ReluctantConsort (2 page)

In truth, the three traveled between the two moons, using
the sun’s brilliant light to watch the children of the One and to protect them
in his stead.

Before she could leave this place though, this passionate
trio must be certain to persevere. That battle she sensed would not be the
easiest she had yet faced, for it was her mission to ensure their magicks
became fully aligned. She must ensure the princess’ survival and her escape
from the human lands even as she guided the Dungarrin warriors to claiming the
magick and the female, as only the males of Sentmar could do. As only their
magick could claim her.

Together.

The mists of the Causeway surrounded him, the screams and
moans of magick souls lost to dark magick following his every step. His heart
was racing, fear snaked through him, making mockery of the sword he carried.
Though that brave blade would do him little good without the knowledge to wield
it effectively, he knew. Still, he hoped but for a moment, with the blade shielding
him, to convince the Ogre to hear him out.

He would die in this place either way. He was only twelve
cycles old, and his sister Arabella was always telling him he had a great and
wondrous future ahead of him, if he swore to the One to never follow his
father’s path.

He hadn’t followed that path. He’d resisted at every turn.
But his great and wondrous future would end here.

Darkness shrouded him, though it was early morn in Eldorah.
The lands of Yarba that his father, King Alistair, ruled were shrouded in light
until it met this dismal place. Here there was no night or day, there was only
the freakish mists and shadowed forms that followed his every step.

The Ogre.

He nearly choked on his own spit as he spied yet another
huge form crouched and moving along his periphery. Was this not how all
twelve-year-old princes dreamed of meeting the afterlife, he asked himself
caustically. At the end of an Ogre’s sword?

He was the son of a king, Quin reminded himself as the
hulking demon shapes surrounded him, the mist obscuring their features as they
brought him to a stop within the circle of their gathering bodies. He would not
beg for mercy for himself. He would not plead for his own life. He prayed to
the One and the magick Guardian Selects that his sister would appreciate this
sacrifice one day. He had yet to even taste his first woman, and now, he would
die instead.

“We have us a human.” Amusement filled the booming voice,
though from which beast it came from, he did not know. “A boy human at that.
What manner of men are humans who send their children to the Causeway?”

“Men? I thought that title exempt from those lowly forms,”
another boomed with an edge of laughter as Quin lost his ability to control his
flinch of fear. “And here this one carries a blade? Think you he can wield it?
Or shall he fall upon it?”

Their laughter only grew, flooding his face with shame.

He was his sister’s only hope. He could not fail her.

But he was so frightened, his knees shaking with such fear
that he wanted only to cry, to hide behind Arabella’s soft skirts as he had in
years past.

Ogres were said to be horrifying creatures to behold. Quin
kept his gaze trained below where their faces might be. His uncle Finn said no
creatures could be as terrifying as legend portrayed the Ogre. But his luck had
not been going so well this moon phase, as his sister often said, so he
preferred not to chance it.

One-eyed, grotesque and misshapen, the sight of them was
said to drive grown men to madness. What would it do to a boy, he wondered,
flinching as one shifted closer to where he stood.

They were said to be the finest warriors in either human or
magickal lands too, and weren’t warriors supposed to respect strength?

Could he be strong enough to earn such respect? Surely even
at twelve cycles he could show more courage than others his age.

“I am Prince Quin Alistair,” he finally found the courage to
inform them. “And I come to you on an urgent matter. I would beg you hear me
out before your fury takes me from this life and sends me to my ancestors’ arms.”

For a second silence reigned, then once again deep-throated,
fearsome laughter jeered at his determined statement.

“Your ancestors’ arms?” That guttural tone mocked him now.
“Boy, you’ll go to pay for your father’s sins until the time he can arrive to
pay for his own, do you not think?”

Fear was an acid taste on Quin’s tongue now, but he’d made a
vow to take the punishment he would face for being the son of Alistair the
Perverted.

“Whichever it is to be, I have come to the Ogre on an urgent
matter. I would beg but a moment of time, and should I have it, then I shall
willingly face the punishment reserved for Alistair the Perverted in the
deepest reaches of the pits of Shadow Hell.”

His voice shuddered, though he did not mean it to, drawing
chuckles, rasping sounds of amusement from the dark shapes that surrounded him,
that found amusement in the courage he’d scraped from the depths of his soul to
speak rather than scream out for Arabella to save him.

Oh mercy, where was Arabella? She always saved him when…

Ah, for a second he had forgotten, Arabella could not save
him this time. This was why he was there to meet his death, to save Arabella.

Was that not a brother’s duty?

He prayed to the One, the god of magick and all of Sentmar
for but a moment’s courage to face whatever horrors these creatures would mete
out to him in exchange for that one moment with the Ogre Tribe.

“And what would such a boy, no more than a mere child have
need to see the Ogre about?” he was questioned, the booming voice causing his knees
to shake with such force that he near stumbled into the muck beneath his feet.
“What think thee that we have time for such a pathetic twit as a human ‘get’?
Especially one of Alistair the Perverted?”

His teeth were near shuddering now.

“I beg but a moment.” He tried to sound firm. Truly he did.
But tears were gathering in his eyes and fear was cramping his stomach with
more force than the fish Cook hadn’t prepared properly several evenings past.

“Why?” The growl sent a flinch jerking violently through his
limbs and causing those he feared the most to laugh at his weakness.

They laughed at him.

“You jeer,” he snapped back, anger giving him but a moment
to allow his voice to deepen before it cracked with humiliating weakness, the
sound causing his teeth to clench as laughter echoed around him once more. “I
may be but a child, but I come to face my death for but a moment of the Ogre’s
time. That is worthy of more than your laughter.”

“Poor little prince,” another mocked him. “You’re not even
worthy to be a snack this eve. What thinks you we would hear anything you have
to say?”

He had not considered the Ogre would not even hear his plea.

His grip tightened on the sword he carried, his hands
shaking as anger tore at the fear that would cloud his mind.

“I have been tasked with this journey by the One who created
us all. Do as you will, but should you deny my claim, should you deny my
audience, then you deny the One who created you as well.” How his voice
trembled with fear, and how he hated the sound.

Silence surrounded him now. He could feel the beasts
watching him, towering over him as he kept his head held high, his gaze
straight ahead, praying he did not chance to meet the black and fearsome gazes
of the creatures said to have the power to steal a man’s soul.

“Boy.” One stepped forward. “Know you the punishment for
lying in such a way?”

“I do not lie.” Quin gritted his teeth, hoping to forestall
that sound of stuttering fear as it lingered on his tongue. “Whatever your
punishment, warrior, I will accept for invading your lands. I was given a
vision and a voice called me forth to come to this place of mists to seek out
the Ogre Kings Kellan and Aherin. Tell me how I would know two kings share one
throne if not brought here by such a vision. I can naught but obey the demand
of Sentmar’s creator.”

Caedan stared at the boy, nay a child, as he quaked and
shuddered in fear and cold.

He could be no more than ten and two, shuddering with such
force that his bony body threatened to come apart at the joints.

Terror whitened his face, trembled on his words and scented
the air around him, yet still he stood before them, certain he would die this
day, and demanded what even grown men would have bitten their tongues off
before demanding.

No human ever returned once given an audience with Kings
Kellan and Aherin of the Ogre Tribe, Taithleach. Certainly no boy could be
allowed to carry the tale of the Ogre twins and their lands back to a king
whose perversions and taste for magick blood had earned him the name Alistair
the Perverted.

“Child, know you that you will not return from this
journey?” Caedan questioned him, his voice lowering as he eased to a crouch to
watch the terror that filled the boy’s eyes. “Turn now, return to your own
lands and we will forget this trespass, this one and only time. Continue in
your demand, and Shadow Hell will greet you as a willing lover whose blade
seeks the very depths of your soul.”

The kid was about to wet himself. Caedan could sense it as
surely as he had sensed the child’s trespass into the dark dangers of the
Causeway.

“I fear a willing lover I will never know, Ogre.” He sighed
then, a rather pitiful sound of regret that had Caedan’s lips threatening to
curl in true amusement. “I cannot be swayed. I will not be swayed.” Resignation
and tears filled the youth’s oddly colored eyes of the purest hue even as his
shoulders shook with the fear he fought to hold back.

By Musera’s hand, what manner of trickery did the humans
hope to accomplish…

“Secure him and grant his audience before the fire pits are
prepared to roast his meatless body,” Daelan, the twin who had stood silently
behind Caedan ordered, his tone harsh as two fat tears fell from the boy’s eyes
and terror glowed as pinpoints of light in his brilliant gaze.

“We’ll go hungry this night,” Caedan sighed, shaking his
head as he straightened, the compassion he felt for this child unfamiliar and
oddly saddening. “Humans cannot even feed their young now? How are we to
survive on such meager fare?”

Still, the boy stood still and silent as the sounds of
several warriors bore an iron cage to Caedan’s side.

It was large enough to house several of the human “gets” of
his size, yet was the smallest the Ogre possessed. The metal bottom and arced
iron bars that surrounded the base similar to the cages humans used for
feathered pets.

Caedan restrained a heavy breath. Mayhap the ironsmith
should set about making smaller ones if human children had such death wishes as
this one seemed to possess.

Reaching out and releasing the magickal locks, he then swung
the iron door open and gestured inside. “In you go, little human,” he grunted,
fully expecting the child to turn and run at the command.

Trembling, pale, the boy slowly extended the sword toward
him, always careful not to peer into any of the warriors’ faces. Taking the
sword, Caedan restrained his smile once more.

Surprisingly, rather than running as even grown men were
wont to do, the child of Alistair the Perverted stepped inside, two small hands
gripping the bars at the side of the door as Caedan slapped the door closed
with more force than necessary.

The small, involuntary whimper that escaped his throat had
anger beginning to brew within him. Since when did Ogres terrorize children
seeking to carry a message from the One? And no doubt the boy had been given a
vision by some force greater than human, for none but the Guardian Selects,
Sentmar’s protectors, chosen by the One himself knew that the Ogre kings were
indeed twins this rule.

“Let us go then,” his own twin ordered. “The sooner the
scrawny chuck has said his peace, the sooner we shall be given leave to begin
preparing the fires to roast his scrawny body.”

Daelan had little mercy for humans and none for weakness in
any form. Caedan saw little weakness in the boy though. Oh aye, weak of
strength and maturity, certainly. But despite the tears and the scent of his
terror, still the boy had not yet wet himself nor lost his battle with the bile
gathering in his stomach.

It was clear Daelan’s harsh, icy tone and booming voice was
tipping the little human to losing both forthwith though.

“Leave off, brother,”
Caedan demanded along the link
they shared as twins.
“This child shows courage no human male I have ever
seen has shown. Terrifying him further could only affect any message the One
may have sent, if indeed he carries such. But for his age, even if deceit is
his game, he shows great courage.”

It was a strength Caedan couldn’t help but admire in the
little chuck.

“What manner of treachery could this be that Alistair
allows his only male heir into a place such as this?”
Daelan questioned
harshly.
“I had heard Alistair placed great store in this boy, if not in his
daughter as well. Yet he lingers here in this place where naught but dark
magick and death could waylay him at any moment.”

“Aye, I heard such as well,”
Caedan sighed.
“Already Alistair has named this boy his successor should his perversions be
cut short and his life extinguished.”

“Good thing
,
”
Daelan growled.
“Think you
perhaps the perverted king has heard of the assassins being amassed by the Pix
and Fey tasked with ending his reign?”

Caedan could only shrug as he glanced into the cage being
secured upon the back of the short-legged, fearsome Blade that would carry him
into the hall of the Ogre Kings.

King Alistair’s taste for the blood of magick beings was
becoming a concern for the Guardian Selects of Power, the protectors the Ogre
served as well as the Pix and Fey whom Alistair seemed much too lucky in
acquiring in recent years. The land itself was beginning to tremble with fury
at the perversions the Secular king practiced with a frequency that threatened
to drain the crystalline spores of power of far too many magickal beings.

And what the depraved king did to the bodies of the magi he
captured was nothing short of demonic. Bleeding them nightly by the gobletful,
savoring the warm Spora-infused life he drained bit by bit before practicing
such heinous crimes against their helpless bodies that even the dark “get” born
of the Guardian Select were said to turn away from the sight of it.