The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft
CRUELTY

CH CRUELTY

Yurieth revived with painful clarity, his magic sizzling in his veins before he even opened his eyes. He could feel the land around him and the fluttering steps of Fleur dancing with the thundering tread of a berserker blood warrior as they did battle. His magic had returned and freed him from the prison of being contained within his flesh. Feeling Fleur injured, he rolled over painfully. Unshouldering his bow, he dropped his pack, and grabbed his quiver.

Stumbling to his feet, he staggered toward the river. He blinked against the haze of reviving and focused on her, a Brotherhood Assassin was holding her by the hair. She was on her knees in front of a familiar looking member of the House of Baalru. His huntsman’s vision focused on the blood on her dress and the wounded arm the enemy squeezed. To his enhanced hearing, it sounded like she called the man by Prince Lucif’s name as he fired.

He loosed the arrow immediately followed by a second, just as Fleur stabbed the Baalru henchman. Yurieth watched in horror as the dead assassin fell into the river, taking Fleur with him. He ran to bank and watched her struggling to free her hair as she was swept toward the falls. He shouted her name just as she went over. Pulses of oracle light flashed in the water, he could sense her falling, trying to catch herself, fighting the water, and then drowning. He felt her catch her breath. She wasn’t drowning, but he knew the cold would kill her if he didn’t find her quickly.

Yurieth felt for his brother’s mind and reached it for the first time in two Lunar months. ‘Abrieth! Four dead at the top of the falls.’ He shouldered his pack and retrieved his sword and long knife.

‘Brother! Who are they? Did you find Fleur?’ Abrieth demanded.

‘They came for Fleur.’ He began to acrobat down the cliff next to the falls. ‘She went over the falls with the fifth. All are dead and need to stay that way.’

‘I’ll deal them. Save Fleur.’ Abrieth answered and Yurieth shut him out to reach for Fleur. He opened his mind to her.

‘Fleur, I need to find you.’ Yurieth shouted to her mind.

Fleur had tumbled over the falls and pulsed her magic to try to catch herself, but all she managed to do was slow her descent before she plunged into the frigid water. She fought her way to the surface and plunged the berserker’s blade into the ice with the last of her strength, to keep from getting pulled back under the water. With frozen fingers, she tied her hand to the hilt with her hair ribbon. Trapped in deep water and too weak to escape beyond the torrent of falling water, her only hope was for Yurieth to find her. Then she heard him call to her.

‘Yuri, I’m here! Under the falls.’ She pushed all her remaining strength into her stone and made it flash brilliantly. The cold water and overuse of magic caused her to lose consciousness and slip below the surface. The last thing she felt as her heart fluttered to a stop was Yurieth seizing her arm with a burning hand and pulled her from the freezing water.

Yurieth leaped from beneath the falling water and held Fleur as she died in his arms, the pain of her death was unlike anything he had ever felt. He knew he had very little time to get her warmed up or she wouldn’t revive, and he would feel this pain forever. He was too far from his home, but he remembered the old forester’s cot, and prayed it was still standing as he sprinted through the forest. The air was becoming colder and colder as the clouds cleared. The snow-covered forest sparkled in the moonlight under the diamond and velvet sky, and he thought it would be a beautiful night to describe to her if they had not both died within the last hour.

The ancient stone structure was still standing and in good condition, as he kicked open the door. Yurieth laid her on the bed and built a fire in the old hearth. As soon as the fire was going, Yurieth stripped Fleur out of her frozen dress and threw it over the back of a chair, then he began rubbing her arms and legs, while he tried to warm her body enough for her to revive. Finally, he stripped off his own wet shirt and held her against his chest, wrapping them both in his sleeping blankets, to share his warmth with her.

“Come back, Fleur, come back. Father needs you to help finish the Tear.” He didn’t know why he was talking to her as her redundant physiology tried to restore her body to functioning. “Please, Fleur, just breathe.”

Minutes passed, and Yurieth’s soul begged her to return to him as he held her tiny, cold body against his. There was a tingle of warmth and he realized she was reviving. Suddenly, she arched her back and drew a shuddering breath. She was still too cold to wake, so he pushed his healing magic into her. His fingers pressed over her heart, tying his life glow to hers. The oracle stone around her neck flashed, amplifying his power and directing hers at him like a lighthouse on a dark coast, and he knew what it felt like to be an oracle, to see into another’s mind without a family link or warrior link.

Suddenly, his mind was filled with images of the battle against their enemies above the falls, of her mind fighting against her blocked magic, and then images that shocked him. Something he did not expect after everything else he had seen in her memories; the thing she had hidden from him. Her skin started to glow as oracle light surrounded them. Coming so soon after his own death and revival, the warm, soft feeling of her power was overwhelming and almost euphoric, but he fought against it. As pain was replaced with the balm of love, he resisted surrendering to it because he had never felt anything like this and didn’t trust it. It was so much stronger than when she had shined him. He needed to see the whole truth and he would, pushing his mind into hers as he had learned when he was training to be an oracle, he sought the reason they became lovers after his brother’s death.

Fleur groaned, “No... Yuri, stop.” But she did not have the strength to resist his intrusion.

Suddenly, they were in a strange place living as a family, years passed, then she was saying it was a trap, that their souls were trapped. They fought their way out of the perfect dream turned nightmare, they lied about what they saw, and promised each other to never speak of it until after the war, duty before self. He watched himself talking to her and knew he was lying to her, he treated her coldly afterward. The war was won at great cost, and another night came into sharp focus and paused as she tried to resist. He saw her hair was short, his was almost shaved, they were both dressed strangely as they looked out at a beautiful city and drank spirits. Fleur push against his chest weakly, struggling to get away from him, but his arms tightened around her freezing body.

“Show me the reason, Fleur,” Yurieth demanded, pushing harder against her will with his.

“You don’t... You don’t want to see it, not now,” she whispered as she shivered in his arms. “Something happened that shouldn’t have, and I walked away so we both could grieve.” Tears ran down her face. “Please… stop.”

“Show. Me!” His silver eyes bored into her clouded lavender ones as he forced the memory to play.

Suddenly, he was in those moments, living it as the feelings overwhelmed him. Her lips were against his and they were kissing passionately, he couldn’t tell if it was real or the memory as their hands and flesh moved. It was everything both had waited for and the last thing either wanted to happen... yet... He couldn’t tell if it was her Yuri in the memory or him now, but he had waited for this, longed for this, and he was not going to let any inkling of wrongness taint the feeling of unconditional love and overwhelming passion. As they made love, he didn’t care about her darkness, only her light. His soul folded itself around hers and they merged into single transcendental being as their bodies became one. It was so intense, he collapsed into unconsciousness afterward.

Hours later, Yurieth woke, instead of the usual lingering pain after reviving, he felt warm and relaxed. Dawn was coming in an hour and Fleur was asleep in his arms as they lay comfortably on the bed. As he remembered what happened, he decided he hated himself and her. He knew what happened last night was more than a memory and was sure the reason he lay naked next to her was because she had used her magic to seduce him. Yurieth moved slightly flexing his extremities, he had never slept so soon after reviving, usually the nerve pain lasted for days but he had no pain remaining.

Last night’s revelations horrified him, he had seen his future self accept and be intimate with someone who could wield dark magic. He knew his future self loved her, regardless of what she was, but he had also witnessed future Yuri lying to her about what he remembered. It disgusted him that his future involved loving her when he had seen her in the water temple choosing to keep the dark magic that had infused her being. He had watched her switching back and forth between using dark and light magic to suit her moods and needs.

It created too much conflict within him for his liking; he did not understand how he could hate her with the same intensity that he longed for her with. His mind went around in circles as his heart and honor warred. His heart said should not matter what he had seen, only what they had done after she revived and that she had surrendered herself completely to him, and he, to her. His honor retorted should not matter that he felt more connected to her than to his twin Abrieth, she was shadowed and could not be trusted. Yurieth finally came back to the things he knew for certain, that he had witnessed personally in this time. He had watched her wielding dark magic in the hour they had saved the city, and she had forced his soul to endure its use as they closed the Gate of the Devourer. The longer he thought about it all, the angrier he became.

Fleur stirred in his arms and snuggled against him, she felt happy to be safe and warm with him as she glowed in her contentment. “I love you,” she murmured against his shoulder.

His body grew rigid as he growled back through gritted teeth, “I hate you.”

She looked up at him with her clouded lavender eyes, and whispered in a pained voice, “I... I don’t understand... What’s wrong, Yuri? What more do you want from me?”

He could feel the anguish tearing at her heart, but he demanded coldly, “I want your promise that you will never wield or be overcome by the darkness again. But I know it would be a lie because I have seen our future. So, know this War Oracle, I will never love someone who is shadowed, I will never become the man you remember. You will finish the Tear and leave, but if you go into the darkness again while you are here, I will forever kill you myself.” He ended with a bitter promise.

Tears ran down her cheeks before she could stop them, and she swallowed hard against the sob stuck in her throat, explaining quietly “You’ve seen my memories, Yurieth. You should know I’ve resisted the darkness at every turn, I will always resist it. I would rather die that become one with it, but I will not hesitate to wield it if needed.”

He sneered down at her, “In the water temple, you chose to keep it. You attacked my brother to keep the dark power.”

She looked away as if ashamed. “Yes, I wanted to keep it so I could still have the power to fight the Dark Prince and his Shadowed Queen, then I was going to have Kaleth kill me to end it.”

“He would have refused,” Yurieth stated bluntly.

“Perhaps, but my sister was prepared to kill me, and our master swordsman would not have hesitated if I had asked. He hates the darkness more than you,” she retorted climbing out of bed into the cold air of the room. Her rage was building like a fire from the pain of his rejection and she lashed out at him.

“Those who serve the Light must do whatever is required to overcome the Darkness. When I am from, we don’t have the luxury of false truces and frivolous court life, or spending centuries uselessly wandering about with our melancholy nature in the woods because we dishonored our marriage and murdered our lover and innocent children. Worlds have been lost! Billions of lives gone in a day because we didn’t have the power to save them!” She spat her rage at him in accusing tones, as she yanked her slightly damp clothes over her skin.

Sitting down, she pulled on her wet boots. “And if you think I would accept the Darkness or risk using its power without a good reason and a plan to fight it... then... then you are a fool!”

He could feel her rage and determination coming off her in gusty blast, like the violence of a thunderstorm and he wondered for a moment if she meant to kill him. Instead she marched up to him and threw his clothes at his bare chest. Her voice became a vicious hiss, “If you saw me in the water temple, then you saw what the Darkness did to break me. It pushed me to the point I would rather fight it with itself and die, than surrender and let it win. I will never stop; I will never give up until my final mission is complete. I will do what I must, and I will die if I must, that is why I came to Now!” She turned on her heel and stormed outside, pausing only long enough to snatch her cloak from where it hung from the strap of his pack.

As he dressed and secured his pack, he felt her rage give way to grief and his own heart accused him of cruelty. Looking around the old forester’s hut, he blamed her for his internal conflict, vowing he would not be manipulated by her. He found her kneeling by the river, putting cold water on her face.

It was obvious she had been crying, but her voice was steady, “May we go, Huntsman, or is there some other foolish accusation you wish to make?”

His eyes narrowed at her challenge. Her words about his centuries after the war and mocking the truce he had fought so hard to gain irked him and made him feel spiteful, his anger sought another way to hurt her. It came to him in a vicious flash and he thought it would be interesting to see her reaction after last night.

“Yes, Oracle, there is one last thing. A few months ago, when I said I wanted to be joined to you, I withdraw my proposal. Last night and every moment with you was a mistake,” he declared coldly as he tossed a loaf of bread in her lap. His heart anguished over his words, and his honor hated that she looked so beautiful with the dawn light pouring through the trees around her.

She blinked rapidly up at him, trembling, then looked down at the bread in her lap. She drew a slow deep breath and became very still. Her anguish vanished, and instead of her pain, he felt nothing from her. When she looked back up at him, her expression and pale eyes were completely empty of emotion. Her voice sounded almost like a simulation. “You didn’t propose then, my lord, so you have nothing to withdrawal. My answer, however, remains the same.”

Her reaction stunned him, he had expected her to react with an angry outburst or impassioned plea, not become completely devoid of any emotion. He growled out the first question that came to mind. “Where do you wish to go?”

“I need to return to the Castle and then to the Tear. I have work to do and a mission to finish.” Her voice was an even monotone and it reinforced the disconcerting sensation that he was talking to a sim.

“There is a flyer landing at my home. My brother can retrieve you.” He glared at her for a moment, it was like looking at a doll. She didn’t even blink. Finally, he snarled, “Don’t fall behind, I won’t carry you.”

He turned and stalked down the riverbank. As he set a very brisk pace, she followed without a word. His mind began to go through her memories, seeking the source of this unusual reaction.

The Huntsman led, and the Blind Oracle followed.

Yurieth had moved almost too quickly for Fleur to keep up now that she was mostly blind, but Fleur had focused her will and kept moving after him. Her hands and legs were bruised and bleeding. She had severely injured her right side with a particularly bad fall. Her knee felt twisted and her wrist was swelling where she had broken the bone. She had learned long before her time in the dark dust prison to turn off her pain, so she did and continued to follow him.

This Huntsman was not her huntsman. She could sense his malevolence toward her, his desire to break her, and so she tightened her shielding around her soul. She resisted and compartmentalized her pain. He wished to harm her, but he would never know she was hurt from her. She was stronger than he could ever dream of being, she had proved it to his future self and this day she would prove it to him.

Yurieth had moved rapidly to get home, he had darkly hoped to get her to betray some feeling or some weakness. Each time she tripped or fell, she got up quickly and made no sound. It frustrated him, but he refused to look back, as long as he could hear her footsteps, he kept his pace. By early afternoon, they had arrived at the bridge near his hunting lodge and neither had spoken a word since dawn.

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