The Brotherhood: Blood (28 page)

Behind him, a huge behemoth of a figure in a dark cloak stooped through the entryway, then rose. His gargantuan height dwarfed Jordan at seven-feet in total.

For no apparent reason, as if it were a gust of wind skirting in through the threshold and wrapping around him, a series of violent shakes began to overtake Odin’s body. His heart beat faster, his breathing came in ragged strips, and to his and his father’s horror, he began coughing, but quickly regained his composure when the tremble in the tall figure’s voice stopped reverberating throughout the room.

Is his voice doing this to me?

How did he—

It began as a performance art that could have been described as something ethereal—something, for all intents and purposes, that did not seem normal or was not regularly practiced within the standardized life of human sociology. The figure first lifted his hands and began, ever so slowly, to pull his gloves off, which revealed a porcelain-white structure of hands that were tipped with the darkest shade of purple nails, of which had been sharpened to points resembling daggers.

“What are you?” Ectris asked.

Next, as though a choir entering the chorus of a long melody, the figure revealed the same pearl-white skin, albeit on a bare chest which lay divided into two halves of muscle. Seemingly-hewn from the mountains to the east themselves, this train of muscle, sculpted entirely to where each of the figure’s ten abdominal muscles could be seen, continued up the torso until it ended where two equally-impressive and defined pectoral muscles lay—the small, dark nipples atop them revealing the figure’s sex as male.

“I’m nothing to be afraid of,” the mystery man said, undoing the lower half of the cloak to reveal a skirt of pure white with trees sewn into its surface.

To say that the choir had sung the chorus and the stage manager had set foot the most awe-inspiring performance of the last hundred years would have diminished just what Odin was seeing. It seemed, for a moment, that his eyes could not comprehend what lay before him, that his mind could not function without the visual inputs that lay connected within his eye sockets, and for that it took several long moments for him to truly take in the figure standing before him. When Odin was able to grasp a hold on the figure, however, his heart stopped beating in his chest.

Is he…

This creature—obviously not in the least bit human, for his facial features put even the most handsome man’s to shame—looked upon the two of them with dark, purple eyes that seemed to capture within them the essence of the world and everything that it entailed. Situated beneath a series of impressively-slanted brow bones, his façade eventually descended into beautiful madness by encapsulating his face with high cheekbones and hollow crevices below them. His jaw strong, but shaped, angled once to appear as though a near-perfect straight line and then twice to where it appeared a crescent. His chin—rounded, almost perfectly, and not in the least bit cleft—completed his face into the awe-inspiring creature that he was. Perhaps his most-striking feature, however, was his hair—purple, just like his eyes and brows, that spilled from the roots of his head, down his chest and back and onto the floor beneath him, the bangs of which had been braided perfectly and cut short to end near the bottom of his face.

To say this creature was anything but beautiful would have destroyed the word of humanity, to falsify a term and to thereby create something near horrendous out of it. It was for that reason, in looking upon the creature before him, that Odin found his breath caught in his throat and his lungs desperately pulsing in an attempt to breathe.

“How did you get past the border with that on you?” Jordan growled, stepping forward but straying his hand to his sword in the process. “Why, I should have you deported and sent to jail for this offense.”

“I assure you,” the creature said, “that I
am
an Elf, though my father was not.”

“You’re a sick Half-Blood!” Ectris went on. “Inbred, vile, half-breed piece of—”

Jordan, who continued to press forward, stopped in pace when the Elf cleared his throat, a sound comparable much to shifting stone upon the side of a mountain.

“My father,” the beautiful creature said, “a Drow, also known as a Dark Elf or the Scourge, bedded a creature of the fairer race. My mother, she was pure Elf, and should not be considered whatever you may be thinking, good sir, for she was but an innocent victim in this regard.” The Halfling blinked. Though no discernable emotion lay on his face, Odin thought the thing looked sad, possibly for its mother whom had likely come under assault by the venomous creatures that he himself was very much a part of. “I am here for the goodwill of your son. Please, put your weapon down.”

Aided by a secondary, yet just as vile look from Jordan, it took but those single words for Ectris Karussa to sheath his knife. “If I even
think
you are going to hurt my son, I’ll kill you.”

“Understandable.” It turned its eyes on Odin. “What is your name?”

“Uh-Odin,” he gasped.

“Odin.” The creature smiled, stepped forward, then fell to a knee. He offered his hand palm-up, unlike the traditional handshake. “My name is perhaps too complicated to explain, but you may call me Miko.”

“I introduce myself only to assure you that I mean no harm. You will find that most enemies prefer their names to be secret, even to those they trust the most.”

“Then how do we know you don’t want something?” Ectris asked.

The creature named Miko stood and crossed the room in but a few flush movements. Legs swift, arms propelling him forward, he stood before Ectris and stared into his eyes for several long, undeterminable moments, and despite the height difference between the two of them, Ectris made no move to back down. The higher creature—whom, in that instant, could have been considered something of a God among men—stared at Ectris until the man started shaking.

Ectris turned his head down. In response, Miko set a hand on the man’ shoulder, then drew closer, placing his opposite palm on his lower back as well.

Although he had yet to finish, and while the idea of the creature leaving so involuntary led Odin to believe that this might have been nothing more than a chance meeting, Miko stepped away from his crying father and crouched to kneel at his bedside. He extended his head, kept his fingers together, then tilted his hand palm-up. It took but a moment afterward for Odin to reach forward and touch the surface of his skin.

“There,” Miko smiled. “How does that feel?”

“Smooth,” Odin said, almost unable to comprehend how there could be so few lines upon the creature’s palms when it seemed that a variety of muscles had to have made them up. He continued to press his fingers into the dips and turns of the creature’s hand until he realized his action. Embarrassed, he said, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” the Elf said. “It’s only natural to be curious.” Miko slid his hand out from under Odin’s, then moved it up his arm until it rested on his shoulders. “You’re very sick, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I have it quite often, actually. It’s the result of my mixed blood—I catch things here and there that most normal, pure-blooded species only have once.”

“My hand,” Odin whispered. “I… the blood… you—”

“Do not worry. I am not vulnerable in my current state.”

Despite the beauty and the power that exuded from this creature as if it were sweat pooling forth from a working man’s brow, he
did
seem to have a weakness—that being within his weak, ‘bad’ blood. In a way, it made Odin feel as though the two of them were on stable ground, rather than one of them standing at the foot of a mountain and the other at its highest peak, and therefore allowed him some form of comfort regardless of how incomparable the two of them were.

“I’m sorry,” Miko said, blinking, as if realizing his stare for far too long. “I am not human, so you’ll find I don’t require the things you do.”

Odin turned his head up to look at Jordan—whom, until that moment, he’d forgotten had been in the room. With that said, however, he settled back onto the mattress and took a deep breath.

“Master Jordan,” the Elf said, rising from his crouched position. “I do not like the situation he’s in.”

“Neither do I, but as I’ve told you before: the committee believes it would be best for the safety of his peers and those within the castle that he be under surveillance.”

“No one is watching him. Your guards stand outside an iron door, your people walk the streets ignorant, your king sleeps behind a door before which a multitude of armed men stand—what is your king or his committee accomplishing when they know not what this young man is doing?”

“I—”

“I want him, Master Jordan. I want this young man to be my squire.”

“Sir!” Odin started, attempting to rise, but unable to do so when his father set a hand on his shoulder to hold him in place. “Are you… are you a knight?”

“No,” the Elf said. “I am not.”

“The thing is,” Jordan began, “that given your preferential treatment in regards to your abilities, one may not consider it necessary that the person you train under or serve beneath be royal or even a knight in general. Though it is custom, and preferred, a squire may serve under a nobleman or a figure equaling that status, but in your case, you are a mage
and
a commoner, and therefore must seek out the best opportunity possible to train your abilities.”

“I have no status except that as a wanderer,” Miko added. “However, given the bylines within your kingdom’s history and the circumstance in which past knights of magical value have been trained, it would be arrogant for you
not
to serve someone who understands magic.”

“You’re… a mage?” Odin asked.

“All Elves are born mages, my friend.”

“You’d really do that for me?” Odin asked, hoping in his heart, mind and soul that the Elf’s words had not truly been lies. “I’m nothing special.”