FOREVER KNIGHTS: #17 Marked As Mine

Nightway Castle, Nightway

ALAZAR

Alazareth had been pampering Riaura since her finding Raese’s staff.

She still didn’t fully understand what’d happened but did know she’d somehow helped the Forever Knights.

That evening, after much consoling, she’d returned to their chamber and found a silver box wrapped in blue ribbon set out on the bed. Unthreading the ribbon revealed a flood of blues, oranges, reds and yellows evacuating the box.

Gorgeous butterflies filled the room. Freed from the tiny box.

Riaura giggled wildly as she spun a circle watching them fly.

They’re amongst her favorite things he knew. Remembering her often catching them on her finger to study their intricate designs.

Alazar had seamstresses making beautiful dresses all week. Each morning when one was finished, he laid it out on their bed in the master chamber for her to wake to.

Jessica entered the chamber after being summoned to help Riaura dress for the morning. “Oh, how pretty! How long do you think he’ll keep them coming?”

“I don’t know.” Riaura smiled softly.

“Think you can keep him at it?”

“Me?” Riaura blinked wide green eyes. “I’ve not asked him for them. This is solely his doing.”

“Mmm…” Jessica gave her a skeptical look as she pulled out the chair at the vanity. Stating suggestively. “And what’s he getting in return? Pleased me like to please their women.”

Riaura sat. “Truthfully I don’t know why he’s doing it. There’s really much I still don’t know about him.”

“Your husband.”

“Yes. Odd. Since you’ve said he’s been there for all the tough moments in your life? You never asked about him.”

“I guess I didn’t think to.” She looked at her hands. “I have been rather selfish, really. I was afraid…”

“Perhaps you should ask him?” Jessica finished plaiting her hair and let it drop over Riaura’s shoulder. “There.”

“You’re right. I think I shall!” She rose and turned. Bumping into the warm broad expanse of her husband’s chest.

“Ask me what?” He reflexively wrapped corded arms around her.

“She wants to know all your secrets!” Jessica blurted breathlessly. Staring at the Nightway King as though he were larger than life itself.

“I suppose I should be used to you materializing everytime I’ve a thought about you, but it still feels foreign.”

He smiled down at her. Overlapping his fists at her lower back to rock her side to side. “You’ll get used to it.”

“And the rest?”

“What rest?”

“I think it nigh time you tell me who you are.”

He sighed. “You’re right.”

Alazar confided in her of the Templar Knights. Calling it a time when bravery and honesty were more cherished than coin. He told her how the Pope had coveted the power they’d been granted. He’d convinced the King the Knights were sacrileges.

“So we were hunted relentlessly. Tortured, murdered and forced to confess to sins we never committed. Until what remained of us had to flee to Billar Canyon as the lost crossing into a land we wouldn’t be pursued. But the Pope had us slaughtered there.” He shook his head forlornly.

“Then the heavenly creature fell to protect us, separating from grace. The enemy quaked before her. When her light boomed, we were lifted off our feet, hovering as we absorbed the light. All the feathers fell from her wings. When it’d all stopped, we looked to our Captain, the strongest amongst us. He led us through centuries of suffering. While combatting his own. And missing her.”

Riaura’s eyes misted with tears.

It’s a tale filled with sorrow.

“I’ve never been evil, Ri. I’ve tried to protect all goodness in this world. To make it worthwhile that with the Fallen’s last breath of life she made ours eternal.”

“You don’t like sunshine!” Riaura argued.

I thought we were past this. You’ve seen me practicing swordplay in daylight on many occasions. Yet you were still hanging onto that?

“It’s not that I don’t like it.” Alazar shook his head softly. “Over the years, I’ve learned people are better able to observe our lack of aging in full light. So, we hide, in shadows to avoid being hunted. Sunlight doesn’t harm me anymore than making my eyes ache. I actually enjoy the feel of it immensely. It’s not something to be taken for granted.”

“But I’ll age, Alazareth.”

“There are options, Ri. There’s a way you can be immortal too, if you wished to be. But it is not all joy and happiness. There’s much grief and time seems everlasting.”

I could mark you.

The questions poured over her face.

“That my love, is why we’re soon to rejoin my Captain.”

“When?”

“He’ll summon me. We have pendants.” Alazar pulled the silver chain with the Dragon’s Eye from under his beige tunic. “He’ll use it if he needs me and we’ll all feel the pull from any distance. These our most precious treasure, save the artifacts that we guard.”

There’s her answer. She’s asked me about it enough.