The Second Side

Chapter 4

He was following her. He wasn't supposed to have seen her. She was supposed to be shadow, to be wind, to be the fleeting snow, but he saw her. The human saw her amidst the blizzard, and now he was following her.

She could have remained hidden. The could have easily disappeared amongst the snow. But some part of her wanted to be seen, and she couldn't explain it. But she had felt it when their eyes had met before, and there was something that she could not fathom in this man's eyes.

She could run faster. She was the daughter of shadow and wind. She could have run faster, but she let him keep up. She could hear his heavy footsteps behind her, he was fast for a human.

She would lose him in the blizzard. It was getting harder and harder to see, and soon he would lose sight of her. Become lost. He would not be able to find his way back to his camp. After all, they had been running for miles and it did not seem as if he had noticed. He would soon get lost in the forest.

Maybe he would die out here.

The thought made her stop suddenly in her tracks. Did she want him to die? Her father had not asked her to kill him, only to gather information on him. But she would save her people a lot of pain and grief if she let him die. Even so, there was something in her that wanted to help him. She did not want him to die. Not yet, at least. And not by her hand.

Her sudden stop almost made him crash into her. He stumbled, breathing heavily. They had been running for what had seemed like an eternity, but Desdemona was barely out of breath.

She decided to be the first to speak. "Your name is Raphael."

She hadn't known that. Before today, he had been only the Sword of Light. He never had a name, a human name that she had known. Until today, when she saw him sparring with the younger boy. She liked the sound of it. Raphael. It was a warrior's name.

His face registered both surprise and awe. "Yes," was all he said. By now, he could probably tell that she was not human. That she was one of them. There was no hiding the otherworldly aura that surrounded her.

"You hate your name," she said.

This was something else she had observed. She had expected him to be the type to revel in his glory, but he wasn't. She had heard rumours of him, of the fearsome warrior, but she could see in his eyes that it was not who he chose to be. She had seen it in the way he looked when the young boy had complimented him. Uncomfortable, weary and mournful. She could see that he loathed who he had become.

"Yes," he said again. It was all he could say.

She looked at him. "You hate what it has become. You hate what people see in their minds when they hear it, the fear that the name contains in the way they speak it. And yet you keep this name." She was now curious more than anything. The man was an enigma, he intrigued her. "Why?"

He simply shrugged. "No name is any better than another," he answered. "Others would learn to fear it just as much, just as I would learn to hate it just as much."

It was a practical, pragmatic way to look at the situation. She couldn't disagree with him, but she pitied him.

"Not if you ceased to be the man that they fear," she said softly.

A rueful smile. "I wish I could. I wish I had not been cursed with a warrior's hands, born to hold a sword. But it is who I am, and always will be."

She shook her head, which sent a few tendrils of her long black hair loose, and the look on his face was reverential. His eyes were blue, deep and dark. They were like an ocean, or a winter sky. And she could see her reflection in them, clear as a mirror. When most people, most humans, looked upon her, their eyes showed nothing but fear. The only thing reflected was their distrust. No one had ever looked at her like he did.