*
Chapter 208: The Earl of ImbelUriel's eyes were confirming a question I hadn't asked; reaffirming his own words earlier, but not wanting to believe it was true anymore than I did. Words weren't needed, I knew without being told.
Maybe I'd known since I first caught Malan in a lie to me, when I wondered what else he had lied about. The first thought that popped into my head; the only thing that would matter if he'd lied about it. Fathis's soul.
There was no hyperventilating, no crying; it was too late for tears now. Instead I was consumed by a numbing paralysis of every emotion except an icy rage, my mind churned with it. I relieved Uriel the necessity of telling me.
"Malan took his soul." It wasn't a question.
He nodded mutely, and for once didn't tell me to suck it up. When Uriel took my wrist and pressed his thumb down I stopped him, looking into his eyes so he could see the sharp focus in mine.
"I am not faint, Sire. This is a rage so cold it will never die out. Malan is marked on my soul now, I will hound him to the grave. He will wish he‘d never even heard of me when I‘m through, he'll have to pray to Akatosh for relief just to sleep."
Uriel gripped my shoulder bracingly, flooding healing and rally spells through me in silence while my mind roiled with the terrible realizations; until a worse revelation hit with such force it staggered me.
"What is it, Maxical?"
"Janus just swore me over to Fathis! What happens now, Sire? How can Fathis set up his lair if he's a thrall? They can't mate...can they?" Even my love for Fathis couldn't keep the horror from my voice. I couldn't...surely Uriel would suggest another way.
Uriel shook his head. "I would not think so without Malan commanding him. Being Malan's split-apart, there is the possibility Hassildor can direct the action."
"Dear gods..."
The horrifying image of a thrall-like zombiefied Fathis mounting me while Janus sat in a nearby easy chair calling out moves made a scream crawl into my throat that I nearly strangled on trying to suffocate. An oddly high sounding choke was all that escaped.
Uriel reached toward me, and for a second I was afraid he'd shake me like he had when I first came. I braced for it, but instead he wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me against him in the compassionate hug a father would have given.
For minutes we stayed that way in an abstract silence where our thoughts remained in the privacy of our minds; but in that moment our unspoken shared grief formed an unbreakable bond and a new dynamic between us. Warriors beside each other in the worst battles are bonds that never die.
***There was no doubt in my mind this was karma coming back to bite me in the ass for threatening Janus that way. I'd bullied him cruelly, and I've never been cruel to anyone in my life. This was all my fault.
I've known people who walked around for years building up karmic debts and never had it turned around on them. It hadn't been an hour since I'd been so hateful to Janus, and karma was already leaping on me like a hungry leopard.
“Something else Malan lied about, Sire; he couldn't have been an Arbiter. Arbiters have all the mysteries, he wouldn't have needed to send Gils' to marry me."
Uriel gave a slight nod. "Eyja and I suspected as much this morning on your return from Theryon."
"Maybe I knew, but couldn't bear knowing. As long as I denied the truth I could keep believing Fathis's soul was intact. But, I don't understand. Fathis's mysteries would stay with his soul, but they are protected by Azura. How could Malan access them?"
"Traven's tome may have the answer."
"By Dunmer law I may be put to death for Malan's lie about being an Arbiter. He broke tenets, but I have mysteries I shouldn't. I'll have to plead my case before Divayth Fyr.”
“You cannot go to Vvardenfell while we're at war with Malan, Maxical.”
"Yes, Sire..." I broke off what I was saying as the door opened. Uriel's and my head both swiveled toward the door like two owls. It was Eyja with the handsome man, his injuries all healed now.
They closed the door, but immediately it swung back open; almost aggressively. Janus stood in the doorway looking positively militant. The heartfelt apology that flew to my mind was overridden immediately when to my shock Janus closed and bolted the door behind him. Why was he alone? Where was Fathis?
***I stared hard at Janus, trying to catch his cowl facing me so I could get some signal from him what was going on. He was very obviously avoiding looking at me, was he not going to tell me what had happened?
Maybe Janus was still enraged by my threats, but now my own temper was growing rapidly. I tried to send him the thought that I'd felt the clicking of tumblers and the nature explode within me like a tsunami crashing to shore; but being deliberately ignored caused the message of thoughts I sent to be so laden with curses that even I lost track of what I’d meant to say.
My eyes blazed ineffectually into Janus’s back, till humiliatingly I caught the handsome man interestedly watching me glare darts at Janus. He had an amused gleam in his eye.
I flushed in embarrassment and spun around; then tried to catch Uriel's attention. His head was buried close to Eyja's, they were discussing something in whispers too quiet for even me to overhear.
When I turned back around Janus's back was still to me, he was refilling his wineglass. He must have downed the last one like a sailor on leave.
For some odd reason that incredibly handsome man was staring at me hard, a look of challenge in his eyes and something else I couldn‘t define. Then his eyes fell to the blood stain on the carpet where I had bled so badly the night Nissy attacked Uriel and I took the blows meant for him.
As I watched his eyes traveled slowly over to my shoes, then honed in on them with interest. I looked down to see what had caught his interest. They looked perfectly normal; well, except for the brown stains where I'd wiped blood from my fingers...virgin blood, just like the carpet stain! Dear gods, was he a vampire?
My head jerked back up. No, he couldn't be. He had no fangs at all; and his eyes were as common brown as my father's, not pink or red.
His eyes then made a lingering trail around my breasts without even an apology! He missed seeing me gaping in shock at his audacity by the sheer length of time he was staring at my undersized mounds.
Finally I looked down to see if maybe somehow the dress was exposing me. I encountered more bloodstains on the bodice, these from where Eyja’s shriek had caused me to spill from the vial of my virgin blood.
Dear gods, he was sniffing out every drop of blood in the room like a hunting dog; did Uriel not notice a vampire was ogling my bloodstains right in front of him?
***My hands itched to wing something at Janus's head for standing there sipping wine instead of protecting me from his friend's lechery. I sent a fuming glance at the handsome man, but his eyes caught mine and held them with a gleam of mischief that made him look devastatingly handsome. With those wicked imps in them dancing merrily I couldn’t tear my eyes from his. I found myself taking a full notice of him for the first time since he'd entered the Palace hours ago.
No doubt he was a Breton with those fully curved lips and rounded jaw line, and obviously enormously wealthy by his clothing. Unlike Janus, his hair and clothing were all the current fashion...no, better than current. They were trendsetting, and he wore them like a man used to being the one to set the fashion world scrambling to keep up. Everything about him was exquisite.
His hair was long, a glossy soft brown tied casually back with a ribbon at his nape. Women probably vied to bury their faces in it.
He raised one eyebrow and pulled the long ponytail over his shoulder, giving me a cocky half-smile, his eyes never leaving mine.
Had I said that aloud? I couldn't have...did I? Dear gods, he was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen.
The room felt overly warm suddenly, leaving me feeling disoriented and confused. I grabbed up a parchment off Uriel's desk and fanned the heat in my cheeks with it without even looking at what I had. Who was this man? And why was he staring so hard at me, especially with Eyja in the room?
The sight of voluptuous nude breasts in my peripheral vision caused me to look at what I had picked up to fan myself with, a torn page from a 'Bathing Beauties of Skyrim', Janus must have left it in here!
My cheeks felt like they might catch on fire from embarrassment. I threw it down and grabbed up something else...dear gods, had Janus brought his full collection into Uriel's chambers?
I had to force my eyes from the amused twinkle in the man's; and spun toward Eyja hoping she would open a window or bring me something decent to use for a fan. Her eyes were on the gorgeous man, and by her expression she had either mated with him in the past or hoped to later tonight…probably both.
Uriel stepped up to his desk, immediately noticing the strewn drawings of nude bathing beauties. For some reason he looked straight at me as if I had brought them. I glanced down at my hand and found another of them clutched there. He shook his head and signaled Eyja as I tossed the now crumpled drawing on his desk.
It was like a play unfolding. Eyja turned to me as if in slow motion; her eyes were alight with laughter when they sought mine and she raised her eyebrows several times at me before she introduced the handsome man to Uriel.
“Sire, this is the Earl of Imbel.”
***“Dear gods…” I sputtered out.
Somehow it came as a total shock. I barely heard Eyja introducing him to me, and didn't respond to it; just stood gaping at him with bulging eyes. Everything I knew about him began flooding my mind. No wonder Evangeline dreamed of him. Eyja said he was the best bed partner she had ever had. He'd had a long running affair with Llathasa. Janus said Jak tried to buy Gils' mysteries, and that his spleen nearly ruptured when I sang. Wait, Jak? Yes; the Earl of Imbel is Janus's friend Jak, and the bird...
"DEAR GODS!" I choked loudly as another realization hit me. Janus's friend Jak; I'd fondled his privates at the Arena when I thought he was a bird, I think I might have even kissed them!
Where my cheeks had been hot and flushed they now felt like an out of control fire that no amount of water would be capable of dousing.
Hannibal and Uriel were both staring at my reddened face. Eyja was gawking at me in shock. They were making my embarrassment worse, does no one in this Palace know how to be discreet?
“Are you unwell, Maxical?” Uriel finally asked.
“Yes, Sire. May I be excused please?”
Uriel nodded. I surged forward, knocking over a low table and upending it. Two wine bottles flew in short arcs in opposite directions while the seven candle candleabra crashed loudly to the floor; the hot wax trail lighting up.
“FIRE!” Eyja screamed.
The small platter of glasses had flown to a point just short of the Earl, but sprayed the Breton's pants and left a puddle on the floor in front of him. In one smooth gesture he flicked his hand down the pant legs and took a quick step back from the puddle.
“I apologize, Sire…” I turned toward the door and hadn’t run three steps before walking into another low table with two sets of tiered candles on it. They flew, and I was thrown sprawling forward, bringing the table and the rest of its contents with me.
“ANOTHER FIRE!” Eyja shrieked.
Two hands reached down to help me up, one of them had a lace ruff at the fancy cuffs of his jacket. The other hand had just a plain jacket sleeve. I took the plain one, not looking to see or caring who it was…just knowing it wasn’t Jak.
Instead of trying to put out the fire I made a lunge toward the door and slipped in the spilled drinks, crashing against an end table and tipping its contents. The candles flew and landed on Uriel’s favorite overstuffed chair. Flames began licking up the trail of hot wax that had sprayed on the seat and back of the chair.
When I tried to stand my shoe caught on the hem of Eyja’s beautiful gown I had borrowed. It tore with a loud “RIIIIIP” sound. I hurried out, just leaving them to put out the fires and clean up the mess.
More karma maybe. All I know is I've never been so humiliated; having that handsome man seeing me stumbling around like a mad cow.
*
Jak:http://knightleyemma.files.wordpress.com/2...t-1989-10-g.jpg*
This post has been edited by mALX: Sep 14 2013, 08:14 AM