Two
The light of nightfall, deep bruise hues with the gilt edges of the setting sun, caught on the metal. The blood colored armor on the three soldiers approaching the aged tree clanged like music, only it wasn’t the music deserved for this death. Beauty was withheld for execution. The light bent over the axes on their shoulders, glimmering like monstrous teeth.
The king pointed his finger at the Dryad man standing next to the tree. He nodded, his eyes holding the goodbye he didn’t have time to say again to his people as they stood watching, transfixed in sorrow. It had to be. It was him or everyone. He turned and walked into the trunk, his corporal form absorbed under the bark.
Eli held his breath as the axes raised. Cold disgust and fear slid down his spine as his eyes focused on the blades. One…Two…Three…the metal bit into his father. Then again. And again. And again. Deeper and deeper they went. Brute force with a deadly edge. The phantom of his father’s pain hacked into him as he watched. The soldiers were fast and precise but reality and his perception kept different time. The smell of death was sweet. Split wood and sap mixed with Fer’s golden blood.
Unable to turn away, Eli watched until the end. His father’s mighty tree fell and was carried to the flames of the Heart. Everyone dispersed. The Dryads all singing the song of death with their heads down. The vampires left the same way they came, walking in unison, with their axes on their shoulders.
He looked at Leramiun, the vampire king, feeling conflicted.
Eli blinked, the vision fading. It wasn’t really his memory, even though he’d carried it his whole life. All the Dryads had memories of their parents. The Heart imbued them all with knowledge of the ugly past of the death of their race. Over ten thousand years they had been dead. Now the Dryads lived again and they were all the same age, and they were all orphans.
There were only two who were older: Shi and Ler. The love affair between the Dryad princess and the Vampire king had brought death to their race. And their love also urged the Heart to bring life back to the poisoned ground and allow life to bloom again in the dormant seeds deep underground. Eli was one of those seeds. Now he was a man and a dryad warrior.
He never met his father. Fer had been executed justly. In that past life, it had been Eli’s adoptive father, Ler, who had been the vampire king that sentenced him to death. When the dryad race was resurrected, Ler had been resurrected as well, the Heart pouring his ghost into a dryad, no longer a vampire.
Past life, long over, still haunted, and cast shadows inside Eli’s heart. It was justice. It was ancient history… It still stung.
Darkness surrounded him as he waited. He closed his eyes and leaned back against a tree trunk just as Lex came up beside him and socked him in the shoulder.
“Wake up.” Lex smiled.
“I’m awake, jerk.”
“You look glazed.”
Eli blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Death memories…”
“Caught you off guard? I hate when that happens.”
“Where’s Rom and Sen?”
“They’ll be here. Ara found out and wanted to come.”
Eli swore. “How did she find out?”
“Rom. He’s got it bad for her. Apparently, he talks a lot while amorous…And she’s got this notion she can be a warrior or something like that. I don’t see it. I think she just wants to mate a warrior.”
“Well, she’s got Rom then.”
Lex smirked and shook his head. “She wants you, bro.”
Eli frowned. “The hell? That’s not happening. She’s not for me.”
“Apparently no one is. You’re too picky.”
“No. I don’t have time for that shit and I never will.”
“Don’t let Ler or Shi hear you say that. You’ll get the procreation lecture. You are generation one. It’s your duty to bring the next to life.” Lex’s snicker faded as he stared off into to distance. “You’re lucky to be out so far away from the Heart. It’s quiet out here on the fringe. I’m rooted right in the middle of everything and I’m treated like the prince.”
“You’ll get no envy or pity from me, Little X.”
Lex groaned. “Please don’t revive that title. I’ve only just broken Shi from calling me that. What possessed her and Ler to name me after X is beyond me. You have no idea how many times people ask me if I think I’m like him, or if I’ll follow his example and save Regia from some great peril.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “X is awesome, but what do I have in common with a human necromancer? Stupid.”
Eli grinned. “I bet you’d take Tesla off his hands though.”
“Yeah. Love it when she visits. She and I are so happy in my dreams…Too bad our kind can’t crossbreed the way the other races can.”
“You don’t really mean that.” Eli’s voice was sharp.
“No. You’re right. I can appreciate beauty where I see it, but that’s all. I’d rather cut off my hands than put them on a woman of another race. That type of disgusting love killed my parents.”
“The shadow sand killed your parents.”
“The sand wouldn’t have been brought here if it weren’t for Shi and Ler having no regard for the boundaries of reality.”
“You speak pretty harshly of your family. At least Shi is your actual aunt. No one else of this generation can claim kin ties like that.”
Lex’s face hardened. “My death memories are not only of my mother and father. I died that day, too. My mother was pregnant with me when she died.”
Eli pursed his lips and nodded but didn’t comment. He’d wondered about Lex’s death memories but had never asked. Everyone’s were different. Almost all were of their parents dying on the day the Shadow Sand was brought in from the vampire lands, destroying their ecosystem and creating an instant and deadly addiction in the dryads. Eli had echoes of that day in his subconscious from his mother’s death, but his strongest death memories were always of his father being executed.
Lex paced for a moment. “Shi and Ler are my adoptive parents, as much as they are to you…to all of us. I love them.”
“Never thought you didn’t. Memories of a past we didn’t live through is sometimes…conflicting.”
“The Heart doesn’t want us to ruin everything like they did. So it makes us remember.”
“I guess.” Eli straightened up and bound his long dark blonde hair back, anxious for the fight coming his way. He could burn off the scratchy emotions churning inside him with a good brawl with the wolves. Rom and Sen arrived silently but Eli felt them coming. They slid through the darkening shadows, their corporal feet falling on the ground sending vibrations into the earth.
Lex elbowed Rom, knocking the smaller dryad off balance. “Took your time. Couldn’t shake Ara?”
“At least I have a woman, which is more than I can say for you losers.” Rom lifted his head smugly, drawing himself up to his full height, still four inches shorter than the rest of them.
“Lucky for you Eli doesn’t want her, or you wouldn’t have her anymore,” Lex teased.
Sen snickered and Rom glared at Eli, who in turn glared at Lex.
“Stop it, Shit-starter,” Eli ordered. “The only fighting we’re going to do is with those jerk wolves once they show up. You got a problem with me?” he asked Rom.
“You after Ara?”
“No.”
“I’ve got no problem then.”
“Good.” Eli turned and snorted. “Hear that? I bet they think they’re being stealthy.”
The others all chuckled.
“Can literally hear them a mile away. I bet that’s how far those wolves are,” Lex said.
“Let’s move further out,” Eli said.
“How far?” Sen asked.
“As far as we can go.”
The four of them headed toward the sound of the werewolves coming their way. At a quarter mile, Lex began to slow his pace.
“I can’t go much further. The pull in my back is starting to hurt.”
“Me too,” Rom said.
“And me,” Sen added.
Eli didn’t feel it yet because his tree was on the outskirts of the forest. The other three were rooted close to the Heart. This was as far as the end of their invisible tether would allow. It was the worst thing about being a dryad. You were bound to your tree and could only go so far, a few miles at most.
“This is a good place. The ground is uneven. It will up the challenge,” Eli said. “We need to train harder.”
The four of them faced the werewolves as they came up the slope through the darkness. Callen, Ansel, Satran, and Tristan climbed over the boulders on the incline where they waited for them. This would be the fourth time the eight of them met like this. But this was the first time they had faced off in this location. Usually, they were further in, closer to the Wood.
There was only one rule, no weapons. Eli’s eyes flashed as hot as the rage he felt when he caught sight of the axe strapped to Tristan’s back. The four wolves stood in a defiant line facing the four dryads. Eli crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Tristan, demanding an explanation to the offensive weapon with only his expression.
Tristan smirked and then gave an unconvincing theatrical start and unhooked the axe, placing it on the ground. “How embarrassing. I’m sorry. I forgot I had that on.”
“The hell you did!” Sen barked out. “You’ve got a nerve.”
Eli gritted his teeth, wishing Sen had just ignored Tristan, but now he’d given him just what the prick wanted.
“I’m sorry,” Tristan said again, his sappy apologetic tone in sharp contrast with the glint in his eyes. “I was doing some clearing near the Lair’s edge today. Oh, forgive me, I know you don’t like to hear about trees being cut down. You garden gnomes are so sensitive. It’s a good thing I left my machete and pruning shears behind.”
Lex laughed darkly. “Since we beat you so badly every time we meet like this, I guess you’ve decided to up your game with trash talk. I know that’s not the only thing your pretty mouth is good for.”
“Oooooohh,” Eli, Sen, and Rom all said together before laughing.
Tristan’s nostrils flared, then his lips curved in a sneer. “Been thinking about my mouth, have you?”
“Maybe. It looks just like your mother’s.”
“At least I had a mother. All of you are nothing but walking, talking plants.”
All four dryads chuckled at his weak insult.
“Perhaps it’s your lack of understanding what we are that makes it so easy for us to hand your asses to you every time we fight,” Rom interjected. “But you’re short on understanding since you’re nothing but a pack of mongrels. I doubt any of you know how to sit or fetch.”
“We only let you win because we have such an unfair advantage in, well, everything else,” Ansel chimed in. “I mean really, you’re so geographically challenged, and if we wanted to rid the world of you, a little arson, and you’re all dead.”
The smile on Lex’s face absorbed into a hard mask. He took a step forward and pointed at Ansel. “You’re mine.” His voice was deadly cold. “You and me go first.”
Ansel frowned and looked unsure, glancing at Tristan. Tristan nodded and gave him a little shove forward. Eli, Rom, and Sen backed up as Ansel moved toward Lex.
Eli’s gaze cut through the fight before it began. Ansel outweighed Lex but Lex had a longer reach. Lex was pissed off, so that would either make him fight better or make him sloppy. Eli wanted their fight to be fast so he could take on Tristan. He was going to teach him a stern lesson in manners. Bringing that axe hit a nerve with Eli.
Lex and Ansel stripped off their shirts, the moonlight illuminating the planes of their muscles. Ansel began circling, but Lex charged straight at him, tackling him to the ground. Dirt flew into the air as Lex pummeled him with his fists and Ansel tried to get away. If he didn’t get out, this was going to be over in another couple seconds with the hammering he was getting in the face. He twisted around and brought his knee up into Lex’s side, knocking him sideways long enough to get loose. Both of them were on their feet again.
A tremor went over Ansel’s skin as he started to shift into beast form.
“No, you don’t,” Lex said dropping down and sweeping Ansel’s legs out from under him.
He coughed as the wind was knocked from his lungs when he hit the ground. He stopped shifting. Callen, Satran, and Tristan all yelled out in anger, grumbling about unfairness.
Ansel got to his feet, his face bloody and starting to swell up from Lex’s initial pummeling. He wiped the blood from his nose and held his hand up in surrender but just as Lex dropped his guard, Ansel surged forward and cracked him in the face with a head-butt. His head snapped back and he stumbled once but Lex remained on his feet.
The next moment they were grappling, clinched together, both trying to land body blows and break ribs. Ansel grabbed Lex in a bear hug and threw him in the direction of the boulder-covered slope. Everyone gasped but he didn’t go over the edge. It looked like Lex slammed into an invisible wall. He’d reach the very end of his tether.
Ansel roared and charged at him.
“No! Stop!” Eli shouted.
Ansel plowed into Lex, trying to shove him over the edge. Lex caught him with an uppercut and sidestepped. Dazed, Ansel stumbled toward the edge. Lex reached out, grasping the air wildly but the invisible wall made it impossible for him to grab Ansel. He fell over the edge onto the rocks. Everyone rushed forward. It wasn’t that far of a drop, but the second Eli looked down, he knew Ansel was dead. His head was broken open over the rock he landed on.
Shock held them all in silence for a few seconds. Lex seemed to deflate next to Eli, going down onto his hands and knees, his breathing raspy.
“I couldn’t…I couldn’t reach him.”
Callen, Tristan, and Satran rushed to Ansel’s body. Satran began crying, clasping Ansel to his chest. Eli hadn’t noticed the family resemblance between them until that moment. Ansel and Satran were brothers.
Eli froze on the horrible thought of what happens now? It was an accident, but in the next seconds, what would it lead to? What was supposed to be harmless fun was now anything but.
Callen pointed up at Lex. “He pushed him!”
“No, he didn’t!” Rom barked. “Ansel tripped.”
Satran and Callen began shouting. Lex remained silent, his gaze still glued to Ansel’s mangled body. Rage burning in their eyes, Satran and Callen climbed up the boulders. More were going to die, Eli realized. Where was Tristan? Just as he thought it, Tristan charged up beside them, his axe raised over his head.
“NO!” Eli shouted.
The moonlight slid along the axe as it came down in a killing strike to Lex. Eli held his breath as he stepped in between his friend and death, catching the blade with his forearm instead. The blade sliced down to the bone but it was dull or it would have cut Eli’s arm off.
Tristan’s eyes bugged as Eli jerked the axe out of his hands. He took advantage of everyone’s momentary shock, reached down, pulled Lex to his feet and took a step back from the wolves. Rom and Sen followed his lead, backing away.
“This was an accident.” Eli didn’t even recognize his own voice as he said it. “See to your dead. Let’s not turn this tragedy into something worse.”
Blood surged out of the gaping wound on his arm. The pain was unimaginable, but he ignored it for the moment. They had to get out of there. The wolves stared at them as they left, but they didn’t move to follow.
As soon as they were too far away for the wolves to see or hear them, Eli leaned back against a tree, panting.
Lex looked at his wound and swore. “Geez, you’re bleeding a freakin’ river. Sen, give me your shirt.”
Sen took it off and handed it to Lex. He tore it into strips and tied them around Eli’s split flesh.
“If we don’t get him to the Heart soon, he’s going to bleed to death,” Rom said.
Eli’s vision began to tremble and darken. His friends held him up and began carrying him. In spite of his head swimming and the pain, his grip on Tristan’s axe never slackened. He needed it. He couldn’t think why. He couldn’t think at all, but nothing was going to make him let go of it.
Consciousness drifted in and out and he grew cold, colder than he had ever been.
“What happened?” Shi’s panicked voice broke through the haze along with the sensation of her soft hands on his face.
The white flames of the manifestation overtook his vision as his wounded arm was placed in the fire. All he could see was white and heat filled his body down to his bones. The rushing quickly became overwhelming. The sensation its own warning that too much direct contact with the Heart was dangerous, potentially deadly. Outside of the dryads, only Tesla, X, and Journey could touch the Heart and come away unscathed. Lucidity returned slowly as the flames sewed his arm back together with strands of energy.
Why are you holding an axe, Eli? The Heart asked inside his mind.
“I need it. I don’t know why. I just do. It’s important.”
Keep it safe then…You’re physically healed now. Try to stay that way.
“I’ll try.”
He pulled his perfectly healed arm from the fire the wound now a straight scar. He turned, confronted by many worried sets of eyes. Lex, Sen, and Rom all stood off to the side as Shi and Ler came at him, Shi fussing, and Ler tossing questions at him in quick succession. Shi’s pregnant belly bumped into his stomach as she hugged him.
“I’m fine,” he reassured her. “But there’s been a terrible accident I fear will lead to other problems.”
He exhaled and began to tell them how Ansel died. He didn’t get very far into his explanation when Ler stopped him and turned to Shi.
“I’ll deal with this.” He kissed her forehead and smoothed her hair. “Go rest.” He laid his hand on her stomach for a second.
Shi’s worried, maternal gaze cut to Eli and then to the others. “Alright…Don’t be too hard on them, Ler.”
He kissed her again. She nodded and turned away, going to her tree and was absorbed into the trunk.
Ler crossed his arms. “Alright, give me the rest of it, unedited.”
“Yes, sir.” Eli’s hands tightened on the axe handle and he was seized with a second of madness, imagining striking Ler with it. Confused and instantly contrite, he shook himself and continued to tell his adopted father the whole story. As his words hit the air, they seemed to circle back to him and cling painfully to his shoulders. “It’s my fault…fighting like that was my idea, but I never meant it for anything but to help us train. I swear.”
Ler sighed deeply and clapped Eli on the shoulder. “I know you would never mean anything like this to happen. And you saved Lex’s life…Accidents happen. I would go to Sabra right now, offer our condolences to the family of the dead, but I cannot travel that far. None of us can. We will have to wait for them to come to us.”
“What if this goes sideways? I don’t trust them to be honest. Should we prepare for battle, father?” Lex asked.
Ler paced for a moment. “No, you’re getting way ahead of yourself. And they outnumber us so greatly, conflict must be avoided. Sabra is a good and just leader, but she cannot see and control the whole pack. I know how she must feel.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and in a second his mood shifted. His ire swelled and he gave the four of them a withering look. “I didn’t live and die then exist for ten thousand years in agony as a ghost, and be resurrected as a dryad only to have a couple of idiots endanger my family with carelessness!” His rage seemed to settle on Eli and the axe in his hands. “Get rid of that thing!”
“But what if we need it as evidence? Tristan carved his name on the handle.”
“I said get rid of it!” he shouted. “And get out of my sight, all of you!”
∞∞∞
Tristan’s eyes slid out of focus as he looked into the shadows of the forest where the dryads left. Ansel’s death was an unexpected gift to him and his future plans. He would overthrow Sabra and become pack leader…but this little mishap of Ansel’s brain slipping out of his skull would speed up Tristan’s climb to power if he used it right.
He blinked, his vision clearing as he walked forward until he could see the boundary of the Wood in the distance. The Dryads messed things up. They lived too damn close to the Lair. The Wood used to be called The Wolf’s Wood…under his rule, it would be called that again.
He turned and came back to Callen and Satran as they lifted Ansel and began to carry him back toward the mountain.
“I have an idea,” Tristan said.