The Onyx Throne Pt. 01 Ch. 22-23

Chapter 22

A door chime sounded as Lethelin was finishing brushing her hair. It was indecent the amount of soap she had needed to get the filth out of her hair but it felt so good to finally be clean again. Lethelin looked up and saw it was not Mitchell's door that had chimed, but the other one. That meant either Allora or Revos.

She tied the robe around her diminutive form and went over to thumb the small gemstone in the wall that would open the door. Despite the locking mechanism being magical in nature, it operated by ordinary touch, sliding smoothly into the wall. Her visitor was Allora, also freshly scrubbed and wearing a more buxom version of Lethelin's robe. She once again felt a sharp sting of jealousy. As always, the knight had her full lips pursed into a firm line. Was she never in a good mood? The woman could give a rock turtle lessons in brooding.

"Yes, m'lady? If it pleases Stollar, how may I be of service?" Lethelin said, her voice saccharine and obsequious. She could see a tightening around Allora's violet eyes. The gods-damned elf never rose to the bait but she hated being addressed as a noble and it was fun to needle her.

"May I come in?"

"Sure."

Lethelin stepped to the side but resisted the urge to bow. That would be a little too much and taunts should be chosen carefully.

Allora strode into the room like it was her own and began to look around as if searching for something. She looked twice at the bed, which was undisturbed and Lethelin understood.

"He's not here," she announced playfully.

Rather than answer, Allora turned her piercing gaze on the thief.

"Were there any problems getting here? Did anything happen or did anyone interfere?"

"No one interfered. And... Nothing happened."

She tried unsuccessfully to hide the little smile at the memory of their kiss in the garden. "Straight here, as the lady commanded."

Allora cocked her head, not missing the hesitation.

"Explain, please."

"Nothing! We just had a little moment in the Spire Garden is all," she hesitated. "We kissed. Just a kiss."

Allora looked her up and down again, studying her anew. Lethelin saw her purple eyes take in the touch of color to her cheeks and lips that Lethelin had applied from her meager store of supplies. She took a couple of steps closer to her then and inhaled deeply.

"White Lotus," Allora said. It wasn't a question.

Lethelin was impressed.

"I keep a little in my bag," she said with a smirk. "A girl never knows when she might need some."

"I cannot allow you to bed him," the elf said without preamble.

"I..." Lethelin sputtered as she felt an instant heat in her face. "You cannot allow? Pardon me, m'lady," she continued, letting scorn drip off the title. "But I don't remember asking your permission. I bed whom I please!"

"Mitchell is not just anyone. He is not a toy for you to play with. Until I am certain you can be trusted with him, I will not permit it."

"The sheer fucking audacity of this stuck-up little elfin princess!" Lethelin said to herself.

But she wasn't about to back down. It was about the principle of the thing now.

"What's the matter?" Lethelin said after she had collected her thoughts and squared her shoulders. "You just don't want to share?"

Allora's eyes widened slightly. It wasn't a lot but Lethelin had learned to read her stone face.

That's it, isn't it? If you can't have him I can't either?"

"I do not want him," Allora stammered. "I am here to protect him and see him to the throne. That is all."

"Jivi piss!" Lethelin spat. She stepped forward and glared up at the taller woman. "Even the clorvol is sick of seeing you moon after him. If you don't want to share him, at least be honest about it! Or is it just me you don't approve of? Don't want him bedding some commoner from the docks? Is only that noble elf pussy of yours good enough for the future monarch?"

Allora visibly winced under the vulgar verbal assault before she seemed to remember herself. Then it was her turn to glare.

"Once he has obtained the throne and bonded with Awen he may have anyone he likes," Allora shot back, her voice tight. "Even common dock rat thieves from the sewers of Varset. But for all our sakes, I hope he has more sense than that. I would rather see him bed the ugliest whore in the most disease-ridden brothel in the filthiest port in all of Tewadunn than you!"

Lethelin, deep into her temper now, pulled back to slap the self-righteous bitch before she knew what she was doing. Allora, unfazed, caught her wrist in an iron grip just inches from her cheek and didn't even flinch.

"But until he is on the throne," Allora leaned in, her voice cold as the ocean depths, "You will keep your hands off of him!"

Allora accentuated those final words with a shove that sent Lethelin staggering backward and into a chair, almost toppling it over. She was about to stand up and fight, Onyx Knight or no, but a look from Allora's eyes, and the glow of her krisa stopped her cold. She was holding a spell, and Lethelin had no doubt she would use it. What had she been thinking? Fighting her head-on was suicide, and her mother hadn't raised a fool.

"Get a hold of yourself, you silly sea cow!"

Lethelin froze, trying to ignore the ache in her spine where she slammed into the frame of the chair. She would feel that in the morning. Nine hells, she felt it now.

Allora stepped coolly up to her. When she spoke, her voice was icy steel.

"Mitchell is walking a knife's edge. The strain of the magical training alone would break lesser men and women. Revos is doing things to him that would see him imprisoned in most nations. Mitchell has been ripped from his home, yanked from everything and everyone he loves, caged, beaten, starved, and abused. He has been told he is the one that will save a kingdom that he has never seen, rescue a people he has never met, and that he is to learn to command powers he has not even begun to understand."

Lethelin swallowed and it was a struggle not to look away in embarrassment.

"I worry every day that he will crack under the pressure," Allora continued, her voice hot. "That he will fail because I--" She cut off abruptly and swallowed what she had been about to say. She closed her eyes, took a calming breath, and then opened them again, focusing those chips of purple crystal squarely on Lethelin's own. Lethelin wanted to flinch away but Allora's steely gaze held her fast.

"I have sacrificed more than you can comprehend and I will not see it fail now because some piece of Varset trash could not keep her pants on. If you want to bed someone there are men and women aplenty here that will service you. But if I catch you in his bed, I will kill you. I will not risk all of Awenor because, with everything else he must endure, he must also endure a broken heart when you inevitably betray him. He does not see you for what you are. But I do."

The silence in the room was so thick that Lethelin thought she could push it around like piles of sea salt. The anger that had been seething inside her began to drain slowly like water through a leaky bucket. Allora stepped back, the glow of her krisa winking out. She'd dropped whatever spell she had been holding and Lethelin felt a little bit of tension release from her shoulders. The fiercely beautiful woman turned away towards the door to Mitchell's room but for just a moment Lethelin thought she saw something like embarrassment or shame on her usually stoic face.

After several heartbeats, Allora spoke again.

"Mitchell is a good man. An honorable man."

Allora's voice had changed, now sounding almost like she was talking to herself.

"He has accepted an almost impossible task and he has not uttered a word of complaint at what he has been asked to do. He deserves someone that will honor him and respect him. Not use him for their own purposes. And you, Lethelin..." That edge came back into her voice. "You made your intentions clear with the ridiculous price you demanded to aid us to save your own people! Your home! We are fighting as much for you as for everyone else!"

Lethelin had no taunts this time.

Without looking back, the elf began walking towards Mitchell's door. Lethelin watched her, her back as straight and proud as the mast of a royal yacht, and felt a cold knot of shame well up from deep inside her stomach. For a moment she thought she might vomit, the feeling was so intense.

As Allora raised her hand to ring the chime, the thief finally recovered her voice.

"I won't betray him," she said to the knight's back. Even to her own ears, it sounded weak.

Allora's hand paused, but still she didn't turn around.

"When I believe that," she said, her voice quiet. "I will not stand in your way if you wish to take him to your bed."

Allora thumbed the small crystal set into the wall to ring the chime for Mitchell's room.

Chapter 23

Mitchell walked to the door and stared at the two small crystals set into the stone. They were obviously some sort of mechanism to control it but they weren't labeled. Not that he would have been able to understand the language if they had been. Learning to read and write was just another thing on his ever-growing list of things to do.

One crystal was yellow, the other red, and both were about the size of his thumbnail. Picking the red one at random, he touched it and felt a very small tingle where the pad of his middle finger made contact with the gemstone. There was a small click inside the wall and it slid smoothly into a recess.

Mitchell was a little surprised to find Allora on the other side of the door rather than Lethelin. He noticed a somewhat sour look on her face, but then again, she usually had that expression so he shouldn't be surprised. However, there was a tension around her eyes and brow that he didn't often see. Something was bothering her.

"Oh... Umm, hi, Allora. I thought this was Lethelin's room."

"It is. I was just having a conversation with her and I wanted to see how you were doing. May I come in?"

Mitchell peered behind Allora to see Lethelin getting slowly to her feet from a chair and wincing while her hand went to her lower back. She glanced at the door but didn't meet Mitchell's eyes.

"What had gone on in there?" Mitchell wondered.

Looking back to Allora he said, "Yeah, of course."

He stepped back and she walked past him. The smell of her freshly washed skin filled his nose. It wasn't the same as his citrus smell, hers was more floral. Her hair, now clean and properly brushed, was pulled back in a ponytail and it shimmered in the soft light of his room. She was wearing a robe almost identical to his and the thought of her athletic body being naked underneath was enough to almost make him giddy.

The door slid shut behind him as Allora walked to the center of the room.

"It is almost the same as mine. I hope you did not find the controls too confusing. I know from my time on your world that you do not have bathing facilities like this."

Allora gestured to the bathing pool and the controls.

"No, it was fine," Mitchell said. "The lever and buttons are easy enough to figure out."

Allora gave him one of her rare smiles.

"I would... uh, offer you something to drink but I don't have anything here."

Allora raised an eyebrow almost playfully.

"Do not be so sure."

She went over to the bed, leaned down slightly, and Mitchell saw her thumb another crystal set into the wall that he hadn't noticed before. A small panel popped open and swung to the side. Mitchell walked up behind Allora and stared curiously as she withdrew two small clay jugs that sloshed when she handed them to him. He was surprised to find they were cold.

"Is that a mini-fridge?" Mitchell asked incredulously.

She stood and faced him holding a bowl of fruit and kicked the panel closed with her foot.

"A..." she paused trying to recreate the non-native word he used. "Mmiinee puledgee?"

"A device for keeping things cold. A refrigerator."

She crinkled her nose at the strange word but nodded.

"We call it a chill box. They are expensive to maintain so are not used much but Lethelin chose the rooms well."

Allora gestured to the table and chairs in the center of the room.

"Come, let us talk."

They made themselves comfortable and Allora explained that the jugs contained spring water, which Mitchell drank greedily. She told him that wine and other foods could be ordered if he wished, but they should not go overboard because of their limited funds.

"What's the fruit?" he asked. It looked to him a little bit like a mango. The size was a bit smaller and the skin all yellow instead of yellow-green like mangoes from Earth.

"Do you remember your first day in the cage when you spoke with Ivaran?"

"Oh, yeah." Mitchell winced at the memory. "I don't think I will ever forget that."

"Do you remember what he said about dragging you behind the wagon until the sand peeled the skin from you like a lana fruit?"

"Yeah."

Instead of answering, Allora picked up one of the palm-sized fruits and, taking it in one hand, grabbed the stem and peeled it back. The skin came away smoothly in a wedge-shaped section and revealed a bright-red fleshy inside. The similarity to muscle tissue was undeniable and Mitchell suddenly got the reference.

"While they may look unappetizing, I promise they are delicious. Try one."

Mitchell watched as she peeled a little more of the skin away before taking a bite out of the fruit. Pinkish-red juice shot out from around her lips and started to dribble down her chin, causing her utter a small squeal as she reached for one of the napkins that were arranged neatly in the center of the table.

Mitchell laughed and resisted the urge to lean forward and lick it off her tanned skin as he reached for another fruit. Following her example, he pinched the stem and gave it a tug and it broke away easily enough. He brought the exposed flesh to his nose and sniffed. The scent reminded him a little of fresh grapes and there was a definite sweetness to it. Almost like you could tell how good a strawberry was going to be just by the smell.

Allora swallowed her second bite while dabbing at the juice before it ran from her chin to her neck and watched him curiously as he brought the strange fruit to his lips and he took a bite. The juice exploded and coated his tongue. It was cold and sweet and unlike anything he had tasted before. It was as juicy as the ripest summer watermelon but the flesh was firm like an orange. Each time he chewed another burst of liquid exploded and he had to start swallowing lest his mouth begin to overflow.

"Stollar's perky nipples!" Mitchell exclaimed, as he swallowed that first mouthful and tried out the native expression. "That is really good!"

Allora's eyes went wide and she burst out laughing. She kept laughing so long that Mitchell started laughing too even though he didn't get the joke. Her pure delight was infectious.

"What?!?" he demanded throwing his wet napkin at her as her laughter began to subside and become deep heaving breaths between the occasional chuckle.

Her head was thrown back over the chair and one hand was pressed against her stomach. When she looked back at him, she had tears of laughter streaking her face.

"You have never--," her sentence cut off as she had another small giggling fit. "You have never cursed before in our language. And with your pronunciation, it is like--"

Allora clamped her mouth shut as she tried to stifle another round of laughing.

"It is like..." She heaved in a breath trying to regain her composure. "It is like a toddler."

"Way to make a guy feel good, you brat!" Mitchell said, trying to sound reproachful but his smile gave him away. It was so good to see her in a happy mood he didn't have the heart to be upset.

"No no no, please do not misunderstand, Mitchell," Allora said, her breath finally coming under control. "The speed that you have learned Common is truly remarkable. Almost unnatural. But your pronunciation is still odd. You know the words but your mouth is not fully accustomed to forming the sounds. So sometimes when you speak you sound like a small child just learning. And when you said that it was just a little too much."

"It's alright," he told her. "I was teasing. I'm just happy to see you smile."

Mitchell watched her for a reaction to the subtle compliment and he was pleased to see something approaching a slight blush before she focused back on her half-eaten lana fruit. They ate the next few bites in silence before she spoke again.

"I was not always so, you know. So... serious. But since Milandris came there has been no time for..." she trailed off then looked up at him. "For laughing, I suppose. But when I was younger, I was quite the little hellion."

Some memory surfaced and she got a distant look on her face.

"My mother was constantly after me for skipping my lessons to go off sword fighting with the older initiates. I was always sneaking out of my room at night to explore the palace grounds or make my way into places I was not supposed to go."

Mitchell remained silent, not wanting to break the spell.

"In my eleventh high sun, I even managed to sneak into a council meeting with the last monarch, Baylor, the Elder Lady of Iletish, the Islivarian High Priest, and all of Baylor's barons and baronesses. It was a trade talk, but it was supposed to be private."

Mitchell had no idea the significance of that but she seemed to think it important so he made the appropriate sounds of being impressed.

"They caught me, of course, and my father was livid. The Elder Lady of Iletish came to my rescue, however."

She smiled suddenly and glanced at him.

"That is where I got this," she said and held up her wrist upon which dangled a delicate silver-gold bracelet.

It was made of several small woven strands of metal and those in turn were woven into larger strands, the end result being a simple braid made of smaller braids, which were made of still smaller ones.

"It's beautiful," Mitchell said, honestly.

"It is electrum," Allora said as if he should know the importance. "She took it from her own wrist and placed it on mine. She told my father that anyone who could sneak past the guards should be rewarded, not punished. That he should punish the security instead."

"Did he punish you?"

Allora chuckled slightly. "A week washing pots in the barracks kitchens. But it was worth it. The guards were given six months of northern border duty. I did feel bad about that. A little."

She had a sly smile on her face with just a hint of guilt.

"A few years later," Allora continued, "When the Elder Lady returned on a diplomatic mission, I was old enough to be put on a guard rotation. It was not dangerous, just standing guard in the hallway of her suites in the palace, but still an honor. The Elder Lady remembered me and we would often sit and have tea in the evenings. She was kind. Sharp as a black-steel blade, and very wise. I think she had a mind to bond me off to one of her grandsons but she passed a short time after."

A cloud came over her features then.

"After Milandris, those sorts of simple pleasures seemed frivolous. I had to focus all of my energy on surviving and then finding the next monarch. Finding you."

She gave him a sad smile and it took all Mitchell's self-control not to pull her into his arms and tell her everything was going to be okay. Would she have accepted his embrace? Would she have hugged him back?

Allora shifted her attention then to the shaving implements he had set down on the table and just like that, the moment passed.

"Are you going to shave your beard?"

"Ah, yes," Mitchell confessed, a little startled by the sudden shift in topics. "I'm not sure if I know how. Most people don't use that style of blade where I'm from."