Slowburn | Enemies to lovers | dark romance | false prophets | Space Opera | triangle | strong femme characters | eventual Romance | Eventual smut |
A desperate Baron.
A yearning Duke.
A woman who weaves destruction with an army of fire.
In the m...
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They had given Hawk a horse. That was a gracious enough gesture. One that implied that they didn't expect her to return palace side and bring an army down upon them. The horse was black, as all of the beasts in the underground stables were. His eyes glowed red and wholly untrusting, but hers were untrusting too so she couldn't hold it against him.
The stables were massive, carved from basalt and aglow with the Alica's signature crimson. It smelled of must and metals, the air was cooler beneath the mountain and crisped the edges of every breath. Hundreds of stall doors had been left open and void of beasts. Hawk could not be sure that they all held horses, some were large enough to accommodate an elephant.
"Does he have a name?" She asked Sempir.
The young man loaded a second stone box atop his own steed. Young, they were all youthful in appearance. From the 'elders' that sat around the fire in the caverns, to the women that had come the night before to draw her bath. Hawk couldn't yet tell if that was a property of the calcite or a life away from the smog of ships.
"Lan," he replied, "it means water."
"Water horse, huh," Hawk said, patting the muzzle. Lan jerked back at her touch and reeled his head around.
It sounded like a jest, there wasn't room to decipher it in Sempir's perpetually monotone tenor. Hawk adjusted her arm cuffs anyway. The gift felt less gracious with that information in hand.
"How long is the ride to your church?" Hawk asked.
"It's not a church," Caros corrected, stepping out from behind a feed bin. "It's a temple, and today is a holiday, so you will do nothing to disrupt the peace."
Caros's eyes were untrusting too, but not incessantly like hers. They only flittered about like a mooncat in search of prey when Hawk was present. A Moritani soldier, but not quite so devout, it seemed his allegiance had changed markedly.
Caros either wanted to be an Alica, or he wanted to impress Eidan. She figured a bit of both, judging by the way he instinctively fell at parade when the princeling entered.
Eidan was another problem entirely. The collar hadn't burned for some time, but the weight of it was enough reminder. She needed him to unclasp it, then she needed him to die.
"Do you know how to ride?" Eidan asked, quietly, pensively, eyeing her sword.
Hawk nodded. "What are we celebrating?"
"Religious holiday," Caros said, "The birth of the Sacrimenti, the man who bridges two worlds."
Hawk was no stranger to religious customs, they all blended together especially within the order. The Galicine only revered living gods, men who fought their way to the highest honor and survived to tell the tales. There was no shame in belief of a greater power, she prayed when necessity called. Yet, without a tangible divine being in front of her the rites of the devout seemed useless.
