Dragonfly Refrain

by Aimee Moore

  “They haven’t been to my taste. Until now,” Myrin said.

  Khaeda kissed me again, slow and deep. Her sweet breath brushed my lips when she spoke. “When Tanebrael rouses the courts to march upon Elanthia, I hope to win you for my own.”

  And there was the refrain to this song; the reward for my game. Elanthia would be taken by the queen.

  Myrin laughed. “So you choose Tanebrael’s side then, Khaeda?”

  Khaeda’s pale gaze left mine, traveling over my shoulder. “It is she who chooses no side that shall not lose.”

  Myrin’s hand trailed up my hip, her breasts moving against my back as she spoke. “Or perhaps it is she who chooses no side that gains no spoils.”

  “Hm. Spoils,” Khaeda said, kissing me again.

  I left satisfied.

  ∞∞∞∞

  “I have found no information on your malady,” Growl said, glancing at my shard.

  “I figured as much. What about the core keys?”

  K’cine joined us. “Nothing we read seems to bother defining them, it’s like core keys were as common as chamber pots.”

  I bent over Growl’s table, pulling a book to me and bracing my palms on either side of it. My shard gave a gentle throb of discomfort as I stressed the shoulder, and I shifted with an irritated sigh. “This moldy tome is the closest we have to information?”

  Growl’s heat grazed my backside, his arm reaching forward to turn a page. “One sentence, commanding a test of time to gain access to a multitude of artifacts. The Polar Construct is one. That is all.”

  I set my shoulders in defeat, skimming over the text. “I want to know why the Helegnaur is so different to Nialae. What makes it special?”

  “Icefire; polar opposites,” Growl said near me.

  K’cine frowned. “Niall was formed in a clash of light and dark, also opposites. Maybe this has some kind of wavelength Nialae can grasp.”

  “In an odd way, it almost makes sense,” I said. “But then, how would combining it with a leyline sour my world’s power to Nialae?”

  “We can only speculate, and poorly at that,” Growl said. Then he shifted, pressed against my backside as he turned another page. The firm pressure of his body trapping mine against the table ignited need in me. I trembled as memories of this position shot lust into my blood.

  K’cine frowned up at me, reminding me that my audience saw more than my actions. It wasn’t entirely Growl’s fault; we’d worked in close quarters enough that sometimes squishing against each other was just the way of things.

  That was when Karne walked in. “Am I… interrupting?” He asked in a sour tone.

  Growl stepped away from me, and I turned to Karne. “No. What do you need?”

  “Come with me, we have much to discuss,” he said.

  I sighed, casting K’cine and Growl one last look before descending the steps. Karne took us to his quarters where plush red assaulted my senses. I cast a glance at the large double doors to his true chambers, curiosity whispering through me for a heartbeat.

  Karne strode to a table with food. “I prefer my staff not to fraternize behind my back,” he said in a curt tone as he sat. “Bedroom favors are currency here.”

  “And I thought I was a guest,” I said, batting my lashes. I let him think what he wanted because it might serve me in some fashion later.

  Karne frowned up at me. “Do not be petty, Seraphine, it’s beneath you. Perhaps you find pleasure in resisting me.”

  “Perhaps it’s not about you,” I said, seating myself.

  “Then tell me what it’s about.”

  “Dusting trinkets, of course.”

  Karne scoffed. “I know better. You’ve been very busy indeed adapting to life here. And yet you share nothing of your intrigues with me.”

  “Share? Why would I do that?”

  “I know certain information has been reaching your ears.”

  “Clearly you don’t, if you’re pressing me for it.”

  “Interesting; the only pressing I saw was of Growl on your backside.”

  “If I didn’t know any better, I might think you jealous.” I raised one eyebrow, crossing one leg over the other.

  “You should hope, for Growl’s sake, that I do not have a reason to be.”

  I didn’t answer as Karne regarded me over a glass of wine. Then he settled into ease. “I may have found a way to remove the shard in your shoulder.”

  “Really,” I said in a flat tone.

  Karne nodded. “Yes, and I think you’ll rather like it.”

  “I doubt it,” I picked at a cherry stem on my plate.

  “I’ve managed to get us invited into the capital city of Elanthia.”

  I dropped the cherry into the sauce. It splatted across my white house garb. “What?” I whispered.

  “You’re not pleased?” Karne asked, brow furrowed.

  “No, I’m bloody not,” I said. “I never want to see that place again. I’m an exiled traitor.”

  “I apologize, Seraphine, I did not know.”

  I scowled. “You can see everything else in my head except that? Or are you just that insensitive?”

  Karne gave me a condescending laugh. “You still haven’t figured it out. All this time around Nialae and you haven’t figured it out.”

  “What am I supposed to figure out?”

  “Never mind. The trip to Elanthia is not about you,” Karne said in a mocking tone.

  I glared.

  Karne helped himself to his cherry, taking his time wrapping his lips around it, watching me. I pretended not to notice.

  “I found a way for you to repay your debt to me. I told your king I had information, of sorts, in regard to the recent Nialae occupants. I wish to come to a peace agreement, of sorts.”

  “Sounds like manipulation, of sorts.”

  “Possibly. Your boy king, at the behest of his shriveled advisors, wishes an audience with me and a few others so we may attempt a treaty. Or rather, the first forming of a Nialae court under the guise of a treaty. You must accompany me. I am told his personal library is highly valuable, and it is there that you will undoubtedly find the cure to your shard alongside the information we need on core keys.”

  I feigned disinterest, poking at my plate. “The core keys, hm?”

  “Yes. The boy king allowed me to come on one condition: that I bring a wife.”

  “Excuse me?” I raised my lashes in a glare.

  “He seems to think a wife will keep me out of the beds of his palace staff. More accurately, control me where he cannot. It is a well-placed nuisance, to be sure, but nothing I can’t handle.”

  I frowned as something niggled at me. “Yes, very well-placed,” I murmured. “At any rate, I am not Nialae. And I do not care whom you lay with.”

  Karne’s gaze roved over me. “I have ways of disguising you, Seraphine. But it will be dangerous. You will have to play the part of my lover in front of an entire kingdom. There are those who wish me dead, and may strike at the opportunity to use you as leverage.”

  “So you’re risking my life for some court politics and a musty book on core keys, is that it?” I sat back, tilting my head in derision, as if I wouldn’t risk my own life to get my hands on that Helegnaur.

  “Think bigger, Seraphine. If I manage to pair some clever politicking with access to the power of the Helegnaur then this world is within my grasp, and you are at the side of the new Nialae king. Imagine the resources I could amass then, the cure to your shard is all but guaranteed. We all win if this goes well.”

  “The prince is out there somewhere, and he plots to take the throne as well,” I said with a note of skepticism.

  Karne waved a dismissive hand. “He has no more influence than the other realms as of yet. It’s a fair game for all, which is why we must act.”

  “Take another as your concubine and allow me the freedom to wander in search of a cure. Yasmil, perhaps. K’cine. Anyone other than me can play the part of your lover with ease.”


  “You haven’t figured Yasmil out yet, have you.”

  “Whatever she is, she would play the part of your wife well.”

  Karne let off an amused hum in his throat. “Yasmil is more Nialae than most. And for all her strength, she has one fatal flaw in the game of Nialae courts. But, that is a discussion for another day. None other in my staff has the extensive knowledge you do about the humans of Elanthia and what they’ve suffered recently.”

  “That is not my concern.”

  “It is precisely your concern, as you hold the biggest playing cards in this new endeavor.”

  “They should be burned,” I muttered, sending a dark look into my glass.

  Karne frowned at me, leaning back in his chair. “What happened in Elanthia, Seraphine?”

  “You truly cannot see?”

  “Glimpses, if you will, in between the pieces of you I cannot see. An opulent room with a feast for two, a firefly that’s stilled in the air, a beach at night, flowers tossed to the ground, petals fluttering about the carpet. These things make little sense to me without their context.”

  I too remembered these things, and they made my heart thunder in my ribs with desire and regret.

  “Tell me,” Karne said in a gentle voice. “Tell me so I know what you suffer when we arrive.”

  I spoke slowly. “Some pains, Karne, are not to be shared.”

  Karne frowned at me. “Very well. Do as I ask and you shall have your freedom within a month. I’ll take you wherever you wish to go and never bother you again, if that is what you desire.”

  I pulled on a fake smile. “Deal,” I said.

  Karne gave a nod. “We leave at dawn. Your disguise will be prepared.”

  ∞∞∞∞

  Karne’s disguise would have fooled my own mother, were she still living.

  My hair, ‘flame red’ as Mindrik once called it, was the first of Karne’s manipulations. He performed some complicated gestures with his hands, and my scalp burned for a few moments before my hair fell around my face in luxurious, pale blond curls.

  Then came the ring that always went around my neck. Only this new collar was more intricate for its role of fake wife, whorls much like my seashell shined in soft relief on its silver surface. Another Nialae woman presented it, informing me it would not open unless the wearer spoke specific words in Nialae tongue. With an impatient sigh, I repeated the odd words they told me for what seemed like an eternity until the ring finally popped open.

  Karne nodded his approval and clasped the ring around my neck, where it began to glow. The dress was next. It was a sheer fabric, one side of midnight blue and the other black, both crossing at the breasts to clutch my throat, and slithering down each side of me to my feet. My bare shoulders exposed my shard to all.

  Sparkling gems that winked like stars were adorned on the fabric, and three cascading chains of glinting gems looped from my right shoulder to my left hip.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. Stared. Who was this blond creature? The dress was almost sheer enough to see the taut tips of my breasts through it, draping sensually enough to reveal everything else.

  “My eyes,” I gasped.

  Karne joined me in the mirror. “You don’t like them?”

  “They’re… faun brown; almost golden.”

  “It’s an illusion, nothing more. When this comes off,” he brushed my collar, “you’ll return to that lovely chocolate color.”

  With a gesture of his hand, Karne twisted half of my long, blond hair up into an elegant swirl adorned with more winking gems, leaving the rest of it to trail behind me. I reached up to touch an escaped curl, then my heart jolted at another change.

  I whirled on Karne with a snarl. “Put it back.”

  He smiled down at me. “Such outrage over so small a thing. It’s merely another illusion. You want to fit in with your new people, do you not?”

  “Put it back or I’m leaving.”

  “The marks are unbecoming,” he murmured. “No high caste lady of the court would have them.”

  “That’s not my problem. You have no right to take my marks from me. Put. Them. Back.”

  Karne’s gaze searched mine for a moment, then he took my hand. Raising his other hand, he hesitated a moment before brushing his fingers up my arm, revealing my tattoo as he went. The collar at my neck heated as he did this, until at last he reached my elbow and my skin was my own again.

  I ripped my hand from his when he’d finished, and a look passed between us as I guarded my marked arm.

  Yasmil’s soft steps heralded her arrival. “You’re expected,” she murmured at Karne, gaze attentive of his every move.

  Karne turned away from me. “Yes. Thank you.”

  Yasmil cast her lashes down in assent as he passed, then locked her orange gaze on me. She took in my new hair, my eyes, the phony bond ring at my neck, and the royal dress on my peasant body. Her lip twitched, the slightest movement toward disdain, and then she left. I turned back to the mirror, fidgeting with my little finger, then let my hands fall.

  “If only you could see me now,” I whispered.

  “Seraphine, it’s time to go,” Karne said.

  I turned away from the mirror and limped toward the destiny I had chosen all those months ago on the battlefield in front of Elanthia.

  The capital palace was as I remembered it; obnoxious in its towering stone proportions and luxurious at every turn. Much effort had been spent on its restoration in the seven months since I’d seen it last. Karne, Yasmil, myself, and a battalion of other servants arrived in the expansive entryway. The cavernous space, ramping up to the throne room, was wrapped in plush carpets, shimmering tapestries, and more palace soldiers than any room had a right to. The sight of their familiar armor made my heart squeeze for Lianne.

  When I entered the throne room at Karne’s side, I couldn’t help but jitter with nerves as nobles on either side of the large rug rustled and murmured. Karne’s outfit matched my own, stunning in blacks and blues that set off his pale eyes and tanned skin. He was used to this, the pomp and ceremony of the court.

  I was used to blood and bones and dirt.

  Caelund had grown little since I met him last. His scrawny throat still bobbed with every jerky movement, his crown was still too big, and his nose and eyes were still stupid in their disproportions. And now he had an unbecoming swagger.

  “Karne of the Nialae, welcome to my kingdom,” the boy king said. “And welcome to you, Ryelle, wife to Karne.”

  Karne gave a slight bow, and I did the same, after I remembered ‘Ryelle’ was my new name for the time being.

  “Come and sit at the king’s dais,” Caelund said, snapping his fingers at the robed advisors sitting behind him. People jumped to bring forth seats, and soon we were stepping over the scorch mark I’d left in the rug months ago, being seated in chairs to look over the human court that buzzed with excitement. Karne sat to the boy king’s right, followed by myself.

  Caelund slouched, obviously bored, and sighed before speaking over the dull roar of his subjects. “Being king is hard work, you know. All of these people, whining to me day in and day out. Solve my problems, Caelund. Answer my questions, Caelund. Bed me, Caelund. Utterly exhausting. What in the world do I pay these people for?”

  I frowned past my fake husband, seated between the boy and I, and bit back the urge to say something snide.

  Karne steered the conversation to smoother waters. “Being a ruler is tiring. I recently found one of my household trying to consort with my wife.”

  Well, almost smoother.

  Karne’s predatory grin was on me then, along with the eyes of the boy king.

  I gave a vapid smile. “He was punished, of course,” I said.

  “Of course,” Karne agreed, putting his hand on my leg.

  I tensed up.

  “She looks familiar…” Caelund said, narrowing his eyes over at me.

  My heart leapt into my throat. What if he discovers I’m the banished traitor he met he
re only eight scant months before? I was powerless to defend myself now; would Karne defend me or let them take me away? I tried to calm my jitters.

  “Funny, you don’t look recognizable at all to me,” I said.

  Caelund’s voice crackled with thoughtfulness. “Your gift, it burns with immense fire. Where did you say you were from?”

  “She hails from Rainholdt,” Karne said, hand squeezing my leg as the boy king’s eyes absorbed the clues to my puzzle. He gazed at my hair, my collar, then my marked arm, and finally my shard.

  “Tell me, Karne. What is that black thing sticking out of her shoulder? Is it the reason she is so cold to you? Or has it anything to do with that unsightly limp?”

  “The limp is an old battle wound,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes.

  “Cold to me?” Karne turned to me then. “Tell him, my love, are you truly frigid?”

  I opened my mouth to give some robotic reply, but then Karne’s allure trickled into me. Only me to his right, and no one to his left. I didn’t know he could control the direction of it. The message was weak compared to what Karne could do, but it still stole my breath away.

  I looked into Karne’s eyes. “No, my love,” I whispered. Karne’s hand tightened almost painfully on my leg, and I resisted the urge to moan.

  “So then what is the malady in the lady’s shoulder?” Caelund asked. “Should it be a threat to the people of Elanthia, I would know.”

  “That is a story for another day. It is no threat, but we hoped to find a remedy soon,” Karne said.

  Caelund waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Tell me what Nialae want while they’re here. Your females are agreeable with their power, I would very much like to keep them here in the palace.”

  “Are your Gifted not enough?” I asked with a note of acid.

  Caelund gave a cocky laugh. “Oh, them. They are mine. I have bedded them all. Well, all the women, but they pale compared to Nialae lovers. And I grow tired of their incessant whining. The Nialae gag our Gifts, Caelund. Make the Nialae leave us be, Caelund. Next they’ll ask me to move the palace.”