Chapter 3 #2
Orla and Rhyan had met as cadets. She was sparring with a fellow cadet at the time, a menacing female a whole foot taller than Orla who thoroughly kicked her ass.
The female, Aleaxi, had landed hit after hit on Orla, using her superior size and her ability to absorb power from another creature to her advantage as she knocked Orla to the ground.
As she lay in the mud pit towards the middle of the training grounds, all of sixteen years old, she heard a chuckle coming from the other side of the clearing.
Rhyan was tall and lanky with dark skin, a few shades darker than Orla’s, close-cropped coily hair, elegant pointed ears and dark feathered wings; every bit the version of what an Elven warrior should be.
He walked over and held out his hand to pull her from the ground.
“That was embarrassing,” he said with a wry smile.
She let out a slight huff in assent, not wanting to agree too hardily that he was right.
“You’re strong, I will give you that. But you have no idea how to use your size to your advantage.
” He looked her over in an assessing gaze.
It was not the gaze that many of the other cadets or warriors looked at her with.
One of derision or lust. It was the look of someone who saw something deeper, the potential of the half nymph standing before him.
“And let me guess, you can help,” she said guardedly, not fully trusting that this obvious Elven warrior would truly see potential in her.
“I could.”
“What do you want for it?” She knew how Elves worked. He wouldn’t be offering her help without thinking he could get something out of it himself. His reply shocked Orla.
“I don’t want anything; it just seems like you could use the help.”
The next day he started giving her tips on how to move, ways to use an opponent’s size against them.
Ways that she could deflect their strikes from above while not always being on the defensive.
Over the next several moons, he had taught her the ways to use a dagger and a short sword, instructing her on when each weapon was most effective.
Rhyan’s father was the second son of a duke and had been a general in the king’s army. He grew up with a knowledge of weapons and fighting. Shockingly, the severe-looking male was anything but; he laughed easily and often and enjoyed relaxing with the other cadets.
Being friends with Rhyan Alder was as easy as breathing, and they spent the next ten years always by each other’s side. During training or battle, he put on his serious mask, but the levity in his eyes always returned when the fighting was done.
During their two years of training, they met Cessly.
Like Orla, Cessly was one of the few magical creatures in the king’s army that wasn’t Elven.
She was a witch, who could use spells to her advantage in battle.
Orla and Cessly bonded over being creatures that one didn’t typically see in the army.
Despite witches being immensely powerful, the Elves of Emmental were rarely kind to them, fearing the vastness of witch magic as a threat to Elven superiority.
Elves had specific magics they were born with and lesser magics that they could practice. But a witch’s magic was only bound by their imaginations, and the spells, potions, or runes they wielded.
Cessly put on a sweet demeanor, with her light brown skin, heart-shaped face, and kind hazel eyes, but underneath that she was ruthless.
The three of them made a formidable group.
Orla had never had a friend before; she had always been an outcast in her small Elven village.
The half-nymph girl with no mother and a father who was foolish enough to fall in love with a creature who would never love him back.
But Ryhan and Cessly never made Orla feel less than, and over the years, they had found that they made a wonderful and deadly team on the battlefield.
For all of Rhyan’s gentleness off the battlefield, he was ferocious while fighting.
Using a combination of superior fighting skills and Elven magic, many found him to be untouchable.
There had been rumors that the two were lovers.
That that was why a nymph had lasted so long and risen in the ranks of the king’s army. But those were just rumors.
Orla did love Rhyan, more deeply than she had ever loved anyone, but that love wasn’t romantic. Rhyan was simply her person, in the same way that she was his.
* * *
“Lady Orla, it is a pleasure to have you back in Imsil,” a high voice from behind called to her.
Dame Yanez came striding up to Orla from the adjoining corridor, her curly black hair braided in a coronet on her head.
Her tawny skin dewy; clearly, she had come from training on the palace grounds.
Her taloned hands were a contrast to the softness of the female.
“Yanez, looks like you started training early.”
“No earlier than you used to,” she said with a smile.
“Are you here to join us? I heard that the heir to the Kingdom of Edam was visiting the palace. The king has increased those of us in his guard. They say the meeting is friendly, but one can never trust the Edamish.” she said, looking over her shoulder conspiratorially.
“Yes, I heard the heir was here, but no, I won’t be joining you all.
I’m here at the request of King Mikki. Smoothing diplomatic relations and all that.
” Orla tried to make it all seem casual, not wanting to give away how nervous she felt about being in the palace, dressed in full armor, or how much she wanted to pick at her cuticles for something to do with her hands.
“That’s too bad, those bastards would never know what hit them with you on the guard. The stories told about you at Fontina, if I had that power, I’d kill the heir the second I saw them. I heard almost no one left the battlefield when you were done with them. You must have felt so powerful.”
Yanez said all this in earnest, but Orla could no longer hear what the younger female was saying. The blood began to pulse in her ears, and she started seeing double. The taller woman swayed in Orla’s vision as her heart started pounding in her chest.
“Good to see you, Yanez, but I am running late,” Orla said, cutting Yanez off.
She hurried down the hall and into a small alcove. Pressing her face against the cool window of the alcove she forced herself to breathe. Yanez hadn’t meant any harm, but the look of wonder in her eyes as she recounted the worst thing Orla had ever done was too much.
Didn’t she know Orla was a monster? She had let the people that matter down, she had killed them, but all these people at court saw was a hero.
It made her sick. A sheen of sweat broke out on Orla’s upper lip.
She suddenly felt entirely too hot, but she had to get it together.
She was only a few more minutes from the throne room, and she couldn’t be late for the meeting with the king and the Edamish heir.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to move farther down the corridor.
I can do this, she thought, over and over again.
If she thought it enough, maybe it would become true.