Before Caelia was the queen of death she was in love. And the thing about love is that it will set you free or destroy you. Caelia was tottering on the edge, not sure which direction of the knife’s blade she’d topple off of. What she did know was she had fallen into his bed dripping with desire in all the ways and places desire should drip. She was now looking up at a shard of sunlight shaped like the shaft of an arrow flying across the ceiling, having uncoiled that desire from deep within and left it gasping and moaning on the bed in the dark room.
Her hand fell to his chest. She traced the muscles of his arms and noted where she’d gripped them earlier to hold on. Then her eyes across his flat stomach, which ended where the blanket started. A thrilling tingle flashed through her. Gareth. He was a nobody, at least by her family’s standards.
But, she loved Gareth and the heart doesn’t care about class or condition. It cares for circumstance, and Caelia’s circumstance, on the run and recovering from an injury, had brought her to this farm last year. He had healed her. She had left him. Then she returned and took him. Then she left. Then returned. Now, she was leaving again.
Caelia stiffened and her hand paused on his skin. She felt his heartbeat against her fingers. “I need to go.” She sat up and scanned the room for her clothes. In the lust of thirty minutes ago she’d deposited them in gasping, heart pounding spurts through the room. She reached for her shirt.
“You can stay.” It was a half groan, half sleepy, satiated, sex laden moan and it turned her on. “He doesn’t have to know.”
“The convoy is moving soon.” Besides, he would know. He knew everything. That was the reach and extent of his power. The best she could hope for was to carve out a spot, underneath him. She sat at the edge of the bed, balancing on that knife edge of love again, debating what she should do, when she felt his strong hands on her skin. Was this lust or love? She couldn’t tell, and wasn’t sure it mattered, because this could never be anything but an orgasm.
His calloused hands held desire, and they dragged the same out of her. She moaned. She leaned back into his warm body, her nipples hardening and pointing to the ceiling, as she arched her back and felt his fingertips run down his spine, wrap around the pear shape of her ass and grip.
He was kissing her then, bringing his wet lips across the skin of her side from below the mound of her breast to her leg. She was letting him. She was getting wet in more places than where he kissed. She was dropping her shirt to the floor and falling back into bed with him. The blanket wrapped around them and held them tighter together, his hot body against hers. Their lips connected, wet and hot and spreading so his tongue could work into her mouth.
His hand moved off her ass and around her hip to the front of her, pulling her legs apart. He shifted. He was filling her. He was thrusting and she was pushing back into him. His hand was on her throat. She gripped his wrist as he tightened. She was light headed. Blackness creeping into the edges of her vision. Her focus narrowing to his face.
The way his brow creased with every thrust and his light brown eyes expanded in pleasure. The sound of his moans. She was moaning too. She was getting wetter. She was pulling him deeper into her with every thrust. Then she was feeling him pulse and explode. She pressed her hips into him even harder, taking every drop of him. They lay there for a long time, their bodies coupled, with the drowsy satisfaction of sex creeping in until sleep came.
Hours later she woke with a start and a gasp. “What time is it?” It was dark and she choked up panic. “I have to go.”
Caelia jumped out of bed, searching for her clothes. “Gareth. I gotta go, now.” She said again.
He rolled over and looked at her with his oak colored eyes. Blinked once, long and slow, coming back to life and shaking off sleep. He rubbed his eyes with his palms. “It’s okay.” Then he yawned.
But, it wasn’t okay. What she hadn’t told him, was, well anything. He didn’t know that she wasn’t just part of a convoy, but she was the convoy. The convoy was her convoy, and her convoy happened to be a light infantry unit of King Hujax Mirrious. King Hujax had ruled The Kingdoms for over a thousand years and he maintained his power by killing everyone that opposed him. Her convoy happened to be out on a mission to eradicate a threat near Thaloria. Her convoy was a hand selected unit of thirty-one ruthless soldiers devoted to, and enjoying, wiping people from the pages of history.
“I can catch them at the pass.” Her shirt was on and her braid tucked into it out of haste. “They should have stuck to the plan. They kept moving.” She was trying to convince herself of that.
But, she felt terror creep up. They would come for her when they found her missing. Her army of death would do what they do best. They would infiltrate every house in the area in the shadows of dark looking for her. They would kill everyone they found. Including Gareth. That was how they trained. That was how she had trained them.
And if something happened to her, he would kill every one of the convoy. And they all wanted to live. They didn’t want some stupid girl to be the death of them. She grabbed her bronze armor and slipped into the breastplate. “Saddle my horse.” Her tone was harsh and this made him sit up. The loss of Gareth, as she thought about it, made her face turn white. She couldn’t let that happen. He was the one good thing in her life.
He looked at her. “This is serious, isn’t it?” Worry lines creased his brow. He didn’t wait for an answer and was already on his feet pulling on his pants. He rushed to the stable while she pulled on her boots and went through the tedious process of lacing them up. They were black leather, broken in and comfortable, ending at the top of her calves.
She paused, the lace of her left boot hanging limp in her hand, and listened. She finished the knot and glanced at the door. Something wasn’t right. He should have been back by now. Her heart was in her throat and she burst out the door. “Gareth.” She froze, terror washing over her. No, not like this. She thought. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He was the escape. He couldn’t die.
Her shoulders pulled back. She cursed the Gods. “What are you doing here?” Her voice came off as clipped. All business. Formal and masculine, the way the army liked her. Devoid of emotion and her essence.
Lieutenant Bahava smiled. “Looking for you, my dear.”
My dear. The voice was patronizing. He’d always hated her for being a woman and also his commanding officer.
“He’s caring for my horse.”
Gareth was kneeling on the ground and Bahava’s sword was resting on his neck. He had soldiers flanking him. She counted seven. Too many for her to take alone without consequence. Bahava looked down. “Is that true?” He dragged the blade against his skin. “Are you a stable hand?”
“Yes, sir.” Gareth looked out from the corner of his oak colored eyes, eyes she burned into her memory. “A hoof lost a nail. All fixed now.”
She strode toward Bahava. “Now put your damn sword away and let’s go.” She was close enough to him now that she could almost touch him.
He withdrew the sword from Gareth’s neck and handed her the hilt. He studied her for a long time. Caelia studied him back. He knew she was lying, and she knew what he wanted. She knew what was required. But, Caelia had already decided something in that moment that he didn’t know. And what he didn’t know was the one thing that was going to get him killed, because she had already decided to kill him.
She had already hardened herself against Bahava in the only way she could harden. Because, there was no other option. She had mentally played every option out in her head and this was going to be the best option. It was the most painless option because she was the only one that suffered.
She was made to kill for the king, as she was going to kill now. She was a vessel, nothing more. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt of the blade. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Gareth shift on the ground. She had told him. She had warned him she needed to leave. He hadn’t listened. He had wanted her body one more time.
“Your rules, general.” Bahava smirked. He let out a little laugh.
Gareth’s eyes widened a little as he realized what she was. As he realized who she was. Caelia felt a part of herself die. He was too good for her. He deserved better. She could still strike down Bahava, but could she get to the others in time? Damn her rules. She lived by them, but now she was going to die by them.
“Unless you – “
“No.” She cut him off. Her face flushed for a second as anger flared. She thought of her brothers and sister. She thought of her parents. The king had been cruel. And only misfortune had kept her alive. A barren woman was a good pet to keep for a lonely king.
Bahava’s hair was long and curly, falling down to his shoulders in sweaty, damp strands. He seemed to look down his nose at her, to gaze into, and through, her. Then a sneer crossed his face. “So -“
The knife she threw cut his sentence short the way it cut his throat open, permanently and ruthlessly. The body fell to the ground. The soldiers were shocked, which was exactly what she hoped for. In their shock she had her opening. And an opening was all she needed to survive. So, she took her opening, along with her dagger out of Gareth’s throat, and brought Bahava’s sword to his own throat. “Don’t ever question my loyalty again, or I’ll fucking kill you.”
Bahava’s Adam’s apple pricked against the point of the blade and drew blood as he gulped. But, she didn’t remove the sword. She was waiting for acknowledgement. She was waiting for him to back down. Aggression for aggression in The Kingdoms.
Finally, he nodded. She dropped the sword and jabbed the point into the dirt. “Bury him and pay tribute.” One hundred coin for a birth. One hundred coin for a death. This was important. They needed to send his soul to the other place. It was her only hope of seeing him again. Someday, if she ever went to the place beyond.
But, in her heart she knew she wouldn’t. As she walked away, she felt herself falling off of the knife edge she’d been balancing on. She fell away from love and back toward duty. Back toward violence and the only path she had. Away from happiness and comfort and belonging. Away from the only man she had ever loved, which the aching sense of longing made her realize now. Those things were not hers. They never could be, for as long as he was alive. And he would always be alive because he, like her, was never going to die.
The soldiers behind her were picking up the body of Gareth. They were saying the prayers and would travel to the river to throw down one hundred coin and pay the tribute. Caelia was not looking back because she couldn’t look back. She’d lost a part of herself that would never return. Bahava was beside her. “The rest are waiting for you to move out.”
His voice was clinical and harsh. All business. She ignored him and got on her horse. Pulling the reins, she turned away from Gareth’s hut. She turned away from love. She let hurt burn her hollow until she reached her soldiers not as Caelia but as the Queen of death.