by Aimee Moore
“I’ll be the judge of that. Can’t say as I understand the two of you, though; tiny thing like her and big fella like you. Bit like a cat and a mastiff going at it, yeah?”
I spit stew everywhere laughing. Dal’s chest rumbled with laughter.
“Well, you two bump uglies, right?” Lianne asked, waving her spoon in the air. The fire sizzled as stew flew off her spoon.
“Oh stars above,” I said, tears streaming down my face.
“She does not complain,” Dal growled with a grin, looking down at me.
I wiped away tears of laughter. “Well, I do have one complaint.”
“That is not a complaint, that is a compliment.”
“You are horribly arrogant; you didn’t even let me finish,” I said.
Dal laughed. “Alright, Sera, tell me how you do not get enough of me. I should very much like to hear of it.”
“You’re insufferable,” I said with a laugh, shoving at him.
“These Kraw. They read minds, too?” Lianne asked, watching our display.
“No, they don’t,” I said, still laughing.
“You’re sure of it? Cause I’m damn sure he just read yours.”
“I’m more sure than any human alive will ever be,” I said, looking up into hazel eyes that held my world. I would never tire of the way my warrior looked at me.
“Sure, if you say so,” Lianne said, breaking the spell that Dal had over me.
We all went back to our meals. “What about you, Lianne? Do you have family? Lovers? Friends?” I asked.
Lianne snorted, belying the feminine grace of her looks. “I’ve got more pit hair than I do family. Father was a soldier, died in the second Ingrus war. I was just a babe. Mum moved us out west where some ballsack got her with child and thought to start beating on her. I’m said to take after my mom, and I think she saw the way he was looking at me, so she sent me out to Elanthia to serve in the palace. It all went down real shiesty-like, but I got over it.
“Joined the soldiers when I was able. Caught a lot of attention for it, learned to fight so as to protect myself. Funny thing, how a man handles being threatened by a woman. Acts like me just holding a blade makes his cock shrink. But I can hold my own, I can. I got here on my own.”
“Oh, Lianne…” I started.
“Don’t need no pity for it. I can wield a sword better than any sack of flesh in this world, that’s worth it all, far as I’m concerned. Don’t get to be Elanthia’s best without some tit-bustin’ work.”
“Not better than Dal,” I murmured into my stew, trying not to smile.
Lianne sized Dal up, leaning an elbow on one of her splayed knees. “Let’s have a go, tomorrow morning. Been itchin’ to spill some Kraw blood since the war.”
“It would not be a fair match,” Dal said.
Lianne scoffed. “I’ll go easy on you, then.”
Dal smiled.
I bit back a laugh. “The loser must teach me proper sword work.”
“You have no need to endanger yourself with sword work, Sera, your gift is unmatched and you have my blade,” Dal said.
“There were times, Dal, that not even your blade or my gift could have saved me. I wish to learn, as you never finished teaching me.”
Dal considered me for a moment.
“Don’t know why you’d bother, with all that firepower and all,” Lianne said.
I glanced up at Dal. “I wish to be versatile.”
Lianne set her empty bowl aside and stood, stretching with an obnoxious groan. “Alright, it’s settled then. Tomorrow I show your Kraw how to handle a sword like a woman.”
“Dal,” I said.
“Eh?”
“He is not my Kraw. He is a man named Dal.”
Lianne scratched at her bottom. “Right then. Dal, tomorrow you learn something new.” Then she turned toward her small, makeshift tent.
“May sleep find you peacefully this night, Lianne,” Dal said.
“Oh aye, it will, cause I sleep with both eyes open,” she returned pointedly before disappearing into her shelter.
The tent flap was barely closed before Dal had me on the ground, pressing himself between my thighs, growling into my ear. “Tell me again that you cannot get enough of me.”
I let off a sultry laugh, giving his neck a playful bite and rubbing myself against him. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ve had enough by now,” I whispered with a sly smile.
Dal growled into my neck. “You lie.”
I laughed again, quiet and sure. “I lie.”
And, kissing me with a passion that drew a soft moan from me, Dal rose, lifted me up, and carried me into our tent. His touch, firm enough to send awareness into my bones, his need of me, so powerful that my own blood sang with it; it was all my drug. Maybe this intoxicating bliss made me a traitor, but I’d die to keep betraying my people in Dal’s arms, because this exquisite loving was pure life.
Late into the night, splayed onto furs that were damp with effort, Dal pinned my wrists over my head, baring all of me to him as he took me again. I arched my back to take more of him, trembling on the edge of release that he always brought me to so quickly. His own ragged breathing told me that he was there with me, strung tight in a delicious tension that was only a precious note away from snapping.
I pressed my legs to him, pulling him in deeper, and he delivered with a thrust that sang somewhere between ecstasy and exquisite pain, bringing me to climax. I cried out as wave after wave of euphoric pleasure washed through me, and somewhere within my shaken awareness, Dal’s own groan of release was with me. But no, something was different this time.
The stars in the darkness behind my lids weren’t the multi-spectrum hues I was used to; they were vibrant purple, washing through my consciousness as delicious bliss poured through my being.
I gave it little thought as I came back to the dim light of our tent, laughing in contentment as Dal kissed my forehead and released my hands. It was then that the stench of burnt hair caught me. I wrinkled my nose as Dal looked at a point over my head.
“What is that?” I whispered, wrapping my arms around him.
“Your gift burns with your passions,” he murmured to me.
“What?”
Dal moved to my side, gesturing to a point over my head as he lay on his back with a contented sigh. I twisted my sated body to look. The furs were scorched where my hands had been pinned moments ago. A laugh bubbled out of me, and I turned to Dal to make myself comfortable against his side.
“Look what you made me do, you brute,” I said.
A laugh rumbled through Dal’s chest. “I make no apologies. I have never seen you make purple flame before.”
“What?” I whispered, raising my head in alarm.
“You did not know,” he murmured.
“No. Was it purple like…?”
“Yes, like the leyline.”
“What does it mean?”
Dal began tracing lines up and down my back. “Hm. I can only guess. Was there pain?”
“Goodness no,” I said with a laugh.
“Then we shall not worry ourselves with it. Perhaps, when we leave your world, the leyline’s influence will remain here.”
“Tell that to our new overseer,” I muttered.
“Her role among us complicates things. Though we have nothing to hide, she harbors a stubborn prejudice against me.”
I sighed, laying my head on his muscled shoulder. “It seems like a lifetime ago when you told me that your dreams resided somewhere simple that war would never venture. A tranquil place in a secluded forest of your world, far removed from civilization or trouble. All this time later, your dream has become mine, too. Our place of peace. We’re so close, Dal.”
“A shared dream is a melody. A song of the heart to which we both know the tune.”
“And yet you insist upon this errand to Sunwold when both of us wish only to leave my world.”
“All that will remain of your humanity after years in my world, Sera,
will be your memories. After all I have put you through, I would see you set things right among your own. Take memories that bring warmth and joy so that you may heal. Patience is a small cost.”
“Unless Lianne decides to summon another battle to us. I’ll have to kill more people, and Sunwold will probably never get their supplies.”
“Sometimes kindness can steer a fate as surely as the sword.”
I took up a favorite fidget of mine, tracing the bold black lines and symbols running over Dal’s exquisite body. “Have I ever told you that you’re as poetic as you are brutal?” I looked up to see my warrior’s reaction to that.
Hazel eyes met mine, warmth blossoming in the green of his gaze like spring chasing away winter’s chill. “You have told me in your own ways.”
I laid my head back down, warmth suffusing me. I ran my finger over where my hand had burned into Dal’s pectoral, charring away the part of the tattoo that made a binding spell on him.
“I am not sure whether to be sorry for this or not,” I said into the quiet space between us. Kraw healed so very fast; a wound of this magnitude would still plague a normal human after a scant few weeks.
“You showed immense courage and strength in the face of the Warlord, and in doing so, freed me from the binding spell. Do not lament, for both of us bear the wounds of a love that was not meant to be.”
I smiled, stilling my hands as I looked up at my warrior. “A love? Not a mating, as you had called it?”
Dal gave a soft laugh. “You wish to debate my word choice.”
“No woman in this world or the next could forget when her first time with a man is called ‘a mating,’ Kraw culture or not.”
Dal smoothed a tendril of red away from my face, a slight smile forming at the corner of his mouth. “Whatever word is chosen for what we have, or what we have done, you have always stolen the breath from me. Even in the beginning. Only ever you, Sera.”
I could never find words to express the warmth squeezing my chest, and so I rose to kiss him instead. The possession in Dal’s kiss told me that he knew.
In time, I returned to tracing my fingers over the smooth lines of Dal’s tattoos. More and more, their existence plucked at my mind. Most of the warriors had tattoos like his, strong black lines that swirled or jagged or had smaller symbols within. Each was a unique display of the wearer’s culture, a bold announcement to all who would look upon them.
I realized then that I wanted this boldness to be a part of me.
“I would very much like a marking of my own, Dal.”
“You are perfect as you are, you have no need of these marks upon your flesh.”
“What kind of Warlord am I not to bear the marks of her people?” I asked, looking up at Dal.
“If you truly wish to be marked, Sera, then I will comply. But you must be sure of it, for the marks of my people are not simple ornamentation or passing fancy. Kraw markings are loud and purposeful, and they will not wane.”
Excitement shot into my belly at the thought of carrying the same display of Kraw power on my own skin. “I’m sure.”
∞∞∞∞
I awoke in the hazy hours of dawn with a gasp, heart hammering, vision watering. I tore at the furs covering us and looked down at my naked body. The wounds that the Warlord had inflicted on me a scant few weeks ago were still purple and angry on my fair skin. But they were not fresh wounds.
And as I swallowed a panicked lump in my throat, I realized the Warlord was not here, in my bed, dragging a knife across my flesh. I let off a shaking breath to dispel him from my mind. Even Patroma, my torturous shield, could not save me from the Warlord himself during these moonlit hours. That grin of black lips peeled back over teeth filed to points, the voice as deep and full of death as the bottom of a well, it was only the tendrils of memory fading from the dark space behind my closed eyes now.
I turned to glance at Dal and saw that he had been watching me as I awoke from my nightmare. Carefully, patiently, letting me grasp my own reality. Dal rolled to his side, facing me, and lifted the furs. “Come, Sera, he cannot hurt you again.”
I curled into Dal’s warmth, letting the strong rise and fall of his chest calm me. Through the hardest of times, this was my comfort. My rock. After all the things I had done, I was still a small human female who just wanted this soothing contact. And Dal accepted that part of me as much as he had accepted my savagery.
When at last we rose for the day, Dal spent the morning working in front of the fire in preparation for my marking, promising Lianne the sword match she desired as soon as he was able.
I burned off nervous energy by packing what I could for our departure and caring for the animals. When I glanced at Dal, he was always burning or slicing some strange tool. It was a long process. I was no stranger to pain, but when I glimpsed something sharp, my chest jolted with nerves.
“Weird thing to subject yourself to, yeah?” Lianne asked as we checked the sheep over. “Being branded like that, can’t say I’d volunteer for it.”
I shrugged, then remembered that she probably wasn’t looking my way and spoke instead. “It’s not a brand, it’s like...” I glanced at Lianne. “Like armor. Everyone knows you’re a soldier when you wear it.”
“Oh sure. I’d wanna tell the world I’m a bloodthirsty savage, too.”
I opened my mouth to tell her that she was welcome to go her own way, then closed it with a snap. Dal was right, Sunwold would benefit from her strength. I needed to keep my head and get her to our destination. My heart sank as I realized that this journey was going to be harder than I thought.
“There’s more to it than that,” I muttered, returning my attention to the sheep.
“Think it hurts? Awful lot of sharp things over there.”
“Dal wouldn’t hurt me,” I said with finality. Still, there were a lot of sharp things at the fire with him.
It was a silly thing to want, really. No one in Lambston had a tattoo, nor had I seen anyone in my travels possess one. Not counting the Kraw, of course. Tattoos were for bandits or tribal people of the north. Yet, I couldn’t put to words my strange desire to be marked as a Kraw. Perhaps it was that Dal would be leaving a lifelong mark on me, which appealed to me. Displaying the part of me that was now Kraw in heart was also appealing, a banner of the trials I’d survived to be who and what I am.
Or perhaps my mind was addled.
Chapter 4
Change On The Wind
Midway through the day, Dal’s voice interrupted my conversation with Lianne. “Sera.”
I stopped rubbing one of the ornery sheep and joined him at the fire. “You’ve finished?”
Dal gave a nod. “Let me see your arm. Your dominant one.”
Lianne stood beside us, her face wan as she looked over the many tools and bowls Dal had set out on the flat of a log nearby.
I held out my right hand, and Dal’s large, calloused fingers brushed over my skin as he turned my wrist this way and that. “I assume you know what you want,” he said in a contemplative tone.
“Oh,” I said. His gaze met mine, and my face heated. “Well, to be honest, I hadn’t given that part much consideration. I thought that you would know what to put.”
Dal lowered thick black lashes, looking at my arm again. “I have given it much thought. For Kraw, these markings must always have purpose. This one,” he let go of me and gestured to the long markings flowing down his right arm, “is the mark of my clan. All Kraw bear the mark of their clan.”
“Huh. Thought for sure Kraw did all that just for torture,” Lianne said, glancing at the tattoos that crawled over Dal’s skin.
“Some of his markings are spells, too,” I said. “There’s always purpose.”
Dal gave a nod. “Much of the old language is used in marking, but again, even that dialect is modified for the sake of the markings. The word Kraw as you know it is, in actuality, Gragh in our written language, and in the old language it is further extended to Gragh-doh.”
; I let off a patient breath. “What is the name of your clan?”
Dal frowned, and I could almost see the ghosts of his people passing through his gaze. “Windsong. We answered to Windsong.” Then he looked at me. “The common translation of my clan was ‘death rides on the song of the wind.’” Dal spoke the latter portion in Kraw language, and despite the guttural sound of the language, it was somehow poetic in its savagery. The crash of battle seemed to shine through the words.
I repeated his words in the common tongue for Lianne. “Death rides on the song of the wind.”
Lianne said, “Weird mix, if you ask me. Art and pain. Poetry and war. Wouldn’t’ve thought Kraw capable.”
Dal gave a nod. “I have been Windsong Clan for nearly two hundred years; my entire life. Now that I am the only surviving member, there is a change in the wind.”
“Oh?” I said.
“Wind, in the old language, is the base symbol of all creatures that fly. Creatures such as hawks or dragonflies.”
I smiled. “Back when we were captive together. You were the rock in the cage of my world, and I thought myself just an insect in yours. You had called me dragonfly.” Not a butterfly, no. To the Kraw, a dragonfly was beautiful in its ferocity.
Dal smiled, nodding. Then he picked up the needle he had fashioned and dipped it in a bowl of black paste before positioning it on his own arm.
Lianne shifted a little.
He continued. “It takes very few marks to turn Windsong Clan into Dragonfly Song Clan. Or, the literal translation, death rides on the song of turogmatoh.” And with that, he poked the needle into his skin at precise points.
“Nope,” Lianne said, before moving away with haste. “I’ll be over there when you change your mind.”
Dal’s idea was poetic. The forming of our own clan declared to the world that we were detached from our own people; our trials binding us in solidarity. It also warned that death would come on the song of my flame. As Lianne had said: poetry and war.
I watched him mark himself, glancing at his expression now and again to see if there was pain. Like all Kraw, he seemed immune to it. Lianne made herself scarce for this, but the process was fascinating to me.