Masks

Raithea was standing near the window which faced the prison, his short hair, tangled by the windy weather, caressed his face. He liked wind, an element filled with both rage and soulful intimacy – it could tear the skin from the flesh… or embrace one like a lover. Elves had celebrations for each of the elements – fire, wind, earth and air. Each of them were bringing both good and bad to this world, and balance was cherished by elvin kind.

His heart felt like it was covered with scales, digging deep into the muscle, but it was his back that held the mark. Painful and wrong, never allowed him to forget how much he pays for using dark magic, and the punishment on humankind had to be thrice as torturous. Scales rubbed his sensitive young skin – the humans will experience iron and flame.

Zakrivea stood behind him, because he wished for her company, and she never said no to him, even knowing many of his darkest sins. He was almost seeing the fear in her gaze, but that was better than pity. He never told her about marks, the toll to pay for freeing his kind. Just as he never told Keeral about countless murders he committed to get to the point he was in.

Neither of them would understand. Neither of them would agree to…

… love him?

Anymore? Still? Or was it a single mirage of a tormented soul he never could let go, feeling its safety in the clenched fingers of his closed fist.

This was engulfing, this feeling, this bathing in suffering. He made an armor from it but inside, he was bleeding from too many festering wounds that he gathered over the ages. It was his personal pit filled with fire, and a personal redemption. He will pay for his own loss with pain.

“He screams a lot,” said Zakrivea. For a moment she wanted to put her hand on his shoulder but his stern expression when he faced her, made her retreat. “Such death…”

“The only way to make him pay for the crimes” hissed Raithea harsher than he firstly wanted. He closed his eyes, trying to calm the fire that was pulling all his nerves into a jagged crank.

Zakrivea was still looking into him, and he felt she saw all the deeds he committed, even if she couldn’t.

“Raithea…”

“No” he turned back to her. His gaze landed on the gates leading to the prison. The screams of Lord Kesser indeed were reaching even here, but he couldn’t treat them with anything more than utter cold. He wanted him to pay. Not to die. To suffer. But he didn’t take the pleasure from his demise, like humans would do. It was something that had to be done and he was glad that he was able to bring this on him.

Lord Kesser tried many times to tell who visited him with the poisoned stew, but the spell he put on the meal, and for which he was growing-in scales now, allowed him to only babble incoherently. The guards didn’t recognize the herbs, and the king, as Raithea imagined, was more happy to lose the subject who was causing troubles, not eager to make any investigation. Since no one knew about the herb, there was no reason to persecute slaves. This was a weak point of his plans he worried about. But it went as smoothly as sliding a hand over a cat’s back.

“Please, Raithea” her voice caught the strength which he loved in her, but oh gods, how he hated it surged just now.

“I wanted you to face the punishment, not question my plans, Zakrivea.”

“So I was to fear you? Is that what you want?” she said that with disappointment, which he dismissed.

“Not to fear me. I thought it’s not possible to make you fear anything.”

“But you still try. Wanting me to face the horrors of your revenge. But no. I won’t fear you, Raithea.” her eyes were glittering, almost like green stars.

“There is the only one all should fear in this castle” his expression darkened to the point of changing his face into much more adult, much more revealing.

“That means you” she frowned, when a painful groan came from the prison. “I am not cold, Raithea. What you do… you have plans… I know you have many of them, and this had to be part of them… but… it’s not you. I know you better. Don’t let them change you.”

Ah! She knows him better! Oh sweet autumn child! A honey-filled words and so assured, so full of certainty!

He didn’t allow her to see his face. It became a mask, as always. The mask, always different, for the king, courtmen, guards… and for Keeral. And for her. Yet she seemed to see past it and that was even more painful, because under it, he held a hundred other ones.

“Tell me, Zakrivea…” he mused, still looking into the window, wind dancing in his hair. “What do you see when you look at me?”

That caught her off-guard. She knew how to reply, oh, he was sure, but this was a dangerous question. One many couldn’t answer well, not in his ears.

“I see a man that lived too long. And suffered too long” her delicate voice reached him. When she said that, it felt like a balm which softly oozed on his soul. But no, she couldn’t know. Not now. And not in the future. That part of him was buried deeper, so deep, that it didn’t even touch the surface of the deepest mask.

He chuckled. A dark, sad chuckle. She tensed behind him. Like expecting the same he did to Lord Kesser. Or maybe… just knowing he lies. Not only to her, but also to himself.

A loud shriek sounded and he smiled.

The agony prolonged, and it was enough to make him not weep and not regret.

The storm was coming, ready to quench the earth’s thirst for liquid rage.