Kryndor's Bride parts 2-3

CERYN

I peek into the palace's servant's entrance as I help the men unload the crystals and bring them inside.

I'm taken by every detail of the palace's interior. The walls and floor tiles are smooth; Nothing like The Underhold–a maze of rugged rock, shadows, and rogue foundations that can cave at any moment. Everything in this palace is orderly. Its surfaces chiseled by the hands of proud men who envisioned it standing for millenniums.

There's a guard by the entrance, clad in black metal forged in the volcanic depths of Vak'thra. He's an incredible seven feet like all topdwellers. His helmet is removed, revealing his unique features. Deeply tanned skin, pointed ears, and hair braided back in cornrows. His lips a lighter pink than the lowdwellers. Four lines drawn on his forehead, the green color perfectly matched to his eyes. I wonder what he has achieved to earn these stripes.

He's frozen, like a statue. Ignoring all that ogle him as he stares at the horizon. I wish I could stare forever, but there is work to do, and then I must return to the Underhold. Away from this world, which I don't belong in.

Father helps me set a crystal on my shoulder, and I step inside to carry it into the loading bay lined with wood crates, sacks of food, caged animals, and barrels. A clerk stands nearby, writing on parchment as lowdwellers bring materials inside.

I follow the line, setting the crystal beside the stack and turning my head when I hear a child's laughter.

"Tressa! Come here!" shouts an older, pregnant woman as she grips her pink skirt and chases the giggling little girl.

I hear a grunt as the girl runs right into my father.

I spin around instantly, my arms instinctively reaching out because I know disaster is coming.

My father's weakened knees give out, and he topples backward with a massive crystal slipping from his hands.

The older woman has no chance against her momentum. She screams as the crystal collapses on her face, slashing her from cheek to ear before shattering on the floor. I have no opportunity to grab her before she slams flat on her back, her hands protectively cradling her pregnant stomach as she screams.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Father rants, scrambling across the tiles I was just admiring. Painting them red with blood as his hands get shredded by the fragments of crystal littered on the floor.

I pick up the little girl who's crying, pulling her away from the shards, before reaching for the pregnant noblewoman whose screams echo throughout the palace. She cradles her belly with one hand and swats at me with her free hand, sobbing and kicking her legs at my father.

My heart is at my throat as I reach for my father's arms. My hands are trembling, my skin deadly cold.

"Fa-fath–"

I touch his shoulder, and he looks up at me with an expression I've never seen before. 

Horror. Defeat.

My father has always faced every day with a brave face. When we had no food, when we got robbed, when we couldn't afford his pain medication, and when the collectors were chasing us down for unpaid taxes. There was no fear in his eyes even the day he saved me from the man who tried to force himself on me and was beaten senseless, forever maimed.

But today, he has shown me utter vulnerability, which I've never seen before. It’s clear and pure yet haunted, just like what remains of Konir.

My heart breaks because I don't know how to save him.

The guard I had just been admiring runs inside, his metal-lined boots clanking loudly against the floor.

"It was an accident!" I shout as the guard grabs my father by the arms and drags him backward, grating his back across the shards.

"Leave, Ceryn!" shouts my father. Tears streaking down his cheeks and the tendons of his neck becoming stark with his screams. "Return home!"

More guards pour inside. And this time, instead of admiring them, I fear them because they glare at us as they lead the crying girl and the injured woman inside. 

Another guard grabs my father's neck with his giant hand and hauls him to his feet as if he were a wild animal.

"No! Take me!" I beg, stepping forward.

"Leave, lowdweller," orders one guard in Graxali. The language spoken throughout the kingdoms.

"Ceryn, be silent! You will heel. Do you hear me? I am your father!" Father orders in Xali, the lowdweller's language. A bastardized version of Graxali.

Father is trying to look stern, but blood drips down his back as tears go down his wrinkled cheeks.

I ignore his order.

"Take me!" I repeat, stepping closer to my father before getting yanked backward, slipping on the bloody tiles, and landing on my hands and knees. Shredding them open.

The screams of the pregnant woman fade as she's taken away into the palace.

"What is this commotion?" comes a powerful voice from a hall attached to the loading bay.

"Bow!" a guard orders to me and all the horrified lowdwellers that watch the demise of my father.

I lower my head as a cold presence enters the room.

"What has happened?" he asks.

"Your Highness, a lowdweller attacked Madam Tephra of Arkon."

Vrell! House Arkon is the main House of this kingdom. That woman is part of the king's family. And my father has just scarred her face and possibly her womb. The nobles won't care that it was an accident. They will want blood.

The Xor–the king–is now in this very room. Studying cowering lowdwellers and his bloodied floors.

"What are you waiting for? Send the old man to the gallows and present his head to Tephra," he replies, angry. "

"Your Highness," I rasp. "I will pay for my father's mistake. Please, have mercy."

"How dare you speak–"

"Who is this?" speaks the king, interjecting the guard.

"I am his daughter. Please, take me as a servant. As a slave, anything. Just–just don't hurt him."

There's a pause that no one dares to break. No one but the Xor.

"Rise," he orders.

"Ceryn," my father hisses. Voice laced in anger because I'm disobeying him. But I'd sooner get myself killed than abandon him. He has saved me countless times. Me; an omen. A child destined to feed the Unsailable Ocean.

I rise from the floor, becoming aware of the scuffing and blood stains on my oversized boots. The way my clothes hang off my thin body, like the rags the servants of the palace use to clean.

I scan the Xor. Seeing the complete opposite. Strong, muscular, proud legs clad in light, loose pants. Two swords are sheathed at his hips. Rolled sleeves show his tanned skin and forearms the size of my thighs.

His shirt is unbuttoned, showing his sweaty chest.

I stop at his clean-shaved chin. I don't dare to look into his eyes.

He steps closer, closing the distance between us. Hand reaching out.

My heart stutters as a noble–the highest noble in this world–reaches for me. My knees sway when he touches my chin, tipping my head back.

And now I see him. All of him, as he towers over me.

His eyes are a color I've never seen before. Violet. A royal, ancient color that I thought only existed in legends and the unreachable coral that grows on the seabed of the Unsailable Ocean. Precious but deadly to harvest.

His hair is tied back in a single, long braid. A few strands stuck to his lightly sweaty face. His features are stark, his eyebrows shaved and replaced with a line of black dotted metal engraved into his skin. An accessory I've never seen before. Then again, I haven't seen anything on this Xor anywhere else.

"And what could you, a lowdweller, have to offer me?"

His voice is cold. Cruel. It takes my breath away.

"I–" 

I feel like I am nothing.

He drops his hand and turns to the guard. "Remove these two and dismiss the remaining lowdwellers."

The Xor turns to leave, unphased by my begging. But I try anyway because he's my last chance at saving my father.

"Please! I'll do anything!" I cry after him.

Guards swoop in and take me by the arms. Dragging me out as my father is taken deeper into the palace. This palace that once looked like a wondrous dream is now like the mouth of a beast. Wicked and hungry.

"Go home, Ceryn! Go!" my father shouts over his shoulder, leaving a trail of blood. The desperation in his voice will foreverhaunt me.

I'm hauled outside the palace. Guards stand by the entrance, prepared to block my entrance.

Lowdwellers mutter as they abandon their duties to leave the palace, returning to their carriages to ride home. The safety of the Underhold calls them as it does every time there's a storm.

I pace as I cry, feeling helpless as my father is taken further away from me. To face a certain death.

"Ceryn," says Thal'koran as he steps outside. "Let's get you home."

I look at him through teary eyes. Thal'koran is a hard-working male from a leather-making ward that neighbors mine. He has four brothers, all from the same father but different mothers. He married an elderly woman recently, hoping to spread his seed. But I see how he looks at the younger women, including me. He's seeking another bride. A flower that hasn't blossomed but is nice to look at.

"Father is my home, Thal'koran."

I wipe my tears from my cheeks as I look at the palace. I have to find a way in.

Thal'koran sighs. "You know that is not the case anymore. I'm sorry. Come with me. The Underhold will take care of you."

"And abandon him? I'd sooner dive into the Unsailable Ocean. Go, Thal'koran, before the carriage leaves without you."

I appreciate that he doesn't look at me with pity. I don't need pity.

"My ward calls you an omen, you know. They shy away from your gold eyes and tanned skin that is so much like the topdweller's."

This, I already know.

"But I have always been attracted to your cursed features. Come with me. Let me take you in."

My father might be the only person from The Underhold who fully sees through my surface. Who doesn't see an omen to fear, or features to objectify. My father is a treasure like the crystals he mines with his scarred, wrinkled hands.

I choose him over the safety and warmth of the underground.

"Tell my uncle what has happened. Tell him I'm going to bring father home."

"Scramble, you two," orders a guard, setting a hand on the hilt of his sword. "Beggars are not welcome here."

Thal'koran lowers his gaze and walks away without another word, headed for the carriage that will take him home to the Underhold, where no nobles can reach him.

I walk away from the palace as well, but I don't go to the carriage.

I spot a bridge, and I decide to take cover under it. 

The skies open up, rain washing away my tears, as if Goddess Zintha is asking me to spare them.

I sit beneath the bridge and hug my legs to my chest, sniffling and wiping my wet face as I plan what I'm going to tell the terrifying Xor.

Because one way or another, I'm going to meet him again. And he will hear what this lowdweller has to say.

PART 3

CERYN

The king called me worthless. He said there was nothing I could offer him to spare my father, even my servitude. He's right to feel confident. He's the Xor. His power and wealth know no bounds.

What can I, a lowdweller, possibly offer a Xor that's one with the gods?

I stared at the moon for hours before coming to terms with the fact that I had nothing to offer except my servitude. I drowned in desperation because I felt hopeless. I clenched my teeth in anger and pain, defeated by the thought that even after all these years, I'm still that little girl defenseless against the waves. Powerless and waiting for someone else to save her.

I don't want to be helpless anymore and don't need to be saved by anyone. I must to prove to myself that I can claw my father out of the hole he's in.

Footsteps fall loudly on the wooden boards of the bridge.

"Did you hear that House Fyrak of Vak'thra baptized their latest noble as Tyor?" asks a woman.

I listen closely to the gossip.

"Doesn't Tyor mean king in High Graxali? Such disrespect."

"It's only a matter of time before the Vak'thra try to overthrow our Xor. I don't know what the Xor awaits. He could easily silence them by having an heir."

Their voices fade, but it's clear that not only the lowdwellers are gossiping about the king and his refusal to claim a bride and an heir. The longer he waits, the more the doubts will escalate. He is welcoming an unnecessary storm that will rattle the palace like never before.

He has plenty of women at his disposal. Plenty of elder, blossomed, graceful women to impregnate.

What would he think...of my blossoming? 

Vrell. Vrell. Vrell!

I long considered my fertility useless because I had no interest in bringing children who would suffer in the Underhold. But now, it's the only power I have over the king. The only bargaining chip that would make him look back. No amount of wealth can conjure a young, fertile woman. He will never meet another woman with my condition.

I fucking hate this reality. I'm sickened by the thought of becoming a breeding hog. Reducing myself to nothing but a womb and undermining my true worth; my humanity. My womb does not make me powerful, but rather all the labor and hardship I've had to endure to survive and my drive to overcome poverty and become an engineer to provide for myself and my father.

But these nobles only view me as a lowly lowdweller worth nothing. A dime in a dozen with nothing remarkable to show.

And a young, fertile woman is the only thing they don't already own. I've got no other option but to weaponize my womb.

I drag a hand through my already knotted hair. Pacing under the bridge as laughing noblemen walk above.

I'm at war with myself.

I suspect the Xor would take me as a concubine because, up here, cruelty against women is punishable by law. They wouldn't keep a mother from their child, especially since this cruel life separates the two so early. 

But what if the child was born with my Zepharim features? With red hair and gold eyes. Would they cast my child away and kill me for my trickery?

One thing that the lowdwellers and topdwellers will have in common is their fear and hate of Zepharim. The only time in recorded history that red-haired and gold-eyed people from Zepharim somehow crossed the Unsailable Ocean and reached this continent, Thalorrin, they pillaged and destroyed. There's a reason why they were cast away and never returned. This is no legend. It's history.

History that's alive in my very veins because Zepharim is my homeland. I can feel it calling to me as I stand by the cliffs and stare at the horizon. I can sense it when I brush my fingers across the book with an unknown language not native to this world. A book written by my forefathers.

I have no other option. This is my only way in. And I’m a terrible daughter for hesitating and clinging to pride.

Father gave everything for me. He saved me from the Unsailable Ocean, starvation, and evil men. His body was broken down after all the years of protecting me. And here I am under this bridge, letting bloodthirsty nobles have their way with him.

I must do this for him.

I suspect the Xor was sparring in a room near the loading bay yesterday. That's why he heard the commotion and appeared so suddenly, looking sweaty and bothered. If my assumption is correct, he could be sparring today in the same room.

I wait for the right hour, staring at the relentless rain. Then, I emerge from the bridge around the time I ran into the king yesterday. With my wet clothes clinging to my back and my stomach growling with hunger, I rush to the palace's loading bay.

I welcome the cover of the rain as I merge into the crowd of topdwelling servants. Only one guard is posted by the entrance, and a line of servants walk inside, dressed in black and white uniforms and a silver pin on their breast pockets.

I slide into the line, ignoring the curl of their lip as they notice me. Being five-foot-six, I stick out among the giants. But I only need to get close enough to the entrance to jolt inside.

That's as far as I have planned. May the goddess lead the rest of way.

Right as I'm standing by the guards, I jump off the line and run into the loading bay.

"Girl!" the guard snarls as he comes after me, toppling over servants. "You will mee your father’s fate!" he roars, shoving a servant carrying a stack of metal pots that loudly clang as they hit the tiles.

I hold my breath as the giant guard descends on me. His green eyes lit with rage.

He grabs my forearm and drags me behind him.

"Please! Just a moment with the king!"

"You are nothing!" he shouts, yanking me. "You have no right to summon his Highness!"

I stubbornly dig my heels into the tiles, stumbling over my large boots. Because I know that if I'm kicked out today, I will never find another way into the palace. This is my last opportunity.

"This again?" comes a familiar voice.

He's here.

Servants bow their heads. The guard releases me, and I clutch my forearm as I turn around to face the Xor.

Dressed in sweaty clothes like yesterday, he looks all but pleased to see me.

"Apologies, Your Highness. I was just escorting her out," speaks the guard.

The king closes the distance between us. His hand reaches for my face again, except that it comes with more hostility this time. He grips my jaw, his long, thick fingers nearly dwarfing my face.

"This lowdweller is made of something different, I see."

So that's what he thinks of lowdwellers? That we're clay made of the same dirt we live in?

He hooks his thumb into my cheek, dragging the tip across my clenched teeth.

"Suck, 'sura," he commands.

It takes all I have not to bite him.

'Sura. He called me a peasant in High Graxali, a language so old that it's supposed to be unknown to me. I don't think he expects me to understand him, and that makes the insult even more hurtful.

This is our king. Cruel and indifferent like the storms that ravage his lands. But at least those storms that kill and destroy have some grace because they are predictable. They repeat the same dance ever since Goddess Zintha cursed this continent. 

This king who grips my jaw so tightly that it's sore does not dance. He stomps and buckles in a wild frenzy, crushing me under his boot. Not giving me a chance to survive.

"Ravore."

Another male's voice rumbles across the loading bay. This time, there are no bows of heads. There are dips of knees as servants lower themselves, showing their respect to this royal who has appeared.

Ravore removes his thumb from my mouth and turns to look at the new presence in the room. I make a foolish move and look, too.

Then, I realize my mistake. Ravore is no king; no Xor. This male is.

And suddenly, Ravore doesn't seem so menacing. Because at least I could read his eyes. At least I could sense his cruelty. There is nothing in King Varkon's violet eyes. No warning of what storms brew within.

He is built just like his palace. Broad, unyielding. The most massive man in the room, dwarfing even Ravore as he hovers well over seven feet. Unlike his brother, the king's black hair is cropped short, and his eyebrows are not shaven. He wears a black fitted, sleeveless tunic that his arms pour out of. The lightweight chiffon fabric has a hint of iridescence. A metallic red sheen. He wears cotton cargo pants with leather accents, and his boots are black and simple.

His bottom lip is pierced, and there's a black metal armlet fused into his bicep. An inch of the flesh around the armlet looks dark and burned. It's scuffed, as if old from use. An ancient crown that has been passed down for generations.

The most terrifying part of him is that he's the only male in here without a sword. As if his giant, tattooed hands are the only weapon he needs.

"What is this about?" he asks Ravore.

"I was just playing with this lowdweller. Her father maimed Tephra yesterday, and she has the gall to beg for his release.

I clasp my hands together to hide their trembling. "I can…" I whisper. It feels like a crime to speak up among these two men.

The king's violet eyes find mine. And they hold. Latching onto me like the corals at the cliff overlooking the Unsailable Ocean. He doesn't see my ratty hair, soaked clothes, dye-stained fingertips, raw palms, or my oversized boots that still have blood in the creaks.

"I can pay," I finally manage.

Ravore scowls as if I'm insulting him. "I told you! We have no need for any more servants."

The Xor lifts his hand, silencing Ravore.

He stares at me, almost expectantly, as he waits for me to finish speaking.

And so I toss my last coin that can buy my father's freedom. My last bit of hope. My fertility.

"I…I can give you a child."

The Xor's face falls, finally revealing an emotion: boredom or perhaps disappointment.

He was expecting to hear something else, something sane. Because a young female bearing children is considered a fever dream. Utter nonsense.

And yet, it is my truth.

"Clerk," he calls, and a man in a black robe comes rushing with his head bowed. "Take the girl in until the storm breaks. Then, send her off."

He leaves before I can mutter another word, and Ravore glares at me like he wishes thunder would cut through the ceiling and strike me dead.

READ PARTS 4-5>