They would send for her.  In fact, he was surprised they had not done so already. Had the High Visier a hand in it? Was she the reason Fara still walked freely around Teredia? He knew not why, but he was convinced she had ensured he walked free from the court of the moon.

An echo of loyalty to his mother perhaps? They were both of the twelve, had both been primed for succession before Ishilde's fall from glory. Or could it be that the Dark One had desired him free? Had wanted him here by Fara's side to protect her still. He knew nothing. He was but a small piece to be moved in the great game of the fates.  

What he did know was that the appearance of Panos of Calate on Leoth changed everything.

What terms he would put before the council did not matter - for Leoth would not accept them. Leoth would not accept any terms from any realm who had declared war upon them.

Panos of Calate would be executed and sent back to Calate in pieces a martyr to his realm's cause.  Could he stand idly by and watch Fara's heartbreak once more? He had taken her husband and her beloved Azura and now his realm would take her brother from her too.

He recalled the look of loathing in the Calatian's eyes. How desperately Fara's brother had longed to reach through the bars and tear him apart for taking her life. Her brother was brave. A trait she shared.

But Panos of Calate's bravery would mean nothing before the court of the moon.

If he could speak with the Gods then he might congratulate them for their intricate hand.  To gift her to him, this female, only to ensure by every strand of circumstance that she would never be his.

Yes. Their hand in this was exemplar from whichever angle one stood. 

He caught the scent before the knock on his chamber door came.  

'Come in, Elyon.'

Elyon carried a small kvarvhi of wine, the stopper pulled from it already. After taking a generous mouthful he handed the jug to Theodan as he took a seat across from him. 

'It is done?' Theodan asked.  

Elyon nodded. 'He will be taken to The Balck Rock. Clearly the council plan to make him wait.'

Theodan frowned. 'Why?' 

'They wish to leave him cold and starving on the mountain to test his character?' Elyon shrugged.

He had expected them to hear Calate's terms immediately.  What was there to be gained in waiting? Though he supposed it bought him some time.

'He said nothing more on the journey?' Theodan asked as he drank.

'Not a word.'

'And he knows nothing? Of her?'

'He still thinks you tore out her throat and feasted on her sweet Calatian blood,' sighed Elyon. 'He will at least have his fury to keep him warm.' Theodan gave him a withering look as he handed the wine back.  'You have not yet told her?' Elyon asked.

All the way back from the port he had tried to imagine the words he might use, the tone in which he would say them, whether she would accept his comfort if he offered it.  In the end, he had avoided looking at her altogether. He had almost told her moments ago outside Jhaan's chamber but he could not force the words from his tongue, could not bear to be the instrument of her pain. Not now.

'No. But I must,' he said. 'I will.'

'And when she asks you to free him?'

He stiffened. It was often as though Elyon was inside his mind, that he could see the doubt and truth which resided there. 'He is a prisoner of war. I will not do it,' Theodan said.

Elyon's gaze was sharp, unyielding. 'Then mayhaps she is not your female after all. For if she was you could deny her nothing. Even this.'

Theodan studied him closely, eyes narrowing. 'What are you doing, Elyon? Why are you so entirely unable to stay out of this?'

His friend lifted the wine to his mouth and smiled. It had all the confidence of a victor about to deal a death blow. 'I happened upon her in the kitchen,' he said. 'I had not thought much of her at the camp, but she seems to have blossomed here under your devoted eye, brother. It was the scent of her which beguiled me most of all - like pleasure and wine and the sweetest of viriyan fruit.  Have you tasted her yet?' he asked, knowing full well the answer. 'You would not mind if I had a drop would you?'

Theodan was unable to prevent the low growl escaping his throat. Elyon would not dare touch her, he knew this, but the very idea of another tasting her made his blood enflame.

'Your misplaced belief in your own cleverness is your least attractive feature, Elyon. Has anyone ever told you that?'

Elyon chuckled. 'I think you have, commander, many times. Now...' He sat forward on the chair, his eyes turning serious. 'It appears you have two choices, Theo. Each with their own unfavourable consequences.'

'And what might those be, Elyon?'

'Let your female's brother be brought before the council -  where he shall deliver his terms and be executed shortly thereafter under the moon's gaze. Or, find a way to remove them both from the realm before that happens.'

'Neither of those are choices as I see it.' His thoughts felt loud and jarring.

'No. I suppose they are not. One will lose you your realm and possibly your head, and the other will lose you your female,' Elyon mused. 'It is not an enviable position certainly.'

'She is not my female Elyon - I do not have her to lose.'

Elyon shot him a look, both derisive and pitying. 'Your almost wilful blindness to that which is most apparent is your least attractive feature, Theodan, has anyone ever told you that?'

Theodan said nothing but glared his reply.

Finally, Elyon sighed. 'I cannot pretend to have knowledge of the princess's heart, Theodan, but I know she spoke for you in the Court of the moon when she did not have to. I know that when she says your name it is with neither rancour nor contempt. I do not know hers, 'Tis true, but I know your heart. She is your female.'

Elyon's words were solid, with all the strength of Leoth steel. They sliced through his own denial. Elyon's eyes flickered with a challenge, daring Theodan to rebel against them. Again he said nothing.

'We cannot explain why the Gods choose for us how they do,' Elyon went on. 'Not when all the world it seems is against it. Was not Leoth himself cursed with the same? Did not he sacrifice all for the one who gave harbour to his soul?

Have you the stomach for rebellion, Son of Ishilde?

'It would be rebellion of the highest order, Elyon.' He did not clarify what he spoke of for of course Elyon already knew.

Elyon nodded. 'There are men who are ready to follow you to the ends of Ethis, Theo. I am one of them. But if you are to command us to mutiny, at least make it for a cause you believe in.'

***

He awoke in his chair sometime later, when the moon was far above the horizon, thick and milky in the folds of the sky.  Mor had left a bowl of stew, cold now, and some bread on the table next to him. He ate quickly before leaving the chamber, his heart heavy with all that he must do now. He went to Jhaan's chamber first, where he found Mor sitting in a chair by the bed, her eyes heavy. A long length of yellow fabric pooled about her legs as she stitched one corner. The fire cast an orange glow about the room, the Lakaari's incense heavy and gauzy in the air.

She lifted her head and smiled at him, casting her eyes across to Jhaan who slept still.  'His pain eases with the moon's glow,' she said.

Nodding, Theodan crossed to the bed and placed a hand upon Jhaan's forehead, then his cheek, then finally to his throat. Tepid, but his pulse surged youthful and vibrant within. He gave Mor a look of relief before turning for the door.

'The princess Fara is in your old chamber,' said Mor. He turned. She did not lift her head from her task. 'You did not expect me to place her in the lower keep while your Asallan female takes your mothers' bed?' There was faint accusation in her tone.

'I expected you to do as you saw fit, Mor.'

'Indeed,' she huffed quietly.

With a sigh he went towards the door but stopped, hesitating.

'You kept her company today?' He asked.

Mor finally lifted her head from her task. 'I did.'

'Did she... did she speak of me?' He barely recognised his own voice for the thread of longing which ran through it.

Mor would not tell him a lie. Neither would she tell him if Fara's words had been cruel or unkind. Her hands paused at their task and came to rest on her lap.

'She did.' Hope lit within him. There was hesitation in Mor's eyes which tried his patience. 'She asked about Kirsa.'

He stiffened. 'And you told her of course.'

'Of course, I did! I would not have her see you as a monster, Theo!'

'She already sees me as such, Mor.'

Mor made a soft dismissive sound. 'The princess is not blind, nor is she a fool. If you want her to see you as something more than the Leothine who killed her prince and stole her from her home then show her something more. Show her what else you are.'

He considered her words a long moment - so like Elyon's they seemed - before he turned for the door and exited the chamber.

***

He knocked gently on the chamber door before pushing it open. She was sitting up in the bed, smiling softly as he came toward her.

'You came to me,' she smiled.

'I vowed that I would. You have eaten and rested?'

'Yes, I ate and rested well. Thank you for your kindness.'

He came to the side of the bed and sat down, and she slid along to give him room. Proffering her hand out to him, she turned her palm upward.

'Do you accept His gift this night?' He asked her as he sat.

'Yes master, I accept it,' Iaria whispered.

With a nod he reached out to take hold of her proffered hand, bringing her wrist to his lips. 'By His grace the blood of the moon shall restore.' He whispered in Leoth.

He kissed the skin softly, licking his tongue over the ebb of her pulse. Her body trembled in response, the arousal fluttering over her. A whisper from her broken skin. The thin flesh of her wrist wet and numb from his tongue, he brought his thumb to the vein and pierced it gently with his claw. Iaria flinched only slightly, her eyes fixed on his, her gaze filled with trust and longing. Her flesh gave way soft and silent, bright red rising up from pale white.  An offering. A gift that would be reciprocated.

He tasted her with his tongue, licking the droplet from her skin before he closed his mouth over the piercing and sucked soft. Her sweet human taste spread across his mouth and down his throat, causing a surge of need rocking through him.

Closing his eyes he imagined it was Fara's taste he consumed. Then he imagined drinking from her while he took her, as her own need rose to meet his.  When Iaria reached for the arousal which had risen fierce between his legs, he closed his thighs and shifted his position. He let her wrist drop from his mouth and bent to close her wound, sealing it with this tongue.

He brought his own wrist to his mouth and bit hard, the skin thicker and less yielding than Iaria's own. When the blood began to seep from his skin he offered his wrist out to Iaria. She took hold of it with both hands and closed her mouth around to suck deeply, moaning softly as the dull pull of her lips began to take his blood inside her.

The act was not one he did often. He did not enjoy the intimacy it forced or the bond it allowed. He did not enjoy the idea of his own life-force coursing through another's veins. Iaria had tasted him but once before. When he had first chosen her.  Her face had been scarred by a jealous female aboard the Merchant ship where she had been raised. Despite her disfigurement, a wild but gentle spirit had drawn him to her as he'd perused Asalla's consorts. When she awoke to find the scars gone to memory she had wept tears of joy and promised him unending devotion in return.

Now, she drank with more fervour than she had done that night. Her eyes closed in bliss, her tongue, her blunt teeth, the flush across her cheeks denoting pleasure. Again he closed his eyes and imagined it was Fara who consumed him. Imagined that it was into her body he flowed. Through each nerve. Healing her as he bound her to him. He felt no shame in it. No shame in spreading his darkness to her; for the need to bind her to him like this was far greater.

Iaria's eyes began to flicker beneath the lids and her hunger gradually began to slow, her breathing with it. His other hand holding hers he moved his thumb over her pulse to await the Zaxis. The moment in which her heart would stop for a fraction of an instant and she would release him.

He felt the missed beat against his thumb at almost the same moment Iaria's mouth slipped free of his wrist and her body collapsed back onto the bed. She lay motionless but breathing gently, her eyes closed and the dark stain of his blood smeared across her mouth.  It was several moments before it started to take effect.

His blood disappeared first, absorbing into her skin. Then the bruising began to fade, slow, as though time reversed the damage before his eyes. The markings pressed into her throat by a rough Zybar hand lightened and lightened still until the soft skin was returned to palest pink. Last, the hand draped across her chest began to knit itself anew, the nail pushing gently out from its bed as the skin reformed plump and pink around it, a bud blooming. New like a babes.

The Arayis.

Leoth's greatest gift and greatest secret.

The power to restore. Not from death, for none could rescue a soul from the clutches of mortality if the Gods decreed death upon them, but from injuries great and small, from disease which sought to rot the body from the inside, the gift of Leothine blood could revive the fragile human form.

Iaria's eyelids fluttered open, the pale blue Irises glimmering now with gratitude and exhilaration. She sat back up slowly and smiled, warm with devotion. When she moved to undo the ties of her nightgown he reached out and took hold of her hand, stopping her with a shake of his head.

She frowned. 'I do not understand. Have I displeased you?'

'You have always pleased me, Iaria.'

Some thought occurred to her then. One which saddened her. 'It is because I allowed the Zybar to use my body. Master, you have renewed it.  You must forgive me for it I did n —.'

'Iaria, no,' he said, stern. 'That is not why. You allowed nothing. Those who harmed you are but base-born dogs who will pay for what they have done.'

She smiled, sadly. 'But they are the reason you no longer desire me?'

He looked at her directly.  She was a beautiful female; her skin pale after many years on Leoth, her eyes clear and blue as the depths of the Azurian sea, her mouth red and ripe as fresh viriyan fruit, the curve of her breast full and soft. But she was not Fara.

'No,' he said finally. 'They are not the reason.'

The reason was that she did not fill him with purpose or awaken his every sense.  The reason was that he did not daydream of how her laugh might sound, or of a time when he might see her smile from joy, or even be the cause of it. The reason was that she did not light his soul from within. The reason was that he was not in love with her.

The admission was frightening.

His legs seemed to turn hollow and his body fill with the sudden rush of a thousand migrating birds. He stood from the bed, unsteady.

'You are... unwell?' She asked, her eyes concerned now.

'I... I am well.' He nodded, turning in a full circle before he was able to recognise the chamber door. 'I must get some air. I am tired from the exchange, that is all.' He scrubbed a hand over his face and through his hair. Yes. He needed air. And rest. The Arayis had drained him. He moved to the chamber door desperate to be free of the oppressive heat of this room, of Iaria's gaze.

'Master, please you must rest here, you do not look well...' She was behind him, following him out of the chamber and into the hallway, her hands touching him.

'Iaria, I am well. Please go back inside. You must rest.' His throat had grown tight and thick as the panic inside him only grew. He did love her. He loved her.  He was in love with her.

As he turned, gesturing for Iaria to go back inside, his foot caught the short wooden pedestal which displayed some ancient steel plate of his father's he had always despised. The plinth rocked and sent the plate toppling from its stand to the stone floor. The sound echoed abrasively through Teredia's inner foyer.

Iaria moved immediately to lift the plate and settle it back on the pedestal, then turned to him her eyes still wide with concern.

'Please. Let me care for you,' she said, reaching for him. 'You are not yourself.'

A door opened behind them, and he turned to see Fara at the door of her chamber. An odd looked crossed her face as she looked between them both. He tried to consider how the scene presented to her - he in nothing but loose bed silks and Iaria's nightdress undone - but he could think of nothing but how calm he felt at the mere sight of her. A settling over his heart and mind, his blood slowing to a gentle flow, his bones soothed. He felt just as he had done when he'd first looked upon her in the throne room.

She appeared otherworldly to him then. A goddess conjured from some ancient memory, seraphic, divine. He had a crushing desire to go to her. To drop to his knees before her and beg forgiveness for each sin he had ever committed. For each wrong he had done her and any other. To pledge his eternal most holy devotion to her in each life he was given grace to live.

Gods how painfully futile his feelings, now that he had accepted them, for her were. He realised that then. She would never return them.

She still wore the gown Mor had chosen for her, the colours as though they had been matched to each facet of her, her skin luminous in the candlelight that escaped from the chamber within. Had she ever looked more beautiful? On her wedding feast to the Prince of Azura, perhaps. Her body adorned with bright Azurian gold and jewels of every shade. Yet it was dressed in the dull fabrics of a servant that she had stolen his heart. Had he loved her then? There in that hall of bright burning metal. Dumbstruck and wordless just as he was now.

He held her eye until he found the strength of mind to look away from her. Then he loosed himself from Iaria's touch and charged towards his chamber.

His own chamber was hot too, and so he went to the balcony and let the cool air envelop him. Breathing deep and slow he tried to empty his mind of every thought which threatened to suffocate him.

It was impossible.

She endured. She alone remained in the vast darkness of his thoughts. The wind blew soft around him and even the air whispered her name. He whispered it too. A poem on his tongue.

He loved her. He loved.

He was more than destruction. He was more than his mother believed him to be.

Then, just as the notion had made him warm, he felt the chill of its shadow. He felt the ebb of loss bleed over him. Loss because she would never be his. Loss because she had given herself to him not through an act of passion, but through some attempt at desperate remedy. Loss because he had taken from her that which she would never have given him under any other circumstance. 

It made him no better than the Zybar. Bile rose to his throat, bitter and thick. He was a monster. A base-born dog.

You are nought but destruction.

'Gods to go back,' he whispered to the moon. 'To never look upon her... to never know such glory existed...' how easily all would be now if only he had not looked upon her. For how could he deny his men their vengeance? Yet how could he break his vow to her? How could he let Panos of Calate live? Yet how could he bear to break her heart again?

What kind of trial is this? Why would you lead me to her under such impossible circumstance? He asked his god as he gazed bitterly up at the moon.

With a decisive curse, he turned and strode back inside the chamber. He pulled on a thin silk tunic and started for the door. He could be a coward no longer. At least he could face her and tell her of her brother's fate.

He pulled open the door and froze. Fara stood before him, her expression one of surprise as she had been about to knock from the other side. She lowered her hand slowly. He did not need to think about why he had not scented her before, because she lived inside him now, her scent everywhere around him, always.

'I have disturbed you.' She asked. Her hair was loose about her shoulders now and he longed to reach out and touch it, to wrap his fingers around it and breathe the soothing scent of it.

'You have not.'

She nodded, relieved, but there was a note of nervousness about her. A skittishness. 'I... I waited for you,' she said. 'You had something you wished to speak to me of?'

He nodded once. 'I was just now on my way to your chamber,' he said. He stood back to let her enter and she moved tentatively across the threshold, taking care not to brush against him as she did.

She walked to the centre of the room, her delicate hands looking for a task as they pulled at the skirts of her dress, rummaged through her hair, then finally closed into small tense fists by her sides. 'Iaria is healing well?' She asked, a little tightly perhaps.

'By morning she will be much recovered.' He crossed the chamber toward her and noted how tense and cautious she grew as he neared. He took a half step back.

Her usual defiance and fire seemed somewhat smothered and she held his eye only a moment before shifting her gaze around the room. When her eyes settled upon the bed he saw her expression falter, before she looked quickly from it.

Neither of them spoke for many moments before finally she turned to him.

'What is it that you wished to speak to me of, Theodan?' She asked. The look in her eyes was startlingly direct, but then it began to turn soft. Softer perhaps than he had ever seen it. It made his skin tingle with something like hope.

It was said that painful things were easier to hear when said directly and without preamble. And Gods knew he had no desire to cause her any more pain.

'Your brother is here,' he said. 'On Leoth.'

At first, it was as though she did not hear him, or understand the words he spoke. So that he thought perhaps he had spoken them in Leothin.

'He is... here?' She paled, frightened.

'He was captured. Taken as prisoner of the realm during the attack on the war camp.'

Some light came into her eyes, a dawn of understanding. 'It is Panos you speak of?' Her pronunciation was not the same as his own. She spoke her brother's name: Panoas.

He nodded. 'He led the charge upon the beach. But he was felled from his horse by two of my warriors. It was he who injured Jhaan.'

'Panos...' she whispered, her body sagging. He saw the pain flicker in her eyes before she turned from him to gaze into the fire.

'He is unharmed,' he added a moment later. Again he thought she did not hear him for she made no visible reaction. Then suddenly, she turned to him.

'Where is he now?'

'The Balck Rock - it is a mountain prison some way north. He will remain there until the council are ready to hear his terms.'

'Terms?'Fara frowned, confused.

'He brings terms to Leoth from the King of Calate - I expect he will demand recompense for your death.'

She paled further. 'Then he does not know that I live? Theodan, you must take me to him. He must see me before he meets with your council.'

'Fara, I cannot do that. You know that I cannot.'

She moved toward him, golden eyes wide and urgent. 'He thinks I am dead by Leoth's hand - by your hand. Whatever terms he brings will demand your head, Theodan. Valdr will demand your head.'

It sounded almost as though she was concerned for him. He gave her a small smile. 'I intend on keeping my head, princess - though know if I had killed you, your brothers would have every right to demand it. However given that I did not, their terms will be refused.'

'After which your council will let me and my brother return home, I assume?' Her tone told him she did not believe such a thing.

Unable to hold her eye he moved instead to pour them both some wine. Which she took from him but did not drink. He gulped his heartily but it did nothing to diminish his thirst.

'They will kill him, won't they?' She asked him some moments later. Her gaze was unwavering.

This time he did not look away. 'No enemy of Leoth has ever left the realm alive.'

'It would be Leoth's own declaration of war,' she said. 'If they execute a prince of Calate there is nothing that could prevent what would follow. It is full acceptance of Calate's declaration - every realm of Ethis would be at war.'

'Leoth accepted the declaration the moment Calate's soldiers attacked our realm, unprovoked.'

'Unprovoked?'

He shifted in his chair, guilty. 'Leoth blood has been shed without clear cause. It is done, Fara.  Nothing can prevent this war.'

A spark of disbelief lit her eyes. 'But... our agreement. Your promise...?' When he lowered his gaze from hers he felt a blast of fury hit him from where she sat. 'Gods I am truly a fool...' she said, an incredulous whisper. Her glare turned as fierce as the sun as the full weight of it bore down on him. Tears glimmered silver in pools of molten gold. 'It was... a lie. Of course, it was. You have no true desire to prevent this war at all.'

'Calate attacked our men. Our women. Our honour depends on retaliation for such an act. Valka demands we shed our enemies blood as retribution. I am sorry.'

'You are sorry?' Her voice was a bare thin thing, stretched tight.

'Fara you do not understand—.'

'Oh, I understand perfectly, Leoth.' She rose to her feet, her small body shaking. 'I understand that you made a promise to me that you had no intention of keeping. I understand that you are the same as every other male on Ethis! I understand that women are but playthings for males to use and discard at their will - and Gods do you ensure we are ever reminded of it!' Her voice was pure white rage, her eyes shimmering suns, radiant and terrible.

He felt his own fury flare then, sudden and righteous. Slamming down his cup he shot up from his chair and moved toward her. That she did not shrink from him only aroused him. Her fire and defiance had returned and it was ever glorious to behold.

'Then why do you mourn for him still?' He growled. 'If we are all the same base-born dogs why do you still mourn your dead prince? He who used you most ill of all?'

She blinked in shock. 'Galyn... never used me ill...' she said. 'You talk of things you know nothing of!'

Reaching out, he grabbed her arm and forced up the sleeve of her dress to expose the scars of her wrist. The cup of wine she held spilled to the floor.

'I know of these,' he growled. 'I have seen it. I have seen him hurt you, Fara. What he did was not love.'

Shock and horror flashed in her eyes as she snapped her arm back from his hold, pulling her wrist against her chest as though to protect it from him. He saw a rebuttal form on her tongue, some excuse perhaps, some pardon of Galyn of Azura's torment, before a look crossed her eyes. A decision made.

'And what do you know of love, Theodan?' she asked hotly, tears slipping silent from her eyes. 'For I have known many kinds of it. I have seen its cruelty and its beauty and still I know nothing of it.'

He imagined the words that might come from his mouth if he were some other male.

All that I know of it stands before me now. The stars of your eyes, the music of your voice, the fire that glows bright and wild beneath your skin. It is as though there was not a time where I ceased to love you. In every life before this, in every life after this, I love you. My soul, bleak and dark until you, will never know darkness again while you live.

Had he really counselled Elyon to declare his intent for Xanthus when he could not bring himself to do the same before her now? His throat felt thick with the words he could not say to her.

'Perhaps I too know nothing of it,' he said finally. Lies his cowardice allowed him. 'But I know that those who professed to love you but caused you harm shall perish for it. In all lives granted them, they shall perish for their sins against you.'

A soft look of pain crept once more into her eyes. 'I am not without my own sins, Theodan.'

He was about to say that she bore no blame for the harm which had been done her, just as he had told Iaria, but she reached out and took hold of his hands, stealing his voice, his breath.

'I swore to you I would never beg you for anything, but I was too proud. I have ever been too proud. But I am begging you now, Theodan.  Help me,' she said, her eyes wide and pleading. 'How am I to live if more blood is shed in my name? If more of my people perish, if I am the cause of yet more death. If Calate and Leoth go to war it will be the end of my realm - you know this to be true. I do not know what can be done to prevent it, but I know that I cannot stand by and do nothing. Not again. Please. Help me.' When she reached up to place a hand tenderly on his cheek, he held his breath, his body trembling beneath her touch. 'You are more than destruction, Theodan of Teredia. I have seen it.'

He felt the world around them disappear. Melting away until it was but him and her in a meadow that looked like the one he had learned to ride Varveh in as a child. The grass beneath them rumbled and the clouds above hung thick and portentous. He felt war coming for them, could hear the thunder of hooves against the ground, could smell it on the wind; the sky crackling with the threat of death.

He did not know if he could prevent this war but he did know that he would lay waste to all of Ethis if it was her command. Perhaps she too knew this. Perhaps it was why she asked the impossible of him now. Perhaps her words and touch were designed to elicit such servitude from him.

She may bear his collar about her neck, but the Gods knew it was he who was truly enslaved.