The men in the room stared at her with inquisitive looks. She winked back to them.
“Don’t ask.”
They didn’t.
Q urrah and Tessanna slipped out to the forest long before Harruq awoke. The half-orc carried Pelarak’s papers with him cradled against his chest. Tessanna did not ask where they went, or why, and Qurrah did not say. They stopped at a stream. A fallen tree stretched across it. The two sat on one end and listened as the sound of birds filled their ears with a sweetness unfitting either of them. Qurrah had never learned to appreciate it, and Tessanna had long forgotten the peacefulness the sound used to impart her.
“I want to show you something,” Qurrah said, handing her the papers. Tessanna glanced over them and shrugged.
“I cannot read,” she said, handing them back.
“They are runic words of power. They can drive any living man insane just by hearing their recitation.”
The girl smiled. “Sounds fun. Too bad I’ll never try them.”
Qurrah nodded, his eyes refusing to look at hers. “I wish to cure you, Tessanna. For everything you’ve done. I can decipher what happened to you. I can learn to undo it. Will you accept this from me?”
The girl’s eyes flared with pain, and her entire body shriveled away from him.
“I just wish to help,” he said.
She shook her head, pain bleeding out her eyes in the form of tears.
“As I am, Qurrah. Can’t you be with me as I am? Can’t anyone?” She stood, backing away as if he were a monster. “People have tried. It hurts so badly, Qurrah. My mind is broken glass, and all they do is shove the shards together and hope they stick. I’ve killed every one of them. I never mean to. Please, please, I don’t want to kill you.”
“This is different,” Qurrah said, approaching her even though she cowered away. “I am no priest. I will not beg to a god who shall not listen. I will find what broke your mind, and I will remove it. You deserve this.”
Tessanna felt a tree press against her back. She glanced about, but had no place to go. Qurrah blocked her path.
“I thought you loved me,” she cried, sliding to the ground as the rough bark tore her skin. “I thought you were different.”
Qurrah knelt and grabbed her hand. Anger flared, and her black eyes widened.
“I am different,” he said. “I have suffered as you have. If I could undo my childhood I would, but no cure exists but death. I am beyond salvation. You…” He released her hand. “You deserve better than I. You are beautiful. You have life burning inside you. It is the least I can do.”
The girl absently touched the black of his robes, rubbing the cloth in her fingers.
“You think I’m beautiful?”
“Yes. I do.”
She stood, a visible change sweeping over her. Her eyes looked into his with strength and fire. “Take me. Now.”
Qurrah felt his heart skip, and his nerves flare with fear and lust. “What? Why?”
She grabbed the front of his robes and pulled him to her. Their lips met, and for one long moment, they kissed. It ended when she bit down on his lip, tasting his blood across her tongue. He forced her back, gasping for air.
“You wish to cure me,” Tessanna said, a wildness swirling within her eyes. “You love me. I know it. But if you love me, you must love me as I am now. Then you may change me. But love me now. Prove it.”
“I can’t,” Qurrah said, rubbing his lip with his fingers and then staring at the blood upon them. “I don’t know, I’ve never…”
He stopped, but he had already said too much. Tessanna laughed as she finished what it was he meant to say.
“Never done it before?” she asked. Her eyes burned with lust. “Take me. Or I will take you.”
She pulled him closer once more, locking their lips together in a salty, bloody kiss. Qurrah felt his resistance drain away. The passion swirled across his tongue. Throughout his body kindled a virgin flame. When she removed the sash of his robe, he did not stop her. At the foot of that tree, he made love to her. She was fire underneath him, wild roaring fire, and never could he have imagined the pleasure of being burned.
When they finished, Tessanna cried.
“Please help me,” she whispered into his ear. “You’ll kill people, won’t you? For me?”
“If I must,” Qurrah whispered back. She pulled him close so that her tears wet his hair.
“Do it. I’ll help you, if you want. Just promise you’ll never leave me.”
“Never,” the half-orc said.
Tessanna stood, her bare skin shivering in the autumn air. She went to bathe in the stream.
“I’ve slept with many men,” she said, turning back to him. Her tears were gone. Apathy had stolen over her. “But you were the first I’ve ever made love to.” With that, she slipped into the water. As she bathed, Qurrah slept, the doubts and whispers in his own mind alleviated for one glorious moment.
Fallen angels rejoiced in black song as they watched. The promise of death had brought the two peace. Never before had Karak’s truth shone so pure and so lovely.
11
I n the back of the crowded bar sat a man with three empty tankards in front of him. He smoked in the shadows, only his eyes and the smoke of his pipe visible. A young boy entered the bar, glanced around, spotted him in the corner, and then approached.
“I have a message from Melhed, sir,” he said.
“Out with it.”
“He says the best purse is held in yellow clothes, to be bought by tomorrow’s eve.”
The man blew a ring of smoke and tossed the kid a dull coin through it. “Get on out of here.”
The boy bowed and left.
“So Aurelia’s in the hands of the Eschaton?” he muttered, filling the end of the pipe with more blackweed. “Puppets like them shouldn’t be allowed such a fine catch.”
If the message was true, someone from the elves would come to take Aurelia by tomorrow night. That left little time to plan an ambush, but he was confident his boys could get it done.
“Another mug,” he shouted. A serving wench heard his demand and rushed a glass to him, fast enough that froth drifted down its sides.
“Good girl,” he said, offering her a wink. She smiled, holding in her shudder until her back was to him. The man laughed, having seen that same reaction a hundred times before. Luckily for the wench, he was in a good mood. He might have killed her otherwise, if only to cheer himself up.
An hour later, he paid for his drinks and left.
C ome in,” Aurelia said as she heard a knock on her door. She expected Harruq, but instead Brug entered, his face already in full blush.
“I have something for ya,” he said, one of his hands hidden behind the door.
“Well let’s see it,” she said, leaning up against the pillows of her bed.
Brug stammered a bit, sighed, and then brought his hand out. The elf gasped when she saw what he held. It was her staff, bearing little resemblance to the original plain stick of wood. The whole of it had been tarnished and darkened so it resembled a long, thin branch. Beautifully painted leaves spiraled down the length. Carved along the sides were spiders, frozen in the process of making a web that spanned from leaf to leaf. The webs thickened near the top, crisscrossing into a dizzying display. In Brug’s hand, the staff radiated a soft green, highlighting only the leaves and bits of web that touched them.
“Brug,” she gasped. “It’s beautiful! Please, let me see it closer.”
He handed the staff to her, his blushing reaching ripe tomato color.
“I try to make something for every member we get,” he stammered. “I’ll get ya that pendant, but for now,
