A War of Silver and Gold Read online

  She hadn’t known Nadaon for long, but she could vaguely recall a child running in the castle’s corridors, sometime, decades ago when she had visited Nadaon’s town.

  Cassia stood by his bed, eyeing with suspicion as the Mistress Healer checked his temperature. He must have suffered from the illness for a long time, his strength seemed to have vacated every cell in his body and his eyes were dim and lifeless, dark circles danced about them.

  The healer turned and bowed.

  “How is he?” Cassia asked.

  The healer raised her head and set her jaw. “We had been lucky this time, my Lady. He’ll live; he was fortunate that you found the cure and saved him. The Physician’s casualty is not much of a problem to the court you see.” She exhaled as if a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She gathered her basket of herbs and medicines. “None of us liked him much, but what could we have said? We are but servants to his Grace.”

  She pushed back the blond lock of hair that had fallen on her brow and sighed again as she picked up her basket. Even though her flesh hadn’t aged, her soul had. Cassia could see it in the female’s eyes, in the way she held herself.

  “Mistress,” The healer’s glance moved towards Cassia. “Did you lose anyone by the illness?”

  The healer smiled and shook her head. “I didn’t, but the young Lord lost his mother and sister. I am afraid he is all alone now.”

  Cassia nodded, her lips hanging open for a moment before her brows knitted. “I didn’t know, I had only known of his mother’s death.”

  “He buried them himself.” The Mistress shook her head and looked heavenward. “He is a fine Lord. His father was an animalistic monster, though.” She sighed. “The pains he had to suffer. He had been most unfortunate in his private life, I am afraid.”

  “I hadn’t known. His father was always trying to prove his fine nature in court.” Cassia shook her head. The old Lord had been a very fine addition to her court.

  The healer gathered her shawl from the bed and smiled at the Lady. “Now, Lady Cassia, you must forgive me for I have to tend to the others. Viperous elf, that Physician. Viperous, I tell you.” She bowed and left through the door, she closed the panels of the door.

  Cassia lingered for a moment listening to the female’s steps as she went away.

  Nadaon hissed and he tried to sit up on the bed. Cassia’s mismatched eyes widened. She rushed to his side, hoisting him up. He grunted and fell back on the bed again, sweating and panting. The elf sighed as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his palm. She sat on the bed beside him.

  “How are you feeling?” She asked, leaning closer to feel his forehead.

  “Like my head has been cut off.”

  She smirked. “That much?”

  “You have no idea, Lady.”

  “Sia, call me Sia after all I just saved your arse, soldier.”

  A faint smile appeared on his lips. “I think you did, and I am most grateful.” He sighed heavily, his eyes travelled to the fireplace behind the Lady, the light illuminated in his green orbs, turning them golden. Nadaon was a very attractive elf and powerful at the shadow of Cassia’s name, it was a wonder he hadn’t surged down nations and worlds to find his mate.

  “What are you thinking?” She asked, biting her bottom lip between her teeth, she didn’t draw blood, but she winced at the stinging sensation, grounding herself back to the world around her.

  His eyes ghosted over her face. “It must have been fate.” He shook his head. “You came here sooner than expected and saved me and my people.” He placed his right hand over his heart and closed his eyes, silently thanking her.

  She placed her hand on his. “You are all under my protection. I sworn to you, Nadaon and I were true to my word. You will not die as long as I live.”

  He eyes darted opened. “I can’t find a way to thank you enough.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t have to. It’s my duty.” Her eyes focused on the pillow beside his head, her mind travelling towards treacherous paths. There were things that should be done. “Will you be alright to return to your duties in a few days?”

  “I believe so.” He nodded.

  “Good. Ael and I will have to go. The King has summoned me to the Citadel."

  His brow twisted. “You will let a lycan enter the Citadel?”

  She tilted her head and sighed anxiously. “He is somehow vital for what it is to come in a few months I am afraid.”

  “Are you expecting War?”

  She swallowed and nodded faintly as she glanced back at him. His expression was stony, maybe he was calculating and thinking of how many casualties would come this time from another vicious war. If they could endure another War.

  “All the indications are clear to me. Though, I believe this time we would be the losing side.”

  She shook her head and inhaled, knowing that she was correct; if the King sought out war, even with her overly organised battalions he couldn’t win. The Light Elves were united and without discord running deep like between their Lords, while the Dark Elves were divided, the Lords acted on their own accords and the King planted the seeds of hate in every corner he could find, even in her own territory, in her own city and towns.

  “What will you do?” Nadaon’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

  She sat down on the bed, beside him. Her hands fell on her lap. It was a burden, one she didn’t know she would survive again. She inspected on dark, invisible spot on the carpet and cleared her throat. “The Lam in your basement had a message for me. From the Lord of Feremony.”

  “Feremony?” Nadaon’s eyes darkened for a moment. It was common knowledge. Cassia’s time in Feremony’s cells of despair, under the vicious leash of Lord Conor Eathon.

  “The new Lord –Conor’s son- wants to use my influence with my people and unify the elves against the King.”

  He managed to sit up on the bed, bracing himself with his hands against the mattress. He sighed and rubbed his fingertips over his forehead, he closed his eyes, obviously agitated. “The audacity of those Elves. His father tortured you for months and now he asks for your help! Stay away from them, Sia please.”

  She shook her head. She couldn’t not consider the meeting. Cassia knew she would have to place her conflicts and hate behind her at one point in her life for the greater good. She knew she had to. She was prepared to sacrifice her immortal life for the safety and prosperity of others.

  Someone had to put a leash on the King’s actions. He killed and gutted and executed and no one stood across him. She had to consider meeting with the Adanei, only to negotiate the future of her Kingdom, the future of her innocent people. She would do anything to protect and shield from war those who had yet to meet it.

  Cassia was prepared for the worst. She was prepared to be a traitor, to commit treason. For her people, for freedom and for the innocents among the world, but most of all, for the sake of her sanity. The King had killed too many Nevdori elves, had committed massacre over a thousand times in his dark and archaic existence.

  “I don’t know what to do anymore, Nadaon. I don’t, through all my years and experience in war and conflict. I am faced for once with the chance to betray the King and fight for something greater than myself.” She shook her head again; pain visibly written across her brutal features. “I am tired. I am tired of fighting and putting on that face of the feeling-less bitch the King wants me to wear. I believe I have grown too old for those games his.”

  Nadaon averted his glance from hers, his eyes fixed somewhere on the covers. “I don’t believe someone else knows of this.”

  “No,” she chuckled and bowed her head, shaking it. “I hadn’t told anyone else about this.”

  “I am honoured, then.”

  She stood from the bed and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am afraid, we will become friends at some point.” She pulled her hand away and walked to the door, her cloak billowing behind her. “Sleep, rest. I have things to take care
of.”

  + + +

  She had nothing to do after she left Nadaon’s chamber. She had lied, feeling trapped. She had to get out of there, away from his friendly facade she knew would only hurt her.

  Friends and pain were things that went together, tightly pressed for life.

  Ael was not her friend, he was someone who walked into her life and somehow managed to magically grasp every piece of her shattered self-control around his fingers. She hated him for it; she hated him because he made her feel. Even if that feeling was pure desire and lust and meant nothing.

  Her calves began to ache suddenly.

  She never had a problem meditating before. Her legs could remain folded before her and she could feel nothing not even an itching. Something was definitely wrong with her. Everything was wrong. From the moment that lycan stepped foot inside her city, that muscles in the back of her neck twitched angrily, warning her to stay away from him.

  She knew what Ael anticipated from her. She could never yield to him. She could never let herself give in to him, not even for a night, not even after the Lam’s words.

  She knew how it was to live every moment of your life and be denied what you wanted most, but she didn’t care, her body could wait to be satisfied some other time. She had a clear judgement while in battle, and yet in her personal matters, she acted like a spoilt child, idiotic and impatient, clumsy.

  After her bloody stay in Feremony, oh how gloriously evil she had been. How careless and how restless to see blood splattered all over her fearful blade. It hadn’t mattered that her mother hailed from those lands and her species was an ally to the Adanei. Cassia hadn’t cared if she had killed or wounded her mate, or any family relative from her mother’s side in the War. She only cared about blood and gore and Death.

  She had been such a remarkable beast, a force of nature, unyielding, unmovable, invincible.

  She unfolded her legs and opened her eyes. Meditation had ever come naturally to her. She pressed her eyes shut again and grunted. She didn’t like this. It felt unnatural, forced, schemed. She groaned and stood from the blanket, sprawled over the snowy floor.

  “I think that is something to behold.”

  She stilled and rolled her eyes. That irritation reappeared on the back of her throat. She snapped around, glaring a series of sharp dagger towards the approaching elf. “What do you want, Ael?”

  He chuckled, folding muscled arms over his chest. “How is Nadaon?”

  That muscled twitched again. “He is alright, recovering.”

  His brows rose as he smiled. Blood boiling in her veins, that rutting elf was flirting with her. His toothy smile urged her to snarl at him, grip on his jacket and throw him in the snow.

  “Do you want to have dinner with me?”

  She fixed her glance on him, hands flexed.

  She screamed at him, leashed out and tackled him onto the snow.

  The audacity of that elf! How dare he ask her to dine with him with that casual grin on his face? He had no manners and no respect for the fact that she was his superior in. She was the goddamn Heir and he was pretty much nothing.

  She pinned him on the snow with her weight; her one hand grasped his above his head in an adamantine clutch, talons biting onto his forearm. His other hand trapped between her thigh and his hip as she straddled him. She snarled and panted as he tried to move, but she kept him locked there, on the ground. Her breath came as fast as his, adrenaline ran hot in her veins. Her mind fussy from the rage.

  She grabbed her dagger from her waist and pressed it flat on the skin of his neck. She was more than happy to draw blood from his flesh. She was beyond angry. It hadn’t escaped him, but he nonetheless had asked her to dine with him. She snarled and hissed at him, those peculiar elongated canines out, ready to bite onto flesh and bone.

  “Easy, lioness.”

  Her eyes snapped at his. She tightened the grip on his hand and the grasp of her thighs to his hips. He winced for a brief moment as he closed his eyes and smiled again.

  “I never had that reaction from a female when I asked her out.”

  She grunted and pressed the dagger on his skin, he made a painful grin, but she knew she hadn’t sliced through his flesh. He was more of a puppy than a wolf.

  “I’ll slit your throat if you ever ask that of me again.” She barked at his face and let his hand go before she grasped his hair tightly, pulling his head back, exposing his throat, warm and alabaster, the ghostly touch of her talons grazing his neck.

  His free hand reached up to caress her side. She flinched from his serpentine touch, the talons digging into his neck and stood away from him. She sheathed the dagger and turned away.

  “I swear I will kill you. I can’t fall for you in mere seconds because of Nature’s will, Ael.”

  He stood from the snow. Maybe she had been too harsh on him, but she couldn’t have reacted otherwise, that was who she was. Reserved and enclosed to herself, spiteful and sour. She found shelter and power to live in those feelings. She was depressed, her feelings were lost, forgotten, closed, locked inside a trunk and the key was thrown away to the waterfalls of Hirho.

  She was a shattered shell of what she used to be. Her strength during the war had come out of obligation for her King, to make him proud. After Feremony, she was dead, a corpse with only purpose to take revenge from those who had wronged her, and yet she hadn’t killed Conor Eathon.

  Ael hadn’t faulted her.

  She was being hateful to him.She had no reason for it. She had no reason. He wants you. He worships you.

  They haunted her, the words of the Lam.

  She pressed her hand against her cheek where Ael had kissed her the previous night. It still burned, and it had burned throughout the night. A deeper most strange feeling grasped around her. She turned around, the short heels of her boots dug into the snow.

  “You are asking too much and I won’t hand myself to you, Ael.” Her voice came out rougher than she wanted it to be, he flinched away and stopped at his feet. His eyes trained on the snow.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never meant to hurt you. I am sorry.”

  She wanted to smile, every female would have smiled. Not her though. She had never been of the smiling type. She only nodded slowly, praying he didn’t realise, she touched the place where he had kissed her.

  “I am simply giving you a warning. You shouldn’t have asked me. I thought you have grown to know me by now.”

  He smiled, still flirtatious, still with unbroken spirits. “I don’t believe I can know you entirely. You are very strange, but always there is something becoming about you.”

  She shot him a freezing glance. He stopped fidgeting with the hem of his jacket. “I believe you are trying to flirt with me, my Lord.”

  He walked closer to her, his clothed chest a few inches away from her face; he held his chin up as he peered down at her. She tilted her head back and glanced up. She took a moment to inspect his features. The daylight made his facade softer. His lips were relaxed, there was no crease around them, maybe smile wrinkles, but they were relaxed, thin, but rosy. A short, blond stubble adorned his strong chin. His eyes, surrounded by long, brown with reddish spots eyelashes, were a clear blue shade she had never beheld in his eyes. So clear that it almost made her shiver. He was a strange male, as strange as she was. And somehow that thought made her move closer to him, marvel at his warmth.

  The place where he had kissed her burned again for a moment as her eyes met his and her chest came to press against his sold muscles

  “I am not flirting.” His left eyebrow rose as his smile became brighter than before, warming that cold heart of hers.

  She set her jaw, ignoring the throbbing in her chest. “I hope you don’t, lycan.”

  “Oh! I am not.” His voice had dropped an octave lower, it was almost husky. His male nature grabbed around her mind and magnetised her against him.

  His hands came up her sides. She could feel the feathery touch of his hands against he
r skin as if her coat and leather jacket beneath were not there to shield her from him. She didn’t flinch though, and that made her mind cringe in disgust. She was giving up on her strength and she didn’t like it, but there was something so strong inside her that pushed her against him.

  “I think you are stepping up a boundary, Ael.”

  He didn’t move, his hands stilled though and his touch became a bit firmer on her waist. “I will stop if you tell me.”

  He leant closer and she leant backwards, he couldn’t kiss her. It would be like she was letting her pride go and give in to him. “Don’t do this, Ael.” She shook her head and took a step away from him. “We are not meant for this. We can’t be together.”

  “I won’t stop trying, you know.”

  She shook her head, her face expressionless, and her lips agape. “It doesn’t matter. I would continue to step away from you. I am not your mate.”

  He laughed bitterly as if he were frustrated. “Why does it matter to you so much if we are mates or not? Love doesn’t come between mates only.”

  “Love!” Her voice sharp, fire spitting with every word. She blanched, her fists clenching at her sides. Terror overtook, feeling threatened. “Love! You speak of love while you don’t even know how it looks like.” She growled, her eyelids fluttering closed and turned away from him. “Get lost, Ael! Clear your mind and then come to talk with me.” She shook her head in disdain and marched away. “You don’t even know what love is!”

  She walked into the castle. She didn’t care about where he stood or what was around him. She couldn’t love him, not if he wasn’t her mate, not if he wasn’t someone she knew and he knew her at her worst and her best.

  She dismissed the thought of him as she entered her bedchamber and closed the door forcefully enough to bring down the walls of the castle. Cassia had no heart to give, steel and iron and silver had replaced it.

  15

  They left the next day.

  She couldn’t stay one second more inside her chamber. She would have suffocated in her own breath, choked in her own blood. Ael hadn’t tried to talk to her in the morning, but she couldn’t stay there. Apart from that, her mind couldn’t let her ease up from the moment that anxiety had been pricking to her side when the Lam told her about the King.