Chapter 8 In Reverence #2
Enormous. At least fourteen feet at the shoulder, tusks like swords, foam spilling from its jaws. Its eyes are bloodshot, glazed with pain and rage. Arrows pierce its flanks. One leg drags—yet it charges, undaunted. Wild. Deadly.
The men hold spears pointed toward the beast. Their faces are tensed in anger and focus, slick with sweat in the rising sun, their feet slipping in the mud. One of the warriors throws his spear with a mighty bellow. It bounces off the animal’s thick hide like a toothpick.
The boar squeals and shrieks so loud that I sink to my knees to cover my ears. It throws its head, rears up on its hind legs, then kicks out with its uninjured back hoof. A soldier flies through the air, tossed like a doll. Another barely rolls aside in time.
These faceless soldiers aren’t mine, but they are his. They have been kind to me. Silent in the face of my strange ways. I do not wish to see their blood spilled.
My heart seizes. I almost cry out to them—terrified for them all—when a black blur flies into the fray.
The figure jumps. Not like a man. Much higher, far above the boar’s head.
Magic cracks like thunder, exploding outwards and shaking the grass.
The shape crashes down on top of the boar’s head, forcing the beast back onto all four legs.
Steel glints in the sunlight.
Not blades.
Armor.
Black as night.
His.
Kailorien brings his knee down mid-jump, smashing into the boar’s snout.
It shrieks and twists. He leaps again, landing on its back, straddling it with his mighty thighs as he rips one of the spears from its hide with one hand.
Swinging his leg, he jumps down and lands on the ground. His weight sprays mud everywhere.
The boar whirls around, half blind, and swings its tusks at the Resh’Agar.
I cover my mouth to keep from screaming.
Kailorien doesn’t blink. He thrusts the spear into the creature’s eye, and while the beast squeals and squirms, he grabs its colossal tusk with his bare hands.
His shoulders flex, chest heaving as he twists to the left and wrenches the boar’s massive head sideways with a crack that echoes through the clearing.
I watch—horrified, entranced—as his eyes light up with something I’ve never seen before.
Bloodlust.
Madness.
His irises—once blue—flare with a terrible red. Crimson as the beast’s blood spraying onto his body.
The men behind him begin to chant: “Resh! Resh! Resh! Resh!”
The rhythm of it sounds like pounding war drums. The voices rise to fever pitch. Devoted. Worshipping. Euphoric.
The boar’s neck turns at an unnatural angle. It falls to the ground as Kailorien smiles. But the beast doesn’t stay down. It lurches upwards. Roars, spins, coming at him with a full-body lunge. He doesn’t move back. He steps in. Raises his leg and kicks, shattering its skull.
“Resh!” Zarrek’s voice, somewhere behind him. “Let it fall!”
Still gripping the tusk, Kailorien twists his entire torso—and with a sound like splintering stone, he shatters it.
The beast screams.
“Resh! Resh! Resh! Resh!”
I don’t even see him draw his blade.
And that’s when he strikes. A single, brutal, upward slash beneath the throat. Another to the hind leg. The final one—across the eyes. The boar collapses in a heap of twitching muscle and steam. Dead.
The chanting stops. The clearing goes quiet, save for heavy breathing and the fluttering gasp of leaves above.
Kailorien stands over the carcass, chest rising and falling, sword still humming in his grip.
He doesn’t roar. Doesn’t turn to the men for praise.
He shouts for healers. Checks who was injured first. Directs men to carve the carcass and preserve the meat.
The red leaves his eyes, melting back to familiar blue.
I can finally breathe again.
After the dust settles and the wind stops singing of the Resh’Agar, I sit on a low bench beside Zarrek in the heart of the camp. The heat of a fire warms my legs as smoke curls high into the dusk. The men laugh. Singing. Drinking. Celebrating.
They haven’t been this loud in days.
It took hours to process the carcass enough to serve a meal.
While the workers toiled, the Reskala started a great bonfire.
Morale skyrocketed after Kailorien’s display.
Mold had destroyed a good deal of the company’s rations, and this hunt is a ray of hope for many.
Men work to split up the boar into usable resources. Every bit is saved and protected.
Zarrek elbows me. “That kill’s raised their spirits. Good thing we have a god on our side, eh?”
"Is that what he is?" I ask.
"That's what most of 'em think, and that's enough," Zarrek says.
Curled up with my arms wrapped around my legs, I drift in the memory of the fight.
My heart lingers somewhere in the clearing, stumbling over memories of how his hands had crushed bone.
Those same hands that brush aside hair from my face.
The same ones I haven’t stopped thinking about since morning.
Beg for me, starlight.
I bite my lip. Readjust myself so I curl in tighter.
“Are you all right?”
I start when the voice from my memories and Kailorien’s true voice overlaps. He stands above me, his shadow blocking out what was left of the retreating sun. In his hands, he holds out a plate.
Sliced meat, tender and small. Perfect cuts.
He says nothing. Just hands it to me.
Zarrek watches the exchange. Then, grinning, says under his breath, “You know…that’s the softest part. Barely needs chewing. You don’t carve that unless you’re trying to make someone feel cared for.”
I flush at the implication. Not at the thought that Kailorien singled me out somehow, but at that word. Care. Something about it is too soft. Too vulnerable.
Zarrek smirks, stands, and wanders off.
Kailorien glances at Zarrek’s retreating back then looks my way again. His hand brushes my cheek—then tips my chin upward. I let him. Always. The thought of pushing his hands away is an unpleasant thing, even now that I know what they can do in violence.
His black hair is untied, tousled by wind and battle. His entire face comes into sharp relief against the world’s song. Stormy eyes peer into my very soul. Hawk-like. Overwhelming.
“Are you all right?” he asks, “you look flushed.”
I try to speak. “You…cut the pieces very small.”
He glances at the plate. A pause. His thumb moves along my cheek. Down. To the corner of my mouth. My skin hurts in the wake of it, like he’s trailing fire down my skin. His gaze drifts from my eyes downward, too. To my nose. Then farther. Until my face burns.
“Because your mouth is small.”
Time stops.
I wait for his eyes to return to mine. For some kind of regret to pool in them at what he’d just uttered. But there is none. He looks at me without apology. Straight. Sure.
His hand drops away from my face, and my heart fills with regret at the loss.
Zarrek returns, now holding a bowl of dried fruit. “Here. Before you pass out.”
I smile awkwardly, take it, then frown. Before Zarrek can speak, Kailorien reaches out again, plucking the bowl from my hands.
“She doesn’t like these,” he says, picking out the nuts one by one and eating them himself. He returns the bowl. Simple. Natural. Like breathing.
“You remembered?” I whisper.
“After watching you leave them all over the tent for the last few weeks, how could I not?”
I struggle to take another breath.
It’s too much.
He is too much.
I stand. Mumble something.
And run.
I don’t know where I’m going, only that if I stay another second, I might burst into flames. He might even watch me burn without blinking. All the while, his voice follows me in memory. Commanding—no, demanding—that I beg for more.
And the worst part?
I want to.
Even now.
Even as I flee.
I don’t run far, but by the time I reach the bank of the Serevyn, my breaths are shallow, my head light.
Lately, I tire too easily, no matter how carefully I ration my magic.
A nuisance, this small and fragile shell.
Though I cannot remember the shape I was before I woke, I know it was not this—this form that hungers, thirsts, shivers in the cold.
The river welcomes me like it always does—quiet, silver, still. I step closer, drawn by habit, by comfort, by something older than either. My fingers hover over the water’s surface, trembling.
“Serevyn-sola’ren,” I whisper. “I see you.”
The river murmurs back, gentle and knowing. Without mana, the words blur and fade, like a voice shouting through a curtain of rain. I touch the water, smiling at its steady pulse.
It keeps murmuring. Some things come through. Others don’t. Within its tales of mountains, snow, and melting ice, it tells me of the coming Dark. Of things crawling from its depths.
Taking a breath, I exhale mana towards the water. Sharing what I can. Embracing it. But I can do no more. Just that small task makes me dizzy.
“Forgive me, friend. I must save my strength for when it’s needed.”
I sit on the bank, pull my knees to my chest, and let the cold seep into my bones. It’s better this way. Better than the heat I’ve carried since the feast fire. Better than the strange, helpless ache lodged between my thighs since reading the journal.
Ever since I’d stopped the Serevyn from claiming the company more than two weeks ago, my stamina has dwindled steadily downwards. My body is drawn, too light one moment and too heavy the next. Even speaking with Astenos leaves me winded. And my dreams…
Dark things lurk in them now. Shadows descending. A shiver races down my spine. I press my palms to my ears.
‘She doesn’t understand what she is…What she does to me…
Auryn…beg for me.’
His voice isn’t in the wind. It isn’t memory. It’s inside me. A tremor curls through my chest, and my hands drop to my lap, shaking. I don’t know how long I sit like that, drowning in the echo of his words—both spoken and unsaid. Until—
“You’ll freeze if you sit here much longer.”
I gasp and turn. Kailorien crouches beside me, unfastening his cloak. He doesn’t ask. Just drapes it over my shoulders and reaches for my hands.
He brings them to his mouth.
Breathes hot air over my skin.
His warmth clings to my fingers, soft and damp. I watch him, mesmerized, as though seeing his face for the first time. The lines. The scars. The tenderness in his eyes.
“Your hands are ice,” he murmurs, frowning.
I nod mutely.
“You’re shaking. Come. Let’s go to the fire.”
I shake my head. “I’m all right.”
He tilts his head. “You’ve been shivering lately, even when you aren’t straining yourself.”
A pause.
“I have?”
He helps me stand, his hands firm and sure. “Since the river. And you didn’t eat tonight, either. I’ve set aside food for you in the tent. And a bath.”
I look past him, out toward the silver drift of the Serevyn. “I’m not like your men, Kailorien. I can’t fall ill. Or hurt my feet on nettles. I heal.”
He raises a brow.
“You don’t have to protect me,” I whisper. “Even today. I didn’t help with the boar. It doesn’t feel right. Eating it.”
He stares at me a moment longer, and then his voice lowers—steady, reassuring. “Auryn,” he says, “you don’t need to prove yourself to anyone. You don’t have to earn your place.”
He steps closer.
“As far as I’m concerned, you already have.”