Chapter 44 Koarthandris
KOARTHANDRIS
“I’ll rip her throat out,” Saldrea ranted, stomping around her residence. She’d been this way since I returned from my brief time off, something I’d not have much of now that Vyns was gone.
Vyns…
I’d heard a few scant whispers about what Saldrea had done to him, each worse than the last. What I knew for sure, was that he’d left a bloody trail down the main path between the residences, which ended abruptly not far from the stairs of The Tumble this afternoon.
Since then, no one had seen or heard from him.
Saldrea said he was a traitor.
I didn’t believe it. Vyns was a good man.
But whatever he’d done, it had put Saldrea in a tailspin. She’d been ranting and raving for hours now, only growing worse, her ire focused on Izzy, that poor nymph.
“No… no! I’ll just destroy that pretty face of hers beyond what healing can fix. Then let’s see what men think of her.”
“We should capture her and tear out all her secrets,” Hana added, pouring fuel on the bonfire of Saldrea’s rage.
“I could turn her into a bug, and you could squash her,” Neyalim added on a whim.
Saldrea’s eyes widened. “No… not a bug… a toad.” Saldrea was practically salivating with glee. “I’ll pluck off her little arms and legs and watch her squirm and squeal, then heal her and do it all over again!”
The woman was deranged.
I served a deranged elf. I ground my teeth, jaw clamped shut. I just had to put up with her for a few thousand years, then perhaps she’d have a sane child and…
Oh Blessed Skies… I wouldn’t make it that long.
But I had to.
I serve the crown, not Saldrea. My mantra. I repeated it over and over as the girls schemed.
“Where is Izzy now?” Saldrea asked Hana. The sylph flipped through her phone. “She’s probably having supper, but she has an intro to transmutation class this evening.”
It didn’t surprise me that the girls had somehow managed to get Izzy’s schedule.
“We can ambush her on the way. Come on!” Saldrea said in a frenzy.
I sighed as we left, making our way across campus to the lesser residence. There, we hid in some bushes to lay in wait.
And when Izzy emerged…
“There she is, do it!” Saldrea hissed.
Neyalim giggled and closed her eyes, hand out. Undines had a natural affinity for transmutation, turning one thing into another, but from what I understood, doing it from this far away wouldn’t be easy, usually you had to touch the subject.
Izzy didn’t flinch, just kept walking.
“Ney! Do it!” Saldrea hissed, furious.
“I am! She’s not… Something’s… Fuck!” Neyalim sat back heavily. “Something’s protecting her.”
“Protecting her?” Saldrea raved, close to losing it.
“I don’t have a lot of experience with it… but I think she’s got a binding protecting her form, keeping her as she is.”
“Given how often her hair and eyes change color, that seems odd,” Hana chirped.
“A binding?” Saldrea’s fury thankfully faded as curiosity took over.
“Who would have…? How…?” She shook off her ruminations.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m strong, I can undo a binding.
” She grimaced. “But I’ll need to be close to her.
We’ll need to find a time when she’s alone and corner her.
Then we’ll have some fun!” Saldrea said, rubbing her hands together.
This was my master… this scheming — objectively evil — young woman?
I decided then and there, I couldn’t wait thousands of years. Perhaps there was a way to reform Saldrea, as outlandish as that seemed.
“Mistress,” I said formally as we began to make our way back to her residence.
Saldrea stopped and glared up at me. “What?” she said, perturbed.
“Perhaps there is another way, a better, more peaceful way to deal with this woman?” I probably should have eased into things, but I wasn’t the best with words, usually blunt.
Saldrea blinked up at me. “What?” She seemed completely stunned, confused. “Who? Izzy?”
“Yes.”
She laughed. “Oh Koary, you’re such a riot!”
“I meant it, mistress. There is no need to be like this. You are a royal. You have dignity. You can be better.” She wasn’t actually a royal, not of the true blood, but her family was the next closest thing and that’s all we had.
“Better?” Saldrea said, her laughter cutting off abruptly. “There is no better, I’m the best!” Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you want to help that stupid nymph?”
“I don’t, I want to help you.” I did, I truly did. I could serve the crown as more than just a guard. I could be a teacher, an instructor. I could show Saldrea a righteous path befitting a true royal.
“You help me by doing what I tell you,” she spat.
“I can still trust you, can’t I, Koar?” Her face twisted with suspicion and fury.
“I can’t take another betrayal right now.
I already need a new bodyguard.” She turned to Neyalim.
“Remind me to make that titan prince, Bayn, my new guard. That should show him his place.” She turned back to me.
“As for you…” Her eyes flashed with madness.
I realized my mistake. I should have waited. She was too worked up after Vyns’ supposed betrayal. If I’d brought this up later, I might have been able to sway her, but right now she was in a state, and no logic could reach her. Trying to talk to her now, like this… was asking for punishment.
I summoned my earth to reinforce my body and bolstered my spirit.
Saldrea slapped me. Even with my enhancements I still staggered a step, head turned. This was the power of the elves. This was why even dragon-kind hadn’t been able to stand against them. They were brutes in pretty bodies, and with their powers of binding and creation they were nigh unstoppable.
“On your knees,” Saldrea hissed. She never had liked looking up at me.
I knelt.
“Defenses down, I want this to hurt.” Her eyes danced with mania.
I sighed heavily and lowered my enhancements… though not all the way.
“Yes, mistress,” I whispered.
She drew out a small knife that she always kept on her. The blade was only a few inches long, but it was dwarven-forged steel. She whispered an incantation, moving her hand over it, probably reinforcing it more.
“If I didn’t need you to be alert and aware of danger, I’d take an eye or an ear,” she said with deathly calm, eyes roaming my face. Then she suddenly smiled, a vicious thing with no mirth in it.
“Instead, I’ll just carve my mark on you, so everyone will know you’re mine.”
Fuck.
She brought the knife to my chin, digging it in and cutting up along my jaw, a jagged line as she giggled.
The pain was intense, but bearable. I was a dragon. It would take more than this to break me.
Saldrea drew the knife up to my cheek and smiled as she carved — what I guessed was — her house seal onto my flesh: a leaf with a chain around it.
When done, she slapped me on my bloody cheek. With my defenses lowered, the hit sent me to the cobbled path.
She knelt next to me, thumb digging into my wounded cheek.
“I’m binding this onto you,” she whispered. “It will never fully heal, always painful. It will weep and bleed and ooze puss and forever remind you who you serve.”
Her power seared into my skin. I gritted through it.
And when she finished, she rose and smiled down at me like I was a puppy.
“Isn’t he cute, girls?” she cooed.
“Ugly as sin, but that’s nothing new,” Hana said with a laugh.
“You’re one sick fuck,” Golana said.
Saldrea spun and slapped her so hard — the dwarven woman completely unprepared — Golana spun a full turn before collapsing.
Saldrea laughed and began skipping back to her residence.
I rose and helped Golana up. She had a split lip and a dazed look in her eyes, and dwarves were nearly as tough as elves.
“She’s insane,” Golana hissed.
“You said it, not me,” I whispered back.
But it was true. Saldrea was far from stable. And the really sad truth was, she was a thousand times more level-headed than her mother. The two of them were going to destroy Seial.
And, unless I did something, I’d be complicit, helping them ruin a nation.
Perhaps it was time I broke the only vow that meant anything to me.
Perhaps, finally, Saldrea had gone too far.