The Taming

Watching the Watcher

Sebastian found Elsabet in the hall outside Mardichi's chamber.

She went to move past him but he caught her shoulders and pushed her against the wall. Kissing her deeply. She was so startled that she froze. Blinking at him in surprise.

"That was for all that we didn't get to finish."

"Perhaps when I'm no longer a nursemaid." Elsabet suggested under her breath.

"I can hear ye! Not out there. Go ta yer chamber!" Mardichi cried desperately. "I don' need no nursemaid!"

"The fact that you say that, is further evidence that you do." Elsabet said coolly as she entered the room with a damp rag. One she laid over his forehead, to help break his raging fever.

Sebastian watched her from the doorway. Seeing the way she tended Mardichi like an ill child. She was calm kindness.

She was always like this when she was taking care of one of them. Calmer than normal.

Set on her purpose. He suspected she liked being useful.

And thinking just a bit less about being captive. His shoulders dropped. The usual conflict tearing through him.

He stared at her silver hair, moving around her elebows and hips like delicate spiderwebbing. The light in her dark blue eyes made her unforgettable. And when she touched a wounded man, her hand lit in waving gold and white light.

It traveled through her in long, healing streamers. They poured from her into whomever she tended.

A light she doesn't even know she has.

She was pure magic. An ethereal saint with a guarded heart. There was nothing about her, not the smallest detail, that he could ever forget.

She's everything.

That light would haunt him until his dying day.

***

"Tell me, nuisance puppy, what have you done to yourself now?"

"I did none o' it." He said haugtily. Feigning disregard for his wounds. In his usual strong fashion.

"No. Cimmerii did it to you. But why did you let them?"

He flipped his head to look at her. "What nonsense are ye sayin' ta me?"

"Mardichi..." She sighed. "You are big. You are hearty. And far too bullheaded to tumble when you are losing. So why this slow, painful suicide?"

He was quiet a long while. Finally he relented. His true face seeping through as his glowering expression softened into something totally different. His voice wasn't the normal harsh boom as he confessed. "I lost them, Elsabet."

"Your baby?"

"Both of them." His voice cracked. "You should've seen her after the years since you met her. She was a wonder, she was."

His burr and his uneducated slang dissipated as they were replaced by graceful speech that eeked of the intelligence he worked hard to keep buried.

Or drank into oblivion.

"I was dreadful, terrible to her in the beginning. But she...She was unlike anything. She was fierce, proud, forgiving, and sturdy spirited. But she was beautiful and precious too. It was no time until she had me twirled bout her tiniest finger, you see?" He imitated winding around his thick digit. Belying what he described.

"You?"

"Indeed." He nodded sagely. "She was like you. She could work miracles. Even with ones as difficult as me."

"Like me?" Elsabet's voice rose and the tinge of humor entered her tone. Softening her too.

"Ye are." He dismissed. "Ye know ye are. Ye've a crusty outside but soft and warm as fresh puddin' under all that."

"Funny how your burr comes back when you're being dismissive."

He glared at her.

She grinned.

It wasn't long before he sighed.

"You blame yourself?"

"Yes."

"Why not her?"

"Her too. If she'd have stayed gone long ago. I'd have understood. I was willing to accept that for the wrongs I'd done her. But now?" His voice cracked and broke.

She thought for a moment that a sob might escape him, but he managed to swallow it back down.

"I was as good as I ever thought I could be."

"And her?"

"She was an angel." He gestured heavenward. "Sent from above to form me into a better man. And I was. I swear I was."

"I believe you." She caught his huge hand between both of hers. Giving it a reassuring squeeze. "You can think of no reason she'd have gone as she did?"

"None."

"Were you fighting?"

"We bantered. We always bantered. I told her she was a stubborn woman she called me a foolish man. But we ended laughing. It was our way. But she was not angry when I left."

"Why else?"

"I don't know." He was crestfallen.

"Could she have killed him?"

"Never." He shook his head adamantly. "It wasn't in her."

"Then why would she go?"

"She couldn't bear it? She blamed me? I wasn't there... I don't know. I'd give anything to know. To hold her one more time."

"Mardichi..." She breathed. "You poor, dumb puppy."

He snorted. "Only woman in the world, that'd call me a puppy..."

She laughed. Stroking hair back from his forehead to adjust the cool rag further over his forehead.

***

Dread Hideout, Dread Country Merwood

CHAVIAS

He looks like a startled buck. The man in the trees observed Acharius wandering the huge leafed trees of Dread Hideout.

The giant blonde man had a fierce expression. Though that wasn't uncommon for him. But the way he kept stopping to look over both shoulders. Indicated that he feared something was hunting him.

He was on edge.

Ready for an attack.

Acharius shook his head dismissively, as if chiding himself for a fool. He turned back to the pretty redhead who'd approached him from the nearby house.

She impulsively leaned into Acharius for an embrace.

In response, he pulled her close and she tucked her face into his shoulder. Making him drop his forehead to hers.

Savoring the moment.

They're a couple to behold. Chavias' head lowered. Considering what he'd been tasked to do to his former friend.

Allowing Thadeus the crow, to creep closer to his neck and lean a small head against Chavias' cheek in an effort to comfort. He'd sensed the weight settling deep into what remained of Chavias' hollow soul.

It'd be beautiful to walk with a woman in moonlight. He felt the ache of jealousy slithering through him like a dark serpent.

Chavias waited for them to pass below him.

As they did, he skid smoothly around the tree trunk, to fall into silent step behind them. Soundlessly stepping into their tracks. Using all the skills he'd developed as a predator, to move without his quarry even knowing he was there.