Elam (7 page)

“Casdon has taken to the skies. He said that he’d not return because of what he has done. The two of you should be beaten.” Elam swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat there while the room seemed to settle around him. “I’m not just blaming you that she’s gone. We all had a part in her leaving us. But I think I can lay even our part in her being gone at yours and Casdon’s feet.”

“Would you please explain what the fuck you are talking about? Just one thing at a time though. I’m not...I feel a little weird.” Asher sat down in front of him and told him he was sorry, but no less pissed at him. “So am I. I don’t know what happened, but I’d like for you to start with what happened to Casdon and I.”

“There was a curse. One that was put on Ariannona right after she talked to the king and queen. Helena the black again.” Elam nodded but held his head in his hands as he asked Asher to continue. “It’s a curse that says that her blood is poison to the one that she loves. That so long as he doesn’t trust her, she will end up killing him. You and Casdon in this case. I’m assuming, since it’s stopped since she left here, that us fighting was part of it too. That since the rest of us didn’t take her blood the curse would have us kill each other, and not die of blood poisoning as it seemed to be doing to you and Casdon.”

“I trust her.” Asher only glared at him. “All right, I didn’t, but I had good reason not to. And you didn’t either, by your own admission. Or you wouldn’t have gotten a part of it.”

“And this reason for the lack of trust, what is it? And I will readily admit that I didn’t trust her. Not fully. And I think now that it was because you and Casdon didn’t. You cast doubt over her and we were all feeding on it. Except Dad and Grandda. Neither of them were affected by it. Neither were the women. I guess it was just us, mostly the two of you, that had a problem with her.”

Elam tried to think. She was gone? Why not talk to him about it? Let him explain. But he could answer that almost right away. Because she figured that they wouldn’t have listened to her explanation. And he more than likely wouldn’t have.

“It was so fast, this thing between us, don’t you think? Casdon and I, we talked about it between the two of us. Even when he met her, out on the meadows, he said that he could barely contain himself not to touch her, taste her. And when she came here....” Elam sat there thinking about the chain of events that had brought them to this point. “We had no desire to have a mate. I mean, none. We were talking before she arrived that we were happy to be together, live our lives as we wanted.” Feeling stronger now, he stood up and sat on the chair instead of the bed. He felt a kind of heartbreak and rubbed his hand over the injured muscle. “Then as soon as she came to us, we were sappy and our lives...just seemed to turn upside down. It was as if she’d made us feel like that, like we wanted her in our lives rather than her just simply being our mate. Do you understand?”

“You fucking moron. So you just decided that you’d fuck her but not give her the one thing in the world that people need to survive.” He asked him if he meant love. “Love was there, Elam. You and Casdon loved her very much, I think. But you never fully gave her the part of you that she gave you. Trust, and without trust, love simply cannot grow. It’ll wither and die, much like it did for the three of you.”

“I didn’t think it was real. I honestly think that she’s done something to us. Or the king has to make us have these...these overwhelming feelings for her. Feelings that just aren’t real.” Asher stood up and moved to the door. “What do you want me to do, Asher? Go find her? Tell her that I’m sorry? That I do trust her to have her come back here?”

“Nay, you have lied to her enough, I think. Telling her that falsehood would only make it worse.” Elam watched Asher, thinking this was the stupidest thing he’d ever had happen to him. “And you should know that Essie thinks that Ariannona’s going to die. Alone and not long from now. Not because of you, or I should despise you, but because she has fulfilled the favor and arrangement that she made before coming here. After this, I’m sure she feels that her promise to the king and queen of before is finished and she has nothing left to live for.” Then he was gone.

Elam sat there, not sure what he was supposed to do now. He felt like a lot of his heart had been damaged, and reached out to Casdon to see if...maybe he would have some good news for him. But the connection seemed blocked. Like he too was mad at him.

Elam knew that he loved her. Even now he knew that. But the reasons he didn’t trust her were his own. As he’d told Asher, things had progressed much too fast for him, and he was afraid of it. Maybe instead of not trusting her, he was afraid of her.

“Not her. Just this thing.” He got up to go to the bathroom to shower. He was looking in the mirror at himself when something else occurred to him. Thoughts of what he’d been thinking while sick.

Someone had…the king had been there, yelling at him for what he’d done. That he should fix this so that the king’s son and Elam could live. Then the king was ordering him about as if he were there and could act upon his threats. He remembered thoughts, snatches of dreams too, of living alone, dying the same way. Not even with Casdon beside him. As he scrubbed all the sweat and sickness off him, Elam wondered if that was part of the curse too, to have nothing save himself to live with. Standing under the hot spray, he thought of his mother for some reason and what she’d meant to him.

Love. It had been the kind of love that you could bask in. Every day she told them all that she loved them. Not just verbally but with everything she did. Cooked them their favorite meals, gave them a gentle and sometimes a not so gentle touch when they needed it. Even when she was cross with them, she never made them feel that she didn’t love them. And when they told her something, no matter what it was, she would give them the most honest answer she had.

As he was pulling on his clothing, his need to see his mom overwhelming, he thought of the last time he’d been to the little cemetery, and it was so distant that he felt badly about it. He used to go there every time he came home. Cleaned the area, planted fresh flowers for her. Since he’d been home this time, he’d not been there once. Life, it seemed, had gotten in the way.

Making his way to the little area, he was disappointed to see his dad there, talking to his mate.

“Ah son, we were just talking about you.” He looked at his dad, then at the headstone. “She talks to me. Every day when I come here, I tell her about my day, about you boys. I love her very much. I know that you all do as well, but…well, she was my world and I miss her more and more daily.”

Elam sat down on the grass beside his mother’s grave and plucked two patches of weeds from the ground, and without thought, he asked the lady of the earth to forgive him, please. He wanted to talk to his mom, but felt that maybe his dad could help him since she was gone from him. Perhaps this was why he’d wanted to come here, knowing that his father might be here.

“Everything is all messed up at home. Casdon is gone and says he’s never to return. I’ve tried to contact him, to talk to him, but he’s blocking me. And I don’t trust Ariannona.” Dad said that he’d heard that. “I love her. That much I’m sure of, but I don’t trust her. And now she’s left because of that. Asher is pissed off too, that I ran her off somehow by not giving her my heart and my trust.”

“It got you better, her leaving you alone to be pitiful.” He asked Dad what he meant. “The curse. She left you so you and the rest of them could get better. And by the way, you can’t have love if you don’t have trust too. It’s like saying you have pie when you got no crust. All you got is a bowl of fruit and nothing else. Not even prettying it up with some homemade ice-cream can make it a pie. Trust and love, they’re the same thing.”

“I’m beginning to think perhaps I’ve made a mistake.” His dad only nodded. “While I was ill, I saw the king there. And he told me to buck up and get better. He told me that I was going to kill his son with my mistake. I think he meant Ariannona, but I can’t change my mind on this. I think she put a spell on us to make us love her. Or the king did. However it came to be, we were tricked.”

“The king, he would have taken you to the shed, the both of you. Casdon and you. But to your statement about him. In this dream of yours, you get your bottom kicked by a dead king and come out to talk to your equally dead mother. You don’t even trust the living to tell you you’re a fool, do you?” He said that wasn’t fair. “Your mother would have been very upset with the two of you. She loved you enough to die for you. Me too. You boys, all of you, meant more to us than our own lives. And I knew that should anything happen to any of you...well, we’d just not want to go on living.”

“Why?” His dad asked him what he meant. “Why did you love us that much? I mean, I understand that you’re my father and she’s my mom, but why did you love us so much that you gave up everything to keep us?”

“It wasn’t any kind of hardship if that’s what you’re thinking.” He said it wasn’t. “Love you? I guess because you were a part of us that we’d given life too. Some of our hearts were a part of each of you. Our skin and blood. Even our brains, they made up what you were too. But that don’t explain the love, I guess. We seen plenty of people who gave the same bits of themselves to make a baby and didn’t love it.”

“You mean Essie.” He nodded. “She was tricked into being with us too. Like Lindsey. The bits and pieces as you call them, they were preordained…someone manipulated the fates for them to be made or born to come to us. Same with Ariannona.”

“So, you don’t trust the woman that was meant for you because someone fixed it up so that you could meet.” Elam wasn’t sure that was it, but didn’t answer his dad. “You little shit. I cannot believe…. You throw away the best thing in the world because.... What do you think would have happened to you if that good king had not gotten it into his head to have me and your mother come together? You’d not be here, right now, making me mad enough to want to paddle you but good.”

“Dad, I didn’t—”

“‘Course you didn’t think, if that was what you were gonna say. If you had you’d have taken care not to say those things.” He tried again. “Don’t you even talk to me right now. You just said to me that you think that me and your mother’s love and happiness wasn’t good enough for you. That because someone had blessed us with the foresight to bring the two of us together to be happy, that it’s not trustworthy.”

His dad looked at the headstone and closed his eyes. He knew, Elam knew as surely as he was sitting there, that his dad was talking to his mom, and Elam felt a loss so profound that he hurt with it. His breaths were painful to bring in and out of his body because he’d hurt the one person in the world that he loved more than anything.

“Your momma said to tell you that Ariannona, she’s dying. That her friend told her today that Ariannona would not make it through the night.” Elam stood up and his dad told him to sit. “Your momma also said that she’s disappointed in you as well. That she’s almost ashamed to think that you would think things like that. That the fates don’t have a say in everything you do.”

“It happened so fast.” His dad nodded but said nothing. “How was I supposed to feel when everything that I had no idea that I ever wanted was thrown in my lap? That I’d feel this way about a woman only after a few minutes?”

“Fast? Let me tell you about fast, son. The night I met the king, he had summoned me to his chamber and he sat me upon his lady wife’s chair to speak to me. He knew I was armed. Had me a knife not just in my pocket by my hip, but in my boot as well. But he wanted me close to him, trusted me not to harm him when I could see he was near death himself.” Elam sat down and listened to his father. “He never mentioned me falling in love with the woman I was to have children with. Never told me that I’d be as happy a man as I’d ever hoped to be with the way my children were born to us. Love…it never entered my mind that I’d not love this woman that walked beside me, ran from the death and destruction that would fell a kingdom. As soon as I took her hand in mine, held it while I helped her over fallen trees and stones, I knew then that she was going to be the love of my life. Even Elbert knew that I’d never harm her, trusted me to this day with his child. To love her, care for her in ways that, as her father, he never could. And you tell me after a few minutes the love that you felt for a woman meant for you was untrustful. I’m surely ashamed of you, Elam. I am at that.”

As his dad left him there, got up and just walked away, Elma looked at his mother’s marker and spoke to her. Tears streamed down his face when his dad’s words worked their way into his already bruised and battered heart.

Chapter 6

“I’m a fool.” Casdon didn’t feel any better about his declaration saying it aloud in the empty cave, but he started this and now he was going to finish it. “Mom, I don’t know what I was thinking to be so upset with her. It wasn’t her fault that someone shoved her at us.”

That wasn’t right either. No one had shoved her anywhere. In fact, he’d bet that if anyone tried, they’d be dead about now. He got up to pace the cavern where his mom lay. She was there, lying next to his shell along with his brothers, keeping them as safe as she could have done. Even after her death she continued to protect them.

“You sent her to us. Why? The magic? Essie told me what the gift was that you gave us, and how much it cost you to do so. Is that why you died? Giving me something that would save my life and that of Elam when the time came?” He heard a soft sound and knew that he was hearing things. There wasn’t any way that he heard someone tell him to grow up. “Mom, I’m afraid of what I’ve done.”

And he was too…ashamed and afraid. He’d been a fool, as he’d said, but worse than that, he’d been hurtful to someone. Someone he was sure was going to die. And that would be the worst tragedy of all.

“I’ve been looking for her for hours. And not only do I have no idea where she might be, but I’ve no way of contacting her. It’s as if she is simply gone from this earth.” He didn’t want to think about what that might mean for her. Or for him. She was dead, he knew it, and it hurt him in more ways than just his body. Casdon thought his heart would never be the same. He heard something again and looked around the chamber. When he realized he was alone, he looked at his mom again. “I think I talked Elam into not trusting her. It was my questions that gave his seeds of doubt root. I should have...I was going to say kept my mouth shut, but that’s not it either. I should have trusted myself and her in this.”

He got up to pace and stopped when he’d taken three or four turns. Putting his hand onto the cold stone, he felt the first stirrings of life beyond it. The feeling that, if he wanted to dig through the stone, he could find the life that was there, just going about their lives as if he’d not just ruined his.

“When I was a small boy, living here with Elam and the rest of them, I could never understand why it was so important for us to never leave the land. I knew that I was a part of Elam, our bodies would merge all the time, but the fact that it seemed to me that we were trapped here was a feeling that I’d not understood.” Not trusted, his mind said to him. “So I took a walk, thinking that once I was off the land I could come back and tell them all what I’d found. I’d be considered this great adventurer and all would hail me.”

It had been his dream for days after he’d thought about it. He’d even packed him a meal or two and gotten a blanket, so he could stay the night somewhere. Casdon had sat at the table that morning thinking how things would be different when he returned. That everyone would treat him like a king. The morning he’d deemed to be the first day of his life had nearly been the last.

“There were four men out that day. All of them were hunters…I saw the bows and arrows they had. The knives that hung low on their belts, and even the fur, bloodied and fresh, on their backs from their catch. I wasn’t really afraid of them. I was just a kid, I thought. No harm to them. I thought I’d stepped off the land not ten minutes before, so I stayed hidden.” Casdon closed his eyes, thinking of the events that had changed him so much that day. “The first man saw me and he grinned. At the time, I thought I was safe; they were men, I was but a child. And I was a dragon too should I need him. What harm could they do to one such as me? But as they drew closer, their blades now drawn, I took steps back. Too quickly and clumsily. I knew then that they only wanted to murder me. Not because of me being part dragon, but because I was alone and they were bigger.”

He’d fallen on his ass. The men loomed over him and he knew that he was going to have his head removed. The men, taller and stronger than him, were going to end his life and no one would be the wiser. All his adventures had gotten him, he remembered thinking, was to die here in the other land with no one to mourn him.

“Something came out of nowhere. I had no idea at the time what it was or who. But as soon as the men fell back, I got up and ran all the way back to the house and to my room.” He smiled then, thinking how terrified he’d been and that he’d not even used his dragon. “I wasn’t off the land as I had thought. Days later I took Elam out there with me…for moral support, I guess…and realized that I’d been about an inch, just a mere inch, from stepping onto land that wasn’t our own. Where I fell and where the men had been wasn’t the same property.”

He knew later what had come for him. Elbert, as his dog. He’d been following close behind him, knowing, he told him later, that he was up to no good. Casdon didn’t think he ever told Sally or Jacob. Had he done so, Casdon would have been in trouble, more than likely would have taken his first trip to the dreaded wood shed. He told Elam a few days later, when he didn’t feel like the world was coming to get him.

Elam had made him promise that he’d never do anything like that again. Never leave him. He’d been so afraid that he’d told him he wasn’t going to. He’d told him that he knew that the two of them were connected, but even if they weren’t, he loved him with all that he was and he’d not want to live without him there. Casdon had made and kept that promise.

He talked to his mom for another few hours, telling her things about his life, the woman that he’d hurt, and how much he wished he could find her. As he was leaving the deep cavern, a small brownie buzzed his head and he nearly fell back trying to dodge him. It was Ariannona’s friend, and Casdon was glad to see him.

“You must come with me.” He said that he was going to look for Ariannona. “Yes. Good. But I must speak with...with the queen. Come and.... You will watch over me so that I come to no harm.”

He started to turn him down. He had to leave now before it got too much darker, but the urgency of the little guy’s voice, the posture of his body, made Casdon go back down the long deep corridor again. As they reached his mom’s body, the little brownie—he thought his name was Izic—told him to come closer.

“I do not wish for harm to come to me.” Casdon looked around and asked him who he thought was going to hurt him here. “You have no idea. But I have made a promise. And I must keep it or she will be most upset with me.”

The word promise made him stay. A lot of those had been broken of late, and he didn’t want to be responsible for breaking another. So he knelt down on his knees to watch for the little Izic, the friend of his love.

“I have been made to promise not to say a word about her illness and where she is.” Izic looked at him and told him to not listen. After nodding, Izic turned to Casdon’s mom and started to yell at the top of his lungs. “I have made a promise not to tell a living soul where the fallen witch is. Nor to tell anyone that she lay dying.”

“She’s dying? Do you know where?” Izic told him to be quiet and not to listen. “And how do you propose I do that when...? Ah, I see. Yes, tell my mother all you know and I won’t listen.”

Izic glared at him, but there was a twinkle in his eyes as he continued. “Her heart is broken, and I fear that if someone doesn’t come to save her, all will be lost. And a lost love is the worst kind of loss, if you ask me.” He glared at him again, this time without the spark in his eyes. Unless you counted the anger he saw there. Izic then looked back at the fallen queen. “She is in the north pasture near the lake. I have had the glen faeries watch over her, but I fear that they are too stupid to do a good job. The other brownies, they’re trying, but they do not love her as I do.”

“I love her.” Izic told him to hush. “Yes, I’m sorry. But I do love her. Very much. She’s wonderful, and I don’t wish for her to die.”

“She said you have no trust of her heart.” He said that he was wrong to think that way. “Yes, you were. Her heart is as pure as the day you took her. Did she not, after all these centuries on this earth, trust you with something so wonderful as all that she is? And like the other, you tossed it back at her as if it were nothing but dirty wash. Shame on you, Casdon, son of Anthony and Eve, king and queen of dragons.”

“My heart hurts when I think of all the things that I’ve done to her. That the two of us—Elam and I—did to her. She is giving and unselfish with her heart and I...we trampled it.” Izic said that they had, him and Elam. “I want you to take me to her please. I want to make sure she’s all right and bring her back into my life.”

“You cannot save her alone. There are the two of you.” Casdon nodded and said he’d find Elam. “He searches for you now, so that the two of you can find her. His mother, she is a good listener too.”

Casdon laughed. The guy had gotten around the promise by telling not just his mom but Sally as well. As he stood up, making his way with Izic on his shoulder, he reached for Elam and found him just as upset as he was about the mess they’d made.

I’ve been looking for you. You’ve been blocked from me.
Casdon wondered what other magic had been working to get him and Elam to talk to their mothers, and told him where he was now.
I’m walking toward where she is now. I’m nearly to the lake as we speak. Can you meet me there?

He told Izic what he was going to do, and as soon as the brownie left his shoulder, he let his dragon take him. Izic said he’d meet him there as well and moved away. Casdon took to the skies just as he heard a shot ring out. He felt the bullet chip some of the stone off the cave as he moved up. Christ, that had been close.

The man below him was cursing. He could see him there, his gun at his side, looking up at him. Casdon might have gone down to deal with him, but he had a feeling should he do that then all would be lost with Ariannona. The need to be with her right now was great. But he did let Asher know what he’d seen.

He shot at you? I mean, he really tried to kill you for a second time
? Casdon said that he was pretty mad that he’d missed him too
. Well, we’re dealing with him right now. Come here and you can take me to where you saw him.

I can’t. I’m on a mission.
He asked him why the hell not and what mission could be more important than this.
I’m going to save Ariannona for us. Elam is on his way there too. We can’t let her die, Asher.

No you can’t. And it’s about time. Tell me what you find, and for the love of everything, please be careful. This man, this slayer person, is going to have to pay for what he’s put us through.
Casdon told him he would
. Be careful, and let me know when you’re returning. I’ll keep an eye out for the three of you.

~~~

Ralph cursed and stomped his way all the way back to his camper. The fucking gun. A dragon had been all but his when he’d had his gun jam up. He knew that his first shot had gone wild and he’d have to get off a second one quickly. But something messed up and he didn’t get his prize.

When it just turned from man to beast, it had been all he could do not to piss himself, but he’d had his gun up to kill whatever he could see when he saw the man standing there. Then just as suddenly as he’d come into view, he’d turned into a great dragon and had disappeared.

A fucking blue dragon. A damn fucking blue dragon was right there, and I missed it
. Ralph looked at his home now, ever cautious of simply going inside and assuming that he was safe. Twice now he’d been awakened in the middle of the night by some sound or another. And once while he’d been in his shower, something had bumped against the camper so hard that all his toiletries had fallen to the floor. Just when he bent to pick them up, he’d been hit on the head by something and had gone out like a light. He thought himself very lucky that the water had run out before he’d drowned himself.

The window that he’d broken was now covered in cardboard and tape. He’d thought about going into town, driving the big rig in to get some much needed supplies, as well as the window fixed. But he’d been sleeping poorly and wasn’t sure he wanted to chance missing a great opportunity to bag himself a dragon. He had to go soon, however. If it rained, everything was going to get soaked. He’d have to go tomorrow at the latest before he ran out of the most basic of things to eat as well.

After checking out the entire camper, he made his way back to the kitchen. He was down to eating just crackers and water now. Everything that he’d brought seemed to have run out quicker than he thought it should. He wanted to blame it on whatever was haunting him, but he was pretty sure, by the tightness of his clothing, that it was all him. Smiling, he sat at the table to eat.

Whenever he had bouts of depression on how shitty his life had become, he’d think of the money he’d have when he got him a dragon. Right now he had nothing to his name but a great many bills and bad news. Even the once in a great while trips to town to get his mail, from the post office box he’d set up all those months ago, was depressing. But if he’d killed the dragon, the blue one, that would have given him it all.

The noise startled him. Ralph sat there for several seconds, just trying to feel where it was coming from, vibrations from somewhere to tell him if it was inside or out. But when the camper took a sudden hard shake, he held onto the table top like his life depended on it. Then when the howling started, sounding like it was coming from beneath the camper, he went to get his guns, and then he was going to brave the outdoors.