Songweaver's Awakening

Chapter 36 - Rajheem

“You must take her head, Rajheem.”  Antuk hovered over him, face as round and pale as the moon by daylight.  She waved a dagger in front of his eyes.  “You can do it now.  She won’t wake up.”

Rajheem tried to groan.  It came out a wheeze.  For a moment he thought himself back in the outskirts, and then back in his room at Helen’s palace, before remembering exactly where he was.  The ground was hard beneath his back, and he could feel bits of sand beneath his fingertips.  The flats.  He tried to groan again, this time with greater success.

“Hurry,” Antuk hissed.  “You’ve waited long enough.”  Small hands, surprisingly strong, gripped his shoulders and tugged him until he was sitting upright.  “Are you heat-addled?  I’ve been pouring water down your throat for most of the day, so you can’t be water-starved anymore.”  She drew back.  “Oh, I waited too long, didn’t I?  Maybe if I’d been searching for you, I’d have found you sooner.  Your mind’s gone soft.”

Rajheem noticed that he had her gray mantle over his shoulders.  He pulled at its surface and it fell into a pile on his lap.  “Antuk.”  It felt strange to speak.  His tongue was still swollen.  He felt a little slow and weak, but very much alive.  “My mind is not soft.”  He raised a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes.  He could feel the great-grandfather of all headaches coming on.  “No, not soft.”  Rajheem cracked open one eye.  “What are you talking about?”

Her mouth set in a thin line, Antuk pointed at a heap of green on the ground ten paces away from Rajheem.

It all came rushing back—Lladwen trying to kill him, the escape from the city with Vaeluras, and the feel of her lips soft on his.  He shook his head at the last thought and instantly regretted it.  He felt as if his brain were sloshing about in his skull.  “She tricked me, Antuk.  She agreed to a truce in order to get out of the city, but as soon as I didn’t do what she wanted, she touched me again.”  More than touched.

Antuk only looked at him.  “You expected her to keep her word?  Rajheem, Fair Folk don’t feel anything at all—not love, not hate, not sorrow, not joy.  Can you really expect a conscience out of such a creature?”

Rajheem’s gaze found the crumpled form of the Queen.  “She saved my life when she didn’t have to.  There are hundreds of thousands of young men out there.  She could have had her pick.  But she came for me.  If she hadn’t, Lladwen would have killed me.  He came after me as soon as the rain started.”

The moonchild took his hand, placed the hilt of her dagger into his palm, and curled his fingers around it.  The blue leather of the handle was soft beneath his fingers.  “If she touched you again, you’re close to the edge.  Take her head, Rajheem.  End it.”

It was difficult to get to his feet, and he took his time doing so, trying to get his thoughts sorted out.  He didn’t feel close to the edge.  He concentrated on the sensations of his body.  Through the pain in his head he could still feel the tenuous connection he held to Vaeluras, like a line pulled taut in his brain.  The memories of the escape after she'd kissed him were hazy, but he did recall the moment when he could have let her die.  “I don’t think I’m going mad yet, Antuk.”  He gestured with the dagger.  “I can still feel the connection I have with her, but it doesn’t feel…desperate.”

“Perhaps she’s close to death then.”  Antuk clasped her hands together.  “She won’t feel a thing, Rajheem.  She can’t.”

Rajheem approached the heap of green, his steps still unsteady and weak.  The cloth of Vaeluras’ cloak rippled as he approached, stretching a finger’s width or two toward him, seeking.  He remembered what touching the cloak had done to Lladwen—left him pale as a spirit, convulsing.  Drawing in a deep breath, he knelt by the Queen’s body and used the blade of the dagger to push the hood of the cloak over Vaeluras’ shoulders.  The cloak crawled a little ways up the blade, but made no other resistance.  Her black hair was unbound, and it fell across the sandy ground.  Even close to death she looked beautiful.  She is the last of her kind, Rajheem thought.