Rended Souls

by Daniel Kuhnley

  Wrik frowned. “How so?”

  “I don’t know for certain, but I believe the bond I now share with Cinolth somehow weakened the bond I have with Alderan.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I can still sense his presence in the world, but I cannot locate him anymore.”

  May the gods continue to show me favor.

  Wrik smiled. “I’m certain I can be of assistance in this matter.”

  Aria nodded. “Yes, I believe you can be. Do this for me, and I will be indebted to you yet again.”

  He wagged his finger at her. “No, Lady Aria, this I’ll do as your friend.” He took her hand, bowed low, and kissed the top of it. “Consider it done.”

  Aria wrapped her arms around his waist. “Thank you!”

  Wrik held Aria for a moment, and the world felt as it should, but then demons from his past rose from the depths of Ef Demd Dhä and into his mind. Once, he’d gotten too close to a woman, and it’d nearly killed him. In that moment, he’d vowed never to do so again. His shoulders shuddered as he pulled away from her and stepped back.

  Aria didn’t seem to notice. “Now, you said you were looking for me as well. What is it that I can do for you?”

  “Ah, yes. There are two things, actually. First, Master Credan asked me to inform you that Lord Rosai requests your presence in the dining hall for lunch.” He looked up at the sun’s location in the sky. “I’d say you have less than an hour now.”

  “Very well. And the second?”

  “The second is a bit of a surprise, actually. Accompany me to my bedchamber, and I’ll show you.”

  Aria gasped. “Wizard Wrik! Have you no shame?”

  Wrik’s cheeks caught fire and his tongue tied in his mouth. “Mistress… Lady… I didn’t mean—”

  Aria snorted. “Relax, my friend. I didn’t know you’d get so worked up about a little joke. Forgive me.”

  “No, no. I…” Wrik rubbed the back of his neck.

  She took his arm in hers and pulled him around toward the third tower. “Let us go to your bedchamber and put this moment in the past.”

  He nodded, still too flustered to speak without tripping over his tongue.

  Gods, I’m a fool.

  † † †

  Alderan woke to the sound of voices in the corridor outside Wrik’s bedchamber. The left side of his face ached, and when he lifted his head from the table a piece of parchment came with it, stuck to his cheek with saliva. He yanked the parchment from his face and tossed it on the table.

  The fire in the hearth smoldered, the coals still red with heat. A single log remained intact, the others reduced to lumps of ash. The candle atop the desk burned low, but he didn’t remember how much of it had remained when they’d arrived.

  How long have I been asleep? A crick in his neck clued him in. He tried rubbing it out, but it proved as stubborn as him.

  Across the room, Alderan spotted a small water basin perched atop a narrow pedestal. He didn’t recall seeing it there earlier. A large bucket half-filled with water sat next to it on the floor. He drew some of the water from the bucket with a small, wooden cup and poured it into the basin bowl. The water sparkled in the candlelight but held no secrets of the future.

  Alderan refreshed himself and returned to the chair at the table. He leaned back in the chair, disengaging its front legs from the floor. Nerves squirmed in the pit of his stomach as the minutes passed. So much had changed.

  Lady Rosai.

  The title had a ring to it for certain, but it only heightened his anxiety thinking about it. How should he address her? He’d never met a lady before.

  She’s your sister, you oaf. You’ve known her your entire life.

  He raked his fingers through his hair. But she’s a lady now. I’m nothing. Will she even want to see me? Will she recognize me?

  He swallowed hard. Will I recognize her?

  A key rattled in the door and sent him crashing to the floor. He rolled his head forward and narrowly avoided splitting it against the stone floor. The door lock disengaged.

  Alderan scrambled to his feet and righted the fallen chair. He pulled his hair behind his ears and smoothed his shirt. Stains soiled it. He couldn’t have looked less presentable, especially for a lady.

  He gripped the chairback, his nerves frayed and his legs weak. Wrik entered the room first, followed by a woman he hardly recognized. His knees buckled, but he held fast to the chair.

  “Alderan!” squealed the woman. She nearly knocked him over as she embraced him.

  It took a moment for Alderan’s mind to catch up with what his heart already knew. He wrapped his arms around Aria and lifted her off her feet. “I… I hardly recognized you.”

  Alderan had visualized finding Aria and embracing her so many times over the last year, but never had he imagined these specific circumstances. Rayah’s presence in that moment had seemed certain.

  Rayah! Alderan’s stomach lurched. She must be out of her mind with worry. She’s probably gonna kill me when I get back to Zerenity’s.

  “You look just as I remembered you,” said Aria.

  Focus, Alderan. Be content in the moment.

  “I’ll leave the two of you with some privacy for a time,” said Wrik. “I’m sure you have many things to discuss.”

  “We’ll certainly speak later about how you came upon Alderan,” said Aria.

  Wrik nodded, stepped out of the room, and closed the door.

  Alderan released Aria and stepped back. “Turn around. Let me have a look at you.”

  Aria twirled around, her beige cloak flowing at her back. White, skin-tight trousers wrapped her legs and disappeared underneath black, shin-high, leather boots with several straps and silver buckles. A white blouse with a ruffled neck hugged her slender curves and dipped low between her breasts, revealing more skin and cleavage than Alderan cared to see. A necklace with a dragon pendant hung at her breastbone, and several rings hung on her fingers. Extravagant earrings of gold and diamonds swayed from her earlobes, sparkling in the light.

  Everything about her spoke to the fact that she’d become a lady in his absence, but the locks flowing from her head and down her shoulders attracted his attention the most. “What happened to your hair? Why is it streaked with red?”

  Aria stroked her hair. “Do you like it?” She grinned.

  “Yeah, sure. It’s just… different.” Alderan craned his neck forward and frowned. “Your teeth. They were crooked before, right? I didn’t just imagine that?”

  “Pravus, my husband, fixed them for me. In fact, he fixed a lot of things for me.” Aria’s eyes glossed over, and her lower lip quivered.

  Alderan took her arm and led her over to Wrik’s bed. The two of them sat on its edge. “Tell me everything, Aria. What happened to you after they captured you and killed our father? And how did you wind up getting married to a lord?”

  Aria daubed the corners of her eyes with a kerchief and then delved into a twisted story so frightening that Alderan had a hard time sitting still and listening to it. Anger, sorrow, frustration, and despair tossed him about with every turn of her tale.

  Alderan pulled on his hair. Everything she told him about her bondage, rape, and torture left him sick with guilt and brimming with rage, but one question kept rising to the surface of his thoughts. He voiced it, as much to himself as to Aria. “Why did Dragnus send the gnolls to capture you but kill me?”

  Aria wiped her eyes. “I don’t know, but it wasn’t what Pravus told him to do. Pravus would never wish you dead.”

  “Speaking of your husband, how did you wind up marrying a lord?”

  Aria smiled as she looked down at her hands. “He saved me from Dragnus and promised me a future by his side. Our union was prophesied about. Destiny.”

  The thought of prophetic destiny turned Alderan’s stomach. Given that it was his prophetic destiny to save the world, he wondered how often the prophecies were wrong. He pushed the thoughts to the back of
his mind and focused back on Aria and Pravus.

  “So Pravus is the one who freed you from the dungeons?” he asked.

  “No. By the time he arrived, I was locked in a tower.” She pulled him back into her story and told him about how Amicus had saved her from a man she called One-Eyed Jess.

  Hearing everything Amicus did for her with such selflessness tore at his heart. Guilt festered in his mind, and he broke down and sobbed.

  This time, Aria consoled him. “Talk to me, Alderan. What are you thinking and feeling?”

  How far Alderan and Aria had come in the last year, but not for the better. They’d known each other intimately for most of their lives, sharing thoughts, feelings, and so much more because of their bond, yet now they sat on the edge of Wrik’s bed as strangers. Disconnected. It hurt him more than knowing he hadn’t been there for her during her darkest hours.

  I must learn everything about her again and show her who I’ve become as well.

  Alderan pulled himself into the past. Into the cell where Rakzar had bound him. He removed the faded, yellow and green bracelet from his wrist and held it up. “I almost killed Amicus over this. The instant I saw it around his wrist I knew it was yours. I assumed he’d killed you and took it. I’d never felt so much rage. If Rakzar hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve killed him.”

  Aria grabbed Alderan’s arm and shook it. “You know Amicus? How is he? How is his family?”

  Alderan gazed into her beautiful, green eyes, but even they’d changed. Red tinted the fringes of her irises.

  He searched for the right words to tell Aria that her friend and his family had died, but his silence answered her questions just as well.

  She dug her nails into his arm. Mezhik tingled in her touch. “They’re dead? How?”

  Alderan recounted everything, from the castle fire to the demise of Amicus’s family to the beheading of Amicus. By the time he finished, Aria sat next to him, stunned and speechless. He peeled her fingers off of his arm and placed his arm around her shoulders. He pulled her to him and rested his head against hers, but she didn’t respond as he would’ve thought.

  She pushed his arm away and stood. “It doesn’t matter. In the end, they would’ve died anyway. Every last one of them will.” A coldness he’d never known her capable of laced her words.

  Alderan sat back, stunned. Did he know the woman who stood before him anymore? He didn’t need to search far for an answer. Her eyes held the truth, and his heart ached for her.

  He rose from the bed. “What do you mean by that? Every one of who?”

  Aria walked over to the fireplace and then faced Alderan. The flickering flames at her back gave rise to the hairs on Alderan’s arms. He hadn’t connected everything when she’d first come into the room, but now he understood.

  Ƨäʈūr, my God… Aria’s the woman from my nightmares!

  † † †

  Fear filled Alderan’s eyes and face and gave Aria pause. Had what she said been so harsh? She’d only told him the truth, yet guilt rose in her throat.

  “Alderan, are you okay?” Aria took a step forward and Alderan stuttered backward.

  “Is it true?” Alderan’s voice quavered.

  “Is what true?” She took another step. “That so many people will die?”

  Alderan shook his head slowly. “The dragon… You have one?”

  Aria froze and then her eyes narrowed. “Who told you about Cinolth? Wrik?”

  Alderan reached back and probed for the bed as he continued to stare at her with wide eyes. Having located it, he sat back down. “No. I’ve had visions… err… nightmares for many months. The face of a beast haunts me. Although I’ve never seen one myself, I knew it had to be a dragon.”

  Could it be true? Is Alderan a prophet? A seer? She must know what he saw.

  Aria moved closer and knelt before Alderan. “Tell me about these visions of yours. What all did you see?”

  Alderan drew a deep breath and closed his eyes. He crossed his arms over his chest and buried his hands in his armpits. Visually, he trembled, so Aria placed her hand on his thigh to calm him.

  Alderan’s voice quavered when he spoke, “The day was dark and grim. Black clouds filled the sky. I stood outside the castle in an unfamiliar town peering up at the ramparts of a black castle. People gathered on the roads all around me, their skin white as sheets. Black veins pulsed underneath paper-thin skin and black eyes gazed at nothing.

  “I grabbed several of them by their arms and shouted at them, but they were all unresponsive. They all stood there looking up at a woman dressed in red. Her blonde hair, streaked with red, billowed in the wind. Two red orbs—evil eyes—floated over her head and black leathery wings spanned a great distance on either side of her. The people seem to be awaiting instruction.”

  Alderan’s eyes moved rapidly behind his eyelids for several moments, and then his eyelids sprang open. Moisture glistened in them. “You may not be dressed like her, but you are that woman, Aria.”

  Aria recalled the horde of infected people she’d seen traveling toward the castle earlier that morning and knew Alderan’s words to be true. She leaned back on her heels and then stood. Sweat moistened her palms, and her heart raced in her chest.

  She retreated to the fireplace and stared into the flames. How much more does he know?

  “What have you done?” he asked.

  She crossed her arms and scowled. “I’ve done nothing wrong, Alderan. You should know that. I’m still your sister.”

  “Are you?” Alderan’s voice held no trace of accusation, but the question cut Aria deep.

  She turned around and lashed out at Alderan with venomous words, unable to control herself or her mouth. “What have I done? Survived! Everything I’ve done has been out of necessity. You weren’t there for me, so don’t judge me.” Mezhik rose into her palm, and lightning crackled at her fingertips, arcing between them.

  Tears streaked Alderan’s cheeks as he stared at her hand. “You think I wanted it that way? Despite everyone telling me to give up hope and the voice in my head telling me you were dead, I never stopped searching for you.” He gazed into her eyes. “I love you, Aria. What do you think brought me here?”

  Aria’s mezhik withdrew as her anger dissipated. “Our bond?”

  “Yes and no. Two nights ago, I felt our bond for the first time since we’d been separated.”

  “Me too.” Aria closed the distance between herself and Alderan once more. “I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it until I felt it again. Until that moment, I thought you were dead. I’d given up on ever seeing you again. Do you know how hard that was? Part of me died with you.”

  Alderan ran his fingers through his hair. “Then why does our bond feel so different now? You’re distant, and I don’t know what you’re thinking or feeling.”

  Aria took Alderan’s hands and held them. “It feels different for me too.”

  Alderan frowned. “But why? What has changed?”

  “Several things have changed. When I married Pravus, he joined our souls together. That bond is unbreakable. Also…”

  Alderan released one of her hands and lifted her chin. “What is it? You know you can tell me anything.”

  Alderan’s eyes sparkled. She’d forgotten how beautiful they were. A faint smile flashed upon her lips. “Through a blood sacrifice, I gave life to Cinolth. Because of that, we are also bound together. All of these things have changed me. Changed us.”

  “So how do we move forward? How do we get back to the way things were? I don’t ever want to lose you again.”

  “Nor I you.” She reached up and rubbed a tear from his cheek with her thumb. “We will find a way, starting with you meeting my husband.”

  “And what of Cinolth? Can I meet him too?”

  “Soon—”

  The door creaked open. Wizard Wrik’s head popped around the corner. “Lady Aria, I believe it’s time you head to the dining hall.”


  Aria nodded. “Agreed. All three of us.”

  Wizard Wrik’s eyebrows rose and his mouth opened, but Aria cut him off before he had a chance to protest. “It’s not a request.”

  Wizard Wrik nodded. “As you wish.”

  Aria offered her elbow to Alderan. “Shall we?”

  Alderan dipped his head, a wry smile upon his lips. “Your wish is my command, my Queen, but then I must return home to check on Rayah.”

  “You will return, right?”

  Alderan leaned over and kissed her cheek. “How could I not? I’ve only just found you.” He smiled, took her arm, and led her out of Wrik’s bedchamber.

  With each passing hour, Aria grew fonder of the day. Finally, the skewed world righted itself once again. She couldn’t help but smile.

  † † †

  Pravus sat at the end of the long, rectangular table in the dining hall, awaiting Aria’s arrival. A lavish spread of meats, both local and exotic, a dozen types of cheeses, fruits, nuts, and breads, and more desserts than Pravus could count filled the table. Another table held three tankards of ale, six types of both red and white wines, an assortment of spiced and non-spiced teas and coffees, and a variety of fruit and vegetable juices.

  Credan outdid himself.

  He leaned back in the iron chair and gazed up at one of the three massive chandeliers suspended thirty feet overhead. Cobwebs hung from many of the candle holders, their silk webbing draped between the candles like lace ruffles on a dress. Credan would be scolded, and one of the servants would pay with their life.

  Blood is cheap, especially a servant’s.

  That simple thought gave rise to a dark desire he thought he’d moved beyond after binding his soul with Aria’s. Images of Tilly and the other women he’d brutalized and killed flooded his mind. A coppery, iron taste rose in his throat and bathed his tongue. He found himself aroused. Not for sex but for blood. Perhaps both.

  He gripped the armrests. Willed the moment to pass.

  I will not allow this obsession to rule me. Centauria will soon be mine. Nothing will stand in my way.