Chapter 13
O ne hand cradled the back of her head as the other wrapped around the small of her back and pulled her closer to him with needful lust. His tongue was in her mouth, taking his liberties, exploring as much as he pleased.
To her surprise, she met his sexual aggression and grasped at his chest, feeling the tension in his muscles, the flex of power beneath his skin.
She let him into her mouth and slipped her tongue around his, meeting his forceful thrusts with light caresses.
This made him moan in the back of his throat, and the sound awoke something in her, something that had long been suppressed and denied.
His head leaned to the other side, and his body pressed closer to her.
He gripped tighter, and his kissing became more intense as he turned to her neck, trailing his lips down further.
His other hand lowered from her back to cup her ass as he pressed his hips into her.
She felt him—hot, hard, undeniable—and reached down. Gods help her, she wanted to stroke it.
But her hand froze.
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t get caught up in the moment when this close, almost to the point of no return. And this was Shikra, the assassin who killed Lindana.
“I can’t," she said with an intake of air and broke from the kiss, pushing herself away from him and his sweet temptations.
He stood there with his eyes still glazed from his lingering arousal, but that retreated the farther she pushed herself from him. He did not force himself on her after she broke away from him, but a quiet, longing expression replaced the previous rush of excitement on his face.
“I need … time.” She had to turn from him to stop the pounding of her heart. Her lips throbbed, and an aching need lingered as heat still coursed through her veins.
She kissed Shikra. Let him touch her. She’d touched him, and her traitorous body wanted more, but her mind kept answering with a resounding “no” to its futile wishes.
“I’d quite like to know what just happened.”
The kissing? It’d happened so fast and without a second thought. They had just instantly gravitated toward each other with the same desperate need.
Life or death moments are said to evoke other passionate feelings, or so she’d heard. But she wouldn’t tell him that. Then, that meant a part of her had wanted it. “I don’t know what that was,” she answered, breathing slowly returning to normal.
Well, that was a half-truth, at least.
He shook his head. “Nothing short of a miracle, I’d say. I didn’t know I had it in that good with the gods. So far, they’ve shown me nothing but indifference or ambivalence at best.”
Oh. He was talking about what happened with the minotaurs. Of course, how could she forget? “I don’t know much about that either.”
He gave her a curious look with a smirk forming on the side of his mouth. She ignored it, not wanting to feel the pull of his charm again.
“I don’t know exactly what happened, or why it happened,” she sighed, gathering herself. “I just … prayed to the gods to save you. Well, one God in particular.”
“You prayed for me?” There was a slight confusion in his voice.
She looked up at him, trying not to get lost in his dreamy eyes. Why did he have to look at her like that? “Yes.”
He stepped forward and kissed her again, but gently this time, without urgency. It wasn’t lustful or desperate. She was transported next to a crackling fire, wrapped in his embrace. She felt safe, wanted, desired, and another emotion she outright denied the existence of.
It was too cruel. She pulled back. “I’m not … ready.”
Why was it Shikra who brought out these feelings in her, especially those long gone from her life, being long since denied?
If it had been anyone else, she’d have wantonly thrown herself into this like throwing ashes into the wind, letting it carry her as it may.
She had repressed this need far too long, and now that it started to surface, she was losing control.
Why did she have to have these feelings for the assassin who murdered Lindana? Why couldn’t it have been someone else, someone more deserving?
She needed time to think and anchor herself.
“A maiden of pure heart.”
“Hmm?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Just something I heard long ago. I doubt it means anything.” He went to pick up his dagger, which he’d unceremoniously flung to the ground.
“Are you hurt?” she asked, stepping toward him. “I can heal you.”
“No.” He sheathed his dagger and stood back up with ease. “Completely healed, inside and out.”
“Was that really a miracle?” she pondered. “Do the gods ever intervene with prayer?”
“I’m not in that line of work, if you hadn’t noticed.” His look was jovial, even though his tone was not. He still sounded shaken, or rather in awe. “I wouldn’t know. You work at a temple, surely your knowledge is better than mine.”
That’s right. She did know something of the gods. She was no priestess, but she had learned some things while at the temple. “I know Lin… the high priestess had prayers every morning that kept the Flame of Neverending Light burning.”
“Making a flame burn constantly?” he said with a huff. “That’s nothing compared to what happened here. Those minotaurs were swallowed up by holy fire, combusting instantly, and I was healed at the same time. I’d like to know what happened. Something like that’s bound to be useful.”
“I don’t know … I doubt it was because of me, though.”
He reached out, tilting her chin up gently.
She found herself lost in his eyes again, which didn’t seem cold anymore. They were warmer, brighter, like bloodstone gems shining in the sun, even in this dingy, light-starved labyrinth.
“How I very much want to kiss you again.”
His sanguine eyes sparkled, and his voice was like velvet, teasing and seductive, sending shivers up her spine.
“But,” he said with a slight frown. “If I did, I fear I could not stop myself. My need for you is too great. You are not ready yet, and I do not wish to scare you.”
He released her. Though she should have felt relief for the calming of her heart, an ache formed where his touch had been.
“For it overwhelms me sometimes.” He said these words softly in a whisper as he headed up the stairs leading out of the labyrinth.
She followed behind him, giving him space.
They were in a high-ceilinged cave, and streams of sunlight beamed down on them from light shafts high above. The brilliant white light cut through the darkness like the fingers of a god. They must be getting closer to the surface.
“That voice,” she spoke after a little while of going up wide stone steps cut from the rock walls. “It’s gone. Whatever it was.”
“It gave up on its attempts to punish us.”
“Let us hope so. We did not partake of its treasure. Hopefully, it leaves us in peace.”
The stairs came to an end at a platform. She walked up behind Shikra, who had stopped and was looking at something beyond her view.
The first thing she noticed was how vast the cavern was.
Its limits were nowhere to be seen. The immediate next thing was the light, almost blinding at first because her time spent in the Evergloom made her sensitive to it.
There was a cave entrance above them, way too high for them to get to, but it spread glorious light down into the cavern below, which illuminated the last thing she saw and, because of its enormity, should have been the first thing—a subterranean lake.
Below where the light streamed in, the lake was a dark sapphire color, but where the light did not reach, it was black and depthless.
But these amazements were not what Shikra looked upon. She followed his gaze down the descending stairs from the platform to the gray, cold shore of the lake. In front of it stood an elf cloaked in dim light. He stood there solemnly, as if waiting for them.
Shikra descended the stairs first, putting himself between her and the mysterious elf. He raised his hand, signaling her to stay behind.
Chivalrous, wasn’t he? She let him play pretend at being her knight. If anything, it would give her a chance to launch a surprise attack should the elf try anything.
“The maiden who roused the great God.”
As the mysterious elf said these words, Aelrie cautiously peered over to study him. A Wood Elf with long dark brown hair, bark brown skin, wearing a diadem of tender intricate branches woven in a plaited pattern upon his brow and dressed in a robe of dark green stitched with silver thread.
“Who are you and what do you want with us?” Shikra asked in a sharp and dark voice. He stared the Wood Elf down. Intimidation, he was good at that.
“Be at ease.” The Wood Elf held up his arms as if to stay Shikra’s wrath. “I come here not to fight, but to help you.” It was the same voice as the one from the labyrinth. “I am the spirit of the Tree of Light.”
The tree in the cavern. The treasure at the end of the labyrinth .
He gestured to a small boat next to him. It was made for two and had oval-shaped oars. “This will get you across the lake. From there, there is a cave that will lead you out.”
Aelrie stepped out from behind Shikra and stood next to him to address this tree spirit who took the form of a Wood Elf. “Why do you help us now when you tried to kill us in the labyrinth?”
“Maiden,” he said, looking directly at her. She didn’t like being called that, but was not going to argue over semantics with a tree spirit. “I may have powers in my own right, but even I know it is not wise to defy the will of Freyr.”
Freyr, the God of all Elves.
“You speak in riddles,” she replied, warily eyeing him for deceit. “Tell us what you mean.”
The spirit of the Tree of Light narrowed his eyes at her, preparing his response with a look of vague contempt written on his face, but, in contrast, his tone of voice held slight amusement. He obviously did not have many dealings with mortals before.
“Only a prayer from a maiden of pure heart can rouse the great God, Freyr. I didn’t know education was so lacking in elves these days.”
The story of Reelia, a maiden of pure heart and virtue.
Said to have destroyed an entire unit of Dark Elf soldiers and revived every member of her village slain in the raid because of her prayer to Freyr.
This was a story from long ago, sometime during the war between Light Elves, then known as Ljósálfar, and Dark Elves, known as Dokkálfar .
“Of course, I know the story of Reelia of Faelorien.” She did not want to take offense at the tree spirit, no matter how much she disliked it. Elves were taught to be respectful to the spirits of trees if they ever encountered them. “I want to know what this has to do with me.”
The tree spirit gave her an incredulous look. “You mean you truly do not know?”
She blinked in confusion at him.
He sighed, giving up on explaining to her any further. “I have done my part,” he then said and gazed up, not upon them, but seemingly to another who was not present. “See, I helped them.” He gave Aelrie one last look, a rather long stare, and then disappeared before their eyes.
When she looked back at Shikra, she nearly jumped in surprise. He had been quiet the whole time, so she wondered what he was thinking about after all this. His eyes were wide and his mouth slightly open, and he stared at her in what she could only guess was utter shock.