Title: Snake Singer

Authors Notes: Thank you so much to TallemeraRane who helped with the editing of this chapter.

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, but the plot belongs to me.

His eyes were the first things that I noticed about him. His once fiery red eyes, like secret flames of emotions had been extinguished and only a dark abyss remained. Though the change in his eyes was the clearest image of him that I saw, the rest of the differences soon became apparent as well. His face and hands were bruised and lumped as though he had been beaten, his face a canvass of uneven bumps and scars, and I mapped all of them with the tips of my fingers as I traced his face. His skin was so tarnished and tainted. Every freckle, every scar, I found with ease sending all of the power that I held within my skin into him to heel his wounds.

Zane said nothing, his black eyes burning wholes of longing into my soul fiercely, and I silently begged him to end this torture before I went insane within the yearning for his voice.

"Did he hurt you?" he asked me, his voice strained and almost childlike as I felt the desperation spurring from him.

The truth slipped into my mind for a second, and for that one second I was ready to tell him of all that Vasili had done to me and all that went on in these last few days. The second passed away from memory quickly as he folded me sweetly within his arms. Though he was bruised and bloody he could still hold me tightly and I still found myself complete and unafraid in them.

His embrace was muscular and though he was a strong and heroic man I could feel him shrink within my arms, he in need of as much comfort and devotion as I needed. He desired the same peace that I desired and we found it both within the others' arms. I wrapped my arms around him tighter, letting him feel safe while being so close to me and allowing myself the feeling of safety that I also sought.

I pulled his head down to my breast and let him weep there. I lowered myself until I was lying on the bed and he next to me. I continued to hold him within my arms until I heard his cries slow and then cease all together. I felt his hands clutching around me loosen on their need for me.

I felt his head rise and I pulled my hand away from his face as he spoke to me, his voice lower then a dangerous whisper. "Will it ever be the same?" he asked. "Will it be as it was before? And used to be?" I knew that he was speaking of our relationship and friendship before all of this had happened.

My mouth was gaping wide. Did he really think that all that has happened would change my feelings for him? That after everything I would decide to stay with Vasili then return with him to whatever life awaited us in the future? I silenced his fear with the touch of my lips as I kissed his forehead. I smiled, feeling his tensed muscles loosen slightly. I whispered back to him, in a voice meant only for him: "You and I are forever, no matter what. Our bond is as old as time and will not cease until all around us has long since died, and we with it." I felt his smile widen as his face lay against my skin.

"Did he hurt you?" he asked me again. I wondered if he knew that I was hiding something from him, which I was keeping a secret as to what had happened between Vasili and I last night. That is, his act and my reaction to it. As unwanted and un-enjoyed as his passion had been for me was I knew that I could not tell Zane. Vasili's conduct would haunt him forever and he would always have to live with the fact that he had not been there to stop it from happening. He would always have to live with the knowledge that he was unable to save me, shield me, or stop me from having to experience that.

"What happened to you?" I asked, straying away from the question that he had asked me and hoping that he would only suspect a deep concern for him.

"Adelina sent me into the Underground Municipality." That was all he said.

Silence.

Unbearable silence.

There was more to the story. I knew that there was, but I did not press further. Like I was to him, Zane was holding something back from me. His reasons as important as mine, and I respected his silence for that, but a part of me deep inside wanted to know everything. Where every wound that I now saw on him had come from and why it had been placed there. I sighed, enjoying the new silence that my controlled fears and anxieties gave me.

We lay there together. An act as innocent and gentle as it could be. Husband and wife. Leaders. Outcasts. We were nothing more in that moment then Zane Cobriana and Danica Shardae. Nothing more. Nothing less.

My mind was uncontrollably thinking. I saw so many flashes of hope. Just as my premonition of life with Vasili had been dark and unnatural, I now saw the hope of a newly forged life with Zane. We could live a simple life together in the countryside where worries and the concerns of war could be as far away as the lives that we had grown up to lead. We could shed our former selves like skins that didn't fit us anymore. For a moment I wanted more then anything else for us both to be old and living a life that was far away from all of this.

The guards...

I jumped out of my thoughts as though I had just stepped into ice water and could feel the chill creep up my body like a crawling spider. "Zane! The guards!" I said, my eyes going back to the open doors to the balcony and the absence of the guards that had been there when I went to sleep only a few hours ago. They were gone. My eyes then went to the entrance into the room, where I knew instinctively that Rei had posted more guards.

"They're gone," Zane whispered lifting his hand up to my cheek and pulling my face back down to the pillow. "Rei knew that I was coming. I thought that he had warned you, but he made sure that I would not be seen by any of Vasili's guards." I let out the long breath that I had been holding for several minutes. The release felt wonderful.

Soon everything became silent again and once more the only thing that mattered was our bodies hold to the other, and the dreams that were forming within our thoughts as we both began to wish them into reality.

Zane raised himself, his dark eyes looking into mine as he stroked my cheek. "We have to get out of here," he said slowly, his hand still on my face, "We have to leave and know that Vasili will never follow us." His words had underlining meaning, and I knew what they were long before he said them. I nodded my head, an action that told him that I understood what he meant and that I agreed that it to had to be done.

Both of us left the bed at the same time, our hands interlocked with the need to still be near each other and close or the fears that we had been feeling in the others absence would come back. Together, though I was in the lead we closed the balcony doors and in the sight of the moonlight we embraced one more time, our bodies pressed as close and as tight as we could get them and as I leaned my head down on his shoulder I whispered, my lips not far from his ear: "I'm going with you, this is as much my fight as it is yours."

"I don't want to leave you." He whispered back to me, his arms wrapped tightly around my waist as he pulled me ever closer. His voice was ashamed, alarmed, not wanting to leave me here, but fearing what might happen if he took me with him.

"I don't want you to be alone!"

Our embrace in the moonlight lasted for what seemed like hours. Our arms and bodies needed to learn the feeling of holding the other so close again. Our time apart had left us longing to such a degree that we had forgotten.

When we let go I watched as he drew his long metal sword from it's halter at his waist and without a second thought I pulled open the cedar chest at the foot of my bed, pulling aside the silk pillow that rested on top of it. Once the chest was opened I saw what I was looking for immediately – my father's old sword, the same sword that he had died with in his hands. The blade was clean and sparkled in the moonlight slightly. I held it up, its weight a slight strain on my arm, but I managed. "It was my fathers," I said lightly, acknowledging the importance of it to me.

Zane held out his blade to me, saying: "This was my fathers as well." We both looked at each other. We were about to fight a battle with the swords of the men whom died hating each other, and we, their children would die loving each other.

I can't say whether it was Zane's idea or mine, it just came to us at the same time, but that night instead of going into battle with our fathers swords we switched. Zane handing me his fathers blade and I handing him mine. It was an act that had more symbolism then anything else. An act that offered trust and comfort between the two of us in battle and also, we hoped, helped put two great kings that we had both lost prematurely to rest in our hearts.

Clasping hands together once more we stood before the door out into the hall. Our veins flowing with fear as to what the confrontation ahead of us would bring. Would we escape tonight, or by morning will the leaderless murder their leaders?