“Here I am,” she panted, still out of breath, affected by the magic he’d used on her.
Humans didn’t react well to his abilities. He’d seen it before. No wonder they were still shunning everyone who wielded magic other than the sacred one Vala had gifted them.
“If you’re looking for applause, you’re looking in the wrong place,” he simply said and turned on his heels, beckoning her to follow him.
He didn’t turn to demonstrate power, how little afraid he was of her, but because he couldn’t bear seeing how she cringed at his words. And he hadn’t used those because he meant them. He had spoken like that because, now that she had seen what he was, fear was the safest measure to control her.
He brushed imaginary dust from his shoulder and glanced at the stables as they approached the entrance of the citadel. His horses—their horses—were ready. Disgruntled at the short pause under a safe roof but ready to take on the journey ahead. His things were packed. He had even changed back into his leathers to be prepared for all eventualities—
That initial sword fight with the girl, how easily she had parried his attacks, how she had felled him like an old, sick tree… It had been quite unsettling. Even if he had eventually let her win intentionally, all part of the plan, the extent of her skill and strength still had been a surprise.
He didn’t check over his shoulder—didn’t need to—as they entered the citadel and progressed through the cool stone corridors. His Fae hearing was all he needed to locate the girl’s exact position, which foot she was setting down. His own footsteps were a sigh against the floor as he kept the pace fast enough to make the girl jog to keep up with him. He did it as much to take away any chance for her to confront him as he did to not have to see the fear in her gaze, the sheer terror that spoke through every twitch of her muscles, every blink of her widened eyes. It was, as after hundreds of years, suddenly as though looking into a mirror again.
At the corner of the Meister’s study, Nehelon halted, turned around, and let Gandrett catch up with him. He locked her to the spot with a cold gaze the second she stopped, in a movement like a shying cat, and said, “You don’t speak. You don’t even open your mouth. All you do is nod and bow until we leave this gods-damned place.”
Chapter Seven
Row after row after row of books. The Meister’s study had always fascinated her. All the knowledge tucked away onto feeble, aged pages. Today, her interest in them piqued. She noted every tear in the spines, every blemish in the leather, every cord that dangled down over the shelves, emerging from the books where they marked pages. Blue and purple and brown. The thundering of her heart hadn’t changed. And after she had almost bumped into the Fae male, she could hardly control the shaking in her body.
Where was Gandrett, the cunning fighter? What impossible corner of her mind had she withdrawn to?
The sound of the Meister clearing his throat called for her attention, and she set one weary step forward from the threshold where she had yielded. She bowed.
Nehelon, on the other hand, was already lounging in the cushioned chair across from the Meister, who sat at his carved desk, a pen between his slim fingers.
“Sit, Brayton,” the Meister ordered and, to Gandrett’s surprise, beckoned her to the vacant chair next to Nehelon’s. She swallowed for two reasons. First, never in her time at the priory had she been invited to sit in the Meister’s presence. Second, the chair was less than a foot from Nehelon’s. She couldn’t find it in her to sit so close to the predator.
It’s all right, she wanted to say, I can stand—or, I’d rather stand. But Nehelon shot her a look that promised violence if she didn’t obey. And for a moment, she considered whether it was worth it. If defying him and losing her life then and there wouldn’t be the better option. But her survival instinct was still in full blossom, and so she took a quick step toward where she’d been ordered and stiffly sat down.
“It has come to my attention,” the Meister opened, “that your particular skills would be of value to my friend Nehelon.” He smirked at the Fae warrior next to her, giving no hint he was aware that he understood in whose presence they sat. “We have agreed—” he gave Nehelon a nod, to which the Fae replied with a brief drop of his chin, “—that you will venture on a journey with Nehelon to assist him with a particular issue that has demanded utmost secrecy.” Another look was shared between the two men. Not men. One man and a male. Gandrett swallowed the words that were rising in her own throat, the scream for help that had been building in her lungs since that first moment she had spotted the ears. Her eyes darted to the right, examining Nehelon’s hair where the anatomical detail which had given away his secret lay. And once more, she entertained the thought of selling him out. Telling the Meister. Screaming it from the top of the citadel. Nehelon surely couldn’t take on the entire order at once: the priests and priestesses, the warriors, the water mages, and… she noted Nehelon’s raised eyebrow as if he was following her train of thought… and children. Most of the people here were children, and she couldn’t risk their lives. Not to save her own.
Nehelon’s eyebrow lowered. “I have informed Miss Brayton of our deal.” He took the opportunity to keep his reply short to get out as quickly as possible, Gandrett was sure, to not waste any time or give her any spare moment to escape blind panic and make up her mind.
“And what does Miss Brayton—” he spoke her name with bemusement, as if putting the little word Miss in front of it made it a well-told joke, “—have to say to the offer?”
She hadn’t been aware it was an offer, Gandrett wanted to say, but the muscles in Nehelon’s thighs tightened, and the hand resting on the cords of steel curled into a fist, demonstrating how easily he could crush her.
“Miss Brayton accepts,” he said with a voice as bright as the sunshine that filtered in through the stained glass windows. “To all the terms of the deal,” he added.
All the terms. Gandrett wished she knew what that meant other than her being a slave for however long Nehelon needed her for whatever task. But she didn’t dare ask. Not now when his deadly Fae hands were less than a foot from crushing her if he felt like it.
It made Gandrett’s hair stand, but as he shot her a warning look, her chin jerked down in a shaky nod.
“Then it’s settled,” the Meister clapped his hands once. “You will fare with Nehelon to the East of Sives where you will become part of Lord Tyrem’s—” he paused for a moment as if searching for the right words, “—special guard,” he finished with a smile. A smile that, especially when returned by Nehelon with an equally feral one, couldn’t mean anything good.
Gandrett felt herself inching toward the door in her chair but, at Nehelon’s attention, dropped her head again in a bow.
“And it will be an honor for Miss Brayton,” Nehelon added, his gaze now boring into hers as if saying, you know what will happen if you don’t play along.
“An honor, indeed,” she repeated and inclined her head at Nehelon, everything in her body burning with helpless rage and fear, and was eternally grateful for the years and years of practice that had gained her control over her features. At least control enough to be able to look like she meant what she was saying. And what she meant was that it would be an honor. An honor to give her own life in order to protect the innocent in this priory.
Nehelon didn’t speak as he led the way to the stables at a speed that made her stumble on the cobbles, and she wasn’t a clumsy maid but a trained fighter—even if she felt like one less and less as they put distance between them and the place where the Meister had taken a heavy-looking, coin-clinking, velvet bag from Nehelon’s hands as payment for the lost vessel to Vala.
One more year. It would have been only one more year, and she would have had a chance to get out. Even if still a lifelong member of the Order of Vala, but still, away from the desert, away from the limited space to move, the limited faces to greet and the questions of what else lay behind those barren lands.
One of the younger
acolytes was waiting at the stables, a smile on his face, and informed Nehelon that the horses were ready, which triggered Nehelon to flash a smile and lead Gandrett right past the stables to the wooden bars behind, where horses were usually readied for messengers or the rare visitors of Everrun. It was something Gandrett had learned very soon—that no one came to Everrun without an agenda. There were no tourists here.
As Nehelon pointed at a well-fed bay horse, beckoning her to get on while he mounted his black mare, the bells of the citadel announced it was time for the daily prayers. When Gandrett glanced back over her shoulder, the boy at the stable doors was already running toward the sound as they all were. Everyone in the priory took part in the morning prayers. Even Nahir. And as Gandrett watched them all bustle into the citadel where they would fill up the temple rooms, her heart emptied. Her hope, slight and brittle as it might have been, crumbled. This—the timing of when to hold that meeting—ensured no one would be outside to witness how she and Nehelon vanished from the priory, and when the prayers were over, they would be long gone and too far to catch up. Especially with no one knowing where they were headed.
With a sigh that tore into her frightened heart, Gandrett climbed into the saddle.
Chapter Eight
The sun had long climbed to its pinnacle and Nehelon hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t given her a glance but held the reins of her gelding safely in his hands as he led the horse alongside his black mare. They had made it through the gate by Nehelon handing each guard positioned at the watchtowers a small note, which the Meister had personally signed in his study. Gandrett had no idea what the notes said, but judging by the way the guards had waved them through after they had read them, wishing them, “May Vala guide you,” Gandrett was certain they wouldn’t spend another thought once they were out of sight.
Then they rode through the ghost town beyond the walls of the priory. Everrun—the real one. The ancient city of which its abandoned ruins spoke of war and decay.
Gandrett knew the first couple of rows of houses from her afternoon runs, but never in her ten years had she meandered further from the priory than that. Not safe, was what the priests and priestesses said. Shaelak himself took the city and may still be wandering the streets.
Shaelak, the god of darkness.
Gandrett hadn’t dared stray further, for fear of what she may find or what may find her in those dead and empty streets and alleys. With Nehelon at her side, no matter how afraid she was of him, there was an advantage to his deadly power and strength. If stories were to be believed, even the gods feared the Fae—
Nehelon sat straight like a needle, his chin high, one hand on his sword, the other one leading both horses. He hadn’t looked at her once since they had left the safety of the priory, and he hadn’t told her his plans for the travels—not that Gandrett would be able to make anything from the plans. She hadn’t traveled since she had left Sives. Her stomach growled audibly—probably sounding like an avalanche to Nehelon’s Fae ears—but Gandrett didn’t speak. She didn’t complain about her empty stomach or her thirst or that her legs were sore from her linen pants, which weren’t made for riding, or the fact that her head was beginning to ache in the baking sun. She didn’t add the wind to the list, for the wind was what she had grown accustomed to over the years, training in the priory of Everrun.
And as the sun climbed further along the sky, shifting to the west, tinting the mountains in the north-west in orange and gold, exhaustion took over fear, and Gandrett no longer pondered the stories she had heard about the Fae’s bloodlust, about their cruel nature, about why they were still called the fair folk—
Her eyes cautiously peered at Nehelon’s profile to study his features in the warm light of the sunset. It was like that moment when she had noticed his pointed ears: his face was different, not human as much as it had seemed in the Meister’s office or when they had gotten onto the horses and headed out of the walls. He was radiant even with the dust of riding on his cheeks, lips full and sensual, and his hair, black and smooth, falling to his shoulders, hiding those treacherous ears. And eyes—
Gandrett froze as she found Nehelon glaring sideways.
Fear flooded her system yet again, silencing all of her needs until darkness fell.
They only reawakened as Nehelon finally halted both horses without indication of where to find shelter for the night or if that was even his intention. And as he watched Gandrett scan their surroundings—still the mostly flat land that they had been following all day long, without a tree or even a boulder to find shelter from the biting wind—he shrugged and slid off his horse in a graceful swing. “This is as good as anywhere,” he announced and dropped his mare’s reins to the ground before gesturing for Gandrett to get off her horse, wearing a look impatient as a vulture circling a carcass. Gandrett shuddered at his stare.
If it only were as easy as he’d made it look. Her body was well trained for sword fights, for running, for climbing… but for riding? Her legs almost didn’t obey her will when she lifted them—heavy as the boulders she’d desired as shelter—and slithered down the side of her horse, fingers holding on to its neck for fear her knees would buckle under her weight.
Nehelon laughed coldly, probably enjoying seeing her in pain—it wouldn’t surprise her; he was Fae after all—and Gandrett faced him with bared teeth, prepared to throw a nasty comment at him, when the Fae male reached behind him for the waterskin dangling from the saddle of his horse and handed it to her.
“I keep forgetting how high-maintenance humans are,” he mocked, eyes glimmering in the silver light of the rising moon.
Gandrett wanted to spit at him, but her mouth was dry as the cracked soil beneath her unstable feet, and so she silently took the waterskin from his hand and led it to her mouth, about to drink greedily. But she halted—
Nehelon hadn’t drunk from it. What if it was poisoned? What if his intention was to drug her?
“You think I would use poison if I wanted to get rid of you?” he asked, face stone-cold as he watched her hold the waterskin hovering above her mouth.
His tone was enough to make it clear that if he wanted her dead, he would find other, more creative ways of making that happen. Gandrett swallowed once then put the waterskin to her lips and drank.
“Not so bad, is it?” Nehelon didn’t take his eyes off of her the entire time she was drinking, as if he was studying something curious, a creature he had never seen before and found fascinating.
Gandrett didn’t reply but handed him the half-drained waterskin, her eyes squinting in a gesture she was hoping said, it’s the least I expect that you’ll water and feed me when you drag me through the desert. The look in his eyes, the tiniest bit of amusement glimmering in the silver light, told her he’d understood.
Without a word, he dropped the waterskin to the ground between them then pulled his pack off the horse, dumping it on top.
Gandrett watched him in disbelief. “You are really planning to stay here for the night,” she said, coming to a realization. As he didn’t deny it, Gandrett’s eyes anxiously darted around, hoping she had missed something earlier, a small boulder to hover behind while she relieved her bladder. He couldn’t be serious. Then there was the wind… it was still whipping through the air, unbroken by trees or bushes. With the sun gone, the temperature would drop to a point too low to sleep unprotected—
Nehelon eyed her, face tight, as if he was realizing just how high maintenance humans were.
“You are aware that if you don’t poison me, I might freeze to death overnight,” Gandrett pointed out. There wasn’t any wood for a fire, either. Even if there was, it would be like a beacon for the predators of the desert—not that she wasn’t already in the presence of the worst predator of all.
The Fae male simply shrugged and unsaddled the horses, letting Gandrett sway on her aching legs. Then, he took a step back and lifted both hands.
At first, there was a slight shudder beneath Gandrett’s feet, and the horses whinnied
as they trampled closer together. Then the ground began shaking.
Gandrett hadn’t heard of earthquakes in this region, but as a child in Sives, she had experienced a mild one, and this… It was more than triple what she remembered. She waited for Nehelon to notice it, too, for the horses to panic—
Yet, while the animals stood close to each other, eyes darting to the sides as if they were waiting for something, Nehelon closed his eyes, and as he turned over his palms so they faced upward, the dust-dry soil rose in a circle around them as if a giant insect was digging underground. It rose one foot, two… until eventually, the wall reached Gandrett’s waist, enclosing them like a miniature of the wall they’d left behind at the priory.
Gandrett was still taking turns staring at the wall and at Nehelon, who had reopened his eyes and looked slightly smug as he prowled past her to stroke the horses’ necks.
That—she gaped at the power of his magic, at what he had just produced from flat, barren ground—was the reason why it was wise to fear him. That power. If he could easily create a crater the size of the pond at the priory…
She didn’t even want to consider what else he was capable of. And she had the slight impression she might find out for herself if she so much as brought it up. But as she crawled back to her feet, having dropped to her hands and knees on the rattling ground from fear it would crack open right beneath her and swallow her, she found Nehelon watching her with moon-lit eyes, half-annoyed, judging by the thin-pressed curve of his lips.
“You should have seen yourself,” he said and raked his fingers through the mane of his horse, “like a beetle on the ground.” With efficient steps, he crossed under the neck of the mare to get to the side of the gelding where he started unbuckling bridle and saddle. “Almost as if you believed something in the wide, flat land could fall on your pretty head.” He smirked at her over the horse’s back, teeth catching the moonlight.
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