A young girl-five-years-old, I know-lays on the floor, shivering. A man, naked, enters the room and creeps across the floor toward her but his face isn’t the face of the man called Khirro, he’s someone else. He’s her father.
Another girl, a few years older, performs a dance for a man wearing a crown. She moves gracefully around the room removing veils from her dress-her flimsy clothes hide welts and bruises covering her arms and back. Hatred builds within as she performs. She glares at the man watching, but he isn’t the man called Khirro, he has another man’s face.
Three women cower, threatened by a man with a knife as he questions them. He kills the dark-haired one and seizes the young blond. A minute passes before he kills her and the older woman. As he faces me, I see an empty eye socket and web of scars across his face. This isn’t Khirro, either.
“Stop it,” I yell, but the visions continue. I see Khirro rescue the woman, Elyea, from a giant. He saves her from a lake of corpses. Finally, I see her killed protecting him. It isn’t Khirro who wields the sword, it is another.
“Do not believe any of it.”
The voice startles me but I don’t look around for it, I know it’s in my head. It’s the voice of the woman in black.
“Do not believe his sword of lies, it does only his bidding.”
“Lies!”
I feel the magician close behind me and whirl on him before he can react. My sword rakes his stomach, a place I inexplicably know he already bears a scar. His sword drops and he sinks to his knees. I turn my back on him and face the man called Khirro. The visions are gone, along with the sword’s light.
“You’re a liar and sinner, a murderer and rapist. It’s time for you to pay.”
He shakes his head and backs away but he isn’t afraid. I feel the power in him.
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Elyea. You loved me, too.”
“Shariel,” I insist and rush him.
I did love him sometime, I’ve come to realize this truth, but when and why are beyond me. I put thoughts of love, kindness, and mercy out of my mind, replacing them with visions of his blood spilling on the floor I use to coax the satisfaction of vengeance into being. I strike again and again, and he defends but doesn’t take the offensive. This disappoints me because I know I’ll wear him down soon. I’d hoped for more of a fight.
He catches my first blow with his shield, but it splits it in two. He shakes it from his arm and I make the first cut across his left arm. It’s not deep because I didn’t want it to be. The next is on his right thigh, enough to send blood running down his leg but not enough to hobble him. Not yet. Strain shows on his face and sweat runs down his cheeks.
“Elyea-” he pleads again, but I cut him off with a short cut on his cheek. He doesn’t cry out. I laugh.
“Shariel,” I growl and cut deep into his right forearm. The black and red sword clatters on the floor and a growl rumbles in his throat. I smile, ready for the challenge, as the flames start.
***
Blood trickled down Khirro’s arm and thigh, his legs went rubbery under him.
Have to keep going.
He peered over the woman’s shoulder at Athryn on the floor behind her, hands held in front of his midsection. He didn’t have much time, but still Khirro fought the inferno raging inside him, clinging to the thought that Elyea was trapped inside somewhere and she still loved him.
She told me she did.
“Elyea-,” he started, but her sword opened a cut on his cheek. She laughed. Heat filled Khirro’s body, racing through his veins, rejuvenating his muscles.
“Shariel.”
Her sword sank into the muscle of his forearm. He dropped the Mourning Sword and the fire spilled over like a volcano erupting, a growl rumbling in his throat as he finally let go. If Athryn was to live, this was the only way.
Flames engulfed the world before his eyes. Through them, the woman’s face no longer looked like Elyea’s. The flames twisted it, threw shadows dancing across it, and he knew the face he saw belonged to the second voice he’d heard speaking through her mouth. This face was beautiful, too, but the evil etched in the cut of her chin and the color of her eyes was plain. Khirro saw this like an observer watching from a safe place where he possessed no influence on what happened. His body took over, doing what needed to be done, and he allowed it.
The woman swung her sword and Khirro sprang aside. A flaming paw lashed out from where a bandaged hand had been a second before. It connected with the woman’s sword hand and her weapon spun away. Flame spread to the sleeve of her shirt.
She closed the distance between them, a dagger drawn from her belt, her actions showing no fear though a hint of it flickered in her eyes alongside the blaze reflected in them. Fiery claws raked her shoulder and thigh and the flaming tyger pushed forward, driving her to the floor. It climbed atop her, paws on her chest, claws digging into flesh. The tyger leaned forward until its blazing whiskers brushed her cheek.
Khirro wrestled to regain control before the inevitable happened, but through the fire he felt a claw pierce her chest and find its way between her ribs into her lung; another pressed against her heart. The woman’s body stiffened, a look of shock crossing her face, and her breath hissed through taut lips.
The flames before Khirro’s eyes dimmed and his control returned. He pushed himself up and took his hands off her chest; blood pumped from the holes left by the tyger’s claws. He leaned forward again, applying pressure to the wounds he’d caused. The woman’s face became Elyea’s again.
“No,” he whispered. “Elyea.”
Behind him, he heard Athryn speaking archaic words, using the end of his love’s life to concoct a spell. Each foreign syllable wrenched at him, twisting his insides into a knot of anger. He wanted to yell at the magician to stop, say it was wrong for him to take advantage of the loss of her life, but Elyea’s eyes moved to Khirro’s and he forgot his companion’s transgressions.
“Khirro.”
“Shhh. Don’t speak.”
“She lied to me. It wasn’t you. I’m sorry.”
He felt the blood pulsing out of her chest between his fingers, soaking the bandages wrapping his hands. Somehow, through the pain, through death pulling her from him again, she smiled. Her expression drained his strength and he sagged forward, put his cheek against hers.
“It wasn’t you. I loved you,” she whispered, then her breath ceased.
“Don’t go. Not again.” He shook his head, cheek brushing against her cheek. “Don’t go.”
He was vaguely aware of Athryn’s incantation stopping and the room-a room full of so much death-fell into silence. Soon, the magician would put his hand on Khirro’s shoulder and tell him it was time for them to go. Soon, they’d be on their way, into the country of their enemy, marching toward a future which surely held their deaths; for an instant, it seemed the future might also hold love.
But no more.
At least she can seek peace with the Gods. The thought gave him no comfort.
Athryn put his hand on Khirro’s shoulder.
Chapter Thirty
The Archon’s eyes snapped open and she sat up abruptly, pain flaring in her chest. Hanh Perdaro stirred in the bed beside her, snored lightly. She smelled the odor of his sweat and the hot air in the room pressed on her like a moist sheet; it brought nausea to her stomach.
He must have gotten up in the night and closed the shutters.
It bothered her both that he had done it, closing her in the stone prison of the room with its heavy air and rank smells, and that he had managed the act without waking her. If she knew any truth, it was that she needed to be more alert and aware than that-all the time, but especially while sleeping under the enemy’s roof. She threw the covers off angrily, unconcerned about waking the man in the bed beside her, and dangled her legs over the edge.