Pixilated (7 page)

The elf lord paused in his narrative for a
moment, he bowed his head and took a deep breath before he
continued, "Two weeks ago an envoy arrived at my door with news
that the Majority, Rian’s father, was dying. Nhurstari tradition
forbids the ascendancy of a bachelor heir. I was requested to
deliver Rian’s bride at once thus insuring he could assume Majority
before his father’s death." Eldren smoothed the doll’s pale hair.
His fine featured face was profoundly sad. "My princess is not yet
the age of fosterage being but fifty years old, about the human
equivalent of twelve, but what else could we do? Rian’s house must
not lose the Majority, and Sandahl understands her duty well. I
have made sure of that. She will live under Rian’s protection until
she comes to stasis and bonds with him. Rian Sar el Nhurstari will
wait for her. Sandahl is the hope of his people. She is the hope of
mine. That, Captain Fawr, is the truth of the matter."

By the time, the elf finished speaking; Kree
was pacing furiously, pounding his iron hard fist into his left
palm again and again. He really hated this story.
Betrothed.
Fostered
. Pretty words for what amounted to one thing. This
little elf girl was a pawn in the political games of her elders, a
young girl, for Goddess sake, who still played with dolls. The very
idea twisted Kree's stomach into knots. Oh, he accepted that
politically advantageous marriages happened. From time to time, his
people made them. And it was a solid fact, the Addiri did. His
first lieutenant's father sent his man marriage offers on a monthly
basis, but damnation, Kree did not have to like it.

Worse, now that he had a few facts to go
with his theories, Kree felt certain this poor little elf princess
had been in Tarburg. Probably, at the same time he had. It
explained why the townsfolk were so hostile. They feared getting
involved in the affairs of their betters. Missing an opportunity to
rescue the child because of Eldren’s evasiveness made Kree angrier.
It was some time before he trusted himself to speak.

"That explains why you’re desperate to find
her. It does not explain why humans took her, or why they attacked
you here. Who opposes this arrangement?"

Eldren sighed again. The elf was so tired he
could hardly hold his head up. "I know nothing of what motivates
humans. Why do your people do anything? Some Nhurstari would rather
die as a pure race. Some Thallasi fear Nhurstari magic will reduce
us to second-class citizens. But both our peoples value children
highly. I find it hard to believe either faction would harm
Sandahl."

Kree spat. "Well, someone sure as hell
would." He walked over to the bodies of the dead men Chana had
lined up in the shade by the canyon wall. "Someone hired farmers to
keep you pinned down while they, whoever they are, moved your
princess."

Eldren jumped to his feet, his weariness
forgotten. "You know where Sandahl is?"

"I know where she was. Chana, ride back into
Tarburg. Pose as a hired sword looking for work and see what
information you can uncover." Well aware his physical presence and
soft voice drew all eyes to him, like as not the citizens of
Tarburg would not remember whether his companion had been male or
female. "I’ll bring the bodies in early tomorrow."

"Aye, My Captain." Chana tucked her ponytail
up under a slouch hat, took off her garrison issue jacket and sword
belt, and strapped her sword on her back after the mercenary
fashion. "I’ll see, you in the morning."

Throughout Eldren’s discourse, Kayseri sat
wrapped in private misery. Kree had said only three words to her
since he charged into the canyon like an avenging spirit. "Shut up,
Katie." Six, if you counted that he said it twice. She hugged her
knees tighter, tears welling up in her eyes. The tears were for her
dashed dreams. They would not help her with Kree, not this time. He
settled himself on the other side of the narrow canyon without once
looking her direction. Eldren’s long fingered hand touched her
hair, and she gazed up into the elf’s beautiful face. His
chime-like telepathy filled her mind.

"I regret that I have caused you trouble
with the man."

Kayseri wiped her cheeks with the heel of
her hand.
"I have never seen him so angry, Eldren. He will
never, ever, forgive me."

"Yes. he will."

She chanced a glance at Kree’s thunderous
visage.
"I wish I shared your confidence."

"I will tell him I coerced you. He will want
to believe it and so he will."

Kayseri smiled at him, tears drying on her
cheeks. She shook her head abandoning telepathy. "I think we’ve
told My Captain enough fibs. Isn’t lying how I got into this mess
in the first place? No. I'll confess and throw myself on his
mercy."

"The man is a Temple demon. There is no
mercy in him."

"Oh, you're wrong, Eldren." Kayseri
sniffled. "My Captain is kind and good. Once, when I was a little
girl, he took me to a carnival in Koppras. On the way back, we
found a crow with a broken wing. He took it home and nursed it back
to health. He taught it to talk. He still has the bird. It flies
freely now." A wistful smile tugged Kayseri's mouth. "And he keeps
a little blind dog."

"Really?" Eldren dropped out of mind-speech
gazing thoughtfully at the captain. "I would not have believed
it."

"Well, you're not exactly seeing his best
side." Kayseri wiped her face with her fingers and fluffed up her
curls. "How do I look?"

The elf prince smiled at her. "You are very
beautiful, Kayseri Marea Bruin, daughter of Lathan of Elhar and
Lethea a pixie of the Leafy River Clan, as you well know."

Kree sat a few yards away on the hard stony
ground with one long leg stretched straight out and the other bent
so the back edge of his saber rested between his instep and his
knee. Crunching gravel warned him of company and he glanced up.
Seeing Kayseri, he went back to rubbing harder than necessary to
clean the blood off his saber.

She sat across from him, not too close he
noticed, but close enough to make him twitchy just the same.
Another quick glance showed him, eyes like a frightened fawn’s—if
the fawn had been crying. He hardened his heart. Tears were not
fair.

"I guess you’re pretty angry, huh?"

How perceptive she has become
. Kree
seethed. He blew out a sharp breath he had not realized he was
holding. "Katie, three men died today, and somewhere out there a
little elf girl is in danger because I could not trust you. Don’t
you think I have a right to be…" he paused for effect, "angry?"

"You can trust me."

"Do you think so? Because, I don’t." Kree
raised his gaze from the weapon and stared at her. "Last night you
promised me in tears you would not run away from me again, and all
the time you planned to slip off with that damned Prince of
Thallasi."

"I didn’t plan that."

Kree laughed, but it was not a happy sound.
"It didn’t just happen, Katie." Kayseri started to protest, but he
raised his hand silencing her. "Maybe it did. Maybe it was like the
time Molly’s favorite vase got broken, and you swore to me you
weren’t even in the room when it fell off the table. Was it like
that?"

Kayseri blushed. Her brown cheeks turned a
lovely bronze shade. "No! And it's not fair to bring up things that
happened when I was a child."

She was right. It was not fair, but by
Namar’s eyes, she'd lied to him and men died for it. "You are still
a child."

"I am not!"

"Then don’t act like one. Why did you go
running off? I'm listening. Make me understand."

"You were so unreasonable. I couldn’t think
of any other way to keep you from putting Eldren in the stockade,
and I couldn’t let you do that because the princess—"

Kree’s breath hitched. "You knew?" She cut
her eyes away too quickly. No matter what she told him now, he knew
the truth. "Damnation, Katie! Why didn’t you tell me? I could have
done something."

"I wanted to." Kayseri rose to her knees and
inched toward him ringing her hands. "I did! I told Eldren he
should, but he said no. He said if word of Sandahl’s abduction got
out elves on both sides would take up arms. Eldren is a Prince of
Thallasi and—"

"I am the bastard captain of a flyspeck
garrison on the back side of nowhere," Kree finished for her. He
stared at her though the gathering twilight. His voice was like
sandpaper. "Say no more, Kayseri, I understand your dilemma."

Kayseri’s eyes widened. "My Captain, you
can’t think I’d ever compare—" Her chin quivered. "I only meant I
took Eldren’s word about what elves would do."

Damn the girl! What witchery did she possess
to make him say things like that? Never had he wasted one heartbeat
being ashamed of his origins. Why should he? He knew who his
parents were, and privately neither denied him. He was
Goddess-born, as touching Temple degrees a Gryphon, the Goddess’s
highest achievement. At banquets, he sat with kings, and they
deferred to him. His flyspeck garrison boasted, among other things,
the finest cavalry in the world. They were The Kingdoms' combat
elite. He scrubbed his hand across the lower half of his face.
Without a doubt, he was losing his mind.

Suddenly, he wanted to touch her, had to
touch her. Leaning forward, Kree palmed Kayseri's cheek with his
battle calloused hand and shook his head. His voice lost its rough
edge. "I know what you meant. Don’t pay attention to me, Katie. I’m
a stupid man."
Goddess, you are so beautiful.

A single tear slid down her cheek to pool
against the dam of his fingers. "How long is My Captain going to be
angry with me?" Kayseri smiled into his eyes and blinked a couple
of times. "A day? A week?"
Blink. Blink
. "The rest of my
life?"

Whenever Kayseri misbehaved as a girl, she
had been able to get around him with her shy smile and enormous
brown eyes. Here was an old tactic with which he was very familiar.
He marveled at his continued susceptibility, but by the Goddess,
her five-year absence had greatly improved its potency. Her
sweetness created a swell of sensations within him that melted
every other feeling. Kree knew he should hold on to his anger. It
was better for her and, he suspected, much, much better for him. He
gave a ghost of a smile, a slight acknowledgment of his weakness.
"You sure know how to get my fur up, little girl, but hells..."
Kree shrugged. "I’m damned if I can stay angry with you."

His surrender satisfied her for the moment
at least, and he returned to the business of cleaning his weapons.
Wiping each one with an oiled cloth taken from his kit, he searched
for imperfections along the cutting edges before carefully
sharpening each blade on a whetstone. For a while, she sat quietly
beside him watching him work. But before too long, she began to
squirm and fidget. Kree glanced at her out of the corner of his eye
and grinned. Pixies were not a people known for sitting still.

Unable to contain herself another second,
Kayseri blurted out, "Why are you wasting so much time. You didn’t
use half those weapons today?"

Kree laid the cloth aside and carefully
sheathed the knife he had been working on. He gave Kayseri a hint
of his usual crooked smile. "Because I don’t know what I will need
tomorrow, making sure my weapons are what they should be is not a
waste of time. It is my life. Do you see? "

"Oh. Yes, I understand what you mean."

She gave a huge yawn rising up on her knees,
stretching her arms over her head, arching her back so her pretty
little tits stared him right in the eyes. He wondered if she
realized what a luscious picture she presented. His smiled filled
out, turned into the real thing. "Your adventures are catching up
to you. Get some sleep, little girl." He glanced up the canyon.
"Look. Your elf prince has already turned in."

"He is not my elf prince." Kayseri stretched
her arms up over her head again. "Is My Captain going to
sleep?"

"Mmm...Not. A. Chance."

"Then I’ll sit with you."

"I need to think, Katie."

"You can think with me here."

Bet me
.

"I’ll be so quiet My Captain won’t even know
I’m here." Stifling another yawn with her delicate fist, she curled
up on her side pillowing her head on his thigh.

Just like that, Kree had no place to put his
hand. Oh, yeah, he wouldn't even know she was there. After a few
moments of awkward indecision, he opted for the region near her
right elbow. Leaning his head back against the hard canyon wall, he
watched the stars come out. To his everlasting amazement, Kayseri
stayed quiet. It was not long before he realized she was asleep and
so was his leg, but the relief filling his heart was worth all the
prickly discomfort his leg cared to give him. Kree smoothed
Kayseri’s inky curls off her brow enjoying the silky texture of her
hair sliding through his fingers, a small stolen pleasure.

She smiled in her sleep, and he wondered
what she dreamed. His fingers uncovered a slightly pointed ear
reminding him more than years separated him from the beautiful
woman pillowed on his thigh, but it made no difference. Kree wanted
her so much it was a physical pain in his chest, and in lower
places, he thought it best not to dwell on. With a bit of effort,
he forced his mind back to the problem of Eldren’s missing
princess. He was still pondering the problem when the elf prince
approached a couple of hours before dawn, offering to take the last
watch. Kree surprised himself by saying yes.

The captain woke with a cramp in his back
from sleeping upright and a stiff leg because Kayseri had used him
for a pillow all night. Overall, as he hobbled around swinging his
arms trying to limber up, Kree thought he would have done better
not to sleep at all.

As he guarded Kayseri’s slumber throughout
the night, he had come face to face with the uncomfortable truth.
Pixie pheromones were not the source of his problem. He was not
losing his mind. He was in love with his best friend’s daughter.
This revelation did nothing to calm his warring heart. Overall, he
preferred madness. Many a mad man had managed fine military
careers, but it was a rare man who made a cross-species marriage
work especially one as one-sided as any marriage to the likes of
him would be.