to urinate or eat the occasional berries growing low on rare clusters of bushes. Without a saddle or stirrups, she had to clutch her hands about the dead foal’s neck. The smell made her sick. The touch made it worse. Her fingers ached, and her back screamed in protest.
And she rode, and rode.
T wo nights later the foal stopped. Tessanna more fell than climbed off. The contact with the ground knocked the air from her lungs, and quietly moaning, she waited for her breath to return. Her back and fingers were a constant throb of pain. She stank of rotting skin and decaying horse hair. The plains were coming to an end, breaking into soft hills and trees that grew tall, their leaves a green so deep they seemed wholesome. She had touched them whenever possible, clutching them to her chest as the undead foal cantered on. They had a pure scent, a temporary counter to the stench of her mount.
“You’re a bastard,” she said, knowing Velixar could hear her. She wondered where he might be, how many miles away. The foal remained perfectly still, not even swishing its tail to scare away the flies that buzzed about.
The nights were uncomfortably cold, a fire not needed to survive but needed to sleep well. So far, she’d had no fire, but now she saw the faint glow in the distance of many such campfires. The war demons were close. She’d kept up with them through the constant ride. Velixar had let her sleep only a few hours each night before the foal would wake her by pressing its snout against the back of her neck and nipping at her skin. The very thought of the creature’s teeth touching her sent a shiver down her spine.
One of her favorite ways to start a fire, back when she still possessed her power, was to cut her flesh and set her blood aflame as it dripped upon the kindling. In memory of that, she clawed at her wrist with her ragged fingernails, feeling a burst of pleasure at the pain, pleasure that heightened when she saw the desired crimson flow begin. She had no real kindling, just a few twigs scattered about, but she piled them anyway. Drop by drop dripped down, and she blew upon them as they fell. No magic. No fire. Her tears ran down her face like the blood down her wrist.
A strange sound reached her ears. She looked up, and was mildly surprised to see Velixar flying toward her, a dark specter of the night. Giant bat wings stretched from his back, shimmering in their blackness. Her chest ached as they faded away like smoke. She’d once possessed wings like that…
“So much for your legs,” she said.
Velixar stroked her face with his fingertips, a gesture that would have seemed loving if not for the wicked smile on his face.
“We reach Felwood sometime before tomorrow night,” he said. “Thulos tells me a few scouts have spotted our approach, yet no army marches against us. They plan on hiding in their castle, which is perfect for us. The fewer casualties means the greater our army when they join our side.”
“You seem so certain they will turn,” Tessanna said. She tilted her head to one side and watched the blood drip down to her elbow. A curious look on her face, she licked it, then spat, unsatisfied.
“Your old ways are dying,” he said. “Celestia has abandoned you. Your blood, your pain, it no longer satisfies. In time, you will realize your desire for something strong. Something controlled.”
“Assuming Qurrah doesn’t kill me.”
Velixar narrowed his eyes.
“No matter what happens,” he said, “I will treasure such a moment. You should as well.”
She tried to turn away from him, but he grabbed her wrists. From her sitting position, she could do nothing as he forced her to the ground. He towered over her, the stench of death rolling down. Her heart hammered in her chest. His legs forced her knees apart. So cold, he was so cold…
“I will take you,” he whispered. His face was beside hers, but no air moved across her. He did not breathe. There was no life in that being pinning her to the hard ground. “But when I do, it will be everything you could despise. It will be everything your fantasies cannot abide. Most of all, Tessanna…it will be willing. ”
“Never,” she whispered back, tears running down the sides of her face. “I’ll never.”
“There are so many pieces of you,” he said, rubbing his cheek against hers. “And how badly they’ve broken. Where is the animal? Where is the whore? And what of the child? You’re more whole than you’ve ever been, Tessanna. Don’t you realize that? I am what you need. I am the way to your salvation. Not Qurrah, and most certainly not the pathetic god he has turned to in his weakness.”
Tessanna sobbed, thinking of the way Jerico had looked at her after she’d ridden him. All his love and mercy had turned to shame and disgust. She’d done that to him. By the gods, why had she done that to him?
“I hate you,” she said. She felt her personalities swirling, a thousand colors blending together into some shapeless indecipherable smudge. Every single instinct inside her screamed to fall within, to retreat to another-the child or the being of apathy. But she couldn’t. They had left her. Velixar’s grip was tight, and her hands turned numb. She arched her back and screamed, once.
Karak’s most loyal prophet struck her with his fist. The pain shocked her quiet. He glared down at her, an angered master, a ruling king upset with his servant.
“Thulos will make the men of Felwood cower to his name,” he told her. “That is our way. Those who are strong will become weak, and their strength will serve that which they hoped to destroy. Your hatred means nothing. Your revulsions are pathetic. Go sleep in the cold.”
And like a beaten dog, she did as she was told, crying herself to sleep and wishing she were in Qurrah’s arms.
V elixar woke her early that morning, the sun only a golden hint on the hills.
“Get yourself ready,” he said. “I want to be there when Thulos reveals his godhood to the defenders of Felwood.”
She urinated behind a tree, straightened her hair with her fingers, and then returned to him. He gave her nothing to eat. Instead, he nodded to the foal. After she climbed on, he joined her. If alive, the creature would have easily tired within moments, but its blood was still, and its strength dark in origin.
“Do not be scared,” he told her as he wrapped his arms around her waist, so gently as if last night had never happened. “Time is of the essence. Let us see what this steed is capable of.”
The foal galloped and Tessanna clutched its dead mane, every part of her trying to ignore the cold feel of Velixar’s touch. The foal galloped at a startling pace, the wind blowing through their hair. The ride was brutal, nothing absorbing the shocks of the occasional uneven step. A miserable hour passed. Tessanna felt certain the foal would fall to pieces after a day or two of such riding, but all they needed was a few more hours. At the summit of a hill, she looked down into a valley filled with fog that appeared to creep out from the forest at its far edge. The war demons massed in the center of the fog, marching instead of flying. Tucked against the forest, its walls weaving through the trees, was Felwood Castle.
“They have rigged every tree to collapse,” Velixar said as the foal slowed. “The ivy on the walls hides a thousand razors, deadly sharp. I once had a troop of orcs attempt to climb them. They bled out before reaching the top.”
“Sad for them,” she said, her voice an emotionless droll.
They rode into the demons’ camp, then dismounted. After Tessanna leapt off its back, the foal collapsed. A wave of Velixar’s hand and his magic left it nothing more than a long-decaying corpse.
“Come,” he said, taking Tessanna’s hand. “Let us find Thulos.”
She fantasized plunging her hand into a fire to burn away his touch as she followed him.
Thulos sat on his throne, the fog swirling about him, hiding the feet of the chair and making it seem like he was floating. His armor shone even in the dim light, immaculately polished. He nodded to Velixar as he approached.
“I was hoping I would not have to wait for your arrival,” he said. He tilted his head back, as if suddenly revolted. “Your relationship with that woman is baffling, prophet.”
Tessanna felt her cheeks flush at being spoken of as if she were not there. It made her feel insignificant, invisible.
“One that should be of no interest to you,” Velixar said, letting go of her hand.
“The girl is a daughter of the whore,” Thulos said, looking to the castle. “She is powerless now. We would all be safer with her dead.”
“Since when did you care for safety? Does conquest not have its risks?”
Thulos chuckled.
