Ketha's Daughter

Chapter two-3

The disciplined part of his mind told him in no uncertain terms to stop at once. He barely knew her, or anything about her — not even her real name. Those thoughts were obliterated by the drumbeat of wanting that pounded in his temples and groin.

He was half-disappointed and half-relieved when, a moment later, she tore her lips from his and rolled out from under his body. She stood and walked back over to the fire without speaking. Slowly she turned back to face him and pulled her tunic off over her head. The firelight gilded her smooth skin and flickered on the shapely curve of her breasts.

“Krikka, what do you...?” Arkady began, uncertainly, but she was already bending to unlace her breeches.

When she had finished undressing, she stood before him silently — waiting... breathing. Her form was breathtaking, taut and finely muscled, like a long-distance runner. Arkady knew then he had long passed the point of no return. He stood and shed his own clothes as quickly as he could and fell with her onto the blanket next to the fire.

The prolonged and intense lovemaking that followed made all of his other s****l experiences seem arid and clumsy. They coupled almost immediately in a torrent of passion that spent itself quickly, and hardly diminished the hunger they felt for each other. Twice more he took her, as her nails raked his back and she sank her teeth into his shoulder like a wild animal, before he felt he had satisfied her desire and his own.

Later, resting on the blanket, the night breeze cooled the sweat on her skin and she shivered in his arms. The fire had died down to glowing red ash and he could barely see the outline of her face in the darkness. Arkady whispered, “Who are you? Will you not tell me your real name, my beautiful crow girl?”

She turned to face him and her voice sounded bleak. “I cannot, dear Kadya. She would be angry with me.”

“Who would be angry?”

“Ketha. I must do as she says.” She sighed deeply. “Sometimes I wish I did not have to.”

Arkady rolled onto his side and rested his head on his hand so he could see her face more closely. He said, “I don’t know much about you, but I can see you are in some kind of trouble. You don’t have to tell me anything else if you don’t want to. Let me help you. We can both ride from here right now on Ajax, and by tomorrow we can be far away from this place. Trust me, I will make sure, whoever this Ketha is, she cannot find you.”

She shook her head miserably. “Ketha will always find me. There is nothing you can do to stop her.”

He begged her, “Please, I want you to stay with me. What hold does Ketha have on you? Will you not say?”

“Don’t ask any more questions!” she cried in frustration. “We have so little time to be together before she returns. There is only one thing you can do for me this night.” He could not see the tears clinging to her lashes but he tasted them as she turned her face to his and sought his mouth once again.

Afterwards, utterly spent, Arkady fought a losing battle to try and stay awake. But as her fingers lightly stroked the hair on his belly, he felt his eyes closing, and forced them open again. He knew instinctively she would be gone when he awoke, so he whispered, “Don’t go, Krikka. Please don’t leave me.” She said nothing in return, just waited patiently for him to fall asleep. Then she rose very cautiously and dressed herself. She located the pearl-handled dagger in the sand and shoved it back down into her boot.

Ajax rested quietly in the lee of a dune and made no sound as Krikka saddled her. The girl carefully unpacked the rest of Arkady’s food and the water skin and left it by the fire. She placed the rolled silk painting of Hana next to it. Krikka wore a periapt tied with a leather thong around her neck — a withered crow’s foot clutching a green crystal. Thoughtfully, she slipped it over her head and dropped it on top of the painting. She walked slowly back to where Arkady slept on the blanket and said, very quietly, “Farewell, Uncle.”

A large black crow flew down and landed on her back. For a few seconds it looked as though the girl had sprouted a pair of black wings, and then the crow disappeared. Krikka bit her lip so the pain would not make her cry out. Then she led Ajax away through the dunes and headed north towards the coast and the Fynära.

“What took you so long?” Ketha croaked angrily. “I told you we should have just killed him and taken the horse. We could have been miles away by now.”

“I am sorry, Ketha. You promised me I could see him before we left. I don’t want him to die because I care about him. Do you understand?”

The battle crow laughed harshly. “He will die soon enough, when the Fynära pay a visit to Beaumarais, my pretty girl. Ketha will have plenty of carrion to feast on then.”

When Arkady woke the next day, the sun was already high in the sky. As soon as he saw the pile of things she had left, he did not bother to look further for Krikka or Ajax. Spying the crow’s foot, he picked it up and gazed at it for a long moment. Krikka’s face came back to him, and her eyes. As blue as the skies of T’Shang. He shivered slightly, thinking of their feverish encounter of the night before. If she hadn’t stolen his horse, he might have thought it all some wild, fey dream. As he placed the charm around his neck, Arkady wondered if he would ever see her again. He shouldered the satchel that held the food and his water skin and turned away from the ashes of last night’s fire, sighing deeply. It would be a long, slow walk to Beaumarais.