Dragonfly Refrain

by Aimee Moore

  “As if you can control it,” the blond said.

  Aldron scoffed. “I have control over quite a few things. Do you think they put me in the at the bottom of this castle because I’m incompetent?”

  “That’s probably the exact reason,” the brunette, Elyse, said with a grin.

  “Hah; you know only the best are chosen to guard the secrets of our world. I’m surprised you’re still bitter about this, Elyse.”

  Elyse put one hand on her hip. “I’m not bitter, you’re just entitled. It’s another reason we want to call it off.”

  “There’s no need to call it off, because I have a solution to our dilemma,” Aldron said, standing straight.

  The blond crossed her arms. “What.”

  “You fear expulsion for consorting with a vault keeper. And you fear biological repercussions for our trysts. Obviously, the solution is for you two to carry on without me.”

  The women looked at each other before the blond spoke. “Together? That’s ludicrous, Aldron. If we were interested in each other then we would have just done that from the beginning instead of taking turns with you.”

  “You can’t know unless you try,” Aldron said with a shrug. “And I think that you two would find pleasure without me. All that stands between you and bliss is naïveté and pride. Prove me wrong. Right now.”

  The blond and Elyse looked at each other with wary frowns. The moment was awkward as they considered each other. Finally, Elyse gave a sigh of defeat and moved in close to the blond.

  “Prepare to be proven wrong,” Elyse said. And then she kissed the blond. The blond was stiff at first as Elyse’s lips moved on hers, but then she unfurled at Elyse’s touch, and desire blossomed inside me to witness such surrender.

  “Beautiful,” Karne whispered next to me as the blond ran her fingers through Elyse’s hair.

  Aldron was moving in, pulling the shoulder of Elyse’s robes down and kissing her shoulder. And, stars above, the three of them were a tangle of limbs and robes within no time. It was beautiful, their intimate dance.

  I wanted to look away. It was crude of me to watch, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the way Elyse kissed the blond as Karne’s allure incinerated my modesty. Soon they shed their robes for each other, and Aldron put his mouth on any part of the women that was neglected by the biological impediment of having only two hands and one mouth. Then Elyse tasted the taut peaks of the blonde’s breasts, shoving her back onto a bed and moving further down her body. Aldron thrusted into Elyse from behind, and Elyse, body rocking, was bringing the blond to shuddering pleasure with her mouth, and by the gods I almost cried out with Elyse when she came, too.

  I was breathing hard, there on the floor, afraid that the slightest movement would send me over the edge.

  Karne whispered in my ear. “You want that.”

  I gave my head a tiny shake and closed my eyes, trying to go back to that still lake outside of the cave Dal and I had made love in for the first time. The cold darkness would be my shield.

  Karne’s voice penetrated my blackness. “Let me do those things to you, Seraphine. Let me show you the pleasure a Nialae lover can bring.”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Well then, lets maintain some semblance of being a lady, shall we?” And then his hands were on the outside of my knees, and he closed my legs together quickly.

  I cried out as I found release, there on the floor, moaning and writhing with each new surge of climax. He didn’t touch me again, but the violation was real as he watched me. Heard my unguarded whimpers and saw my body move in ways that only Dal had witnessed.

  “You’re sick,” I whispered in between climaxes, hands clawed into the wooden floor as I became helpless once more to the crippling pleasure.

  Karne laughed. “Your body is like music, Seraphine. Any Nialae man would be pleased to have you under him, moving and sounding just like that. Humans, they are countless and they are ever willing, and they are dull. But not you. You continue to resist me, to withhold such a treasure.”

  I gasped for breath as I came down from another climax. I barely heard his words. My whole body shook, strung with life and sex and fatigue. I sat up, slowly, trying to clamp down on the throbbing aftershock of release that my body wanted.

  I glared up at Karne. “I will never give you what you want. I despise you.”

  Karne cast me a thoughtful look. “But what if you didn’t despise me…” He said in a careful tone.

  “What do you care? I’m a powerless human, and you said there is no shortage of them offering themselves to you. Go and breed mindlessly and leave me be.”

  Karne strolled around the room, and I only now noticed that the three lovers were gone. Yet, their robes remained crumpled on the floor, and I wondered if Karne left the illusion of the robes there on purpose. If the fabric was still warm.

  “Perhaps I don’t want just any human, Seraphine. Perhaps I’m going to be here a long time, and my ambitions have grown. I want a lover that can command armies and tame warriors. A woman with a spine of forged steel and passion that burns as hot as this world’s molten core.”

  “Then go find one,” I snarled. “Any number of Nialae women could accomplish that with ease.”

  “My my, you’re irritable after pleasure. Perhaps it wasn’t done right,” Karne said with a cat-ate-the-canary grin.

  I snapped my mouth closed.

  “Do you not understand what I’m offering?” Karne said. “My people, trapped here as they are, are ripe for new leadership. How many of your kind do you think will find an opportunity to stand beside me instead of bow before me?”

  “You cannot rule, you have a queen already,” I said, my voice breathy as another aftershock of pleasure surged through me.

  Karne watched me tremble for a moment, then turned away with a sly smile. “Ah yes, Tanebrael. She is, as of yet, still lost. It is the mark of a true ruler to find opportunity in someone else’s misfortune, is it not? I see opportunity in her absence. Perhaps she is dead. Perhaps our king has finally tired of her games and ended her. But I am alive and well.”

  “If you think your queen dead then you can return to your world,” I said.

  “Ah so your little friend has been telling you things,” Karne said with a sly smile.

  “I don’t care what you do, your problems are not mine.”

  “So long as your world is ripe for the taking, my problems are yours. It is not illogical to assume that you would rather meet those problems at my side, rather than at my mercy. You would never want for food, joy, or pleasure. Imagine an eternity of this bliss.”

  “Are you not aware that humans are mortal?” I asked with a scowl.

  Karne gave me a soft smile. “Aldron would say that mortality is subjective.”

  This was the strongest of all his temptations thus far. It was too easy to picture myself an old woman while Dal, with centuries more life ahead of him, remained young and hale. I couldn’t put the problem off forever.

  But what price would I have to pay?

  I brought my gaze to the present as Karne strolled to the door.

  “How subjective?” I asked, hating myself.

  Karne smiled at me. “Nialae gifts are not offered to lesser species often, Seraphine.” And then he strode out the door. I blinked, and the room was once again dust and corpses and splinters of what used to be furniture. I found myself crouched over the tangled, blond hair of a corpse.

  I wretched.

  Chapter 13

  Betrayal Of A Knight’s Heart

  I wiped the sick off my lips and left the sleeping quarters, no longer stupid and curious about what life here was like. I didn’t care anymore. I was drained, emotionally and physically, and all I wanted was to curl into Dal and sleep for eternity. War of the worlds be damned.

  I wandered the corpse-strewn castle, hoping my scent would return to normal during my walk as I looked for Dal and Lianne. I was no stranger to the aftermath of Kraw battles, having long ago coped
with the reasoning behind butchered children and corpses with skirts pushed up.

  It didn’t mean that I was numb to the looks on what was left of their faces.

  After a time, voices trickled down an elaborate hall and tugged at my ear, and I followed to find Lianne and Dal in a grandiose library. Dal was perched on a ladder and Lianne was nearby, watching as he pulled books down. The sunlight shafted through the intact stained-glass window in the ceiling, illuminating an endless chasm of bookshelves that seemed to disappear into oblivion. The library contained only one human body that I could see, his spectacles and jaw askew on his vermin-eaten face. Clearly the Kraw had come here, and yet…

  “They left the books,” I whispered in the massive space.

  Lianne turned surprised eyes to me, then stepped away from Dal.

  Dal’s deep voice echoed clear to the high ceilings. “Yes. Destroying a world’s culture goes against Kraw directive. Books are culture,” he said without taking his eyes off of the book in his hand.

  “Oy, tell that to this fella,” Lianne said with a nod toward the corpse.

  “This one,” Dal murmured to Lianne, “what does it say?” He handed a book to Lianne. She frowned at it, wrinkling her nose as she thought.

  “Kraw aren’t interested in saving lives as much as they are worlds. People will repopulate and live on. If anything, it sends a message down to the very bones of a society not to mess with whatever brought Kraw here in the first place,” I said, approaching Lianne and Dal.

  “Oh spit. Um, grav…”

  “Gravitational Theory?” I looked up at Dal with a frown of confusion.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Was a tough one, that was,” Lianne said, stepping away from the ladder Dal was draped over.

  Dal frowned at the cover, his gaze traveling over the letters.

  “You cannot read my language yet?” I asked.

  “I have been exposed to the written portion precious few times,” he said, putting the book back, but keeping one finger on it.

  I climbed the two steps behind him, clumsy on my bad foot, and wrapped my arms around him to steady myself on the ladder’s frame. Dal gave me a soft smile, and guilt lanced through me as I returned it. Then a frown marred his face, and he inhaled as he looked down at me. I turned away, busying myself with the awe of the great room.

  “How many symbols in your language?” Dal asked, scanning the shelves. He chose not to address my scent yet.

  “Um…” I took a moment to count as I swallowed my guilt. “Twenty-six.”

  He gave a nod. Then pulled another book down. “And this one,” he murmured between us. I couldn’t help but run my fingers over his large hand as he turned the book. “Gravitational Manipulation and the Gifted Influence,” I said.

  “Hm,” he said on half a laugh, “not what I thought.”

  Then I realized that he wasn’t looking for books that may contain information on the Helegnaur. “You cannot think to learn my entire written language in so short a time,” I said.

  “I haven’t even gotten it all down,” Lianne said from a table weighed down under another tower of books. “I’ve had twenty-seven years to go at it.”

  Dal returned the book and spoke without taking his gaze from the shelves. “I have learned many languages. Yours is not difficult. Kraw are adept at it.”

  I laughed, the sound ringing off the glass window above. “You said that over a year ago when Patroma held us captive.”

  “Yes. You were surprised that I learned your tongue just by listening to you.”

  “Bleedin’ hells, you can do that?” Lianne said, looking up at Dal.

  “No one was more surprised than me,” I said.

  “This one,” he murmured to me with a smile.

  I looked down at the title. “Greatness in Power, Greatness in Using It Well.”

  Dal frowned. “These two are not like the rest.” He put his finger over the vowels in the word “Greatness.”

  “No, I suppose not,” I said. “They have a bit more freedom to sound as they need. Um, so does this one. Oh, and this one.” I pointed out the o and the u in the title.

  Dal nodded and put the book back, resuming his search.

  “Anyhow, there’s no bloody way he’ll learn to read an entire written language before nightfall. We should get Kalgar and set up camp, yeah? My damned stomach is about to eat the rest of my insides if I don’t get something to shut it up.”

  I looked up at the darkening window. “A few more minutes,” I said to Lianne. Or lifetimes. “Let’s build a library in our place of peace, Dal. A big one like this, for us and our children.”

  Dal’s gaze caressed mine. “I would like that.” Then he returned to the shelf and pulled down another book. “This one. I believe it is Great Shifts in Our World, Puzzling Pieces Explained,” he said.

  I huffed half a laugh of disbelief. “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “King’s cock, he did it,” Lianne said.

  Dal gave a nod, replacing it. “I can now search without help.”

  “That’s all he has to say about that?” Lianne said in disbelief.

  I laughed, gave Dal a squeeze, then got down carefully, avoiding hurting my bad foot. “Kraw are purposeful,” I said.

  Lianne shook her head, then returned her attention to the books on the table. “Looks like this fella here was Gifted, if these were his. Can’t say I understand as much of this, but maybe it’s ‘bout fire like you, Sera.”

  I joined her, picking up a book on the table with flames etched in the leather cover. “Combustion Elements. Sounds very dry.” A flip through it revealed notations on things like “transfer loss” and “limit capacity.”

  “I don’t understand any of this,” I said.

  “Thought you were master of masters at this Gifted stuff,” Lianne said.

  “Well... I can do many wonderful things, but I don’t know what this is.” I splayed my fingers over a diagram that may as well have been written in Nialae.

  Dal lumbered over to us, looking over my shoulder. “Your gift is pieces of your world’s power,” he said.

  “Oy, how in the seven hells did you get all that from this picture?”

  “Oh,” I whispered. “Ysiel said Tanebrael was here because this world’s power is easily accessible. Maybe that’s where our gifts come from.”

  Dal nodded, then said, “We should find rest and renew our search tomorrow. Though, I am beginning to suspect that they would not keep the secrets of your world’s leylines and artifacts here in the open.”

  “The secrets of my world,” I whispered, putting the journal down.

  Aldron came back to me, tall and youthful and arrogant. Then Elyse and her blond friend, and something Aldron had said about being a vault keeper, guarding the secrets of my world. What was it? If only the recollection wasn’t addled by Karne’s allure. My blood heated at the memory of what three of them did.

  “The bottom,” I said.

  “Council’s balls, her brains have curdled.”

  Dal frowned at me. “There is something you are not telling me.”

  Stars above, my visits from Karne had morphed from an isolated incident to a shameful secret. At least one good thing had come from them.

  “The bottom of the castle,” I said. “There’s a vault.”

  “How in the seven hells would you know that?” Lianne asked.

  Dal was frowning, the depths of my dishonesty tumbling between the distance in his eyes.

  “Did you guys find a way down?” I asked.

  “Only one,” Dal said. “It ended in a wall. But it is not a true wall, it smelled too old to be just that. I was drawn to it.”

  “Let’s go,” I said, grateful that he chose not to address my shameful secret right now.

  Lianne grabbed a torch on the way, as the castle was darkening now, and I lit it with a flick of my finger. Dal eventually stopped and pulled at a tapestry to our left. Behind it was a darkened staircase.

  “I give up asking,” L
ianne said.

  I smiled as we descended the stairs, coming upon a small room at the bottom. The space down here was barely wider than the staircase itself, small enough to house brooms and buckets, perhaps. Nothing more. The walls and floor were clean and bare.

  “This is odd,” I said, placing my hand on the cool stone.

  Lianne’s plate armor scraped against the stone as we all jostled about for space.

  “There is something very old behind here,” Dal said.

  “Just have to find the door,” I murmured, frowning as I poked at the crevices in the wall.

  “Oh sure, but how,” Lianne said, knocking on one stone after another.

  “I wonder if this is like Ysiel said. Perhaps you’re sensing the Helegnaur down there.”

  Dal’s brow was furrowed in concentration. “I cannot say.”

  “Well that would be bloody convenient,” Lianne said.

  “The torch,” Dal said.

  Lianne turned to him. “What of it?”

  Dal held out his hand, and Lianne obliged, handing it over. He began to set the torch at different places in the small space, all of us moving out of his way as he stopped to watch the flame lick upward time and again. Dal halted his search in a low corner when the flame flickered away from the wall.

  He handed the torch back to Lianne and crouched to stick his hand on the wall where the torch had flickered. His hand went through the stone illusion, into a space that was perhaps two stones high. He fumbled for a moment, and then something clinked within the wall where Dal’s hand was buried. Dal got to his feet with a satisfied grunt. The sound of stone grinding on stone crunched through the small space, and soon the wall itself was grumbling out of the way.

  With a nod, Dal strode forward into the passage, which widened enough that all of us could descend together. The torch was too small and close to chase away much darkness, so I sent a flurry of fire moths out to light our way. They fluttered just out of reach as we walked, lighting the space with a warm glow.

  The plain passage contained little more than a trickle of water dripping down stone, painting the walls with brown muck. After a time, our descent became colder and my moths lit an ornate archway of carved stone in the distance. The room ahead glowed with a still blue light of its own. Moonlight.