Chapter 14: Pathfinder
(10 years later). 10 ATW (After The War)
KIANNA
The change began on a brisk and cool dawn morning.
On the tenth winter solstice, by tradition, she woke before the crack of dawn, and hurried through the matured fruit pastures to spend a few stolen hours with Azriel before the world awoke and they would have to return to their lives on opposite ends of Prythian.
It might as well be another world with all the difference it made.
Time slipped like water in the land of Fae, and now twenty-one-year-old Kianna was surprised how little had changed in her Court of Thorns and Roses, of Ever-Spring, and where the honeyed words of mummers and con-artists never ran dry.
Whatever came of her genteel-life in Tamlin's Court, meanwhile she was sprouted her roots. Tall as a beanstalk someone had once said and had lost some of the rebellion of her youth, and despite their comments, she still felt like herself. The bright light of the alien power laid dormant inside her, after years of paying it no heed she could forget it was even there. What Kianna couldn't forget was the aching for the unfortunates hurt so badly by the fallout of the War and making of the Wall. She had got some answers with Hybern, Vallahan, and other nobles from the Courts, but half-ass answers about order seemed to still haunt her conscious mind.
Despite those yearly changes, her relationship with the shadowsinger was still simple enough to where she felt no pressure to be anything but herself.
"Open it," Azriel bent his head to the gift she could not seem to open.
"I didn't get you anything," she mumbled, upset that he had lied. "You promised no gifts this year."
"Just open it Kianna," he teased. "You can get me a gift later."
Kianna did, and squealed at what she found inside, "oh Azriel I love it!" She wrapped her hands around his shoulders as they sat beside him. Happier that now she could reach his shoulders.
"It's nothing. Cassian said the Illyrian female was glad to be rid of it, it brought her more trouble than good." The Illyrian leathers were beautiful, Kianna appraised the dark suede and how it would complement her fully grown figure and knew that Azriel had only bought it because she could not stop asking about his traditions and how she could make the gorgeous leather battle gear for herself.
"Well," she patted his knee playfully. "What news do you have for me? How are your friends?"
He didn't need the encouragement, Azriel had been waiting to tell her.
It came to a point where Kianna had to stop Azriel before he moved on again. "Wait, wait, wait a second, you're going too fast-"
Kianna could see the hint of a smirk growing on shadowsinger's lips when he noticed how this overwhelmed her. His shiny raven hair, a bit wet from the dawn's brisk cold, covered his eyes for a moment before he moved it out of the way. "What is?"
"I still don't get it." She pointed out, breathing in a deep sigh. "How is Mor a nickname for a girl? Are you sure she isn't a boy? Because after all the stories you told me these years, she sounds like a boy to me." Azriel's stories and accomplishments of this fabled Morrigan seemed far-fetched for a High Fae female to get up to. To add the fact that she was a Lord's daughter, baffled Kianna to the teachings Aunt Maris had beat into her of modesty, charm, and above all submission.
"Mor is definitely a girl," Azriel put it lightly.
"How do you know for sure?" Kianna questioned more urgently, not getting Azriel's humor at her questions. "Some of the Vallahan boys look like girls," they wore enough perfume to be girls, "and even a girl I know looks like a boy."
"She does?"
"Yes." Kianna explained. "She was raised to be a boy. Her father is Captain of the Guard, and he never wanted daughters, and so she was forced to be a boy from birth. Begonia says she even trains with the other boys." Kianna thought it odd, but intriguing at the same time. Perhaps she could talk to Tamlin about it. "Her name is Yuma, but her name sounds way more girl-like than Mor, so what's her excuse?"
"Trust me, Mor is as female as it gets." For some reason he grinned at her question, a rarity if she ever saw one, and she grinned back in shock at catching him so off guard. "Females can be just as fierce and courageous as males, any male that says differently is either craven or just stupid."
"Oh, okay," she rolled her eyes playfully, enjoying the face he made when she did. Like a little fly landed on his lip and he couldn't wipe it away. "Okay, okay Azriel, I believe you, gosh you turn into such a baby when someone teases you."
After a long while sitting under the Oak Tree, their conversations became almost fun. Their easy-going banters and explanations were smooth and slippery as lake stone picked from its watery slumber. There was no topic that remained forbidden.
She dared a glance at his face deep in thought, knowing this was the perfect time to get away with it.
The shadowsinger's kind face was clearer now in the morning light instead of the late-night monthly visits they usually had. The soft glow of the rising sun made his symmetrical and roguish chiseled features pleasant to look at, she envied his beauty, his quiet yet confident nature that she so lacked, and perhaps someday another male would think the same of her.
I want to be just like you when I grow up, Kianna had told some years ago.
Azriel had been at a loss for words when he first heard her declaration. His fascinating round ears and stubbed cheeks turning a faint pink when she shined her eyes at him, and then he muttered, that she shouldn't talk like that, not when she already knew he was not worthy of being emulated.
But you are, she insisted.
She had a feeling he did not get praised enough.
The Azriel that belonged to the Night Court, to Kianna, seen to not get much personal time just for himself. Time to just sit and talk about simple things, especially with pretty females of this Court or another, and not really understanding why that was. As they shared things, Kianna wanted pensive shadowsinger to be happy, wanted him to think himself worthy, and didn't know why others would think of him in such a bad light.
"Kianna," he sighed, his mighty wings twitched at the worried expression on her face. "Mor is a perfectly good girl's name. You do know that Mor short for Morrigan?" She made a face. "Come now, Mor is a very feminine name." He corrected her, "a pretty name for a very loving and wonderful female, I've told you, you're going to like her when you meet her." Kianna frown grew in jealousy at the mention of it, and his insistence to rub his preference in. Suddenly her stories were tinted in green, she was not in the mood to talk about the great and mighty Morrigan.
"Kianna," she put it out there, saying her name felt off on her lips, almost as if she would curse herself by doing so. "Kianna, is a pretty girl's name too," she hoped he would begin to think so, "sometimes Tamlin calls me Kia. It means Ancient One. It means that I will be wise beyond my years one day." One day seemed far off when she was only in her twenties, but one day she would make it count.
His eyes narrowed. "Kianna," his voice changed, stern for a soft voice like his. "It's good to learn from others. You shouldn't be intimidated by what others can teach you."
"Okay." Kianna hung her head as she sat beside the shadowsinger, feeling the guilt wash over her for reverting to her childish mind, and she didn't want to be known as a Jealous One, especially by him.
Azriel saw this. "Do you like being called Kia?"
That threw her off, he asked her opinion more than anyone she had ever met. This visit, he had been doing that quite a bit. When she had brought up the rarity of his questioning, he mentioned the possibilities the Night Court would have for her, and only in places like his home would her opinion continue to mean something.
"I liked when people call me little Lady," Kianna's cheeks grew warm at the thought of him calling her that, because she was so tiny compared to him, but she was not so little as the first years she had sat beside him underneath the Great Oak.
Despite the passing years, Azriel's Illyrian wings could still encircle and keep her away from the big bad world he seemed to believe in. He could carry her off, high above the Spring Court forest itself, show her the land from the sky, and take her without questions asked, and he still didn't, did not even dare mention the possibility of it. Azriel, was so different from her brutish brothers and father, sweeter than even Tamlin, the best of her brothers, he let her control the flow of the conversation, state her mind without berating and drawing suspicion, and that made it harder to say their goodbye every time he had to leave.
Yet, there was a sadness to him.
Azriel had lost two very close females to his heart. It had been a decade since then, but still, she had lost a father, mother, and brothers too and she still felt their deaths keenly, that meant that Azriel was not over it, not by a long shot.
The shared loss still rung between them from time to time. Kianna would cry it out when the grief became too much, and Azriel would butcher the grass watching her. There were just some things he did not like mentioning. She wondered if there would ever be a time when he opened himself up to the past, to the way their deaths made him feel, what his High Lord made him feel, perhaps that was only something he did with his friends.
"Alright," Azriel nodded as he caught her thinking up a storm. "Any more questions little Lady before I go?"
"When I am older." She hoped her question would keep him and strike his interest to stay longer. "Perhaps when I turn fifty? Could you take me to see the House of Wind?"
He had only praises for the place in their previous conversations. The House of Wind could grant more opportunities and rights to a female Fae he had argued. Compared to other highly dominated patriarchal lands it seemed like a dream to a young female. He mentioned how Kianna could be anything she wanted to be there.
"When you're older." He repeated as if in thought. "I think we could make a visit work. Mor would love to meet you." If he wasn't smiling before he really was now. Smiling suited Azriel, that was fast becoming her favorite thing about him. "Nuala and Cerridwen are about your age too, they would probably get you to pull pranks on me, they love doing that. I swear I get it from Cassian and Mor, I am outnumbered half the time, Cauldron knows they think it is the funniest thing in Prythian." Kianna giggled at the thought of meeting his friends, of playing pranks of Azriel, and more importantly seeing his world.
"Kianna?"
He had her attention. "Yes."
"Do your friends often talk of traveling one day, perhaps up North-" he caught the fall in her face. "Kianna, you have friends, don't you?"
"I have Begonia," she added because she had to. Her isolation from other Fae her age was a sore topic, and he knew it, saw the way it affected her, "and I guess Ianthe and Zinnia count too for staying so long to watch over Tamlin and I, but only because they are my family. I have to be friends with them."
"Blood doesn't have to be your family." He said, and Kianna had never heard of such a thing. "Family can be the people that you chose. The people that truly care for you."
Now that sounded too good to be true, but then again it sounded just right coming from him. If anyone could see it done, it was Azriel.
"I agree," she met his cool hazel gaze. "I think that too." The right to choose a family that cared about you instead of one that was forced upon you since birth sounded right to her.
Sure, Kianna cared about Tamlin, but she cared about Willow even more, the memory of her so strong that it haunted her dreams, and even a little bit of herself cared about Begonia, but most especially the person sitting beside her that had showered her with possibilities and dreams. Azriel was not like the rest.
"Will you be my family Azriel?"
That made Azriel pale in comparison to what she was used to. "I…" Kianna's face fell, of course that was pushing him too hard, she should know better by now. "It isn't that I don't want to be your family Kianna." She dared to believe his words, "it's just, I might not be able to be here if you needed me, and family should be able to be there for you no matter what. I don't want to disappoint you."
"Why can't you be here for me? Because of your High Lord? Does he not let you?" She saw him prickle under her persecuting words and something told her that was one of the main reasons why they he couldn't keep that promise.
"Rhys knows what can happen Kianna. Us meeting in secret like this," he stressed, "is a dangerous thing." There was that name again, Rhys, High Lord Rhysand, how she hated that murderers name, and how reverently Azriel had to say it to the point that it nauseated her sense.
"I know."
He repeated. "I know you don't like him."
"I don't." Kianna stressed.
"But he is right." Azriel pointed out. "I am not making it seem like this is dangerous, but it is for you when you can't protect yourself. People wouldn't understand why I would care about you, what I hoped to get out of this, and the ties I share with Rhys can be a threat to your family. Us meeting is going against your brother wishes, against the memory of what my High Lord did to your family. To others I'm just," it looked like was debating telling her, and then put it out there as if it could put oceans between them. "A spy."
"A spy?" Kianna had never heard the word before.
"I gather information for my High Lord." He meant Rhys, who else could he mean, Kianna thought to herself. "I am his eyes, his ears, and I report back what I find." Was his easy explanation, and so why did it have seemed to have a cold revelation to it? Perhaps because he reports back to the murderer of your family, a small voice answered. He reports everything, and nothing is a secret to him. He can't be trusted, he's Night Court, a tricky beast of shadow and lies. Even his shadows have shadows. Beware him Kianna.
"Do you tell him about us?" She dared to ask, expecting him to refute it. "Do you tell him everything I tell you?"
He didn't deny it. "Of course. I must tell him, it's the only way he allows me to see you." Allow? That made her sick. She hated someone having power over Azriel like that.
She pointed out. "You still come to see me. No matter what he allows you to do, you still tell me things too."
"I do," his words carried the same heaviness.
"Good," she saw his face fall again. His tale not yet finished, "what is it Azriel? What else bothers you?"
"I am Lesser Fae."
She chuckled and saw that Azriel was in fact being serious.
"Oh, so?" She dared in a childish bravado, and Kianna chuckled at the surprise on his face. "I am rather fond of Lesser Fae, they are nice to me, they make wonderful music, and play all sorts of games with me," more importantly, "you are nicest person I know Azriel, if being a Lesser Fae bothered me I would have told you already."
"You don't know me Kianna, not well enough to make that judgment call."
"I know enough." Kianna shook her own head when he refused her passionate declaration, she touched his rough cheek, and talking from the heart with only the most innocent of intentions. "I don't see why we all can't get along, High, Lesser, human," she dared further, for once happy that no one was shushing or disagreeing with her, just Azriel, and him looking at her as if she was going to get herself hurt again. She let his sadness be her fuel, "don't you think we could be like that? We shouldn't care about who is higher or lower, we should just be us?"
"Just be us." He said the words so quietly she had to lean closer to him and lean her head against his wrinkle worried temple. She could feel his sadness melt away when something warmer came alive where their temples touched. There was a connection there.
"Just us Azriel. Can't you feel it? We are the best of friends. Our High Lords cannot take this away from us." It felt so sweet, it felt so strong, and it made her believe that here was somewhere she belonged. Not sitting beside Begonia, being a good little faeling, not following and rushing after Tamlin's mighty steps to do his High Lord duties, and not staring out at the rolling green hills where they had buried her mother. Not there. Not anywhere. Just here. Here with Azriel.
"Yes Kianna, we are friends," he said it as if he found the answer he had been looking for, as if he was putting himself to sleep, and not worried about what awaited them at dawn.
"Then let this just be about us." Kianna sighed happily when he did too, resting against his side, his arms going around her skinny waist, his face pressed into her hair, as she rested her hand on his arm, and feeling the purring content grow when she did.
Perhaps Azriel could continue look after her like Willow had, love her like her Mother always did, and make time to still be the brother she had always wanted.
In the peaceful moment beside Azriel, she was letting his presence soothing and calm her. She could describe it as a sleepy breath after a long day at work, the pat of a hand from someone that loved you more than words itself, and she hoped that feeling was strong enough to reach him when he returned to his home.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
After Azriel had flown back home to the Nigh Court, giving her enough time to steal back into her room, change back into her nightgown, pretending to sleep beside a slumbering Begonia, Kianna decided it high time to start today a bit differently.
It was time to make the change her Mother had spoken to her about in child's dream in the rose garden.
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.
Kianna was ready to try to find her path in this new world, and she would be willing to learn like Azriel had told her to do.
In a rather cool day at the Spring Court, with constant chatter of building The Wall, the lands without a human in sight, and her brother as High Lord over it all, she found herself time and time again under Aunt Maris thumb. Now, she was lumped with a wide-eyed Begonia that shied away from the other faelings their age.
From the corner of her eye, Kianna could see a pair of Fae young females sitting on the stone hedge on the border of the Manor's grounds, farmer's hats covered their bun-up hair and their fingers were caked in dirt. Workers. Farmer Fae females. They looked happy despite the sweat of a day's hard work on their face and legs, chatting with one another like sisters, and pointing, smirking, and chuckling at the faeling males their age and older, practicing for the sacred sentinels position. Not a care to wearing fancy dresses or appearing aloof to the rather bullish and handsome Fae males like Aunt Maris had instructed them to be.
Kianna looked back at her cousin Begonia, sitting painfully beside her.
Her blonde head was bent, and her eyes only for her sewing needle, hardly a word escaped her that wasn't meek or rather more than a whisper. Her shy insecurity made it near impossible for a rather upset Kianna to socialize with anyone outside of her bossy older sisters, and their elite Vallahan posse.
"Why is she still here?"
"Who?"
"The Hybern whore," Ianthe said crudely. "I thought father already spoke to Tamlin. I thought she knew she wasn't welcome here, especially with the High Lords of Prythian arriving in a month's time," the Vallahan harpy growled in her plush seat under the Weeping Willow beside the training grounds, and Zinnia fanning herself as her new suitor from Vallahan raised an eyebrow at the red-head seductress pawing at her High Lord brother.
Tamlin was unaware of their criticism, too busy doing his duty and overseeing the Captain Greenseer's training of the sentinels.
"Perhaps our cousin Tamlin has taken a fancy to her," Zinnia smiled brightly to her suitor. The one that Aunt Maris had taught her the past week and had said it made her look prettier. "Who are we to get in the way of love? Right Vox?"
"Of course, dear." He gave her a brief smile for pleasantries sake.
"Come on Zinnia," the harpy Ianthe cut her down. "If you think that is love dear sister," she said snidely. "Then Vox here has much to teach you. Please Vox, don't think so small of my sister. It's not her fault that she still has her head wrapped around romance novels," if looks could kill Ianthe would be dead twice. By her red-faced sister and Mother. Her cousin did not seem to catch on. "You'll learn soon that our Zinnia can't help it, she's terrible with matters of the heart, even she knows it."
"I think," Zinnia clasped her sewing needle with a demon eye at Ianthe.
Her elder only smiled back.
"I think...I am tired." Zinnia gave up, giving a false smile to her suitor. "I would like to rest indoors, we can take a break from this heat," was Zinnia's veiled threat to Ianthe, and her rather amused Vallahan suitor led her back to the Manor like the genteel nobleman Lord's sons were raised to be. Kianna soon learned the people of Vallahan were the farthest thing from the fierce and ferocious beast her brother, whom now was yelling insults at the sentinels to "pick up the pace".
At least Amarantha seemed to be enjoying herself, watching Tamlin with a predatory gaze. She even turned back to see Zinnia and her suitor stalk off, and Kianna could swear that she winked at her when their eyes met. Perhaps she had heard everything, wouldn't surprise her, she had not become a General of Hybern because of her looks and coy nature.
"You shouldn't have said that Ianthe, shame on you." Aunt Maris whispered fiercely, and had taken Zinnia's fan, using it on herself, and berating her eldest daughter like there was no tomorrow. "Now what will Lord Vox think of us now."
"That we have some intelligence Mother."
Aunt Maris disagreed, hissing. "You must know how hard it was for your father to broker this arrangement for Zinnia. Are you really that jealous of her? Are you jealous that she is marrying first? Is this how you get back at her?"
"Jealous?" Kianna and Begonia watched as Ianthe puffed her feathers. "What do I have to be jealous of? If I play my cards right, I will be a High Priestess of the Spring Court. As for marriage, I have my eyes set on a far greater triumph than some Vallahan second born son," her eyes marked the only prize she made eyes for.
Tamlin.
Kianna felt her gut coil at the thought of someone marking her brother like that, like some rare piece of meat, and yet… that was exactly what Amarantha was doing as well. The way her roaming hand massaged his shoulder, pointing out his sentinels, but only getting closer to do it. The Hybern seductress was only doing what many females of her Court had done to her brothers, and now it would be Tamlin's turn.
Begonia reached out and took her hand, bringing it into her lap, and petting her like she was some baby kitten. Even if Begonia was shy, at least she best of her sisters.
"I would not count your eggs before they hatch Ianthe," her mother persisted. "You can be the ruin of us if you aren't careful."
"When did being careful get anyone anywhere?" Ianthe rebuked, a fire in her eyes.
Kianna had to chew on her tongue before it wagged her stupid cousin.
She almost chewed it off when Amarantha had sneaked up on them, a sly fox smile working its way across her face as she saw the mood the Tamlin's family of females were in, and she slinked on in over as if she had been listening in on the argument between sisters and Mother.
"Don't you want to join your sister Ianthe?" She knew exactly where to hit the younger Vallahan female. "Go inside and find out if any of the Vallahan roosters find a liking to you."
Ianthe looked like she swallowed a lemon. "I think not."
"So, you pissed off your sister, and are too afraid to confront her," she found it funny for some reason. "I believe you might have made an enemy of Zinnia, not sure if that will win you any friends in Vallahan," Amarantha said smartly, resting her hands on her enviously round hips. "I must warn you, there is nothing like making your family an enemy. Talk about complicated family reunions."
"Did Hybern teach you that? To make family into the enemy?" Ianthe was the one to smirk now. "I don't need to learn any lesson that comes out of Hybern."
"Actually, Tamlin's father was the one that taught me that," she winked at Kianna. "Something tells me I knew him better than all of you combined. It must be so hard, coming to the Spring Court, and even after ten years, you all are still strangers here." Amarantha shrugged. "It makes it so awkward for us when you refuse to leave. It surely makes Tamlin feel so, but he wouldn't say, must have got that spineless humility from your side of the family."
"That's enough." Said the Vallahan Matriarch, this cold glint in her eye as she looked at the Hybern General. "We should all go inside, come girls, I can see we are no longer welcome here." Aunt Maris stood to bow to Amarantha bidding her leave, and Ianthe was already heading back to the Manor, not even having the decency to wait for them.
"Are you coming Kianna?" Begonia asked when she saw that Kianna made no move to leave.
"I want to watch the sentinels spar." Kianna would not leave Tamlin, not after hearing and seeing the type of females that were after him.
"Come Kianna, you aren't needed here. Come back inside, we will put you to do something useful-" Aunt Maris argued tiredly. Already spent with Ianthe, and not in the mood to deal with a high-spirited girl like her niece.
Kianna was ticked off my Amarantha and Ianthe's words, and for good reason. Before she was anyone's blood, she was Leesa's daughter, her mother's daughter, and she would be damned by the High Lord himself if she wasn't here for her older brother in any way she could be.
"Kianna?" Amarantha addressed her for the first time. Noticing her iron will not to follow Aunt Maris, or meet anyone of their eyes, "you are interested in fighting."
"I am interested, in what my brother is interested in." Kianna put it strongly. Let her take it as she would.
"Well." She mused with that same face she made when she was looking at Tamlin. "Why don't I teach you a few fighting stances, be a participant rather than the spectator? What do you say to that?"
Kianna grin broke to epic proportions, not only would she get to stay with her brother, perhaps one day she could join him. Show him that she was a worthy enough female to stand by his side, fight for his side, and perhaps even win for him. Not noticing that Begonia and Aunt Maris paled at the request made to her.
"Yes, General Amarantha." Kianna conceded. "I think I shall."
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(10 years later). 20 ATW
Apprenticing under Amarantha was no easy feat, especially when Tamlin only encouraged it.
"Don't make it easy on her Amarantha." Was his only suggestion. "She takes offense to it, don't you little Kia." He rubbed her head, even if it was only two inches away from his. She pushed it off before anyone could see his babying.
"As she should. I would take the same offense if any of my mentors dared to belittle me in such a way." Amarantha said, then her voice changed to an ugly shrill, "even if she is too cute to lay a finger on, I just want to eat her up half the time," she tried to play with Kianna's hair.
"Stop it!" Kianna barked back. "I am a grown female!"
"We shall see," Amarantha said with hunger.
As Kianna rolled her palm over her sweating forehead she heard a painful yelp from the fight.
"Shit, you bitch," Yuma held her sliced arm to her chest, looking at it with gnarled teeth. This made her full lips, high cheekbones and widow's peak pinch like a dried palm date. "I told you to stop making that move Amarantha, you fucken cheat."
The spear that had cut her was tossed in the air and catapulted at the Weeping Willow yards away. The owner of the spear was far more pissed, her full rounded eyes burned, and her blood red hair frizzed from the exertion. "Cry like a smacked whore if you want," Amarantha spit on the ground, for once tired with the competition the lone female sentinel of Tamlin's guard had to give her. "Your enemy will not even give you the chance to do that."
She wasn't the only one upset, the heat was getting to everyone. Especially to Tamlin's rather confident little sister.
"Wait!" Kianna pointed out to her fellow sparing partner Yuma. "Hey Stupid!" Was what she usually called her, "you are getting all the blood on your, go clean it off before you tear the fabric again, I am not giving you a new one."
"Stingy bitch." Yuma fired back at Kianna.
"Sweaty ass donkey face."
"Lady Lard Ass." Kianna hated that one.
"Dung-licking commoner!"
"Fuck you bitch," the injured but graceful blades-woman Yuma stalked off in anger to change, and Kianna smirked victorious, she got her with that one.
Amarantha picked up some of Yuma's daggers, displeased with their slurring, only because it wasted time from them actually doing something productive. She pointed it at the watching little Lady, "You done with your break, or am I going to whip your ass for sitting down and watching again?"
"Sure," she shrugged, but a few hours later with a gash across her forehead and a burn on her leg she regretted saying so.
Her body was hurting from the rigid work out that Amarantha had made her do every time she failed. She would have to push her body off the ground fifty times and then pull her chest to her legs another fifty times, every time she failed, and that was too many times to count. Her tummy, arms, and upper thighs were aching and throbbing from the gushing blood that pumped painfully to Amarantha's ruthless orders, "Wipe it off, and get up." Her dueling Master challenged her, and Kianna stood up and did so.
After a deadly dance of spear vs. twin blades, she took too many steps back, and that was her downfall.
Kianna hand came back with a dark red liquid and she felt her body go squeamish as she made herself stare at the glare of the sun shining down on the sandy training grounds rather than think of her wounds. She was more afraid of failing the retired Hybern General; whom she herself refused to return home until her protegee reeked of Hybern ferocity, rather than dying from blood loss of her lessons. If her teachings proved time and time again, death was not the worst thing that could happen to a warrior Fae female. Failure was.
For staring too long at the blood, Kianna ended up sprawled on her front with a sweep of the spear against her calves, her chin slamming against the ground, the dust getting into her moaning mouth, and she knew the fall would leave a nasty bruise.
"Ouch!" Yuma saw this when she returned, freshly bandaged arm, and ready for more of this abuse. "I don't think she is ready for another one Amarantha. Take my words. Females of this Court are made soft." Kianna growled at the mention of her weakness. "And for your own safety, you should take it easy on my High Lord's baby sister."
"Shut your cunt mouth commoner. Stop treating her like a infant, or she will die like one," said the foul-mouthed and temperamental elder and battle-hardened Fae female. Amarantha was more pissed than she had ever seen her, growling at Kianna's pathetic attempts to make a stand against her, failing to even do that.
"Who is in charge here, you Yuma? No. So shut the hell up so I can do my job."
"Don't talk to her like that,"Kianna spoke up for the first time. Meeting Amarantha's upset features head-on, "it isn't her fault its mine. So stop it."
"Stop it, I'll show you stop it!" Amarantha kicked the lost blades away from a crawling Kianna.
"Hey!"
"Your enemy will not make it that easy."
"You are not my enemy," Kianna reiterated spitting out the dust her feet had kicked up just so she could choke on it.
"Right now I am." Amarantha pointed her spear at a rising Kianna, her legs wobbly like a fawn learning to stand for the first time."Come at me again little she-beast, this time do it better, and do it stronger, perhaps this time use this instead of those wimpy blades."
She threw one of Yuma's small broad sword at the losing Kianna, grimacing when the younger spit up blood with the dust, but still rose for the battle nevertheless. Everyone could see she had been a monkey's ass with Yuma's daggers, but the blade after a few sparring thrusts was not such a bad fit.
Kianna would have calloused and ugly red blisters by the end of the night, but at least she would be able to stick with a few seconds against Amarantha.
When they were breaking their fast, she was scolded by her least favorite cousin. Like Yuma taught her, there were some battles you could chose not to fight. Ianthe was one of those.
"Your stupid," Ianthe deigned to notice her bruises of the day. Begonia and Zinnia silent, but listening for the fallout this time, "no one told you to fight. Not all of us can be Amaranthas. When will you learn that?"
"When you learn," she bit right back, upset for giving into her words so easily. "That the only Vallahan female capable of snagging a High Lord was my mother," her voice chilled the dining room air, especially when Ianthe was not the only one to hear it. "And it will remain so as long as I am breathing." She had heard Amarantha say that once, and now the words felt hollow on her tongue, cruel words of a crueler female, and she did not yet know the gravity of such words truly meant, especially on a furious pale-faced Ianthe.
"You are much changed Kianna." Her Uncle Vanir piped up from his place at head of the table, taking Tamlin's spot since he was not here to fill it in himself. "I would hate to have to inform Tamlin that his Hybern General has not only managed to outstay her welcome but has also managed to seduce the mind of his more than willing little sister."
Perhaps you are the one that has outstayed your welcome. Kianna would have retorted with, but knew that she had already dug herself a big enough hole to bury herself in. She told Amarantha this when they were dueling again.
"And what did you tell him?" She wanted to know.
"I didn't tell him anything," Kianna said truthfully. "I didn't want him to think I would come to you and tell you what happened. So I kept it to myself until I could tell you."
"Excellent." One of Amarantha's dark red eyebrows grew into her hairline, "you make a fine spy Kianna, has anyone ever told you that?"
"I have learned from the best," she thought of his smart grey eyes, caught off guard blushing cheeks, and lovely rounded ears. What would Azriel think of her brushing elbows with Hybern and Vallahan at the same time? He had said once that his Court was not on speaking terms with them, especially its King and a female that had died a long time ago, named Clythie or Clythia or something like that.
She already knew what Tamlin thought of her strong words with Ianthe.
When he returned, he was barraged by both sides. Upset that they could get at each other's throats in two weeks time. He raked his strong knuckles against the dining room table when Amarantha and Kianna dined with him alone when he returned from his tour of the Spring Court, as was custom of the new High Lord to do at least once at the beginning of his reign, but had not helped with this family issue.
"I will take care of Vanir." Tamlin pointed a fork at both of their smug faces, thinking that they won this time, "you both," his distrusting eyes marked both of them. "Both of you just stop antagonizing my guests. If you leave them be, I can at least vouch on my part that if they so bother you both again with Kianna's training, then they will have me to contend with."
"Thank you Tamlin, my hero," Amarantha purred at him, and Kianna's brother took her hand briefly, nodding to her, before taking off once again, and being swallowed by his duties once again.
It was not until a week after that she came across Amarantha's room and did not find her in it.
"Amarantha?" Kianna felt like something was off.
"Amarantha where are you?" She wasn't here.
The draws and grand closet of her guest room was empty of her dresses, training gear, and rather flamboyant weapons of War. Everything of hers was stripped from the room, and that was not all she found upsetting in the room. A letter sat on her writing desk, one marked Tamlin, and the other Little Lady.
Beloved Little Lady,
I will be long gone by the time you read this. Our time together was fun. Especially the times that I kicked your ass. Don't stop your training, and when the time is right, come and visit me why don't you. It gets lonely in Hybern, and I could always use you as a punching bag.
Ardently yours,
Amarantha
Kianna could feel the upset tears coming down her face as she walked to her brother's room and handed him his letter with wet and red eyes.
"What is it?"
"You drove her away," she remarked snidely, pushing past him, and shoving Amarantha's farewell letter in his larger than normal chest. "I hope your happy Tamlin, I will never get a teacher like her. Never."
"It was for your protection Kianna," he remarked before she left his room in one of her feral moods."I did it for your own good."
"You were intimidated by her, that is why you couldn't stand her teaching me something you couldn't."
"She was torturing Lesser Fae."
She could feel her body freeze as he continued in his explanation of sending her away from the Spring Court, not knowing that Amarantha, the female she had come to admire so was capable of such a thing.
"Vanir brought to my attention the wicked things she had done in my absence." Kianna could only imagine after the stories the General had told her about War and those that were disciplined for failure and insubordination. "Things that no member of my Court should be allowed to do. I had no choice but to send her away."
"She was my friend Tamlin," Kianna voice was no longer questioning, upset, confused, mostly upset that he had not made that connection that she had once needed her, still needed to her hear story, still needed her if she was ever to become the Lady Warrior Amarantha had once called her. "She saw the potential in me, she wanted to help me, and you knew that. You knew that sending her away would never help me in becoming stronger, you promised me that night that you would teach me everything you know, and that you would do better than Father, better than Mother, that I would be strong enough-"
Her mother's sewn neck flashed before her eyes, "how will I protect us?"
"You don't have to carry that burden Kianna. That is what I am here for. We are strong enough Kia, believe that," Tamlin brushed a comforting ksis over her temple. Seeing how much this upset her. "But believe me, she wanted to use you. You don't see it now, but our father even warned us about Hybern, the only people we can trust is each other," he held her shoulders, "this is all we need right now Kianna. Hybern is amongst the highest of traitors that can turn on us. They just lost a war, The War, and Amarantha for her deeds and mischief, is not even welcome before her own King for her failures, and I will not allow her to taint your mind into believing things that are too good to be true, to change you into something you are not."
"So it's just going to us then. Only us, all alone in this Manor." She stressed, "we're going to be alone for a long time Tamlin if we only trust ourselves. Perhaps that is what you want, for us to drive each other insane over it. To start seeing enemies everywhere, until we start believing that we are each other's enemies too..."
"Kianna, don't say it like that-"
"I refuse to push away my friends, only because you are paranoid Tamlin." That was putting it lightly. She was sure he thought the worse of everyone, possibly even her too. "Do not take Yuma away from me too. At least allow me to train with her. Allow me to still go into Town and visit…"
"Visit with who?" His bright green eyes flared at the assumption he was making.
Kianna throat bobbed, but she stood her guard. Refusing to ever be afraid of the beast the Court had feared for years. "You don't think I would forget that we had a sister?" She started there, intent in her certainty. "That I would give her up so easily with the lie you made of her life?"
"We don't have a sister." He was being ridiculous.
"Yes we do." She gave her brother a piece of their sister. "She is so beautiful Tamlin. Just like Mother," he turned away at the raw pain in her eyes, instead choosing to stare out his balcony, and not brave or ready enough to face the truth. "Every day she grows so beautiful, and she has a good heart, because she cares after her adopted sister and mother so much. She loves with all her heart." She was invested in making him think so. "You have to see her, she looks just like Mother if you don't stare at her directly, but she has a bit of your shyness too, it's adorable when you get her to talk about-"
"Stop it."
"Tamlin, you can't run from this-"
"Please stop."
Kianna winced at the fragility in his voice.
He was not finished. "We will not speak of her. Not here. That is an order Kianna, I will not have you changing something that will only put everyone at risk."
"Not here?" She echoed, knowing. Not in the Manor where their parents and brothers ghost could hear, and where those they couldn't trust could hear. So much paranoia, so many enemies to remember, their father would have been so proud.
Kianna's shoulders slumped in his refusal to answer. "So she is a Her now?"
"It's for the best Kianna. For her safety, for yours."
She shook her head at how sad person her brother and protector had become, "Oh Tamlin, her name is Cammy, she likes going by Cammy," she corrected him, whom seemed to be at lost for words at her revival of the fact that Kianna with power unknown to them, had resurrected an already dead faeling babe. Their sister, that was more alive than ever.
"When the time comes," Kianna handled the painful lump in her throat, swallowing her own guilt. "When you find it in your heart to change, or when it finally think it is safe enough. I want you to tell her the truth of what happened that night. If you don't," she dared and promised, "I will."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
The Town was exactly that, a sleepy little town, just barely a mile north of the Manor and it's grounds.
She knocked on the door of one of the humble cottages, a pen of goats and chickens clucked and neighed at her as she continued to knock in exasperation for someone too answer her, and deliver her from the humbled bows and nosy stares for her business amongst the common Fae and faire folk alike.
"May the evergreen pastures be your way Lady Kianna," said some old Fae woman, with sage-like eyes, wrinkled hands, and silver braided hair, pulling the hand of her grandchild, only ten summers old with bright golden hair and wide green eyes. Perhaps that was the same innocence she once had before the murder of her parents, perhaps, and yet she knew there was always the dark beast of her Father in her, now tempered by the white light.
"May the green pastures guide yours as well," Kianna bowed her head, and then someone crept up behind her, putting their hand over her eyes, and hiding the day from her.
"Guess who?"
Kianna giggled at her little sister's playful voice, and pulling her hands away to see her soft and painfully pretty hands.
"Very funny Cammy, you're late," she remarked sullenly. "I told you not to keep me waiting."
"I know." Kianna turned and smiled warmly at the bright golden eyes of her sister. Camellia in flesh and blood was hard to look on straight on, because she was the burning light intensified. A living reminder of that night that remained a frustrating mystery to Tamlin, but a delightful miracle of life to Kianna.
Whatever that power had come from, the power of it's light, it's burning presence, it had granted her sister a chance at life, and her thanks.
"What?" Her sister shrugged, golden in every sense, and so obvious that she didn't belong here amongst those that only judged and thought her some bastard daughter left to a Fae peasant mother. It hurt to keep it from her, and it hurt to imagine what her life would have been if the Night Court and her brother had not stolen her birthright. "Why are you looking at me like that Kia? Do I have something on my face?"
"Oh it's nothing," Kianna brushed it off before her sister could look too much into. "Come my golden flower, get Cassia, and we will be off. I want to go to the Lake for a swim. How does that sound?" Now she sounded like their mother. Perhaps that the intended consequence of being the elder to her younger sister, wanting to coddle and harvest her time because to name her as sister was forbidden by their high-strung High Lord brother.
"Yes, come." Camellia agreed, with the youth of her twenty years so evident in her charismatic smile, one that she could not mimic to even the slightest with the horrors she had scene. "Let us enjoy this blessed day," she echoed more joyfully.
They walked in the direction of the Lake.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Unknown to them, a haggard and hunchback Fae female watched on, wearing only a poorly made wool clothes, and a gnarled cane as she watched them leave the boundaries of the gentle bustle of the Town.
A equally aged Fae man beside her grunted at the sight of them, puffing out a dragon from his pipe, "seems odd that Tamlin's sister comes here to visit her. Doesn't make sense when she has plenty of females to keep her company."
"Not so odd." The woman commented. "What is odd is that beings of the wood between the worlds have entered our own," the name sent a shiver of magic through the air. A shiver that leaked into the man, knowing that this conversation was not so innocent.
"What is it Wanderer?" He asked of the ancient representative of the Old Order. "Is this going to lead us into another War with the primordials?"
"They still sleep." She put it lightly, "but the time of their return is uncertain now. Those that have not walked this earth for a millennia have entered from the pools of the Wood, from places that I do not know where."
"Hm." He hummed. "If I was a young Fae male, I would think you are making this up," he remarked off-hand. "But I trust in your knowledge Wanderer, I remember the old days of Kings, darker beasts prowling these woods," his eyes marked the forest with a well-seasoned hunter's gaze, "and when the primordials walked amongst us. Odds days, made for odder people."
"What is odd," the Wanderer added, "is that the "otherworld" being's magical signature led me back so close to the Manor, that it led me to the heart of the High Lord," her gnarled finger pointed at the leaving Fae females, "to them."
He thought so too, the smoke pluming from his mouth."Odd Wanderer," he waved the rest of the grey smoke before it got in the Wanderer's rather wrinkled face for a Fae. "Very odd for females so young like these to become imbalanced to the worldly things around them."
"Young they are," she huffed, stamping her cane into the mud ground. "Which begs the question what is their role in all this?" Her mouth inverted into an ugly frown, and her squinting foggy eyes kept judging the daughters of Tagnar the Terrible in that way that the ancient ones looked at the young innocent and stupid. "Have you heard rumors of any changes with Tagnar's daughter and the other?"
"I honestly don't know." The aged Fae was no help to her. "Perhaps the Mother."
"The Great Mother." The Wanderer said with little esteem. "Always hearing our prayers, but forgetting to answer them."
"Some might say that."
"All I see is kittens without claws, just asking to be fed to the wolves." She pointed out, painfully aware of how unprepared the young of this world were to the old dangers. "Now this is just irresponsible of their guardian. Disappointing too if I may be so blunt, and I do dare," she remarked in a crackling voice, that of bark breaking off a tree, shaking her head filled with leaves and the sweat of a long journey made, and turning her heavy head to the culprit over the hills yonder.
"I wish you find your answers Wanderer. So we may move forward," he declared. "That we continue in this peace without humans and without Hybern breathing down our neck, good day and green pastures be your way," he took his leave of her. "Send a raven if they cause you trouble Wanderer."
"Yes, trouble does seem to find me," she gave him that. Watching the age-old sentinel Fae go in his unhurried steps.
She spoke to the air, "A tentative peace we may wish for, but we shall see." She hissed to only the wind that carried her words. "He's to blame in all this. Yes, I know he is to blame."
The ancient Fae female waddled her own way to the Manor in need of speaking to the one they called Tamlin, and what he thought of letting such precious females creatures so readily available to the celestial monsters that lurked in his Court from other worlds, and perhaps, convince him of giving him the apprentice worthy of taking her place and becoming The Wanderer, and to help her in putting those celestials back to their world.
"Great Wanderer," she prayed to the one that had taught her the importance of diligence and vigilance. "Watch the land beneath my feet and lead them to the purpose I must take." She rued that this time had come to pass in her lifetime, "guide me in surest way to save my family and people."
My lovely lovely darlings thank you, a thousand thank yous, mwah!
I can't describe how happy I am that you have taken the time to review and send your love, appreciation, and words of wisdom.
I hope that this was what you had in mind, and I can't wait to send you out the next chapter.
Special Shout-out to My Lovely Reviewers that reviewed the last chapter, you are always and will be my favorites: to
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SmokeAndMirrors3, Olatulipfever, TheGodmother321, ThreeLittleBirds343, DarkMoonRisingOverYonder, AllInMyHead545, OnceAgainOceansBetweenUs, MostBeautifulColor,
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Look forward to hearing what you guys think of this new Kianna chapter, and if you liked the twenty year time jump, or did it feel rushed.
As always, have a wonderful and thought-provoking night and weekend,
Odeveca