7. Chapter 7
Chapter seven
T he dissection that night of the creature was fascinating. It had five hearts, breathed out of a hole in its neck and the swords of its hands were almost indestructible. Its blood was orange as it spilled out of its body. I watched and listened while the scientist rattled off theories of how it reproduced, what it ate, and where it was from. Erendrial watched me closely the whole time, seeming intrigued by my interest.
The next two weeks were repetitive, but educational. I became obsessed with fighting and killing. It was a form of release for me. A way to expel the pain that still resided in me from being raped. Sword fighting was my favorite. Bow and arrows came naturally. With a sword, I had to learn how to estimate my opponent’s attack.
Toreon was a skilled fighter and taught me everything he knew when it came to weapons. He was strong and fast. I grew to like him, more than I should have. I still was unsure if I could trust him, but only time would tell. Vena, his little sister, started coming to practice with us. She was small but fast. She was deadly with small daggers and could rip a giant in two if given the chance.
“Come on, cousin,” taunted Vena, crouching into an attack stance. “You’re going to have to move faster than that if you expect to take down those beasts outside the walls.”
Without warning, she charged, daggers positioned to strike. Her left hand flung out low towards my abdomen while her right came down above her head, aimed for my shoulder. I spun, narrowing my body (her target) just before I caught her right wrist, preventing her from sinking the blade into my flesh.
I took a breath, and in that moment, my error was revealed. She sliced the blade she had in her right hand across my side, causing me to release her and stumble back in pain. I held the bleeding wound, taking shallow breaths.
“Oops … sorry,” she said, placing the daggers in her belt.
“It’s fine,” I replied, feeling the wound already healing. “Lesson learned; don’t let my guard down around you even for a second.”
She laughed, approaching my side. “Thankfully, I can heal you as well.” She placed her hand on top of my wound. A comforting warming sensation spread through my body almost like warm honey. When she removed her hand, the wound was gone. No scar left behind.
“Thank you,” I said, amazed by her gift.
She grinned and shrugged, as if her power was nothing to be proud of.
I quickly learned that Vena was chatty with an explosive personality. She seemed to be trying to earn my approval, as if it mattered to her. I was kind, but I kept my guard up.
After combat training, I would meet Erendrial in the massive library, which was my favorite place in the entire kingdom. Books filled every wall from floor to ceiling. The dark court obtained records about anything anyone could ever want to know about. A three-hundred-year-old treatise on Nymph lineages. Poetry written in languages I neither understood nor had ever heard of. Books about races that had long been extinct. Ladders scattered throughout the shelves reached to the highest ledges. It made the light court’s library look like a joke.
I committed the members of the high and low classes of alfar to memory, along with their powers. I now understood everyone’s station and where they fell in the lineup of importance. Erendrial taught me about politics and how to work the room. He shared the councilmember’s weaknesses with me and where to strike and when. He also began to teach me how to read a being’s facial and body cues. It was like trying to understand a different language, but I was determined to learn.
Despite trying, I had no visions. I focused on the light court, Queen Daealla, Gaelin, but nothing. The court I once saw as the better of the two had now become my enemy. There were still those in Urial whom I wished to punish for what they had done to me and my friends. So much for my visions giving me what I wanted.
Creatures continued to come through the rift on our side. The dark soldiers were heavily skilled and talented, always coming home with one or two of the creatures to study. I began taking notes on their anatomy and powers.
I asked Otar about them every third day when he came for his feeding session. He looked at the drawings of the creatures but couldn’t remember a thing about them. Tonight was no different. Zerrial had just killed a large lion-like creature with the tail of a scorpion and the wings of an eagle. Otar finished feeding on my wrist as I pulled out the picture from the pile of my notes.
“Do you recognize this one?” I asked him.
He wiped his mouth while I cleaned my arm. He stared, tilting his head curiously as if he was on the edge of something. “I … I can’t remember,” he answered.
“What do you remember? You must remember something from your time working for whoever controlled you.”
He paced in front of me, aggravated. “I have tried, believe me, but I can’t remember, I just can’t. There is a block in my mind,” he spat, knocking on his head with a fist, “that I can’t remove, wicked one. Sometimes I see flashes of things, humanoid figures, but they are unclear, and I can’t remember who they are or where I was. I don’t know what happened to me, but I will find out who controlled me, and I will kill them, yes, I will,” he said, smiling with his sharp teeth.
“And when you’re free of me, will you kill me then too, since I control you?” I asked.
“Would you like me to kill you?”
I stopped, looking at him in shock. “Why would you ask that?”
“I hear you sometimes, calling out for me to come and end you. To take away the pain and the memories. It’s the worst when you sleep, which ruins my favorite time of day.”
“You can hear my thoughts?” I asked.
“Not your thoughts, only your desires and feelings. That is how I knew how you wanted me to end the light king and his bitch.”
I was stunned. I had no clue the connection between Otar and I was this intrusive. My inner thoughts … feelings … desires, were no longer my own.
“Why don’t you just end me then?” I asked, feeling violated in some way. “If you have to do what I want, and you can hear me asking for it.”
“Self-preservation, I suppose,” he said.
Right, I forgot his life was tied to mine.
“Your keeper isn’t very sneaky, wicked one. He’s been hiding behind the wall listening to our conversation.” Otar turned to the entrance of my room, where Erendrial stepped into the doorway .
I stood up, praying he didn’t hear the part about me wanting to off myself. “How much did you hear?” I asked.
“Enough that I am questioning whether leaving you alone is an option,” Erendrial said, walking slowly towards us. “Are you done with your meal?” he asked Otar. “If so, I think you should leave.”
Otar turned to me. I nodded for him to go. I finished wiping the spilled blood from my arm and placed my crown on my head acting as if the conversation with Otar had never happened.
“Are we going to talk about your desire for death?” Erendrial asked.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I replied, praying he would just let what he heard go.
“Princess, I must inform your father of this.”
I swung quickly on him while my panic set fire within. “No, Eren, please,” I begged. “I’m still dealing with … with things from the light court, but I assure you, each day I feel better … stronger. It will pass.”
He studied me for a brief moment. “What are you running from, Genevieve?” His voice was soft.
I turned away from him, closing my eyes while my nightmares flashed behind them. “Nothing you need to be bothered with.” I forced my gaze to meet his. “Please don’t say anything.”
His jaw tightened before he dropped his eyes from mine and nodded, silently agreeing to what I was asking.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
It was my favorite time of day. I got to talk with my father and uncle. My uncle and father were ornery and playful with one another, like I had always imagined siblings being.
“You bore her, brother,” said my uncle, pulling new books from the shelves.
“Are you saying our ancestry is of little importance?” asked my father.
“Oh, we’ve had some colorful characters in our family tree, that’s for sure,” replied Uncle Rythlayn, “But they hold nothing on this one.” He slammed a book down in front of me. The binding was old and worn. The brown leather was faded and torn around the edges. On the front of the cover, there was no title or author listed; only the image of a flame burned into the surface.
“Maleki,” I whispered.
My uncle looked at me in shock. “You know of the first?”
“A little,” I answered. “Levos Atros told me the story of how the dark court came to be.”
My father and uncle looked at each other before bursting into laughter. I was confused by the action .
“What?” I asked.
“Leave it to a prissy light court know-it-all to think he can properly retell our history,” laughed Rythlayn.
My father placed his hand on top of mine. “The light court knows very little about what truly happened and how we conduct our court, as you’ve already come to see.”
My uncle slammed into the chair beside me and flipped open the cover. “Here is the truth about our heritage and why this planet survived, no thanks to those pathetic excuses for alfar over in the light court.”
“Now brother,” piped in my father, “everyone had a part to play.”
“Ha,” laughed my uncle. “If I were Maleki, I would have allowed the demons to finish off those cowards before sending their asses back to the Hell plane.”
“What did the Atros boy tell you, daughter?” asked father.
“Basically, after the demons had destroyed a large portion of our lands, we were helpless. Maleki and his armies were the only ones that stood a chance. They met Azeer and when the deal was proposed, Maleki brought it before the council, but they denied his request. He took the deal anyways and when he and his forces knelt before Azeer, their lives were the final sacrifice to complete the bargain.
“Maleki and the others were resurrected with new gifts, Maleki’s being the Dark Flame. The most powerful of them all, able to destroy any celestial being. Once they had rid this world of the demons, the light court would no longer accept them. They then broke off and made their own kingdom here, within this mountain.”
“So many details left out,” mumbled Rythlayn.
“What is the true story then?” I asked.
My father turned the page to the first chapter. “The beginning of this story was correctly retold.” He flipped the page again. “The alfar once lived among each other and the other species of this planet in peace. Even those courts who are now depicted as barbaric, like the fairies, were once our equals and friends.
“We tended to this planet and in return, this planet was our sanctuary. No race was higher than another … even the humans. There were no laws when it came to who you could love or mate with. Each was able to choose freely. This world was once filled with half breeds …” my father paused, taking in my face, “…like you.
“When the demons descended, we were completely unprepared. None of the courts had ever had to fight. We had been raised in a utopian society. We only killed out of necessity. The fallen angels were ravenous: stripped of any humanity they once contained. They saw our planet as a playground, where they were free to kill, rape, and eat whatever they desired.
“The Norse gods did not want to disrupt their treaty with the Christian God. The demons, once his own angels and warriors, were still beloved to him. When we turned to our friends … our creators for help, they turned their backs on us, shutting the Bifrost bridge that had been opened to us since the beginning.
“We were completely on our own, abandoned by the gods that we loved and served. Little by little, each court weaponized their gifts and natural abilities, learning how to defend themselves against the demons. But nothing we possessed killed them completely or prevented them from coming back once they had been slain.
“Maleki was our most revered general in the war. He was betrothed to the king of the light’s daughter at the time… Shevira.” My father turned the page to an illustration of a beautiful female with golden red hair and bright golden eyes. “Everything Maleki did was to protect his beloved and the future they had planned for.
“Azeer came to the king of the light and the council directly. He offered them unimaginable power and abilities. He would not interfere with their way of life after the war had concluded, but if they took the deal, they needed to understand that the gifts bestowed upon them required a sacrifice.
“Azeer is a selfish god. He knew the love our people had for the Norse gods. To ensure our allegiance to him and him alone, we would have to prove ourselves. Three people from the weakest race would be sacrificed each year. This represented our three transitions as a race. It also proved that we were placed above all others in power and station. Where we once protected those who were weaker than us, we would now have to look them in the eyes every year and murder them in cold blood.
“The next sacrifice would be that of a virgin of our own race. An offering to Azeer to show our thanks for the gifts he would bless us with.” My father paused, looking down at the next page with something like sorrow in his eyes.
“Is this where Maleki goes against the council?” I asked.
“No, dear niece,” said my uncle. “This is where we were betrayed.” My uncle turned to the next page where a picture of a red, horned god stood above an alfar male.
“The council,” continued Rythlayn, “including Maleki, banished Azeer from these lands. Even though the Norse gods abandoned them, they would not subject themselves to such an evil celestial being. The alfar, at this time, valued all life as equal. They would never murder in the name of such a diabolical god.
“As the war continued, our numbers dwindled. The demons began to attack the inner council members and their families. Our people didn’t stand a chance. The light king met with Maleki privately after Shevira had been attacked attempting to protect young ones.
“The king informed Maleki that the council had reconvened and decided to take Azeer up on his offer. The small sacrifices he required would be worth it if it meant their people and their world survived. Maleki was taken aback by the decision of the council, but with Shevira laying in the medical wing fighting for her life, he was desperate.
“Maleki and his unit went deep into this mountain and summoned the fire god with the spell the king had given them. When Azeer appeared, the god was offended that the king did not come himself to accept his generous offer. Instead, he sent his future son-in-law, someone of no royal birth, along with a handful of lowborn foot soldiers.
“Azeer restated the terms and then informed the alfar of the final payment … the sacrifice of their own lives. Maleki would do anything to ensure Shevira lived. The others had families back in the castle and felt the same. It was unanuimous. Each alfar who stood under this mountain that night agreed to sacrifice themselves so this world could survive.
“Azeer, being the vengeful god he is, kept his word and bestowed the group of alfar with powers that could kill celestial beings. But instead of spreading the power through our entire race, he tied it to those who were brave enough to come before him in our greatest time of need.
“Maleki and his forces ascended from this mountain, fueled by powers that were unmatched by any other,” my father explained. “They tore through the demon legions, sending them back to the pits of Hell from hence they came. The war ended within a week’s time and our planet was saved.
“When Maleki and his unit returned to the light king victorious, the council placed each of them under arrest in the dungeons below. The king denied giving Maleki the orders to make the deal with Azeer and accused him of being a power-hungry usurper who only desired his throne.
“In reality,” interrupted my uncle, “the light king was pissed. He thought when Maleki made the deal with Azeer that he too would possess the power of a god. He didn’t account for how shifty gods could be with their loopholes.”
“The king and council,” continued my father, “decided that Maleki and his army would be put to death. Their powers and the deal they made with the fire god was unhinged and that of a devil. Maleki was willing to take the sentencing of the council, since he hadn’t planned to make it out alive in the first place.
“But Shevira wouldn’t accept her beloved’s fate. She refused to believe that Maleki would ever go against the word of her father. She conceived a plan to free Maleki and the others. They would leave her father’s kingdom and create one of their own. Maleki tried to talk her out of it, but there was no use. She refused to live without him, even if it meant dying alongside him.
“The night Shevira set her plan into motion, Maleki discovered a traitor in his ranks. One of his closest friends had informed the king about her attempt to free Maleki and the others. As they used their new powers to try and escape, the king ordered his own daughter to be killed by Maleki’s friend who then accused Maleki of administering the final blow.
“Maleki, devastated by the murder of his love, lost control of his power, burning everyone in his path to the ground including his treacherous friend. He set the entire light kingdom on fire, destroying the original castle.
“Maleki’s men managed to get him out before the king and his men were able to kill him. Even with the powers they possessed, they were heavily outnumbered by the light alfar and the other races who now believed them to be murderous devils.
“They returned to this mountain and built the Kingdom of Doonak. Maleki vowed to destroy the king of the light no matter the cost. The light king had seen the power the dark alfar possessed. To rally the other races to his defense, he ordered the killing of all half breeds, pinning the massacre on Doonak.”
“His narrative was believable,” muttered my uncle. “I’ll give the bastard that.”
“What was it?” I asked.
My father inhaled. “He told the others that the dark court revered themselves as gods, and refused to be rivaled by any other being of mixed race or power who could potentially become a threat to our station. The light court banned the creation of half-breeds from that point on, saying it was to protect the races from our evil court. In reality, the lines between the weak and the strong had been drawn.
“The light king knew he was no longer of the strongest race, and he had made an enemy out of a male who could easily destroy him. This way, the courts would only ever reproduce with those of the same race, not risking the creation of another being that could become an unknown threat, adding to the light king’s paranoia.”
“My gods,” I whispered, in complete shock of the details I had learned. Father shut the book, allowing a moment of silence for the pain and sacrifice our ancestors had experienced.
“The other races,” added Rythlayn, “like the fairies, had lived in a world where they had to fight savagely to survive for so long, they no longer knew another way of life. The light court banished them and others like them that they no longer found civilized.
“The Draugr had been born out of the war and were also banished from their lands, even though they had fought at our sides in the end. Our kingdom took them all under our banner, helping each court establish new homes and systems to support the way of life they chose. Thus, their loyalty to our plight.”
“How does no one in the light court know this?” I asked.
“Reality is perception, I suppose,” answered Father.
My uncle put the book back on the shelf. “Plus, those little pissants removed any account of the truth long ago from their records. The light king killed anyone who refused to live under his lie. A lot of those alfar had a family member who followed Maleki. He was thorough, I’ll give him that.”
“I thought it impossible to hate the light kingdom more than I already had, but now—”
My father reached across the table and took my hand. “We no longer fight the battle of Maleki, dear daughter. The light kingdom is a means to an end. If they chose to allow their court to remain blindly in the dark, then so be it. Now, we must band together until this unknown threat is illuminated. But it is important you know this history … the truth of how we came to be.”
“Well,” my uncle said, pouring himself a glass of wine. “After that little history lesson, I am famished. How about you two?”
Father and I both chuckled, shaking our heads.