DarkFyre Ch. 18

Then she had it.

"It's in the middle of everything. Everywhere meets in The Weeping Land. The Federation is the crossroads of the entire realm."

"Exactly," Rael gave a satisfied nod.

"Which is why the Library is there," Silmaria continued slowly. "No one can invade the Federation because of the bogs and swamps, so it's safe... and it's in the middle of everywhere, so it would be a natural gathering place for knowledge from all areas of the continent. Right?"

"Just so," Rael said with a wider grin, nodding to her. "Very smart, my girl. The Ondarian Federation is also a neutral country. Outside of the city-states in the federation, Ondaria holds no alliance or interest with outside powers or governments. Anyone from outside nations can come to Kahrthen Library to share and explore knowledge freely, without bias."

"That makes sense, yes," Silmaria nodded thoughtfully. She studied the map, then returned to preparing their dinner, sticking the small, skinned GrassHare on a spit and placing it over their small fire. "I suppose we're going to cut south through the Grasslands, then?"

"No," Rael shook his head. "It would be much faster and more direct, but we can't risk it."

Silmaria's brow furrowed for a moment, and then she understood. "The Haruke?"

"The Haruke," Rael agreed.

"Do you think they would attack us? Even if we pretended to be simple travelers?"

"Perhaps not us," Rael said thoughtfully. "You they might allow to go unscathed. I don't know that Haruke have any kind of vendetta against Gnari. Me, however, they would know for a Daleman, and kill on sight. And more than likely, if they saw you with me, they'd kill you for being my companion and ally."

"Well, after the whole cheating death in the Pass, I don't much feel like now's a better time for it," Silmaria decided. "So let's avoid all that."

"My thoughts exactly," Rael chuckled. He scratched a line on his dirt map. "We're going to have to go the long way. Skirt the majority of the grasslands. Going around west and then south would be quicker, but it's not safe. The Ghostwood lies that way, and the Haruke have several permanent encampments near the wood to keep watch over the restless spirits of their dead."

"East and Southeast, then?" Silmaria guessed.

"Yes," Rael confirmed, "East along the foot of The Teeth, and then south along the border of The Reach. Then we will cut southwest and into The Weeping Land. It will be a longer road, but a safer one. Our best chance for getting there unscathed."

"It's going to be a long time before I see a bath and a bed again," Silmaria sighed, and wiped her forehead with a bloodied hand.

***

Nightfall the next day found the couple sitting around a small, pleasant fire, finishing of a rather satisfying stew of goat meat and squirrel with root tubers. Silmaria wiped her mouth on her sleeve and leaned back, staring up at the wide open night sky. "You can't see as many stars on this side of the mountain," she said offhand.

Rael stared up with her. His strength was returning, but he was still tired often and in need of more rest than he liked. He also couldn't quite seem to shake the annoying, persistent cough he'd developed. "The skies in the south aren't as clear as the ones of the Dale. Less of the star's light shine through."

The Gnari turned curious eyes to him. "Can you still use them to navigate our way?"

Rael nodded slowly. "I can. Most of the major constellations are recognizable."

He pointed, and Silmaria followed his finger as he indicated different clusters and groups of stars. "There's the Bear. And the Bastard's Tower. Izendor, the great tree. Gemil the hunter. The Traitor's Mark. The True Star. They're all here, if you just get used to seeing them from a different angle. And there are some you can only see south of the Teeth, too. Like there, the Asp Tamer. And that star is Terin, the hawk of Bealorn of The Twelve."

Silmaria followed, studying the skies and his words. "After Trelling became a god and joined the twelve, Baelorn, who had been guardian of the empty North, left the Dale to Trelling and went south of the Teeth to visit his sister and lover Vierra, who was goddess of the sea," she recited the old tale.

"But Baelorn became lost. Terin was his god-hawk and companion. He went up into the sky and become a great star to show Bealorn the way, and there he remains."

"Just so," Rael nodded and smiled lightly. "Bealorn meant to call Terin back down from the heavens after he reunited with Vierra. But the sailors and sea folk that worshipped Vierra and sailed the waves on her back had come to use Terin to chart their courses, and so associated the god-hawk with their goddess. Vierra begged Bealorn to let Terin remain in the heavens as her Guidestar the rest of the world's days. The god finally relented, but not until after Vierra gave him a fortnight of such debauchery and sex that the storms of their passion sank a score of ships."

"Seems a waste. All those lives, for a silly star. I don't understand the gods and their ways," Silmaria sighed quietly.

Rael lifted a stick and poked at the fire, shifting the wood into better position to be caught and consumed by the shifting flames. "Who truly does? Knowing the tales and legends of the Twelve, their deeds, the old stories and small wisdoms of the old gods, the piety and sacred rites and endlessly divine rules of the Highest Holy... none of this means we know the gods. None of it is understanding them. All of it, mere touchstones. Small and insubstantial ways of relating to things beyond true knowing."

Silmaria regarded him curiously across the fire, and tilted her head in gentle thought. "You don't believe in the gods, do you?"

Rael reached for his greatsword. He pulled the huge length of steel from its sheath and balanced it across his lap. Taking a whetstone from his pack, he began to run the smooth stone slowly along the great gleaming blade in slow, smooth, repetitive strokes, honing that powerful blade. Silmaria watched him, the firelight gleaming off the impressive sword in dazzling little flashes.

"I believe that the gods are not what we think they are," he said at last. "I don't believe the old gods are present in every facet and phenomenon of the world around us. Nor do I believe the Twelve are a group of benevolent beings who are us, but not us, watching down on the mortal world and occasionally dropping in to use us as their playthings. Nor do I believe there is a High Holy that watches every facet and miniscule detail of our life, judging the steps we take and whether we draw our next breath with ill intentions or a pure heart, waiting in hopeful silence to damn us for breaking a list of rules so staggeringly heavy it carries the weight of mountains. No. I do not believe in those things."

"Then what do you believe in?"

Rael was quiet for several moments. Then, he balanced the greatsword on both palms, and lifted it, holding it slightly forward. "This."

"The sword?" Silmaria asked quietly.

"The sword shapes the world," Rael explains. "Men don't live and die by the whim of the gods, old or new. They live by their sword, or they die by someone else's. The sword is power. Nations are built on the back of it, and crumble on the point of it. The sword can punish, and the sword can redeem. Evil men slay with it. And good men defend with it.

"A sword can be a thing of ruin. It can be used by conquerors and tyrants to rule over hundreds of thousands. It can be used by them to end scores of lives. A sword can make a fair man cruel, and a cruel man an abomination.

"But a sword can be a righteous thing, too. A sword can give a weak man courage. And a sword can enable a courageous man to defend those things that are right and good in the world. A sword can maintain order. And a sword can be a tool for justice. It can be the steel in a man's spine, and make him stand up for what he believes in where he would hesitate without one."

Silmaria drew her knees up to her chest, regarding the man across the fire. She loved him. And she knew he was a good man, a man of kindness and intelligence and honor. But she was reminded then that he was a hard man, too. Beneath his kindness and his good heart there was a hardened mettle, a stoicism that was forged in fire and battle and blood. Though it was frightening at times, she was glad of it; it was that hardened part of him that was keeping them alive now.

"What happens to people who don't believe in swords, then?"

"Those that believe in swords defend them," he said, "Or those that believe in swords kill them."

Silmaria's lips quirked in a wry smile. "You're speaking in black and whites again. Where's my Lord of gray, whose hand gripped the pen as well as the sword?"

Rael smirked lightly, and he ran the whetstone along the blade of his greatsword again before raising his eyes to meet hers across the fire. There was humor and self-deprecation in his smile. "I'm still here, my love. Culture and learning and knowledge and etiquette will always be a part of me.

"I believe in the pen and the page and knowledge and reason. They are what make men better. What help us strive toward a more civil world. They help us to understand deep mysteries, and teach ourselves about wonderful facets of life unseen and unexplored by most. They are as important as the sword. But in their time. In their place. And this is not the time or the place for pens."

Silmaria stretched out, her body curled toward the warmth of the fire, basking in it as she arched her back sinuously. "You are a strange, complicated man, my dear Master Rael."

Rael grinned, arching a brow at her as he slid the greatsword back into his sheath, and took out his dagger and began to sharpen it in turn. "Me? I'm the complicated one? This from the woman who is fierce and aloof and self-confined, yet shares her deepest self until her heart bleeds. A woman who has been raised in the ways of the servant, yet can read and write and reason like a scholar. A woman who has been beaten and battered in body and spirit and yet has the tenacity to brave the kind of storm that would kill a strong man, and the courage to face down a raging bear."

Rael rose, and stalked over to her side of the fire. Silmaria stared up at him, sprawled out along the ground, and her smile was slow and sleepy and entirely welcoming. The swell of her breasts pressed at the neckline of her shirt, and it had ridden up to bare the taut, flat expanse of her belly, where her pelt was a fine, pale white fading into orange at the outside of her rounded hips.

"From a woman who desires sweet nothings of love whispered into her ear," he said, his voice dropping into that low tone as he crouched over her, bending down to hover his face over hers. His eyes took on a wicked, wanting glint, and his smile was taunting. "Mixed with kisses and curses and hands that are cruel."

"What can I say?" Silmaria murmured as her lashes shadowed her narrowed eyes alluringly. "I never was very good at keeping things simple."

Rael smiled, and bent down to press his lips to hers. Then he quickly sat up and turned his head away, and began to cough heavily, until he was near out of breath from it.

Silmaria sat up and rubbed at his back, and then chuckled softly, "I think maybe you need to sit this one out."

When his coughing fit was finally past, he took a deep breath and scowled unhappily. "Unmanned by a damn cough, like some frail sickling. The hells is wrong with me?"

The Gnari girl laughed softly and hugged him, and pressed a kiss to his cheek just above the coppery growth of his beard. "Don't worry. I'll never tell."

They bedded down shortly after that. Rael laid on his back with Silmaria's head resting on his chest, with the small woman curled around his side. Her tail flicked idly under their shared blankets, thumping lightly against his leg. Rael's arm wrapped around the Gnari, and his hand lightly caressed along her back, tracing the fine, delicate contour of her spine, rubbing in slow, lazy circles between her graceful shoulder blades.

"You're beautiful," he said softly into her ear.

Silmaria squirmed slightly against his side. His breath tickled the sensitive hairs of her ear, but not unpleasantly so. "I'm not beautiful. Just different."

"Beauty isn't made by being different. Nor is it unmade by being different. Beauty just... is. You're different. And you're beautiful."

The Gnari shrugged, and scrunched up her face. "I've never thought of myself as beautiful. If I were beautiful, people wouldn't hate me so much."

"That's the being different part," he replied. "Most people can't understand or accept people who are different. It's ignorant. And foolish. And none of it makes you any less beautiful."

She smiled, a trace of sadness at the corner of her lips. But she was warmed by his kind words kissed his chest softly. "Thank you, Master."

Rael's hand raised and he ran his fingers through her hair, his fingertips pleasantly grazing her scalp as he looked down at her. "You don't have to call me that, you know."

Silmaria turned her eyes up to him, her brows raised. "What? Master?"

"Yes," he nodded, looking into her eyes in his intent way. "Or Lord. Or Sir. Any of those honorifics."

Silmaria's brows furrowed in thought, and she carefully said, "But you are my Lord. And my Master. Why should I not call you those things?"

"Because I'm not a Lord anymore. I'm a fugitive. And you're not my servant anymore," he said, thinking it obvious. "You're my partner. My lover. My love."

"Yes," Silmaria agreed, her eyes never leaving his. She raised her hand to cup his cheek tenderly. "And you are my partner, and my lover, and my love. And you are also still a Lord. My Lord, and rightful head of House IronWing, which is still a Noble House no matter the horrible things that have happened. And you are still my Master, too."

"But..." Rael began.

"Listen," she interrupted him. "My mother once told me something, shortly after we began serving in House IronWing. She said, no matter how long I am a servant, no matter how long I work to serve Nobles and Lords and Ladies, to never call a man, 'Master'. A man can be a Lord, and a man can be a Noble, and you can be his servant and do his work and tend his House and his lands and his holdings, and that is a fine thing, a respectable thing.

"But when you call a man Master, she said, you have given him more than a Lord's due. Call a man Master, and he is more than a Lord. He is more than a Noble. And you are more than a servant. Or maybe less. When a man is a Master, he owns you in deeper more meaningful ways than a Lord ever could. A Master possesses you completely, without reservation. And you serve him without reservation. With everything you are. Blindly, even. Knowingly blind.

"That kind of devotion, and that kind of possession, comes from two things, she said. Deep fear," Silmaria explained, "Or deep love. And sometimes, in some people, from both. Both of them, fear and love, can be equally dangerous if you let those things settle deep in you and you allow a man to master you through them."

Rael studied her closely as she spoke the words, his eyes tracing her earnest face. She could tell he was struggling to understand.

"It's a surrender," she told him. "It means that I have accepted your total control and power over me."

"But you don't have to do that," he said gently. "I told you. You're not a servant to me anymore."

"But I am," Silmaria replied, and she smiled softly up at him. "Understand, my Master Rael. I am a servant. I have been for almost all of my life. I loved your father. Very much. And he loved me. But even as I loved him, and he me, I continued to serve him. Not because he required me to, but because I wanted to. Because I needed to. For me, part of loving a person is serving them. Whether it be serving them in the mundane duties of a servant tending a house and estate, or with my body, or with my heart and my presence and my kindness and support. It is an expression of my love. It is my way. And it's no different with you.

"I was your servant," Silmaria said as her hand rubbed gently along his chest, tracing the solid shape of toned muscle. "And I still am. I am also your lover. Your companion. Your partner. And you are my Master. Not because you are a Lord and I am a servant with no choice but to serve. But because I choose to. Because I choose you to be my Master, and to have all of me. Every piece of me, every last facet of my flawed and loving and devoted being, I place in your hand."

Silmaria leaned up and brushed her lips to his, softly, tenderly.

"I want you to have me. All of me. I yield myself to you, in my completion, because I trust as my Master, you are strong enough to hold all those fragile pieces safe from the world, and wise enough not to crush them in that same strong grasp."

Rael kissed her, firmly and softly at once. He tasted her lips, and her hair was between his fingers. Silmaria, true to her word, yielded to him, and gave herself over to his kiss.

When he at last pulled back, he drew a deep breath, and the breath tasted of her, and it was her he drew into his lungs, filling his being with the essence of her. He pressed his forehead to hers, close. Silmaria gazed into his eyes, bright and shining with emotion.

"I understand the gift you are offering me," he said somberly. "I understand the faith, and the trust that requires. I accept your gift, and I promise you that I will always try to be worthy of it, my lovely one."

Seeing the understanding, the acceptance, and the love in his eyes made Silmaria's smile radiant indeed. "You are already worthy, my Lord Rael. I would not offer all of myself and all of my love to you if you were not."

Rael kissed her once more, and squeezed her tight.

They lay together that night, quiet and at peace, under the bright light of the god-hawk star's ever watchful gaze.

*****

Thank you as always to my loyal readers, and those who continue to send me their feedback, good and bad. I know this one took a bit, I fell a bit behind because of real life concerns, and also reasons. I know there wasn't a whole ton of eventful stuff in this chapter. I'm a sucker with a guilty pleasure for lore building, and was in that mode.

I received some feedback, both positive and negative, regarding the 'Master/Lord/Sir' title usage in this story, specifically after Rael and Silmaria have gotten together. Believe it or not, the above scene was planned and almost entirely written before those bits of feedback were received, but that showed me I was on the same wavelength I guess. I hope the explanation cleared things up a bit.

Please continue to tell me what you all think! Feedback is important, and really helps me gauge if I need to make adjustments or I am hitting all the right spots! More to come soon.