The Chosen Soul (24 page)

Astriel said, “You have no idea.”

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Again, Zeta’s brow rose inquisitively, but Astriel told her nothing further and instead

began a simple incantation, waving his hand over the viewing pool. The water’s surface

shimmered and he lowered his hand, waiting.

The plane of water stilled once again, and nothing appeared in its depths.

Astriel’s gaze narrowed.

Zeta’s expression of victory vanished, to be replaced with one of shock.

“Try again, my liege.” Malveis suggested, his own expression somewhat surprised.

Astriel glanced at each of them in turn and then looked back down at the water. He

had a feeling he knew what was going on. It was what he’d dreaded, what he’d known in

the back of his mind would happen, even as he’d gone against his every instinct.

He was a fool.

Still, he tried the search spell again.

And again, it failed.

Zeta looked up at her brother. “Who is doing this?”

“Someone immune to elven magic,” Astriel answered, his jaw set, his gaze hard. His

voice was calm, but each word was laced with menace. He moved away from the pool to

stand by Zeta’s windows. There, he peered out over the city of Trimontium and the

valleys and mountains beyond.

“Malveis, I want you to accompany me on a hunt.” He began, speaking slowly and

with a calm that utterly belied the emotions that were raging inside of him. Malveis and

Zeta had fallen silent behind him, listening intently.

“I know not who, besides a member of Dark Royalty or an elf, would have the power

to shield someone from my sight. However, I do know that Drake of Tanith’s reputation

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precedes him. He is known throughout not only this realm, but several others, including

the Dark Realms, as he has been called by the Dark Royalty, on occasion, to run down

certain political absentees.” Astriel paused and turned to look at them.

Malveis and Zeta glanced once at each other and then turned to Astriel once again.

He continued.

“Drake of Tanith’s prestige, however, is not due, solely, to his innate ability to bring

in such taxing and problematical bounty. There are… rumors, if you will, of
other
things which Tanith is known for.”

Malveis’ brow furrowed. “Such as what, my lord?”

Astriel smiled bitterly and began pacing. “Such as the man’s manifested talent for

resisting certain types of magic.” He turned and pinned Malveis with another stare. “It

isn’t just elven magic which fails against the man. Apparently,
most
magic has little effect on him, if any, and even the Dark Lords of several of Abaddonian’s Circles have

allegedly failed in augury and sortilege against the bounty hunter.” He continued to pace,

now staring at the floor in front of him, as he spoke. “There is also the matter of Tanith’s indeterminate age. It is one thing for an elf to look younger than his years,” this, said with a slight smile, “however, mortals are not afforded such luxuries. Except, it would seem,

in Tanith’s situation. No one knows how old he is, and he is not prone to sharing this

information.” Astriel moved to a second window in the room, which looked out over the

western lands of Kriver, and afforded a view to the sea. “However, various evidence

points to his latency in numerous realms – several thousand years ago.”

Astriel turned to Malveis, a strange, enigmatic look on his handsome face. “Does he

appear to you as a two-thousand-year-old mortal would?” he asked.

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Malveis shook his head, once. “No, my lord.”

The Prince fell silent for a few moments, and Malveis and Zeta once again glanced at

each other. Then Zeta approached her brother.

“Astriel, you hired the Bounty Hunter of Tanith to go after this woman, and now you

think he is hiding her from you?”

Astriel smiled. “No.” He moved to a chair opposite Zeta’s couch and leaned back

casually. “I know he is. I sensed his interest in her the moment he looked upon her image

in my viewing pool.” He eyed his sister, his expression one of dark amusement. “Not that

I blame the man.”

Zeta sat down across from him and cocked her head to one side. “There is something

about her you aren’t telling us.” She leaned back as well and once again began to finger

the gems at her throat. “Isn’t there?”

Astriel smiled a nasty smile. “Much,” he told her, simply.

Malveis came forward then. “I will ready a contingent of men, my lord. We can

leave within the hour.”

Astriel did not answer. He simply nodded once, his thoughts dark, his eyes full of

sinister promise. Malveis bowed slightly and left the room.

Zeta watched silently as her brother stood, moments later, and left the room as well.

As the doors closed behind him, she could not suppress the strange feeling that all of their lives were about to change once and for all.

*****

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Raven spun around at the sound of foliage crunching under foot. She thought, at first,

that the tall dark figure across the pond was Adonides. But when he stepped further into

the clearing and the sunlight fell across his features, she realized her mistake.

“You.”

He stared at her with those molten steel eyes and Raven’s insides churned. “Princess

Raven,” he addressed her, adding a slight nod as one did for royalty. She blinked in

surprise. Then he cocked his head to one side and studied her openly, from the tops of her

wings to the tips of her boots and her body unconsciously reacted, her cheeks growing

warm, her legs unsteady. “Or do you go by another name when in this form?”

Again, Raven blinked. How did he know she was a princess? How did he know

about her at all? How had he found her?

“Who are you, Tanith? How do you know me and how did you get into my head

back there?” she asked as she retreated a step out of sheer instinctual self-preservation.

His eyes moved to her legs as she stepped back from him and a muscle in his jaw

ticked. She stilled, not wanting to anger him. She felt like a rabbit caught in a wolf’s

gaze.

“I know everything about you,” he said as he pulled his eyes off of her form and

turned his back to her. The action surprised her until he put his fingers to his lips and

whistled. In a few short moments, the sound of hoof beats could be heard rushing through

the forest.

Raven gasped and stumbled back as the tree branches suddenly spread apart and a

massive black stallion leapt into the clearing. The sun shimmered off of his jet-black hair

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and mane in the same way that it did her wings. His hooves landed on the soft earth,

kicking up streams of sand, and the great horse slowed, turned, and trotted to his master.

Raven watched as Tanith whispered something to the animal and the horse actually

nodded. Then, as he began to pull several items from the satchel across the horse’s back,

the bounty hunter turned his attention to Raven once more.

“Are you injured at all?” he asked, eyeing her carefully.

Raven blinked yet again and opened her mouth to ask him what he was talking about.

Then she remembered the red-skinned creatures that she’d clawed to get away from as

Tanith fought the elf mage.

She shook her head.

Tanith nodded, apparently satisfied, and moved around the horse toward a thick

patch of green grass a few feet away. He then began to set the items he’d selected on the

ground. Raven watched warily as he unfolded a soft-looking blanket large enough for two

to sit comfortably on. He then opened a thin round metal canister to miraculously reveal

perfect, ripe strawberries. He opened another and poured something that looked like wine

from its depths.

Raven’s stomach growled. Tanith looked up. She blushed furiously and took another

step back.

“Stop,” he said then, his eyes boring into hers. She felt paralyzed beneath the weight

of his gaze. Her heart would not stop pounding.

Tanith let out a slow breath through his nose and then motioned for her to sit down.

“Please, come and sit. You haven’t eaten this morning.” He gestured to the items on the

blanket and continued to uncover more fresh food. A loaf of bread, a block of cheese,

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and, most amazingly, a bowl of hot, steaming soup. The meal had obviously appeared

through magical means. None of it logically fit in the small containers he’d originally

pulled from his pack.

Raven recalled how the elf’s magic had not worked on him. But Tanith was

obviously able to use magic of his own.

“Raven, come sit down.”

Raven eyed him carefully, her mind spinning, her stomach growling, her legs

growing weaker by the second. And then she swallowed a lump that had formed in her

throat and ever so slowly made her way to the edge of his blanket.

“It’s Winter. I suppose you don’t know everything about me, after all.”

Now it was his turn to blink. He stared at her for a moment and she wondered what

she had said. And then he smiled, and Raven’s heart began pounding furiously again.

His teeth were perfect and white and his face, already so handsome, became

unbearably so beneath the charm of that perfect smile. She tore her eyes away and tried to

concentrate on the situation, the food, anything but his nearness, his eyes, the breadth of his shoulders, the insignia on the leather armor over his chest…

Her eyes returned to his armor and lingered there, taking in the detail. An eye, a

hand, and a rope.

She looked up at him questioningly.

And his smile was gone.

She sat down.

He held the canister of strawberries out to her and she hesitated only a moment more

before taking them from him.

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“Are they poisoned?”

“No.”

She chewed the inside of her cheek and then took a strawberry out of the container

by its stem. It was red and ripe and glistened in the shafts of afternoon sunlight. She

closed her eyes and took a bite.

It was delicious. The best she had ever had.

She chewed slowly and swallowed, relishing in its sweetness. She took another,

consuming it more quickly. And then she took a third and, before biting into it, asked,

“Are you going to turn me into the Elf Prince?”

He had been watching her eat, and her skin had been growing warm beneath his

gaze. But he looked away then and busied himself with breaking the bread into two

pieces. “It’s my job.”

“How much did he pay you, Tanith?”

“It’s Drake.” He answered quickly, and then added, his tone still calm and low,

“Does it matter?”

Raven popped a third strawberry into her mouth and chewed it up. Then she reached

for the cheese and one of the two pieces of bread. She was starving and this food was

delectable. And she might need her strength.

“I suppose not. Is he going to kill me… Drake?”

His head snapped up and his eyes held hers. They looked lighter than they had

before, as if the steel within them had melted into mercury and was swirling about. Her

limbs felt heavy beneath that gaze, her chest tight, her head dizzy. He shook his head,

once, from side to side. “No. He is not going to kill you.”

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She sat still, unable to move while he was looking at her so intensely. Then he

looked away again and she was able to glance down at her food. After a few silent

moments, she asked, “Who was the elf that abducted me?”

He hesitated a moment before answering, his expression one of indecision and some

other emotion that she could not place. Then he said, “His name is Cruor.”

*****

Raven sat on the small boulder overlooking the pond as Drake of Tanith re-packed

the blanket and the empty containers and placed them in the saddle bags on his horse.

Trepidation was a horrible aftertaste to the delicious, if simple meal she’d just eaten. But the bounty hunter had told her everything.

Everything.

And now fear built up within her gut and her nerve endings were beginning to itch

with her need to run away, to fight, to prevent herself from being taken into a situation

that might very well cost her her life. But every time she chanced a glance at the bounty

hunter, it was to find him looking her way. Watching her.

She even had the insane notion that, should she take to the skies and try to fly away,

he would sprout wings of his own and fly right after her. She shook her head. She knew,

in her heart, that she could not escape from Tanith. It was something about who he was.

The only way she would leave him was if he let her go.

Drake finished securing the bags and she heard him walk across the clearing toward

her.

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She’d changed back into Raven’s form long ago, feeling the need, in the midst of all

that Drake had told her, to have the more familiar body surrounding her soul. But now,

without Winter’s giant wings and strong physique, she felt so small in the shadow of the

tall man in black leather standing so still beside her.

She would not look up at him. She stared into the water, wondering if there was any

magic in the world that would help her escape him at that moment.