Leslie Moore - Griffin's Daughter

He still held her hand in his, and he squeezed it even tighter as he started to speak. “I want to tell you something,” he began. “You know that we elves have Talent…what humans call magic. My Talent manifests in dreams that tell me of things that may happen in my future. I’ve been dreaming of a girl with wild, dark hair and sad eyes…a hikui girl. The dreams started months ago, and I did not understand them until that day by the river.”

“ The day you found me,” Jelena whispered.

“ When I saw your face for the first time, I fell down in shock. I knew immediately that you were the girl… Jelena, in the dream, you were calling out to me to help you. You were in some kind of danger. There was a shadow…”

Jelena shivered and drew closer to him. “What think you it means?” she asked, and he could hear the fear in her voice.

“ I don’t know yet, but I think it has to do with what’s inside you.”

“ Inside me?” she responded.

Ashinji tugged at the service rings in his ear. How to explain without frightening her even more? “It’s hard to describe. There’s an… energy, a force of some kind inside of you, more like a part of you, really. I have no idea what it is, but the shadow seemed to know, and I think it wanted to take it from you.”

“ Ashinji, you’ve seen it? It is like blue fire!” she exclaimed. “Do you think energy is part of my elf blood?”

“ It didn’t feel like any manifestation of Talent, not exactly. It felt more like…like a spell of some kind…Wait, you know about this?”

Jelena nodded. “It came from before I arrived here. Blue fire from my hands. I want to learn about it. Aneko says Lady Amara can help me…I mean, will she help?”

“ Yes, yes, I think she will…We can talk about that later. What I have to say now is more important.” He paused to breathe deeply before taking the plunge. “I know in my heart that I was meant to find you that day. Whatever this shadow is that threatens you, I will protect you from it. We have a connection, Jelena, one that cannot be denied.” Gently, he drew her into his arms and pressed his lips to hers.

For an instant only, she froze then melted sweetly into him. His head swam as if he had just taken a draught of strong wine. Her arms crept up around his waist, and he could feel the curve of her breasts through the thin cotton of his tunic. He embraced her more tightly, and she sighed against him, her lips as soft as rose petals. The heat of passion surged through him, and he knew that if he did not pull away now, he would be unable to stop.

Gasping for breath, he broke their embrace.

“ I love you, Jelena,” he whispered.

“ I love you, too,” she breathed.

“ Come to my chamber. Stay with me tonight.”

Jelena withdrew from him and dropped her head into her hands. “No, Ashinji. I cannot. We…cannot be,” she said in her imperfect Siri-dar.

“ What do you mean?” Ashinji whispered fiercely. “We love each other, we’ve just said so! Why can’t we be together?”

Her hands fell away from her face, and he could see her cheeks were wet with tears. “Ashinji, my love, you are lord’s son. I am nobody, half-breed. I have no family. I live here because Lord Sen take pity on me, give me home and job. I think he likes me, but not enough to let me have you. He will never let us marry.” She shook her head emphatically. “I ran away from my home so I could live free, live with…honor. I will not be…less than your wife, even if you do love me.”

“ I want to make you my wife, Jelena,” Ashinji stated firmly. “We’ll find a way, somehow.”

“ No! I will not let you throw away everything for me. I know what family means to you. You go against father’s wishes, you lose place, position.”

“ I don’t care about that. All I want is to love and protect you!” Ashinji shivered with growing desperation. He could feel her slipping away from him.

“ No. One man already who I love gave up everything for me. I will not let another.” The note of finality in her voice stabbed his heart like a knife.

“ Jelena, please…don’t turn away from me,” he begged, grasping her shoulders.

“ I must go,” she sobbed quietly. “Let me go!”

Slowly, he released her. She jumped up and fled.

He sat very still for several heartbeats, his mind frozen in disbelief. Then, in an agony of perception, he threw his head back, face upturned to the cold, uncaring sky.

“ Jelenaaa!” he cried to the moon.

Five days after fleeing Amsara, Magnes came upon a tiny monastery just outside of a hamlet called Gariglen. As he guided his horse through the simple wooden palisade, he made a decision.

He sheltered there a day and a night. When, at last, he emerged, Magnes Preseren, son and Heir of Duke Teodorus of Amsara, was no more. A lay brother named Tilo, dressed in a simple brown robe and armed with nothing more than a knife and a stout walking stick, left Gariglen Monastery that bright Uresday morning. A satchel, bulging with salves and remedies, hung across his right shoulder.

The monks of Gariglen would have their new roof this fall and a stone byre to replace their old wooden one, for Magnes had traded them the horse from his father’s stable for the robe, medicines, and the small supply of food that he now carried. The gelding would fetch a handsome price, and a poor herbalist would never have been able to afford a horse in any case. The monks had asked no questions, and they’d accepted the lopsided trade happily.

As Magnes continued to make his way south, guilt haunted his every step. At night, he feared to close his eyes, for the evil dream that plagued him allowed him no rest. His father would appear before him, face like a thundercloud, his life’s blood gushing in a scarlet stream from his head. He would raise an accusatory finger, aimed at Magnes’s heart.

Why did you murder me, Son? Why?

He would awake, his skin clammy with sweat, fighting for breath.

For a time, he feared he would go insane.

Three weeks of steady travel brought Magnes at last to the city of the Emperors. Darguinia quickly proved itself to be two cities, existing on two very different levels. One was a place of stunning beauty, filled with gardens, fountains, and buildings made of the whitest marble.

The other city was not.

Magnes, as a poor monk with little money, soon found himself in the other Darguinia. He entered a place of narrow, twisting streets and dark alleys, of fetid, open sewers and ramshackle buildings, of crime and disease-a place where hollow-eyed beggars sat in doorways, women and children sold their bodies on the streets to survive, and murder evoked barely an eyeblink.

Magnes had landed squarely in Hell, and he felt that he deserved the place he had made for himself. Even in Hell, though, things cost money, and he was fast running out of what little he had.

First, I need to find shelter, he thought. Then, I’ve got to figure out what sort of living I can make. Hitching his satchel a little higher on his shoulder, he looked around, picked a street at random, and plunged into the crowd.

The whore lifted her skirts and straddled Magnes where he sat on the shabby room’s only chair. Settling her bare rump firmly on his knees, she slid forward and pushed herself onto him. He sighed and shuddered a little. With professional efficiency, she began pumping her hips. Magnes shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at her face and gripped the sides of the chair, riding each successive wave of sensation, higher and higher, to a final spasm of release.

It was all quite impersonal and unsurprisingly brief.