top as they were with the intoxicating beauty of a she-elf who had hurt him so.
“Not anymore.” He sniffed and threw the branch into the fire, smelled the smokiness of the wood filling the crisp air.
“Is she … gone on?” The Baroness looked at him carefully, probing.
“She was still quite lively when last I saw her, which was a year or two ago,” he said. “She left me.”
“Left you?” There was a rising curiosity in the Baroness’s voice. “You allowed this?”
“Allowed it?” Cyrus suppressed a laugh. “I gave my full consent when she asked for the divorce decree. She didn’t want to be married to a warrior who was always traveling, always gone, always in danger.”
Cattrine frowned, as though contemplating something impossible. “Is that … does that happen often in your land? A woman leaving a man when she is unsatisfied?” She blushed. “I don’t mean to suggest she was unsatisfied by you. I’m certain you’re very satisfying.” She blushed deeper, a crimson shade in the firelight.
Cyrus watched her with some amusement before he shrugged. “It happens. More among the elves than the humans, I’m told, but it happens among my people as well.”
“Fascinating,” the Baroness said, her skin lit by the flickering of the fire. “Your world is ever so much different than my own.”
“If you think that’s different, you should see Sanctuary,” Cyrus said.
“Your guild is called Sanctuary, yes?” The Baroness looked at him once more, her hand resting on her leg, her knees pulled up to her chest. “But there is a place called Sanctuary as well?”
“Our guildhall, yes.”
“What is it like there?” Her voice carried a combination of awe and wistfulness.
“It’s in the middle of the Plains of Perdamun, a long, wide stretch of grasslands. When you teleport into the plains, you have to run south through a field of wildflowers to Sanctuary. They’ll be in bloom now, I suppose, all the colors on display … red, blue, purple and orange. It’s like a rainbow growing from the ground, and if you’re with a druid, and they cast the Falcon’s Essence spell, you can run right over them, watch them rock in the wind as you pass, stirring them. The main tower appears first, looming above you like a spire sticking out of the ground, then you see the other towers and the wall … it’s built with a curtain wall like a castle, but it’s like no castle you’ve ever seen.
“The wall goes around for a mile or more … encloses gardens, stables, an archery range … and in the middle of it all is Sanctuary.” Cyrus smiled at the memory, the thought of the stone blocks that comprised the guildhall, of the stained glass window glowing in all its colors above the main doors. “It’s gorgeous. One of the … warmest places I’ve ever been. It was …” His smile faded. “Home.”
“You miss it.” Her voice punctuated the quiet against the crackle of the fire against the logs.
“I suppose.”
“Were you always in Sanctuary?”
“No. I was born and raised in Reikonos, the capital of the Human Confederation.”
“Was that where you learned to fight?” She hugged her knees closer to her chest. “Was that where you got your sword?”
“I learned to fight there, but I got my sword-this sword,” he tugged at the hilt of Praelior, “later, when I was with Sanctuary.”
“Did your parents teach you how to fight?” She looked at him with genuine interest, and he felt himself warm, something unrelated to the fire.
“My father was a great warrior, but he died when I was far too young to learn how to fight. No, I learned in the Society of Arms-where they send all young men and women who wish to learn to master the fighting arts.”
“Women, too?” Cattrine looked vaguely impressed. “You had women train alongside you?”
“Yes,” Cyrus said. “Some of the older boys would take it easy on the younger kids, knowing they could crush us without difficulty. Some of my roughest fights were against the girls. They did not yield an inch, regardless of age.”
“It did not …” She searched for a word, “humiliate you, being defeated by a woman?”
“Heh,” Cyrus said. “Every defeat was a humiliation, and there was no more shame in being beaten by a girl than by a boy. Sometimes there was less. Some of those girls had a pain threshold that made me look pitiful by comparison.” Cyrus felt his expression change. “I haven’t talked about this in years until a couple months ago. And again now. I don’t talk about these things. How’d you do that?”
She smiled. “I asked. Doesn’t anyone else ever ask you about yourself?”
A thought of Aisling flashed through his mind, settling within him, leaving an uneasy feeling. “Not particularly,” Cyrus said.
They were quiet for a minute then the Baroness spoke. “What is her name?”
Cyrus blinked, then looked at her, at the orange light casting a warm glow on her face in the soft light. She coaxed him with a hint of a smile. “Who?” he asked.
“The woman.” She smoothed a wrinkle on the knee of her pants. “The one you think of all the time. The one they say you ran across the bridge to get away from.” She dropped her voice an octave, and he strained to hear her next words. “The one who broke your heart.”
“Vara,” Cyrus whispered. “Her name is Vara.”
“She was not your wife, was she?”
“No,” he said. “She was not.”
There was a moment’s pause, and he heard the Baroness slide across the ground toward him, heard her inch closer, felt her only a foot away. “What was it about her that drew you so?”
“I don’t know,” Cyrus said quietly. “She wasn’t kind to me, not from the beginning. But there was something about her … a draw, a pull between us that was unlike anything I’d ever felt.”
“What was she like?”
“Sharp of tongue, quick to anger,” Cyrus said, “a terror with a blade, and a wielder of magics that could knock a man flat.” He paused. “A fighter. She’s … a fighter, at least that’s how I remember her.”
“It makes sense that a man as strong as yourself would be drawn to a woman possessed of great strength,” the Baroness said. Her face spoke of other things though, and held a drawn, harried look. “I suppose that it must be a great attraction, to find a woman so much like yourself.” She seemed to draw back from him, her confidence crumbling. “My life must seem very dull and pitiful to someone who adventures in far away lands and rides the back of a Dragonlord-”
“No.” Cyrus turned all his attention to her, sweeping away thoughts of Vara. “Not at all. My life is … well … filled to the brimming with madness, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have great respect for the way others live. Besides, it sounds like you’ve been in more peril than I have, living with the Baron.” He paused in thought. “Who told you about the Dragonlord?”
“Curatio,” she said, looking back to him. “They all tell the most amazing tales of you, of your exploits.”
“Oh?” Cyrus looked away. “They exaggerate. Most of them weren’t that interesting.”
“So you and Sir Longwell and your lady elf did not hold a bridge against an army of one hundred thousand for an entire night?” She looked at him with genuineness, and he felt a prick of conscience.
“No, we did,” Cyrus said. “But that was not the whole story. There were others helping us on that bridge, and we had additional forces on bridges to help guard our flanks.” He shrugged. “There’s just more to it, that’s all.”
“In all of the stories they tell, you seem so brave,” she said with a voice filled with wistfulness. “So fearless. Are you not concerned with death?”
He let a ghost of a smile creep across his face. “Death doesn’t concern me.”
She cocked her head at him. “No?”
“No,” he said with a shake of the head. “I killed him two months ago.”
“What?” She blinked. “Oh, you mean your God of Death. Mordo-”
“Mortus,” Cyrus said, the vision of the four-legged, eight-armed god flashing through his memory. “His name was Mortus.”
