LAST ONE!! I MIGHT POST MORE BETWEEN NOW AND NEXT FRIDAY DEPENDING ON HOW MUCH FREE TIME I CAN SCORE!
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The affects of his touch lingers long after he’s left her bed. Arya doesn’t savor it, but she doesn’t wish it gone. It isn’t like Malich’s touch. It’s different. She doesn’t know how to feel. She betrayed the man she’s come to love, for one she’s loved for some time now. In doing so she ended up in the exact same place she started out. Confused, and perhaps irreparably so.
Arya’s both angry with and grateful to Malich for making her come here. She wonders if he purposely sent her here to test her resolve, a test that she failed miserably. She’s filled with so much shame that she can’t bring herself to face him…either of them. There’s no way she can go back to Malich now. He wouldn’t need to punish her; she’s punishing herself enough for the both of them.
“Ihsan’s General has returned so our services are no longer needed?” Evander spoke standing in the doorway to her chambers. He looks at the sack on her bed and asks, “Are we leaving?”
“Iam, stay as long as you wish.”
“His Royal Highness hired us to escort you on your journey.”
Sighing Arya turns to him, “Well I’m not staying here and I’m not going back to the Summer Court.”
Evander looks past Arya to the crumpled sheets of her bed. Both sides are disturbed. Given Arya’s sudden need to be as far away from the Night Court as well as the Summer Court it doesn’t take him long to sum up why she’s in such a hurry to leave.
“Permission to speak freely?” Evander asks.
“Suit yourself,” Arya shrugs, sheathing her stilettos at her sides.
“His Highness doesn’t strike me as the sort to simply let the things he values go missing. Take time if you need to, but do not run. Be open and honest with him and perhaps he will forgive your…indiscretion.”
She huffs. “Have you methis Highness? He’s not exactly the forgiving type. Not without meting out some sort of punishment first.”
“Running makes you a coward and my impression of you is that you are anything but a coward.”
“Or maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” Arya gets in his face. “Maybe I ama coward. If I weren’t Malich wouldn’t have had to send me here against my will. I would have come of my own will, but I didn’t, and do you know why? It’s because I knewthis would happen.”
“Then perhaps it should have. Maybe that’s why his Highness insisted you come in the first place.”
Arya shrugs again. “Maybe.”
“The only way to find out is to go to him.”
In other words, he’s under strict orders to return her to Malich. Arsehole. She should have known her protective detail would also double as prison guards. Malich knew her too well. He knew she’d run if she betrayed him, just like he probably knew she wouldbetray him. She both hated and loved that man. Hated him in the sense that being near him made her want to both claw his eyes out and rip his clothes off at the same time. Perhaps claw his eyes out whileripping his clothes off.
“Fine, but can we take the long way back? Through the Seelie Court for instance? You’re from there so I’m assuming you know the way.”
“Of course,” Evander nods, “but may I ask why?”
“Old wounds,” was all she said in return.
Before they could exit Ihsan’s Court without being noticed, Ihsan enters her chambers. He takes one look at Arya and he knows she isn’t coming back. Perhaps it was too much and he pushed her too far. “Leave us,” he demands. Both Evander and her protective detail remain motionless. Instead, they look to Arya for instruction.
“Leave us,” she mimics Ihsan’s orders.
“We’ll be right outside,” Evander nods.
Once the room is clear Ihsan closes the space between them. He reaches out to touch her but she backs out of his grasp. “Don’t do that. Not again, not ever.”
“Is this you or the fear talking?”
“I came here to find answers and what I found out was I’m even more confused now than I was when I came here,” Arya sighs. “Being with you was…amazing,it was. It was everything I hoped it would be and more, but the guilt I feel at the moment…guilt I shouldn’t feel because it’s hisfault I’m in this situation in the first place, but I do, because as much of an arse as he is, I love him too. Now I need to go to him and confess my indiscretion, and you need to keep your promise to Navi.”
Ihsan swallows hard and nods. She can tell he wants to argue and demand she stay, but he wouldn’t do that, Malich would, and he wants to be nothing like the man he despises. Instead, he leaves her room without another word, irritation radiating from his eyes.
Evander returns with his men and together they set off for the Seelie Court. Determined to put some distance between her and Ihsan, she sets the pace for their little excursion, walking so fast that by the time she got to the border of the Seelie Court Evander’s men were doubled over, hands on their knees, trying to catch their breath. She could’ve just winnowed, but she needed to work through her frustrations and walking accomplished just that.
She turns her gaze to the Seelie Court. The last time Arya stepped foot in the Seelie Court, her throat was slit. She could feel the pull to her power even standing just beyond the border.
“You were born here. Can you feel it? The pull to your power?” She asks Evander over her shoulder.
Evander glances sidelong at Arya, examining her with careful eyes. She steps over the border into the Seelie Court and just like before, her power kicks into high gear, only this time it feels stronger.
Arya walks to the edge of the large crater, the General and his men trailing behind and stops. Where her blood had been spilled at the edge, grass had grown. She reached down to touch the newly grown patch of grass. It seems to gravitate towards her.
A thought sparks in her mind. The small patch of dirt where her blood lay was given new life. She wonders if more of her blood could do other things. Unsheathing her stiletto, she slices open the palm of her hand.
“Holy Gods,” Evander rushes forward to tend to her wound, but she waves him off. Instead she holds out her hand, clenching it into a fist and forcing her blood to drop into a pool on the ground before her. With her free hand she makes her blood circle the entire crater where a city had fallen and waits for her blood to come back around. When it does, she can suddenly feel everything. She can feel the dirt, the rocks, the waterways, the airways…everything.
Arya loses herself in that feeling, pushing farther, deeper, and higher all at the same time. She reaches out to every organism, mineral and form of life. It answers back, sending her jolts of power.
She smiles, welcoming the sensation, but then it feels as if the land is starting to pull back and her knees buckle. Arya tries to stop and pull away, but the grip it has on her power is such that she can’t break free. Eyes wide, her chest heaving up and down, she looks to Evander. He reaches out to help her and a burst of white light sends him flying backwards.
The ground begins to shake, rocks ascend into the air and the blades of the grass before her grip her feet and winding themselves around them. Arya tries to wretch herself free, but the harder she fights the tighter the blades of grass grip her feet.
As the ground shakes, and she begins to feel drained, Arya watches in awe as an entire palace emerges from the crater, filling itself in and leaving no trace of the crater that was once there. It’s the size of several townships.
The barren fields of dirt and withering plant life are replaced with green grass as far as the eye can see and tall trees. The once barren land returns to life, siphoning from her power to do so and it doesn’t stop until the ground goes still.
The blades of grass finally release her feet and she stumbles backwards, energy spent, colliding into Evander. “Holy Gods!” Evander gasps. He steadies Arya, eyes wide, shifting his glance between the palace that stands before them and the assassin who resurrected it.
“Beautiful…” Arya breathes and promptly passed out in Evander’s arms.
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