Blood of Azura

Part XXI

And there it was. All that she had left. All that she truly possessed. Turned over to a Leoth. The same Leoth who'd taken everything else from her.

He said nothing as he observed her, his expression unchanged - cold unforgiving eyes that burned with a dark malignant fire.

'Leyif osk,' he said shortly. It sounded like a command. A command she did not understand. When Mor bent to retrieve the fallen jug Fara realised it had been a command to the Leoth woman, not her. Before leaving the room she turned to Fara and gave her a long curious look, clearly seeing her now anew.

'Lumiya,' she said with a slight dip of her head before disappearing back out through the chamber door.

Silence stretched, tight and thick in the space between them before Theodan filled it. 'Lumiya means royal child,' he said finally, his voice quiet, weighty.

'Lumiya..' she whispered to herself, trying the word on her tongue. His eyes narrowed on her, and then, quick and sudden he strode towards her. She tensed as he neared, her breath freezing in her throat and her eyes widening with fear. Now he would kill her. Now that he knew who she really was. She would die exactly as Galyn had.  Her next thought was that Death at the hand of a great warrior was not so terrible.

Then - a voice from without whispered against her ear.

Show him no fear. You are a Princess of Calate & Azura. Show him no fear.

Surely he would not slaughter a Princess of Calate & Azura where she lay?

She forced her eyes to meet his, forced the fear from them. His scent hit her first - forest pine and something exotic that warmed her ice-cold blood - and as he reached out his hand she braced herself. Prepared for the feel of claw cutting through her flesh.

But he did not strike her. He opened his palm.

Galyn's pin glimmered blindingly in his large hand, the rare yellow gold moving like liquid fire, the jewel blinking against the sun's light. Glancing up at him, warily, she was met with a stony expression. Then, reaching out - marvelling as always at the heat that emanated from within him - she curled her fingers around the pin and retracted her hand from his quickly. Crushing the pin tight in her grip, she folded her hands in her lap. The jewel felt changed somehow, altered.  It still bore the heat from Theodan's hand.

'Where is the child?' he asked, his expression guarded.

For a moment she thought he meant the child from whom she took the pin, and she thought briefly of little Saira, but then she understood what he meant.

She looked down, unable to look at him directly as she spoke. 'It died inside me some moons later. I could not carry it.' She felt the burn of his eyes for a few long moments before he turned and paced back to the great fireplace.