Griidlords: The Bloodsword Saga (Book1&2 Complete, Book 3 Posting 4x Per Week)

An awkward silence stretched between us. The clearing was quiet, too quiet. The ground was scarred by combat, stained with blood and churned earth. The blazing paleness of broken trees screamed from the edge of the clearing. The fiend corpses stank.

Racquel looked at me, "So…"

I was firmer. "So."

It was straining in those minutes. I think we both felt the same things. We'd opened to each other, explored each other despite the risks and the danger. Something had grown between us. The feelings I had felt when she was dying were illuminating and vaguely terrifying. Despite how we'd opened to each other, the thoughts we'd shared, neither of us had revealed the presence of the voice in our heads. It was strangely saddening. We'd each kept it back.

I said, "It's not like we can blame each other, we both did the same thing."

Racquel said, "I know. But why do I feel ashamed and… betrayed at the same time?"

"Me too. I think we just learned something. For me, anyway, it's… I thought I was open to you, but I was reserving that thing still. I justified it, because I didn't want you to think I was crazy, I didn't want to drag you into that world. I've revealed it to so few. I've enjoyed our time together, it didn't need marring…"

Racquel stepped closer, "Exactly. I feel the same. But it still feels…"

I finished for her, "Like it just shone a light on the walls we're keeping up?"

She nodded slowly, looking away, her expression very deeply sober.

I looked at her, watched that beautiful face darken, watched the eyes staring and working on thoughts that were about my actions and hers. I felt my own surges of feeling. A strange fear that she knew now. But there was relief too and an exhilarating excitement. In a way, this bound us now.

I said, "I should have thought of it myself. You're level's going up so fast. If Enki was into me and Morningstar, then I should have considered it was into you as well."

"Enki? Is that what it's called?"

I nodded, remembering how hard it had been to establish a name for the being, not surprised that it had held back on giving that name to her.

She said, "I actually did suspect. If you think I've been growing fast, you're off every scale. And it sent me to you, that day at the Green Man camp, when Danefer had you cornered. I knew it was interested in you, I just didn't know, know."

"Ah…" that did make sense to me.

She said, "So what does this mean?"

I stepped closer, a hand brushing her upper arm, "It's going to take a little getting used to, but I guess, if we know this, there can't be many secrets left between us."

She said, "Hmmph. Many? What else can you be hiding, blood prince?"

I looked down and thought. "At this point, it's few and far between."

She said, "Should we lay them all out?"

I stepped closer, pressing myself against her, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. "I could do that. But I don't know if this is exactly the moment. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a war on and I'm kind of AWOL."

She laughed, not without reservation, but the tension was melting, she leaned into me. "Okay, fair point. But when, then?"

I said, "I have Door now. It's going to make it much easier to see you."

"Uh, hey, that's one way, genius, I don't think it's going to help that much."

I said, "I've already been thinking about that. It resets at midnight. I can step through just before midnight and then have the return door available straight away. It's not perfect, every time I do that I'll lose access to it for the next day. And, much as I'd like to use it exclusively to visit you… I'll have other things to do with this as well…"

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She made a pouty face that was utterly unsuited to her personality and dropped the expression almost straight away. "I guess we'll take what we can get."

I said, "The problem is, I don't think it can take me somewhere I haven't been before. So I'll need to go to Minneapolis, which isn't going to be easy with, you know, that whole war thing happening, and you'll need to show me somewhere nearby, somewhere… private that I can door to in the future."

She smiled, resting a hand on my chest. We were us again. "I know just the place…"

I raised an eyebrow. She said, "Moonclaw Hall!"

"Is that your… castle?"

"I haven't built a castle yet, we won't all have fortunes. I gained the suit from nothing and my city isn't as… generous when it comes to women or outsiders. But I have my lands, as the charters lay out, and I have developed it. I have a village and a Hall. It's near the southern edge of the territory. Just one servant, and she can definitely be trusted. I don't keep a big staff there…"

I finished for her, "Because, apart from conducting secret affairs with foreign Griidlords, you like to dip your toes in conspiracies and underground societies."

"Hey, champ, it's just the one affair, with just the one foreign Griidlord. And as for the rest, I guess you'll need to come see me if you want to get more details on those secrets."

I stared at her, feeling the happiness that she was okay, still reeling from the intensity I had felt at the thought of losing her. "I don't think secrets will be my primary motivation."

She kissed me and twirled away, showing me all of her lithe form, knowing she was showing me and knowing where my mind had suddenly gone to. "Guess you'll need to find a reason to come to Minneapolis."

She twirled back further and I knew she was leaving. She'd surely gone AWOL herself to be here, and she had a much longer return journey to make than I had.

"Approach the Hall from north, it's pretty deserted, if you're careful no one will see you."

I said, "Okay."

She said, "I can't wait. Try not to die in the meantime."

And she was gone, racing west, disappearing into the trees.

And, suddenly I was alone.

I needed to go back. I had the grisly task of dealing with the two bodies. They both needed to be returned to the empire. I could no more easily leave Julia's form here to rot than I could Joel's. The thought of them, what had transpired, the sudden and complete absence of Joel from my existence, sobered me, wiping the stupid grin that Racquel had left on my face.

I'd had no love for Joel. He'd been a thorn in my life from the moment he appeared in the woods during the Choosing. But his mysteries had set me down a path that led to a place I didn't know. Answers and purposes had died with him, and that troubled me. I respected the sacrifice he had made. It was a lesson too. That man had had a grand purpose, events in motion, and with one mistake it was all gone. So old, so wise, but motivated by personal feelings he had exposed himself and now was gone.

I couldn't leave without seeing the writing on Julia's cave wall. I knew it would be demented. I didn't expect to learn anything except a deeper view into madness. But I had to see.

I walked up the slope, moving quickly, feeling the pull to return to Boston as quickly as I could. I passed close to the form of one fiend, a hulking creature that had rotted beyond recognition, huge stony bones spearing up from sloughing flesh, like a whale washed onto a beach.

Julia's cave was unfurnished. She had not even pulled grass or branches for bedding into the space, so far gone was her mind. But the walls, every inch was covered in writing, the black marks of fiend blood, the dirty brown of human or animal blood.

Enki in my ear, Oh, kiddo, we don't want to go upsetting ourselves with this do we? Besides, you have a city in need of its wholesome protector. You made such a fuss about coming out here, surely, surely, surely you're not gonna waste time—

You don't want me seeing what she had to say?

Enki said, She's mad. She was mad. This is all going to be mad.

It wasn't wrong. The words were mostly blocks of repeated phrases, unconnected thoughts that meant nothing.

One column just read: Tear it down, tear it down, tear it down… for rows and rows.

Another: It comes, it comes, it comes…

There were huge words, painted thick. A phrase here, "We can't stop it!", another there, "It wants us purged!". So many, I could take them all in. I could spend a day here, reading, seeing, and still not make sense of any of it. But Enki's reluctance to have me look on these words only focused me.

My eyes settled on a drawing. It was crude but I thought it depicted a fiend, a hulking monster with long tentacled arms and a beaked face. I glanced back at the nearest fiend corpse, then to the drawing.

I said, It's funny how fiends came to her, here, isn't it?

Enki said, Oh, is it? Would you say?

I said, It's funny how that fiend came out of the basement on the last day of the Choosing.

Enki said, We've been over this already. I didn't try to kill you that day, kiddo. Why you'd draw a line between those two…

Below the fiend was a drawing composed of swirling lines, narrowing and tapering to a point. A cyclone. By these, in some of the boldest thickest lettering to be seen on any of the walls, were the words: SEND MORE! SEND MORE AND DESTROY ME! PLEASE!

I said, Who's she talking to here, do you think?

Enki said, She was mad. Gone. Cuckoo. Full Kanye.

I didn't bother trying to understand the reference. She was out here, alone. There was only one being she could have been talking to, Enki, the person she'd carried in her mind from the day she first won the suit…

Enki said, Really, who can say for sure…

I said, You can control entropy. Did you send fiends here to kill her before you had to call your A-Team? Can you send fiends? Make them? Control them? What about the storms, is that you?

Enki didn't answer. Because Enki couldn't lie and it didn't want to tell me the truth.