Fire Ch. 10

She had briefly toyed with the thought of escape but had given it up the moment she realized her knife, Jairus's knife, had been confiscated. That and the fact that she was surrounded by a small army of huge, well armed men...men who were clearly not farmers or merchants. These were warriors....killers. In a fair fight she'd last all of two seconds. She sighed heavily as they passed on into a quieter hall. She wondered where they were taking her. She should have been frightened...but she just didn't seem to have it in her. She smiled a little bitterly at that thought.

"Who are you?" She asked suddenly, surprising herself with the previously forgotten question.

"Othwyn."

She made an unladylike sound. "Friend...you wanted me dead." she drawled sullenly, pulling her arm away from his, forcing herself to keep moving of her own volition. He let her go.

"Nonsense. Did Darius tell you that? I was trying to find you, yes, but I specifically requested that you be unharmed. I wanted to know if you still lived, and to bring you back here. It got a little bit messy there, what with you killing Darius, but what's done is done, and you're here now." She frowned at him.

"But Jai..." she stopped herself. Jairus had said...or had he. He had sure as hell implied that they wanted her dead.

"Did Darius want me dead?"

"Oh to be sure." He nodded. He glanced at her. "If you're feeling guilty over his loss, don't, he was a right prick."

"I don't."

"Good."

There was a long pause.

"He took everything." She whispered it softly, not quite sure she'd said it aloud. The memory was suddenly hot and alive in her mind. Finding the door, the blood, the bodies. Her throat burned with bile and her eyes pooled with tears she didn't know she still had. And then she thought of Jairus, and imagined him finding that same unholy scene.

Her feet failed her and she stumbled. He reached for her again, but she pulled away before he could touch her. She didn't care if he wasn't Darius...he was still Huroth. He cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry for your lo.."

"It's awfully busy around here...throwing a party?" She interjected before he could finish his condolences. She didn't want it. She wanted anger. Fierce, bitter, hungry anger. She needed it. It was what kept her walking, kept her breathing. She relished the venom that poured out with her words. He would have to bare it...someone would. She wasn't sure she could.

She kept her eyes on the men in front of them but she could feel his eyes on her.

"We'll soon be under attack: Darius's men."

"Oh. Don't they know he's dead?"

The men around her chuckled. She glanced at Othwyn and he smirked back. "That is precisely the problem. They're hear for blood. They think I did it." the smirk finally reached his eyes. "I did also secure the keep while Darius was away. There were those in Darius's camp who refused to switch over and so I was obliged to oust them. They are merely awaiting the return of their compatriots and the arrival of their allies."

"Oh."

She bit her lip. Her first instinct was to apologize. Was she sorry? Yes and No.

"Why wasn't it you?"

"I'm not sure I understand." he arched a brow at her.

"Why didn't you kill him?" she asked softly.

He let out a heavy sigh. He gestured to the keep around them.

"I was trying to avoid this...mess."

"There's no shame in combat." One man grunted from behind them. Othwyn smirked again, though his eyes still looked weary. She understood then that the concern she had seen in his eyes earlier had not been entirely for her. For some strange reason that thought pleased her.

"No indeed. No shame at all." he murmured dryly. "However, at the rate we're killing each other off, there won't be many left to carry on the time honored tradition...now will there?"

"You sound like some one I know." She gave her own wry smile, only to have it falter and crumble a moment later. She bit the inside of her cheek and looked back to the floor fighting the burning ache which blossomed in her chest like some dark thorny flower.

"Anyone I know? He asked lightly. She kept her eyes to the floor and said nothing.

They arrived in silence and she was ushering into a bedroom. Some of the guards left, other spread out in front of the door. He shut the door behind him and gestured to the room.

"I imagine you'll find this more habitable than the cells." He smiled, trying to cheer her with a light tone. He wasn't an idiot and gave up on it right off. "Well, there's a bath and some fresh clothes for you, and food if you're feeling up to it." He nodded off to the side of the room, she kept her eyes on him. He cleared his throat. "Well, we have a good deal to discuss, but I'll let you to it. I'll be back in an hour or two."

She remained standing a long while after he left. She moved slowly to the bath, drawing her fingers through the warm water.

Thea stripped herself and stepped in, kneeling. The heat of the water bit razor sharp, cutting her, opening her up. As she washed, and the water slowly turned the palest shade of pink, she wept, her tears coming until she was utterly sightless, until her mind was erased, until she could remember nothing, feel nothing, just blessed numbness once more. The dream was gone. He was gone. He would never come again.

No more dreams...please no more dreams.

She touched her left breast, half expecting to find a gaping hole where her heart should be. There was just flesh.

She was dressed and waiting when Othwyn arrived.

He wandered over to a nearby chair and dropped heavily into it with a heavy sigh. Looking at her from under a lower brow.

"I'll just get to it then I suppose." He took a clearing breath and began. "So my dear...the plan, originally, was to find you and lure you back with promises of grandeur, sweet talk you if I had to, and convince you to marry me...but I'm afraid we will have to delay those pleasantries until we discover whether or not either of us will actually survive this ridiculous siege. We've shut up the gates, but I'll tell you in earnest, this place is far from secure, and this is all rather last minute, so I find I am..." he held his arms wide and shrugged, "completely unprepared. I apologize in advance for putting you in harms way...but as I said, this was all very last minute. As an unfortunate pawn in out little game, you'll just have to endure it I suppose. Such is life."

"That was surprisingly blunt."

He gave her a tired smile and ran a hand through his hair. "I may have been educated in the empire...but I am still Huroth. In times of stress I revert to what is comfortable. What is it they say? You can take a boy out of the country...." he waved his hand.

"But you can't take the country out of the boy." she finished for him.

"Yes, precisely. Or the Huroth, in this case."

"I thought you sounded different." And familiar. Painfully familiar.

He nodded. There was a long pause. She sat on the bed and stared at the floor, her mind running over what he had just said.

"You wanted to marry me?"

**

A lone figure stood, gazing silently into the mouth of hell. Black eyes trailed the path of gray strewn before him, an invitation into oblivion. Time, for fear, stood stiller than stone, than even death perhaps. Though none could have been stiller than the dark man, his hanging hands whiter than marble and far more lifeless, his onyx eyes mirroring only the empty portal which gaped before him.

Yet not everything was cowed into stillness. The moon, high and insistent, slid slowly through the black branches behind him, and an anxious wind pressed against his shoulders, tugging his cloak and rousting the black soot. It stirred restlessly and caught the wind. For a moment it fluttered, unsure, before being drawn off inexorably into some distant sky.

Some sad few remained, trapped and frozen in the snow, laying penitent about the dark man's feet. In those ashes something stirred.

Drop by drop a rose bloomed, it's icy crimson petals clawing their way deep into the white, seeking out the still living earth hidden below. The wind pulled again, and the pale statue followed, letting the too bright moon carve a new path, the only record of his passing a wilting flower in melting snow, carved of ash and blood.