The TwiceBorn

Promises To Keep

"Love could not save her from the bargains others made."--Quackenbush

What is it like to hold dominion over so many and yet still long for something far beyond your grasp?  Alora wondered as she gazed at his face tilted upwards towards the moon.

And,reluctantly, she knew in her heart she could never hate him.  No matter what he did or took from her. This moment of sharing her mother with him would always remain. She had loved Sylvan and loved her deeply.  And he had loved her deeply as well. They were bound together by her ghost and Alora instinctively knew that when Abigor was at his cruelest, he missed Sylvan the most.

The rustling of brush and the sound of branches breaking caused him to look away from the moon and stare into the treeline.  The melancholy expression was gone.  Alora glanced as well and felt a moment of mean joy as the Hynti came staggering out of the forest. 

Yzebel must have been hiding in the shadows.  Alora noticed she was very quick to present herself to Abigor as soon as the arrogant frown lines appeared on his face.

“It wasn’t me, M’lord.”  Yzebel hastily interjected.  “It was her.”

Alora grinned. Abigor looked from Alora to Yzebel and gave a lazy chuckle.

“Alora?  You called the Hynti in?”

“No! She demanded I do it!”  Yzebel interrupted.  Her silver eyes had taken on a feverish glow.  Abigor gave the hag a sly grin but Alora noticed it didn’t reach his eyes, which had begun to pulse with color.  Her drunken grin got wider.  Any moment Yzebel might come to sorely regret her belly-aching.

But the hag wasn’t done.  Her eyes darted back and forth between Alora and Abigor.

“And she told me she was the SinEater for Alain,” Yzebel announced. “Just said it pretty as you please and laughed about it too.”

“Did she now?” Abigor replied mildly.  He looked at Yzebel until she dropped her eyes then turned to Alora.  There was a slight frown marring his features.

“The soul is Yzebel’s, Alora.  And now you have called in the Hynti who went to fetch what belongs not to you.”

He pointed a delicate finger at Yzebel and his tone was teasing.

“But belongs to her.  I also know Bune is most anxious to receive what he was promised.  And you’re mixed up in this…how?”

His tone was a good-humored drawl and while Alora could sense that Yzebel was put at ease by it she, however, was not.   There were too many warning signs, distant thunder signaling the approaching storm.

  The jolly tone, the flush of his cheeks, and the most telling of omens, the insistent tapping of his boot against the ground, rapid and insistent little explosions that signaled an escalating anger.

“Darius asked me to be the SinEater for his brother, Alain.” She said.

Abigor’s face darkened and he spat on the ground in disgust.  The saliva steamed and roiled with a life of its own.

“Darius.  In a Church pew every other day while he covered for his murdering bastard of a brother,” He scowled.  “Now Alain bloats and stinks and Darius loses sleep at night because no decent priest will bless his brother and relieve him of his murderous burden.”

“Still doesn’t change what I’ve been asked to do.”  Alora stubbornly stated. 

And yes, she should bow out of it all gracefully. All the telltale warning signs she could read in his demeanor told her that would be the smart thing to do. She knew this but she was too much like him to concede.  And on some childish level she didn’t want to give in to Yzebel and her itch to send the Hynti back out.