There was not a chance in all hells that Tanera Fenvigor was going to stab herself with the pretty silver sword between her paling fingers. Yes, she could be impulsive, but Tanera was also far from stupid. She was clever enough to know that if she did die, her brother would most likely also be executed. Clever enough to know that she wouldn't - couldn't - be responsible for his death. She had done enough to Toll in the past few weeks already.
Yet, maybe it wasn't intelligence that stopped Tanera from pressing the blade directly into her heart. If she lived and the ritual was carried out, it wouldn't just be Toll who perished.
Maybe it was cowardice.
In a desperate attempt to keep her hands steady, Tanera pushed the thought to the back of her mind. Those with the blood of old Esereen couldn't be cowards. For all she and the Algren knew, Tanera was the last one. The only one who could save Pacem from a similar fate to it's sister country. That thought made it's way far back into the extremely busy depths of her brain as well. How could someone be so spontaneous in her actions, and yet such an over thinker?
"Tanera." Kame's voice, hoarser than usual, cut through her thoughts. Tanera remained silent, waiting for him to speak. Would he threaten her, beg her to stand down? Perhaps he would knock her out with black magic and she would wake up in her plush room up at the top of the fortress, surrounded by old, useless books and mystery. Instead, he said nothing, as though her name was all he could manage to force out.
"I can't be responsible for the deaths of... of millions. My family Kame. My family."
"Your family?" He sounded repulsed, sickened by Tanera's words. "The Algren currently may not have the resources to take Pacem but there is nothing, absolutely nothing, Tanera, stopping me from taking the next merchant ship back to your godsdamned country and slaughtering them where they stand in their petty manor. Your family are going to die whether you take your life or not."
"Monster. Godsdamned monster." She sword started to shake. As she attempted to tighten her grip, the blade cut through the bodice of the yellow dress, pricking the skin. Just a little further and she could leave Esereen forever.
It was clear Kame could see his words were getting to Tanera, as that lost, almost hurt expression he bore only minutes ago had vanished completely."Yes, I'll kill them myself. Perhaps I'll dismember them slowly, or maybe I'll just set your home alight and listen to their screams as they burn within."
No. No. It was too much. His words were too much. Tanera felt something. Something that she couldn't quite pinpoint. A feeling that reminded her an awful lot of the Millennium Ball. A tiny bit of that afternoon sunlight leeched from the sky, as though, somewhere faraway someone has just extinguished a candle.
"Or maybe I'll give them the same death that your brother should have received at the hands of Xavier. Maybe I'll cut them ear to ear and leave them to bleed out on your pretty marble floor."
The sky grew dark and Kame's smile stretched wider, like the ones he threatened to bestow her parents with.
Then, Tanera felt an onslaught of light. Beautiful, pure and flowing through her body in gallons, like molten gold.
She didn't just have the power of light. She was light.
Light incarnate.
***
Willow Ladrass hated several things. The first was healing, despite that area being where her strengths lay. Willow would have much rather been training to fight, to kill. Yet, no, her Lord father had insisted she spend her days in the healers room with the insufferable but skilled Healer Lebrana, patching up Algren soldiers and scrubbing the backs of slaves whose whip marks had become infected. Willow was made to end lives, not save them. The second thing she hated was slaves. Not the prospect of slavery, which Willow didn't tent to ponder, but rather the slaves themselves. Ayere, the mortal who worked alongside Willow in the healing room, with her nimble fingers and audacious peasant accent, in particular. The third was being forced to tend to unconscious girls with light quite literally pouring from their skin like it was sweat. Willow much preferred the elegance of the shadows that danced around her body and drifted in smokey tendrils from her fingertips whenever she so pleased.
The third hate was one she had acquired very recently indeed when General Tycoyde - Gods, he was handsome, even with the scar - dragged the Fenvigor tribute, half passed out already, into the healers room. Ayere had skulked off somewhere to replenish the healing room's water supplies, leaving Willow to sit by the wrought iron bed of the girl with the faintly glowing skin. The General had left as soon as he placed the girl down, in strangely excited manner that suggested he was hurrying to the king's chambers to share the news. Willow felt strangely jealous of the General Tycoyde's closeness to the king. Yet, she supposed that with an important title came friends in high places - or the highest place of all. And right now, she was nothing but a lowly Algren healer.
She knew she was beautiful, though; that fact in itself was her greatest consolation. Far more beautiful than the neither mortal nor Algren girl who lay before her, with her ratty brown hair, slightly turned up nose and skeletal figure. This Tanera Fenvigor had been raised a mortal and would always look like one. Disgusting.
"Lady Ladrass, please heed Healer Lebrana's warnings: you can't, under any circumstances harm Tanera!" Ugh. It was Ayere, back with a slightly-too-full pale of water, which was spraying her grey tunic with droplets as she walked.
"How dare you give me orders, you ignorant mortal!" Willow flipped her glistening ebony hair from her face in one sharp movement before fixing Ayere with what she knew was a poisonous glare.
"I dare give you orders, ma'am, 'cause we're meant to be healing this girl. If she's harmed, then... well, I trust you are familiar with the good king Xavier and his love for slow and painful deaths."
Willow hated to admit just how right Ayere was. Nobody crossed Xavier, not even someone as beautiful and talented as herself.
"If you're going to be near me for the duration of this godsforsaken day, slave, then you might as well make yourself useful. What actually happened to this... this girl? Lebrana just told me to make sure she remained stable till you returned with water - it would have been nice to know the details."
Ayere gave a small half smile, clearly enjoying the fact that - for once - she knew more than her Algren superior. Willow once more ran a hand through her black hair in exasperation, before quickly sorting it back into it's impeccable style.
"Perhaps I shouldn't disclose any information, ma'am. Don't want ta make Healer Lebrana angry, now, do we?"
"Get on with it, mortal, or I'll skin you right now, where you stand."
Ayere gave a small sigh, before sinking her hands into the pale of water and proceeding to lightly soak Tanera's still glowing face. The slave's hands jumped slightly when they first met the Fenvigor girl's skin - she must be burning hot.
After a moment of great anticipation for Willow, the slave began to talk. "She was training, with the General, she was. Must've made her angry or somethin'. As angry as she was made at the Millennium Ball. 'Cause she did it again." Ayere moved her hands in excitement as she spoke, miming something akin to an explosion. "The General wasn't harmed - he used his magic to protect him. The training ground wasn't so lucky."
"What happened to it?" Willow had trained there ever since she was a child. Gods, if Tanera had destroyed anything! Willow's soft white hands, her perfectly manicured fingernails, clenched into fists.
"I'm a slave, remember? Haven't been out to see the damage."
Willow rose, radiating confidence and surety, though doubt danced, a spark as small as the flame of a candle, within her. "I will take it upon myself to replenish the water supplies." She snatched the still half full bucket from the glowing girl's bedside and flounced from the room. Willow Ladrass planned on taking a detour on her way to the great well in the centre of one of the gargantuan Algren courtyards.
She needed to see just how powerful Tanera Fenvigor really was.
YOU ARE READING
Fated (On Hold)
Fantasia'She was pain and she was resentment. She was wrath and she was vengeance.' Once the daughter of a great Lord, Tanera is now a slave to the Algren, a demon race with a sadistic ruler and the deadliest intentions. When an unknown power is unlocked f...
