513
Irron coughs up blood onto his lips, his brows crinkle in confusion when his arms lose their strength and drift away from her head. Mora grabs onto his shoulders shoves him off. She stands in time to watch the life drain out of his eyes. She spits the last of his blood from her mouth, wiping it off on the back of her arm.
All around her, soldiers drop their weapons, snapping out of the enchantment that Irron’s blood had over them. They fall to their knees, arms up in surrender. Shouts of victory ring out across the field but Mora doesn’t care; she stumbles over to Rick’s body. Refusing to admit that he is gone, she tries to shake him again, screaming his name with her hoarse voice.
She rips his leather armor off, tearing his shirt in half to expose his chest. His wound still bleeds bright red blood all over his skin. Flashes of her own blood on the white dress, matted in her hair and on Rick’s lips tear through her mind. Without even thinking, she swiftly bites her tongue so hard that she almost severs it from her body, the blood rushes into her mouth. She leans over him, pouring her blood and saliva into his wound. She presses her lips against his body, urging her Sceaduian heritage to work its magic. She can feel his skin move beneath her lips. She pulls back and before her eyes she watches the wound heal itself, growing closed until there is nothing left but blood on smooth flesh.
Expectantly, Mora looks up to Rick, holding his head in her hands. She whispers to him, “Rick? Rick! Come back-I love you.”
There is no response.
Slowly, she loses the grip on her control. Her body, trembling with loss, falls over him and she buries her head into Rick’s chest. Her shoulders heave with sobs. Her heart aches as if it was the one that was stabbed. She wills herself to die because even though they won the war, she has lost everything she has ever loved.
She feels a tug on her shoulders, as if someone is trying to pull her away from him. She shrugs it off, clinging tightly to Rick’s body, refusing to let go of him. The hand comes back persistently, fingers wrapping into her hair to tug her head away. She blinks through tears, no longer caring who sees her cry but wanting to know who would dare try to separate them.
Mora sees something bright blue. When her vision clears, the bright blue splits into two-two blue eyes that stare right back at her. Heart swooning, she thinks she has died because she looks upon Rick’s calm face. When his hands wipe away her tears, she knows she is still alive. And so is he.
He smiles gently at her, “What’s the matter beautiful, cat got your tongue?”
A sob racks her body when she presses her lips to his. Rick’s arms constrict around her, his mouth covering hers, tasting the warmth of her blood. Gently, he pulls away from her, his large hands caressing her face. She sniffles in relief, her aching, broken body flopping back onto the grass next to him.
“I’m sorry I killed you,” she says quietly, her voice quivering while she tries to regain control of her emotions.
“I-I am not entirely sure what happened. I didn’t want to hurt you, but it was like I had no say over my own body,” his voice is unnerved.
Rick forces himself to his feet before leaning down and gathering her up in his arms. He tries to carry her but she insists that he set her down. Painfully, she stands on her own two feet; Greystar rushes over, almost knocking her back down when he nuzzles his head into her stomach. Resting her forehead on his, she gently strokes his cheek and pulls on his ear, assuring the beast that she is more or less alive.
Officer Jackson gallops over, dismounting his horse when he reaches Mora; his face is wrought with concern, his wary glance at Rick makes it clear that he witnessed their fight, “Queen Namora-are you all right?”
“I will live,” she replies, attempting to mount Greystar but her injured leg impedes the process; Rick’s large hands circle her waist and he lifts her up onto the saddle. Mora ignores Jackson’s wide eyes, issuing him an order instead, “Surround Irron’s body-absolutely no one touches it, do you understand?”
With his fist over his heart, he bows his head, “Yes, my Queen. Advisor Laren just arrived.” He nods towards the public road leading from Derven, before gathering some soldiers to follow her order.
The Meadow is strewn with dead bodies, injured men, broken weapons and clusters of enemies surrounded by the remaining Derven and Sceduian soldiers. The groups within sit on the ground or kneel, though she is shocked to see not only Alumenians in gold, but also men in black who were forcibly turned against their allies.
Mora urges Greystar forward slowly; she can see the King Wallace, his son and another man come towards her from the left, Queen Sheynne and Kelvin from the front and Laren from her right. Rick walks alongside her horse, before they stop and wait for the others to approach. He glances up at her, his hand trailing along the red battle armor over the horse’s mane, “Red is a very fetching color on you, Queen Namora.”
Looking down at him, she finds the formality of her title sounds odd in his deep voice. Rick leans his face forward, pressing his lips into the knife wound in her thigh; she feels the tightness as her body heals and the skin regrows under his lips. When it is done, he sincerely looks up into her eyes, “Will you marry me?”
A smile crosses her lips but before she can reply the others join their party; Mora addresses Laren first, “Have the women guard the prisoners. Send the fresh men that arrived with you to attend to the bodies; return the fallen Alumenian soldiers to the opposite side of the public road, the Geofens further down, Sceduians close to the forest and our people closer to Derven. Gather any healers among the Derven and have them attend to the wounded.” Laren nods his head, before speaking to the officers behind him; Mora addresses the King Wallace and Queen Sheynne, “Do you have any healers?”
“We have a few,” the King replies, before directing his son to pass along the orders.
“We heal ourselves,” Sheynne says coldly.
Mora draws in a deep breath, addressing Kelvin, “Fine, have your men start healing those amongst the prisoners.”
His voice is strained as he fights to be respectful of her new position, “That is not how we deal with prisoners. Punishment is death.”
When the Wallace draws in a breath to argue, Mora cuts him off, the sharpness of her voice making it clear that her wishes will be followed, “Do as I say.”
Kelvin glances at Sheynne; she addresses Mora, “Queen Namora, it is not within my country’s best interest to harbor traitors. Those of my men that betrayed us will be killed in alignment with our customs.”
“You would kill your own son too?” Mora snaps; before Sheynne answers, she continues, “Our countries have kept secrets from one another-there is an explanation for their actions and they are not to be harmed for something beyond their control.”
“Please, enlighten us, Queen Namora,” Prince Philip says calmly, trying to ease the tension of the group, “I know I, for one, would like an explanation as to how my leg was healed.”
Sheynne shifts uneasily on her saddle, clearly not about to explain the secrets of her country to them but Rick speaks instead, “It is true that Sceadu values its privacy, however it is evident that our ways are very, very foreign to you. We have the ability to survive for months at a time without food, our only sustenance is a wine that is harvested from a special source within our lands. The wine is very similar to blood and our bodies have adapted to drink blood as a viable option to the wine. Not all of us can live this way, it takes time and training to become what we call a creature of the darkness. Once we have obtained our goals, it not only frees us of the need for food, but it gives us the ability to see very well at night, to move quickly and quietly and to instantly heal wounds when our blood is mixed with our saliva. The downside to becoming a creature of the darkness is that we have an aversion to direct sunlight-it feels as if it burns our skin. And when we drink the blood instead of wine, it tends to make us lose a grip on our conscience causing us to become more savage.”
Wallace, Philip and the other man with them who Mora takes to be their Advisor, all look stunned, neither having heard this before. Laren, on the other hand, remains stoic as ever.
“You knew this? How long?” King Wallace demands of Mora.
“I’ve known for a while,” she admits. After a pause, she continues, “Yesterday, on his deathbed, my father confessed another secret to me. My mother was an immortal,” she ignores the chuffs of everyone. “She fled her home in Sceadu because she was being hunted by another immortal-King Irron. She did the only thing she could, to keep my father and I safe, by taking her own life. My father expressed to me that I was the only one left with the power to kill him, and that an immortal’s blood is infectious-anyone who drinks it becomes a mindless being, at the whim of the immortal. That is how he controlled his country, how his soldiers fought so meticulously synchronized and why after Advisor Kelvin called for the creatures of the darkness to drink, they all turned on us.” She gives Kelvin a harsh look, “So, as you can see, the prisoners had no control over their actions. They should not be killed for King Irron’s control.”This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.
“It is true,” Rick says softly, “after I heard the cry, I drank from the body of an Alumenian soldier. I saw everything that happened, but no matter how hard I tried it was as if my body responded to someone else’s command-I attacked Queen Namora,” he shamefully admits. “Her stubborn determination to not kill me is the only reason why I am still alive.”