The Princess and the Blade

[Emora Deen]

Rami broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to hers. Eventually, he drew his gaze to Havitharon and stiffened at his appearance. “I’m Rami Altaran. I’m… a friend. You are?”

Tenara for her part had the sting of tears burning her eyes. “Friend,” she said like it was a joke, barely able to speak for the lump in her throat. She pressed her hands to Rami’s chest, fingers tracing the expensive embroidery around his collar playfully. She patted his chest lightly, stealing his attention from Havitharon and meeting his eyes. "How much did they pay you?"

"Hmm?" Confusion creased his brow. "My new job?"

"How much did Arken pay you to give me up?"

"Tenara..."

"Enough to buy new clothes?"

He slipped away, and his silence was more answer than anything he could have said.

"Enough to move? To get a house? To not have to work ever again? I offered you those things. I asked you to leave the Indigo House and come into the palace."

He chuckled darkly. "And be your personal whore?" His gaze flicked to Havitharon, his mask of bravado barely containing his fear.

[Soran Nightblade]

Personal whore?

Some kind of betrayal?

An awful feeling he couldn't put a name to was swelling in his stomach like a bad meal. How could the man look so terrified of her? It sure sounded like he was some kind of slave who had sold her out to buy his freedom. Havi would have done the same himself. But if everything that happened to Tenara was this man's fault... Anger started to reign over the other emotions warring in his chest, but he had no idea where to aim it. "What is the Indigo House?"

[Emora Deen]

Tenara blinked. "It's a..."

"It's a whore house," Rami said, slipping his hands back into his pockets. "What? That's the truth. It's a pleasure house. I am—was—a whore."

"I... I've never thought of you as that!"

"What?" he asked. "Did you love me? Would you have married me? Made me the next King of Hajara?" His eyes flared with anger and desperation, but no remorse.

She pursed her lips together. That... would not have been so easy. He knew it, and she hadn't wanted to think about it.

"I..." Her voice cracked. She couldn't say it. "Do you know what was done to me?" She snarled. The strangling grip of anxiety snapped, and rage burned in its wake. "All that glittering coin... How much? Did you think to ask for the stars? Tell me, how much is a princess worth to someone rented by the hour?"

He hit her, striking her soundly across the face so hard she lost her balance and fell down in the street, tasting blood in her mouth. Turning watery eyes on Rami looming over her, she expected to find rage, and she did, but it melted into terror. He dropped to his knees.

"Tenara," he breathed, reaching for her. She shrank away from his touch. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Please. Please forgive me. Don't have me killed. Please."

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon's steel grip closed around Rami's reaching hand and twisted it behind his back. He easily hauled the man up to his feet and out of reach of Tenara. "Enough," Havitharon's low voice warned. His eyes had the gleam of obsidian as he frowned at the man squirming against his hold, but he didn't strike him. His gaze flicked to Tenara, crumpled on the street. "Listen, and answer me directly," he spoke just beside the man's ear. "Has this woman ever mistreated you or bent you against your will?"

[Emora Deen]

Rami’s gaze found Tenara, watched her touch the place on her face turning red. There was this dark cloud, this calculating crease to his brow. “Yes,” he finally said. “I fear for my life. Please. Let me go!”

Tenara struggled up to her feet.

“You strung me along for five years! You cold hearted bitch.” Rami snarled. “I was patient. Patient and you couldn’t even give me the one thing I wanted—needed.”

Tenara frowned. What the hell was he talking about??

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon didn't let go. He couldn't quite believe him. It didn't feel true.

Or maybe, he just didn't want it to be true. A few minutes ago, he couldn't imagine Tenara using a whore at all, let alone habitually. She had sworn things weren't like that here. Was it really such a stretch to believe that she lied?

He hated how disappointed the thought made him. He knew better than to yield to such wishful thinking. With a rough movement, he hauled the man a few feet further back from Tenara. "You've chosen to use her as a means to an end. Own that choice. Don't appeal to her as if she should be anything more. She owes you nothing now."

[Emora Deen]

There was murder and hate in Rami’s eyes. She had never seen it before, not from him.

“How did you escape?” He asked, driving home that he had sold her.

He had sold her. He was the reason Arken found her and put her on that ship and… Suddenly the ache in her cheek burned harder.

Tenara felt a sting in her hand, and she looked down at her palm, finding a messy red line slowly healing. She hadn't even felt herself reach for the blade or the power, but now it was there, dancing along the tips of her fingers. Red light bloomed in her eyes, and Rami jumped back.

But there was no amount of space he could claim, no amount of distance he could gain that would stop the anger in her heart from finding him. He'd sold her, and he didn't care. He didn't care about her. All his pretty words had been lies. Manipulations... Why?

The ground beneath her cracked. The walls of his glinting new home split. Tenara's eyes widened at the feel of her power growing, eagerly following the thread of pain and vengeance to freedom.

No. Too much. Too big. Rein it in...

But she couldn't. All she saw was making love to him and him shaking hands with the privateer who stole her away. All she heard was his velvety voice and the sound of coins falling through his fingers. All she felt was his lips on her skin and the cold weight of gold on his back.

The sun disappeared behind a veil of black shadow, as if all the evil and terrors of the world had come to cover the glowing capital of Ighten. The people in the streets screamed and fled into their homes. Tenara watched the shadows cling to the avenue, a living, breathing force that pulsed and shifted with every angry breath she took. She tried to pull it back. To cram it all back into that small, dark place inside her that marked her for what she was—a child of monsters and gods. The grandchild of Verin.

But the magic was chaotic and wrathful, and it would not be quelled. The part of her that wanted vengeance was too loud and too alluring to it. She turned pleading eyes on Havitharon. "Help." It was not apparent whether she was asking for help in calming her power or help with killing Rami.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi froze at the familiar way the atmosphere changed around them. He'd seen her like this before. Was she losing it?

"Help."

Help her what? He wondered how far her power reached. Was it true, what she's discussed with the queen? Could she destroy a whole city?

If he murdered the male blubbering under his grip, would that appease her anger?

Either way, it was best if "Rami" stopped stirring her up until they got this under control. Havi tugged the petrified man backward and struck him with an elbow across the head. The man spun as he collapsed to the ground. He enjoyed hitting him more than he'd expected. Interesting... he could reflect on that later. If there was a later.

"Tenara," he said, approaching her slowly. It was like a nest of shadows were trying to force him away from her. "Tenara!" His hand reached through the thickening air and gripped her shoulder as lightly as he could under the circumstances. The air cleared just enough, and he had a second to notice her expression. She looked miserable. "Hey," he called. He didn't want to touch her, but he made his other hand wrap around her shoulders, securing her in front of him.

[Emora Deen]

She met his eyes, clawing towards the earth and trying to physically pull the magic inward. Instead, the earth cracked more. The cobblestones buckled and pitched and the buildings groaned against the pressure of her power. She was going to do it again. She was going to level a city block.
No.

No.

"I can't," she said, shaking her head as she held his gaze, white hot terror draining the color from her face—all save that bright red handprint on her cheek. It’s sting was a scream in her ear, a wailing plea to harm the one who had twisted her heart to ruin. “I can't." Maybe it was because part of her didn't want to. The wrath in her wanted to splinter apart, and she would. She would...

She was seconds from bursting apart when she thought of something she wasn’t even sure she could do… All of her fathers could teleport. Tenara had never tried. But she had asked how it was done when she was young and curious. She knew the methods each had for going where they wished.

It was hard to focus with the magic roaring in her head and the effort of trying to hold it back. She tried to think of someplace remote. Someplace safe, if she couldn’t get a handle on the madness of her power. She willed herself there, to the quiet emptiness. A thousand flashes of fields and desert dunes and the expanse of oceans entered her mind. She couldn’t focus on just one, so she just willed herself to any of them. She closed her eyes, and they were gone.

A second later, rain drenched her. She had a moment to take in a vaguely familiar meadow before crushing exhaustion stole her grip on the aching pain of her magic and it exploded out of her, traveling a hundred feet beyond where she stood. It cratered the earth beneath her, mowed down the trees and scorched the grass and leaves. She sank into the mud.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi flinched as the girl disappeared from his arms, along with the oppressive atmosphere that surrounded him. He had a moment to look at her former whore's face, to memorize the features she apparently found attractive. He frowned at the smaller man, appraising. To Havi, Rami didn't look like much. He probably wouldn't have survived his first breeding, let alone made it as a whore, on his world. Did Tenara prefer men she could overpower?

He shook his head. What was he thinking right now? He should worry more about finding Tenara. Or maybe the sword would once again-

The thought dropped, unfinished, as a familiar and unpleasant power dragged through him. He tried not to fight the freezing sensation as he was dragged through...somewhere, for much longer than previous times.

No sooner was the air returned to his lungs than a blazing heat ripped it away. Something heavy slammed him backwards, and he vaguely noticed it was a part of a tree. The air swirled with flames and debris around him, but it was quickly growing quiet. Whatever had caused this blast, he had managed to just miss it.

Who was he kidding. There was only on thing that could have caused this explosion. "Tenara!" He called, shoving the tree limb away. Debris and dirt rolled off his clothes as he stood up. She had really moved a lot of material this time. And it wasn't from fear, or to preserve her life. This was Tenara angry. He committed that fact to memory, and called for her again.

He took a few more steps, peering through the slowly clearing air. Something in his body didn't feel right, but there was too much going on to worry about that right now.

He wondered if she was touching the sword right now. If she was.... "Tenara, do you hear?,"

[Emora Deen]

Tenara, do you hear?

Tenara's mind was fog and chaos. Blips of time, both fond memory and terrors. The voice drifted amongst the madness, and it took a second for her to realize the voice was in her head, and not in the air. She clenched her eyes. She tried to force him out, uncertain if he could see or feel what was in her head, not just speak to her across distance.

Get out, she said. Get out. Get out before you see.... The last part she'd said for herself, but she wasn't certain if it had followed along with her request, she wasn't certain what he had access to and she feared him knowing, him peeking behind the curtain of what she kept buried so far down inside her not even she could see it. But it was cracking open now.

"I cared for him. I... trusted him." The sobs came harder now, the truth a sledgehammer to the internal walls she'd tried to build around her trauma—the walls that had kept her going. Living. Moving. Breathing. Walls that helped her survive so she could make it home. She was home now, at least for the most part, and found her place of safety had been poison all along. She released the sword and curled muddy fingers in her braided hair, unable to hold up the wall anymore. It was brittle. Decaying. A cascade of bitter, painful knowing.

Rain began to fill the crater, pooling around her. If she didn't get up, it would slowly swallow her.

They had been happy, in their strange, makeshift relationship. Rami had said so, on every occasion she'd asked him to leave the Indigo House—to be with her, and only her. He loved his job, loved the lifestyle it offered, and she had cared enough about his happiness to overlook his employment—the fact other women took pleasure from him and that he enjoyed giving it. It had been easy to give him that freedom. After all, her family was unconventional. Her mother had the love of three men. Why couldn't Rami find that in others?

Somehow it was all wrong. All twisted up in her head. What had she missed? What had she done?

[Soran Nightblade]

"Get out.....ge-....before you-...."

Her thoughts reached him, albeit fuzzily. It made him wonder how far she'd thrown him. It was hard to see through all the dust and rain. He staggered toward where he thought her mind had come from, but really wasn't sure he was on the right track until he heard her voice. "I trusted him."

The aching tone of those words sent a shiver through him. The thought of expending such trust to someone else was so doomingly self-destructive; he may as well have watched her thread a salted needle through her eye. The idea of it revulsed him.

On top of that, his skin felt hot, like he'd been tied up and left for the sun to destroy. He didn't have time to figure it out. The important thing was to find the girl. He stumbled forward as the ground dipped sharply into a crater in front of him. Unnaturally warm water splashed around his knees as he waded forward toward the source of her voice. He finally made her out, a blurry figure through the rain. She lay drenched on the ground, as if she planned to sink there in the wake of her own explosion. Her hand was still clutching the sword, which was barely a glimmer under the muddy water.

He reached down slowly and grasped her around the shoulders, easing her upward until the water no longer threatened to fill her nostrils.

"Are you hurt?" he asked with grim calm.

The question was a formality. He wouldn't be able to trust her answer, even if she gave one. His left hand slid into the murky water under her and tested deftly along her spine, checking for signs of any spinal injuries so he could decide whether it was safe to lift her.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara worked to stifle her tears, hating them and feeling torn between the pain in her heart and embarrassment at pouring out her feelings in front of Havitharon. But they were stuck together, it seemed, and he would know soon enough how soft she was. She hated that she wasn't someone whose wrath and pain brought silence instead of tears.

Her gaze drifted to Havitharon, wondering what he must think of it all. Of what Rami had said and what she'd done...

She'd promised she wouldn't use the sword—Havitharon—without his permission. That they were partners. They would work together... She hadn't even thought about what she was doing at the time. A subconscious part of her had reached for the weapon at her waist, for the power it offered her... "I'm sorry," she said, shifting her legs beneath her. She pressed a hand to his chest, pushing to stand and wobbling on her weary legs.

[Soran Nightblade]

The alien stood steady while she caught her balance against him. He didn't resist her contact with him, but he didn't acknowledge her apology, either. "Come sit out of the water," he directed her. He paid close attention to the moments of her body as he helped her climb out of the muddy crater her attack had wrought.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara half-climbed and half-clawed her way out of the muddy crater until she reached the ruined field above. She righted herself when they reached the top, swaying on her feet as she tilted her head to the sky and the rain. She held her hand out at her side and let it wash the mud away, trying not to think of Ighten as she looked the devastation over. She hoped she'd pulled it all here, that she hadn't hurt anyone in her grandmother's city, that she hadn't torn down her grandmother's pretty buildings and ruined her streets.

Her knees began to rattle, so she sank and sat a Havitharon instructed.

She wiped her cheeks, as if that would do any good. The rain joined her tears. She ground her teeth together and refused to shed another.

"I need to rest," she said. "I need... I can't take us back. I don't...I didn't know I could do that. I just—I didn't want to hurt anyone..."