The Toll (37 page)

“
Move. No. Let...
Let...”

“
You want me to
move?”

Weakly, Troll nodded, wincing at the
effort.

He wants me to just stand
by and let Trystan stab him?
“No, I
won’t.” Ignoring everyone around us, I gently placed his head on
the ground, scuttling around his side to place myself, as carefully
as possible, atop him. “You’ll have to go through me
first.”

Shrugging nonchalantly, Trystan raised
his dagger high. “So be it.”

With what little strength he had left,
Troll roared out and tried to turn us, but I held him down, hoping
to protect him from the killing blow.

White hot pain lanced through my back,
gut wrenching agony filling me. Howling, I fell back, choking and
gasping on my side on the floor.

A rage filled roar rent the air, and
the sound of men’s screams, of death, filled my ears. Soon enough,
it grew silent, and warm hands clasped at the ache along my
spine.

As my vision started getting blurry, a
familiar grey skinned face filled my line of sight. Instinctively,
I reached out for him.

“
Stay with me, luv. Stay
with me! Ye hear?!” the voice begged, clasping my ice cold hand to
his furnace hot chest.

“
Why... why were we here?
What... what...” I mumbled, a bubble of blood clogging my
throat.

“
Sacrifices... makin’
sacrifices of us, is what they’re doin,” he growled
starkly.

“
For... w-what?” I coughed
in between words, my chest rattling loud.

“
Fer lovin’ me,” he
whispered against my blood stained, ashen lips, voice heavy and
choked with emotion, wetness bathing my face as I greeted
oblivion.

Depths

Clutching at the open air, I awoke
with a start, jumping up as the deep grass underfoot tickled across
my tingling skin, my face pressed into a startlingly green wet
patch, crinkling against my naked flesh.

Hopping around on muddy feet, spinning
around while alternately trying to touch the unblemished flesh of
my back—no stab wounds or puncture marks to be had—I paused,
wrapping my arms around myself in an odd embrace, a sigh of relief
whistling out of me nosily.

Then, upon digesting the fact that I
am indeed only wearing the skin God gave me as I gave my mortal,
wound-free self a congratulatory hug, my hands slapped about my
person in the bright morning sun, trying to pick which parts to
cover, and which parts I could handle, should someone just so
happen to stop by.

“
Cursed is thee who gives
too free. Doubly cursed are ye who too freely take, yet never give.
You’ve a good heart, Nugget, she who bonded Gersthart.”

At the sound of the pleasant yet
foreign voice, an almost musical quality to it, I glanced over the
small pond I’d ran to earlier this night, blinking in
disbelief.

A beautiful, ethereal woman with long
blonde hair was walking on the surface of the water, gliding
gracefully across. The skirts of her clear blue dress rippled in
her wake like waves, her long white locks shining like silvery bits
of light from the moon as they swayed around her
lovingly.

“
You must take the
organ—keep it safe.” Her voice easily crossed the distance, and
though it was low, a soft, vibrant hum, it was like she was
whispering right in my ear. “Ignore the missive—reap the fate.”
Pausing, she ran a delicate hand over the rich miasma of a thousand
different shades of blue, mingling along the folds of her long
flowing gown, silver and gold shimmers rippling across it like a
thousand sparkling diamonds in her slender fingers’ wake. “Will you
keep it?” she crooned quietly. “Hold it safe?” Cocking her head to
the side as I frowned, disconcerted, a slow smile tilted her
Cupid’s bow, light pink lips.

Organ? Keep it safe?
Glancing down, I yelped and huddled into a ball,
tucking my knees to my chest, hiding my nudity
. Yeah, I have a few organs on display... I’ll just tuck them
in for safe keeping.
Will that work for
her?

“
No.” Her chiming laugh hit
me hard and I found myself staring up at her, dumbfounded. “It
beats like one, lit with passion’s fire, but only for you. You
see?”

“
I don’t...
follow.”

Nodding, she knelt down, fingering the
surface below her feet gingerly, staring into the water’s depths
sadly before she glanced up. Deep, clear blue eyes, solemn and
lonely, aching with an intense longing, didn’t escape me. “No, but
you will.”

My skin chilled at her tone,
prickling, and I shivered.

“
Heed the warning. Do not
forsake the curse of the Ornthren. Hearts once filled—gone hollow,”
she lifted her pale, translucent hands to her breast, blue veins
clearly visible along her flesh, swaying slightly, “only death will
follow.”

Still not quite understanding, my
mouth slowly opened and closed a few times, trying to make it work,
but the words didn’t come.

“
You talk in riddles,” I
finally mumbled out, “I’ve only understood every other word you’ve
said.”

Standing, she gave a slow bow and a
nod, flinging her hand out at me so fast I didn’t have time to
react before the blue bolt shot out and zapped me, sending me
reeling back, sprawled out naked across the newly sprouted grass,
thick shards of ice and fat icicles stabbing the dirt all around
me, close but never touching my flesh.

Choking on a gasp as I scrambled to
sit up, rolling over with a bit back groan, a roaring, like the
ocean, over took my hearing, slowly petering out to a dull, muted
hum.

‘
Think on it, little one.
Soon enough, you will see. But, for now...’

Squeaking in shock, I
slapped my hands over my ears, ignoring the sharp prick in my skull
and deep within my chest.
She hadn’t
spoken aloud—
her lips haven’t
moved.
She’s in my head!

“
How can you...” trailing
off, I watched in wonder, marveling as the lady on the water closed
her eyes, lifting her face to the sky in supplication, arms raising
up as a magnificently colored wave, frothed and foamy, swirled up
and around her, enveloping her before she swiftly yet quietly sank
beneath.

Stunned, I just sat there until it all
became too much.

Crawling towards the edge when nothing
else happened, at least a half hour or more having gone by, I
peered over the edge, staring into the crystal clear, shimmering
depths.

Nothing. She was gone.

Curious to catch a glimpse, anything,
but unwilling to dip even a finger in, I leaned in a little closer,
dirt encrusted hands gripping the muddy lip rimming the small body
of magical water set out before me.

As I just sat there and watched,
something, like a faded light from below, faint but still
flickering, caught my eye. Pulling back a little as I squinted down
at it, it quickly morphed into two large, burning orange orbs,
rushing up towards me.

“
Gersthart,” I whispered,
swallowing hard as a tear slid down my cheek, remembering my
nightmare in the dungeon, shuddering at the memory.

As I sniffled, waiting for him to
surface and show me that he was indeed alive, and I was most
definitely having a really weird dream, my chest heaved with
repressed emotion, tight and aching.

As he drew closer, a sound caught my
attention, a plop-plop in the water. Glancing up quickly, I didn’t
see the slender arms that reached up and out, before I could react,
nabbing me and yanking me right in.

Elemental, My Dear
Phedaenya

This wasn’t at all like the other
dreams. I didn’t feel as if I were a participant, exactly, but
merely a spectator, here for the show.

There was a woman, I
noticed, the beautiful blue dressed woman
—the lady in the lake
—and she was
staring up at a handsome looking man as he gazed down into the lake
longingly.

As the man whispered
something I couldn’t make out, a fervent wish, shutting his eyes
tight, he flicked something in before he stood, and I watched as it
floated down, down, down, until it reached
her.

Startling as it brushed her cheek, her
hand reached out, marveling as it slowly drifted down. Catching it
and twirling it around between her fingers, the lady of the lake
smiled, clutching the trinket—a small silver locket—tightly to her
chest.

Lifting her face towards the sky,
locket still pressed to her bosom, sun light shimmering along the
lake’s bottom, her legs swiftly kicked up. As she surfaced and
greeted the young man, stalling his retreat, the dream sped up,
fast forwarding, like one of those flip picture books that creates
the illusion of movement, when in fact, everything is still.
Emotions ran right alongside them, as if I was the lady herself,
experiencing everything, scene by scene, as if it was all my
own.

There was interest, as the
young man spent long hours talking with the young water
sorceress
—that was the only way I could
think to describe her—a water manipulator, magic wielder—a
witch—
and then the beginnings of what I
could only describe as love, quickly followed by desire, as time
passed and he managed to coax her out of the water, then slowly
into his bed.

The scene shifted.

There’s worry, but I can’t quite
understand what has happened, no words to go with the swiftly
shifting array of emotions and moments. By this point, I was
catching them in flashes, speeding past me faster than I could keep
up.

The lady of the lake gives her
beloved—her bonded—the gift of her protection, a tether to the
sorceress herself, a syphon to protect him from grievous harm. She
shielded him, I realized, the runes, similar but different from the
ones I wore, dusting across his skin as his lover embraces him one
last time, enveloping him in her love and devotion.

With the man, he didn’t appear hurt or
damaged by his new markings, the only thing to give way to any sign
of pain a mere grimace of discomfort.

Hah.
He’s either a very good actor when it comes to hiding his
pain or my...
initiation
—yes, that’s a safe word
to call it—was much different than his.

Time passes, and the man does not
return. The lady waits, a child soon showing as it grows, safe and
content, loved, in her womb.

The man, on his quest to conquer new
lands, all in the name of his king, and his own personal gain and
glory, grows vain and calloused. In his thirst for more, the young
man—the King’s favored black knight—hardens his heart, poisoning it
with his gluttonous, insatiable greed, paving the way for a dark
path of destruction.

Painting village after village with
the blood drawn from his sword, another gift from his lady,
littering the countryside with dead bodies and lost souls, some
more innocent than others, undeserving of such crude desecration,
all left as they’d been slain, rotting out in the open, carrion for
the birds.

The woman of water senses the change
in her long absent lover and withdraws her tokens of affection,
summoning the sword back to her lake, severing the tether their
mate bond allowed.

Upon the loss of his gifts, the knight
becomes grievously wounded in battle, severing his arm from his
shoulder. It was close, the knight had lost a lot of blood, and his
body succumbed to infection.

Miraculously, with the help of the
King’s physician, the knight survives, but bitterness courses
through him.

Once healed, the young man
returns to the mysterious lake, entreating his lady wife to once
again favor him, come to her beloved, but she isn’t fooled. The
bond was strong when formed, and emotions ran clear, from him to
her, as if she was feeling them for herself.
Much like, I might add, I’m feeling right now through
her.

Angered at his mate’s refusal to make
him once again whole, a feat even she could not accomplish, nor
would she return his favored sword, or the tether-syphon that once
connected them so thoroughly, the man storms off, renouncing their
child, promising to make her pay.

Time went by slowly for the lady as
she patiently waited for her mate to come to his senses, their
babe’s time quickly growing near.

The man, bitter and disheartened, soul
darker than ever before, acid thrumming through his veins, began a
crusade against his lady-wife, bedding any maiden he happened upon,
drinking himself into a drunken stupor every night until he
couldn’t remember who or where he was.

Furious, the lady lashes out at her
bonded, bitter herself that she couldn’t denounce her adulterous
mate-husband.

For me, this is where the dream became
stranger yet.

Odd, flashback images faded in and out
until they rushed back, crystal clear, and as the lady of the lake
cried out, her voice rang loud and true.

Crying out to the heavens, she raged,
begging the Fates to intervene, storms rolling in and out for
weeks, pulled straight from the surrounding sea. Cursing her mate
soundly, she called up monsoons and hurricanes, rainstorms followed
by snow storms. No one was left unscathed, no one escaped her
wrath. Crops freezing, livestock dying, disease and death rampant,
she slayed her lover and all those that followed, any and all who
dared get caught in the enraged lady’s weather’s wake paying the
ultimate price.