The
Elven Chronicles
Episode
Three
The
Fugitive Bride
Chapter
16
Salvation
Queen Alvoria struggled
in the arms of the two soldiers who held
her. Imprisoned for several weeks
after the cowardly betrayal by the Duke of Magdoran, she and King Edgan had
been isolated in the tower room, being visited only by the guards and the
servants who brought their food.
“Release me, you churls,” she gasped as one of them twisted
her arms behind her back.
“You are no longer
in command here, your majesty,” the man who held her
sneered. “Your ruling days
are over. As a matter of fact
all of your days will soon be over.”
“Shame though, isn’t
Norb?” said the other guard eyeing the queen
lewdly. “Looks like her
majesty would make a right nice fuck.”
Alvoria’s blood ran
cold. Married at fourteen, she
had been and was still regarded as one of the great beauties of the
“Take your hands off
me,” she demanded. She looked
toward the open door of the balcony where her husband the king had been taken
just moments before. Although
in his fifties King Edgan was still vigorous and fit, but he had been dragged
to the balcony by four of the Duke’s
men. Their crude jests about
the king needing wings if he was to survive what was going to happen next
left little doubts about their
intentions.
Norb shifted his weight,
pushing her toward the bed.
“Teld, get the others to hold off on the king for
awhile. I’m going to give
her majesty a little going away present.”
“No.” Alvoria
protested. “Let me
go. You’ll lose your head
for this.”
Norb
chuckled. “Stop fighting,
your highness. In an hour or
so you’ll be dead. You might
as well enjoy your last moments.”
“Enjoy?” the queen
gasped. “You’re going
to rape me.”
“It’s not rape
if you cooperate,” Norb grinned as he twisted her arm up behind her
and forced her toward the bed.
“Now quit fighting me and enjoy it.”
Alvoria tried to break
Norb’s grip, but he was too strong.
He pushed her face first onto the bed and holding her there tried
to lift up her gown.
Alvoria kicked desperately
and by pure luck her heel found Norb’s
groin.
“Ah! You bitch,”
he cried as he doubled up in pain.
You’ll pay for that.”
“What’s the matter,
Norb?” Teld jeered. “The
queen too much for you? Let me
show how to deal with the whore.”
Alvoria rolled over, ready
to defend herself, although what a single unarmed woman could do against
two men she didn’t know.
In her youth she had trained in the use of arms, but it had been more
than ten years since she had held a weapon, and she didn’t have one
in any case, However, she could
improvise.
Next to the bed was a heavy
pottery pitcher containing water for both drinking and
washing. Without bothering to
empty it, Alvoria grabbed it and as Teld came toward her slammed it into
his head. The pitcher shattered
dowsing both Teld and Alvoria and scattering pottery fragments around the
room. Only the fact that he was
still wearing his helmet saved him from a broken
skull.
Alvoria moved to grab
Teld’s sword, but Norb, recovering from the kick to his manhood was
a little faster.
“Bitch,” he growled, at the same time sweeping his arm forward
and catching her across the side of the
head. The force of the blow left
her ears ringing and knocked her onto the
bed. Norb hurled himself on top
of her pinning her with his weight.
“Now you’re going
to pay you royal bitch.” He
pulled out his knife, filling Alvoria with
terror. Desperately she grabbed
for the blade, but he slapped her hard.
At that moment one of the men who had been guarding the king entered
the room.
“Giving you a bit of
trouble, Norb?” the third guard asked.
“She fights like a
gutter whore. Hold her wrists
while I deal with her.”
Moving to the other side
of the bed, the guard grabbed Alvoria’s wrists and pulled her arms over
her head. Completely helpless
she could only struggle ineffectually as Norb used his knife to cut through
the laces of her bodice. He ripped
over the front of her dress exposing her full
breasts. “About as nice
a pair of tits as I’ve ever seen, eh Web?”
“A real handful,”
Web agreed.
Alvoria twisted her body
as Norb roughly massaged her breasts. She whimpered as his fingers bit deep
into her soft flesh. “You
like that your majesty? Well,
how about this?” He took
each nipple between thumb and forefinger and twisted until she cried
out.
“Oh you’ll be
making a lot more noise than that, your highness,” Norb
jeered. “A lot more
noise.” He released her
nipples and with several sharp tugs ripped open her dress to her
navel.
“Very nice stuff,”
Web noted from his vantage point behind
her. “Take off the rest
of it.”
Alvoria trembled as Norb
stripped off her gown. She had
always been proud of her youth and
beauty. Even at thirty-five years
of age her breasts were firm and her body lush and
strong. It was this beauty that
her dead daughter Honoria had inherited and which had made her so desired
by the Duke of Magdoran.
Even as Norb removed the
last of her garments her thoughts flashed back to the last time she had seen
her daughter alive. The time
when she had ridden from the castle as the wife of the most brutal of
Salia’s warlords. It had
been a political marriage pure and
simple. The Duke’s five
hundred highly trained men-at-arms were essential to the defence of the kingdom
and even more importantly, he would not likely turn them against his
father-in-law. At least that
was the theory.
The marital alliance had
been destroyed when the Duke had returned to the castle with his
bodyguard. He had a bloody knife
wound in his chest and claimed that his new bride had tried to murder him
before fleeing into the wilderness.
Horrified and disbelieving,
a search party had been dispatched to find Honoria, but had returned only
with fragments of her gown and the supposition that she had been torn to
pieces by wild beasts.
In the meantime the Duke
had used his time as a convalescent guest to infiltrate members of his guard
into the castle. Overpowering
the castle guard at night his men had opened the gates allowing his men-at-arms
to swarm into the castle a take her and the king prisoner before they even
knew of the Duke’s treachery.
With Salia’s rulers
as hostages, the Duke’s forces easily subjugated most of the country,
taking advantage of the weak and disorganized resistance from those loyal
to the king. Now only a few areas
offered and opposition to the Duke and these would soon be
gone.
It was no doubt the reason
that their time had come. They
were going to be murdered to eliminate them as symbols of resistance and
remove the last barrier to the Duke becoming
king. But first the queen was
going to be brutally raped.
Alvoria’s mind snapped
back to the present as still a third man entered the
room. “Keeping her royal
highness to yourselves? I’m
senior here. If anyone takes
a run at her cunt it will be me first.”
Norb
swore. “Just like you to
show up now Albin. Just when
we’ve got her all ready.”
“A privilege of
rank. And that’s Sergeant
Albin to you Norb. Or I’ll
have you digging latrines next time we’re on the
march.”
“Right
Sergeant. You go
first. I’ll take
seconds.”
No one disputed Norb’s
claim. But to Alvoria the casual
way in which the men discussed gang-raping her had her close to
fainting. “You can’t
do this. She
protested. “Someone will
learn of your wickedness. Even
the Duke would not want his name sullied by so foul a
deed.”
All of the men burst out
laughing. “Guess no one
has told her majesty of what happened to Princess Honoria on her wedding
night,” Ablin said. “I
thought everyone knew that the Duke fucked the ass off her, in between giving
her royal hide the beating of her life.”
Alvoria was sickened by
the remark. It was the first
she had heard of Honoria’s treatment at the hands of the Duke and she
was struck with a deep sense of horror and
shame.
“What did I send my daughter
into?” she wondered.
“This
is my punishment for selling Honoria as if she were no more than
chattel.”
She watched in growing fear
as Albin stripped off his chain mail.
She could do nothing but wait, her arms pinned over her head by Web
and her ankles held by Norb. She
felt almost like a sacrificial victim on an altar, but her fate was far from
anything so noble. She was about
to be subjected to the basest desires of her captors; treated like a common
whore for their sexual gratification.
He body trembling in fear, and bathed in a cold sweat, she watched
as Albin removed the last of his armour, stripped off his clothing, and moved
toward her.
“If you’re going
to fuck a queen do it proper.
That’s what I always say.” Albin grinned.
He looked Alvoria directly in
the eye. Been a long time since
you’ve had any young cock in you ain’t it, your
majesty? This is going to be
a real treat for you.”
Alvoria tried hard to control
her trembling. She was breathing
hard, unconsciously straining against the hands that held
her. She would try to act like
a queen. Even though enduring
the terrible ordeal ahead of her was going to be the hardest thing she had
ever done.
Albin noticed her
fear. “Take Norb’s
advice,” he sniggered.
“Lie back and enjoy it.
You might as well die
happy.” He moved between
her legs.
Alvoria attempted to kick
out as Albin parted her thighs.
Heaving her body, she made one last desperate attempt to fight off
the man about to despoil her. Her
efforts did nothing more than excite her
assailant. She strained against
him, trying to lock her thighs against his waist and prevent him from entering
her, but his body weight forced her legs
apart. Leaning into her he laughed
at her frantic helplessness, and thrust into
her.
She gasped in pain, her
body tightening as he took her. He
thrust hard and deep taking her in a way she had never before experienced,
attempting to inflict as much pain as
possible. Her lovemaking with
King Edgan had been slow and gentle, and in spite of the fact that it was
an arranged marriage, eventually
passionate.
This was brutally
personified. Albin took cruel
delight in hurting her, making every thrust as hard and savage as
possible. Alvoria closed her
eyes, and tried to deny him the pleasure of seeing how much he was hurting
her, but he was having none of that.
Pausing, he slapped her face, forcing her eyes open, and then squeezed
her breasts until she cried out.
“Enjoying this, your majesty?
Do you like having a real cock inside
you instead of that shrivelled
sausage of your husband’s?”
Raising his body once again he slammed into her.
Alvoria wept, tears streaming
down her cheeks as the rest of the men around her closed
in. Web pulled hard on her arms,
stretching her out, while Albin relentlessly ploughed her
furrow. Norb grabbed her ankles
and helped Albin sink his shaft deep within
her. She cried out in pain, and
then screamed as the horror of the ordeal overwhelmed
her.
Honoria circled high above
the castle. She easily located
the high tower where her parents were imprisoned, it was the same one where
the Duke had raped her on her wedding
night. She tried to force those
memories into the back of her mind and concentrate on what she had to
do. She knew from her experience
in the tower room that there was no way out except down, and that was a
precipitous drop to the outside of the castle
wall. During her stay in the
tower the Duke had ordered the door to the balcony locked in order to prevent
a possible suicide. However,
Honoria did not doubt that such was no longer the
case. If the “accident”
that was to kill her parents was to take place there had to be access to
the high balcony.
Even as these thoughts crossed
her mind her now eagle-keen sight saw that the door was already
open. A single guard stood on
the balcony next to what appeared to be a bundle of
clothing. There was something
strange about that, but she was still too high to determine
what. And then she saw the bundle
move and realized that it was a man bound hand and
foot. “Father,” she
murmured. But where was her
mother?
Her fingers twitched in
rage, as she considering sending a bolt of lightning into the guard, but
instantly realized that such an action might also kill her
father. She would have to deal
with this in some other way.
Folding her wings she dropped.
Rage became her dominant
emotion, but she retained her focus.
She would make sure her father was safe first, although she was not
quite certain how she was going to do
that. She plummeted toward the
balcony, the wind whistling through her
feathers. Just before she reached
the balcony the guard looked up and staring in shock stepped hurriedly
back.
That was his
mistake. If he had stayed close
to her father Honoria would not have dared do what she did
next. Altering her flight path
slightly she swerved her body and came down with her feet slamming into the
chest of the guard. The impact
of her one hundred and thirty pounds in freefall slammed him to the
floor.
The effect on Honoria was
not much better. The breath was
almost knocked out of her and for a few heartbeats she was
helpless. Fortunately the
Duke’s man was in no condition to do
anything. Regaining her feet,
and using her wings, she lifted herself clear of the balcony, just as a terrible
scream came from the tower room.
The sound sent a chill through
Honoria. The agony in that voice
was terrifying, and it was horribly
familiar. “Oh Goddess,
mother,”
she gasped.
Honoria hovered
indecisively. She had the power
to incinerate everyone in the castle, but could do nothing without fear of
killing her parents. Her
mother’s cries tore at her; she had to do
something. If only she had some
sort of weapon other than her power of
lightning. Another thought occurred
to her. She might be a seraph,
but did that mean she was safe from crossbow bolts or
arrows? Below her she could see
men running across the courtyard toward the
tower. Several arrows rose in
her direction, but fell back.
Nevertheless, it was still proof that she had been seen and the garrison
was reacting.
She hovered at the edge
of the balcony frustrated to the point of
desperation. The sounds from
inside the room filled her with horror and
revulsion. She knew those sounds,
she had made some of them herself when she had been
raped. Even with her newfound
powers she was helpless. She
could do nothing as her mother was brutally
ravished.
“If only I had a
sword,” she muttered. She
clenched her hands in frustration and gasped in
surprise. In her right hand was
a blade of bluish-white blade fire.
It was a sword of pure energy, conjured by her
imagination. “Goddess,”
she exclaimed. “What else
can I do?”
Sweeping forward she landed
on the balcony, and folded her wings into her
back. She concentrated on maintaining
her sword. To her delight it
held. Stepping over the unconscious
guard she entered the room.
The scene she encountered
filled her with rage. Her mother
was pinned to the bed, a soldier thrusting hard into
her. Several others clustered
about her cheering him on and offering vulgar comments while they fondled
their helpless and crying victim.
So engrossed were they in their own foul pleasure that they were not
even aware of Honoria’s presence.
The term ‘avenging
angle’ was more than appropriate for what happened next, although Honoria
remembered very little of it. Rage
consumed her as she charged into the room slaughtering all before
her. There was no defence against
her. She cut down two of the
Duke’s men before they even realized she was there, and as the third
turned, she cut him from crown to crotch.
Only two men remained; the one who had been raping her mother and
the one who had held her arms. The
latter turned raising his sword, but Honoria’s blade cut through his
as if it were made of soft butter.
That left only the naked brute who had been violating the queen and
Honoria was between him and the door.
He stared at her in horrified
astonishment. But even in his
terror his eyes roved over her exquisitely beautiful nude
body. “You dare to violate
a queen,” Honoria hissed, her voice remarkably
steady. She was almost shaking
with anger, but somehow kept herself from cutting down the shaking coward
in front of her. No punishment
she could think of seemed harsh enough to pay for what he had done, but there
was one that seemed fitting.
Her sword flicked out and
the soldier screamed in pain as his genitalia disappeared.
“You will live,”
Honoria said, “but you will never have another
woman. Now go before I think
of something else to remove.”
Ignoring the whimpering
of the man she had just emasculated Honoria turned to her
mother. In spite of her ordeal
the queen was crouched on the bed staring at her in a mixture of awe and
fear.
“Honoria, can it be
you returned from the dead?” Alvoria
whispered.
“I was never dead,
but have returned to fulfill my destiny,” Honoria
replied. She lay her hands upon
her mother and let her healing energy flow into
her.
Honoria’s mother looked
at her healed body in astonishment.
“By the blessed Goddess,” she
exclaimed. “What have you
become?”
“I will explain later;
there is much to tell,” Honoria replied as she embraced her mother,
and then separated, kissing her mother gently on her
brow. “See to the
king. I will
return. I have one more thing
to do.”
She returned to the balcony
and used her sword to free her father, then once again unfurling her wings
she rose into the air. Below
her she could see the Duke’s
soldiers. This time without fear
of harming the king and queen, she freely unleashed her
power.
The effect was
devastating. The terrible bolts
of lightning jumped from one soldier to the next, leaving dozens of bodies
littering the walls and courtyard.
There was little need to do more.
“Thrown down your arms,” Honoria called, “and you will
be spared. Those who resist will
die.”
She did not have to repeat
her message. Within a matter
of heartbeats the garrison the Duke had left in the castle was rendered
harmless. With the help of the
rightful rulers of Salia the Duke’s men were moved to the castle dungeons
and the loyal soldiers there released.
This last event took a bit more time, but once it was achieved Honoria
once again took flight, winging her way toward her final meeting with the
Duke of Magdoran.
Count Roget Lessard watched
calmly as the forces of the Duke of Magdoran advanced upon
him. They moved in good order,
the heavy infantry armed with pikes in the centre and the cavalry on the
wings. Behind were rows of archers
and crossbowmen ready to loose their missiles once they were in
range. The Count estimated that
there were at least a two thousand infantry and six hundred cavalry arrayed
against his loyal five hundred. The
Duke’s were better trained, better armed, and they had the Count and
his ragtag army backed against a river.
There would be no retreat.
His army had only one
chance. If they could somehow
reach the Duke and cut him down before the enemy overwhelmed them then something
might be achieved by the sacrifice of his tiny
army. But that slim hope was
quite unrealistic. In spite of
his reputation for brutality the Duke was careful to lead from behind rather
than from the front. The standard
signifying his presence was well to the rear of his
troops. Fighting through his
highly trained army of mercenaries and men-at-arms would be almost
impossible.
“Still,
I have to try,”
the Count
thought. Surrender was out of
the question. The Duke had a
nasty habit of nailing his prisoners to trees and leaving them to die in
the most horrible agony. Death
in battle was by far preferable to that.
Just a few more minutes
now. The measured pace of the
Duke’s army, marching to the sonorous beat of drums would soon bring
his archers and crossbowmen within range.
And then the Count would be forced to hurl his tiny force at the
enemy.
It was better not to
wait. He raised his arm to order
the advance, hoping that if he could close with the enemy quickly enough
that their archers would be negated.
Then he and his men would only have to deal with the Duke’s cavalry
and heavy infantry.
“For Salia and King
Edgan” he shouted, and moved his arm forward.
“For Salia and king
Edgan,” echoed five hundred throats and then they surged toward the
enemy.
Lessard urged his horse
into a gallop, determined to be the first to hit the enemy
line. It was a dubious
honour. Almost certainly he and
his horse would be spitted on a pike, but at least he would not have to see
his valiant little band cut to pieces.
He swept down on the enemy,
watching the pikes bend toward him as the first three rows of infantry lowered
their twenty foot spears. A dozen
sharp points prepared to receive him, but he did not
slow. He would trust to the Goddess
and luck.
And then there was an
ear-splitting crack and a flash of light brighter than anything Lessard had
ever seen. His horse swerved
violently to the right and he was thrown through the
air. He landed hard, the weight
of his armour slamming him heavily into the
ground. Winded, but unhurt,
he struggled to his feet, amazed that he could still
stand. Dazed and half blind he
stood helpless. His sword was
somewhere on the battlefield, but he had no way of finding
it. What had
happened? What foul trick had
the enemy perpetrated?
He squinted toward the enemy,
spots flashing in front of his eyes.
Something was terribly wrong.
The sound of the drums had stopped,
replaced by terrified screams mixed with shouts of alarm and
astonishment. Slowly his vision
cleared and he viewed a scene that would be forever burned into his
memory.
His horse stood a few yards
away, having survived the tumble that left him with a badly bruised
knee. In front of him the
Duke’s army was in full flight, those that were still
alive. Directly before him lay
a tangle of bodies that was something right out of any warrior’s worst
nightmare. The Duke’s army
had been shattered by some devastating force beyond his
comprehension. Eyes wide in shock
he looked for the source of the destruction, and got a surprise even greater
than the first.
Hovering over the battlefield,
her enormous white wings moving in effortless sweeps was something out of
legend. “Goddess,”
he murmured, falling to his knees.
High above a voice like
a trumpet called above the cries of terror from the Duke’s broken army
and the shouts of disbelief and adulation from those loyal to the
king. “Lay down your arms
and surrender to the true king of Salia or face complete
destruction.” To emphasize
her point forked lightning flickered from her fingers, surrounding her in
a crackling halo of energy.
Most of the Duke’s
army complied, many of them emulating Lessard and falling to their
knees. But others
ran. One in particular caught
Lessard’s protection. The
Duke of Magdoran, resplendent in his gilded armour and surrounded by his
equally beautifully equipped bodyguard, was galloping pell-mell from the
battlefield. It caught the attention
of the angelic figure as well.
Swooping like a gigantic white eagle the seraph swept after the fleeing
Duke, easily overtaking him.
At the last instant the
Duke seemed to realize his danger, swerving his horse to one side, but the
frantic manoeuvre failed. With
a cry of sheer terror the Duke was plucked from the saddle and lifted high
into the air. He struggled briefly
and then realizing his danger if he fell, hung limply in the grip of his
angelic captor. Lessard watched
in awe as the seraph swung in a low arc and then descending rapidly dropped
the Duke less than a dozen yards from where he
crouched.
The Duke cried out in terror
as he was dropped, slamming hard to the ground and falling flat on his
face. A few yards away the seraph
opened her wings and dropped lightly to the
ground. Lessard gawked in amazement
as she furled her wings and stood before him in all of her nude
glory. He had never beheld so
beautiful and exotic a creature.
Thus it almost startled him out of his wits when she calmly addressed
him by his first name.
“Count Roget, I am
glad to see you well. I feared
for a few heartbeats that I may have arrived too
late.”
Lessard did not know whether
to be more amazed at being spoken to by the seraph or the fact that she appeared
to be a nude vision of the Princess
Honoria. Embarrassed, he lowered
his eyes trying to think of something he could say.
The princess
laughed. “Forgive me, Count,
I had forgotten that in this form I am
unclothed. I will stay until
you have properly secured Duke and his
minions. I request just one thing,
that the Duke be paraded through the land in chains so that all may know
the fate of traitors.” With
that the seraph moved her powerful wings and swept above the
battlefield.
Lessard turned to his stunned
followers. “I believe you
heard the Princess,” he said.
“Disarm and secure the enemy.
I will attend to the Duke.”
Most of the Duke’s
shattered army stood in dazed confusion as the forces commanded by the Count
moved out to disarm them. A few
attempted to flee, but the presence of the seraph dissuaded most of them
from doing anything so rash, especially after the placement of a few judicially
placed lightning bolts.
Lessard took great pleasure
in personally supervising the stripping of the Duke’s armour and chaining
him hand and foot. It was a long
walk to the Salian capital and Lessard would make it longer by making sure
that the traitor duke was paraded through all of the main settlements in
the kingdom. Honoria swung back
toward the castle, gaining altitude with each beat of her
wings. She had a joyful reunion
to look forward to.
Epilogue
Honoria circled slowly over
the edge of the Elven lands. Below
her was the Elven encampment where Keldar was waiting for
her. She had been looking forward
to the reunion for almost a month, but now that she was here she was
uncertain. Her time with Keldar
had been the happiest of her life, but now she hesitated when she considered
the full implications of her life among the Elves.
Her stay in Salia had been
longer than she would have liked.
As much as she wanted to get back to her Elven lover she could not
escape the duties of a daughter and a princess, even in spite of her changed
status as a seraph. First there
had been the tearful reunion with her parents, and their adjustment to the
fact that she was no longer their innocent daughter, but a creature of incredible
power. Then there had been the
annulment of her marriage to the Duke of Madgoran, a procedure Honoria thought
unnecessary considering that he was going to be executed for high
treason.
She was at least spared
the ordeal of the trial of the Duke, satisfying as it might have been to
see him grovel before her.
Apparently the degrading march in chains had completely robbed him
of his courage and he arrived in Huon a broken man, pleading with his captors
to release him and begging to be brought before the king and queen to ask
their forgiveness. Instead he
was thrown into the dungeons to await his
execution.
Finally there was the separation
from her parents, an event they found hard to
understand. But Honoria prevailed,
promising to visit when she could, and she had taken wing from the castle,
stopping briefly to visit with Gren and his family as she had
promised.
Now she looked down on the
place where the person she loved most in the world waited for
her. But still she hesitated,
conscious of the difference between her and the
Elves. Did she love Keldar enough
to saddle him with a companion who would age and die long before he
did? And did she want to be that
companion, knowing that she was growing old and watching her husband stay
eternally young?
For an instant she considered
returning to Salia. At least
there she might find someone whose lifespan would at least match
hers. But even as she thought
that thought she knew that she had to see Keldar one more
time. It was a selfish impulse,
but she could not abandon the only man she had ever found happiness
with. Folding her wings she dropped
toward the Elven camp.
Her arrival did not create
as much of a stir as she thought it
might. Keen-eyed, the Elves had
noted her presence, and the only reaction from most of them was bemusement
that she had not joined them earlier.
With Ralasharia and Erallendria, however it was
different. Ecstatic with joy
the Elven women embraced her, shedding tears of happiness at her
return. And then there was
Keldar. He swept her off her
feet in a fierce embrace and kissed her so passionately that she thought
she would faint from lack of air before he broke the
kiss.
He probably would have taken
her to his tent as well if Ralasharia had not
intervened. “Hold off you
two. We have Honoria’s return
to celebrate. Your conjugal reunion
will be that much sweeter for delaying a
little. After all, you have a
lifetime of lovemaking ahead of you.”
“A
lifetime.” A shadow crossed Honoria’s face
as she once again momentarily considered her bittersweet
future.
The expression, fleeting
as it was, did not escape Erallendria’s sharp
eyes. “What is it,
Honoria? What troubles
you?”
Honoria could not speak,
but her attempt to hide her thoughts fooled no
one. “Tell me my love,”
Keldar said gently, holding her at arms length and looking into her
eyes.
Honoria could not hold back
the truth before under that loving gaze.
Tearfully she blurted out her apprehension, sure that she would be
damned by her own words and Keldar would turn away from
her.
To her surprise Keldar simply
smiled. “Honoria, my
love,” he whispered, pulling her close, and speaking with his lips in
her hair, “did you not know that seraphim have a lifespan to match that
of the Elves? We will grow old
together as Elves grow old. Now
let us join the others and celebrate your
return. But be careful not to
drink too much wine; I plan to be very busy with you
tonight.”
Her heart nearly exploding
with happiness, Honoria took the hand of her Elven lover and walked with
him into her new life.
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