Chapter 39
Darrow
“Wake up, you big oaf,” said a very annoyed female.
I cracked my eyes open to find a woman with emerald eyes, golden skin, and light-brown hair trailing to her waist, staring down at me with a scowl. Since I had known her for decades, I also knew she was almost as tall as me in her standard form.
“Hello, Ori.”
“We’ve fucked all of a few times—years ago, yet you think you can sleep on my bed whenever you want?” She crossed her arms, muscles flexing. “You’re good, but we both got what we needed, and I had my fill. Plus, aren’t you married now?”
I gave her a disgruntled look. “My wife is more than enough for me—don’t worry about that.”
Ori was the one who taught me how to mix pain and pleasure to work through difficult memories and guilt. She’d needed it for her reasons, and I’d needed it for mine. While we didn’t know all of each other’s secrets, we knew enough.
“Then why are you here?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Karganoth invaded Zadrya.
I went to check on Damwith Prison and ran into trouble.
This was the nearest location I could reach to rest.” Ori knew about my ability to teleport and how it exhausted me when used too much.
She didn’t know about the king’s brother, though, and I saw no reason to inform her yet.
The shapeshifter had enough of her own problems, especially being one of only three of her kind remaining in all of Paxia.
They’d suffered a brutal genocide of their kind centuries ago.
The woman I spoke to now was the last female.
She had larger bones and more muscle than elf women, and though she could have chosen to make herself appear thinner, her current form was her natural one.
She moved to the small kitchen in the corner. Except for a connecting bathroom at the back, her entire living space was in one room. The cabin was quaint and rustic, but she’d always said it served her needs well enough, and she didn’t want anything more.
The shapeshifter began heating a tea kettle over her small stove.
“Yeah, I noticed the bastards running around trying to be menacing. Yesterday, I went out hunting and killed a deer, but two separate dark elf patrols forced me to hide out for the night. They’re looking for anyone living in the Sobaryan Mountains. ”
Thankfully, Ori’s cabin had a camouflage spell on it, so they shouldn’t find it. “Take care when you’re outside. Some of them have stones that allow them to be invisible.”
“I know,” she said, pulling a bag of dry biscuits from the cabinet. “But that type of magic doesn’t work on me.”
Of course. It had been so long since the subject came up that I’d forgotten.
A shapeshifter could see right through camouflage and invisibility spells.
They were also stronger and faster than most races, and could live for nearly a millennium if no one killed them first. Pairing all that with the fact that they could shift into any living form near their size, give or take about fifty pounds, and they were a race to be feared.
Their original homeland was Karganoth, but when the dark elves decided to conquer the land for themselves, they killed every shapeshifter they could find. Offensive magic worked fine on them, and they healed more slowly than elves. Their enemies had figured it out and took advantage of it.
After many brutal centuries, nearly all of their kind were gone.
With Ori being infertile after the torture she suffered years ago, they’d become entirely extinct before long.
Even if the two males who were left mated with another race, the resulting children would take on the mother’s characteristics, not theirs.
I’d only met them once long ago and had no idea where they resided in Zadrya now.
“Did the patrol see you?” I asked.
She gave me a condescending look. “Of course not, but the deer carcass made it hard to go far without being seen. I’m trying to build up my stores for winter and can’t afford to lose any meat.”
Ori tried to live as self-sufficiently as possible. She only went into fae or Frostdar villages two or three times a year to trade for things she couldn’t acquire or make herself. A short distance from the cabin, she had a cellar where she stored all her meat and other food to preserve it.
“Have you noticed anything else worth mentioning?” I asked.
The tea kettle began to whistle, so she extinguished the flame underneath. Then, she resumed preparing the biscuits with her homemade jam. I remembered the preserves' succulent taste, made from berries she picked in the forest. She mixed several varieties, which worked surprisingly well.
“During the first few days of their invasion, they seemed to murder nearly everyone they found except young children.” She paused to arrange the biscuits on two plates and grab the teacups.
“Now, they only kill those who fight back,” she continued.
“Also, I’m seeing more land dying in the last couple of weeks, which is not making my life any easier.
It leaves me fewer places to hunt, and anywhere the dark elves battle leaves a foul scent in the air that burns my nose and mouth. It’s awful.”
Ori wasn’t one to socialize or spill secrets, but I saved her life long ago, when I was only eighteen.
It was during one of my final winter training trials in Karganoth while I was high up in the Jandopal Mountains.
I’d found her severely wounded, along with her dead parents, mauled by a sharktooth pack.
Few ever survived when that many wolves attacked.
They were very cunning, massive, had teeth like a shark’s, and impressive strength and agility.
Two of the animals were dead when I’d arrived.
I’d killed two more, with the last three choosing to flee after they saw what I could do.
Ori had lain bleeding and probably would have died if I hadn’t staunched her wounds and found shelter for her.
I’d had a few solo tasks during those months, so I checked on her as often as possible and brought her food when I could.
She’d slowly healed—mentally and physically.
We’d become friends over that time, discovering we were a similar age, with her only being three years older.
I’d earned her trust in a way no one else ever had and would never take it for granted.
After my time on Karganoth ended with my parents’ marriage dissolving, I’d helped her move to Zadrya. While I’d informed the king about her, I never told anyone else. He’d given me a location where I could take Ori and provided cover so no one would bother her.
King Worden wasn’t perfect, but he’d been a firm believer in protecting what remained of Paxia’s native races. His Majesty hated what our fae ancestors had done to them. He’d had more plans, but his impending demise left him scrambling to protect what he’d accomplished so far.
I felt his loss to some degree every time I thought of him, but deep inside, I knew that its impact would have been much worse if I had access to my full range of emotions.
He’d believed in me when few others had and given me a chance to prove myself.
My only fear about breaking my curse was that the rush of feelings held at bay would crush me when they returned.
To save Zadrya, and for the sake of my wife, it was a chance I’d have to take.
Ori set the plates and teacups on the table next to her small kitchen. I settled with her into one of the chairs. “I’m working on getting the Naforya Fountain back. With luck, it will be here in the next month or two.”
“How?” she asked, taking a sip from her cup.
“We found the planet where it’s located.”
Ori set the cup down, gaze suddenly intense. “How far away is it?”
“Across the galaxy.” I grabbed one of the biscuits on my plate.
“We believe my wife is capable of opening a portal to reach it, but first we must repair the only ring powerful enough for the job, and get the rune sequence and timing to travel there.” I elaborated further on the details Idwal had given us when we met with him at the library in Tuireen.
“You’ve been busy. How do you know your wife can do it? And isn’t she Therressian? I’m surprised you haven’t killed each other already.”
I smiled as Aella’s face flashed into my mind. “She’s opened every portal on Paxia we’ve had her try, no matter how many wards they had on them. As for her parentage, we’ve worked past that. We get along quite well now—in and out of bed.”
Ori finished chewing a bite. “Impressive. Are her abilities why you married her?”
I swallowed the last of my first biscuit before answering. “Gaining access to Aella’s powers certainly motivated me in the beginning, but it’s more complicated than that. I also discovered later that she’s my true mate.”
The shapeshifter laughed. “Oh, dear nameless ones, no more sleeping around for you then. No wonder there was no heat in your eyes when I woke you this morning. I might have decided I was finished with you, but I nearly took offense.”
“No.” I shook my head. “She’s all I want.” Even when we had the gods inside of us, Aella was my focus. They merely enhanced the passion between us.
“Do you know anything about the planet where you’re going?” Ori asked.
I eyed my last biscuit. “We know there are many humans there, and a lot of dragons. I’ve been told they’re different from the ones on Alavaar, smaller yet more aggressive and carnivorous.
Idwal mentioned the last time I saw him that he found a few lines in one of his texts about shifters, but half the writing had faded beyond their ability to restore it. ”
They tried to keep up with the many thousands of tomes in their library, but not all were retranscribed in time.
The druids could only guess which should take the highest priority.
It was too bad that the small book he found, which was primarily about Earth, had nearly turned to dust before he discovered it behind a row of others.
“There could be shifters there?” she asked, eyes lighting up.
I shrugged. “An old account from more than a thousand years ago claims as much.”
There was no point in getting her hopes up since who knew what had happened to them since then. Still, I wouldn’t hide that detail from her, either.
“I’m going,” she stated.
I stiffened. “It will be dangerous.”
“As opposed to this place? What do I have to lose? All I’m doing is existing now, but if there’s a chance I could find others like me, or even something similar, I can’t miss it.” The loneliness that she always hid showed in the desperation on her face. “Please let me come.”
Ori had never used the word “please” in her life.
Still, I hesitated. Aella would not be pleased, and I’d have to tell her everything about the shapeshifter.
It wouldn’t be fair to her to hide it. Yet how could I deny a long-time friend the chance to find more of her kind—even if it was a small chance?
“Very well.” I gave her a warning look. “But you will be kind to my wife and avoid causing trouble.”
She put both her hands up in innocence. “With you for a husband, your wife already has more than enough to handle. I’ll be the first to offer her assistance if she needs it.”
I relaxed my shoulders. “Good. Now let me finish eating because I have many other places to visit, so I can get an idea of how much damage Karganoth has done and any other trouble they might be causing in Zadrya.”
“Better you than me,” she said, snorting.
Putting aside her insistence on traveling to Earth with us, Ori usually preferred to remain within her small territory.
I enjoyed moving around the land. Staying in one place too long made me irritable and restless.
Checking on my spies and contacts helped me feel like I was doing something useful, so it didn’t bother me in the least. I only wished I could have brought my wife to keep me company along the way.