The Destroyer Book 3 (12 page)

"A captain rank, same as Runir, but he has also been knighted by the king, as you have." Her eyes stared into mine without blinking. I thought about asking her why Danor had been knighted, but I figured that someday he could tell me the story himself.

"I am leaving in the morning," I said preemptively.

"I'd prefer you wait," she replied with a rehearsed ease and a smile that made my eyes wander to her lips.

"You don't have much use for me here."

"I have plenty of uses for you imagined. Will you sit down, please?" She gestured at my cot and I did so without thinking. I opened my mouth to reply, but she interrupted me.

"I love my father, Jessmei, and Greykin. I want nothing more than to have them back safe here. If our situations were reversed, and my father was talking to you here right now, well." She shook her head. "You two probably wouldn't even have this discussion. You'd both be on the road heading to Merrium and you would be worried about keeping him alive."

"You are right about that." I laughed and thought about Beltor's direct personality. I liked Nadea's father tremendously and easily imagined him asking me to accompany him on a quest to rescue her. In fact, he had at one point.

"But it is not me that is lost at the moment. I have a place and a purpose. I also have safety here, especially with you by my side." Laughter drifted to us from a distant place in the gorge and she stopped talking to take notice. "I'm still not used to this." She pointed to her ears and then laughed. "Or my sense of smell and vision! I can see for miles. I can make out fish at the bottom of the creek. It is incredible!" I smiled at her momentary lapse in attention.

"You have learned it very quickly. Most need months of practice to be able to focus their senses enough to be walking around in a crowded campsite."

"I had a good teacher." She smiled at me. "That is another reason why I want you here. You know how to manage an army under the O'Baarni. You saw him lead our kind to victory against the Ancients. Do you remember more that will help us? We need those strategies." She paused to let me speak.

"It has been almost nine months since we spoke about my memories." I closed my eyes and sighed. "I don't know how much I can help the army here. Even if I could help, I disagree that I need to be here."

"Why?" Anger crept into her voice but I guessed she expected me to fight her. "You've beat them before?" I nodded. "You know how to beat them? You've seen the O'Baarni's army lay waste to them. You told me you were his general. What else do you remember?" Her words came quickly.

"I wasn't the O'Baarni's general, Nadea. The O'Baarni was not a person. It was the name we gave ourselves. All of us. The humans like me, and you, who were changed and had learned how to harness the Elements. It means 'the Ancients' in our old language. A language even older than the one the Elvens and I share." Nadea stared at me in confusion, but I continued before she spoke. "Isslata told me that the Elvens are calling themselves 'the Ancients' because of the way this world has confused our legends. In fact, this isn't even the world I was born on. My world had a single green moon. Your world has two."

"Your world has one moon? How?"

"There are ways to travel between worlds. I believe that the Ancients created them. I remember speaking to an elder Elven; he was so old that he looked to be made of stone. He attended to some sort of shrine that could move people between the worlds. These shrines had stone tables in them, similar to the one where you found me.”

"A different world? Would it look the same as ours? Have the same people? Same names?" I couldn't tell if she believed me but she seemed to consider my words.

"Different people. Different landmasses and moons. I think the only thing they would have in common is that someone put these shrines on them, and that Elvens and our kind can live on them."

"That would explain how the Ancients returned here." Nadea nodded to herself. "They may have never been here. That also somewhat explains me." She stared off away from me briefly.

"Explains you?"

"Runir told me that you know about my secret?" I nodded and she continued. "My mother, or I should say, my father's wife. She died giving birth to their child. He was insane with grief. Whenever he speaks of her I can tell how much he loves her still." She smiled sadly.

I could empathize with Beltor.

"He told me that he rode to the Teeth to get away from his sadness. He said he wanted to meditate about their love, but I always suspected he meant to get lost up there in the mountains and perish. He did get lost for many days. Then he heard the sound of a baby crying. The sound came from a strange looking shrine. He found me lying on a stone dais. I was maybe a month old. No one was near me. It didn't look like anyone had ever even set foot in the shrine." I nodded during her story.

"Someone sent you through. I believe the shrines are called Radicles and they are powered by magical globes called Ovules." I recalled the memories again.

"Those are parts of a plant. I studied them when I was younger." Her statement made me realize that most of the words Paug had taught me for plants were very similar to the ones I already knew. I didn't understand our old language very well, but I suddenly suspected that there might be a link in the linguistics.

"What happened after Beltor found you?"

"He took me home," she said. "I didn't know that I was not his child. His wife had brown eyes and hair, so most assumed I got my features from her." She leaned back in the simple chair and sighed.

"When did he tell you?"

"My ears gave it away. I was ten years old and started puberty, which could have been what triggered the changes. I was afraid that an evil Spirit possessed me. I had always been stronger and smarter than the boys my age. I used to beat the shit out of Runir all the time." She chuckled lightly and I couldn't help but join her. "I never believed it was odd until my ears got longer. He had to tell me. For a while I thought the truth was much worse than anything I imagined. The books we owned said that the Ancients had features that seemed to match mine. We guessed I must have been a mix of some sort." She smiled slightly at me. "But I came here to talk about your memories and to get you to stay in the camp. Earlier you said that the O'Baarni wasn't the name of your leader?" She leaned toward me in her chair.

"No."

"So you weren't a general in this army that defeated the Anci- Elvens?" Her brow knitted in a mixture of disappointment and confusion.

"I was the leader of the O'Baarni. We were over two hundred and eighty thousand strong when it came time for the final battle against our enslavers. We had so many troops that I couldn't field them all on the field of war. I would boast that it was probably the most powerful army to ever be created, but I don't know my history that well. Each soldier was changed by the Elements, like you are now. I hand groomed five generals to manage the training, logistics, and strategy. They were five of my best friends. It took me thirty-two years to build the army with them, and we endured hardship and struggles that I don't want to remember anymore. During the last battle, I would estimate that at least one hundred thousand of my warriors died." Her eyes grew wide as I spoke.

"The Elvens had struck an agreement with a family of dragons. We narrowly managed to beat them. But it was nearly the end of everything. I lived through the fire but my hand," I lifted my left hand to show her the deep scar marks. "Bore some wounds."

She stared at me for a few moments and I tried to figure out what she must have been thinking. Finally, she spoke.

"What else?"

"Huh?"

"If what you are saying is true, Kaiyer.” She scooted to the edge of her chair and grasped my scarred hand in both of hers. Her touch felt electrifying. "Then I am not understanding why your place wouldn't be here with me. If you created this powerful army to defeat the Elvens once, you can do it again. You can drive them from our home, out of this world, and back to whatever hell they came from. Yet, you think you should be going to save my father, Jessmei, Greykin, and the queen. There must be more to the story.” She grinned and turned her head sideways a bit. It reminded me of Shlara again and I needed to close my eyes and pull my hand away from her.

"During my imprisonment in the castle, Isslata was my main source of contact. It frustrated her that I said my name was Kaiyer and she refused to call me by that name. Apparently, that word is cursed by the Elven people. I am known as ‘the Destroyer' to them, and they never say my real name. I am more of a legend, since this battle happened so long ago that the Elvens don't really care to remember the conflict. Isslata thought it was around five thousand years ago."

"That can't be possible," Nadea said defensively. "I am having problems believing that you spent even thirty-two years building an army. You look like you are hardly twenty winters old." She smirked playfully and somehow our hands found each other's again. Her fingers entwined with mine so I couldn't pull away easily. They were warm and smooth.

"I thought the same thing as well. But she also said that the humans called me 'the Betrayer.’ From what I have recalled, I believe what she told me."

"Why would they call you the Betrayer? Didn't you free them from slavery? From what you are telling me, you should be our greatest hero and remembered and revered for those five thousand years." She shook her head.

"I did wake up from imprisonment, remember?"

"Of course. But it couldn't be because you destroyed the Elvens. Maybe you were imprisoned by the Elvens?"

"There was a letter etched into the dais. It was from one of my generals named Malek." I started to feel nervous about telling Nadea of what I had done. It was so long ago, but I still felt the fresh shame and heartache. She looked at me with such adoration, I did not want to change the way she felt about me. I did not want her to look at me the way Shlara had.

"I recall that as well. Back when we first brought you to the castle, you couldn’t remember what happened."

"I remember now. I betrayed my people. I committed a horrible crime that my friends could never forgive. I tried to escape, but they eventually found me. They may have taken pity on me, or maybe they found it too difficult to kill me, either way, I was sent to your world as a prison sentence."

"What did you do?" Her eyes filled with empathy and she squeezed my hand.

"I murdered one of my generals," I said, and she winced slightly.

"He must have deserved it. Kaiyer, you are a good person. You are a hero. You have done everything within your power to help our kingdom. You saved us from the Vanlourn soldiers, you prevented assassins from taking Jessmei at the inn, and then you chased down the Elvens who kidnapped her and saved her life. During the banquet, you defeated those four Elvens who made demands of the king. You have done nothing but help us. You must have had a good reason." She smiled at me reassuringly and her hand squeezed mine again.

"Thank you." I returned her smile. "What you said helps me." I took a deep breath and closed my eyes before continuing. I wondered for a second how I would feel talking to someone else about Shlara's death.

"Shlara was my best general and friend. When I remember her, I can't help but think of you." My voice cracked a little and I felt a lump form in my throat. I swallowed and choked it down to my stomach.

"Me?" Nadea puzzled.

"She looked like you. Beautiful, athletic, brown hair, and eyes that flashed dangerously when I made her mad, which was often. But her personality reminds me of you as well. She was driven. She knew what she wanted and worked tirelessly to achieve her goals. Shlara never made excuses or failed. She was a logistical and tactical genius. She made changes to my army that improved our performance dramatically. The woman was the best warrior in our army. No one could beat her during a sparring match. All of my generals were amazing warriors and tacticians who had my respect, but she was a cut above the rest. She was the type of woman that only comes into existence once in a dozen lifetimes." Nadea's face was a mixture of confused emotions. I saw her cheeks flush slightly and heard her heart beat quickly.

"She loved me." I felt warmth on my cheeks and realized I was crying. "I loved her too."

Silence fell between us. I closed my eyes and tried not to remember her death. Instead, I remembered everything I had ever thought was amazing about her.

This was probably more painful.

The silence stretched into minutes until Nadea spoke.

"Why did you kill her?" she whispered. I looked away from her and down at our entwined fingers.

"I was horrible to Shlara. She told me what she felt for me almost daily; she wanted to be my lover and to bear my children. I refused her. I told her I didn't want to give her special treatment, I told her I didn't want to focus on anything other than our war, I gave her dozens of different excuses. She was persistent though, and kept pushing me until I finally agreed to give her what she desired once the war was won. Sometimes I think about her and I wonder if she only wanted to destroy the Elvens because she thought this would earn my love." I paused and then let my fingers slip through Nadea's before continuing. Her face was shocked and still confused.

"Why didn't you want to be with her? From how you describe her, she was amazing," Nadea asked hesitantly.