Fox's Bride by A.E. Marling

Author:A.E. Marling [Marling, A.E.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: AEther Publishing
Published: 2012-09-28T04:00:00+00:00

Hiresha carried the fennec from the waking world into the dream laboratory.

“I may have to share my last hours with you in a sarcophagus,” she said, “yet I refuse to entertain your fleas.”

The fennec appeared on a basalt table. His eyes matched the blackness of the stone. He tilted his nose up to follow her hand as she Attracted all the fleas from his coat. The parasitic specks hovered in the air between her hands, their jumps availing them not.

Fleas could not be easily crushed with Burdening forces. Hiresha had to rip them in two by Attracting them to either hand at the same time.

Her mind strayed to her recent conversation with Chandur, and she saw herself in a mirror, stooped over the oubliette grate. She heard herself call him a “fine specimen,” and she grimaced, wishing she had found better words. At least I refrained from crying.

“Hooray! We brought the fox.” In another mirror, Hiresha's reflection clapped her yellow-gloved hands together. “You can't blame him, the innocent creature.”

“Innocent? He has shed seven fleas on me.”

A shoal of green garnets floated above the fennec. He settled himself down on his haunches, his fur tinted to a shade of bronze by the glowing jewels. The fennec leaped into the cluster of gems, snatching one in his mouth.

Hiresha Attracted the jewel out from between his teeth. Not wishing the fennec to cause further mischief, the enchantress Lightened him to the weight of a single hair. He began drifting through the room like the jewels, his furry paws running but carrying him nowhere. The reflection in the yellow gown giggled.

Ignoring her, Hiresha listened to the memory of Chandur in the other mirror. He had been kind-hearted to say he would escape by his own means. After examining Bleak Wells Prison, she found that unlikely. Neither did she have any belief in her own ability to free herself from the city guards, who had taken to standing watch over her sleeping form at night. She would have to beseech the Lord of the Feast for help. She saw no other choice.

“If you can make a sword like that,” Chandur had said, “you can make your own way.”

The jasper sword revolved in an adjacent mirror. A pity he was wrong, she thought. Even if she had the enchanted weapon, she lacked a spellsword's training to activate its magic when awake. True, she had power, but only when dreaming.

“I can't sleep my way past every guard.”

A spellsword and enchantress together made an effective pairing, each a complement to the other's skills. Hiresha had always planned for Spellsword Chandur to remove physical difficulties. His imprisonment crippled her like an amputation of her arms, and, if she would admit it, pained her almost as much.

She destroyed the last flea. Her hand rotated, and the dead dots vanished from her dream.

Laughter pealed and tinkled from a mirror. “He's swimming.”

Hiresha followed her reflection's tearing gaze to the fennec. The furry ears bobbed up and down as the fox wriggled through the air using his golden tail as a paddle.

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