The Lenaris Cycle
Chapter 6: Love of the Lash
Delonna's daughter looked right into my eyes, and I could not help but look back. I would have thought that as she claimed to be less than full Shay'din that the mesmerism of her eyes would be quite a bit lesser. If anything, it was stronger. The clouds in her yellow eyes swirled and shined. There was a definite Selarian quality to her eyes, though they were in no way silver, the clouds just barely were. Even if she wasn't Delonna's daughter, which oddly enough I did not doubt, she was part Selarian, part Shay'din, and altogether more threatening for it.
Often times when someone's eyes are made the slave of another's gaze, or other form of enchantment, they seem to become dreamy and blissful and calm. I'd seen those who had fallen to the sway of a Shay'din's eyes before. They do not look stupefied, or happy, or calm. They look like their eyes have been lassoed. There is a disturbing amount of curiosity to their faces.
Feeling it from the other side, I knew how it felt and how it must have looked. I felt like my entire soul was trapped on this one moment. There was no way not to look curious. Inside of that misting cloud, I could see reality itself unravel and reform and reshape. The very secrets of life and death twirled in those shining silver and yellow depths. How I planned to escape this, I wasn't sure. At the moment, I had no desire to escape. I was home, and it had so many secrets to share with me.
I had to know them all.
"Good little warrior, just stare into my eyes. So many curiosities float about within them. Do you know that my mother was half Selarian too? My mother, of course, who killed my father. Oh how I loved her." These things that she said, it felt like the clouds were revealing them. Those clouds sparked silver each time she spoke, very vaguely. "Of course, she died in killing my father, and I have members of your order to thank for raising me all those years ago in seclusion believing that all life deserved a chance and that knowledge of my existence would effectively rob me of that chance. They were right, of course. Of course, robbing people of a fair warning cost them their chance to live."
Her words were infinity, but it was so strange. I was not trapped in any other way than I could not look away. My body continued to blink in its hidden pattern but I could not keep them closed, not that I wanted to. I wanted to in theory, but theory and practice . . . "What's your name, shadow spawn?" I wanted the clouds to answer me. This was a bad sign.
Viciously as a drakeling, she dug her talons (for the nails that tipped each finger felt so powerful that calling them any less seemed a joke) into the sides of my face and leaned closer. "I will not be called that name, not by you, not by anyone ever again. You musn't understand the very sensitive situation you have been placed in my dear Lenaris. That red was more than just a magical agent to dye your eyes with, though I promise you that it was that. One, might I add, that is irreversible."
"I understand that your swirling eyes have me trapped. I have seen Shay'din render opponents thoughtless in their own curiosity of what filled those depths, but you do not seem clever enough to do so. I will yield to naught else." Truly, the spirit of something, be it my namesake or not, was in possession of my voice. Such stupidity seemed to be overflowing. "That's all you are. A shadow spawned dirty blood just like both of your parents. I'm sure Akela regrets her warriors having sheltered you." I hoped that this new foolishness was in relation to my hair, and not my eyes.
"Idiot." Her talons withdrew and she backhanded me twice before cupping my cheeks again. I had a chance to close my eyes as they were knocked away, but when she held my face, it seemed such a thing had been an impossibility. Within her mist I saw the foolishness of my actions. I saw that I should simply yield and this would all be so much easier, but I could not take that chance. "My name, which you will call me by, is Shay."
My eyes rolled, or rather, they tried. They were hooked to her and they seemed to know it. I know I did. I knew so very well that she had me tethered. I had no hope of escaping without somehow convincing her. That was not going to happen. Like it as not, I was doomed in one way or another. "Shadow? You're named Shadow?"
She leaned so very close to me, her free body pressing to my bound one. "In Shay'din, but yes, my name is Shay. My mother did not get a chance to name me before she died, or so the priestesses claimed. Their choices were either my mother's name, or my father's name, Shay'din names being unisex as they are. My mothers name, I am more than thankful I was not gifted with. My name was granted for the shadow is what one calls the swirl within my eyes. At but weeks or days old, my powers had already manifested. They could think of no better name."
Knowing that she would just hurt me more now and later, I kept my mouth shut on a couple of names I thought suited the sodden little dirty blood. She was so powerful, that I could feel, and it was a power within her that I had felt in action many a time before. She had trained in the ways of her father's knighthood.
"What did your father's name mean?" Truly, I was interested. Such a thing felt odd, even for me.
"Would it really mean anything to you, my little Selarian runt? I speak not of your stature physically, but mentally. Your mind is spread before me like a loving yet poorly made quilt made of individual patches. Most of them bare little worth, incase you're curious. I'll be adding my patches soon enough, but I wanted to get to know you better with your brain intact. Once I'm done, of course, your mind won't be what it was, it will be more. I know you took an oath to take a new name, soon, I will give you your new one." Her lips pressed to mine, but the eye contact did not break.
Though the touch was passionate, tender, loving, all the things of the most wonderful of kisses, it was a frightening thing. I could feel that her lips were lined with magic that just waited to tear me in twain for little to no reason at all. Magic that uses lips I had always found ineffective as a means to deliver, but I doubted Shay found failure in kissing her victims.
I wished it not so, but I was sure then that others of my order had fallen to her before.
"I... I want to know, truly. I may curse his name, and now that of his descendent, but what does his name mean? And if you were born before Delonna's death, you must be ancient, even a full blood would be more than beginning to show her age by now. How is it that you do not?" Not a tone of insincerity rang out in my voice. Why should it? I was quite curious. The age of nightmares had ended the night of his death, and that had been well over two thousand years ago.
Shay just rolled her eyes, and my eyes followed them. "Delonna means Master of dominance. Oh, it means Mistress of Dominance too, but in my father's case, it meant Master. It was not his given name, of course. When he was exiled, and found Shay'dar's new path in the rubble of the desiccated lands of Dester. I would have taken a new name when I left the shrine if I had not felt it so fitting." She paused, and rose a lone finger between my eyes and pressed down hard. At the precise moment her clouds began to whirl, swirl, pull. They were turning into a fluffy whirlpool and I found myself somehow leaning towards her in my shackles.
"That's not all of what I asked . . ." The clouds, the mist, continued to swirl and twist and pull all around me and I had no option but to relent to it. I could almost feel it as a physical presence. That yellow was more piercing than the sun.
The silver was more soothing than love.
"No, it's not. Did you know that it is human custom not to inquire about a woman's age? To do so is considered rude beyond rude. Of course, neither of us bare human sensibilities. Yes, my dear little 'naris, I am over even two thousand years. Two thousand three hundred and fifty two to be exact, but it's not as if it means much. Besides one thing." Her finger twisted and I hissed out a sharp gasp as the twirling reversed, and I was caught further in it. "I have had far longer to grow wise. I have had far longer to gain power, and apparently, my dear, I have either found a way to stave off natural aging and death, or such things cannot or do not wish to claim me."
"I wonder why... you'd think they wouldn't want you... you're such accommodating company..." It was getting harder and harder to focus. Those clouds that swirled, spun, and pulled me ever deeper were growing more important than all of my existence ever had. My whole force of will was bent on staving off the desire to beg for her to let it encompass me.
Best not to give her any encouragement, after all.
However rude my joke may have been, Shay laughed. She seemed to appreciate it. It seems that royalty still likes honesty, even if it is hidden in sarcasm. Like as not, Shay was royalty.
"Oh my dear, you are worth far more than your sister. You are worth allowing that paladin to escape alive. Tell me, Lenaris, do the Warriors of Akela still have members who bare the love of the lash?" She was inside of my soul. She knew that I did. She knew that there were many others who did as well. It was part of what made a Warrior of Akela. Guilt, martyrdom, and an unhealthy disregard for our own lives was what held us separate from the rest of society and especially other warriors.
I did not answer.
Her finger twisted hard the other way and I let out a scream. I could feel myself twisting this time. Her clouds were funneling. It was I who was moving. My mind was shifting, twisting, it was as if the whole world was only that funnel of yellow and silver, and my soul was twirling within. I was twirling within. "Answer me."
Within me, I felt my power, the power that the poison, that loosing everything had given me. My sister, my queen, my order were all lost to me. My life, my soul, and my mind were forfeit and in this girl's hand. "Yesss Sh---ay..." It almost hurt to speak, it was hard. Such effort it took, and I believe it was so I would only answer and add in nothing of my own accord. Though I disagree with her goals, I cannot argue her methods.
"Good warrior. I sensed it in you. I sensed that you felt not but guilt for your own pain. I sensed that even then, when I was scarring your eyes, you were puzzling out how you would try to atone if you were given chance. You know, my mother was a Warrior of Akela in her later days after she betrayed my father. That may be the true reason the priestesses took me in. They taught me so much, Lenaris, things that now lie forgotten. They taught me of prophecy. They taught me of power. Did you know, my dear, that Akela was Salcom's consort before she betrayed him?"
"Liesss...!" It was so hard to talk as I seemed to descend further into myself, or her, or into her power, I had no clue. All I knew was that it seemed that besides her voice, and the yellow and silver framing those twin black pupils were becoming my world. There was not else but her words and those funnels.
I was loosing myself in her eyes.
But she tisked, and simply the sound of it made me hurt and whine as if struck. "I need not lie. My ammunition is more pure than a blessed arrow. Akela was Salcom's consort, or rather, she was his slave. Her breaking away from he began the great wars which split our world apart from what it once was to what it is now." She grew calm, quiet, dull for a long moment, and the silver in the clouds paused, staying there, but it seemed to vibrate, to hum. "So you see, the love of the lash, is Akela's own guilt."
She laughed. Oh she laughed, and her laugh cut through me like a tornado of daggers.
"You have been suffering for Akela's wrongs. It is time you begin to suffer for your own."
