Forgotten Heir: Realm Doors Book One

Chapter Nineteen

Cara woke late the following day, well after midday. Ric still lay sleeping the sleep of the dead next to her, stretched out on his stomach, arms tucked under his head wearing an expression of contentment. When she brushed her lips against his cheek, he murmured but didn’t wake. She watch him sleep for a few moments more before rolling out of bed to pull on her jeans before going to fetch washing water.

A lot of elahdril were already up, many of them not yet used to keeping time with vampires. Many of those aforementioned vampires still slept, sprawled under blankets, no more used to getting up during the day than the elves were at staying in bed until half of it passed them by. They’d get used to the change eventually.

Cara meandered into the store room where the boiler, fridge, and food stock had been relocated once recruits started pouring in. They'd needed more space in the barn and the store room had come in useful, though people did have a tendency to congregate around the fridge and tap. She squeezed passed a group of young elahdril, each approximately her own age, and they bowed low with star-struck awe in their eyes. How she hated the reputation prophecy had given her, even before she earned it. 

“Lady Nekyra,” they murmured humbly.

She plastered a smile to her face and greeted them with as much warmth as she could muster, wanting to escape their awed stares. When she finally make it to the boiler, she had to wait for the young vampire who was already busy filling a wash bowl. Ryan, she thought his name was. A decader; the vampire term for someone who hadn’t yet reached their first century. Ryan had been turned just over fifty years ago, if her memory served, so he still had numerable years on her, yet he lacked maturity. He was like many other ‘young’ vampires; he acted like a human youth. It seemed that because vampires elders - those with centuries of experience under their belts - expected the decaders to act as children, no matter their human years, the decaders regressed to doing just that. Unfortunately, that had left them trying to train a number of seventy year olds who acted more like seventeen year olds.

“Lady Elahdrilas,” Ryan greeted her, using the irritating designation a number of vampires had taken to calling her, naming her by my rank rather than using her name.

She forced a smile. “Please, Ryan isn’t it? I’d rather Nekyra or Lady Rhynlas if you really must be formal.

“Of course, Lady Rhynlas, last Elahdrilas,” he chirped, which was no better in her eyes. But what came next was worse.

He paused, his nose twitching disconcertingly like a scenting hound. His brows shot up, his jaw dropped down and he stared at me, really strared at me, as if she'd just announced a plan to join the werewolf army.

“Ryan, what?” she demanded irritably.

His face broke into a sudden grin, his eyes sparkling mischievously.

“You slept with Sir Ulrich,” he accused.

Her breath caught and Cara choked, a coughing fit so violent it made her eyes water.

“Pardon me?” she managed to splutter.

He was already striding away, out of the room, no doubt away to share his news with his band of decaders. He paused just long enough to tap the side of his nose.

“Vampire sense of smell, you reek of him, of intercourse with him.”

Then he turned and left, the grin still morphing his face into a look of pure devilish delight.

The wash bowl had never been so hastily filled and stomped, sloshing, back to the stall she shared with Ric. She found he'd woken in her absence and lay, sprawling on his back, grinning like a chesire cat. He tipped his head towards her as she stalked in, his smile fading as she set the bowl down overly hard.

“Uh-oh, what’s happened, love?”

“You,” she pointed at him, furious. “You didn’t tell me the vampires would be able to smell what we did last night on me.”

He frowned as he sat up, taking hold of her shaking hand and pulling her over to him. He stared levelly up at her, his expression earnest.

“To be honest, Cara, I didn’t think about it. We have an unwritten code of conduct about such things. The relationship of a man and a woman is private, we do not mention what we smell regarding such cases except during investigations into assaults. Consensual intimacy is no one’s business except the couple involved.”

She glared at him. “Well you might want to inform your decaders of that. At this moment Ryan is probably announcing this new stage in our relationship to anyone who’ll listen to him.”

She pulled away from him, going to wash. Perhaps sleeping with Ric had been a mistake.

“You regret giving yourself to me?” a hurt voice enquired.

When she turned to Ric, she noted the tense set of his shoulders and the angry twitch of his cheek. She instantly wished she hadn’t thought of it as a mistake. Sighing, she moved back to take his hand and clutch it over my heart.

“No, darling, I don’t regret giving myself to you and the act is something I intend to repeat at every opportunity. It’s just...” She shrugged as her gaze slid to the floor and she bit her lower lip. “It’s just that if they talk the elahdril cohort will find out. Some of the older elven lords have already complained about us kissing and sharing a stall; this is not going to endear us to them. I disagree with what they believe, but we have broken their laws, laws which it will take effort to set aside.”

She reached out with her thoughts, trying to show him the truth of how she felt. She wanted him to understand her fears.

“I could never regret last night, but I do fear for your safety.”

Ric kissed her belly, nuzzling against her and provoking a gentle hum of desire which spread through her. Her heart fluttered, giving her away to him. He smiled, his fingers trailing up her thighs as he looked at her though suddenly alight eyes.
“We could just...”

She pressed her palm to his mouth, cutting off the suggestion which would be all to tempting but wholly impractical.

“No, we can’t just anything, dear. It’s late and you’re due to take the decaders up to the ranges today.”

He sighed in disappointment but pulled away from her, asking, “Time?”
“Almost one.”

“Shit,” he growled, “I’m going to be late.”

An aggravated snort escapes her at that, thinking about Ryan's delight.

“Don’t worry, they’ll understand, if the elves don’t have you beheaded first.”

“Are we going to face the tempest together?” he asked.

Cara flicked water at his face but smiled back at him.

“Together, as always, for the rest of eternity.”

They washed quickly, pulling t-shirts over their heads in unison. She looked down and noticed the stray black swirls of tattoo sticking out above the v-neck. Part of her wanted the markings seen, yet the part of her that insisted Ric and Kalidir keep their own emblems covered worried about the reaction from her kind. She wasn't sure enough of their trainees to display how closely she intended unite the elahdril and the vampires.

“Change into something that’ll cover it,” Ric advised. “They’re going to get a big enough shock today as it is.”

She pulled the v-neck off and donned a round necked t-shirt instead.

“Come on then, lets go laugh in the face of adversity,” she muttered, then slipped back out of the stall for the second time, feeling distinctly more anxious than she had done earlier.

Ric took her hand, squeezing comfortingly, trying to reassure her that everything would be fine. She really wanted to believe him, but unfortunately, they stepped into the barn together to the sound of wolf whistles and a round of applause from the tribe of decaders. Cara could hear a few calls of ‘Go Sir Ulrich!’ and felt her cheeks colour up. Her teeth ground together and she struggled with the urge to set every last one of them alight.

The older vampires and elves stared at the cheering crowd of youngsters with perplexed expressions. But then the noses of a few nearby vampires began to twitch, and Cara wilted as their expressions became incredulous. The muttering started immediately, indifferent to which ears were listening, causing tension to sweep through the elahdril. Almost thirty disbelieving faces stared back at them, some simply surprised, others mildly concerned, and a few absolutely furious.

‘Fuck', Cara thought.

‘Aye, in a word', Ric thought back.

Lord Vargon stepped forward, an ex elahdril guard with over a thousand years of life behind him. He'd arrived for a ‘refresher’ in sword play, but Cara suspected curiosity had driven him to attend their little camp rather than any need to practise.
“Is it true?”

She folded her arms over her chest, raising her chin and staring levelly at him.
“Is what true?”

“Do not play coy with me, girl,” he snapped. “Others of your class have been punished for treason, and you should be aware of that. Have you, or have you not, been intimate with the vampire,” he spat the word, “at your side.”

Her back straightened as she drew herself up, and her fists balled at her sides, her temper flaring.

“That vampire has a name. You would do well to remember it, my lord.” She raked the room with her gaze before admitting, “And the answer to your question is yes, I am and ever will be intimate with Ric.”

Vampires began to slip from the barn as the clamour of yelling elahdril voices started to build to an almighty crescendo. Her people accused and defended, accepted and denied. She looked around for Kalidir, but he must’ve gone out already, leaving her to stand as one stubborn young elahdril against a tidal wave of shocked emotion.

Ric’s arm slipped around her waist in a gesture she loved but which wasn't exactly helpful in that moment. The clamour of arguing warriors stepped up a notch. Vargon had the audacity to stalk up and swipe Ric’s hand away, and it was all Cara could do to stop herself from lashing back at him.

“This is inappropriate,” the elf lord called out. “It's illegal, irresponsible, undutiful, and beyond redemption.”

A woman stepped forward too, her hand already on the hilt of her sword. Cara wished she’d drop it; the last thing they needed was for a fight to break out.

“Oh hush, you old bat,” the woman commanded Vargon. “This was prophesised, just like her coming. Breaker of traditions, we call her. What would you do? You can’t execute or torture the last elahdrilas, and heavens forbid you try to separate them or execute him. What would she do then? Make any move against them and we’ll lose the one destined to lead us.”

She pointed towards Ric and Cara. “You’ve heard the rumours about their willingness to die for each other. You were warned by Tyrnir that a relationship was blossoming between our future queen and Ulrich, and you were commanded to accept it, as we all were. Shut up and move on, times change.”

The strangers defence of their relationship staggered Cara. She would need to thank the unknown woman, who must only have arrived recently.

“You would say that; follow Tyrnir’s orders like the dutiful child,” Vargon hissed back. “Kalidir swore she was not intimate with Ulrich.”

“My brother,” the woman answered icily, “swore that they had not yet lain together. Not yet. The terminology alone implied this was an inevitability.”

She was Kalidir’s sister? Cara realised she knew too little about her principle (and only) guard’s family. She wasn't given an opportunity to think on that, though, as mass arguing started up again building even louder than before. Cara's urge to slip out while they were all distracted with arguing was almost overwhelming.

“We could you know. We could just vanish together,” Ric yells over the din, safe in the knowledge no one was actually paying any attention to them.
Tempting. Very tempting.

She sighed. “You know we can’t. Kalidir would be furious, Blutholme would be defeated, Heliana would continue to rule on my throne and dishonour my father’s memory, and we’d be hunted constantly.”

Ric shrugged. “We could fight for Blutholme and leave Galahidras to suffer the consequences of their prejudices. And Kalidir wouldn’t be furious, he’d be heartbroken.”

“What would I be heartbroken over?” the elf in question enquired as he steps up beside Cara and she felt an immediate sense of relief, at least until he asked, “And why is my baby sister pointing a weapon at Lord Vargon?”

She shrugged and plastered an innocent look to her face, before saying, “She’s defending my right to bed a vampire.” She force herself not to blush as she responded, then frowned, adding, “And I thought you were Tyrnir’s youngest?”
Kalidir studied her for a few humiliating seconds before answering.

“I am. My mother was raped during my father’s neglect. He begrudgingly took on the child and had her father executed.”

She winced; she couldn’t imagine the trauma of carrying her abuser’s child. She could only guess at the conflicting emotions she would’ve felt if she’d fallen pregnant with Galahad’s child.

Kalidir paused to consider the seething, screaming mass beginning to throw punches in his home.

“I see the vampire’s have scattered. Probably wise. I know it was predestined that you would break our traditions and laws, but you really do cause quite a stir.”
Perhaps there was a little chiding in his tone.

“She really does,” Ric answered.

“Takes two,” she retorted. “What the hell are we going to do?”

Kalidir met her eye. “They’re here to serve you, my lady, put them in their places.”
With that he strode back towards the door, leaving her to deal with her own mess.
“If this is a lesson, my tutor, I don’t appreciate it!” she yelled.

He simply grinned back at her, grabbing a bow and leaving to do whatever he’d arranged to be doing that afternoon.

“Damn,” she muttered.

Ric squeezed her hand again. “Still no regrets.”

“Never,” she confirmed, my thumb tracing circles on his palm.

She chewed her lower lip a moment, anxious, before yelling “Quiet!” at the hateful crowd in front of her, a crowd that ignores her completely.

“Be quiet!” she scream louder but the elahdril either couldn’t or wouldn’t hear her.
Rubbing her eyes wearily, Cara sighed as her shoulders slumped. Apparently, shouting at her people was not going to be an effective method of getting their attention. With a click of her fingers, blue fire leapt up in the centre of the group. A few people screamed and backed away. Others fell over, pushed by those escaping the flames. With another click of Cara's fingers, the fire died. All faces turned towards her.

“Right, now that I have your undivided attention, I have a proclamation to make,” she announced, and a sea of bronze eyes stared back at her in anticipatory silence.
Well, here goes nothing, she thought.

“Should I become queen of Galahidras, the first law I intend to rid our realm of will be this ridiculous decree that there is something wrong with vampire-elahdril unions. It is based on an idiotic misconception and there is no justifiable reason to keep it. Vampires live. I can see their auras. Deal with it and get over yourselves.”

Many gasps joined together into one hissing rush of inhaled air at her blunt and rude announcement. They hadn't exactly minded their manners when the asked for the details of her sex life, however, so she wasn't overly inclined to care.

“You can either accept me as I am or battle against me, because I am not going to change for you. I’ve fought, and cried, and almost died for what happened last night, and I will not feel ashamed for it. We attempted to remain separate for many years. We can’t. We’re bound to each other, Ric and I. If you really can’t live with that, then get out of our home and go back to Heliana’s court.”

She felt some small measure of relief when no one instantly shifted back to Galahidras or marched themselves out of the door.

“Anyone who chooses to remain must treat Ric as my consort. You will also treat each and every vampire here as an equal. Am I understood?”

There were a few mutters of assent but then Vargon stepped forwards again, and Cara felt her heart sink, even before he spoke.

“You would have us believe vampires live? Your father claimed as much too, but at least he didn’t have the impudence to claim he could see their auras. Prove they live, oh descendant of Dalahan, else why should we fight for you when you would bring such shame to our kind?”

Interesting that named the only of her forefathers to have been incarcerated and killed for loving a vampire. Was she not descended from the rest of the Rhynlas line? Did loving Ric erase the rest of her heritage? She thought not, yet those such as Vargon would make it seem that way. But how could she make them see that vampires lived? That Dalahan had been wrongly punished? Vampire’s had no measureable pulse. They breathed by habit rather than need, and fed on blood to absorb life. There was no way to prove they lived, not as the elahdril understood life.

“They are sentient. They think and have ambitions, they falter and fail and rise up to meet new challenges like all living creatures, like us,” Cara insisted.

Vargon snorted. “Humans are doing wonders with artificial intelligence; vampires could be the drones of a demon God for all we know.”

She wanted to laugh at the ridiculous concept but he continued, “Ghosts  can be sentient. Spirits try and fail to get into godly realms. They face challenges with thought and action, yet they don’t live.”

Sadly, she couldn’t dispute that point.

“I can’t prove that vampires live,” she gave in miserably, her eyes dropping from the mass of elahdril whose emotions swung precariously towards believing Vargon.

Cara sensed rather than saw men and women starting in the direction of the door. She knew she was about to take a serious blow. She also knew she had only one chance to regain support... Perhaps she could prove her convictions if she had the strength.

“Smile, Ric, you’re about to go on show.”

Reach out with streamers of sorcery, she rooted herself to the planet under her feet and drew energy from it.  Then, with one arm stretched towards the crowd, she drew the attention of the elahdril. Many of them turned, gaping as they felt the vibration of power in the air. The life forces which Cara tugged into herself momentarily shimmered on the surface of her skin, like sunlight on a rippling stream. The tiny hairs on her arms rose with static, and this time I noticed the dangerous burn of her body absorbing more energy that it needed. She pushed the stream of golden light through her fingers, tendrils weaving towards my dissenting people.

“See,” she instructed as the streamers touched the optic nerves of each elf present. “See through my eyes.”

She switched her sight, gritting her teeth with the strain it took to transfer ever detail she could see into the sensory receptors of almost thirty other people. A few of her would-be subjects attempted to fight off her touch, afraid of the gripping power she'd forced on them. Those who rebelled, she bound more tightly to her.

Anyway, hadn't Tyrnir insisted she'd need to used unconventional menthods to control an elahdril army?

“See,” she repeated as she lifted her eyes to take in Ric. He frowned back at me, still and worried for her, but unwilling to dispute her actions in front of her people. A faint outline of blue light shimmers around his head, his shoulders, his arms, torso, and legs.

“It’s pale, I concede, but it’s there. That, my unbelieving Lord Vargon, is the aura of a vampire. It is unheard of for dead things to have auras. You must know that as well as I do. You must see it when I look at anything else; your sword, shield, or the logs left over from the fire we kept during the winter. Do you still dispute me?”

A sceptical whisper reached her from the group of spectating elahdril warriors, a whisper that  left her bitter and resentful, although she tried to mask it.

“Feel his stillness. Compare it with the pulsating glow of your own bodies. His aura is to ours what ours are to the were-wolves’; calmer, more placid. That is all, vampire auras are so serene that those with weak sight, such as my father and my grandmother, couldn’t see them. But I can see. Through me, you have seen.”

With a wave of accompanying dizziness, Cara tasted blood on her upper lip. It dribbled from her nose, signalling that she'd overworked herself again, reaching the limits of her power. Breaking off the magical connection with her people and the earth, she was shocked to suddenly feel very alone without the contact. It left her feeling strangely bereft.

Ric’s mind touched hers, checking she remained unharmed and reminding her there were some connections she couldn’t break off. She smiled at him, letting him know she was alright before rubbing away the blood under her nose with the back of her hand. She studied the red smear on her fist for a moment, pleased there was a limit to her power.

Looking up again, she stood before her little band of elahdril and asked, “Do you consent to accept my ruling on the matter?”

Kalidir’s sister pushes out of the crowd.

“My name is Sedriel, I am Kalidir’s sister. I hope I speak for all of my colleagues here when I say that we accept your ruling on vampires. I also hope that we can all respect your wishes on the matter of Sir Ulrich Bernstein.” She bowed to me. “My queen.”

The woman was undeniably her tutor’s sibling.

Cara wanted to smile at her, but her mind picked up on a stray burst of emotion from the now silent crowd, fear which accopanied by flickering images of death an destruction wrought at her hands, and she understood what the elf responsible was thinking even though she couldn’t hear his thoughts. ‘Hell’, his fear said, ‘we’d all submit whether we agree or not. Her power is terrifying.’

She traced the stream of consciousness back to an elahdril youth, maybe seven years her junior who projected his opinion so loudly she felt surprised the whole room couldn’t hear him. She opened her mind, trying to use the mind reading ability Kalidir had insisted she learn, seeking out the consciousness of other elves. Some were blocked to her, some foggy read, while others were easy to read. Many of the congregated men and women shared the youth's fear, they blench with the same trepidation, and that hurt her more than she dared  admit.

“I do not want to be feared,” she whispered, distracted but knowing they heard. A number of eyes dropped to study shoes, a few gazes refusing to meet hers.  “We all have things we should be doing,” she said at last, spinning on her heel and walking from the barn, fighting to stop her legs from breaking into a run and fleeing.

Ric followed, naturally. “Are you sure you’re alright, my love?”

Cara laughed, slightly hysterical as she gazed towards a cloudless sky and began to pace.

“They’re afraid of me, most of them.”

“So?” he wore an air of bemusement which made her want to shake him until his brain rattled.

“I don’t want to rule through fear. I don’t want to be a tyrant.”

Ric grasped her shoulder, stilling her frantic pacing.

“Love, you couldn’t be a tyrant if you tried. You wouldn’t subjugate a flea.” He threw out a hand, indicating back to the barn. “Their fear is natural Cara; you’re the strongest elahdrilas in living memory. In record, if truth were told. It’s more than that though; this is the way all of the realms work. The soldiers fear their commanding officers, who inspire and punish them. The commanding officers fear the politicians who send them to war. The politicians fear the figureheads, and both politicians and figurehead fear the ideals which drive their people to revolt. You are to be a commanding officer, a politician, a figurehead, a queen. Your people and others will fear you. Hell Cara, some of the time I fear you.”

Her heart broke a little and tears sprung unbidden to her eyes. Ric kissed the dampness away, resting his forehead on mine.

“But I love you too, and they will love you. One day the streets of Karycadra will flood with the smiling faces and the dancing bodies of a people welcoming home a victorious queen, a queen who will bring peace and joy, and who will rule with love, and fairness, and justice, and she will be adored. She will be you, my love. And all I can do is pray that I can be worthy of you and not too jealous of your people.”

His last statement left her perplexed, “What do you have to be jealous of, Ric? You’re the centre of my world?”

He smiled. “For now. A fact I am eternally grateful for too. But, love, one day you will be crowned as a monarch and you will, for all intents and purposes, marry a realm. Your people will be your children when it is unlikely I can give you heirs. The welfare of your lands will have to come before me, so is the way of royal marriages.”

He saw the opposition in her eyes at the idea, but hushed her regardless.

“One day very soon you will be responsible for many many people. I hope you never have to choose between helping your people and helping me, because you must always choose your people.” He stroked more tears from her cheeks, promising, “I don’t mind, my Cara. I will happily come second to a nation if I can have you, occasionally, as I had you last night. If I can sometimes have you free and unhindered and so totally mine. I'll be happy.”

Yet Cara wondered if that was true. In the space of a day, she’d given everything she was to Ric and then been told by him that she could never really his. She wanted to be Cara Rhine, beggar and orphan but loved by one man. She didn’t want to be Queen Nekyra of Rhynlas, monarch, warrior, sorceress, and obligated to the masses