Akyran's Folly, Love and Other Sorcery - Chapter #8 - Free To Read

"What was going on tonight?" I asked him.

"Ah," he blew out a breath and rolled onto his back again. "Rivyn's been in my father's ear, and my father is on the verge of sending an army to aid Aurien's princess. I've been trying to get him to see sense."

I grimaced. He was avoiding answering by offering partial truths. He knew I meant about the manner of him invoking the rule of three, but he did not want to answer.

"He knew I was planning on invoking the rule of three," he said suddenly, rolling onto his side to face me and taking a lock of my hair between his fingers, letting it run free and fall. "Because we argued, he demanded I do it in a way that was unfair to you, and I am sorry for that, Ecaeris." Then he laughed. "- I'm probably lucky that I did do it that way, or you might have made it impossible to get through the rites. That had to be one of the hardest proposals in Fae history."

I lifted my mouth to his and tasted his laughter as I slid my hands down the hard lines of his body until my hand closed around him. He groaned into my mouth and deepened the kiss, his mouth heating against mine as he hardened in my hand.

"Ah, f-k, Ecaeris," he moaned, his eyes at half-mast and smouldering. He caught my mouth again with his, his tongue tangling with mine. This was better, I thought, and felt hope soar in my heart. Maybe he did feel for me as I felt for him, after all...

His hand stroked down my back to cup my buttock, and he parted my legs with his knee between mine, so that he could reach between them, and I gasped. "Yes," he murmured, watching my face. "So beautiful, Ecaeris. I want you on top so that I can see you."

He rolled, lifting me with his movement, so that I was astride him, the covers of the bed falling back to reveal me to him, and he groaned, stroking his hands up my hips to my rib cage, cupping my breasts as I leaned forward to find his mouth with mine, the fall of my hair blocking out the moonlight.

His lips lingered, drawing our kiss out into breathlessness as he closed his hands on my hips, rocking me against him as he drove up from beneath me. Sweat beaded in the valley between his stomach muscles.

"Ecaeris," he broke the kiss. "Are you mine?"

"Yes, Akyran," I straightened and leaned back, feeling the brush of my hair across my buttocks.

"Are you mine?"

I gasped. "Yes. So close."

"Say it again."

"I am yours." I fell.

He groaned, following, and I lay over him as he relaxed in the shadow of his climax. His hand stroked my hair out across my back. "That was better," he said softly. "That was how we should have done it."

"You're a romantic, Akyran," I was touched.

He pressed his lips to the crown of my head. "Not particularly," he admitted. "At least I don't have to apologise to you for everything that I am not," he added with a chuckle. "If anyone knows what I am and am not, it is you."

We lay together in the bed, skin to skin, and I drifted into sleep, only to wake when he moved. I watched him pull on his pants, bundling his shirt and jacket and boots under his arm before tiptoeing to the door. He closed it carefully behind him.

I rolled over and saw through the open windows of my room when the light fell from his windows across the terrace. I could hear the rise and fall of his voice with Ithyles as he bathed, and then the lights went out.

I lay on my back, looking up at the drapery that fell from the ceiling, my chest tight and my heart beating hard within the cage of my ribs. We had slept together many times, drunk and fully dressed.

Why had he left, this first night of our marriage?

There was an uncomfortable truth sitting in the shadows of my mind, one I did not want to give light to. The pieces, however, fit.

There was a mistress, someone that Akyran cared deeply about, but who was unacceptable to marry, most likely because she had mankind in her history. King Treyvin, Queen Leamoira, my parents, and any number of other people knew of her. She had been dispatched from the Court of Light with the Uyan Taesil princess in order to end the affair with Akyran.

Akyran had been pressured into marrying me, before I heard of the mistress, as the king and queen and my parents had known that I would not put him in a position of being forced to marry me, nor want to be married without true affection. King Treyvin had made Akyran invoke the rule of three in such a public way so that the marriage was indisputable, and so that I would be under pressure to accept.

Akyran had been honest when he had said that there was no one he would marry, if not me. He could not marry his mistress and there was no one else that was better suited than myself, even if he felt nothing for me other than friendship.

He had not let me know about this mistress, because from the beginning he had known he could not marry her if he intended to take the throne of the Dark Court. He had kept me in reserve, the acceptable bride. Had he always been keeping me in reserve? Had our friendship been a real friendship or just convenience for him?

We were married now, by the irrevocable rule of three. Akyran had knowingly and deliberately sealed us together in a farce of a marriage.

I clutched the bedsheets to my chest, the pain so sharp that it stole my breath.

I had been used by everyone that I loved and trusted. The betrayal was harsher than a knife wound.

I was a war mage, I told myself sternly. I did not lie in bed weeping over men and broken hearts. I put on my armour and went and killed something. I threw back the bedcovers and pulled on the night gown Fiena had left on the end of the bed before opening the chamber door and striding out, barefoot and indecently clad, into the hallway beyond.

I took the mirror portal back to the Dark Court, startling the night guards by appearing suddenly in their midst in my night clothes. I went to my empty chambers and dressed before waking my squire and page to saddle our horses and pack. Within an hour we were riding out. Once we had cleared the castle, I cast a portal, and we rode through into a war camp, alarming the soldiers who guarded the boundary.

"I have come to join the battle," I told them when they turned their weapons on me. "Aurien knows me. When he wakes for the day, tell him where I am camped."

My squires and I unsaddled our horses and unrolled our backpacks and caught a few hours of sleep under the guards' watchful eyes.

I woke to find Aurien sitting beside me, his eyes on the sky and his expression distant. I had only seen him from a distance the last time he had been at the Court of Light, but he looked like a different dragon. Aurien always looked good, a prime specimen of dragon-man, but he looked less wild than normal. Perhaps because his knee-length golden hair had been braided and he wore clothing and boots. More man than dragon. The influence of his princess, I thought.

"Where is Akyran?" he asked me, without taking his eyes from the sky. Of course, he knew that I was awake.

"The Court of Light," I sat up. He passed me a cup of tea. Chamomile. I pulled a face but drank it.

Aurien tilted his head, his violet eyes narrowed with thought as he turned their gaze on me. "I cannot remember seeing you apart."

"He married me," I explained, knowing that he would understand that the world had gone awry as a result.

"Ah," there was a depth of understanding behind the syllable. "You know about Ashara."

"Is that her name?" I finished the tea.

"I have promised her protection."

"I'm not going to kill her." That would be like killing a wolf for howling, a bird for flying, or a fish for swimming. If anyone understood the temptation that Akyran presented to a woman, it was me. And I doubted, very much, that Ashara was as free with her attentions as Akyran was. Why would I punish her for sleeping with him before we married? Or after, for that matter. Only men would find a woman to blame for men's unfaithfulness.

He regarded me solemnly. "He will follow you here."

"Yes, when he works it out or receives word where I am." We were married now. He would follow to uphold the pretence and disguise that his wife had left during the wedding night.

"You are very angry."

"Yes."

"Have you considered what King Treyvin will make of your presence here?"

"He pressured Akyran into marrying me," I replied irritably. Then sighed. The dragon did not care about my petty woes. "Akyran believes he is reconsidering his stance on this war, so perhaps King Treyvin will accept that I have merely anticipated his eventual change of heart."

"Mmm." The dragon arched his brows. "We are three days out of Vienthrey. The lords between here and the city have sworn to the False Queen Clareath. Come, I will introduce you to the generals. You already know Daerton."

"Daerton?" I replied with a surprised laugh. "Is he still alive?"

"For the moment."

We strolled through the camp - the layout was as familiar to me as that of the Dark Court. I had seen many wars, and every war camp was the same, the faces all held the same shadows, the same ingrained dirt, and days of stubble, the same grim surroundings, the same feeble campfires.

"You have a Dwarf company amongst your men." That, at least, was new. The Fae did not have an accord with the Dwarves – our relationship swayed between hostility and friendship depending on the season – and I had never fought beside them in a war before. It added an unexpected element to this battle.

"Yes, we have the Prince Alaren from Reknoc with us."

"Ah," I considered that. A Dwarven prince, no less. This battle had the potential to be recorded throughout history by bardic tale and sonnet, a war involving mankind, a dragon, a princess, dwarves and the brethren… It was an intriguing mix. If the Elves and Fae joined, it would be historic.

He held back a tent flap and we walked into the princess' tent. The main chamber was being used as a meeting place. It was a tent of Fae make and the layout within was familiar. I wondered if it was a tent that I had previously stayed in during one war, or another. Akyran and I often shared quarters at war, sleeping companionably on the bed in the small section separated by a separate doorway for privacy.

Like most war tents, the floor was covered by layered carpets of dark hue to hide the blood and dirt that soldiers inevitably walked in on their boots, a table, and a collection of mismatched chairs. The table served both for eating, but also for meetings like this, with maps spread out across its surface.

I could have walked into any number of previous war tents, except that the people that scrutinized the maps were not Fae. An odder collection of people I had never seen - the pretty princess worrying a round stone in her hands, a dwarf man, a half-ogre, a half-mer, and a mankind soldier leaned over the table, talking with animation, whilst two women, one of mankind and one half-Fae, hovered in the background. One of these would likely be Ashara, I thought to myself, scrutinizing their faces.

The half-Fae woman had paled upon seeing me but met my eyes with equal parts defiance and intrigue. Yes, I could see what appeal she would have to Akyran. I inclined my head to her. I knew now who she was, and she knew who I was. Where we went from there was anyone's guess.

Daerton sat in the corner, rocking on the chair, and cleaning his nails.

"No one's killed you yet then," I commented in Fae.

The warlock looked up and began to laugh. "Only a -ing dragon would walk out for half an hour and return with a Fae army," he said in the common tongue. “And the Bane of Nerith.”

The group around the table fell silent, their attention shifting to us.

"I am alone," I corrected him, changing language so they could understand.

"What, left your shadow at home?" he frowned, tilting his head.

"No, he is at the Court of Light."