Warlord by Robert J. Crane

Author:Robert J. Crane [Crane, Robert J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ficion, Fantasy
Publisher: Revelen Press
Published: 2015-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

43.

Who are you?

Eyes of red haunted Cyrus, pursued him, snapping him awake in sweat-sodden sheets, wrapped around him like they were entrapping him, smothering, holding him down and strangling him to death. He gasped for breath as though they had choked him, and when the first torch sprang to life in front of him it was a shock to his eyes as much as the vision of the pale elf lying next to him, her hand delicately touching his shoulder. “Cyrus,” Vara murmured, more than a little sleep in her own voice. The silken slip she wore to bed hung off her shoulder, and her hair was loose around her face.

Cyrus breathed in the sweet torch smell as the hearth on the far end of the room sprang to life, the fire bursting into it and lighting the room. The balcony doors were all shuttered, making the Tower of the Guildmaster feel smaller than it did when they were open to the plains below, moonlight shining on the green grass. Cyrus’s breathing was still ragged and rasping. He rolled to let his feet touch the cold stone floor, sheets sloughing off his naked body.

“Are you all right?” Vara asked, rolling over to place a hand on his back. He didn’t quail away from her touch, but the vision in the nightmare had been so vivid, so irrationally frightening … and now he couldn’t even recall what it was.

“I’m …” Cyrus took another deep, calming breath, letting it all flow in. “… I have no idea.”

“If you’re all right?” Vara moved to sit next to him, her creamy thighs sliding off the bed to hang next to his over the edge. Her feet were so small, so delicate, compared to his. She placed a light arm around his shoulder and brushed his other with her hand, leaning her soft cheek against him. “I think, physically, it is fairly obvious you are all right.”

The panic of the nightmare had receded enough to allow Cyrus to see the humor in what she spied. “Huh. I, uh … guess so, in that regard.”

“However, don’t count on me being quite awake enough to go in for that, seeing as we already rutted once tonight,” she said, pressing her warm skin close against him. “Did you have the nightmare again?”

“I did,” Cyrus said, nodding sharply. “I think.”

“Which one? Leaugarden or …”

“The other,” Cyrus said, shaking his head, turning it enough to see her gazing at him through sleepy blue eyes. “The—I don’t even remember what happened other than awaking to a—just a feeling of …”

“Of what?” she asked, running soothing fingers across his shoulders and back. It tickled just a bit, but in a wholly good way.

“Like I don’t even know who I am,” Cyrus said, rubbing at his eyes.

“Oh,” she said. “Well. That seems to be coming up quite a bit lately. Not quite as often as—”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She held herself tight against him. “I know who you are, even if you don’t.”

His shoulders straightened at her words, and he looked her in the eyes.

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