s were hitting him in less than eight hours, he needed alcohol abuse counseling.

  Hippy straightened from the corner of the staircase and planted her hooves foursquare. Rhycious noted her smile disappearing.

  “Corporal, Queen Savella would bid the Remedy Maker and his guest, to enter at once.” She frowned at the guard.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Gerard lifted a fist to his chest and saluted Hippy. Mouth pushed down at the corners, derision in every line of the guard’s posture, he backed up. “You may enter.”

  Patience murmured, “Thank you,” with her eyes downcast, but Rhycious kept his eyes level and locked on Gerard.

  “Take fifteen grams of dandelion root with a large glass of water.” Rhy suggested. “Then eat two oranges. That should take care of your withdrawals for a while—but I suggest you quit the sauce altogether and become abstemious.”

  Corporal Gerard’s jaw muscles clenched and he sniffed a chilly reply. Flat black eyes rimmed in red, stared in contemptuous regard.

  I can’t save them all.

  Rhy kept his arm around Patience until they reached the top of the stairs. He cut a sharp glance to see her face had paled and she was breathing through her mouth. Anxiously he searched his mind for the reason why her health condition would continue to deteriorate.

  “Rhycious. Good to see you again.” Hippolyte’s hooves clattered toward them on the portion of stone floor not covered in lawn. Her pasted smile flashed in their direction while her eyes scanned the area below. She performed her job well in the public eye.

  Patience leveled her shoulders and straightened her back. Pride for his pixie grew when her delicate chin rose off her chest. She gave an imperious glance of nonchalance over her shoulder at Gerard, who stabbed them with eyes glaring daggers, then returned her attention to Hippy.

  Rhycious stepped forward and made introductions. “Hippy, I’d like you to meet Patience.” Hippy reached to take her offered hand. “She’s my liaison in the Wood Nymph sector and a very good friend.”

  Ha! Try the friend factor on yourself for size. Rhy’s thought was spiteful.

  “Patience, Kempor Hippolyte is the Inner Sanctum guard and provides personal security to Her Majesty.”

  “Wassup, Hippy?” Patience twisted away from where he had her plastered against his side.

  Amusement twinkled in Hippy’s sage green eyes. One hand rested on her hip as she looked from Patience to Rhy, giving him the once over.

  Her smile stretching, she inclined her head toward Rhy, and asked Patience, “Does he give you much trouble?” Her equine body swung to the left and she indicated the direction they should walk. “I know how hard-headed Rhycious can be.”

  Patience grinned up at Hippy from her diminutive height and fell into step beside her, mindful of the Kempor’s swinging hip sword. “That jank be bonk, but as far as kickin’ it, Rhy’s got mad skizills.”

  Hippy threw back her head and laughed, causing Centaurs on the lower level to glance their way. “Well said, little Nymph. Well said.”

  Don’t give me that shit, Hippy. You don’t even know what the hell she said . . . Do you?

  Rhy trailed behind like an extra leg. The girls yakked it up, discussing odd subjects such as corduroy and denim, organza over voile. Patience waved her animated hands describing clothing styles and textures. Unashamedly, he studied her profile each time her face turned toward Hippy.

  They’ll probably by BFF’s by the end of the meeting. He snorted sarcastically to himself.

  Patience’s strength of character drew him to her as if he were climbing hand over hand across a stretched rope. Her dream of seeing the species of Boronda living in co-mingled harmony—the way it used to be—was his dream too.

  Why the old king, Savella’s uncle, attempted to readjust the balance of power to tip in the Centaurs favor, he’d never understand. The system had worked fine for the last recorded millennia. Patience worked hard to restore an ultimate goal she herself had never experienced; she had sprouted after the Great War and been raised on the bedtime stories.

  After multiple turns in a labyrinth of corridors, the females chatting the entire time, they walked down a portrait-lined hall toward Savella’s office.

  “Absolutely,” Patience answered, nodding to something Hippy asked. “And with your summit height and wicked physique, the symmetrical lines of the style are going to blow them away.”

  Tough as last week’s hoof clippings, Kempor Hippolyte blushed at Patience’s words of praise.

  Oblivious to Hippy’s pink-eared embarrassment, his little Nymph rattled on. “Long legs with spike-heeled sandals, and a red dress that’ll wrap your figure like a passion flower vine. All the males in the palace will say, ‘Boo-yah, who’s yo daddy?’”

  Hippy grinned and Patience continued ticking attributes off her fingers, explaining how the queen’s personal bodyguard, draped in her tailor-made designs, would make even the sexiest Water Nymphs of Boronda cry with envy.

  Positive attitudes decreased the likelihood of mental depression. At least that’s what Rhy had studied in regards to his own self-therapy. Filled with an abundant amount of PMA—positive mental attitude—Patience made sure everyone around her had their healthy dose.

  His life lacked anything remotely encouraging over the past centuries. Her freely given optimism soaked into his body’s parched cells, hydrating his depleted sanguinity. It was one of many traits he’d found to love about Patience in the brief time they’d known each other.

  Hippy slowed as they approached the guard decorating the front of an office door. Their profiles reflected from the flat, shiny surface of Her Majesty’s royal brass seal affixed to the entryway.

  “Bastian, permission to enter.” Hippolyte said, more of an order than a request. As Savella’s bodyguard, she hardly required the permission of an outer door sentry to enter the queen’s personal space. In order to appear polite in front of others, formality played out.

  Fist to chest, the young male bowed a stiff salute to his superior officer. Bastian’s eyes slid to Patience, who stood off to the side with a cocked hip, gazing at an oil painting of some ancient member of the royal family.

  Mouth pinched in a distasteful grimace, Bastian asked Hippolyte, “All of you?” His gaze returned to Patience, scanned h
er length, and he cleared his throat, loudly.

  As with Patience, Bastian hadn’t been foaled before the Centaur-Wood Nymph war broke out. Rhy gauged the male to be in his early first century, if that. Perhaps he’d seen some military action, but not from the bad end of a halberd or sword. If he’d seen the war, it had been as a civilian colt.

  The slow burn of anger Rhycious managed to control unraveled as the first knot slid free of its confines.

  Protective. He named the emotion that tumbled his control—along with tendrils of disgust and impatience the palace guards brought out. Latissimus dorsi muscles on either side of his back expanded on his inward breath, stretching like wings unfurled. He stepped closer to Bastian and towered over the guard.

  What it boiled down to was ignorance of other woodland nationalities. Time to set him straight.

  “Your behavior toward this representative is unjustified. She’s a guest of Her Majesty’s and mine, and I find you bordering on offensive.”

  Hippy placed a restraining hand on Rhycious’s forearm. “Bastian is performing his duties as required.” She lowered her voice to a whisper and let her hand slide away. “Don’t let your personal involvement cloud your good sense.”

  Patience rejoined them, having overheard his remarks to the door guard. Laying her palm on Rhy’s rigid lower back, she rubbed slow, massaging circles. The concentrated spirals reeled his anger back into himself with every lap.

  Hippy was right. With every full rotation of Earth, the procession of equinoxes drew closer—and his stallion side grew stronger.

  “It’s all cool here,” Patience said, her face upturned to his. Then she flashed a blinding smile to Bastian. “I think it’s rad to drop science and impart face time to rock the youthquaken. You feel me?”

  Revulsion drifted to confusion and with it, Bastian’s expression turned to bewilderment. He looked to his CO for an explanation, only to find hard emerald eyes glinting with condescension peering back.