Haldis
Three weeks into this war and I've had seventy-two men go insane, thirteen deaths, and the numbers just kept growing. I felt every single one of these deaths personally because they were on my hands. I had to deliver the news to their wives and children when we got back to Ouizwell.
These men were under my command and trusted me to do them justice but lately, it just feels like a massacre. The beasts were relentless in their efforts to bypass us into The Outerwall and to the borders of Ouizwell.
Something was chasing them out of their home and a sinking feeling in my gut told me that it couldn't be good.
There was a meeting being held at Duke Bane's mansion in a week and it couldn't come quick enough, I needed support to enlist more people and I needed someone to help me become one step ahead of them instead of one step behind.
The queen should be there as well as all of the nobles, surely someone there was willing to supply more men and women, we had plenty of warriors. One healer was running herself ragged taking care of all of the injured men, they were growing tired of eating broth every day. We needed people behind the scenes taking care of the warriors on the front lines.
Healers, cooks, gatherers, and so on. It would come in handy to have a Teller on the battlefields too, for a moment I'm taken back to the small human that I shared a room with nearly a month ago.
She was ... different. There was just something about her that didn't fit into any one category. She had no place on a battlefield, I needed a Fae Teller, one that didn't have such fragile skin, and knew a little more about their powers.
Her burns had been awful, and I hated the way she tried to hide her pain by wincing when she wanted to yelp as she turned in her sleep.
Her drawings have stuck with me over the past few weeks, why she had been gifted visions of my childhood shook me. No one knows how I received the scar on my face, but her.
Oberon and Bolt have asked, and I never told them, so they just make up stories about it all of the time.
With any luck, she was heeding my advice and keeping her powers under wraps, or she would end up working for one of the royals, doing their dirty bidding. A memory from long ago resurfaces. A time I had taken the life of an innocent because I was forced to.
I quickly shoved down the painful memory and rolled onto my side trying to ignore the pained sounds of a wounded man.
Sleep never came that night.
~.~.~.~.~
"I need people." This was the first sentence out of my mouth as soon as everyone was seated around the long rectangular table.
The Queen was there in her normal red attire, a scowl gracing her face, as usual, we looked nothing alike even though she was my half-aunt. The similarity stopped at the dark hair. My father and she shared a mother but had two different fathers, both of different species.
Her ruby-colored eyes and a feeble servant behind her told me she had fed recently, and I fought back a snarl. The vampire race was distasteful at the least, my first cousin Jade was much more pleasing. She drank from donations; I could tell by the much darker color of her eyes. Donations from willing humans, unlike the servant that was too scared to tell my aunt no.
Jade sat beside her mother, sporting a cup of blood as we discussed politics, she was more than likely just here to learn in case her mother died, I heard she had a recent encounter with death. A swine beast bite proved just as deadly to her kind as it was to mine.
A few young nobles I didn't recognize sat to the left of her, followed by Duke Bane our host. he was throwing a ball down below and I could hear the lyrics from a female singer through the floorboards.
"Not warriors, just people to heal, cook, and a Teller. I need a Teller before I lose any more men. The numbers are growing every day." Duke Bane caressed his stubbled jaw in thought. His daughter, the one that my men escorted home a month ago looked just like him, minus as much shine to her skin.
She was said to be half Fae- half Mortal as I was.
"I have the coin to pay people to go. I don't have many servants in my possession." Servants...
I wanted to spit on the title, it was underpaid mortals they deemed not worth the same wage as their kind was. I didn't want mortals risking their life for me out of fear. "I have healers, and cooks, as for a Teller. They are a little more difficult to come by." My aunt spoke as her long fingernails beat against the table, creating this annoying sound.
"Thank you. Both." The discussion went on for a couple of minutes longer before everyone figured out their role in this war and offered what they could. On our way out of the meeting room, I was overtaken by how many people were crammed into this space, all of them dressed in their best dancing to a singer's slow song.
"You all should stay for a moment longer, enjoy the ball." I would do anything but that, I despised this. All of it, people dancing and laughing like my men weren't being tormented in their sleep to the point of insanity. "I'll even drag my daughter from the garden where I'm sure she is hiding." he gave a quirky little smirk before walking his way down the long steps.
"It's good to see you nephew." Her voice grated on my nerves.
"You as well Aunt." She smiled sweetly before pushing an unaware Jade in front of her.
"Hey, Kaldis." I nodded to her.
"You've grown up kid." The last time I saw her she was merely a few feet tall running after her mother with the biggest of smiles on her face.
"She's a healer." Part of me wanted to protest, but I knew I couldn't be picky, men were dying and if she would heal them then I would do my best to keep her out of harm's way while she saved my men.
"Okay, how soon are you to come?" I asked Jade directly, we needed her and more like her to come as soon as available before my healer, Callie, gave out on us.
"As soon as you leave, I'm coming with you." I nod to her in thanks just as Bane trails back up the steps with his daughter and ...
She was stunning, her green eyes lit with a new kind of enjoyment I hadn't seen since. She stood hand in hand with Clementine, the two seem as thick as thieves.
Her black curls have been swept up in a classic up-do that had my breath catching in my lungs. When she spotted me, her mouth fell slack, she wanted to say something, but she noticed the Queen beside me and went pale as a white sheet, she bowed on trembling legs, and I went tense.
Why was she so scared of my aunt? Her name was good among the mortals, she had helped free them from being slaves a few centuries ago. She was practically a legend for Ayumu's kind. Yet, fear lit up her eyes.
"Oh, look who it is, Jade." Aunt Juva nudged her daughter and Jade smiled at Ayumu who returned the favor. There was history here, that I was surprisingly desperate to hear.
"The little criminal with the magic blood." Juva practically purred as she glanced at a shivering Ayumu. "She looks far more appealing tonight, now that she's out of them rags."
Rags?
Magic Blood?
"Mother. Be nice. She saved your life after all." Juva ticked her tongue in return and rolled her eyes.
"I'm just messing around, Jade. You look stunning dear." Something like recognition lights up in the blood queen's eyes. "Actually..."
My aunt glances at me with a wicked smile before glancing at the Mortal again. "Haldis meet Ayumu. Here is your teller. I'll have her probation moved to your hands. Use her as you see fit."
She began walking down the steps, but I quickly trailed behind her in a frenzy. "Aunt Juva. You can't expect the girl to be on a battlefield, with how fragile Mortals are."
"I thought you would be the thankful nephew. You said you needed a Teller. I gave you one. You should be a little more grateful." His eyes scolded me, and I sighed before accepting defeat, she would have her way regardless no need in enraging the bored queen.
"Thank you."
"I'll let the War Lord know she's under your custody now."
She walks away leaving me more confused and furious than I was at the beginning of the night. Probation?