The Blind Valiant

OF DARKNESS AND TEARS.

 Kyrillos had his own secret. The secret he’d never told anyone, was that he had a recurring dream. It had started over a month ago.

 Sometimes days passed without him having it; sometimes he had it night after night for a month.

It was a plague of nightmares that came in terrifying flashes on his mind and body. He had tried every known remedy to stop them; dreamcatchers, opium, using old hexes he had bought in the backend of Gris.

 None of it could give him that reprieve. Yet sometimes he didn’t want that escape. Kyrillos felt that he needed them as a reminder.

 A trigger for a worst side of himself- frightening but still a part of him. A side he always watched as someone else lived it and didn’t know was part of him.

 It irked him each morning, night or any other time he awoke from those dreams; how he couldn’t find how or why those flashes of discordant images meant so much to him yet could not understand them.

 Because they certainly had to mean something. Like his mind was trying to force something on him. So sometimes he pursued those nightmares himself, because they kept his heart forged on a path he had a feeling would lead him to where he belonged.

                                              ~♤~

‘Don’t look back. Keep going. Ignore the pain in my hands and knees.’

I let the voice run riot in my head as I broke through the fence. My voice? Whose? It didn’t matter.

‘Onto your feet now. That’s it. Run, run!’

I sprinted into an alley between two old buildings, kicking up the sludge deposited by overflowing gutters. Looking up, I could see the rusting gutters hanging from the roof edges, the leaf litter that blocked the drains.

About two meters high. Too high. Too precarious. But this claustrophobic corridor continued into the distance and I could hear the Echelon hounds closing in.

I launched myself into the air, caught the troughs neatly on either side and swung myself up and to the right, the metal creaking and complaining as I went.

I hit the corrugated iron roof with a crash, slid for a second and stopped just shy of the roof’s edge. I laid unmoving, staring into the vast and darkening silver sky, the sense of triumph slowly ebbing away like the light in the west.

It was leaving a cold sensation in my stomach. If I couldn’t calm my breathing they would hear me.

I thought about that last look back into the carriage, then pushed the memory away. I put it in a special pouch and closed the lid.

I looked at the emptiness above and listened. Over my heaving chest he could hear the dogs. The shouting grew closer.

 Then there were muffled footsteps, too light and soundless to be human- a Shedim was walking between the buildings.

I’d learned to sense them at a distance. My survival depended on the use of all sorceries the Lemegeton had given me. The noise was too indistinct to work out how far away the creature was and my breathing was too loud, much too loud.

I counted two seconds, took one last long breath and clamped my mouth shut. I realized I could just make out a star where the sky was darkest.

Footsteps, right below me. A star. Or a moon. The feet stopped. Moon. Star. There was movement, the sound of material scraping against the brickwork. The gutter creaked. My chest began to throb as the pressure grew.

There was loud breathing and the sound of boots against the wall. More pressure, more pain, the urge to spring to my feet and run away.

I turned my head very slowly to see thick, dirty fingers gripping the lip of the gutter. Inside my head I started to scream. I wanted to open my mouth and let it out. So, so much.

At that moment there was a snap, a tearing and a shriek. The gutter, the dirty fingers and heavy breathing vanished in a cascading crash.

I opened my mouth and let the breath explode out of my lungs. I gulped down the cool air. My shoulders rose and fell and rose again because I couldn't have stopped them. I pushed the grief of seeing the m******e away, into my pouch. It was all too raw, like the aching in the back of my head.

That special pouch deep within me had started out tiny, like something Papa would charm to contain the darker memories.

There had rarely been time to be frightened or vexed in the past two years, since the Echelon had retaken the eastern border of Tangier, so I had locked each helplessness and injustice carefully inside.

That way I was free of the despair and anger. But now the pouch was like a casket varnish blistered and swollen, the wood turning green and the brass tarnished.

The contents oozed under the lid and dripped down the sides of my subconscious. Worse still, I had begun to imagine myself becoming the casket, with everything it contained, everything I had hidden, free to slosh about inside me, ready to take shape and eat me alive.

My heart was racing again. I calmed myself by imagining I really was playing hide-and-seek.

I was deep in a cupboard under the stairs, covered in a hanging winter coat, the open door inviting the others to take just a swift and cursory look inside. Invisible, waiting, invulnerable.

“What are you doing here?” The voice suddenly cut through my concentration.

“Drinking,” I replied between gulps.

“What were you doing on the roof?” His delivery was flat, almost emotionless.

‘Don’t be fooled. That just means I can’t read him.’ “Looking for someone.” I stood up and wiped my chin. It seemed to be covered in brown dirt.

I purposely avoided looking straight at the strange man, buying time to think of something without my eyes giving anything away. “On the roof?”

‘Trap.’

“Yes.” I was just delaying the inevitable. It didn’t matter what I said and this made me feel free. Bold. “What were you doing watching the rain?”

“I’m asking the questions.” The merest hint of tension. Not anger.

“Yes, you are.” I c****d my head to one side and began to pool as much inconspicuous persuasion into my words. I had to be subtle lest this man turned out to be Noirish and killed me on the spot.

The man was dressed in black, with a woolen coat and a dark sack. His young face looked dirty. Not what I had expected. He just stared back at the twig of my frame like he was trying to work something out. I wondered if he really could spell this out.

“Well, I shouldn’t take up any more of your time, so…”

He pushed the door shut behind him. I took a step back. I leaned against the door and folded my arms.

“And you’re going where, exactly?” Colder. Almost icy. I wanted to shiver but it would break me out of character.

“Home, now. I couldn’t find... my Papa. He sells fish...”

“Why were you looking for him?” I tensed, I was definitely being interrogated now.

“And what happened to your face?”

I reached up and touched my nose. It stung like I'd ran into a wall. Something flaky peeled off in my fingers and I looked down to see what it was.

 It was then I noticed that the front of my tattered brocade tunic shirt was stained a dirty red-brown. Congealed blood had crumbled off on my fingers.

“I... walked into something in the dark,” I tried to say, but the words were lost as I choked, then coughed and finally sniffed, wincing with the pain.

I was overworking myself... using too much of sorcery on how exhausted I was.

The man laughed. It was a joyless thing, full of scorn. I found a well spring of anger and defiance deep inside, ready to be tapped and fueled.

I stared into this overbearing stranger's eyes, a mere wisp of a boy on the verge of adolescence, covered in dried blood, rust, mould and rotting leaves.

‘Be the deity no one can refuse, Fiorenze’, said his inner voice, his own voice. They are yours to command. They are ready to be convinced. So convince.

“Yes, I got lost and walked into a broken piece of guttering. Shall I show you?” The man had eyes peculiar to anyone I’d ever met- glassine-purple with hoary edges.

Don’t blink, I told myself as I stretched my manæ even further.

“What’s your name, boy?” he asked more softly. The creases around his eyes seemed to smile. There was something odd about his accent.

‘He’s Burnish’, I thought, but certain words seemed different. ‘Maybe he was even more western... from the Sp’r cities?’

“Fior... Renze Kh…”  ‘Think.’ “K... Koisen.” I slumped against the sink. The man laughed again, this time not so hollow.

“Oh, oh, oh, you were doing so well. You’ll have to do better than that, Fiorenze whatever you are.”

I began to wash my face, hoping it would hide the tears that pricked the corners of my eyes. The man came very close, then sat on the edge of the basin.

He spoke quickly. “Wash your shirt, wash it clean, it can stay wet if need be…and wipe your coat down. You’re from Tangier, right? Right?”

Frantically and confused for the sudden advice, I nodded. “That’s good, stick with that... and use Youseh or something. Neither of those names gets more Fell than that. You have anywhere to go?”

I nodded again. I had been defeated by my fatigue at keeping a good silver-tongue spell going, but now I was uncertain what was happening.

“One more thing...” He caught my face and stared those watery orbs straight into his pitch dark eyes.

“Trust no one. Good luck, Youseh Koisen.” Then he was gone.

I watched my hands, quivering like I was epileptic. It took a full minute before they were still and another for me to realize that that barest smell of brimstone had come from the man.

Now I knew why my spell had failed to ensorcell him immediately.

The man was indeed the Noirish following me. I  had wasted too much time. I was supposed to be in Altair short of few hours ago. I took a look at the trajectory of the second sun and groaned before hurrying towards where I was supposed to be.

The ruined grotto beneath the shrine soon came into view. It hadn't been easy sneaking past guards in their emblazoned positions at the turrets.

The grandeur of the old building with its remarkably architectural features that no doubt used to be a pride for the citizens of the small town that I had been instructed explicitly to come.

 But it wasn’t unusual to find a beggar limping up to the steeples for alms and prayers, which I was certain was how I looked.

As soon as I stepped into the building, I was rushed with a sudden surge of dread that gripped my heart so fiercely that it felt like it was about to burst out of my chest.

A foreboding reflex I was less than eager to think about, so I heaved and pushed aside the curtains.

The shrine had once been a center of unity and integration between the diversifying citizens of these outskirts of the Old Lands, the building having been designed and architected around the mid tenth century by the early Burnish settlers.

A statuette of the community until the Echelon invaded; crucifying Fell priests and burning the tombs of the Infernals. There were bones and corpses overflowing the streets and gutters of the city.

But Altair had been untouched and would still remain holy grounds for his kind; sanctuary from the atrocities of the Echelon.

Yet a strangled gasp escaped from my throat unbidden, when my eyes caught the littered bodies and fresh blood stains splashed across the sepulcher.

The entire ceiling had been blasted through, the sky was reddened by tongues of unnatural flames burning through the clouds that burned and thick black smoke hung everywhere.

I saw death wherever I looked, mutilated bodies of men and women tossed aside like broken dolls; naked, raped women and children, bleeding and moaning for help.

I recognized their faces, each sending my heart into a panicky race and ice spiking through my veins. I bolted forward to altar where three familiar bodies were cramped against the weathered pillars

“NE! Papa!” The man was holding two crumpled forms in his lap. Annyka, Israfel... a stream of blood running down the steeples like river eddies.

But there were still some missing. ‘Marchosias, where are you?!’

 I scampered about the desecrated ruins, searching through the bodies for the last of my family, panic and hysteria following each minute of failure.

Until... “Fiorenze!” I turned sharply to see him step out of mosaic wall he had been camouflaged in.

He was drenched in blood that I wasn’t sure if any had been his. He had a hollow crazed expression as he staggered. I rushed forward, falling to my knees at his side.

 “Kho sė jastalo?!” What happened? I asked reaching to touch the face so similar to my own.

Marchosias crumpled in my arms, eyelids shuttering and breaths raggedy to even keep conscious.

“It is what happens when you spawns of the devil, think you are better than the rest of us.”

My face shot up at those words steeped in hate and found four individuals in the flowing apparels of the Echelon. My chest tightened with rage and I laid my weakened brother on the ground and scrambled to his feet as he yelled.

“You did this! Why... the Fells... we surrendered, you promised leniency for those of us who surrender?”

One stepped forward, clearly a man and cackled a dehumanizing laugh. “Indeed you did. But the Pontiff has deemed it that no other child of the Lemegeton may live in this world except us, the Noirish. Your devil’s blood will be expunged from the earth, a Cleansing was called.”

‘The Pontiff?’ I fixed my feet into the bloodied concrete and declared fearlessly.

“You will regret what you have done today! I will make your Pontiff suffer a fate far worse than he has given us!” I threw out what last vestige of sorcery I could drudge up.

It came as a clap of thunder and splitting of the earth, trembling the shrine atop it. But the Noirish were already chanting against my spells. Then their words stuttered into choking sounds and they fell over, regurgitating pools of blood.

The man looked up with bulging frightened eyes at the child... past where he was standing. And it was then I realized that someone was murmuring a chant behind me.

“Avèk san sè nou yo, frè m yo, papa yo ak manman yo, mwen grenn tè sa a. avèk san sè nou yo, frè m yo, papa nou ak manman nou, nou priye yon benediksyon ak yon madichon.”

I gasped and looked down at Marchosias, his flaxen hair and face soaked with our family’s blood, raising his hands up to the ceilings, eyes shuttered as if in prayers.

 And my surprise and horror only came from seeing the half of his face that was beginning to decompose and atrophy into stone.

But his bloodied lips still quivered with the spell he invoked the darkness in his blood, it sang raucously in me like a lullaby of a familiar soul.

A summoning worthy to bend the demons of sea, earth and sky- our ancestors, our slain gods, to his will.

“Se pou tan an poud pitit fi mwen an soti nan kabicha sa a san peryòd, kite li pliye ak pliye jan li ap grandi raj li ak dezespwa kont lènmi nou yo. pou lè li reveye, li pote lènmi nou yo balanse.”

But then I felt a jerk of power, yanking at my body. I looked back and barely saw the silhouette of a man stepping through the cascade of Marchosias’ spell.

 I cursed out, planting as much manæ into the ground to hold me by my brother’s side, to protect him while he did whatever he was doing but the force kept growing stronger.

I’d overworked my sorcery for days now, not strong to hold off against the faceless Noirish pulling at the chords of my manæ and yanking me to him.

“Fiorenze, no!” Marchosias noticed and threw out his own power to me, a tug-of-war issued. But I already knew he was weakening. His summoning was draining the life from him.

I heard a wave crashing forward, heeding Marchosias’ spell in its hurry. And I couldn’t let the two of us be taken and risk the sacrifices that had been made to keep us out of the Echelon’s reach.

 ‘Let go! You have to go, now.’ I spoke so only he could hear.

“No! We swore we would never leave each other!”

My soul-half screamed back, invoking a promise of forever ago. I shook my head, gritting my teeth from the agony of being in between such two opposing sorcery.

‘And I’ll find you again! When have I ever broken a promise? They can’t have the two of us, Marchosias. Remember what Damaikar warned would happen if they did.’

 I withdrew my manæ from my feet and flung it against my brother’s hold on me, releasing my body to be pulled towards the Noirish just as the tide of blood slammed into Marchosias.

‘I will find you, my brother, my soul-half.’

 A hand grabbed me by the neck, squeezing and choking. But through the haze before the blackout, I saw Marchosias turn to stone.

                                              ~♤~

Kyrillos jolted upright from the bed, his bare torso sheened in sweat as he breathed heavily. Kyrillos swallowed hard before he rubbed a hand up his face and into his damp hair.

 He heard a creaking sound of his door pushing open behind him and glanced over his shoulders to see Louscha by the dim light in the corridor, her russet hair tousled about her beautiful face and her rumpled sheer nightgown.

“Another bad dream?” she asked with concern, grey eyes watching him as she closed the door behind her and approached him.

“What are you doing here?” he wanted to ask instead he nodded with an aggrieved sigh just as she reached the bed and wrapped her arm around his neck from behind. She kissed his bare shoulders.

 “Do you suppose you might have to see a physician... a healer, maybe? At least for a potion to help you get better sleep?”

He shrugged, turning half way to use his hand to brush strands of hair from her face where she rested her chin in the crook of his shoulder.

“Honestly I’m not sure it would help anything.” He answered before he got out of the bed and went to the stained glass windows to watch the cityscape under the dusky night of early morning.

“Is it the same dream?” Louscha asked from the canopied bed, worry tinged her voice.

“Same dream.” Kyrillos affirmed. “I’m running towards something important, I know it’s very important to me. But I don’t get there in time, there’s a lot of... death, confusion and loss. I’m trapped and can’t get out.”

 There was silence after that. No response from Louscha who watched his forlorn expression cast to the horizon of the city.

“I’m starting to think it has something to do with coming back here. The dreams only started on the journey.”

 “Kyrillos.” She called softly and he looked back and saw her advance to him. Her eyes misted with emotion as she pled, and her hand reached to caress his face. “Don’t leave... please don’t leave me here. Alone.”

Kyrillos’ eyes shuttered at her touch, he itched to feel her skin. But he rasped, not holding back the bitterness he felt for this fleeting moment.

“Why would I stay? I’ve barely seen you since we came back and my father has shown that he rather shove his ideals down my throat than even show any sign that he cares for my presence here.”

“Is the idea of being Madrigal such a terrible idea?”

Kyrillos couldn’t help but feel the weight of her question. “I... I don’t know. I’ve only ever hated my father because he was not always around and when he was, he was nothing more than Lord Manfri, Madrigal of Amphion and Arsinor’s most ruthless servant. I have never wanted anything he has...”

 He looked straight at her and muttered. “Until now.”

“So that’s it then. You’re jealous?” she sounded flabbergasted at the notion.

Am I? “I’m in love with a princess who will be my father’s wife and it seems she doesn’t care for me as much as I do for her.”

Louscha stepped closer, her voice mumbling softly. “Is that what you really think? That I don’t care for you? That I do not...?”

Kyrillos shrugged, letting his hand tangle into touch her hair. “You haven’t shown me any evidence of otherwise.”

“You have no idea what I’ve been through these short while without you. How alone, confused and scared I’ve been.” She drew closer and draped her arms around his neck.

“I know.” He breathed in her invigorating perfume, bringing his forehead to touch hers. “I know but just once I...”

 She silenced him with a press of her lips to his. His breath caught in his throat. Her mouth moved against his, hot and restless, turning his body to a pit of molten desire. She clawed at his back, pulling him closer.

 His hands went for her clothes, she didn't protest when he tugged at the strings of her nightgown. Pulling its sheer linen off her shoulders and feeling the skin under them; warm and smooth wherever he could touch it.

When Louscha placed her hands at his waist, he gasped into her mouth, a gasp that was half disbelieving and half want.

“Louscha,” Kyrillos moaned, a word halfway between a benediction and a moan. His mouth was wild on hers; they were kissing as if they were trying to tear down the bars that held them inside a prison.

 His eyes were dark, her cheeks flushed. As she raised her face, he brought his down, his mouth slanting across hers. With his other hand he cupped her face, running his thumb gently across her cheekbone.

Her lips tasted of burned sugar; the sweetness of her breakfast, he figured.

Her hands glided over ridged chest, shoving him back to the wall, urging him with gentle touches, with a murmur against his lips, not to pause.

 Hesitantly he returned her caress, and then with greater force- kissing her again and again, each time with increasing urgency, cupping her face between his burning hands, his callused warrior’s fingers stroking her skin, making her shiver as he turned them towards the bed.

  His hands moved to the small of her back, pressing her against him; her bare feet slipped on the carpeted floor, and they half-stumbled backward onto the bed.

Her fingers wound tightly in his chestnut brown locks, Louscha brought Kyrillos down onto her, taking the weight of him onto her body with the feeling that she was being cleansed from the stains she felt had stayed with her for a long time, a bit of her that was lost in darkness and only now finding the light.

 But Kyrillos knew better than to rely his heavy weight on her smaller one, adjusting to hold himself up.

He was sturdy, sinewy built and with the same racing heart; she ran her hands down from his hair, to his face and the despicable jawline that had a smattering of hair.

 He also could not seem to stop running his hands over her in wonder. They traced their way down her body, his breath ragged in her ear as he finished pulling the strings that held her dress.

But he paused. He knew that this was yet another fleeting moment she was permitting him to steal. A moment that could easily be tarnished by any one of the servants or worse anyone of his relatives walking in on them.

“Don’t worry, I barred the door. But then who cares, they can watch us if they wanted. I don’t particularly mind.” She smirked lasciviously, sensing the reason behind his hesitation.

Propping himself over her, he gazed down, and said again, huskily. “I don’t want you to be my father’s wife. But if this is the only way I can have you...”

His father’s proposed wife touched his cheek, so close to hers, and then the flawless skin of his throat, where the blood beat hard beneath the surface.

 His eyelashes fluttered down as he followed the movement of her finger with his eyes, like honeydew.

“Take me then.” she whispered thickly. Kyrillos bent down to her; their mouths met again, and the shock of sensation was so strong, so overpowering.

He murmured and gathered her against him. They rolled sideways, her legs scissoring around his, their bodies shifting to press each other closer and closer still so it became hard to breathe, and yet they could not stop.

As he shrugged the linen pants from his waist, she saw that his eyes were lightening to reveal more greenness to its shades. She had only a moment to marvel at that, though; she was too busy marveling at the rest of him.

Tight corded muscles, slender limbs and flushed in olive tones of complexion. Beautiful, she thought.

Like Halgier’s patron god, Aollyon must’ve been in the beginning.

She brushed her fingers over the dusting of hair on his chest, to the scars across the hollows between his ribs and the slope of his carved stomach, which shuddered under her touch.

 He did not seem to be able to stop touching her, either. His skilled hands grazed her sides, skimming up her bare legs beneath her undergarments, with a soft and urgent grace that left her breathless.

 Their bodies burned, and their hair was wet with sweat, pasted to their foreheads and necks. He kissed and licked, going up to her jugular to swallow the pulse of heartbeat there.

“Lou Lou,” He moaned into her neck, a heavenly sound that curled her toes. And when he raised his face, wet falling hair over his eyes which twinkled with desperate adoration.

 Kyrillos drew in a sharp breath when he felt her slip her hands lower to the waistbands of his breeches, palming his aroused member. It seemed he was suddenly revitalized as he attacked her lips with renewed want.

Seeing him on his knees in front of her, her hands stayed in his hair, pulling gently as she tried not to squirm at his kisses along her collarbone and down between her breasts.

 His hands pushed the material of her undergarments up her waist, gliding down the backside of her bared thighs.

 “You’ve always smelled heavenly.” He muttered along her skin before he took a taut n****e between his teeth through the cloth.

Louscha gasped out, mewling as her hands tugged at his hair roots.

 Her breasts swelled, n*****s hardened, biting very gently and sucking while his other hand thumbs over the other, bearing the delicious brunt of his expert hands and sensuous lips.

Her legs come up imprisoning his body, hers writhing in a melody of sweet agony.

“Oh... please.” She begged, pulling her head back.

“My sweet Louscha.” Kyrillos murmured as he drew his breeches down and positioned the bulbous head of his erection at the entrance of her s*x.

 He went in a bit too harshly that her back arched as a splitting pinch wretched deep inside her. She couldn’t help it, she groaned loudly as he filled her, hitting every sensitive spot along the way.

 Then he withdrew and did it again. His eyes brightened with ecstatic triumph, mouth slightly parted and his breathing harsh.

 Louscha nodded and demanded. “Again.” Soon her shoulders were the only thing holding her in place, Kyrillos’ arms supporting her completely.

  He leaned into her, kissing her, f*****g her, suckling her, working her as much as she worked him, and they twined together. Her knees were against his back, his tongue was in her throat, and the room was much too warm.

Together, they danced, perfect complements, every last joint involved in their passion.

She’d never experienced anything like it and stopped caring that her fate had been shackled to a man old enough to be her father. It didn’t matter. Only this... with a man she truly loved and wanted everything from.

  With a loud breath, her voice crawling the length of it, she lost control and let her orgasm win.