Fire.
Veleria breathed it in, willfully ignorant of the ensuing screams, the smell of charred flesh, of the End of an Era. Now there was only one last loose end to tie up.
Caellach!
She shuddered at the name. The voice was one she knew well.
Caellach, dammit!
She turned, the flames surrounding her licking harmlessly at her exposed flesh. Her eyes widened as Edgar came into view. He was shirtless, and the bandage that limited his shoulder had begun to bleed through. The man stumbled as he shouted at her. Tears stained his pale, sallow cheeks.
“What have you done!”
She could not face him. Not now, not this time. She covered his eyes with her hands and summoned even greater flames.
She would cut the final tie between them.
Herself.
“No!” Veleria swiped at the image, brows knit in anger as she glared at the being who possessed her reflection—Caellach. Both her fists clenched as he simply looked at her. “Don’t you dare put your sins on me! You and I are not the same person!”
Caellach held both his hands in front of him. In their shared mindscape he was standing before the windowed room once more. Sunlight filtered through a kaleidoscope of stained glass windows.
He merely turned away from her.
Outside of Veleria’s dream, Caed found that he quite enjoyed shading in hair. His charcoal was running low, so he made the final stroke—the little flip that Veleria’s hair did as it curled around her left breast.
Perfect, he thought.
Even when he had given himself visions of her—satisfying the sorceress—he had never seen Veleria as particularly beautiful. And, truthfully, she hadn’t been much to write home about. She had had potential, sure, but at the time of her orientation Caed recalled her unruly hair and dirt-stained clothing. He smirked to himself, remembering how Alk’Hath had completely ignored his comment about the elves. The sorceress had seen something she liked in Veleria and wanted to make the girl into something she was not.
It wasn’t the same for him. He liked what he saw now, but Caed struggled to place its origin. Her hair? Skin, maybe? It had an exceptionally healthy glow. He looked between Veleria and his sketch of her. What was it?
Her eyes were currently closed. As he observed this fact, he imagined them open, and realized that Veleria’s eyes were like molten gold.
That was perfect. He grabbed another piece of parchment and quickly wrote that down. He could work it into a poem. Tapping his pen against his bottom lip, he continued his wordplay, up until Veleria began to stir.
Veleria groaned awake. She had an itch on her neck that needed scratching, but when she tried to move her hand to do away with it, she swiftly recalled that Caed had bound her to a support beam. This only made her sigh louder. Blinking her sleep away, Veleria caught the sorcerer staring at her. She was instantly made aware of her lack of blouse when her hair brushed against her bare breasts.
“Can I have my shirt back? You found all the knives.” She asked with as innocent a tone as she could muster.
Caed, who was without his spectacles and hat, smirked in response. She couldn’t place his age at all, as there weren’t many lines pulling at his blue eyes, nor at his blond hairline. It was a question she was considering asking him now that they were, unfortunately, intimately getting to know one another.
"I quite like you without it, I must say.”
“Don’t be a creep,” Veleria hissed.
“Well, I won’t deny that. However harmless, if I’m just admiring you.” He chuckled, almost patronizingly. Veleria could hurl. “Unfortunately, you’ll just have to enjoy the freedom for now. You’re a dangerous woman, you know?”
So dangerous that she had been forced—with her hands bound—to willingly ride with him all the way to some remote cabin. With a frown, she looked around the cabin, noting her five knives were in a pile alongside her blouse, boots, gloves, and bracers. Her belts were also thrown haphazardly onto the mound.
She glanced back at Caed, “how old are you?”
Caed’s smirk faded into a small smile.
“I’m in my seventies.”
Veleria closed and opened her eyes. He looked maybe thirty. She figured he had been closer to her age, but then she reminded herself that he was probably lying.
“How do you look…So young?” She pressed.
Caed leaned back in his chair. He set his writing utensils on the table beside him.
“Why sorcery, of course! Did you know that Alk’Hath is several hundred years old?” He said, noting the shock on her face. “She isn’t undead, either. We just age slower. Why do you ask? Are you worried I can’t perform?”
The look on Veleria’s face was a mix between disgust and amusement. The man was quick with his words, she’d give him that.
“As if…” She shut her eyes and shook her head. Men were so vulgar. She had never realized just how much Adrian had held back around her. While her thoughts briefly wandered over her previous companion, Caed continued to speak.
“Speaking of age, I know that you were born twenty-seven years ago.” Caed’s lip twisted upward. “Among other details.”
This scared her. How did he know that? She shot her eyes back towards him.
“How?” She demanded, jerking forward, though Veleria couldn’t get her hands free from above her. He had put her in a terribly precarious position.
Caed stood up from his seat. He walked over to her with his hands behind his back, then cocked his head. The red circle in his one eye was beginning to vibrate. She stared back with a defiant look.
“I wasn’t born with this eye. Obviously. Transmutations and crafts are all mortal inventions, after all. In my case, my previous master supplanted the ‘Eye of Istvar’ into my skull after tearing out my original eye.”
Veleria couldn’t help but cringe at the visual.
“Gods, why?” She asked, surprised to find concern in her voice.
Caed shrugged, “because he was a foolish little wizard who thought he could gain the goddess Istvar’s favor if he did so. Either way, it offers me past visions of those I touch.”
Raising a brow, Veleria continued the conversation.
“Doesn’t that mean she gave you her favor?”
“You could say that. I don’t much care for it, and when I’m with you the visions are much more intense. The wild part is I don’t even need to touch someone to get something from them.” He straightened up. “That said, all of these little details I have of your life were given during your initiation. You probably don’t recognize me because I wore a hood and an eye patch back then.”
That explained why she couldn’t place him. She could recall that one or two of Alk’Hath’s servants had touched her, but it was also possible that Caed had done so stealthily. While she mulled this over, a thought came to her.
“Wait, wait, wait. Did you know I was hired by the elves?”
“That’s right.” Caed reached down to take her chin in between his thumb and forefinger. She didn’t protest despite her discomfort. “I even told Alk’Hath, but I also told her that they expected you to die. Which was true, sadly.”
Veleria’s face fell. He cupped her cheek.
“Never mind all that. I’m feeling a bit famished…How about I get us something to eat?”
While he rubbed her cheek, Veleria simply nodded. She didn’t have the motivation to fight him on anything else. That throwaway comment concerning the elves was enough to diminish her mood.