Chapter Twenty-Nine –
Dawn Over Sytherria
The next morning, Elowyn awakened: in her own bed, in her silent room. She didn't open her eyes right away. It seemed, as she slowly drifted back into consciousness, that she had had the most lovely dreams ever during the entire night before, but she couldn't exactly recall what they had entailed. A slight, curving smile etching onto her lips, she stirred, gradually stretching her body underneath the sheets.
When her hand reached out and touched the top of the mattress beside her, she felt that it was slightly warm – as if someone had just been sitting there. This made her open her eyes; as she did so, she took in her surroundings, and remembered all.
She'd fallen asleep in the arms of the Dark Lord the night before, and he had held her, all through those long hours. From what she could tell, he had only just brought her back to her room. As she thought about it, she recalled hearing the faint noise of the door closing, even as she'd slept. Yes, he had only just left her, moments before. She ran her hand over the place where he had just been, taking comfort in the warmth there. How strong and reassuring his embrace had been…
No longer was her mind occupied with thoughts of how, or if, why, or when. All she knew now was that she was at a greater level of peace than she had been in for quite some time, and it was all because of Jaedin. They had found their way to one another, and no matter what the future held for them – no matter how many or what kind of questions – they would somehow find the answers, and the end, together.
She turned her head a bit, and looked out the window.
The curtains of her forest-themed room were a mixture of evergreen and sage velvet, with slender hangings of silvery green and yellow-green silk to break the heaviness of the other material. Through them peeked a ray of light, here and there. She sat up, hearing the chink of ornamental and jewel-accented golden chains as she moved, and threw her coverings aside, swinging her feet to the floor as she fairly bounced out of the bed.
She still wore her gown from the night before; it was surprising how comfortable it was. It felt as if she'd slept in a loose-fitting cotton shift. Her jewelry and headpiece had been removed, however, which she was thankful for.
Upon her throwing open of the curtains, the full-blown, heedless majesty of a sunrise over the desert greeted her.
For as far as her eyes could see, there was nothing but smoothly rolling dunes: tainted by the light of the rising sun to a glimmering, toasty golden-brown that reminded her of copper and almonds. The shadows that marked their undulations had a faint hue of amethyst purple to them, making a vivid contrast against the glittering sand. At the horizon, the gigantic sphere of the sun seemed to have been transformed from its usual white-hot self into a much more exotic, much more sensual inhabitant of the heavens: bathed in a shade of rosy coral, reminiscent of pomegranate juice and pigeon's-blood rubies. The sky beyond it held an even wider array of colours – yellow so bright that it hurt her eyes to look at it, a deep, vibrant blue, indigo, tangerine, and so many more…
It simply took her breath away.
How could anyone not see the beauty of this place, once they had truly looked upon it? Her eyes could very well be deemed biased, for she had seen many beauties in the course of her young life – indeed, she had been raised in the flawless White Realm itself, at the court of legendary Avalennon! – but now she simply had no words for what she saw.
At length, she finally turned around, facing into the room again.
Now her eyes lit upon a new beauty: a gorgeous white gown, which had been left draped delicately, by careful hands, over the back of her gracefully curved chaise lounge. She went over to it and picked it up by its shoulders, as was her wont when dealing with her former fashion foes.
The jade green eyes of the Princess who had once been so opposed to even looking at a dress, much less considering wearing one, now roved over the newcomer with a calculating, appraising air. It was of pure white material, having a feel that she couldn't quite put a name to – it wasn't velvet, and it wasn't silk either; nor was it satin, but something of all three, mixed inexplicably together. But, no matter how this had been done, it was very, very soft, and very, very luxurious as she ran her fingers over it. She quickly took note of its main characteristics – a full skirt, not quite to the standard ballroom circumference, but voluminous enough at that; sleeves that were tight until just above the elbow, then plunged down to the wearer's wrist-length, the hems edged with fine white lace; an off-the-shoulder neckline.
Jaedin, she thought, wryly, what is your preoccupation with my shoulders about?
The skirt and bodice had been liberally dosed with embroidery, and there was a fair share of pale-toned jewels – diamonds, pearls, and their sort – scattered everywhere; enough to give evidence of the wearer's status, but not enough to bedazzle the eyes of anyone who looked upon it. She now saw that a pair of tiny white slippers and a lovely crystal and pearl necklace had been laid out with the gown, hidden underneath it until the current moment.
And a note had been left pinned to the back of the gown.
Elowyn took it in one hand, and opened it.
Her alert, cool eyes ran swiftly over the sharp, proud, but overall elegant black script written on the delicate cream-coloured vellum: In hopes of what may yet come, it read. The words were simple, but their meaning was so much more intricate. Elowyn smiled to herself, smiled at the sly wit and implications from the one who loved her.
Evidently, he'd not had any second thoughts about their kiss the night before, either.
Now Elowyn hastily laid the gown back over the arm of the chaise lounge, and ran into the washroom that was conjoined to her bedchamber. It seemed as if her hands and feet flew – she splashed the cold lotus-scented water from the marble basin onto her face, neck, collar bones, and arms; ran her fingers abstractedly through the wild, wavy golden tendrils of her hair, and then dashed out of the room again, back into her room.
There, she undid the laces at the back of her blue silk gown, careful not to disturb any of the meticulously-applied golden accents, and hung it up in the wardrobe that had been artfully concealed in a panel of the frescoed wall. Two quick steps, and she was at her dressing table, where she swept a light dusting of shimmering white powder onto her eyelids, brushed a bit of apricot-hued blush onto the apples of her cheekbones – even though she didn't really need it, for her cheeks were flushed rosily enough as it was – and applied a subtle dab of glossy raspberry-hued rouge to her lips.
Nearly dancing with restlessness, she fastened the necklace around her neck, put on her earrings, and arranged her hair, pulling it back away from her face and securing it with a hair band that gently cupped the back of her head, just a little ways above her neck. Finally, she fought her way through the cloud of white fluffiness that was the gown and its petticoats, which seemed to have no limit as far as the number of layers, and fastened up the pearl buttons on its back.
Her feet slipped quickly into the low-heeled shoes, and then she was off: sailing across the room like a shining star that had fallen from the heavens, to the door that she pushed open, passed by, and closed behind herself.
The chamber that was directly beyond the quartet of suites that had been given to the faeries by the Dark Lord was silent, and devoid of any life. Elowyn took note of a new addition to the large, black onyx table that had been let there – an enormous, sweet-smelling confection of fern fronds, gardenias, lily-of-the-valley, and white roses.
Another present, from her passionate admirer.
Elowyn smiled, as a slight blush rose to her cheeks, and reached out, removing one of the gardenias from its place in the arrangement, to tuck it into the allowing waistband of her gown. Its fragrance washed over her, careless in its supreme refreshing perfume, and drifted along with her as she moved across the floor, towards the door that would lead her out into the ship's further regions. The slippers that she wore upon her feet made no noise whatsoever, which she was thankful for.
One day, very soon, she would explain to her friends all that had transpired between her soul and that of the Dark Lord, but that day, she knew, was not today.
And besides, they wouldn't want to wake up at such an unholy hour anyway…
* * *
Elowyn had never before seen anything like the Apocalypse, and so it would have been surprising to anyone – including all those who knew her best – that she was now finding her way around the titanic vessel with such ease. But, then again, they would have also been discounting the fact that she now felt and acknowledged, openly, the link between her mind, and that of her suitor. Jaedin's magnetic presence drew her to him, and so she passed easily through the halls of the glider ship, slowly finding her way to the command room.
The two Antari who stood guard before the doors of that chamber made their surprise at her approach known by the slight raising of their eyebrows as she appeared before them. Then, the door that they stood in front of opened, and Rákkhed Dahk-Marr stepped outside of it.
Immediately, his dark eyes took note of her presence, and he smiled openly at her, visibly pleased that she had come. Then he gestured, with a mollifying movement of one hand, to the pair of guards, who had stood at attention when he had appeared.
"His Lordship expects the Princess," he told them, in his gently musical, tenor voice: his slight accent dipping over certain syllables and slightly rolling the R's.
"He is awaiting her."
Immediately, when they had heard this news, the two stood back, bowing their heads as they gracefully held their long, bladed spears out of the doorway, allowing enough room for someone to pass beneath them. Rákkhed turned slightly, angling himself so that he could return into the room beyond those doors, and beckoned to Elowyn, still smiling congenially.
The captain of the Antari had a pleasant and good-humored nature, she thought: she knew that he could be stern and incapable of mercy or relent when the occasion arose for such displays of will, but she also recognized the depths of solid, kind empathy within his strong features. Here was a man who could be trusted, who would prove himself to be the best of friends and greatest of allies – and also the worst of enemies to those who might threaten the one he served.
And now he was speaking to her.
"Come, Princess Elowyn," he told her, with a warm reassuring tone in his voice. "My lord has long anticipated your arrival, and I fear that he grows impatient with waiting as the hours wear on. I hope that you will be able to forgive his…"
Rákkhed trailed off, with seeming uncertainty, as he obviously tried to find the word he was looking for. Finally, he finished with, "Impetuosity."
Elowyn sent him one of her brightest beams of smiles, and let him give her his arm; she lightly laid her fingertips along his inner wrist, and then the captain of the guard gallantly escorted her past the pair of sentries at the door, who bowed to her again as they swept past.
The sight that met her was yet another wonder, even amidst this veritable floating fortress of strange and new fineries. She stood in front of the door, with Rákkhed at her side, who grinned knowingly to himself as the princess's eyes traveled, slowly and fixatedly, over the intricate panels that controlled the glider ship's functions, the wall of diamond-glass windows and the scenery beyond them, and – lastly – the sharply-contoured, almost throne-like chair that was in the very center of the area.
It took scarcely any imagination to guess who was seated there.
Elowyn glanced out of the corner of her eye at Rákkhed, as if for permission to act, and he nodded to her. The various Antari paused at their stations as the beautiful faery princess placed one hand on the banister of the stairway and then silently walked down the steps, approaching the command seat. She paused, coming to stand only a little more than a foot behind the chair and its occupant, her expression sliding into one of cool amusement as her eyes now looked over him.
Jaedin, for having spent the entire night awake: holding her as she slept, certainly looked none the worse for wear.
He had exchanged his white velvet tunic for one of black silk that was nonetheless dramatic: its shoulders were slightly padded, winging out to curve over the sleeves, which were closely cut to his arms; this outfit gave an all-over sleek, tailored look to him, down to his form-fitting breeches – which were either leather or something close to it – and boots. Today, he wore no cloak, and was currently slouched carelessly in his throne, fingers in steeple-position, legs bent slightly at the knee: the heels of his boots supported by the nether regions of the chair.
She let her gaze center on the back of his neck, right where it met his smoothly shaven skull, and she found herself wondering if the incredible, oven-like heat of Sytherria's deserts was why he found it more convenient to not have any hair than to elect for a more normal appearance. Not that she would have had him look any other way – it was all part of his magnetism, she realized: the vast amount of difference in him that had drawn her to him, to the point where she could not and would not escape his loving advances, even in the face of everything else.
Right at the moment, he seemed sunk in thought: expecting her or not, he was completely unaware of her presence right behind him.
Well – look at this. Who would have imagined the Dark Lord so distracted? she thought to herself, in pseudo-mockery. And who has plunged him into this state?
Even as these thoughts ran quickly through her head, she sensed that he had finally become aware of her. She watched, then, as the head turned, with a slow, easy grace, upon its long neck: the body itself following the movement, at last raising him to his full height as he faced her. She remained where she was, one hand on the banister.
She still felt so uncertain – so small and pathetic amidst such great, enormous wonders, and especially next to events such as those that surrounded her.
But when she looked into the gray eyes of he who stood before her, devouring her with his ardent gaze, she felt tall as a goddess.
"Princess!" he greeted her, as his utterly charming and very dazzlingly white smile came onto his face in all its glory. His voice rang captivating, resonant, and commanding in the large chamber, filling it with his arresting presence, and she felt a shiver, a little frisson of some indefinable thrilling emotion, run over her, even as she stood.
He stepped smoothly, with a confident elegance, around the chair and came towards her, his predator's eyes boring into her mind. He did not look away.
Elowyn waited until he was standing right in front of her; then, she dropped her gaze from his proud, handsome face: unable to bear the full sight of the powerful, heated flames of the magnetism that was in his silvery eyes. Jaedin smiled, softly, and she saw his hands leave his sides, moving up so that the fingers of one – ungloved, which greatly surprised her – came to gently prop themselves under her chin, drawing her head up and up until she looked into his eyes again.
This time, she took his gaze fully.
"Good morning! I was hoping that you would join me."
Then Jaedin smiled down into his beloved's ravishingly fair face, taking note of her many peerless features, her bright green eyes, the crystal and pearl necklace that she wore, the delicate whiteness of her gown – which he himself had had created, specifically for her – and the blooming gardenia that she wore at her waist. He then placed his other hand, which he had kept free, around her: just above the rush of material that composed the train of the gown, which fell from her softly curving hips to the ground.
Without a word or even asking permission to do so, he drew her close to him, and let her place her hands on his chest, in between them, as he gazed fondly down upon her.
If there was any question in her heart, he mentally told her, with the ardent tenderness of any true lover, of what he now felt for her – of what the words that they had spoken to one another the night before had meant, their kiss had sealed it. His heart belonged to her, and no one else; and so long as he lived, so long as his soul was in existence, nothing would ever again conspire to change that.
He hoped that she felt the same?
Elowyn's eyes, then, at that moment, reminded him of both the night sky, filled with the beauty of a sudden, unexpected rain of falling stars, and a meadow in which the yellow-gold shards of the warm sunlight and the vibrant, spring-green grass danced to the symphony of the breeze. He knew that he needn't have even asked that question.
"Jaedin, how unfair can you be?" she asked him, her voice lilting with her light, breathy laughter.
Oh, that clinched it – and he would have taken her in his arms right then and kissed her with all of the passion that he had long felt in regard to her, through all those long days and weeks, but reason and, he dared remind himself, propriety remained. So instead he simply bent his head down and brushed a polite and certainly charming little kiss on her forehead…
But as he made as if to move back, he let his lips slide up a bit – coming dangerously close to her hairline – and Elowyn felt the breath catch in her throat as she fought to restrain her impulse to kiss him, to claim those full velvet lips as her own, once again, as she had before. Jaedin's hands upon her waist were keenly aware of her reaction to his daring little gesture, and he only just kept himself from grinning in open satisfaction and pleasure at that.
However, he knew – as she did – that he couldn't stoop to embracing her fully right there, in front of all of his men; he had done it before, when they had had their conversation in his drawing room at Dranthiris-Ankhar, after he had dragged her out of the dark ball, but now things were different. The first time, it had only been a given few who had witnessed their kiss, and they had been bound to silence.
Now, if they were to see their master and the faery princess whom he held 'captive' aboard his warship in a heartfelt embrace…well, tongues would wag.
Even among the solemnly inclined Antari.
And Jaedin hated to think of the two of them as the subject of discussions.
More than this, though, there was the difference between those two separate occasions. Their first kiss – well, it was actually their second, now that he recalled it correctly – had been a result of his last-ditch attempt to woo her, to enchant her into agreeing to love him, and forever after remain with him in his palace, as his queen. Then, he had had other motivations, other emotions, other aspirations and reasoning.
Now, though…
He stood back, although his hands never left their positions on her waist, and a fiery blush kindled Elowyn's maidenly cheeks. Jaedin looked at her for long; unable to take his gaze away from her or wipe off the idiotic, love-stricken smile that he knew he had on his face.
Now, things were different. He wasn't quite sure of where they were going – he no longer served the Ebony Queen, he had not served her for quite some time, and really, nothing existed that held him to his fealty to the Dark Realm. If he had joined it in response to his family's murder, as a means of avenging himself against the White Realm, that reason was gone now. The White Realm had not slain his family; the Dark Realm had. And revenge, he now saw, was hardly the greatest, most noble basis for living. Certainly not for action.
Did that make him one of the 'heroes' of their tale now?
He couldn't see it as being that way. Elowyn and his elite guardsmen were the only beings in the world that saw him as anything but a villain, a debased and corrupt figure who could not be trusted, and could not hope to be anything but evil. He himself knew that even another five hundred thousand years would not serve to undo the great wrongs that he had done, even if he had been…mistaken…in his behavior.
So what could he do?
He would do the only thing that he could do – the war was coming, and it appeared that he had now come upon the chance to jump sides, to cross over the chasm that separated good from evil, light from darkness. A shadow would now come to join the shimmering light. Elowyn stood on the other side of that chasm, and he would join her, to stand beside her, if it took everything of him to do so. In the face of the ultimate battle of the powers of the Dark Realm and the White, he might be able to do some good – to at least begin to make an attempt at atoning for his many great and terrible wrongs. They might never forgive him: the faeries, the elves, the mortals…even the other vampyres. He would still be the Dark Lord; he would still be the master of the shadows, the Big Bad Wolf.
But as he looked into Elowyn's eyes, he knew that only one thing really mattered; everything else could fall around him, but that one thing would be ever with him—
She mattered. And she would not leave him.
* * *
And so now he took her arm, weaving it with his, and grinned in his most electrifying, charismatic and debonair manner.
"We have, I think, about two hours longer before your friends awaken and desire to see you," he said; he began to walk, leading them both up out of the command room, towards the other chambers in the ship. "But I thought that, perhaps, Princess, you would not find a short walk around your current abode entirely distasteful."
Elowyn beamed up at him, her expression equally compelling.
"If you would be the one who is my guide, I would be most delighted."
"Princess, you are too kind," he murmured, in a low, playful tone, as they came up off of the last step in the stairway and approached the doors that led out of the command room. The duo of Antari guardsmen who stood there once again held their spear points out of the way, allowing their master and his beautiful companion to pass through, and Jaedin directed them on a course that took them along the glider ship's outermost corridors.
All of these were lined on one side with windows that displayed the glorious early morning landscape of the Sytherrian desert. Soon enough, Elowyn discovered that not all of the Apocalypse was composed of black onyx and metal, and not all of it was totally shrouded in shadows. Of course, the shadows provided a comfortable respite from the heated rays of the sun, which were already glaring even only a little while after dawn, and she was thankful for their presence.
Here and there, along the way, the look of the ship would change a bit. Now it would alter, from black and silver, to a daring scarlet and creamy white, with even the floor swirled in those garish colours. Now it was jewel tones: emerald, sapphire, amethyst, and deep ruby, which seemed to gleam together into a solid black, and then separate at the blink of an eye. More depictions of noble, predatory-looking dragons she saw, and more displays of both artistry and practicality, although the more she surveyed of the place, the more she thought that Jaedin was less concerned with the practical side of things, and more interested in the aesthetic, and the flamboyant.
She was scarcely surprised. After all, he'd hardly shown any compunction about going to the extremes in the composition of her fabulous room.
As they walked along, together – their hands having slipped down from being linked at the elbow to simply holding each other, fingers entwined – Jaedin looked at her carefully, trying to gauge her expression. Elowyn seemed content, even overtly happy that it was he who walked at her side, that it was he who held her hand…but he sensed a flicker of restlessness, of wonderment and unease, in her air.
Well, he could guess very well at why that was.
They came upon an elegant, smoothly curved alcove in the hallway just then: within it was held a rare example of the Dark Lord's more…thoughtful tendencies. Lining its walls were a host of plants – flowers, small trees, and a few bushes here and there – and there was even a finely-sculpted fountain within it as well, its music faint and sweet in the silence of the ship's corridor.
Here, Jaedin released Elowyn's hand and guided her into the bench that was there, letting her take a seat as he remained standing. As she bent slightly to adjust the skirt of her gown, he suddenly spoke.
"I was planning on waiting to tell you of this until later this morning, when your friends have finally come to join us," he said, putting hardly veiled emphasis on the word 'finally', although they both knew that he would much prefer it to be only they two. "But I fear that you are unhappy with me, and I cannot bear that."
Elowyn's eyes looked up, startled and – he noted – just a bit frightened.
"Unhappy with you?" she echoed. "No. How could I be? What could give you cause to think that I might be able to find reason to be unhappy with you? Tell me and I shall do anything I can to dispel it…"
But she trailed off as he raised one long, graceful hand: signaling for her to put her protests at an end. He stepped towards her, slightly, as he replied.
"Elowyn."
He said her name with the tone of a parent who has heard his child lie, and then attempt to cover it up: pathetically and half-heartedly, of course, so that he knows that an untruth has been uttered. She immediately shut her mouth, and sat back on the bench, seeming to shrink away from him, almost. He regretted all of the time he had spent in making her fear him – perhaps without meaning to, but doing so nevertheless.
Quickly and without sound, he seated himself beside her, taking both of her hands in his so that she could not bolt away. Looking deeply into her eyes, he gathered his words – the words that he knew he had to say.
"Don't pretend to me that now, because you have acknowledged your feelings for me – which, I assure you, are mutually reciprocated, and requited – you don't fear me. I know you do. Much as I regret it, you do."
He was silent for a moment, and then continued.
"I also know that nothing I can do will make my past wrongs right, even in a lifetime…but I would at least like to try. I know that there is something that I can do to help – not that I am asking you to give me a way to join the exalted ranks of the wise ones of your White Realm," he added, in a warning tone, as she seemed about to speak, and he tightened his grasp on her hands. "I cannot do this, and I am not so certain that it is what I desire. But, a war is to be fought, and I have determined to do what I can to assist the defeat of the one who names herself the Ebony Queen – the mistress of the Dark Realm. Never before, you must understand, Elowyn, has anyone of her caliber risen from the depths of that place; she has demonstrated a strange and unique power to unite the warlords and rally the vast dark armies, and even I fear what she may be capable of making them do. She is not one to be trifled with. However," he said, in a wry voice, "I am also not one to be trifled with, and great as her power is, Zaschaea is too shrewd, to knowledgeable to forget that I pose a considerable threat to her – perhaps the largest."
"Jaedin, what should happen if she finds you? Our hope would be gone."
He smiled, painfully, at her.
"Not quite, Princess – do you not remember the prophecy of World's End? One raven's feather…"
And he began to recite the words of the rhyming prophecy in a low voice, with a slow, deliberate cadence; Elowyn picked up on the lines and began to say it with him, and when they had done, Jaedin looked at her without emotion.
"You are hope – hope itself, Elowyn, my sweet white lily; while you remain alive, nothing the Dark Realm can do will keep you from fulfilling your end of the prophecy, and destroying it. Zaschaea knew this, and that is why she tried to have me kidnap you, and then bring you to her. She would have killed you."
"But you stopped that from happening," she said. "We stopped it."
"And doesn't it ring somewhat oddly to you that I, and no one else, would have shared that with you?" he asked, standing up. "One of your brothers, your friends, perhaps even your father, or someone that you did not know at all, might have easily done it…but the Dark Lord, the servant of the Ebony Queen, and your personal nemesis?" And he turned a smile that stated exactly this on her – a wicked grin that reminded her of all their previous fascinating conversations. "It has its own implications, Elowyn…"
She stood up as well, and grabbed both of his hands in hers.
"Jaedin, don't be evasive. You tell me what this is about."
"Elowyn, we are bound by that prophecy. Whether or not we knew about it for any given time in our lives, before and even after we met, it was there, all along, shaping our words, our thoughts, and actions…and our not knowing about it didn't make it any less real."
And then he told her of what he knew about the prophecy. When he had done, Elowyn stared at him so sharply that he almost wondered if she had decided that he wasn't worth trusting, after all – that he wasn't worth wasting her time on. But she sat down, instead, without a word. After a moment's hesitation, he did the same, and at last, she spoke to him.
"It seems so impossible," she said, in a low voice. "You have long been a powerful figure in history – history that I myself have learned about for any number of the years in my education. You could easily be a member of this prophecy, someone who might be seen as a person who would change the world. You might know how it is to be done! How am I supposed to go about fulfilling my end of it all? How am I supposed to know?"
He reached out, put his hand on her bare shoulder, and waited for her to look at him.
"You're not supposed to know, Elowyn," he told her, gently. "As, likewise, I am not supposed to know, and we are not supposed to go about fulfilling it alone, either. In the very end, we are meant to do it together, you and I."
" 'Lovers, rescuers…' " she whispered, but neither of them discussed that aspect of the prophecy any further. It was enough to have this newest concept on their minds.
Their relationship could be left to the shadows until later.
Finally, Jaedin sat back a bit, drawing away from her so that he could look, long and searchingly, into her eyes. Elowyn looked back at him, without fright or resentment, but he did note fear and uncertainty in her facial cast. It was hard, learning to trust; it was hard, and they would both have to do it.
"Ah, Elowyn…" he said, pulling her back to him again and running his bare hands skillfully through her hair, almost putting her to sleep with their deft, warm caresses, "We were never meant to be apart for long – how else do you think that it came to be that I forsook the Queen? Only you could have caused so great a sundering between a mistress as passionately served, and a knight as fallen as I."
"You put me to fault for that…" she muttered, and he restrained his temptation to laugh at her caustic little bit of humor.
"Oh, I put you to fault for quite a few things, my precious little love," he said, and then he did laugh, in his soft, velvety way: deep in his throat.
Elowyn's mind convulsed when she heard him call her that.
His love…
She sat up, eyes narrowing and mouth quirking to one side.
"Well, if that was all that you wanted to say to me, Master Jaedin," she told him, archly; she stood and primly brushed her skirts back into place. "Then I suggest that you continue our walk for us, for I perceive that the hour is growing late, and I shall soon be turning my thoughts towards breakfast…not to what you blame me for."
He rose to his feet again, and towered over her, which she didn't seem to appreciate. "Be careful, Princess…" he breathed in her ear. "Or I shall have you do the navigating around this vessel, and who knows where we will lose ourselves then. We might never make it to breakfast, if that happens."
"We had better," she fired back.
Then, as they took up their walk down the corridor again, leaving the peaceful alcove behind them, she eyed him skeptically.
"You know, I would almost be tempted to think, by the way that you said that, that you didn't really want to go to breakfast. Now why is this so?"
Jaedin would have flushed, if he had known how, and for a moment, he scowled in silence, striding along by her side. Elowyn watched him, waiting.
Finally, he ground out, moodily—
"I fear that your nephew is going to want to trounce me, once I've told him that the whole deal with 'capturing' you all and forcefully bringing you aboard my warship, and having him knocked out as well, was simply all part of a grand farce. I never intended to make you my prisoners, Elowyn, as you know full well, and we are still going to travel to the Dark Gate, and the Black City, but they don't know it. He doesn't know it. And I would like to delay my inevitable…comeuppance," He said the word as if it was very sour, and he would have very much liked to simply blast it into tiny bits, "For as long as is at all possible."
And he scowled again.
Elowyn could only throw her head back and laugh – the look on the Dark Lord's proud, handsome face was so utterly dour and cross, his eyebrows knit together: dark as thunderstorms, his jaw clenched and full lips pursed, as he contemplated the eventual punishment that he would receive at Robbie's hands.
This only made Jaedin scowl even more, and he rasped at her, "You needn't show so much mirth at it, Princess. It's not as if it would be the first time he's managed to wallop me."
To this, Elowyn only laughed harder, recalling that Robbie had used the same word – 'walloped' – the night before, when speaking of how he'd been treated after the Antari had made their appearance, in the desert. At length, Jaedin stopped them both, taking her arm at the elbow, and turned her to face him. Now his face was totally devoid of all former resentment, and he looked, indeed, quite serious.
"Elowyn," he said, softly, and she felt the smile leave her face. "I would do anything that I could to show you how much I rue my previous acts, both to you and the world as a whole; but I know that at least one of you two will never release me from the hatred you feel for me, and I deserve it. My life…everything about me…"
He seemed to be floundering for words, and it unnerved her a bit. This, from the Dark Lord who had once been so completely terrifying in her eyes.
And now, he was stumbling over his own words.
"Everything was a lie. The Queen took my family, my memory…but I do not use those as my excuse for my evil, for my cruelty and darkness. Those were, to some extent, if not all, me. I let myself become the monster. And now, I do not know if I will ever return to being the person I once was. I might dream of it, I might think that I have attained that…but I do not know if it can be. Elowyn…"
He pulled her close to him.
"Elowyn, I told you last night – I need you. You are my only hope, as you are the world's only hope. I knew that I had to have you in my life, come what may, all that seeming lifetime ago…but now I know so much more. So much more, and so much less."
His gray eyes seemed strangely bright to her, but she didn't know whether it was because the light was reflecting off of tears within them, or within her own eyes. How was it that he brought to the surface such emotions within her?
"I've been extremely roundabout with this, but I cannot, I will not evade the issue any longer…"
He drew a long, shuddering breath.
"Elowyn, can you forgive me?"
"Jaedin."
She whispered his name, so that only he could have heard it, and then she raised her hand to the side of his face, and gently brushed it across his fine, smooth skin. Her eyes wandered across his features: glancing over the dark, curving eyebrows, the prominent nose and sculpted chin, the high forehead and shaven scalp, the full lips and the scar that marked them, and, last of all, the shimmering gray eyes.
It didn't take words; she didn't need to speak them.
She had only to say his name.
* * *
"Orpheus!"
As Elowyn called out her beloved Pegasus's name, she let go of Jaedin's obliging hand and ran down the row of stalls towards the regal white head that hung itself out and nickered at her. Within a moment, she had reached him and was pulling the noble creature's head down so that she could caress him lovingly. Orpheus responded in kind, having greatly missed his young mistress in the hours since they had last parted.
Jaedin, giving them their moment of reunion, slowly approached the pair. Sensing the Dark Lord's presence, Orpheus made a disgruntled sound and bucked his head a bit, shifting on all fours as he eyed the tall, dark figure who had now come to stand beside the princess with an expression that would have been narrow and distrustful, had he possessed human-like features. Elowyn frowned a bit at him, as Jaedin murmured—
"Still not too friendly then."
In response to this, Orpheus snapped his teeth a bit, and Elowyn shook her head, not quite sure where the Pegasus had come to have such a bad relationship with her companion – but guessing that their mutual animosity had come into play sometime either before or after the incident with the ranthar. Jaedin merely put on a wry face.
"That horse is going to hate me until the end of eternity," he stated, taking a step back so that Orpheus no longer felt that both he and his mistress were threatened. Orpheus still, however, continued to eye him warily.
Elowyn put up a hand to the crown of the Pegasus's head, her fingers lightly ruffling the mane between his pricked, alert ears. Without taking her eyes off of him, she commented, "Well, you might begin to make amends if you stopped calling him a horse. He isn't, you know."
Jaedin gave a short, half-amused snort of laughter as he stepped across the wide walkway that the two rows of luxurious stalls – his own personal stables aboard the Apocalypse – made. Another horse was there: the magnificent, coal-black stallion that he had ridden in all of their journeys together. Its eyes gleamed a startling array of colours – sometimes, they almost seemed garnet-red, other times, gold, and even sapphire and emerald, never once the same. Jaedin ran his hand along the creature's neck, with a slow, deft expertness that told Elowyn he had no little experience in dealing with the equine race, in any of its forms. Somehow, she doubted that his stallion was just a simple horse, even at that. No everyday horse had eyes like that.
She turned back to Orpheus, however.
The stable was more than enough to make her eyebrows raise, on first sight. The ship, she had seen, held many wonders, but a fully equipped and very fine stable? She hadn't been able to imagine that. But where else had she expected that he would have put their mounts? It was actually quite predictable.
The room was, as a whole, of a size that was in complete concordance with the rest of the warship; it was more long and wide than tall, although its ceiling did reach a height of what she estimated to be about twelve or thirteen feet. Its floor was of cream-flecked white marble, inlaid with patterns of ruby- and jade-coloured stone, the pillars and waist-high walls that separated the individual stalls both of pure white marble and gleaming gold, with silk ropes hanging as a barrier between hallway and stall. Orpheus could be comfortable either lying down or standing, she noticed, for the floor was strewn with both a layer of fine, golden sand and clean pale yellow hay. He wore a satin blanket that was the exact same hue as his eyes.
At length, after taking note of all this, she turned around, away from Orpheus, intending to ask Jaedin something more about the ship; then, she noticed that he no longer stood by his stallion, having gone, instead, to another stall that was further down the line. Even as she watched, a large, swirling puff of smoke – deep red in colour – came blasting up from within that stall.
What on the green earth—?
And she walked quickly down the row of stalls to the one in which he stood. As she approached, Jaedin turned to her: one eyebrow raised, his mouth quirked to one side. He, apparently, knew the questions that she was about to ask.
"Come, Princess," he told her, holding out a hand to her. "I've someone to introduce to you. Elowyn of Avalennon," as he drew her to his side, and gestured with a graceful wave of his free hand into the stall, "Meet Telphiradon."
He grinned, as Elowyn looked – her expression becoming amazed – into the vibrant, alert ruby-red eyes of a fledgling dragon, who cocked its head at her.
"My Dragon-Friend."
Elowyn could not take her eyes off of the striking, although not full-grown dragon: he was a sharp, burnished copper colour, and as the light struck his scales, each one seemed to gleam like molten gold. His wings were folded back against his sides and, from what she could tell, not of their adult size yet, impressive nonetheless in their paper-thin but powerful span. As she watched, a thin trail of red smoke came from his lizard-like nostrils, situated far up on his snout, almost directly between his eyes.
"He's amazing…" was all she could think to say.
She didn't have to ask Jaedin where the little dragon had come from, for she knew of the history between the vampyres and the dragons. Each of the Sentient races, in the beginning of time, had been paired with an Element: the faeries with the woodlands, the elves with the Sea, and the vampyres with fire. At some point early in each vampyre's life, they were to select a Dragon-friend, whom they would raise from egg, to hatchling, fledgling, and then, finally, adult. Dragons aged very slowly: they spent their first hundred thousand years or so within the leathery shell of their eggs, and then the next five or six hundred thousand years as younglings. It took much time, care, and effort to bring a dragon to full maturity, she knew, and Jaedin would have formed a close bond with this dragon, Telphiradon, by now.
Jaedin, silent for the while she thought about this, then made a slightly grim noise, his eyes roving over the miniature dragon.
"Amazing? In a way, I suppose – I've had him under my care so long that I feel I might as well be his entire family: mother, father, everything. I found him when I was…eleven, I think; when I was working in the war mines."
He spoke of this without a hint of his former bitterness towards those horrible, pain-filled years of his life.
Elowyn, her mind reeling at the thought of his torment, tried to think of something else, some other subject to turn their discussion to, and suddenly, a very amusing image popped into her head. She tried to stifle her laugh behind her hand, but Jaedin heard it anyway. He swung to face her, eyebrows lifting.
"What is it?" he asked her.
But she shook her head, backing away a bit, one arm going to wrap itself about her waist as she tried not to show her mirth. Finally, though, she was forced to admit defeat, and replied, still giggling a bit, "Oh – it's just – Jaedin, I just thought of you…as a father. It made a very interesting picture, in my mind."
He shot her a look that half told her that he didn't want to hear her string the words 'Jaedin' and 'father' together in a sentence ever again, and half that she might just be surprised, if and when she did see that.
"You as a mother might make an interesting picture in my mind, Lady Elowyn," he informed her crisply, putting on his most arrogant and superior expression, and she sent him back her most queenly and withering look, as she replied, cuffing him lightly on the arm, "I see no reason why I ought to discuss such things with you, my lord; after all, there is no question of my responsibility to answer to you for—"
But as she was about to finish with 'anything whatsoever', Jaedin abruptly stiffened, and shot out an arm to catch her around the waist, to quickly put her behind him, with his body as a shield between her and the baby dragon.
For Telphiradon, who had been observing his Vampyre-friend's interactions with the princess all that time, had taken offense at the girl's defiant air and, even more, at her apparent strike towards his arm. Jaedin faced the dragon, gray eyes stern and commanding: becoming slightly annoyed when he saw the faint glow within the creature's tiny nostrils.
"Tel – no," he said, firmly and authoritatively, in vampyric.
Telphiradon, or Tel, as Jaedin called him, did not understand the common tongue: only vampyric. Jaedin spoke to him as he took Elowyn by the arm and slowly brought her out from behind him, affecting what he knew the dragon would read as a position of mutual affection and possessiveness between the two Sentients.
"Stand still, and do as I do," he murmured to her, and she nodded, obediently.
Jaedin raised his hand to her face, gently caressing her along the cheek and jaw line, as he continued to the dragon, "This is the princess; my princess."
Then he released her and stepped towards the dragon, facing him point-blanc, and seemed to tower over the fledgling, who was almost taller than her even when lying down. The conical, horned head went back as Jaedin's shadow fell over him.
"We don't flame princesses," Jaedin told him, sternly; punctuating the statement with a very firm, "Ever."
And he stood back again, returning to Elowyn's side. She looked up at him, imploringly, as she asked him, "May I speak to him? Please?"
Jaedin sounded uncertain as he replied, "He doesn't speak the common tongue, Elowyn; in fact, he hasn't developed any of his adult dragon skills yet – flying, hypnotism, speaking, any of them. He can only hear what I say to him, and he can only speak in telepathy; even at that, you can hardly understand him when he talks. His voice is very loud, and he isn't very clear about what he means to say."
But she was resolute.
"Please. At least let me try."
She doesn't want to make an enemy of him right off, he realized, as he acquiesced to her request and led her by the hand into the stall, until they both stood before the dragon. She doesn't want to make the same mistake I did, with Orpheus…good choice, Elowyn. Maiden, thou art much wiser a one than I...
He took her hand, and placed it on Telphiradon's forehead; when speaking telepathically to a dragon, and a fledgling dragon at that, this was the best method: connect with direct contact between the two speakers, before allowing words to take place.
Elowyn shivered inwardly to herself, briefly, but whether it was at the sensation of her palm upon the dragon's warm, surprisingly smooth forehead scales, or at the thrilling touch of Jaedin's dexterous, confident hand upon her own, she could not tell. She then looked into the dragon's eyes, and felt his thought touch her own.
White maiden who is?
Jaedin was also in the connection, and so he heard this sally; she caught him smiling wryly as he stood there beside her, and felt his humor. She turned her mind back to speaking to the little dragon, however.
I am Elowyn, she told him.
The ruby-red eyes pierced into hers, and she sensed that he was trying to read within her mind, as full-grown dragons could do. He couldn't get very far, though; his powers weren't all-the-way developed.
Princess? Faery? she heard him guess, after a bit of effort.
Yes, princess of the faeries, she replied, and smiled at him, careful not to expose any teeth, which the dragon might have considered an expression of aggression.
A jangle of thoughts hit her then.
Confusion – Princess where from? – see light, lots of light – what for flower; pretty eyes – want to fly – Vampyre-friend gone long – smell blood and smoke in air – a sense of impatience, and uneasiness, and a host of many less definable others.
Shall we be friends?
Her question seemed to bring the fledgling back into reality again, and he looked at her fully again. The head atop its long, sinuous neck bobbed a bit.
Friend, yes. Friend, always.
And she stood back, feeling quite satisfied and content at having at last held an actual conversation with what was surely one of the most noble and revered creatures in all of Evyrworld: a true dragon. Jaedin took her by the elbow and led her out of the stall, and back down the walkway, towards the exit from the stables. She sensed his wonderment as he commented, slowly, "You are amazing, Princess."
She laughed, short and lightly, as they stepped through the large doorway and began to mount the steps that led up from the stable level.
"Hardly; I simply desired to let him know I had no wish to be his enemy. The rest was basic mind-linking – you ought to know enough about that. I am a bit surprised, myself, however, that he reacted with such admirable composure."
She quickened her pace and ran up the next few steps ahead of him, holding her white skirts out of the way of her flying little feet.
Her next words drifted back to him—
"From what I read in his memories – the last person who tried to speak to him, other than you, very narrowly escaped a prompt incineration, and even then, he had to spend almost a month with the healers for various injuries. Your Dragon-friend is more than loyal to you, Jaedin."
Oh, that girl!
He couldn't decide what he'd rather do to her, as he came up the last few steps to the floor beyond them, where she awaited him: he couldn't choose whether he more wanted to strangle her for putting herself in such a dangerous position, when she knew full well of the risk that had been posed to her, or kiss her passionately.
Well, he did neither.
Telling from the progress of the sun into the skies outside of their hovering palace, it was now several hours after dawn, and breakfast would soon be at hand. He went to her side again, sliding his hand mischievously along her waist, and told her, "Oh, I know, Princess – and think of it: very soon now, I won't even be able to keep him contained on this ship anymore. Imagine what that would do…"
* * *
They returned to the upper levels of the glider ship, finding their way to the room that had been designated as the place where they would have breakfast with her friends: a marvelous chamber, its walls almost entirely composed of diamond-glass, from about halfway up from the floor to the fabulous domed roof. It was located – conveniently – quite close to the command room, so that Jaedin could go to and fro from dining to checking for progress reports on their journey.
While they had been down below, conversing with one another and then visiting Orpheus and the other denizens of the stable, the Apocalypse had crossed back over the border between Sytherria and Elvendome, and now the landscape that they saw whizzing below them, as they stood together at the wall of windows, was gradually becoming less and less of a desert, and more woodland. Within a few hours, Jaedin told her, they would once again catch sight of the forests that they had for so long traveled through.
At this, he turned 'round and went to sit in his chair, which had been located at the head of the table, but had been pulled out towards the windows some other time. He slid down in it, affecting his most favored position, and let his gaze roam over her slender, white-garbed figure as she remained at the window, looking out.
To his disappointment, he couldn't read her expression.
"Elowyn," he said, in a low voice. In the tone of it, he made no disguise of what he wanted. She turned her head to look at him, and he read the emotions in her face then: hope, determination, and even contentment. As she came across the room and sank down onto the floor before him, leaning between his booted legs with her skirts settling in profusion over the tops of those boots, he continued to watch her.
"Tell me, Jaedin…" she murmured, as she took his left hand in hers and began to examine it, her fingertips running feather-light over the lines of the veins, the curves of muscles, and the hardness of the bones beneath his flawless, pale skin.
He was looking down on top of her golden head as she spoke to him, and then his hand was moving to run and weave itself idly through her curls.
"Do you know what it is that you want now?"
That was, oddly enough, a difficult question for him to answer at that very moment. He shrugged, his gaze going off to look over the rest of the room – the long, immaculate black silk-hung table, the runner of pure white satin that went with it: golden tassels affixed to its ends a striking contrast against the ebony material. In a row of four down the center of the table were slender glass vases filled with ten calla lilies, white and sharp spring-green in colour; gold and white china-ware there was, with carefully-cast knives, forks, and spoons, and crystal goblets.
In moments, when the princess's faery companions had arrived, they would all once again sit down to share a repast together, and it would be one that was vastly different from the others that they had shared together, out in the woods, huddled around a campfire in the chill of morning.
He looked back at Elowyn, shrugging a bit.
"I suppose…I think…" he began, trying to make his answer as simple and uncomplicated as he could, which – he sensed – was hardly possible, "It's not so much a matter of knowing what I want as it is wondering what I will do once I have it."
And now she was smiling at him compassionately, tenderly: knowingly.
"It's not up for us to decide," she told him, settling back against his leg so that he felt instantly warmed and calmed by the sensation of her slender, unthreatening body against him. "All we can do is live."
He regarded her with a softly skeptical air.
"Is that what you think?" he asked her.
Her eyes never wavered from his.
"It's what I know, Jaedin," she answered, and he leaned forward, enchanted by both her words and her shimmering faery beauty. How he wanted to kiss her at that moment! But, be that as it may, they were interrupted – the door at the other end of the room opened, to reveal a very cordial Rákkhed Dahk-Marr. He took note of the princess as she sat on the floor, at the feet of his master, and the way that Jaedin held her hands in his lap; quite apparently, he had just cut a conversation short, and much as he knew Jaedin would make him regret it, later, he had an urgent message to convey.
"My lord," he said, then, with a bow, "The Princess's companions are here. I await your command to bring them in."
Jaedin slowly sat back in his chair, motioning with his hands for Elowyn to stand, although he imprisoned her hand with his own before she could move away, causing her to remain standing beside him. He faced Rákkhed with a calm and dispassionate air, the lord who was in complete, confident control over everything in his possession.
"Very well then, Captain," he replied, his voice toneless and dry. "Show them in."
Rákkhed bowed again and left the room, with one last, furtive glance at his master. Elowyn saw it, and knew as well as Jaedin did that the Antari was fully aware of just how the two of them now interacted with one another.
Which could have been either a perfectly fine or very bad thing.
"And now we shall see what your friends will have to say when I reveal our next step in this quest of ours, Princess Elowyn…" Jaedin murmured, as the dim figures of Lord Brendan, Prince Robeneron, and Lady Salamaïre appeared in the doorway to the breakfast room, led by Rákkhed and two other Antari guardsmen. He rose to his feet as they came to stand in a little half-circle across the room from him and Elowyn, and addressed them calmly and civilly.
"Good morning, milords and milady," he said to them, eyes traveling across each of the three faeries. "I trust that you have passed an easy night?"
Robbie looked as if he wanted to bite out something remarkably caustic and angry to that greeting, but a movement of Brendan's hand stayed him where he was. Sala was looking intensely at both Elowyn and Jaedin, and seemed to have gotten an idea of how things now happened to be. She said nothing, however.
Brendan acted as spokesman of the group; he stepped forward, addressing the Dark Lord evenly and without resentment, "It is well of you to ask, but I fear that it was not quite so for us – we spent the night hours in exceeding concern for our companion, whom you had taken away for a private audience with yourself. As this is the truth, and you asked for the truth, or so I assume, I hope that it does not offend."
Jaedin's lips curved a bit, with a soft and slightly mordant little smile. Whatever his emotions were at the moment, he was concealing them very well. He turned to the side a bit, and gestured at the length of the ornately-set table.
"It does not offend, my lord Brendan, and yes – I did inquire as to the truth. After all," as they all began to seat themselves in their respective places – a repeat of the night before, "It is the truth that we are all gathered here for this morning."
"The truth?" Robbie questioned, cynically. "I thought you were averse to it."
Jaedin, Elowyn could see, was working very hard to hide either an outburst of laughter, which would have only pushed Robbie further over the edge, or a snarl of irritation at those words. He merely leaned forward and poured himself a small glass of some sort of brandy, however, replying as he did so, "Ah no, my good prince; all beings hold a core of truth within them, no matter what mettle they are made of, and it will, in eventuality, come out to show itself to the world. I've simply delayed, which is partly abominable, and partly forced, on my part."
This held enough power to raise both of Robbie's dark eyebrows, and he was silent. If he had any other arguments to make, he was going to hold them at peace – for now.
Elowyn breathed a silent sigh of relief, and concentrated on eating.
As they sated their morning bout of appetite, Jaedin told them of what course they would now take. He had had arranged for the Antari to appear, he told them, and seemingly take them captive, so that he could learn from his captain of the guard of what movements the Queen had made, since he had been absent from his desert realm.
It appeared that there was an army marching, even now, forth from the very Black Gate that they were to enter the Dark Realm though; soon, they might chance to come upon it, and would perhaps learn its destination. Overall, the whole battle in the desert had been a ploy; he found it necessary to get a progress report from his forces, and also to speed up their journey so that they would reach the Dark Gate in time. Had the Apocalypse simply appeared and they simply boarded it, there was the chance that the Queen might have had spies out in the desert, and she would have learnt of their position, and Jaedin's duplicity.
Yes, he told them all now: finally revealing the decision that he had made during the long, dark hours of the night as he had held Elowyn's sleeping form in his arms. He would no longer serve the Dark Realm, and would do everything that he could to ensure its defeat at the hands of the faeries and their allies. He went on to explain what he knew of the prophecy, and by the end of it all, Robbie looked as if he were about to spontaneously combust. Brendan and Sala looked hardly any better for it, either.
Elowyn looked at Jaedin, her hands tightening their grip on the arms of her chair. The whole situation was making her exceedingly uneasy, as it hadn't before.
Slowly and deliberately, Robbie rose from his chair. Jaedin did the same.
Oh Fates, no… Elowyn thought.
Beside the door, she saw Rákkhed stiffen; apparently, the same kind of thoughts that were going through her head were also going through his.
Robbie's voice, when he spoke, was low and cold.
"You knew of this all along – you had these plans, and you didn't tell us of them? You never planned to speak even a word of them to us? And now you expect us to nod and waltz merrily into whatever this world-ending struggle is that we have before us, and just take you on your word – after all that you've done to us?"
Jaedin nodded, with emotion or hesitation.
"I do not ask you for your pardon, Robeneron of Lærelin," he said, in a level, controlled tone of voice: his gray eyes devoid of anger or apprehension. "Because I know that you would not desire to give it, and I do not deserve it. But, believe me – I will do anything that I can to stop the Ebony Queen, even if it takes every last ounce of strength within me. We might work for a common purpose."
It all happened in a split second. Robbie's arm shot back, and then the sound of his fist thudding into the Dark Lord's jaw sent shock waves into the room. Instantly, Elowyn was at her nephew's side, restraining him from further violence, and Rákkhed Dahk-Marr was standing behind his master, attempting to help him up.
Jaedin, however, got to his feet without assistance, and stood there for a moment, regaining his breath. Then he looked up, at Robbie, and Elowyn saw the damage that had been done in the blow – Jaedin's bottom lip had been cut, and was bleeding. As she watched, he raised his hand and cautiously touched the wound, wiping away the blood. He turned back to the table, going to resume his seat, and they all did the same.
"I did deserve that, however," he muttered.
Robbie, seeming to have been put at ease by finally acting upon his frustration, looked at him squarely: man-to-man.
"You're forgiven."
Simple as that.
* * *
Well, with all this said and done, the members of the newly formed alliance between Sytherria and the White Realm got down to business, for they had a short time to act.
Leaving the remains of the breakfast on the table behind them, Jaedin led them all into the command room, where he showed them to a large, circular table. As they stood in a ring around it, they all saw that it held a single occupant – and that was a globe of many swirling colours, which gave off a flash of light from time to time.
Jaedin motioned to it, and explained.
"This is the far-seeing orb that I keep aboard the Apocalypse; I have several others, including a relatively small one that I normally carry with me when I am traveling, but this one is – by far – the most powerful and the most accurate, able to show me things that I might not be able to see otherwise. With its help, we will learn the location of the Queen's army, and then we will spy out their intended destination."
Then he crossed over to another section of the room, to where an enormous, detailed map of that section of Evyrworld hung. Even as they watched, it seemed to move, and they realized that it was slowly changing to show the progression of their journey. They were a little more than a hundred miles in from the border now. Jaedin pointed out the specific landmarks nearby, and at once, they all recognized one of them—
Kaesilorana a'Yil, the Academy of Magic and Enchantment.
It was a school run by both the elves and the faeries of the White Realm, where the younger generations of both the Sentient races and several others were sent to learn the arts of magic and enchantment. Several hundred, if not a thousand, people lived within its mighty walls.
The Academy itself had once been a great fortress, placed at the roots of the mountain range that ran through Elvendome, made almost virtually unassailable by the large canyon that surrounded it on every side but that which the mountains were on. Now, it was one of the most respected and well-known institutes in Evyrworld as a whole, and many a talented enchanter, enchantress, bard, seer, and healer had come from it.
They would pass over it in their course to the Dark Gate.
Elowyn stared at the map, pondering her memories of that place.
Then, suddenly, a sudden ice-cold flash of thought – perhaps premonition? – went over her, and she put out a hand to the wall, trying to steady herself. Robbie and Sala, who were standing nearest to her, seemed to have experienced much of the same. Elowyn shook her head slowly, in an attempt to clear off the strangely cowing blur that had come over her mind, and backed away from the map. Somehow, it seemed as if it held an unimaginably warning, solemn portent to her…
But what could that possibly be?
It wasn't long before one of the Antari came to Jaedin and reported to his master that the guards at their sentry posts had spotted a flock of birds rising from the woods just northeast of them, which betrayed the presence of the army. Jaedin ordered that the warship's Invisible Cloak be put up, and explained to his baffled companions what this meant.
They had all heard of the usefulness of the famed invisible cloaks, yes? Well, his glider ship was equipped with something that had much of the same effect – when initiated, it would make the entire vessel completely unnoticeable to any eyes. It would be, in essence, invisible, and would make no sound.
The Queen's army would never even know that they were there.
Soon enough, they were bearing down full speed upon the army, which stretched out front and back for almost a mile. It was, as Jaedin remarked, a comparatively small strike force, at least as far as Zaschaea was concerned. Brendan could attest to this, having fought against the Ebony Queen before. Still, nevertheless, they must learn of where this particular group had been ordered to go. If they could, if they acted in time, they might be able to prevent an attack on the nether lands of Elvendome.
They all went out onto one of the many walkways that led along the outside of the glider ship, there to stand and covertly observe their enemies. Not only Skullex – the common combat-fodder of the Dark Realm – were the members of this army; there were humans, a scattered number of Stalkers, weyre-people, and not a few Dvastir and Trakkthar warriors, all heavily armed and prepared for battle. Elowyn turned to see Jaedin coolly appraising them as the Apocalypse followed silently overhead.
"Who are they coming for?" she breathed, not really asking the question to him, but to the air itself in general.
Jaedin shook his head, turning away from the walkway's ledge.
"That remains to be seen, Princess – but I have my guesses, from what I've gathered of their current course."
She felt a knot rise in her throat; somehow, by the way he said those words, she knew that he really had learned of just where the army was headed, and that he didn't want to tell her. And, if her own guess proved true, she wasn't sure if she wanted to know or not. However…she had to! Too much was at stake.
"Jaedin."
He turned to face her, one eyebrow arched.
"Jaedin, tell me. You know where they are going."
The vivid gray eyes averted themselves from her, and he looked down, his features darkening.
"They've been sent to march on the Academy," he told her, his voice low. "She has ordered them to attack it, and kill everything within its walls; then, they are to return to her, to the Black City, and await further orders. It is the first major fortress in the chain, in Elvendome, and it is the one that she desires to destroy first. They have been given their mandate…nothing is to remain alive in it, after today."
He looked up at her, and then she knew that their thought was one and the same…
They also would journey to the Academy.
If an attack was inevitable, and the will of the opposing army as strong as Jaedin predicted it would be, then it would not do to simply stand and fight. The Apocalypse would serve as their much speedier transport there, and – if the Fates were with them – they would arrive long before the Dark Realm's army ever did. The students and their tutors would be brought on board the glider ship and taken to safety, while the four faeries, their vampyre guide, and his elite guard would ensure everyone's safety by defending the fortress.
The first battle in the War of the Fates would soon be fought.
* * *
A/N: And here I am – back again with an update of not one, not two, but four chapters! (I sincerely hope I've got you all interested, now. *winks*) It's been a while, has it not… But I've been suffering from more than a bit of writer's block, on all fronts – shudder with me, will you – and so I have at least somewhat of an excuse. Actually, it's been writer's block, physics class, SATs, and Life in General that has been keeping me away. So, now that I've been horrid and stooped to an attempt at finagling your sympathy out of you, how about some notes… ^_^
Raal the Sword Master: *laughs a bit* Well, Jaedin has always had his own motives, and he most likely always will, but there is a little to understand about them. Jaedin and the Queen – she does not know where he is, and she does not know what he is doing. When he has the crystal she gave him hidden in his clothing, she can't "see" him. It's like somehow blocking an object on radar, in short. Now, she can guess at some of the things he might do, or feel, by way of having known him previously, and known him quite well, at that, and she can also use her many spies…which is the main reason why he "betrayed" Elowyn and her group, and had them taken onto the Apocalypse. It was all, to con a phrase from a Muppet movie, "an elaborate ruse! Ha! ha!"
Plaidly Lush: Yes – indeed. That is what most people have said, concerning our dear Captain Dahk-Marr – so totally Oded Fehr…now I am going to have to just go ahead and assume that is a good thing. (hehe) One cannot help but at least somewhat like Rákkhed…he's all that remains of our dear Dark Lord's shredded and twisted conscience, I fear…and now Jay's glaring at me, what a surprise…
Elizabeth: I appreciate your nice long reviews more than you can imagine! Your input is very highly valued, I assure you. ^_^ The eyes thing – hmm. You are right; I believe I do tend to overemphasize that aspect of our current "hero" and heroine. The only reason for this that I can plead is my wanting to display how different they are: him, cold, dark, and almost metallic, in a way, next to her: all about Spring and life and light. But it does get to wear a bit, when that detail is employed too often…it rankled me, after a while, when I finally took note of it… Unfortunately, altering that in the story as it is on FFN would take a long while…rest assured, though, that I have taken your suggestions – all of them – into consideration and made the appropriate changes. And I hope, now, that this next chunk of chapters leaves you with a keen sense of enjoyment.
Grayfalcon: Elowyn's reaction there, at the end of the last chapter…well, given what we've learnt of them now…I would have to tell you that her falling into his arms, sobbing, is not a product of Elowyn's having gone maudlin and damsel-in-distress. Believe you me – if he were to do anything else to seriously tick her off, even in that moment, she would have properly kicked his sorry, arrogant frame back into submission. Not that she would love him any less, of course. ^_~ What I was going for there, mainly, was to show her new realization of How Things Are. She's finally realized what life would be, for her, without him. In a way, she's matured; she's realized that she is meant to love him, no matter how wrong everyone else might take that to be, and it weighs heavily on her. Of course, not enough to keep her from letting him go…she knows now how much she loves him, and what ends she would go to, to protect him – even to save him… There: now, have I answered your questions?
GryffindorGal3: Oh, believe me, m'dear, as far as timeline goes, the little sidetrack into the Hobknob and Ping village was fit exactly into there. I'd racked my mind trying to get it to work, and I agree – it did drag a bit, but it was all necessary, as further chapters will show… (Besides if I hadn't made them get stuck there for a while, I wouldn't have had the excuse to bring Jaedin's uber-sleek warship into the picture…and he was bugging me to do that…)
Rosethorn: *laughs maniacally* You know, I would love to see any sort of fan fiction you could come up with for this! Suffice it to say, I am very flattered – even if you are only joking about it. Now Jaedin, here, is definitely of the mind to require you to do it, because he still wants to see something featuring him "snogging" Elowyn. Ignore him grumbling in the background; he's just out of sorts (dare-I-say "as usual"?) Glad you liked the angst, as well.
Well, now, my friends, that – mercifully – is all for the moment on notes. I hope I have answered whatever questions anyone might have had, and not put you all to sleep with my rambling either… Let's on to the next chapter, shall we? Follow me on through the woods – we, at last, continue our trek! (And don't trust the little dewy-eyed forest creatures. They're the evil ones, I tell you. Trust the dragon and the wolf. *winks again, then waltzes off, further into the trees…*)