Blistering cold and bright, it flooded through her veins. Fresh as springtime, it stole her breath on a gasp that made the light blink out as if it were never there. Leaving them all to blink into the darkness, blind and vulnerable for the precious moments it took for them to adjust to the hazy dusk settled around them.
“Don’t move,” Er’it said in a hoarse whisper against her throat, fingers digging into her nape as a trail of ice seared her skin. Working at something there before he eased back, tense and ready to fall back on her should it prove not to hold.
Aida looked at his ripped shirt, then down where he’d laid open the one she wore. Nestled between her breasts was the pendant he never took off, the sweep of stones sparkling with their own light in the dreary shadows.
“I… I didn’t mean,” Aida began, slapping a hand over her lips with a muffled squeal as she cringed away from him when Er’it raised his hand.
The same hand he sent raking through his hair, tugging at the tight braids and metal rings to send it ringing in dull chimes into the forest. Climbing off of her, he used the cart’s frame for handholds. Hauling himself up to his feet though he swayed and threatened to tip over.
Snorting a wry laugh, he fell into a heap before Aida, jostling them all and startling everyone awake. The warriors looked around with wide eyes, the whites showing as their gaze landed upon Aida with the unerring knowledge that she was to blame. More than one urged their horse further away from the cart, a pained grimace on their lips as they bowed their heads to Er’it.
Waving them off, he rasped out, “There’s a clearing ahead. Go and make a camp.”
The guards were happy to comply. Even Zaec clambered down from the cart to race ahead on foot. Ath’asho and Maruk remained, both uneasy and tense.
Aida burst into tears.
Pulling the fur over her head, she hid in the empty pitch of her muggy cavern as the raw, bawling sobs tore free from her chest. It was her fault. Had always been her fault. Now she knew the truth of it. Every nitpicking punishment, each whipping, every time Otaso had tossed her into a cell. It was her fault for this thing she was and the dangerous thing lurking inside of her.
She’d destroyed a man who had laid claim to being the most powerful mage in all the lands. Perhaps would have destroyed Er’it as well, Otaso’s successor to that title, had he not thought to try whatever charm hung about her neck now. Heavy as the brace Lir shouldered, her responsibility in it all came crashing down around her head.
A danger to everyone. That was what Otaso had muttered in the darkness when he’d thought her too far gone with pain. He was well within his right to take her, breed her, before he took the thing he’d claimed the moment he laid eyes upon her.
Wrenching back the pelt, Aida lifted her chin and dared to look Er’it in the eye. Challenging him with red-rimmed eyes and wet sniffles as she gripped the edges of her paltry shield tight enough to blanch her knuckles.
“Maruk said Otaso stole me. Killed everyone. Is that true?”
“You demand answers of me now?”
“Yes! Tell me the truth. I’d know before you kill me.”
“Fine,” Er’it said with a groan, falling back to hook his elbows over the edge of the cart. “If the history in his books is even half the truth, he murdered an entire kingdom and took you for his own. A note scribbled in one of them says he did not sacrifice you there despite his Vizier’s urgings because you held a greater purpose.”
“More… more of whatever that is. What’s inside of me, whatyouwant.” Aida nodded, grief stricken as she turned her gaze out into the dark forest. Eyes narrowing as she stared. “It was because of me they all died.”
“He would have done it regardless, Lady,” Ath’asho murmured.
“Does that matter?” Aida scoffed, finding her tears dried up, as useless as they’d ever been. Her misery never mattered, her pain as unimportant as the dirt they ground beneath their feet.
None of them should have what they wished of her. If it meant so much death, so much pain, she should find a way to kill herself now. End it all before he had his chance to steal it away.
“What are you thinkingkou’va?” He was beside her, fingers delving into Aida’s hair to force her to meet his gaze again. The golden bronze of his eyes thrown into shadow where his brows met over the bridge of his nose. He scrubbed the pads of his fingers against her scalp, an odd, tender gesture from one that found cruelty so easy.
She couldn’t hate him. What she’d said to Maruk was true, that he made her feel in ways she’d never dreamed possible. Er’it made her feel alive. As if she’d been drowning her entire life, and it was he who dragged her from the very depths of the Abyss to take her first true breath. It didn’t matter that he hurt her doing it, because she never would have felt that, either. Not that way. Thoughts a confused and jumbling mess, she shook her head in slow display of sympathy for what was to come.
“That if they are here for me, I will go with them,” Aida whispered, unable to hide her truth with him so close. Not with the warm, musky cedar of him invaded her every sense and his gentle touch cradling her skull. In that moment, she would have promised him much, so she was glad when he tensed. Wrenching away and tearing her hair free.
The men ambled from the inky depths between the trees without a sound, surrounding the cart. They gave the sounds of hammering and sparking fires a momentary glance, their smiles easy despite the risk of half a dozen men rushing to their king’s aid.
“No, Kal,” Aida murmured, smoothing her hand down the silken neck of the Phylix. Stopping him from charging towards the dangerous men.
Tall and broad, bigger even than Ath’asho stepped free of the tight ring. His smile was different. Quirked at the corners, full lips held a secret only he knew. Laughing eyes the deep blue of twilight took in the scene before he swept his arm out to the side and bowed at the waist.
“I understand I’m in the presence of royalty. Will make this much more interesting for sure,” he said, hand dropping to the pommel of this sword when Ath’asho shifted his weight. “I’d hate to kill a king, of course. People need them. Keeps them happy, you see.”
“Please don’t hurt them!” Aida gripped the wooden planks hard, the flaw in her plan revealed.
Er’it snarled under his breath, the lilting flow nothing short of a curse as his hand withdrew from Aida’s back as if burned. Looking over her shoulder, she found him rubbing his palm against his leg. Just as Otaso had accused her of, and Er’it before, she’d stolen his power. Made him weak in his moment of need. Weight of the Abyss sucking at her soul, she turned to the man with the pale skin and golden red hair plaited tight to a half-shorn skull.
