Court of Shadows (Indefinite Hiatus)

PART 23: ROWAN

Squaring his shoulders, Rowan sized up the male standing at the other end of the dimly lit hall, whose curved smile reflected like the sword he held casually at his side. Cairn had always been a sadistic bastard. Rowan recalled the years both he and Lorcan had spent trying to cull the cruelty which dripped from the male's features. A disturbing innate desire to inflict horrors and relish in the pain of others. Facing the male now, Rowan was once again reminded of their inability to leach it out of him; glossy sadism shone in the male's stark blue eyes. Or should he say: stark blue eye.

Neither made to move, and their emanating powers bore down on one another-- their bared canines glinting in the torchlight. Rowan's gaze flicked to the dark patch covering the male's right eye, questioningly. As if feeling the direction of Rowan's gaze, Cairn cocked his head slightly, flipping his sword in his hand. "Ah yes," he drawled, while using the end of his blade to gesture to his covered eye. "I told her majesty not to keep pets in the palace. Animals can be such feisty creatures." Cairn's eyes shifted beside Rowan, to the open iron cell. "Especially when they're starved for food and companionship."

A low snarl built in the back of Rowan's throat, and his muscles tensed in anticipation. Cairn remained relaxed, continuing to flip his sword nonchalantly, as his languid words carried down the dark hall. "As for the eye," he shrugged. "Makes no difference to me. Her majesty will enlist the best healers, and it will all become forgotten." His lips curled into a wide sneer. "After, of course, I punish the girl in turn." Cairn's sword flipped once more before stilling; his fingers curled around the hilt.

"I can't complain too much," he continued. "Since her Majesty graciously gave me the job of taming the bitch--"

Rowan struck.

And a moment later, the stone hall was reverberating with the piercingly resonant clash of two swords. The males had been blurs as they collided in the middle of the hall. They bore down on one another, Rowan's roar shattering the air and covering the sound of grinding stone beneath their feet. The males were equal in stature, and their sword lock melded into a picture of raw, primal, strength and symmetry. Together, they took up nearly the entire width of the hall, as either male could nearly touch wall to wall with his arms extended.

Cairn's leering speech hadn't ceased, continuing from behind their crossed blades. "Did you come to retrieve her, Prince?," he spat.

Rowan shoved against their hold, and the two males skidded backward. He had only a moment to leash his pounding rage before Cairn shot forward. Their blades collided once more in a torrent of sharp clanging and sparks.

Even with their guttural voices ricocheting off the stone walls, their figures moved gracefully down the hallway, fluidly meeting the other's attacks movement for movement. Neither had touched the other, due to the tightness of their stances in the close quarters. With the compact space, Rowan couldn't risk his magic.

Quickly gaining the upper hand, Rowan pushed their fighting back in the direction Cairn had emerged and, slowly, out of the depths of the dungeons.

The power behind and collision of their strikes sent tremors through the stone. Parrying one of Rowan's blows, Cairn dodged the white-haired male's foot and stepped out of the arcing blade's reach.

"I wish you would have been there," he taunted, before blocking another of Rowan's blows. He yielded another step. "...to watch her blood pour while I painted over the markings on her back." Rowan's onslaught continued to force their rippling figures closer to the dungeon's exit, Cairn barely matching each of Rowan's strikes.

"--to hear her screams while I carved over old lines."

They were only ten feet away from the door that would lead them out of close-quarters, Cairn unseeming to notice, as he continued to yell over the clash of their blades.