“How would they know?”
Kal snorted and pranced forward, nudging Aida’s shoulder with his soft muzzle. Garnering a giggle from her and a quick scratch to his cheek before Er’it tugged Kal’s head back. Not to be refused, Kal did it again, his low whicker coarse as sand and yet thrilling to Aida. Somehow knowing it a sound of friendship before he rubbed his downy cheek against hers to prove it.
“Mercy of the Hat’or, look, Er’it,” Ath’asho hissed, pulling his horse back hard. Making the poor thing sidestep and whinny as it flew into an alter it didn’t understand.
Though Aida scowled at Ath’asho for frightening his horse, she looked around as well. Searching for what he alone seemed to be able to see. Except when she looked back, Er’it was staring at her with a mixture of rage and horror.
Before she could so much as suck in a breath, he was on her. Vaulting off of Kal’s back to tackle her to the cart’s bed amid her pile of softness. Hissing as their bodies connected, he went rigid above her. Hands clamping over her arms to shove her flat when Aida struggled against his hold.
Scream splitting the night open, she saw what had frightened Ath’asho, what made Er’it attack her. Pure as starlight and twice as cold, it limned her body in its soft glow. It wasn’t the moon she’d witnessed before, but herself. As the vivid reds and burnt oranges of Er’it’s magic twisted up his arms, it reacted. A roar of sound that sang in her ears with a muted whisper as the pallid azure fought against molten red. Licking over Er’it’s hands and arms, gaining ground as his power turned indigo and purple.
“It’s coming from you,” Er’it yelled in her face, teeth bared while he straddled Aida to keep her flat. The keening wails surrounding them only then making themselves known as he tried to be heard through them.
“No!” No matter her wail of denial, she couldn’t deny the similarities. The way the whisper wormed its way through her, the crackling blue light snapping through the air. So much like the night with Otaso, horror swamped her thoughts. She’d done it. All of his accusations were true. She’d ruined him. Her.
It wasn’t enough to snuff out the light. Though dampened and receding under Er’it’s onslaught, it refused to die. Aida shrieked and tried to claw at her flesh, to peel away the vicious starlight that oozed from her skin in wispy fragments to coalesce into the dense light. He captured her wrists, pinning them above her head. Sitting on her thighs with his heavy boots tucked tight around her ankles to stop Aida’s writhing. Panting against her shoulder, he lowered his weight. Covering her body with his, a pained yell grating from his throat. Free hand working between them, he tugged at the tunic Aida wore.
Blistering cold and bright, it flooded through her veins. Fresh as springtime, it stole her breath on a gasp that made the light blink out as if it were never there. Leaving them all to blink into the darkness, blind and vulnerable for the precious moments it took for them to adjust to the hazy dusk settled around them.
“Don’t move,” Er’it said in a hoarse whisper against her throat, fingers digging into her nape as a trail of ice seared her skin. Working at something there before he eased back, tense and ready to fall back on her should it prove not to hold.
Aida looked at his ripped shirt, then down where he’d laid open the one she wore. Nestled between her breasts was the pendant he never took off, the sweep of stones sparkling with their own light in the dreary shadows.
“I… I didn’t mean,” Aida began, slapping a hand over her lips with a muffled squeal as she cringed away from him when Er’it raised his hand.
The same hand he sent raking through his hair, tugging at the tight braids and metal rings to send it ringing in dull chimes into the forest. Climbing off of her, he used the cart’s frame for handholds. Hauling himself up to his feet though he swayed and threatened to tip over.
Snorting a wry laugh, he fell into a heap before Aida, jostling them all and startling everyone awake. The warriors looked around with wide eyes, the whites showing as their gaze landed upon Aida with the unerring knowledge that she was to blame. More than one urged their horse further away from the cart, a pained grimace on their lips as they bowed their heads to Er’it.
Waving them off, he rasped out, “There’s a clearing ahead. Go and make a camp.”
The guards were happy to comply. Even Zaec clambered down from the cart to race ahead on foot. Ath’asho and Maruk remained, both uneasy and tense.
Aida burst into tears.
Pulling the fur over her head, she hid in the empty pitch of her muggy cavern as the raw, bawling sobs tore free from her chest. It was her fault. Had always been her fault. Now she knew the truth of it. Every nitpicking punishment, each whipping, every time Otaso had tossed her into a cell. It was her fault for this thing she was and the dangerous thing lurking inside of her.
She’d destroyed a man who had laid claim to being the most powerful mage in all the lands. Perhaps would have destroyed Er’it as well, Otaso’s successor to that title, had he not thought to try whatever charm hung about her neck now. Heavy as the brace Lir shouldered, her responsibility in it all came crashing down around her head.
A danger to everyone. That was what Otaso had muttered in the darkness when he’d thought her too far gone with pain. He was well within his right to take her, breed her, before he took the thing he’d claimed the moment he laid eyes upon her.
Wrenching back the pelt, Aida lifted her chin and dared to look Er’it in the eye. Challenging
