After I relieved myself in a thick grouping of rosemary, I pulled off my sweaty undergarments and walked the sixty yards to the bank of the river. We had followed it west for the last week, toward Nia. It was the same river I had emerged into after escaping the dragon’s lair. Closer to the capital, it was known as the Stone River.
The shores of the river were lined in slick rocks. I waded into the quick moving water. Though the air was hot and dry, the water was still quite frigid. I doubted most would be able to stand more than a few moments in its icy clutches. I dunked my head under the surface and let the black current numb my body and memories until my breath couldn’t be held anymore.
It was not a nightmare.
The realization brought the chill to my heart and stomach. My friends really did chase me down like a rabid beast and murder me. I could remember the pain of their weapons and I saw their faces so clearly. They meant to kill me. My friends hated me for some reason, and it was not because of what I did to Shlara. I must have done something else to incur such wrath. Something that prompted them to chase me themselves instead of sending soldiers after me as they had in the past.
My head ached when I tried to remember. What more could I have done? What could have been worse than what I did to Shlara? They had tied Iolarathe to a stake and began to burn her. I was bound and powerless. I could not stop them. I could only watch the woman I loved die at the hands of my friends.
“Kaiyer.” I thought it was Iolarathe’s voice for a moment, I was so absorbed in the memory of her beautiful face twisting in agony as she burned. I turned and saw Fehalda at the river’s muddy shore. “You’ve been standing in the river for an hour.”
“Neither you nor Vernine has come to wash my back.” I gave a short laugh and walked to the shore.
“It is your watch.” She glanced at my naked body when I emerged from the water, but I imagined she was more interested in the numerous scars that decorated my skin than the sexual gratification I could grant her. She had made it clear on more than one occasion during our week of travel that she would butcher me if I even considered touching her.
“Fine. Go to sleep,” I said as we walked back to the camp.
She glared at me and then walked to her bedroll without another word.
“Do you wish to speak of your nightmare?” Vernine asked from her bedroll. Her red eyes regarded me seriously.
“No.” I sat down on a rock next to the fire and stared into the parts of the flame that matched her eyes.
“I can only imagine your plans for our return, but I doubt the empress will understand if you choose to be so terse with her.”
“I will deal with her when we meet.”
“That is exactly the kind of language that makes me question your intent. That and your long and legendary history of decimating our people,” she replied.
“What do you recommend?” I turned away from the fire and glared at her. Vernine rarely revealed any emotion, and she made no indication now that she understood she was irritating me.
“We will return to Nia with you. General Fehalda will beseech her sister to meet with you again, since you saved both of our lives. The empress will ask us what you wish to speak of, and we will not have an answer. You are the Destroyer, the scourge of our people, the Betrayer of your own. She will never agree to meet with you. She will likely unleash her army upon you again.”
“You’ve already told me all of this.”
“If you will explain to us what you want, what you will offer, and why the empress should trust you, we will have a better chance of success in negotiating with my sister on your behalf,” Fehalda said from her bedroll. Unlike Vernine, Fehalda’s voice and face clearly conveyed her exasperation.
“I wish to keep it private between the two of us.”
“We will both be in the room. We will find out then,” Vernine sighed.
“I will only speak to her alone.”
“You are so fucking stubborn!” Fehalda swore. Our eyes met across the fire and I could not mistake the malice there. “I owe you for saving our lives, but if not for you, our lives never would have been in danger. I will not allow my sister to spend any time alone with you. I do not trust you. If you want our help, if you really want to speak with her, you will tell us exactly what you want so that we may prepare her.”
“We want to help you,” Vernine said. “Give us what we need to set up this meeting.” Fehalda nodded at the gray woman’s words.
We had argued about my plan almost every hour as we traveled to the capital. I felt my resolve crumbling under their constant assault. If I told them, the empress might give her answer directly to the women and refuse to speak to me. This would put a bend in my plan, but I would still be in the castle and could devise a new course then.
“Fine. I will tell you.” Even Vernine looked shocked, but they quickly regained their composure before I continued. “I have holes in my memories. I don’t remember everything, and the memories do not return chronologically. I have slowly been able to piece together the different parts of my past, but when I first awoke, I did not even know my name. Telaxthe studied the Destroyer. I want her help understanding the missing pieces of my other life.”
They didn’t speak for a few seconds but I saw them glance sideways at each other. The firelight reflected off of their eyes and I realized that other than Vernine’s eyes, both of them were colorless shades of black, white, and gray.
“What would you offer in return for her assistance?” Vernine leaned forward in her bedding and the fabric fell away from her shoulders to expose most of her chest and breasts. Our travel so far had been uneventful, but the movement made my body recall the many nights I spent licking every inch of her white skin and fucking her while Isslata watched or participated.
“What do you think she would want?”
“So, you don’t even know what you would offer?” Fehalda let out an exasperated sigh.
“I have some ideas, but if you both are sincere about wanting to help, then tell me what she wants. You know her better.”
“She wants you gone from this world! That was the whole reason Vernine and I came after you at Nia’s East Keep.”
“I am not leaving this world.” I met her black eyes. “What else?”
“You could show us which Radicle you came from,” Vernine offered.
“Perhaps.” I wondered if Nadea had already told the empress everything. Maybe Vernine and Fehalda didn’t even know that Nadea was Telaxthe’s daughter. They must have left the castle immediately after the duchess’s capture.
“That is not enough. She wants him gone. By way of the Radicle, or death,” Fehalda said flatly.
“Because she fears me?” I asked.
Both women closed their mouths and glanced at each other. Like two sides of a mirror, they licked their lips slightly and then each ran a hand through her hair. My army had a silent hand language and I wondered if the empress’s army had a similar mode of communication.
“How did you get your armor?” Vernine asked suddenly.
“Armor?” I felt my body chill despite the heat in the air.
“Yes. The Destroyer’s armor. Your armor. It emerged from your body as if your skin was merely covering it the entire time.”
“And the Destroyer’s mace and shield were in your hands. I would not have believed it if I had not seen your transformation with my own eyes.” Fehalda sat up in her bedroll, but made a more conscious effort to cover her body than Vernine.
“I don’t remember.” My head was starting to hurt again and my stomach felt queasy. I recalled bits and pieces of that night after I found Jessmei, but they didn’t make much sense.
“Four hundred and thirty-two of our warriors died that night trying to protect our empress. Yet we bring you back to her now. Perhaps she will think us traitors; at the very least she will punish us for failing in our mission to banish you from this world.” The white woman shook her head and her pale long hair danced with various shades of orange, reflecting the firelight.
“So why are you bringing me back to her?”
“How do you not remember wearing your armor?” Fehalda seethed.
“It makes my head hurt to think of it. A headache like something is splitting my skull open,” I admitted.
“It must be your conscience forcing atonement for the horrors you have inflicted on hundreds of thousands of people.” She clenched her teeth and then looked away from me and into the fire.
I sighed and settled back down in my blankets. We would have another discussion tomorrow while we traveled, then at night, then the next day, all the way until we reached Nia again. Fehalda was probably correct: Telaxthe would not want to be anywhere near me. I did not understand how my armor had returned to me. It must have been some magic beyond my comprehension. Stranger things had happened. I was still alive now, five thousand years after being beheaded by my friend.
“I grew up happy.” My mouth formed the words as I looked up to the stars and twin moons. I didn’t recognize them, but I knew now why they were so alien to me. “I never met my mother. My father would not speak of her. She was killed by our Elven masters because she made a mistake.” I heard the women turn in their bedrolls but I didn’t look at them.
“My father, brother, and I ran the blacksmith and stables for the chieftain’s house. There were other stables on the estate, but ours were the only ones she ever visited. I was terrified of her at first. Everyone feared her, every human, every Elven. She delighted in their terror and they fawned over her like idiotic butterflies. I worked all night making sure that the stables were spotless and the horses were groomed to perfection. She killed humans almost daily and I once saw her rip the limbs from a horse that had managed to throw her from its back. She was a terrible force of nature that was as beautiful as she was deadly.
“I probably loved her before she even noticed me. I loathed your kind, but I had been lucky and escaped any real beatings or lashings. When she did notice me, I feared she would torture me at length before she murdered me. The thought of my brother and father missing me was almost more painful than the thought of actually dying at her hands.” I looked over at the women and saw them studying me with eyes that reflected the campfire like metal.
“When we became lovers, it was wonderful. I had never known such intimacy could exist. I had never felt anything more incredible than her body. She taught me to please her, and I was more than eager to do so. We kept our affair hidden. I don’t know how long we were together, but I wanted it to last forever.”
I saw Iolarathe’s face again in my memories and recalled the first time we had made love. I heard her moans of pleasure and the feeling of her beautiful body wrapped around my own.
“What happened?” Fehalda asked, and I realized it had been half a minute since I spoke.
“One of her suitors found out about us. My brother was helping me shoe a stallion. I was in the smithy getting a tool for him. The group of them came upon our building and yanked my brother out. She strangled him while I watched from the doorway. My father ran out to save him, but her suitors stabbed him.
“I ran to their dead bodies, I thought she would kill me, and I wanted her to. The tribe was experimenting on humans. They were using magic to change them into something more powerful. She sent me there. They infused us with the Elements and locked us in cages for weeks in the dark, in our own filth. Most died. The few who lived were trained as warriors. I thought of her all the time, but I only wanted revenge. I had loved her with every fiber of my existence and she killed my family. I hated myself almost as much as I hated her.
“Eventually, my friend and I orchestrated an escape. We freed others, and we fled. We lived in the shadows of the world and tried to scrape out an existence, but Laxile continued to pursue us. We made it to the other side of the world, and they gave up the chase. We built an army. A monster of humans whose sole purpose was to destroy their enslavers. My story was only unique because I loved the Elven who had betrayed me. All of my warriors had lost loved ones. All of us had been tortured, raped, humiliated. All of us had lived like animals at the hands of your people.
“It was easy enough to harness their pain and rage into something productive. It was easy to motivate them with the promise of freedom. I believed I wanted to be free of Elven enslavement, but I just wanted to be free of her. I wanted revenge and I was willing to destroy everything to have it. She knew this. She told me when we met before the final battle. Before the dragons descended, she asked for my surrender. She told me she still loved me and she begged for forgiveness. She offered a truce.”
“You refused,” Fehalda grunted. “I know this story. Every single Elven is taught how that battle ended.”
“Of course I refused. I could not surrender after we had driven them to the brink of extinction. I could not surrender after promising thousands of my people a life of freedom. I could not surrender when the blood of countless humans had been spilled through generations by your people. I could not surrender when we were so close to victory.
“Then the dragons came. My army killed two of them and the last one flew into the sky in an attempt to flee. I hung onto her talon but was thrown off. When I awoke, my lover had found me.” I did not want them to know the details of how I had defeated the dragons.
“We made love again. My memories are still filled with holes, but I believe that it was the last time. I forgave her and she forgave me. We planned to flee into the wilderness to spend the rest of our lives together. Perhaps it was a foolish dream.” I recalled the last union of our bodies and wondered again at the child we had created. This was what I needed Telaxthe’s help with, but I had to tread carefully.