Undying Ch. 16-21

"The thought that I might not be-be..."

He pulled her under his arm and walked with her against his side. "If they no longer want you, if he no longer wants you, it would prove how unworthy they are. My Syreilla, you are meant to be by my side. My companion, until they find a weapon of my hand that will send me to death."

"Vezar, he thinks he has. Olthon has a chunk of metal he's spent a very long time pouring power into. It does something with threads. He tried to use it on me but I'm slippery somehow."

"You are mine, sister, as much as I could make you. If he cannot bring it to bear on you, he will have more difficulty applying it to me."

"He says it has to touch you. He tried it on me without touching me with it." She sounded spent.

"Are you tired, Syreilla?"

"I feel... starved, exhausted." He smiled as she rubbed her face.

"Yes. We need prey." He felt her wrap an arm around his waist. "That was why I did not want you to make the guards flee."

"You felt like this and didn't eat me?" Her tone was dryly teasing and he ran his hand down her arm as he pulled away.

"Yes. I knew from the moment I heard your voice, my sweet Syreilla, you were not prey." Vezar stepped away and pushed on the door of the lodging. It seemed to have been braced from within. He pushed harder and the door began to give, bringing squeals of horror from within. "Help me, sister." With a sigh, Syreilla joined him in pushing the door.

It moved more freely with her help and Vezar grinned as two men came forward to attack. He drained them quickly. The hunger Syreilla felt was bleeding over into his own being. Moving through the inn he caught up every man and woman he could, draining them to still the hunger. Syreilla followed almost nervously.

"Sister, you must eat." He smiled at her and pulled her forward toward a cowering young man.

"I don't-Vezar, I don't think I can." She was trembling. Vezar pulled her in front of himself and pushed her forward with his arms around her waist.

"You were so certain you were worse than I am, sweet sister." He kissed her head from behind. "I know you can kill. Maiming does not give you pause. Easing your hunger should not be so difficult."

"He's so afraid." Syreilla turned her back to the boy and buried her face in his chest.

Stroking her hair, Vezar found he was enjoying this more than he had thought possible. "They are all afraid, Syreilla. Let me help you." He clawed and drained the boy, pouring that life into his Syreilla. Her intake of breath as she felt it flowing into her was music to his ears. "I will feed you, my tender-hearted sister, until you can summon the will to feed yourself."

"Tender-hearted... That's not something I ever thought I was, Syv."

Rubbing her back soothingly as she shuddered, he tried to reassure her, "It takes time to grow accustomed to it. Learning to feed sent me to the monastery. I had to find a way to live with myself."

"I can't imagine what that was like for you, of the two of us, you're the one I'd have called sweet or tender-hearted. No one has ever called me sweet but you." Vezar felt threads of gratitude trying to curl around him. "Thank you for-" She stopped speaking as he pulled them eagerly.

"Threads of gratitude I will welcome, Syreilla. I find I enjoy feeding you."

She looked up at him and gave him a dubious smile, "It does postpone finding out what my uncivilized table manners will look like now."

Grinning broadly, he took the opening she offered to tease her, "I shudder to think, and there is so little that makes me shudder."

Vezar earned a laugh, feeling the warmth as the threads strengthened and tightened with her embrace as she squeezed him before stepping back. "We should be on our way. We've attracted too much attention and the elves won't be able to miss it."

"Come, my things are here."

He pulled her toward the room he had rented. Millesant cowered by the bed as they entered.

"My pet, I apologize for the unexpected excitement."

The girl looked as if she would be ill.

"Unexpected excitement." Syreilla was trying not to laugh. She stepped forward with her hand held out. "I'm Syreilla, you are?"

Millesant flinched away from her.

"She was an enjoyable distraction from your absence. Now she is prey like the rest. When they cower that way there is no reclaiming them." Stepping forward, he took Syr's hand and grabbed hold of the girl digging his nails in.

"Wait!" Millesant shrieked.

He had already begun to drain her, taking her features he changed Syr's face and hair just enough that the guards wouldn't easily recognize her.

Syreilla shuddered. "I swear Syv, if you put her face on me I will kick you until my legs get tired."

"We must both change our appearances." Vezar gestured for her to take Millesant's things. "I remind you that you once called me a thief like yourself. Do you have such-" He turned at the sound of a soft thump. Syreilla was stripping the remains of Millesant without flinching.

"This is more the theft that I'm used to. The dead don't need much, money and things are best left for the living. Even the priests say so."

He laughed softly as she pulled the blanket from the bed and wrapped Millesant as if it were a shroud.

"A little dignity is a kindness that costs me nothing." Her look was slightly reproachful.

"My sweet sister, I will not chide you unless you start wrapping all of them." Smiling warmly he watched her pull a dress over her head, it would look lumpy with the pouches under it. "You should strip those off and take them with us. You will attract attention looking so-" he watched as she used some of Millesant's clothing to wrap around herself before pulling the loose bodice up into place. She looked plump, and the lumpiness was not jarring.

"My sweet brother, when it comes to running and hiding, I'm probably better at it than you are. The face doesn't matter so much. Change your body if you can. Something smaller, you need to be so plain and unremarkable that no one looks at you twice." Vezar could feel how much more confident she was, this was her element.

"Consider it done." He stepped from the room hunting for more prey. Finding two women he used them to make himself smaller and plainer, younger-looking than Syreilla. His clothes no longer fit. He stripped them off and met Syreilla in the hall as he was on his way to strip the body of the boy he had fed her.

She blinked at him and then nodded approvingly. "Get dressed, little brother. Work on your frightened little boy face while you get your clothes on, we'll need to mingle with some 'prey' as you call them to make our way out of the city unnoticed."

Stripping the boy and putting on his clothes was the work of a few moments. As he finished, Syreilla approached with another blanket, gently wrapping the boy. Her sensibilities were so charmingly tender for a thief. "We require new names, sister."

Syreilla gave him a half-smile as she stood. "I know. What do you think of Adiel and Anissa?"

Vezar pulled her close and grinned up at her. "I adore the way you pair our names, sister."

"Adiel, behave yourself." She patted his head like a child. "There should be a way to slip out, we're going to be frightened and you're going to be quiet. You have a strange way of talking, it's charming but very distinct, little brother."

He snorted. "Of course, Anissa. I must always listen to my elders."

The mischievous grin she turned on him made his breath catch, "You're small enough I can turn you over my knee, Adiel."

"Try, sister. You will find it challenging." The thought of bending her over his own knee was almost more urgent than his need to escape with her.

"Brothers don't look at their sisters like that unless they're elves, Adiel." She chided him with only a veneer of playfulness. He could feel her discomfort with his look. "Follow me and remember, be quiet, be afraid."

*Twenty-one*

Kaduil was in a foul mood by the time they reached Brosa, they'd stayed a few hours behind the caravaners to keep from causing them concern and the pace was excruciatingly slow. But the sight of six furious elves walking toward them as they entered the city brought a grim smile to his face. "Syreilla managed to outwit six of them."

"That means she's in Brosa with Vezar." Weran reminded him.

"Did she send for you to collect her?" Olthon inquired sourly as he approached the wagon.

"No, you-"

Bhirren put a hand on Kaduil's shoulder and squeezed hard, stopping him from insulting the elf.

"We heard someone hit her and she wanted to come home. We came to fetch her. She managed to get away from you?" Bhirren almost sounded pleasant.

"She said she wouldn't try to run again until we were out of the forest. I mistakenly thought she was teasing." Olthon looked at Kaduil sharply. "Syreilla was pleasant and charming until we lowered our guard and the first night we were out of the forest she overpowered the watch and took all of the horses. We've followed her here but she seems to know how to keep herself unseen."

Weran snorted, "If Syreilla was pleasant and charming that should have been your first warning to be on your toes."

One of the elves muttered, "Overpowered the watch."

Kaduil watched as Olthon straightened, and the muscle in the elf's jaw twitched. "Silence, Tirnel."

"No. You were so taken with her, she was able to subdue you without difficulty. And you say she overpowered the watch as if it were one of us that your dear Syreilla battled past." The elf he'd called Tirnel looked almost murderously angry.

Pulling his axe in front of him, Kaduil stopped the bickering with a look. "My Syreilla was never going to let you harm her brother. She's as loyal as a hound." He looked the elves over. "I want to know which one of you raised a hand to my wife."

"Let's find her before we start cutting them like firewood," Bhirren suggested pointedly. "If Vezar came here to find her he'll know where to look for her. He'll do worse than raise a hand to her."

"We'll help you look. If Vezar is here she'll need our help whether she wants it or not." Olthon's cool tone suggested he was less interested in helping Syr than he was in killing Vezar.

"Start at the temple of Imos. She likes talking about how much fun it is to get in and out of. They've been trying to keep her out for years." Kaduil suggested brusquely.

"A temple?" Olthon raised an eyebrow. "Even Vezar would discourage that."

"You can discourage her all you want." Kaduil shrugged with a scowl. "She doesn't listen. If they put up a fight and make it a challenge she'll keep going back. Easy is the only thing she leaves alone."

The elf almost looked proud. "She's wasted on you, but keeping her in a mine might be safer for everyone."

"She won't be leaving it for at least a year," Kaduil promised grimly.

The elves spread out as they reached the temple looking closely at the crowds. Kaduil and the dwarves looked at the beggars. Hiding in plain sight, someone no one would look at twice, was her idea of concealment.

People began to try to push their way into the temple, some babbling about a monster, the elves began trying to speak to them immediately to discover where. The dwarves just followed the guards.

The screams raised the hair on Kaduil's neck. Guards came back toward them in fear and when they'd calmed they started talking about a monster and a woman casting horrible spells. Olthon caught up in time to hear them.

"She's protecting him."

"Or frightening them away." Bhirren shook his head. "They were going after Vezar because they could land blows, she stepped up and sent them screaming away."

"She's doing both." Kaduil rubbed his face and muttered under his breath, "My golden-haired girl."

"She's-she's not golden-haired." One of the guards offered. "She's got black hair and eyes. It looked like she was melting at first and then she stopped and he stood her up. She looked sick and then she started casting spells onto the ground."

"No." Olthon grabbed him by the shirt. "Is she a half-elf?"

"N-no."

"What did he do, Olthon?" One of the elves asked before Kaduil could.

"He changed her. He must have nearly killed her." Olthon loosened his grip on the frightened man and stepped back. "I didn't know that he could."

"What did he do?" Kaduil asked, feeling a cold chill creeping up his spine.

"He made her like him." Olthon looked pale as he looked down the street. "Vezar changed her into what he is." Looking back to Kaduil he asked quietly, "What would she do if she had to devour men and women to survive?"

"She'd starve," Kaduil said with grim certainty. "She's got a softer heart than she lets on."

The elf looked relieved. "Vezar will want to change that as well. We can get to her before that I hope. There may be some way to get her back."

"Let's go get her, then." Weran stepped forward drawing his own axe to hand.

"We go together, and slowly, Master Dwarf. She'll have laid wards behind her." The elves ranged ahead, finding Syr's wards and dispelling them. Kaduil looked at the withered dead strewing the streets with revulsion. Syreilla was with the creature who had done all of this. A creature that was trying to make her like him.

"Kaduil!" Bhirren called him over. On the ground was the boot knife he'd given her, there was blood and her hair as if she'd fallen and cracked her skull. He picked up the knife and remembered suddenly to breathe. This was why Vezar changed her, he was trying to save her life.

"What have you found, Master Dwarf?" One of the elves asked.

It took him several tries to be able to speak. "Syr's knife."

"There's what looks like it might have been a lich here," Bhirren said thoughtfully. "Looks like someone killed it with dragon's fire."

"She must have been on the roof." Olthon had approached and looked at the blood and hair. "The lich must have attacked Vezar. It's happened before. She poured dragon's fire on it and when it turned to attack her it must have knocked her from her perch."

"He was trying to save her," Kaduil whispered, turning her knife in his hands.

"Perhaps." Olthon crouched in front of him. "We must find her." He held out a chunk of metal. "Touch it while you think of her, if you are bound to her I may be able to follow her threads."

Kaduil put his hand on it without a second thought. "Find my Syreilla. I don't care what he's done."

Olthon's smile was vicious. "The two of you are bound more tightly than she is to Vezar. She's running. The nearest gate." He stood and they began moving as quickly as they dared to the gate.

There was a crush of people at the gate. Many had heard what had happened and were trying to flee. No one was stopping any of them to look for the troublemakers, no doubt if they wanted to leave they wanted them gone.

The elves were almost pouncing on every dark-haired woman, looking for the right one. Kaduil climbed to the top of a stack of crates to look. Passing through the gate was a plump, brown-haired beauty with a younger man clinging to her. He saw the way she turned to look at him and the recognition in her eyes. "Syreilla!" She stopped but the younger man dragged her forward. "Syreilla!"

The elves were wading through the crowd, some toward where he was looking and Olthon was coming to the crates. "Are you certain?"

"She has brown hair now, plump and pretty, Vezar was a young-looking man, sixteen maybe. He dragged her off when she stopped to come to me."

Brown hair or gold, no matter what that thing had made her face look like, his Syr was not going to be dragged off by some monster. Not while he had breath and an axe.