Fairytales Slashed, Volume 2 Page 5

  Alcor smiled. "Of course I'm beautiful. We're descended from old, old royalty." He ignored the bits about odious and evil, because father said that was just people being jealous. "You're pretty, too," he allowed, feeling generous. And, really, the boy was pretty, even if he was all wispy.

  The boy returned the smile with a shy one of his own. "My mother is a bright faerie; I look like her. A little bit, anyway. Umm. My name is Rohese."

  A bright faerie. Those were rare, having mostly been wiped out by the dark faerie way back whenever that war had happened. Even father said bright faerie were tolerable enough. "So why are you here, 'not' crying?"

  "Oh!" Rohese's eyes widened in horror. "Mama's ring! I'm not allowed to touch it; they say I'm still too young even though I turned fifteen eleven days ago. So, I thought I'd borrow it while she was napping and practice a bit out here—only I dropped it in the water and now I don't know what to do!"

  He began to cry again, and Alcor started to make fun of him except—well, his chest felt funny, seeing the wispy little boy cry, and he knew all about stupid people saying fifteen was too young to do anything. "Can't you just dive in and get it?" he asked after a moment. The pond was all deep water, but not too cold yet, though it would be soon. And it wasn't that deep; Alcor touched the bottom all the time when he went swimming.

  Rohese shook his head. "I don't know how to swim."

  "I can swim," Alcor said, always happy when he could do something another could not.

  "Really?" Rohese asked, face brightening. "Because, I can make the jewel in the ring glow, so you can see it. If you got it out—that would be wonderful. Thank you!"

  Wait, wait. When had he said he would get the bloody ring? He'd just been saying that he knew how to swim, unlike clumsy, wispy half-faerie boys who cried. Alcor started to say all of this, in his best like-father tone, but then Rohese smiled at him and left him feeling horribly confused and strange in the chest again.

  Then Rohese moved back to the water and knelt. He held his hand out over it and spoke a few words that were as soft and wispy as Rohese himself. Curiosity won out briefly over his need to assert he wasn’t getting the ring, and Alcor moved to join him, kneeling at the edge of the water.

  At the very bottom of the pond, trapped amongst some sort of debris or weed or whatnot, something glowed—the same color, Alcor realized, as Rohese's eyes.

  Without being certain how it happened, Alcor found himself stripping and then pausing at the edge of the pond to brace himself for the cold shock of the water. Though he was somewhat mollified by the way Rohese was back to stammering and blushing and looking at his feet—except when he was sneaking glances at Alcor.

  Smirking, Alcor dove smoothly into the pool.

  Cold, cold, so bloody cold; he always forgot just how cold this pond could get, but at least they were here before it really got cold, when winter set in. Then, Rohese would not be getting his ring back, weird smiles or not.

  He broke the surface of the water and motioned impatiently even while shivering. "Make it glow." Face still bright red, but with something in his eyes that somehow made Alcor not mind being cold, Rohese held his hand out again and repeated the wispy words.

  The ring began to glow again. Alcor drew a deep breath, then plunged back into the water, swimming as quickly as he could, the going somewhat murky but not too awful. Reaching the bottom, he fumbled briefly to get the ring free of whatever it was caught on, but at last managed to grab firm hold of it. Then he twisted to get his feet on the bottom and pushed off hard.

  He gasped for breath as he broke the surface, sucking in air that felt incredibly warm compared to the cold water. Swimming to shore, he clambered out, shivering and shaking. Dropping the ring in Rohese's lap, he dashed for his clothes and scrambled into them as quickly as he possibly could manage.

  Even dressed, he shivered and shivered. His hair was wet and dripping and that did not help at all, and what in the bloody hells had he been thinking to do something so stupid and crazy?

  Then Rohese smiled and walked toward him and hugged him tightly, throwing his arms around Alcor's neck. He smelled like something warm and sweet, some sort of flower maybe, but Alcor couldn't place it. "Thank you," Rohese said as he finally drew back. "Mama would have killed me—slowly." His cheeks went pink, and he seemed—

  The barest of kisses was brushed across Alcor's mouth, but before he could react to it, Rohese had scrambled away, face aflame. "Thank you," he repeated.

  "My pleasure," Alcor said, managing to make the words sound suitably casual and unaffected. "Learn to swim."

  "I will," Rohese replied. "You—umm, you're very good…" Alcor shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh! Your finger! And you're still shivering."

  "Huh?" Alcor asked, confused. Then he followed Rohese's gaze to where his finger had started bleeding again. He'd no idea rose thorns could be so annoying. "It'll stop soon."

  Rohese drew close again and carefully took hold of his hand. On the middle finger of Rohese's right hand, the rescued ring was glowing softly again. Holding tightly to Alcor's injured hand, he closed his eyes and began to speak the soft, wispy words that so suited him.

  Alcor's fingers felt hot, then tingly then nothing more than perfectly normal. Then the whole sensation repeated throughout his body, and when the words finally stopped coming, he realized he was as warm as though he were sitting by a fire.

  "That's why I wanted the ring," Rohese said in a rush. "I want to use it like Mama, but I can only heal small stuff, easy stuff. I came out here to practice." He made a face. "Course, now I'll be confined to my room the rest of the year. At least I won't be dead." His gloomy tone said that was not really much better than confinement.

  "Confined is no fun," Alcor agreed, thinking of his own impending punishment. His anger long cooled by the water and Rohese, he was beginning to feel the knot of dread that always came when he knew a beating was pending.

  Silence fell between them, and Alcor fought a perverse urge to ask if perhaps they should meet here again sometime. What was the point?

  A sharp whistle cut through the silence, making them both jump—and Rohese groan. "There we go, I'm in big trouble. Um—"

  Alcor gave into one impulse to avoid the other, stepping forward and giving Rohese a firmer kiss than he had earlier received. Rohese tasted as sweet as he smelled, completely different from the illicit kiss that had gotten Alcor in trouble to begin with.

  The whistling came before he could steal a second, or even suggest they meet after all because now suddenly he could think of good reasons to do it. Rohese pulled away, flushed but rather looking happy for someone who was about to get in trouble. Before he could speak, however, the whistling came a third time, and he fled in a panic, waving farewell over his shoulder.

  Alcor stood where he was for several minutes, then finally decided he may as well go home.

  He woke with a start, chased by the scent of honeysuckle, pale hair, and the feel of a kiss on his ruined mouth. Alcor struggled to hold on to the dream, to remember it, but it slipped through his grasp and fled back into the dark recesses of his mind to await the next dream.

  It was still dark, but he could see the faintest hints of gray on the horizon that meant dawn was imminent.

  Dreams were annoying, but, he conceded with a sigh, they were better than nightmares. For the past week, ever since that night when Meir had assured him the despair would pass, he'd had the damned dream. He sort of remembered a forest, and water—and the damned honeysuckle—but that was all. No, he could still feel the memory of a kiss. Strange, when he had seldom bothered to kiss anyone.

  He lifted a hand to shove back straggly bits of coarse white hair and only then realized he still held the rose in one hand. Automatically, he brought it close enough to smell, inhaling the scents of honeysuckle, warm bread and butter, porridge with cream and dark, sweet tea.

  Shaking his head, he tucked the rose away and gingerly stood up. Slowly he began to go through the series of stretches that had b
ecome a ritual; it was the only way to keep a portion of the constant pain away for most of the day—not that it lessened much, but it spoke loudly rather than screaming, and he would take what he could get.

  Morning stretches completed, he went about making tea simply for lack of anything better to do. That, and the bitter tea Meir favored was the only thing Alcor could stand to put on his stomach—and he had only tried the tea to put an end to Meir's constant haranguing.

  As the water heated, he gazed off into the distance at the vague, dark blurs that were Dragonback Mountain. Soon now. He did not know why he cared so much; it was not as though his life would improve once he reached the hunting lodge. After he was settled in there, he would go back to having nothing.

  A soft woof broke into his thoughts and a heavy weight settled on one thigh as Mutt presented himself for petting. When he obediently scratched the damned dog behind the ear, Mutt chuffed at him in approval and settled even more comfortably with his head in Alcor's lap.

  Continuing to pet him absently, Alcor continued to stare at the mountains as they slowly grew more and more clear with the slow rising of the sun. He brooded as he stared, thoughts only seeming to grow blacker the longer he did so. At some point, he prepared the tea, but the motions were already so familiar he scarcely noticed.

  The scream came just as the sun was turning the sky orange and rose.

  Alcor jerked up as Mutt jumped to his feet with a growl. Tea splashed all over his hands, making Alcor swear. Then another scream cut through the morning, and he forgot about the tea. It made his gut clench, that scream. It was like the screams they'd all made as they burned to death. The last sound his father ever made had been a scream like that. His voice was in part ruined because he had screamed until he passed out.

  Mutt was already taking off, and Alcor followed helplessly, torn between wanting to make the screams stop and wanting to run far away from whatever was causing them. He'd just crested the hill when Meir appeared at his side. "There," Meir said. He pointed with his sword, which Alcor had never seen him draw before.

  He indicated the group they had seen in the distance the day before while searching for a place to make their own camp. It was a family of four with two teenage daughters and three other travelers, making a party of seven. Currently, they were under attack by what seemed to be robbers.

  What in the name of the hells was wrong with the likes of faeries and robbers, hurting and beating and ruining lives for no reason other than their own vindictive amusement?

  Meir moved first, and Alcor followed, even if he had no real clue what he was doing or even why, except he really hated the sound of screaming. He did not want to hear any more.

  Clearly, Meir knew precisely what he was doing, as he threw himself into the fray with a battle cry that made Alcor want to run right back to camp. Instead, he carefully avoided the flashing swords as best he could and dove for the still-shrieking girls, pulling them up and away from the fighting and tossing them at their mother. Another man stumbled out of the mess, and Alcor tossed him out of harm's way as well.

  Unfortunately, they didn't stop screaming.

  Then the fight was abruptly over, finished almost as quickly as it had begun. After a moment, the screaming stopped as well. Alcor felt the dread in his stomach start to unknot and sought out Meir—but just as he started to speak, the screaming started again.

  This time, he did not need to look to know the damned women were screaming at him this time. Ignoring them, thoroughly annoyed, he strode toward Meir. Giving him a nod, Meir cleaned his sword then went to deal with the travelers.

  Left to his own devices, Alcor looked toward the corpses. He really did not want to look, but he could not seem to help himself. His stomach clenched up again, making him glad he had not had a chance to drink any of the tea he'd made. Memories flashed unwanted through his mind, of burning—melting—the stench.

  These were similar, even though they were completely different. At least they were dead and not dying. Blood was everywhere, just visible pooling in the grass, soaked and smeared across their clothing. Here and there he could see innards spilling out. The awful, sightless eyes.

  It would have made him retch if his memories were not more awful still—if his own reflection were not even worse than his memories and this horror combined. All the same, he did not think he would be able to manage even tea for quite some time.

  He looked at the corpses a moment longer before turning away, but froze as something struck him. Turning back slowly to the bodies, he stared. He stared hard.

  These—these were not robbers.

  Hells, he thought he might even recognize one of them, though a name would not come to mind. Nobles. All three of the dead men were nobles, sons of titled lords, rather than properly titled themselves, to judge by their age and the style of dress and the little accessories they wore, the gold and silver flashing in sunlight.

  Feeling a strange numbness, as though watching from afar, he moved toward the corpses, kneeling alongside the familiar looking one. Red hair, relatively handsome and a mouth he sort of remembered as always being shaped in a smirk.

  Reaching out, Alcor lifted up a watch chain, pulling the pocket watch from its place in the dead man's waistcoat and closely examining the three watch fobs attached to it. His attention immediately fixed upon one of those, and from long familiarity, he found the hidden catch and flipped the secret case open.

  The smell of dragonweed immediately struck him, sharp and bitter, making him want to retch in a way even the corpses had not. Once so dear—

  He shut the case with a rough sound and dropped it, lifting up the dead man's hand to examine the half-dozen rings upon it. Four were mere decoration, sporting fat diamonds and a moderately impressive emerald. But two, two were important and more precious than all the other jewels combined.

  Both were simple signets. The first was in bright gold, boasting the Seal of Mages. A second class ring, to be in yellow gold. A mere apprentice mage, the dead man, but that was still a serious matter. The second ring was much worse, however, for it was a family crest. The house of Tollanna—and now a name came to him, sharp and bright in his mind.

  Jalla Tollanna, first son and heir to the Duke of Tollanna, one of the more respected mage families in the country. And his heir was dead. Alcor felt cold all the way to his bones.

  He stood up slowly, taking the damning rings with him. Moving to Meir, ignoring the way the people they had rescued made warding signs against him, he displayed the rings. "We have problems." Meir look surprised.

  Alcor scowled, annoyed that anyone could be so ignorant. "That one," he said, pointing to the mage, "is from a high ranking family and is a mage. His blood—" He started coughing, voice not quite up to long sentences, but he had forgotten in his haste to relay what he had discovered.

  "They're all from high-ranking families," Meir replied. "The houses of Tollanna, Kyla, and Moorna. Spoiled brats the lot of them; they always were. This group, easy to see they were high on dragonweed and eager to assault anything breathing."

  He gave Alcor a reproving look, and it hit him with all the force of the monks striking him until he calmed down. Those names. He knew all those names. He turned to look again at the bodies, but knew none of them save Jalla, whose sister he now recalled had been a candidate for his own betrothal. Still, he knew all the names. If not these men, he had known others, and likely shared dragonweed and fucking with them. Once upon a time he had called all of them peers, equals.

  Why? Why were they here, in the middle of nowhere, assaulting simple peasants? Meir had said they were high on dragonweed, but—he had never been inclined to commit violence himself while enjoying dragonweed. He had much preferred to share the smoke with someone warm and willing, someone willing to share a great deal more.

  He recalled, however, that some did let loose in a violent manner. They had even seemed to enjoy it, or thought they did while caught up in the smoke, the heat and the rush that only dragonweed coul
d bring. Abusing the whores hired for the evening, treating the servants roughly.

  Alcor had always laughed and jeered, not interested in doing such things, but believing he should mind his own business. Intoxicated by the dragonweed, it had always seemed far away and dreamlike. Not real.

  The stench of blood was real. The innards spilling out of gaping wounds were real. The glassy eyes were real. The screams and the sobbing were real. It was horribly, terribly real.

  If things had gone differently the night of his twentieth birthday, would he now be a corpse upon the ground? Alcor felt as though he really were going to be sick. He turned away from the corpses with a rough sound. "Trouble if people come looking."

  Meir nodded. "Aye." He turned to the people huddled by their horses and cart. "If ever you should be asked about this matter, plead ignorance. We'll strip the bodies of anything that might mark them. Leave them in the woods; the animals will take care of them. Understand?"

  "Tell them a beast did it, aye," the eldest woman said, laughing a little hysterically, eyes going to Alcor before they jerked away and she warded herself again.

  "That beast helped save your lives," Meir snapped. "The real beasts are the men who just tried to rape and kill you, all for their own amusement. Real beasts are those who do not show gratitude when their lives are saved."

  Everyone was silent.

  Alcor ignored them in favor of setting to the gruesome task of stripping the corpses of anything which might give away their identities. Jewelry, handkerchiefs, the buttons of their coats and even some of the clothing itself.

  It would, some small part of him whispered, make far more sense to burn the lot and have done with it, but the rest of him recoiled and attempted to wretch up his empty stomach. No burning, gods no more burning flesh.

  He hesitated when he finished with the bodies and turned his attention to their horses. Beautiful beasts, all of them, and they would make the going so much easier.