by T.M. Nielsen
***
Kyrin felt weird eating dinner with two dwarves and two knights watching her. Alric sat beside her and didn’t seem uneasy, even though the dwarves watched him closely. After a brief discussion with Daemionis, he agreed that Kyrin could sleep without a dwarven audience. Most of the castle was still trying to discern which of the dwarves was female.
One of the dwarves broke the silence with a loud belch.
Kyrin grinned slightly and kept eating.
“That one was a tad bit ripe,” the taller dwarf said, laughing.
The other dwarf nodded. “Smelt that one over here.”
Alric, irritated, whispered to Kyrin, “Does he have no manners at all?”
“She,” Kyrin corrected, “and dwarves aren’t known for their manners.”
“That was the female?”
“He’s not very bright, that one,” the taller dwarf said. “He don’t know his males from his females.”
Alric glanced at them and still couldn’t tell which the female was. He saw one of them pull out a flask and take a brief drink before putting it back into their coat.
“Now they’re drinking,” Alric said as he turned back to his dinner.
Kyrin shrugged. “Dwarves always drink. Which reminds me, don’t take any offers to try it. One sip and it’d knock you out for hours.”
“Is it poisonous?”
“No, just very strong.”
“So Daemionis lets his guards drink?”
“Only the dwarves. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dwarf drink water.”
Another belch sounded through the room, and the smaller dwarf laughed. Alric looked at Kyrin, but she didn’t stop eating and didn’t really seem to mind the disgusting intrusion.
When they were done eating, Kyrin headed up to her room where Saith was waiting. He eyed the dwarves curiously and then followed her into the bedroom.
“Have a seat,” Saith said, and pulled a chair up to the bed.
Kyrin sat down and checked to make sure the dwarves stayed out of the room.
“How are you feeling?” Saith asked, watching her.
“Fine”
“No pains?”
“No”
“Still hungry?”
“Constantly”
He smiled. “I would imagine that’s not going to get any better. Lie back, dear.”
Kyrin sighed and laid down, then ignored Saith as he poked around her exposed abdomen. She still felt it was wrong but didn’t see as though she had a choice.
He finished in silence and began to write in a book while Kyrin sat up again.
“Everything looks good. Still wonderful growth and only the two-headed demon,” Saith said, smiling.
She just nodded.
“Are you sleeping well?”
“No”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. My guess is it’s that bed.”
“That’s right. You prefer the floor.”
“Yes, but Alric said it’s weird.”
“It is. I’m thinking your back wouldn’t appreciate the floor. Anything else?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, same time next week,” Saith said, and then bowed and walked out. He was stopped by the dwarves until they saw that Kyrin was fine, and then he was allowed to pass.
When Alric came in for the night, Kyrin watched him get ready for bed and slip into the covers.
She nodded and then stood up and went to the door.
“Wait,” Alric said, sitting up. “Why do you keep taking off at night and leaving Azimeth in here? It’s not proper, and it’s getting kind of irritating.”
Kyrin thought for a moment. “Do you not want her tonight?”
“Want her to what?”
“I told you. I understand,” Kyrin said, and then stepped out and held the door for Azimeth.
Azimeth walked in and shrugged at the king when Kyrin left and shut the door.
“I don’t know,” Alric said, lying back down. “Just go.”
Azimeth bowed slightly and then stepped out and returned to her room.
When he woke up, he dressed and decided to go find out from Kyrin why she was sleeping in the Lady’s chambers again. He stepped into her antechamber and saw the dwarves kicked back on the couches while the knights stood awkwardly in the corners by the bedroom door.
Alric walked up to them. “Problems last night?”
“Not with the Lady, sir,” one of them said.
“What does that mean?”
“Those dwarves… they’re married, sir.”
“Okay”
“They kissed a good part of the night.”
Alric shivered and looked over at the two bearded dwarves. “They did?”
The closest knight looked a bit sick. “Yes, sir.”
“Sithias is working on getting them out of here. For now, just put up with it.”
The knight nodded and went back to his post. Alric quietly opened the bedroom door and peeked in at Kyrin sleeping. She was curled up on her side in the corner of the room on the floor. When she didn’t stir, he shut the door and went down to have breakfast made.
Alric was just sitting down when Kyrin joined him at the dining table. She poured herself a glass of water before even talking to him. Mornings were the hardest for her, knowing what Alric and Azimeth had done the night before.
She yawned and looked down at breakfast.
“Are you awake?” Alric asked, watching her.
Kyrin nodded. “Sort of.”
“Did you not sleep well?”
“Not really.”
“Do I get to know why you are sleeping in the Lady’s room on the floor?” he asked, pouring her some juice.
“I can move to the bed if it’s bothering you.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
She sighed. “I’m okay with it, really. However, I don’t want to be in that bed.”
Alric finally turned toward her. “You keep saying you’re okay with it. What exactly are you okay with?”
Kyrin put her fork down. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well I do.”
“Well I don’t.”
“She said she don’t want to talk about it,” the smaller of the dwarves said sternly.
Alric ignored him. “It’s confusing why you do it. It’s improper and awkward.”
She shrugged and then stood up. “I’m done.”
“You barely ate anything.”
“I’m fine,” she said, and walked out, followed by the dwarves and two knights.
Alric watched her go and then sat back, trying to decide how to handle the odd nightly ritual.
Kyrin was starving but didn’t want to think about Azimeth and Alric, let alone talk about it, so she headed out to the orchards. Azimeth met them out there and smiled as Kyrin picked an apple.
“They are best this time of year, don’t you think?” Azimeth asked.
Kyrin nodded and took another bite as she walked toward the trees. She hated how the elf was so beautiful and elegant. Her tiny waist and feminine movements made Kyrin want to kill her instantly.
“Where are we going?” one of the knights asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied, and then led the entourage deep into the forest.
The tallest dwarf looked over at the elf. “This that Lady in Waiting we heard about?”
Azimeth frowned, but Kyrin nodded. “Yes.”
“She ain’t much to look at.”
“Excuse me?” the elf asked, insulted.
Kyrin just nodded as she walked past another grove of trees and went deeper.
“We shouldn’t be this far out without more of us,” one of the knights told her.
“Why?”
“In case of a Qualsax attack.”
“We can take care of any humans,” the tallest dwarf said.
They all fell silent until the dwarf spoke again in a language the others didn’t understand.
Kyrin spun on him, furious. “Stop talking.”
“Why? You don’t want to know the truth?”
“It’s not the truth.”
“It is so! My husband and I wouldn’t have to be here babysitting if it wasn’t true.”
Azimeth took a step back when Kyrin reached under her skirt and pulled out her flail. The knights weren’t sure what to do either when she attacked the tallest dwarf, who had now drawn her sword.
When the knights started forward to separate them, the smaller dwarf put his hand out. “Let the two’o them fight it out. Kyrin had this coming.”
Kyrin’s flail came within inches of smashing the female dwarf in the head, but then she had to jump back, just as the dwarf’s sword cut through her dress, barely missing her protruding stomach.
Kyrin screamed furiously when the dwarf’s sword slashed into her upper arm, but she countered and slammed the balls of her flail into the dwarven breastplate, cracking it in two.
The knights hadn’t noticed that Azimeth ran off when the fight started, until she returned with Finn and another of the higher-ranking knights.
“Enough!” Finn yelled, and pulled Kyrin away from the fight as the other knight restrained the dwarf.
The smaller dwarf then ran forward, sword drawn. “Don’t touch my wife!”
The two knights moved to him quickly and grabbed onto the smaller dwarf, and held him away from the others as Kyrin and the female dwarf fought to get free.
“Let me go!” Kyrin screamed at Finn.
Finn finally managed to pull Kyrin in the direction of the castle, while the knights brought along the dwarves. At one point, Finn wrestled Kyrin’s flail from her and handed it to Azimeth.
By the time they reached the castle, they were no longer fighting, but Kyrin’s arm was bleeding, and the female dwarf was missing part of her ear.
They stopped in front of the castle, and Finn addressed them all, “We’re going to let you go, but I’m warning you. If you three even try to fight, I’ll lock you all up until the king gets back.”
“Fine,” the male dwarf said, and the knight let him go and removed his sword.
The taller, female dwarf nodded and was also released with no weapon.
“Kyrin?” Finn asked, still holding her. She was glaring at the dwarves and still tense. “No fighting.”
Kyrin just nodded.
“Are her eyes black?” Finn asked one of the knights.
“Yes, Captain.”
“Calm down or I can’t let you go,” Finn told her.
“You cannot come here and talk to me like you did,” Kyrin said seething. “I don’t have to take that from a frothy, boil-brained, skanksmait.”
The dwarf growled and lunged at her again but was restrained by a knight. She began yelling at Kyrin in a foreign language. Though the Valharans didn’t know what was being said, Kyrin grew even more furious.
“Jail,” Finn said, and began to drag Kyrin down a hallway.
“You can’t put the Lady of Valhara in jail!” Azimeth said, shocked.
“Watch me.”
“Captain! She’s pregnant.”
“I’m well aware of that,” he said as he pushed her into a cell and locked the door before she slammed into them, reaching for his neck.
The male and female dwarf were given separate, adjacent cells and both of them sat back to wait for the king while Kyrin began to scream at them in the foreign language.
After a few minutes, she sat down and glared at them from her cell.
Finn finally turned to Azimeth. “There, everyone’s calm.”
“It’s not right to put her in there.”
“I don’t have a choice, and the king will see that. When she loses her temper, lives are lost.”
“She’s injured though!”
“Oh, right,” Finn said, turning to a knight. “Get Dewell immediately.”
It was only a few minutes later that Dewell arrived, as he was the priest staying in the castle for the week. Alric had strict orders that there was to be a priest there at all times now that Kyrin was having brutal attacks from Erianah.
“Wait,” Finn said, putting his hand out.
“She’s injured,” Dewell said, looking at him.
“She’s also furious, which is dangerous.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Kyrin, come here and put your hand out.”
She looked up at him with pitch-black eyes, and the hatred made him cringe. Dewell saw it also and took a step back, stunned.
“Let’s just wait until the king gets back,” Finn said, studying Kyrin.
“She’s bleeding badly.”
“Let me think then.” Finn finally nodded. “Kyrin, come up here and put your arm through the bars.”
She didn’t move but instead turned her furious gaze to the dwarves and spat foreign words at them that started to make them mad.
The smaller dwarf, now recognized as the male, jumped to the bars and pointed at Kyrin. “Listen here, Princess. Just because you got impregnated by some no-good, pansy assed king, doesn’t mean I have to come here and take those insults!”
“Wait a minute!” one of the knights yelled, and started to unlock the cell door.
“No,” Finn ordered. “Let’s let the king handle this.”
“He can’t talk about the king like that!”
“No, he can’t, but it’s not our place to get in the middle of this particular fight.”
Kyrin stood up and looked at the dwarf with malevolent eyes. “Talke e’pos kemptruk.”
“How dare you?!” the dwarf roared, and began pulling at the bars on his jail cell.
Kyrin smiled evilly. “Homajathies.”
When her hands touched, a clap of thunder rocked the castle, and it shook badly enough that the knights grabbed onto bars to keep from falling.
The dwarf at the bars shot back and slumped unconscious against the floor of the jail cell while the taller one knelt down to see if he was alive.
Once the tremor was over, Finn hurried and unlocked Kyrin’s cell, then took an arm while another knight took her other. Dewell moved forward and healed her as quickly as he could while she was restrained.
Finn called for a pole and then slipped it through the arms on Kyrin’s dress, using it to hold her hands far apart. He backed her up, surprised she wasn’t struggling, and fastened the ends of the pole to the wall with shackles. The entire time she stared at the unmoving dwarf in the cell across from her.
When Finn locked the cell again, he watched her, amazed at the transformation she made from the fragile pregnant girl to an evil being to be loathed and feared.
Hurried footsteps sounded and Finn looked over just as Alric ran down the stairs. “What’s going on?”
“Well,” Finn said, turning to the cells. “Kyrin and the dwarves got into a bit of a brawl, and we discovered that Kyrin can still use magic when she’s really really mad.”
Alric walked over and started to open Kyrin’s cell.
Finn put a hand out. “I wouldn’t, sir. She’s furious.”
“It’s okay,” Alric said, and walked in. Kyrin’s face almost immediately began to soften, and she watched him with brown eyes as he began to unhook her from the wall.
Finn was shocked how quickly Alric calmed her down, even without talking to her at all. When the king removed the pole holding her hands apart, he took one of her hands in his and then walked her out into the main prison.
Outside of the cell to the dwarves, Alric finally spoke to her, “What happened?”
She shrugged.
“I want to know why half of my staff had to go home because of a shaking castle. Why are Daemionis’ guards either dead or unconscious? Why is there blood on you, and why are your clothes cut?” He wondered more but decided to keep it simple.
“We just had a disagreement,” she whispered, watching the floor.
Finn still couldn’t even speak. He saw Kyrin go from in
nocent, to malicious, and then to innocent again in less than an hour. He hadn’t seen her as livid as she had been, and he was still waiting to see if the dwarves infuriated her again.
Alric turned to talk to the dwarves just as a wicked growl sounded through the prison, and the two dwarves fell dead.
Kyrin watched them but didn’t say anything.
“What happened to them?” Alric asked. He’d never seen two creatures suddenly fall over dead before.
“They broke a rule.”
“What rule?”
“Not to upset me,” she said, and then headed up the stairs.
Azimeth followed her, still holding the flail and still afraid of what she’d seen the Lady do.
“You have no idea what started this?” Alric asked Finn.
“No, sir. They weren’t speaking our language in most of it. Whatever it was, must have been bad.”
Alric turned to look at the dead dwarves but their bodies were gone, leaving behind their still warm hearts on the cold floor. Alric just sighed, shook his head, and started up the stairs.
Finn’s nose wrinkled, and he followed the king.
Alric saw Azimeth standing outside of the bedroom door, so he smiled at her and then walked in, shutting the door behind him. Kyrin was on the floor digging through her enchanted bag.
He sat down on the bed, facing her. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“Who started it?”
“They did.”
“Were they saying mean things about you?”
“Sort of,” she said, turning around. Kyrin leaned back against the wall to watch him.
“It’s odd how Daemionis’ followers would do that.”
“They thought I couldn’t fight back.”
Alric moved down to the floor to sit beside her. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I won’t stand there and take that.”
“You have knights for fighting.”
“They didn’t even know anything was wrong.”
“They knew, but they held back, and I will find out why.”
“It’s because they don’t like me,” she said, taking his hand. “Don’t punish them for that. I’m not all flowery and fuzzy, and I don’t expect them to like me.”
“I expect them to do their jobs, not stand by while you fight.”
“Well I don’t think it’s worth pursuing, and I wish you’d drop it.”
Alric nodded. “If that’s really what you want.”
“It is,” she said, and then stood up and stretched. Before she was done, Alric grabbed her into an embrace and kissed her softly.
Kyrin wrapped her arms around him, and he walked backwards and sat down, then pulled her onto his lap, all the while kissing her.
It felt good to be in his strong arms, so she laid her forehead against his shoulder and reveled in the feel of protection she got from him. When in his arms, everything seemed calmer and safer. Sensing this, he tightened his arms and kissed her neck softly.
“Are you okay?” he asked finally.
“Yes”
“You’re sure?”
Kyrin looked into his eyes. “Why?”
“Well, Trox thinks you have something called wanderlust, and I would imagine you feel trapped here.”
She smiled crookedly. “Creteloc says I have wanderlust.”
“After hearing the definition, I think you do. Staying here and not being able to shift or do magic must make you feel restrained.”
“I’m okay, really.”
He nodded and then slipped his shirt off and pulled her up against his chiseled chest. She ran her fingers along the muscles but stopped suddenly when she thought of Azimeth touching his bare skin.
With that, she stood up and started for the door.
“Kyrin, where are you going?” Alric asked, watching her.
“It’s bed time.”
“So?”
She sighed. “I told you. I understand, but I don’t want to talk about it.”
When Azimeth walked in, Alric stood up. “Stop.”
Kyrin glanced back at him.
“No more of this. Azimeth deserves an explanation why you drag her in here each night and then leave.”
“You haven’t told her?” Kyrin asked him.
“Told her what?”
“Why she’s here.”
Alric looked at the elf. “As your Lady in Waiting? She knows that.”
Azimeth nodded but stayed silent.
“Well…” Kyrin didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t her place to tell Azimeth her true purpose, but she was also somewhat confused about why Alric hadn’t used her yet.
Alric’s eyes narrowed. “What is her job here?”
“Lady in Waiting.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
Kyrin couldn’t even look at him. Her heart sunk when she pictured his handsome face kissing the almost glowing elf with her blonde ringlets and ethereal beauty.
“Kyrin, tell me,” Alric said, moving forward.
Azimeth shifted uncomfortably at being that close to the half-naked king.
“What does a Lady in Waiting do?” Alric asked her, gently taking her arm.
Kyrin avoided looking into his face and started to wonder if Creteloc had been wrong about Azimeth’s true purpose.
“It’s…”
“What?”
“She’s supposed to watch me.”
“And?”
“I don’t want to do this.”
“Azimeth, you may go,” Alric said, watching Kyrin. The elf left quickly and shut the door behind her. “Kyrin, tell me what her true purpose is.”
She bit her bottom lip and looked up at him, not sure what to say. A blush rose to her cheeks as she started to realize that Azimeth was nothing more than what Kyrin had heard called a consort. In other dimensions, a consort was a companion to a Queen and served as a confidante and friend.
“Tell me,” Alric said, smiling at the blush in her cheeks.
“It’s not my fault. Creteloc told me.”
“What did she say?”
“You know what? Nothing. I’m just going to go get something to eat,” Kyrin said, and made a break for the door, but Alric stopped her.
“What do you think Azimeth was supposed to do with me?”
“Nothing?”
“Was that a question?”
Kyrin squirmed slightly. She didn’t know how to get out of this, and by the amused look on Alric’s face, she figured he already knew. “No, it wasn’t a question.”
He moved close enough she could smell him. “Tell me.”
She shook her head.
Alric grinned. “She would be offended.”
“I didn’t know!”
“You should have asked.”
“But…”
“What would make you even think such a thing?” he asked, looking down at her.
“I’m…”
“What?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t know.”
She whispered as her blush deepened. “You know… pregnant.”
“So?”
“Well, it’s disgusting.”
He shook his head and kissed her before answering. “It’s not disgusting.”
“It is… so you… well Azimeth is so beautiful.”
Alric kissed her again. “I don’t want Azimeth.”