Remembering Leora
By: Prophet WolfStar
Disclaimer: I don't own the Black Jewels trilogy or anything to do with it. However, Leora and the story line for this IS mine.
A/N: Just a one shot story. Very short. I came up with this one night just randomly.
Summary: Before he met Jaenelle, Daemon knew an extraordinary witch that paid a terrible price in order to tell him that Witch walked the realms. Leora loved him deeply and just wanted to see him smile...
That dark aura swept throughout the slave pins, or as Dorothea called them 'the torture chambers', and she shivered as she awoke, whimpering as she looked up at the dull gold eyes that awaited her gaze.
"S-Sadi..."
"Leora," His voice was soft, kind, despite the cold she could see in his face. She whimpered again, but she didn't dare look away. Then he knelt in front of her and reached out, cupping her face in his hands. "Ah, sweetheart,"
She cried then, tears streaming steadily down her cheeks as he unbound her wrists and held them in his hands. She watched him as he sealed the open wounds on her wrists and whimpered again. "Why did you have to weave, Leora? Why did you have to use your craft?"
For a moment she didn't answer, found that she couldn't answer. And then her throat loosened enough that she could reach her own voice. "Because...I love you, Sadi...I wanted to give you a reason to smile,"
His eyes met hers and for a moment the cold threatened, but she wasn't like those other women he'd been forced to service.
"Leora..."
"She's here, Sadi. She's walking the realms,"
Even before it came he knew he was going to smile. And it made the price she'd paid to give him this news well worth it. He smiled as he brushed the tangled mess of brown hair away from her face and a temporary silence fell between them. But the undeniable emptiness in her was becoming more and more apparent by the second. "Am I broken, Sadi?" She cried as she said it, knowing the answer already.
"Yes, sweetheart, you're broken,"
She nodded, forcing the lump in her throat back, forcing herself to stop crying. She was weak, would most likely be dead soon because of Kartane's continued torture after breaking her. She'd bled too much, she already knew that. "I was seventeen when they brought me here," She murmured. "I never got the chance to make my Offering before..."
"Hush, Leora," Daemon didn't move, just continued to hold her wrists in his hands. He could feel how weak she was, how weak she was still becoming. She wasn't going to last long and there was nothing he could do about it. "You did this for me, Leora...All of this just to see me smile..."
"E-Everything has a price,"
"This price was too high!" He growled, pulling her into his arms. "Leora...anyone could have told me this...Anyone...why did you have to do this?"
"You were always kind to me, always gentle. You never wanted anything from me. But you were there when I needed someone to be there. I didn't know how else to repay you," She leaned against him, not regretting the price she had paid for her friend's happiness, but for the way in which she was going to die. "Sadi...I don't want to die like this..."
He lifted her off the ground, leaving the cell, walking up the stairs that would lead him outside. No one was around, but no one would stop him. Not now. He'd just gotten back from the latest court he'd been sent to as a gift from Dorothea and they weren't willing to deal with him just yet, so they wouldn't bother him.
Leora shivered in his arms as the cool air reached her skin. "A-are the stars out tonight?"
"All of them," Daemon murmured, unused to hearing his voice so shaky, so weak. He stepped out of sight of the mansion and knelt down beneath a tree, sitting her back against the trunk of it. "Can you see them, Leora?"
"Mmm," She nodded as she looked up at the night sky, leaning heavily against him. His arms came around her, cradling her against him. She wasn't going to last much longer at all. Maybe a few more minutes...an hour at the most. "Will you promise me something, Daemon?"
"Anything,"
"When you see her...when it's all over...when she's cleansed the realms...will you tell her thank you for me?"
"Ah, sweetheart," He smiled down at her, stroking her hair. "I'll tell her everything about you that I know. I'll tell her what you did and the price you paid for it. And I'll tell her thank you for you."
"Thank you..." She took a deep, ragged breath, and looked up at the night sky. "I'm going to miss them...I'm going to miss you..."
"Leora..." He sighed, shaking his head as he felt the life fade away from her, felt her head relax against his chest, felt her body go limp against his. "May the Darkness embrace you, Leora." He closed his eyes, used craft to clean her wounds and lower her into the ground. When that was done he rose and stared up at the stars for a moment before a tingling from the Ring of Obedience sent the cold through his veins again. It was time to check in with Dorothea.
When he returned the next morning, the bed of Witchblood that covered the ground where he'd buried her comforted him. They would never forget. And neither would he.
"Papa said you wanted to see me,"
Daemon nodded as he stared out through the window, unable to look at her.
"Daemon? Are you all right?" Jaenelle touched his shoulder, trying to see his face.
"I made a promise a while ago...a promise that I swore I wouldn't forget,"
"But you forgot?"
"Yes," His eyes closed and he shook his head. "Can you do something for me, Jaenelle? There's something I have to show you."
"Of course,"
Daemon faced his wife. "Not here, not in Kaeleer,"
She paused, perplexed. "Tereille?"
"Yes,"
"Ok," She took his hands and in an instant they were in the misty place and he was gazing into the face of Witch. "Tereille has healed, but no one has ventured back there to re-populate it. I think it will be a long time before anyone cares to," She turned, taking his hands and pulling him away from the stone altar. "Where do you need to go?"
"Dorothea's mansion in Draega."
She paused for a moment, curious, but the look in his gold eyes told her that it was very important to him. And then they were there. Not for real of course, but the images were vivid enough that one would believe it. Daemon brushed passed her. The mansion was gone, but the land was still there and in wonderful shape. Anything tainted had been washed away. He took a step forward and stopped.
"Come with me?"
"Of course," Jaenelle took his hand and let him lead her into the clearing. For a moment he couldn't bring himself to move any further, but a reassuring squeeze from Jaenelle's hand on his own got him moving again. "A witch died here," Jaenelle murmured as she gazed down at the bed of Witchblood that still bloomed.
"A wonderful witch," Daemon breathed, staring down at the Witchblood. "A witch who was broken and tortured to death...because she wanted to see me smile,"
Jaenelle wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him gently. "She loved you,"
"Yeah,"
"You loved her?"
He paused, unsure, and then nodded. "Yeah, I did...but not as I love you,"
"You have a lot of love to share, Daemon." Jaenelle smiled up at him. "You loved her like you love the rest of the coven back home,"
"Yes," Daemon agreed, finding that that was exactly how he had loved Leora. "She didn't deserve what happened to her...She shouldn't have been broken. She shouldn't have died."
"What happened that caused this, Daemon?" Jaenelle asked as she knelt in front of the bed of Witchblood.
"She wove a tangled web of dreams. A tangled web that showed her you. Showed her that you were walking the realms, that the taint would soon be gone and I would finally have my life," Daemon gazed down at his wife and the Witchblood she was kneeling in front of. "Kartane was pissed because she didn't bring him his food when he summoned for it so he went down to punish her and found her web. When he tried to destroy it, she used craft to knock him away from it, and that's when Dorothea intervened. She was given to Kartane and broken and then tortured fatally. She fought him, gave him a hard time because that's the way she was. A feisty witch with a lot of potential. She never even got a chance to make her Offering. Dorothea made sure of that. Her birthright was the red," He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "I had just gotten back when one of the other servants that bunked with her told me what had happened. So I took a look at her web...And then I went to find her. She didn't deserve it, Jaenelle."
"None of them did," Jaenelle murmured, running her fingers over the Witchblood. "You buried her here?"
"She didn't want to die in that cell. That's not what she wanted her last image of the world to be. So I brought her outside so that she could see the stars." Tears streamed down his cheeks, blurring his vision. "She made me promise that I would tell you thank you for setting me free. I promised her that I would tell you all about her and I...Mother Night, I forgot..."
"Come sit with me," Jaenelle murmured, taking his hand to pull him down into the grass beside her. "You didn't forget, Daemon. We've all been through a lot. You just never had the time,"
"That's no excuse,"
"Daemon," Jaenelle cupped her husbands face in her hands and smiled gently. "It's easy to forget temporarily what will be remembered eventually. She understands that,"
He swallowed as Jaenelle leaned against him. "What was her name, Daemon?"
"Leora. Her name was Leora," His arms came around his wife and he found himself slowly being comforted. Could Leora hear them? Could she hear him telling his wife, Witch, all about her as he had promised? "She tried to make everything so...alive. I don't know how many times she got into trouble and just laughed about it afterwards. She would piss Kartane off and be so happy with herself. She sang, she danced, she was just...so full of life. You would have loved her,"
Jaenelle smiled as she snuggled against him.
"She'd get pissy when I got fussy,"
"We all do," Jaenelle muttered, grinning.
"She never gave in to anything..." Daemon let his eyes drift from his wife back to the Witchblood in front of him. "She was in love with me but she knew I couldn't return the love. But she didn't care."
"You were her lifeline."
"She told me that I was the only one who gave a damn about what happened to her. That I was the only one that ever treated her like a real person instead of just a slave whose life meant nothing. The night she died...it was the first time I had ever seen her cry..."
Jaenelle felt tears coming to her own eyes. "Was she in pain?"
"I don't know," Daemon murmured, squeezing her. "She was sad...but happy at the same time because I did smile for her and it was a genuine smile."
"She felt that the price she paid was worth it," Jaenelle murmured. "She felt that because she knew that the debt owed to her would be paid in full one day."
"I know she would have approved of what happened to Kartane."
"Briarwood is the pretty poison," Witch murmured. "Yes, she would have approved,"
"Jaenelle..."
"Hm?"
"I want to..."He stopped himself, unable to finish it. "When..."
She smiled gently, feeling his hands coming to rest at her rounding stomach. "Leora SaDiablo. It's perfect,"
He smiled, kissing his wife gently. "Do you think she would have liked it?"
"Daemon, she would have loved it," She kissed him, hugging him. "Naming our daughter after her probably would have made her cry, but it would have been a cry that you would have liked." She stood, pulling him with her. "Let's go home, Daemon,"
Daemon nodded and let her lead him away from the clearing. He gave the bed of Witchblood one last, fleeting glance as they stepped back into the mist and then back into the bedroom. Rest in peace, Leora, my dearest...
End
Ok, so was that not the sweetest thing EVER! I don't know how I came up with it but I did...and I adore it! But I'm rarely proud of anything I write so...this is a good thing. What did you all think?