Sky Lord by Rowan Erlking (that summer book .txt) 📕

Jonis shrugged, taking two more steps back to the door, his eyes flickering from the Patriarch to Tia. “I’m sorry, Your Grace.” He glanced once at Tia who had rolled into a ball, clutching herself. “We just don’t know much about what a Sky Child can do to you, is all. I thought it was necessary to—”

“It isn’t. And you have spoiled the mood. Get out!”

The Patriarch marched to the doors. The guards ran out. Jonis hastily walked backward halting only where the doors would not hit him in the face when they slammed shut.

The Patriarch turned around. He glared at Tia. “Your little stunt bought you some time.” He crossed over the floor, opening his robe again. “But I will conquer tonight. And keep silent! The guards will not come a second time.”

Tia cringed, pulling her legs tighter to herself.

"How was your night’s adventure, sir?” the butler asked the Patriarch of Brein Amon as they both walked to the dining room.

Giving a tired sigh, the Patriarch replied, “I am so exhausted. I never thought she would fight so much.”

“Perhaps,” the butler said, raising his eyebrows, “in light of your recent venture, that it might not be wise to pursue her as a full time mistress.”

The Patriarch’s eyes darkened. “No. I will force her to make love to me every night until she begs for me to come to her and satisfy her demanding needs for my manliness.”

Someone snorted.

“Jonis Macoy! What? Are you still here?” The Patriarch sounded flabbergasted.

“Appears so.” Jonis sheathed his knife. He inspected his fingernails then glanced mildly at the Patriarch. “I had to stick around to see if she actually would do it. I guess this is my second disappointment.”

The supreme leader of Brein Amon glared at him, eyeing the gloves tucked under Jonis’s belt. “You seem to be taking a particular interest in that Sky Child. Pray tell, why so interested?”

The Cordril hunter lifted his eyebrows at the Patriarch. “Isn’t it obvious? My only purpose is to see to the utter extinction of the Sky Children race. She is the last that I have seen—and personally I think she is one of the most dangerous that I have seen out of my long memory.”

That left the men to deliberating silence. The Patriarch stared at the hunter, choosing his words more carefully. “I have allowed you to be in my military. I have even hired you for special jobs at fees I would not normally give others. But this…this seems to the zenith of your reason to be in Danslik. You wanted to find a Sky Child. You knew I was seeking news of them for the treasure.”

Jonis smiled. “You flatter me. I am merely here to be of service to—”

“You are sneaky half-demon searching for your favorite prey. And don’t let me catch you trying to sneak in to see that girl! If you set one foot on that second floor, so help me—!” The Patriarch’s face was white, his lips a shade of gray, but his eyes burned dark with all his ambitions.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Last night was scary enough.” Jonis turned, strolling down the hall the way he had come, pulling on his gloves. He started to whistle a tune, scuffing his heels against the carpet as he went.

“And get out of the capitol building!” the Patriarch shouted.

Jonis lifted his hand in a wave, not even looking back. “Sure thing. I’ll just pack a snack and be off. Danslik makes me so hungry.”

The butler shuddered. He leaned over to the Patriarch and hissed, “Why don’t you have the guards force him to leave?”

The Patriarch turned, drawing in a breath. He rubbed his forehead, feeling more exhausted than ever. “Force him? Know you nothing about Cordril hunters? If he wants to be somewhere, he’ll be there. Force just doesn’t apply with him.”

Tia was not allowed out of her room until half the day had already gone. When she was to leave, it was only to stand before the Patriarch at court. They put her in a long white gown with the lengthy sleeves sewn shut. Her hair was brushed, braided and bound up with a white ribbon.

A servant accompanied by electric prod-wielding guards led her by the chain to the large hall she had gone through when she had first entered the building. Looking at the sea of faces that stared at her, Tia shuddered. The entire hall was full. At the head of the room, the Patriarch sat in the metal chair with the pouf cushions looking regal, propping his arms on the rests in the same manner as in the study the day before. To his left and to his right sat older, stern looking men. Tia didn’t bother counting them. She knew there would be fourteen. They gazed on her with severe expressions, condemnation and love of power thinly veiled behind a just façade. The rest of the hall was filled with citizens of Brein Amon—most there to witness Tia’s sentencing. She didn’t see either of the hunters.

Her escorts took her to the center of the room, forcing her to kneel. They dropped the bell. The chain anchored her to the ground once more, as they stood back, joining the crowd.

“You have been summoned by the High Grace, His Magnificence, the Holy Patriarch of Brein Amon,” declared the cleric that stood in front of the long table with a trumpet tucked under his arm. Tia had not heard it at the beginning of the session, but then the capitol building was so large she guessed it was impossible to hear further than the surrounding halls where they had kept her. “You are forthwith commanded to face the charges and the decisions placed before you.”

“State your name,” another priest commanded in a deep base.

Tia swallowed, barely able to speak. “Tia, sir.”

“Louder and with the proper address.” The priest struck her with the end of his staff.

A lump swelled on the back of her scalp, throbbing.

Taking a breath, Tia clenched her eyes closed to hold back the tears. “My name is Tia, Your Grace.”

The crowd murmured, whispering with gossip. A cat meowed in the crowd. Tia also heard a small dog yip. These people seemed to have taken her for an amusement, bringing even their pets along for the enjoyment of it. She supposed that no one had even seen a blue-eyed Sky Child before.

“Tia,” the Patriarch’s voice echoed over the spacious hall. He sounded much grander than the day before, giving the effect of awe and fear onto the watching crowd. Had Tia not seen and struggled with him the night before she would have thought the same. But now she knew what was in his mind. He was a greedy, grasping bully. A manipulative weasel. He was worse than the combined dark hearts of the Gole, the bird parasite demon, and the murderous rapist she had absorbed. She felt no reverence for this odious man. Only fear.

“You are under the charge of murder, caught at the scene, and found guilty,” the Patriarch said, lifting his chest as he peering down on her as if she were lower than the refuse in the sewers. “You are allowed one plea.”

“I am guilty. Therefore I should die by the law,” Tia said, lifting her eyes to face his.

The Patriarch stared more darkly at her. “That is not a plea.”

She did not remove her eyes from his face. “For me, it is. I would rather die than make any other plea. My life is curse. Letting me live would be far worse punishment.”

A cat meowed again.

“Hush, Rudy,” a woman from the crowd to her right hissed.

No one else dared speak.

The dog barked again.

“Silence will stand!” the cleric snapped. He bowed to the Patriarch, having done his duty to keep the order.

The Patriarch cleared his throat. He peered at Tia, letting a determined smile spread his lips.  “Indeed. Death is too good for you.”

Tia’s heart dropped like a stone. She knew he meant it.

“The prison tower will be your new home, unless you agree to our proposed deal,” he said.

The deal.

Yes. She knew it offered her all the physical comforts in the world. The Patriarch would be true to that. That room she had slept in the night before would be hers. But that bed she would have to share with him. She would have to give in to him.

Many different memories and mindsets bickered in her head. Albid would have taken the offer in a snap, finding a way to get the demon chain removed. And then he would have killed the Patriarch, perhaps absorbing ALL his life instead of only borrowing it. But what then? The thinking of the Goles and the parasite demon agreed with Albid’s view. Others shouted at her that if she simply let the Patriarch have what he wanted, the comfort of shelter and food was worth the grief of allowing a man like him to violate her body. Lara would have thought so. But deep, deep down her own hopes and feelings silenced the others. She was Tia, not the murdering rapist, not the whore, and certainly not a flesh-eating Gole. And she, despite all that she had experienced, just wanted some peace to live free. 

“I will take the prison,” Tia said.

A murmur in the crowd rippled loudly like a wave. It crashed into open discussion. The cleric struggled for silence, but in the end he blew into his trumpet for attention.

Tia clapped her covered hands on her ears, looking up. She changed her mind. There was no way she could have missed that noise in her room.

“Silence!” the Patriarch bellowed.

Everyone clamped his mouth shut.

“You want the prison?” The Patriarch was quite ruffled. “After all I can offer you? Surely you have done for the Underlord terrible things. I am asking you to work for the good of the land!”

Good of the land? Tia sighed. The man was an impressive liar. The people were convinced. They glared at her ungrateful figure, wishing ill upon her of every conceivable manner.

“I will not help you,” she said barely above a whisper. “I will never do for any man what I had done for the Underlord. I now know it was wrong.”

A dog barked again.

“Silence that animal!” the cleric shouted, waving his hand to a soldier to enforce that order.

“You will do as I say,” the Patriarch shouted. His face was turning an unattractive shade of red.

“I’d rather die!” Tia screamed back. She clenched her hands into fists under the long sleeves, wishing they would just kill her.

“To the prison,” the Patriarch at last said with a wave of his wrist. He sat back down as if this pain was not worth the bother.

The dog barked louder. The crowd in front of it started jumping up, twisting to the side, and leaping around. The yipping puppy bolted through. Guards with prods chased it, but they were too late to stop the dog before it startled the cat in the woman’s arms.

Yowling, the cat leapt out of its owner’s grasp.

The dog chased it to the center of the room, yipping at its heels. Both cat and dog ran around Tia as she knelt on