Sydney Alexis
XI
I didn't need the scroll that evening to know that she was near; I could feel her presence. Breezing through the small patch of trees that had become my safe haven.
She always had a way of finding me when I was lost. Knowing instinctively when to comfort, when to listen, when to guide. The first time she had found me like this was after I had left Harry at my village. I'd ridden hard since I left camp and kept running. Placing as much distance between my family's pyres and myself as I could, and I thought that the tears would never cease.
It'd been weeks since I'd spoken to another living soul. I tried to loose myself in the deserts along the Silk Road route. Somewhere between His Majesty's land and Chin. I managed to find an oasis and set up camp there. Living off of desert creatures-- snakes, scorpions, fowl. Anything that was living that could be cooked over a fire was fair game.
In a state of near madness she came upon me. Slight arms wrapped around me, a flash of red as her cloak covered us both.
She offered comfort while I cried buckets of salt over a woman I'd grown to love. 'Lanna would have handled this better. She was always the strongest of both.' It was the first words uttered from my throat. Deep and thick from disuse, they came out broken and hollow between the tears that racked my body.
"Come, Thomas," she said in a heavy Spanish accent. One that years would fade. And I followed her without question. Unconcerned that she knew my name despite the fact that I did not offer it nor did I ask or know hers.
She took up a fallen limb from a tree, wrapped a cloth she produced from her pack around the end, lit it, and lead me out into the bitter cold night. Not far from my camp, we came across an ancient tree. Trunk mangled from years of the sand beating across it. Her torch touched the base of the wood and a fire jumped up from it.
"Close your eyes, Thomas. Picture her...your children." A pause. Long enough for me to comply. "What do you see?"
First came her eyes. Dark and full of mirth as she danced in the field with my daughter. Just beyond sat her father playing his aged lute and her mother holding Jonathan in her lap. There was such life there. Trees and flowers and running water. The smells and sights of all I had long blocked out from my current feeble existence.
Their mad twirling stopped, but the music continued. Lanna came to me, hands outstretched. When she reached me, the voice was not her own.
"Thomas, come back to me."
The voice was insistent as was the hand on my shoulder. I opened my eyes blinking several times before coming to focus on the woman I would come to know as Duessa.
"'Tisn't good to stay there long." The confusion on my face wouldn't lend her to explain further. I wasn't ready that night to know I'd been granted a glance into Elysian Fields, and, for a mortal to stay there longer than an instant would mean death to them and separation for those that they went there to meet.
No. Du didn't tell me that until several years later at yet another chance encounter. Instead, she sat beside me and waited.
"Do you believe what you said earlier? That her existence would have been easier had you died in her place?"
"Yes, milady, I do."
A smile tugged at her lips at the formal address as if she'd never been show such courtesy. I'd learn that my assumptions there had been correct. To this day, I've never allowed her that title; it simply did not suit her. I did and still do call her my lover, guide, salvation, and sire. She created Proteus and set me upon a path. Gave me something tangible to work toward--killing the king. I told her as much once, and she merely laughed off the comment saying she'd only lit the fire. It was I that started the journey to see it all through until only ash remained.
The night, she led me back to my oasis as the last of the embers of their Remembrance Fire died down. Sitting before the small pond in the center of the circle cast moments before, she held out her hand above water's surface, speaking in our ancient tongue, begging the Goddess for sight. The night-blackened water began to churn and ripple before an image appeared. Lanna, burdened down with goods she'd acquired from the township over, returned to our tiny home. She stopped at the front door, finding a bloody handprint upon it. Her load was dropped in the front stoop as she cautiously pushed open our door. The furniture was stroon about the room, over turned and blood spattered. Two dead soldiers lay in a mass on the floor a third lay on the table.
She took unto her small hands the giant battle axe that had been her fathers as she followed the blood droplets first to little Miral's room. There, in the corner was her tiny little body. Pale and lifeless from lack of blood, eyes locked forward in terror. Lanna sank to the balls of her feet, checking for tell-tale beating of her heart against her neck but found none. Sinking back grief, she rose and then walked with a determined gait until our bedroom. There, in the doorway, lay my lifeless body. Arrows protruding from my thigh and shoulder, several large gashes in my chest, and a pool of blood beneath my body. Her eyes left mine and traveled to our lifeless son on the bed beyond and back to me. The axe was dropped as she took my cold, dead, body into her arms and began to cry.
The pool shimmered again through a series of flashes: our funeral pyres, her teaching herself how to fight, raising an army, her rise as a known warlord, her assassination attempt of the king, years of torture and pain at his lackey's hand, her eventual death years later, and her decent into Hades.
The watered stopped churning as suddenly as it began and Duessa sat back from it, eyes heavy with pain.
"She followed the Fool's path. All that remained inside of her was pain and the need for vengeance."
She turned to me, eyes wide as if she was reading my fortune. "Your path needn't be that destructive or foolhardy. You just have to learn from her mistake; don't lose yourself within the violence and need for revenge, Thomas."
That night seemed a thousand marks ago, and yet so little had changed.
"Your grief seeps through the very stones," her voice stated neutrally. The crimson cloak she always wore puddle at her feet.
I uttered a non-committal noise.
She brought a slender finger to her mouth, licking the tip of it as if to check the air. Her head tipped to the side as she considered my posture.
"You feel rage..."
My eyes darted to hers, and, at the confirmation she smiled a little knowing smile to herself seemingly content at the knowledge she could still read me so well. Nearing me with careful steps her hand ghosted across my cheek.
"So much rage," she repeated, this time allowing herself a prolonged touch, hand gliding into my hair as if she could absorb the maelstrom of emotions within me. I closed my eyes, relishing her calming touch. The one that quieted the need for violence and retribution and a litany of other, long standing emotions.
Her hand slipped away after all but too brief contact and I heard a soft sigh slip unbidden from my lips. Fathomless brown eyes locked onto mine and I knew she read me correctly.
"The demon takes you and you can't fight him back as easily as you once could. But more than that, you fear. Fear what you are. What you could become."
She glided towards me, spreading out her cloak on the ground before her. Tiny fingers drew her divination cards from her belt as she began her spread.
"Your men were questioning you. They believed you had grown weak, but your demon has proven you."
Her eyes were beginning to cloud as her visions seized her. Each card brought new answers rather than only the vague meanings that could be drawn solely from her cards.
"Terrific," I muttered, sitting up straighter. I racked my hands through my hair and then let them drop to my sides. Her hands stopped moving across the board, her glance cast upon me.
"They would have killed you...and succeeded. You are needed where you are," she intoned in a scolding voice. At times, she could carry on a perfectly normal conversation. As the years progressed, however, those times were much fewer.
"But branding? It would have been faster and less painful in the long run just to beat her."
She tilted her head to the side. "It was a fast and apt punishment. One that will remind her of what she has done." Her hand instinctively went the expansive scar on her forearm. The spot where her mother tried to burn her visions out of her to appease the local priest. It was living proof of what would become of Annika's brand; it will heal over and turn into an expansive scar with smoother than normal skin.
I shook my head at the images from the past. "I could have killed her. Nearly well would have if I hadn't seen that look in her eyes."
"Annika is not at the root of your troubled mind," she said, turning over the forth card in the spread. "Your heart is filled with her. The girl."
Her eyes rose and met mine. Eyes brimming with tears. Readings always brought her more pain but I knew she called upon the spirits to guide her hand because so few were as gifted as she was.
"You desire her. To own her. To make her yours. Your love for her will never glow as brightly. Be careful how you tread, Thomas. You found her on her rock. You might have saved her, but she may light her candle against you."
Another card turned, and she muttered to herself. Two more followed. Her gaze rose from them to me. "They tell me you've met another that is to lead you on your path. They say I am needed elsewhere," she said, cupping my cheek. Her eyes filled with unshed tears. "When did you stop needing me, Thomas? I was your everything once and you took care of me. Now you take care of the girl."
Just as quickly as it came her emotion left her. The tears that filled her eyes were shed down her cheeks and she ignored them as her face finally grew serious.
"Mind her, Thomas, or she will fall at the hands of the sea."
I shook my head. The last time she had left me like this, she had warned me that pain would follow joy. Unending, intolerable pain. I met Yuling within a few months and then lost her nearly as quickly.
"I don't accept you leaving me."
"Hermes is waiting. You must choose between the sword and the cup," she said, her eyes shifting with the visions that took her. She began humming an old nursery rhyme incessantly as the full child-like persona came upon her. It was during this time that she was at her most deadly. Most protected state. The Goddess took care of her children.
When her gaze fell upon me again, it was filled with knowledge, pain, and understanding. "It is our curse, Thomas, to love well and deeply. To be bound to Mates that will never return the depths of that love. Magicks older than our ancestors can remember are to blame. Burned. Imprinted into our souls. It draws us together in this and every lifetime so that the curse can work its will," she turned from me then, collecting her things before setting out. I called out to her to stop her retreating form. She turned and smiled.
"If I stayed with you, I would only keep your from your path. Go. Find what you are looking for. I will be there when you need me."
With that, she turned and once again started on her path, meeting up with her ride a few hundred cubits from the end of the patch of trees. I wouldn't see her again for a half dozen years.
After Duessa left me in the forest with more questions than answers, I decided to take her parting advice to find Kathryn and make things right with her. Word came from one of her attendants that she had returned to the bath to wash up for dinner. Groaning inwardly, I slipped into the room unseen. Hiding behind one of the enormous marble pillars, I was finally able to eavesdrop on my 'wives.'
"I still don't see how you can stand to be near him all the time, Kathryn. One day, that temper of his will be bared against your back," a voice spoke softly.
I waited for a long moment until my eyes fully adjusted to the darkness of the room. The owner of that voice was the same timid little girl that had pushed me aside earlier to attend to the first wive's wounds. Her adopted name was Constance. Her coloring was closer to the local girls though I suspected other heritage because of the strong Roman nose. Lengthy jet black hair swung unbound, resting at her waist and her eyes were a fathomless black. She reminded me of my Duessa save the fact that Du's hair was curly. Thick, unruly hair and a crimson cloak that was her signature.
"He's been gentler these days. Not lashing out as cruelly as he used to. Perhaps spending time with Kathryn has tempered the beast somewhat," the second wife suggested. Just as I began to search my memory for her name, the fifth wife weighted in.
"Tell that to Annika. He nearly burned her through. Treated her like she was no better than the camels the servants use to collect goods from the docks. If you ask me, the only reason we haven't been beaten is simple-- he hasn't been around us enough to have the opportunity."
I forced myself to suppress a laugh. This fifth wife... Sorteria was it? She was a spitfire. Forthright. I could respect that in a woman.
"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Ria. As far as I'm concerned, if he wants to spend all his time lying with Kathryn and still let me spend his dinars, than I am all for it," the second wife said.
Ria was most definitely of Greek heritage. Her skin was the color of toffee, her eyes were a bright brown as well as her hair. Typical to the women in these types of climates, her hair was coarser in look and feel than those of Anglo up bring.
"While I respect your ability to empty Crycus' treasury, I have to wonder, Pru. First he spends months away from us and then he says he doesn't want a massive entourage to go to the king's homeland. Something just isn't fitting here. A few months ago, he had a seamstress in here creating clothes that would 'make the king rethink his stance on only having one wife.' Now he's saying he's only going to take Kathryn. Just doesn't add up."
"Things between him and the king are volatile," Kathryn ventured.
"They always have been. The king hates keeping a pagan in his court..." Pru replied.
"And Crycus delights in ruffling the old prude's fathers now that he's gone to the way of the one god." Ria interjected. "If you ask me, he's just bitter that his vitality's gone south in his advanced years."
"Ria!" Constance squeaked, splashing water at younger wife. "Honestly. That mouth of yours is probably the reason Crycus won't bring us."
"Crycus has always enjoyed my mouth," she said, offering the girl a broad smile.
"Then why hasn't he been in your bed?" Constance said, turning a lovely shade of red as she did so.
"Well, according to the servants, Crycus and Kathryn haven't been using their bed to do anything but sleep," Ria said, turning to Kathryn with a raised eyebrow. "What have you been doing all these months?"
Kathryn opened her mouth to reply when Pru came to her rescue.
"There is another reason he might be frightened to take us along," Pru softly voiced. "The other army's leaders have all been slain. Rumors have surfaced through the palace that Proteus killed them all. Perhaps Crycus is worried there will be another attempt in his life while we are there."
"If he falls, we are all unclaimed property," Ria supplied.
"And if he left us here, we would at least have a chance to escape before someone came for us," Pru and Ria's summation was more than correct. No wonder Crycus had married these girls. They were beautiful and intelligent.
I stepped out from my perch, finally able to see the second wife. The brief glance of her face was enough to job my memory on her full name.
"Petruska, Ria, you worry yourselves and the others for no reason. I am a much harder man to kill than all those other dolts."
They all stood, fully preparing to kneel before me. I lifted my hand to stop them. "No need," I said, slipping onto the wooden bench between Ria and Kathryn. Pru sat just on the other side of her. Egad the girl was a looker, and her name gave her heritage away. Pure Russian through and through. Fair skin, brown eyes, dark hair, and a little spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She smiled shyly at me. I returned the sentiment.
Ria's hand rested on my shoulder, making me turn my attention to her. Smart girl. "Were we right? Is that why you've chosen not to bring us?"
I cupped her cheek and kissed her temple, watching as she absorbed the contact. "Ria, my candid little tart. Do you still taste as sweet as I remember?" She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, and moaned at the question, licking her lips enticingly slow.
"And you make a wonderfully distracting tease." She replied, her lips twisted in a quirky smile.
I laughed brusquely. "Always so straightforward, aren't you, love?" She was kneading the flesh on my bicep, making it more and more difficult to think.
"If it means that much to you, then you can pack up your pretty little wears and come with me on the trip. Just remember that it'll take some months to get there."
"And there's a finite amount of space to 'store those frilly little frocks you use to entice me into acting upon my manly urges.'" Ria said, taking on a bad version of my accent. She was smiling broadly at me the entire time she spoke. Spirited on by the loud laughter of the other wives, I pounced on the slip of a girl, tickling her mercilessly.
"I am Lord Crycus. I am one of the most feared men in all this territory, and you...you impudent little girl have the boldness to mock me?"
She was shrieking in my ear in between laughing so hard she was gasping for breath. "Show mercy, my lord. Show mercy." I stopped once her laugh had lost sound and kissed her forehead.
"You're forgiven, Ria. But let that be a warning."
She began laughing anew at my statement, unable to recover herself from the cold stone floor she was laughing upon.
Returning to the wooden bench near the lip of the bathing pool, Kathryn moldered herself to my side almost instantly, her tiny fingers clutching my arm. Her other hand came to rest possessively on my thigh. I turned my head toward her, placing a kiss into her hairline. "Are we okay, love?" I whispered softly to her.
"Yeah," came her quiet reply. The hand resting on my leg inched a bit higher as she said this. Constance and Pru left us then, taking the silent cue that I wanted to be given some space. They helped Ria up and all three slipped into the water on the far side of the room. Out of sight but within bellowing distance if I choose to spend time with them.
I rose and took her hand, guiding her back to our room. There, I closed the door and removed that damned wrap nearly instantaneously.
Kathryn came forward then, slipping her arm through the crook of my elbow. Whispering into my ear, she asked me what I intended to do now that all of the other wives would consider what Annika had said. I shrugged my shoulders. "Give them more evidence, I suppose."
She gave me a glee filled smile then led me toward the massive bed's edge. Questioning fingers started to untie the wrap at my waist. My nose nuzzled her hair as I spoke words of concern. "Kathryn, what have I told you about them recognizing I'm not him by changes in body type?"
"You've spent the last few moons away from them, working with the troops hours each day. It's only natural that you would be more angles and planes and less plateaus and... bulges...." she said the last with a rakish glance as her questing fingers brushed past me. I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments. More bold touches like that and this game would be over quickly.
"Besides, it's just us here." Within moments the wrap fell, followed by my tunic. Fingertips grazed the newly exposed flesh, trailing over old scars.
My hands rose to her hair, burying them in the fiery stands. I had to marvel at Crycus' choice in mates. Three dark haired girls and two light. Three with spunk and two that were meek. Maybe it was because their personalities seemed to be directly linked to their sexual prowess. Then again, the quiet ones always were a bit surprising.
Lips and teeth worked across her jaw line. I felt and heard her speak under my touch. "I hadn't seen these before," she said, tracing over the raised pink flesh on my chest. "How did you get them?"
She must have felt me stiffen at the question because she pulled out of my embrace just enough to see my face. "Not a pretty story, pet." It was the same five words I had uttered to her months before, but they were the same none the less.
"Can't be all that bad," she said, pulling me impossibly closer to her. My hands fell to her hips.
"I tried to cut it out." I said, stilling the hand that was tracing the lines around my heart. Her eyes filled with shock. "Why?" she asked softly.
"Did something I wasn't proud of. Lot of things actually. Just reached a point and I went out of my head for a little while."
"Obviously something stopped you."
"Yeah. Duessa. She and I met up again in India of all places. I was supposed to meet this contact at a temple, and there she was, covered in henna. She was wrapped up in this burgundy and gold sari she'd stolen from one of the local markets. Real vision. Hair pulled back and she was smiling. First time I'd seen her happy.
"Instead of emptying out the place, she was just sitting there, listening to the monks chant in the distance. I sat down beside her and she looked at me with such peace on her face. Said the place quieted the visions. Made them not take her totally. Don't get me wrong. The girl wasn't changing her faith, but she wasn't going to defile the temple just because of the magick of the place.
"She and I stayed for a couple of weeks just healing. The monks made us work for our food, let us attend their worship services. Some of the oddest things I've seen. Full of chant and candles and incense. Du would close her eyes and the visions would come, but without the pain or transformation.
"They're also pretty good at herbal medicine. Put this plant pulpous on my chest that healed up the marks I'd made pretty well."
"You never told me that she had Sight." Kathryn said, smiling weakly.
"Didn't I?"
"You also never mentioned what she looked like...how you met her..."
"Jealous, pet?" I asked, toying with the end of a strand of hair. It was meant to distract. Meant to guide her away from conversations that could lead to trouble for my Duessa. She's already been hunted twice before for her visions. The one god's church was convinced that Seeing was an affront to their god and that all with visions should be burned or drowned.
Thankfully, she took the bait. Smiling weakly, she stepped back, hands going to the sash knotted around her waist. "I'm going to dress for dinner and then walk down." she said, letting the robe fall, unashamed. She glided towards me like a lioness stalking her pray. Body moving lithely past the material as if it were nothing more than a nuisance. The same flirtatious smile spread across her features.
Her hands reached out and touched my shoulders, guiding me back to the bed, I sat on the edge without protest. "Thought that you were about to get dressed. Something change your mind."
"And I thought that we were going to give them more proof," she volleyed smoothly. The wicked smile that graced her face was pure evidence hat she was fully enjoying the attention she was getting both from me. Her legs straddled my lap as her arms wound around my neck, pulling me closer to her. Her hand crept through my hair, down my jaw line. Her thumb tracing my lips. Locking her eyes with mine, she whispered the next question loud enough for the cavernous room to pick up.
"Tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it."
Her hands began tracing the scars on my chest as her lips locked onto the lobe of my left ear. Grinding her hips against mine, her throaty voice vibrated against my neck. "You know I would do anything you wanted me to, don't you?"
Hot breath against already superheated flesh were causing me to respond in ways I knew I shouldn't. Duessa's message was still fresh in my mind. I locked my hands tightly against her hips, trying to stop her assault on my senses. Lips and teeth descended onto my Adam's Apple as she nipped and licked the skin there while questing hands dipped dangerously low. Skillful digits gently brushed down my ribs to my thighs. My hand followed her path, brought her knuckles to my lips where I planted a kiss on them.
"Don't tell me you want me to stop," she said, turning lust filled eyes onto me. Her bottom lip pouted out, hips beginning their cruel motion as if I wasn't hard enough.
"Not. Like. This," I managed to stammer out. I wasn't a eunuch. Nor was I chaste in any shape or form. But laying with this woman would bring my undoing.
I saw and heard the door begin to creak open, and what started out as a kiss to conceal my face turned into a kiss in earnest. The first we'd shared. She traced my lips with her tongue before demanding entrance, and I couldn't control the moan that slipped through my throat. Audience be damned.
Calloused hands met with mine on her hips, letting the fingers intertwine briefly before dragging them up to cup her breasts. Her head going back until I was faced with a white column of neck. Within a few moments, she returned to me, smiling devilishly. "At least give them a good show," she murmured.
In the heat of the moment, I had forgotten this dangerous game. It wouldn't take much to pretend. As it was conscious thought was becoming difficult. I sighed, knowing that she could feel the effect she had on me. I brought my lips to her nipple, using her chest to conceal my face. She arched into my touch, and a deep mewl rumbled from her chest. I heard the door creak open more fully and the sound of a throat being cleared. Kathryn angled herself in front of me purposefully blocking the intruder's view of my face.
"Sorry to interrupt, Lord, but dinner is prepared," Constance's soft voice filled the room. From the tone, I could only guess how red her face was. With that, the door slipped shut.
"Not like this," I repeated, moving away from Kathryn. Anger written across her face.
"Said not like this. Didn't say no, pet." My statement was met with a tight smile. She rose from the bed. I dressed and waited for her as she purposefully took her time selecting a gown. She opened the door, expecting me to offer her my elbow. Instead, I threw her over my shoulder and carried down the hall, past a still blushing Constance. Laughing long and loud, I set her down on her seat in the dining room.
I waited until we were alone much later to tell her the whole truth of why I had stopped her. "I won't have you with me when I look like him. Not in the bed you share with him, and not where you can't scream my name," I said, turning toward her, eyes boaring into hers. "When I have you, you'll be mine wholly. I don't share. Even if he is a dead man."
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