A War of Silver and Gold Page 8

  “I don’t,” she paused, her voice had been too loud, too angry and rough and it made all the soldiers in the rings to glance towards them. When she spoke next, her voice was sharp but silent, more like a hiss, a purr. “I don’t want your help to protect my city.”

  “My intentions are not ill, I assure you.”

  She shook her head, maybe she had overreacted, but her stomach never settled when she was rightfully angry. “Return to the castle and stay there.”

  “Let me come with you into the woods.”

  “There are things you don’t know about me,” she grabbed both of her daggers from her belt one for each hand and turned towards the forest. “I fight alone.”

  She started for the forest.

  Waves of uncertainty pulsated through her chest and throbbed over her head.

  Drakon had been an experienced soldier even though young. And still, it took one moment for him to turn into a bloodied mess of limbs and flesh. If Ael were to come with her, she should have been responsible for his loss too and her soul had driven enough elves to their deaths.

  He didn’t grab her arm as she walked away from him.

  He followed her, instead, into the forest. She listened to his footsteps heavy and arrogant, just like his lycan steps and didn’t turn around to acknowledge his presence.

  She grabbed the daggers firmer as she narrowed her eyes to the burnt trees across them. Ael’s breath hitched as she took a step backwards and glanced about the forest, inspecting the tree trunks, the ashes on the forest ground and the foul smell of death.

  There was a trail of blood drops, faint and almost invisible against the dark soil.

  She knelt down and dug her index finger on the blood stain. Warm, fresh, not a few minutes had passed by the time it had been spilt on the ashes.

  It must have been the creature’s blood and not Drakon’s.

  Maybe Drakon had wounded it before it had killed him fiercely on the spot.

  She brought her blood coated finger to her nose and sniffed.

  It wasn’t elvish blood, elvish blood was metallic and strong, this one was foul and fiery, and it was the blood of a Shadow Breaker, creatures that dwelt on the lands around the Citadel, shadows that protected the King.

  If the King had broken his allegiance with them then the War was indeed far closer than she thought, than anyone thought. If he hadn’t broken the Treaty, then he had sent them there, in her city. He had sent them to kill and bring elvish blood to him as a trophy.

  The blood of his own people.

  Cassia’s hate roared in her veins. If the King was willing to spill Nevdor blood for whatever twisted need he had, then she would swear her allegiance elsewhere.

  She shook her head and straightened her spine as she rose and glanced on the lycan beside her. “Shadow Breakers.” Her voice faint, silent and only audible to him. “Drakon was killed by a Nevdori creature, Ael.”

  His eyes, keen remained fixated on the forest. “Cassia, I think we should go back in-”

  “Hush.” She raised her hand.

  The mismatched eyes catching something on the left side of the tree before them.

  She knew how to kill it.

  She knew how to slaughter a Shadow Breaker. Her hands trembled against the daggers, her fingers flexed. She knew how to deal with Shadow Breakers. That was what she had been doing since she was twenty-four. Her grandfather had taken great care on making her immune to the sickness that followed after killing.

  That was what made her blood chill. The creature that lurked behind the tree reminded her of those times. Times that she had been a lot more heartless. It reminded her of the King.

  The only remnant of her family.

  A fragment of what she should have had. A family.

  Her blood boiled inside her veins as she grinned and planted her feet on the ground in a fighting stance, hand braced before her; one twirling an immortal sword and the other tightening with malice around a silver dagger.

  She could feel the powerful surge of fighting coursing through her, intoxicating her.

  She hadn’t faced a worthy rival in years. It was exciting her in ways she couldn’t explain.

  She was a child of war and war, blood, gore and battlefield exhilarated her senses. War had been the womb that gave birth to her, a benevolent mother.

  Cassia sheathed the sword and grasped for another longer dagger from her belt, this time a vicious gold shone from her palm.

  She lunged forward, taking careful, but determined steps towards the tree.

  She raised her hands, the daggers glittering in the dim light of the forest. Her heart pounded fast, but it didn’t matter. Her mind was silent and void of any thought.

  Blood heightened her senses and turned her into a creature of Darkness, of what she was meant for.

  She jumped forward; the winds whirled at her face, caressing her with soft hands.

  She plunged the daggers onto the soft, shadowy meat of the creature.

  A deafening scream echoed through the trees, the hollow trunks and the ashes whirled around them as the Shadow Breaker turned corporeal.

  It fell off the tree trunk from where it was clutched on a few seconds ago. A loud thud reverberated and silence covered the woods.

  The creature was as she remembered it; humanoid, but with black skin and tentacles that assisted it to walk and kill its victims. Its skin was coated with the stench smell of the Citadel, bitter and sour.

  Nothing sweet and good survived there.

  She pulled the daggers from its back only to plunge in again one more time, reaching the beast’s heart and silencing it once and for all.

  She snarled, grasping her dagger and clearing the greenish blood on the creature’s robes.

  The task of killing Shadow Breakers was as known to her as her own name.

  Their hearts were on their right side close to their backs. Their vulnerability was known to few. Their left tentacle was sensitive too; cutting it off meant certain death.

  Ael approached her; placing a light, comforting hand onto her shoulder. She should have pulled away from him; call things out to him and shun him. She shook her head but didn’t turn around to acknowledge him. Her eyes were occupied looking at the creature before her feet for any indication of life.

  “You killed it.”

  It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. She killed a Shadow Breaker. After all these years, after all these years of being in the city, ruling and commanding mindless elves, she had returned to her formal glory and gore. Her mind still remembered the Shadow Breaker’s anatomy. She was thankful for that.

  Thankful that she still held a part of the darkness of the past.

  “Let’s go back to the castle.” She sheathed the daggers on her waist and marched towards the castle, out of the woods.

  “What about the body of that soldier?”

  She stopped in her tracks. Ael hadn’t fought the Shadow Breakers, hadn’t studied them the way she had. “There is no body to be buried. The Shadow Breaker turned him to dust. That’s the way the Breakers vanish the evidence of their victims.” She shook her head. “Let’s go back to the castle.”

  He jogged beside her. “You knew where it was, how?”

  She peeked at him for a moment and then bowed her head low. There was a sudden grin of excitement on his features, maybe a bit of fear, but he didn’t show it.

  “Have you ever been in the Citadel?” She asked as she fought the smile that threatened to take over her lips.

  “No, I haven’t been.”

  She huffed, not at all surprised at this. “The Shadow Breakers are the main defensive system in the Citadel. The King keeps them away from getting killed by creatures in courts and they defend him with their lives.” She exhaled soundly at the remembrance of the Citadel. She had two years to set foot on the Palace.

  “But how did you know where to hit? How could you see it and I couldn’t?”

  “You said it yourself. I am the King’s granddaughter. I kn
ow these things. I grew up with the Shadow Breakers. I know them better than myself. Nasty creatures.” She shook her head and looked at him. “Dirty, filthy souls. That’s all they are.”

  “What about the Breaker in the woods you just killed?”

  “She is going to be eaten by my creatures. There are a lot of things you don’t know, Ael.”

  “I am certain of this.”

  She gripped the handle of her sword in her right hand. “Don’t follow me again into the woods.”

  “Why?” His voice sounded amused.

  “The woods are terrible and they have no master, you have to earn their trust through blood and I am not certain they trust me as much as I would like them to.”

  “What is this supposed to mean?”

  Her eyebrow rose as she tilted her head to the side. “It means that the woods can kill you if they don’t like you or if you unnerve their offspring.”

  They passed the fence around the training field.

  Ael was not evil, she believed that he had a good soul, somewhere underneath all these layers of fake feelings he had wrapped himself around. She let her left hand hung to her side and glanced forward and straightened her spine, her eyes narrowing at the path towards the armoury.

  “What is going to happen now?” Ael asked as he walked before me, stopping me.

  She inhaled soundly and looked up at him. She tilted her head back to look at him properly. “You are going to come with me to Lord Nadaon’s town and then you are going to follow me to the Citadel and after the meeting with the King, you are going to show me to Lord Argoth.” She shook her head. “If everything goes as planned war will take place in early autumn.”

  10

  They began early in the morning. The horses were restless, but the weather had been rather pleasant for a day such as this, in the heart of winter.

  The sun only came out at certain times and on few places in the woods, otherwise, there was no sun, but just plain daylight and mist.

  The mist was surprisingly gone after noon; the weather was warmer and thicker than usual. The dense trees made it hard for the horses to walk normally without losing a step, the beasts growled and exhaled soundly when they took a wrong step and their hooves twisted.

  Cassia tried to remain as weightless on the horse as she could, occasionally jumping off the horse to ease its pain. Ael, on the other hand, mounted the horse ruthlessly. Even though she had fought in wars, she didn’t mistreat animals or mutilated them for her own personal amusement. Sapient beings though, if they fought for ideas that she deemed incorrect, she would gladly hurt. Sometimes, with ways that were against her morality.

  Cassia threw a side glance at her travelling companion.

  She never liked having a travelling partner. It never worked out well for her. However, this time it was what the situation commanded. What the world, her people, her city required.

  She glanced at the path before them.

  The mist took its place again. This path was the safest one she could take in the companionship of a lycan.

  The trees in that path were not as violent to newcomers, it was hidden and safe, but it was the longer one. It required five restless days on horse without rest, eight if you stopped for the night and hunt for animals. She had only used it four times to visit the Citadel mostly when she had company with her; a soldier or two after the War.

  It required only silence at nights when the waters sang and the trees were tranquil, listening carefully.

  The Woods of Navacore, her woods, were not full of evil spirits as the world believed. It wasn’t haunted. Everything had a mind of its own, the trees were sentient and the creatures were bloodlust but they never hunted idly.

  The Woods of Navacore were magical, marvellous if the newcomer had the chance to walk through them and stay the night in one of those hollow trees that were planted here and there, back during the Light Aeons.

  Even burned and miserable as it was after the War, it never ceased to amaze Cassia. It was, after all, the only thing that never submitted to her powers. She admired it as much as she feared it.

  “What are you thinking about?” Ael’s voice snapped her out of her reverie.

  She kept her glance on the path before them.

  She inhaled sharply.

  The wind was cold as it slapped against her face. Her nose turned icy with every breath she took in. Her cheeks had turned red she was certain of that, her pale skin was tender to the temperature out there. She wore leather gloves, but that didn’t stop her hands from growing cold and numb. She should have been used to it by that time, but it always fascinated her.

  When she had served as a priestess to the Winter Temple in the Citadel, she had been gifted with powers of Frost and Healing, but cold always got to her and she often got ill.

  She rolled her eyes.

  That was about two hundred years ago.

  She shook her head. “I don’t see the reason I should contribute my thoughts to you.” She kept her chin high as she glanced about the forest again, for any indications of dark creatures.

  She heard him chuckle from behind her on his horse. “I’ll be your only company for eight days. I thought-”

  “You better stop thinking.” She cut him off as she turned her head and looked at him. “It will harm your weak brain gravely.”

  He smiled as he pulled his glance away from her estranged one and back to the path. “Do you always travel alone?”

  “I don’t like having company,” she sniffed and tugged the horse’s reins. “I travel alone and in silence. I don’t need anyone and it’s faster. You are slowing me down.”

  “I am perfectly capable of-”

  She waved her right hand. “Shut your mouth, Ael.”

  “Why?” She could hear the amusement in his voice.

  “Your voice hurts my eardrums.” She tried to keep her own voice as sour as she could. The most certain part of her didn’t want to continue that conversation, though another most uncertain part of her wanted to have a bit of fun with the lycan.

  He laughed loud enough to scare the trees. “Don’t laugh that loud, you fool, except if you have a death wish.” She barked at him harshly. She was almost afraid for a moment that she had scared him.

  His chuckle though told me otherwise. “The woods won’t hurt me.”

  “Don’t say that. Not out loud at least. I’ve lived here for two centuries I know the forest better than you do.”

  “I don’t doubt that.”

  She growled suddenly, annoyed at the fact that he was in the mood of toying with her fragile anger. She stopped walking and tugged at the horse’s reins. “Stop doing that.”

  “Stop doing what?”

  She groaned again at the sudden need to slap him and throw him off the horse and pound her fists in his chest. “Stop toying with me. I can have you impaled in no time.”

  His left eyebrow rose. “That’s the first time a female threatens to impale me.”

  Her chuckle was bitter and mocking as she turned away from him and began walking down the path again. “I am not one of the common whores you socialise with. I am not a she-wolf or Adanei. I am the King’s Heir; I can have grandpa torture you in the centre of the Citadel outside the Palace of Roward and Rowena.”

  “Show off.”

  She turned around again and threw him a deadly glance. “Don’t mock me!” Her voice might have been a tad louder than she initially thought it would be. The trees made a hushing sound as if commanding her to remain calm and ignore the lycan.

  His head rose as he looked at the trees. “You see what happens when you don’t control your anger, woman.”

  “I swear to the temple of Winter if you don’t stop-”

  “You’ll kiss me?”

  Her eyes widened as she opened her mouth, but closed it soon enough. She growled and turned away from him. “I kill you, you prick.”

  “Come on, Sia. I am not that bad. I am trying to lighten up the mood here.”

  She shook
her head as she fixed her eyes on the hidden path before them, determined to concentrate on the task at hand. “The mood is fine, it doesn’t need fixing.”

  “I do wonder sometimes the reason you turned out to be that sour.”

  Then she snapped, snarling at him, “I am not...” She gritted her teeth suppressing a growl, the trees hissed again. “Sour. I am serious about the situation. The matter is of delicate nature and you are making it look ridiculous.”

  Ael jumped from his horse and the creature’s stepping came to a halt. She wobbled around and glanced at him. “What are you doing?”

  He sighed and massaged his temples. “We should stop for the night. Here by the road is better to make camp.”

  She chuckled and shook her head. For a being that had lived a lot more than she had, he was rather inexperienced. “Lycans,” she shook her head again. “They sleep where they shit.”

  She earned a low growling laugh from him as he bowed his head and laughed a bit more. “What do you suggest, fair Cassia?”

  “The creatures hunt at night and the forest needs silence to concentrate, strange beasts cross this road at nightfall. You don’t want to be here.” She pointed with her chin at the woods behind him. “There is a Hollow Tree a few minutes on foot, it’s safer and there is running water close to it. If you want us to stop for the night that’s the place we should stay. The tree closes its branches at nightfall and opens a few minutes after its inhabitants wake up.”

  His face twisted into a frown. “Strange Forest.”

  “It’s my forest. Did you expect something different?” She exhaled with an annoying sigh. “We are not full of lilies and roses, it’s dark and desolate, but you get to love it when you have the time to explore the whole of it.”

  “Where is that Hollow Tree of yours?”

  She pointed her index finger to the trees behind him. “That way,” she turned the horse towards the woods and walked out of the path. “We better hurry before it’ll close the branches. Come.”

  He followed her in silence.

  The tree was a three minutes walk on foot; it was well hidden despite its massive size. A few other trees closely planted protected it from unwanted intruders. There were a few places where that grass was still green and not covered with ash or was forever burned. It was a small hope that one day the forest would regain its former glory.