Chapter 12: Blessed Be


KIANNA

In one of more exquisite guest bedrooms of the Manor, Kianna and Begonia both watched as twin plump bodies fed on the perk round breasts of a Fae Mother. Their naked little bodies wriggled and squirmed around her practiced arms as she held them close and tight.

"You are very good at this," Ianthe was right over the Mother's shoulder, unabashed at the private sight, her shining blue eyes wide and in awe of the precious and relatively unseen moments in a Fae's young life. "What are you going to name her?"

"Camellia," said the Fae mother, both breasts exposed, and two twinkling souls of faelings, so soft, and too fragile to even exist, and yet they did as they suckled so hungrily. "The firstborn is named Cassia, and so I thought if fitting they both be of the same family." Ianthe and Zinnia made sounds of approval, many females born in the Spring Court were given flower names, and female or male twins usually had names that reflected the other.

Except they weren't twins.

Kianna leaned closer, her eyes drawn not to the dark haired one that matched it's mother, but the one with the golden hair, the one that she shared everything with. "Why did you name her that?" Her little voice broke the peace the Mother had at feeding the faux twin babes, it tempted anger that Kianna did not know she had inside of herself, "why didn't you name her after my family's name? She should be named after us?"

"Kianna," Ianthe pounced on her, hands pushing down and away from her baby sister, "it was your brother's wish that she be given to Cydonia," the very Mother gave her a look that bordered on anxious dread, she had been sworn to silence, and Kianna could not see why it was so important in the first place. Ianthe seemed to see this, "it is very important that people don't get the wrong idea and confuse an already fixed arrangement. Camellia is to be with Cydonia now, she will be well taken care of. She has been a Mother before."

"But she is my little sister," Kianna put it straight, upset that her brother ever decided this in the first place, "she belongs to me and my brother."

"She belongs to no one," Zinnia was there too, protective of the secret that seemed so wrong to Kianna, "she is all of our little sister. We will have to share her, in Vallahan we share all the little ones so none feel left out. Don't worry cousin, we will watch out for her."

"I don't want to share her," Kianna said, "I can learn to do it myself."

Ianthe made a sound like a cat being stepped on, "Listen Kianna, this is not a conversation, these are your brother's orders. We have to obey if you want to live here, you don't want your brother to send you away?"

"He'll send you away before he ever sends me away," she knew that for a fact.

Ianthe found her insolence overwhelming and flared her hands as if it was all too much. Zinnia looked at Kianna as if she was the dirt on their shoe. "Didn't you ever learn to share Kianna?"

"My mother taught me," Kianna said boldly, knowing that any mention of her mother, the Lady of the Manor, as some of the faelings joked haunted the grounds on occasion, would stop the conversation cold, and it did, it shut them up from even debating the contrary.

Her little sister yawned against the Mother's breast, unaware of when she opened her eyes, they gleamed with the same bright gold light that had harnessed from Kianna.

"Tamlin was very strong to have brought your sister to life," Ianthe went on, looking at her little sister with unrelenting adoration, "blessed be the High Lord's might."

"Blessed be," Zinnia repeated after her elder sister, and then a timid Begonia whispered it too, ever the little follower.

Kianna refused to say it, her sister seemed stolen for some reason, especially when Tamlin bringing their sister to life was a lie, and that was only argument of why she had to share her sister in the first place. Sharing her just felt wrong. Especially when these privates moments would have been hers and their own mother. Instead their mother fed the worms and ants in the ground now, entombed in the Northern hills, in the piece that had been cut off for her father's tomb, and those of the family that had died during his reign.

Your sister will be safe. The alien power of light pulsed within her, reminding her of it's presence, and it frightened Kianna into behaving.

"Blessed be," she relented the religious words, because perhaps Tamlin was protecting her from the fallout of what the news would bring, and the implications it would mean for her little sister Camellia. Perhaps a secret was better than the greed others would grow when Kianna's newfound power was discovered. She curled her hands back into her armpits, afraid of touching anyone, and most especially the precious newborn she had pulled from the Realms beyond the living world.


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Kianna. Her mother's voice reached her sun warmed daydreams, her fingers awakened and curled in dew grass at the soft timbre of it. She could feel tears come to her closed eyes, because the words were filled with that heartbreaking concern she knew so well. Her voice was so pleasant and warm for someone that had ice cold skin... Kianna, I must warn you, your life is going to change.

"How?"

Her answer was soft and tender. Like the touch of a gentle hand, like breath on her face before a kiss. People will ask things of you, expect you to speak and act as I did. It is your burden to bear now, but more importantly it is your path to choose.

"My path?"

Yes, my little one, you're life path. Kianna could smell her breath now, her mother felt so real in this place of half-dreams. Their control will not last forever, your will is strong enough to know what is right, and it grows stronger around those that care the most for you.

"Azriel," Kianna whispered back.

Your brother. Her mother corrected her, and her voice became more urgent. Many will try to separate you from Tamlin. Don't let them get the better of you, especially when I won't be there to protect you.

"But you are here Mother." Kianna did not like that the more she listened to her mother she felt more ill with each word. It felt wrong for her mother to use the 'invisible enemy' as a reason for caution, and this rambling sounded a bit like, she asked, "why are you using father's words? Why are you telling me this?"

Your brother's mind is too far away from me to reach him. It is up to you Kianna, to tell him these things, remind him, and do not leave his side. Do not leave the Spring Court, promise me.

"I don't know if"-

Promise me Kianna.

Kianna opened her eyes and closed them just as fast because of the blinding white light.

She hissed at the vicious memory of it.

Suddenly she was back with Tamlin in that very dank basement beneath the Manor. Her hand was still tethered to her mother's corpse, the energy stealing and giving as it fed into… a newborn faeling was crying off somewhere in the real world. That same power running through its veins, shining through its eyes. It brought a tremendous excitement and sadness through Kianna, and she was ready to break whatever bond this was with her very dead mother's rambling.

Don't! You must trust me, you are safe Kianna, it will not harm you, do not fear my light little one. It protects you now, but promise me Kianna, you will not leave your home.

"I promise." very slowly she opened them again, braving the light to give a smile. The warmth of the sun increased at what waited for her. Her mother was there, her eyes sparkling for her promise given, her smile a reflection of her own, "Mother." She reached for her grinning face, hoping to feel her for one last time.

The sight of her mother's happiness flickered behind Kianna's eyelids, only to drift off into the High Lord's garden of wild roses and untrimmed hedges, the end to a very emotional dream.

"Mother!" She leaned up from the place that she had taken her nap, her body in a cold sweat from the adrenaline pulsing through her body. "Why did you come to me? Where did you go?"

The wind rushed through the tree above.

She looked up at the nearly fifty-year-old evergreen that grew at the center of the family's garden, the swaying of the tree had rocked her into that that powerful dream. The once strong wind trickled into a faint whistle, it tickled the branches and fluttering leaves, "why did you make me promise you that? Why did you come to warn me?"

The only answer Kianna got was a snore from the Lesser Fae Maid, with blue skin, dark freckles, and darker hair. She was a half-Fae and half sprite named Bridgit. Her presence was expected from the rather persistent order from her brother to watch over them.

As expected, Begonia was not far from her too. Her cousin was still lost to her more pleasant dreams with the soft smile on her innocent lips, and Kianna she couldn't help but frown at her.

They had been separated from the rest of the youthful faelings, and that meant Kianna was separated from the faelings that enjoyed mischievousness and exercise and instead she was stuck with…. a timid Begonia. Sure, she liked her cousin, but she was a more a growing frustration rather than a playmate.

The wild blood in her felt like a flightless bird that yearned for open sky and adventure, and Begonia was the anchor that held her down. It was frustrating. The spring air was filled with energy, it called for her to join it, be a part of its healing and change, and the endless hum of work as the sentinels, countryside Fae, and hired Lesser Fae repaired the lands around the newly constructed Manor made her want to go and appraise their work.

Kianna could hear the giggle and play of the Lesser Fae that were tending to the fields of produce. She dared to lean up on an expensively crafted bench and climb up the rest of the hedge to look over and beyond. "Wow."

The view was exciting.

The fields over yonder, that had once been filled with shouts and commands of sentinels to the slower and less graceful bodies of men and woman slaves, were now filled with Fae folk and magical creatures that had once made the forest home but had changed their place of dwelling to be of service to their High Lord's summons.

The High Priestess and her acolytes were helping too, their hymns happier than the death hymns so long ago,

Blessed Be the earth when the world was begun.

Blessed be the fruit that shines in the sun.

Blessed be the rain that brings us life,

And blessed be the stars that brighten the night sky.

Their voices brought on a glorious change.

Instead of the human slaves that would scream instead of giggle when the whip found them, singing and dancing Fae and fairies worked in tandem, and a deep appreciation of the land and people itself. Even with the sun so high in the sky, it did not impede their lively cheer. This sun would have burned and reddened the humans' skin, tiring them out, and she guessed it still would burn them wherever Tamlin had sent them after they had been given their freedom.

"I hope you are with them Willow," she remarked for some reason.

Willow seemed part of another world now after a month without her, and the screaming humans and burning Manor seemed to have fled with her too, a vaulted memory better to be forgotten.

Nevertheless, the past months had a way of bringing life back to the Spring Court, and Tamlin was not a cruel Master to bid it return.

As High Lord, he only asked for half the work the humans had reaped before, and the nobles complained incessantly for refusal to work the Lesser Fae like slaves, for it made their way of living and methods of leisure more impossible when he too asked them to contribute.

"Poor Tam." Tamlin would have many more of these tedious meetings today, and most especially the ambassadors that came the night before would be meeting with him too… "he needs me." Her mother must have meant this when she came to her. Tamlin would need someone that cared for him and be warned of those that tried to separate them as a family. "He needs me to be with him."

That left her with one choice.

"Hey, wake up." Kianna pushed on Begonia to wake her, tired with her mother's worried thoughts and the unease of doing nothing about it, "let's go see my brother, come on, but you have to be quiet, so she doesn't wake up." Kianna pointed at the only person that would stop them from going.

Begonia looked over to a peacefully sleeping Bridgit, her eyes sad at the prospect of leaving her sleeping as they ran off again.

"Come on Beggie before she wakes up. We might get to see your sisters too if we are quite enough. Don't you want to see Ianthe and Zinnia?"

That tempted Begonia enough to forget that they were not to leave Bridgit's side while her parents were busy for the day, and most especially when the Manor was being used for meetings with Spring Court nobles, and ambassadors from the lighted cities of Vallahan and darkest depths of Hybern.

Kianna showed Begonia a way down a hardly used corridor, and then the secret passage that led to her fath- brother's study. The secret passage was half Tamlin's size, which meant it was perfect for them, and Kianna opened the door in the wall until it only leaked a crack of light from the other side. The crack revealed a heavy cream curtain hid their view and company of the room, but not the words of those speaking-

"So that is your final say? You won't even meet with them? At least listen to what they have to say before you send them back to Vallahan. You gave the same courtesy to Hybern," the way he said their name was even worse than the way her mother had once said it at the last supper, "you have family from Vallahan, surely that should temper you to see their proposal will only solidify your rule? Make you a worthy ruler in the eyes of foreign estates. Does that not sound reasonable?"

"Worthy?' Tamlin chuckled, there was no humor in it. "Hybern, for all its violent tendencies, even they have not dared as Vallahan has. I did not see them dare suggest their young male heirs…." Her brother drawled dangerously. His temper, Kianna could feel, was close to when that alien power had leaked into her two months before, but his tone had no fear in it, only furious dismissal, "they are the ones that have come to take my position as High Lord, and to threaten me so far away from their foreign estates. That doesn't seem like a worthy Ally I would want in Vallahan. Males that dare me," Kianna froze at the potential attack of others on her brother, "don't live long."

The threat meant something.

"Your refusal of the tradition will be seen as a sign of weakness." Her Uncle Vanir growled in return, not seeing that her brother was trying to save the males from being killed, "they meant no disrespect, it is Vallahan tradition that the heir in question test his merit against those that would be potential successors, the Victor even celebrates amongst the competitors in good faith, only the best rule in Vallahan, it brings peace to the minds of those that follow such a supremely worthy leader"-

"This is not Vallahan." Tamlin said in equal disdain, cutting into that conversation with her Uncle having nowhere to run. "If they want me to show that to them, then you warn their fathers, their sons, and wives that this is the Spring Court. Any foreign male that dares to threaten my rule will meet the same fate as those of my Court. Let the word be said that I did not want bloodshed, but I do not shy away from it."

"Well said my dear Tamlin," now that drawl was all female, flirtatious even, "even if I would love to see you in your element, you might have need of Vallahan and their stupidity one day. Best to keep bridges instead of burning them."

"What is she doing here?" Kianna's Uncle was snarling now, "I thought it was only a Hybern ambassador that came, not her."

"Oh, I'm sorry did you become High Lord of the Spring Court?" She teased, "last time I checked, I don't answer to you."

Tamlin muttered something quietly, probably a word like behave, and then Uncle Vanir word came out more viciously, "your Hybern's whore. Tamlin should send you there before your ilk follow you here. So, don't get too comfortable, there is no place for generals that kill for pleasure."

Her answer was a delicious laugh, "Oh, have I offended you, or is it that you just don't like me Vanir? You surprise me, after all those kind-hearted words at the funeral I thought you were all love and forgiveness, sounds like you are more like Hybern than you think," she sounded closer to Kianna, her quick-witted language sent a shiver through the two spying girls, "if only Tagnar would see how you treat his only son, and of the rumors I have heard you have planned for his little flower, tsk, tsk, playing two fields must be so hard," as if she was going to come to the curtain and reveal them, but changed her direction closer to where Tamlin must be sitting in her father's chair, "such manipulative rumors seem… disrespectful wouldn't you think Tamlin?"

"Behave Amarantha." Tamlin said, "I'm finished with all this. Rumors mean little to me as much as the fact that by the end of this week I have a meeting with the High Lords in preparation for peace and the Wall. If the Vallahan heirs want to continue in this charade of power than I suggest that they do it and leave my lands the way they came. I have no place in my court for usurpers. Uncle inform them of this," he dismissed with a flair, "and please send in my Captain of the Guard, he has report to give me."

"As you bid High Lord." Uncle Vanir said quickly, and the door shut behind him. Suddenly the fact that Tamlin was alone with the so called Hybern's whore… seemed a bit overwhelming. She could feel Begonia shivering in cold or fear, she knew not which, because she too was shaking, the exhilaration almost made her want to pee herself. Thank the Cauldron she didn't. They had not found out they were listening in, and now they had more than enough secrets and mysteries to keep them awake at night, Kianna could not believe their luck.

"If you keep that up Tamlin," the female's voice, became incredibly low, she must be very close to her brother, "I'll have you lock that door," Kianna frowned at the suggestion, "and show me that feral side of yours, possibly, as you take me on your father's desk. Now how does that sound my High Lord?"

The room was quiet.

"Amarantha."

"Yes, Tamlin?" Her voice was too sweet.

Suddenly there was a sound like scrapping of nails across wood, and before Kianna and Begonia could push themselves away from the hidden door, light burst into the secret passageway, and Tamlin's furious and darkening features focused on a guilty looking Kianna, "what are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, sorry!"

"Get out of there! You too Begonia." He grabbed her without a second thought, tearing her away from the darkness into the window's bright light, and into the room that she had been spying on. "I can't believe you both."

"I know." Kianna mumbled, and Tamlin shook his head, rubbing his face, and she had a moment to take it in the room before she noticed Tamlin's Hybern friend behind her.

Their father's study room was salvaged, repainted, remodeled, and everything seemed shinier and cleaner than ever before. Tamlin had added different paintings to the room, ones' their father would have snarled at being woman's paintings, of flowers, fields, and a couple on a swing. They must have been painted by a visiting noble from Vallahan she had seen recently, even a few encased poems she knew her brother had read to her on occasion before they went to sleep were on the walls, her brother, a patron of the arts… but none of that was important as Tamlin's demand to know what she was doing.

"I wanted to see you, wanted to know if you were feeling fine." That was partially true, "but then I heard you talking about things with Vallahan, and I… thought I should wait until everyone left, and then when they didn't," Kianna dared now to look up at the alarmingly beautiful Fae female that seemed to be cultured and elaborately dressed in flashy crimson and shining rubies, and she still seemed to be farthest from the description of a whore. She seemed a Great Lady, a great and powerful Lady of Hybern.

Amarantha had everything that Ianthe would have wanted, but was unable to have in a Vallahan society that prized purity and religious devotion. They Hybern female had an air of sophistication, a cunning, that her Aunt Maris lacked in her suddenly pious character and plain choice of clothes, and Amarantha's enthusiastic dark eyes were alive… they seemed to glow bright with something Kianna could not yet grasp.

"This is Amarantha, Hybern's general," Tamlin saw the look both females gave one another, introducing them to one another, "this is my sister, Kianna, and our youngest cousin Begonia." Begonia bowed, but Kianna was still stuck on the boldness of Amarantha's dress and how much skin she showed without an ounce of shame and seemed to be pulling it off as if she was the Queen of Hybern herself.

"Your sister? You never told me she was this young." She drawled, the voice matching the face.

Amarantha seemed like she was fire made flesh, and the look she gave Tamlin was just as fierce, especially when she approached, stalking the wooden floor like some red timber wolf, "she looks so much like you Tamlin, she could be your daughter," Amarantha said delighted for some reason, and without so much as an invitation she leaned down and embraced Kianna, tightly, tightly that her painted talon-like nails gently pierced her arms. Kianna was still catching her breath, when she turned to Tamlin, sharing a teasing look, "oh isn't she precious, no wonder Vanir wanted to marry her off. How old are you precious little thing?" Kianna felt ill looking at Amarantha when she had her attention once more, it seemed too much, because the Hybern general made everything seem like a game for some reason, a dangerous game only she knew the rules to.

"I'm eleven." Kianna might as well have branded herself a newborn compared to Fae standards.

"How precious." Amarantha purred again, pushing her heavy waterfall of crimson hair over her shoulder, blinding Kianna with the red she so favored, "now we will just kill for her won't we Tamlin?" She started a conversation. "Do you know I had a little sister too Kianna, dear? I remember when she was your age, it seems like just yesterday," a daze casted over the fiery Fae female, she seemed to be in deep thought.

Kianna waited for her to expand, but when she didn't, she dared to ask, "where is your sister now?"

Tamlin's palm was suddenly on her shoulder, rougher than before, pushing her to his side. "She didn't mean that Amarantha, she doesn't know anything"-

"Oh, I know," Amarantha said coldly with a wave of her hand, standing, and looking down into Kianna's eyes with a frightening expression that she could not have imagined before, "but she should know the truth." Before Tamlin voice stopped it, Amarantha was right there before her, whispering in her ear, "humans killed her, and so I killed them all, especially the one that dared to betray her love. But that's how they are Kianna, humans are savages, worse than dogs, each and every one," was her vindictive whisper.

Kianna felt a ripple of fear as she was squeezed beside Tamlin's thigh, and Amarantha's less than composed talon-like fingers. She was far from done, "I wish they were all dead," that just made it a more miserable story, terrifying, "but I still have time." She said louder, smug for the blessing they had been given of an immortal life. "So much time."


o0o0o0o0o0o0o


"What did Amarantha mean when she said she wanted all the humans dead?" Kianna could not grasp the dreadful possibility, what it would mean to so many defenseless humans to have an enemy like her.

Kianna imagined the small little children that had no hope of fighting against deadly Fae like her, not even to run from her, and to think that humans like Willow never even hurt Amarantha in the first place, not even when they were whipped like Fae like them. Why did they always have to suffer?

"Tamlin!" She cried to get his attention. He was quick to respond, listening intently now. "Is she going to go after all the humans in the South and try to kill them? Will she go and kill even," Willow, Kianna gulped, the tears really coming, and Tamlin quickly jumped into their conjoined bed, resting her up against his front and hugging the tears from pouring down her cheeks. Rocking the fear from her once again, the comfort of sharing a bed was never more needed than now.

"She knows the War is over Kianna," he hummed against her head. "I would never let that happen, not on our lands."

"She could go after them," Kianna knew she would, with her words, she would tear worlds down.

"No she won't." Tamlin seemed so sure. "When the boundaries of the Wall go up she won't be threatened by them, and they her," he put it plainly, "you are safe here with me Kia. I won't let anything happen you," he rubbed the spot where the energy resided in her gut, the one she gave to their shining bright little sister, and she played with his smooth arms, thinking aloud before he put her to sleep again. "Not the humans, not Vallahan, not even Amarantha. None will dare touch you while I am here." She believed him, she could feel his love, the security of it.

"What of Camellia," she hoped. "Will you protect her too?"

"Camellia?"

"That is what they chose to name her." Kianna looked up at Tamlin to study his face. "I told them to give her one of our grandmother's names, an Aunt's perhaps, but they said they would rather give her a flower name."

"It is a pretty name, it will suit her," he was not getting the bigger picture.

"Our sister should be with us Tamlin, not with another Mother," she revealed her deepest worry. "I told them it wasn't right, we shouldn't be separated from her. Mother reminded me to tell you there is strength in family. We should all be together, all three of us, especially now with Vallahan trying to fight you, Uncle Vanir trying to get you to fight, and Amarantha wanting you to do it too-"

"Wow, slow down." He stopped her. "Did you say Mother still speaks to you?" Tamlin's voice became less warm, more calculating, "is she talking to you even now? Do you hear her voice?"

The dread in his voice was a sore point after Kianna had brought life to her little sister, and had confided that was the first time she had heard their mother's voice. Instead of joy and relief, there was this Tamlin. The foreign presence with almighty power troubled Tamlin, taking away her poem reading brother, made her seem as if she had lost her mind, and so he had quickly decided to just keep it between them, just them. So... Kianna was not even allowed to tell Begonia, or perhaps even Azriel of her mother's voice... if he ever came back to visit at all. What troubled Tamlin most was that he did not even know it's purpose of choosing his sister in the first place, and the critical looks Tamlin gave her only made it worse.

"No, she only talked to me this morning." Kianna felt self-conscious for some reason, not wanting to hide things from him. But if he acted like this, she was not so sure anymore, "is it bad that she talks to me?"

Tamlin's did not answer right away, and that but her in a creeping unease about the whole thing, "Kianna," he rubbed his chin against her braided head, "when mother speaks to you, does she ask you to do things? Favors? Do things that scare and make you feel bad?"

"No." Kianna muttered, "she told me to watch over you, to make sure no one separated us."

He shut his eyes tightly, a smile forming on his once so serious lips, and pressed a deep kiss to her head. "Then you keep listening to our mother. If she brings you peace, then do it Kianna."

"Alright," she nestled up beside him, ready for the light to go out, but instead he went back to writing with his quill and papers.

"Can you read to me Tamlin?" That was what usually put her to bed, and she smiled when he began the poem he was working on, his voice was rhythmic, and it stole Kianna's mind and breath to listen him repeat it with such patience and pride...

"Your like a spring dream, and I cannot wake.

Even if it was my love you did forsake.

Now, I am The Empty One once again.

You, no longer my lover, not even a friend.

I thought this was the love from long ago.

But I was a fool, and now I know.

So I will close my heart, and fade away.

Back into our spring dream, is where I will stay."


o0o0o0o0o0o0o


After she had told these stories to Azriel, he became thoughtful.

In the silence beneath the Great Oak, she had a chance to see the clear changes in his appearance from the last night he had been in the Spring Court.

He wore a jacket that he had taken off the moment she got into the part with Hybern. His Illyrian leathers had been changed for a muddy dark brown tunic and shorts, both left his muscled stomach and thighs to the imagination, but he did look comfortable, and that brought some ease to Kianna too.

She took a closer look. His grey eyes had dark bags underneath them, he rubbed them subconsciously, and that brought attention to the hairs on his face. Azriel needed a good shave compared to the last night and first time she had met him, and she was tempted to reach out and run her fingers through it. She had never seen Tamlin with facial hair, but she had seen the human men, and she wondered how different it would feel to smooth Fae skin with human rough hair. Was he half-human and half-Fae? And where did his wings come from? Big. Black. Mighty wings. Now his wings were tucked close to his body, and so she decided this was the first place she would start her closer inspection.

She reached out to them, and they flapped out in response to her daring movement, a billow of air that blew the hair out of her face, and the gust of wind tickled against her reaching fingers back into a humble fist.

He didn't look so tired anymore. "What are you doing Kianna?"

"I wanted to see how they feel," she boldly put it, "can I?"

He looked at her like he was testing her resolve.

Kianna pushed her hands out again, standing to get a better look, and he made no move to turn away, or flap them away as he did before she had asked for permission. She touched. His wings felt smoother than Fae skin, perhaps as soft as a newborns, hairless and the ridges had incredible rivers of vascularity that extended from the dark bony edges to the rich maroon and translucent-like inner skin. It was like fine paper, more durable, but she traced the red veins of the inner wing, feeling him shiver violently.

"I'm sorry, I'll stop."

"No." He said rather quickly, his hands were filled with soil, he had been grasping the ground as if in pain, "you soothe me Kianna. Don't be afraid of me."

"I am not," Kianna said assuredly, going back to her inspection with more grace, and not even touching the inside of his wings. She stretched out his wingspan in a child's curiosity, and he let her. They were three times the size of her, probably more, and she was sure he could cocoon them both if he wanted to. She wondered if he ever did that on occasion.

As if he could read her mind, he asked. "What is it Kianna?"

"Oh nothing."

"You'll wish you asked me." He already knew, and she jumped right into it.

"Do you sleep with your wings covering over you?"

"No." He chuckled, "sometimes it is a defense maneuver. I have seen Cassian do it sometimes, he sometimes tries to get me to do it too." She saw the light that came into his eyes at the mention of this Cassian.

She had to know who brought him this happiness, "Who's Cassian?"

"He's just one of my friends."

"Wow," Kianna could not imagine it, the blessing of having more than one friend, especially those that knew how to fight instead of being locked inside rooms, and minding their own boring business, perhaps he could teach her some moves too. Perhaps that would make Tamlin include her on his rounds with the sentinels of his Guard, "Azriel? How many friends do you have?"

"A few," Azriel chuckled at her awed gaze.

"Tell me, tell me please," Kianna urged him, hoping that he would.

She was sure she overwhelmed him because his white cheeks became pink, and even the edges of his white rounded ears did too. Kianna went to touch those too amazed, "do they have round ears and wings like you too? Does everyone have wings?"

"No, some of my friends are like you, and some like me."

"Explain," Kianna found a comfortable space beside him, nudging his knee with hers, "I want to know everything."

"Everything?" Kianna nodded eagerly, and Azriel could not find it in himself to disappoint her.


Do you like the direction and where the chapter is going? I hope you do!

Have a wonderful weekend,

leave a review for what you want, and what you hope to see in the following chapters,

as always love you and appreciate you all,

Odeveca