The Demon’s Savior

Chapter 6. Nela

Cath

Of course, Cath wouldn’t do the joining. He was no fool and he was not as mad as the white queen to even think of something like that. Joining was done only if all participants wanted it, it was the ultimate show of trust and love. It could not be exchanged for secrets, no. For this elves had another way if nothing else worked. He was just not sure if he had reached this moment. 

He knew he had to go back and find his brother. Staying in the tower when he knew exactly what was expected of him in order to retrieve Belar’s location was stupid and unjustified, and it stood on the brink of treason. Yet, there was nothing else he could do but help the broken male he had found at dusk in a rotten dungeon. Which now brought another problem, one he didn’t think he would have to face at all. Somehow Red had become his obligation and he could not leave without him. 

He also could not leave without the secret of where Belar had been kept, which was a problem on its own. He had to find a way to knock some sense into the stupid male’s head and carve the truth about Bel out of the white b***h’s head in the process. He knew exactly how to do the latter, yet the former was a little more difficult. Cath just couldn’t find any other possible option, than to kidnap that fool from the tower and save him from himself. 

Still shaken after what happened tonight in Red’s room, Cath walked slowly and with a blank expression on his face when he reached the guards in front of his chamber. He even managed to make one of his usual jokes, before they locked the door behind him and the darkness of the room welcomed him. Unlike Red’s room, this one here had a window, one that generously allowed the moonlight in. The window was not so small and there were no bars, because only a fool would try to escape from here, having in mind it was in the highest parts of the tower, and the tower itself was built in a way that didn’t allow anyone to climb its walls.

Well, the tower was not built for skilled folk to inhabit it either, and for someone like Cath, the easiest thing in the world was to go outside and with a few calculated jumps to find himself on the lower levels. He knew very well how to use nature’s gifts in his favor and navigate easily through water, earth, and air. He was a kabirian elf, after all, a nature’s whisperer.

Distracted and in need of a few fresh breaths, Cath stepped on the window frame and jumped, basking in the crisp night air and the light rain that caressed his hot skin. By the time he finally reached the ground, he was soaking wet, but it didn’t bother him. He then walked slowly away from the large tower, using the shadows of the nearby trees and long-dead buildings to hide from the view of the guards, that walked around the perimeter in groups of four. Unlike him, they could see very well in the darkness and they were heavily armed, so it was not a good idea to alert them just yet. 

“Took you long enough.” A female voice reached him from the shadows around two hundred feet away from the tower. 

“Good evening to you too,” Cath whispered and smiled in the darkness, allowing the relief of finally hearing a familiar voice flush through him like a waterfall of light and hope, taking away all his worries and sorrows. “You cannot believe how glad I am to see you.”

He could feel the smile on Nela’s face and it was like coming home after a long battle. Yet, the battle was still to be won, and after that, there was the war. 

“Glad?” Nela’s smirk was noticeable even in the scarce moonlight. “You left without even telling anybody and didn’t even bother to note us what was going on. Glad is the least you should be!” She punched him on the shoulder at the same place where his Red had touched him earlier tonight, trying to push him away. His? What the f**k was he even thinking? 

“Well, you know me.” Cath sighed, a little shattered, sarcasm flooding his every word. “My best ideas come while nobody expects.”

“And what in the hells’ name is exactly your best idea this time? Your message was vague as shit.”

“The tower b***h knows where they keep my brother. Hells, she may be the one keeping him.” Cath said, suddenly frustrated beyond reason – at himself, at the damn queen, and sure as hells at the stubborn demon still locked at the top of the tower. 

The silence that followed his confession was deafening even here at the far end of the broken human city, where nature was slowly starting to regain her rule over the land. A silence so wrong it hurt Cath to even listen to it. He knew how much Belar meant to the female in front of him, which was why he didn’t tell her the truth about why he suddenly left the compound where he anyway did not feel at home and why he was in the euphyr’s capital, looking for trouble. And maybe he should have. Maybe if he had confided in his best friend, Nela would stop him from making such a foolish mistake, and… and Red would still be chained to a wall in a rotten cage. No, just the thought of such a possibility made him want to vomit.

“Belar is still living?” Nela’s voice, low and full of hope brought Cath back to reality. He looked at her, trying to hide his expression in the shadows of the moonless night, ashamed that he actually cared for a broken euphyr so much that he was ready to forget about his own friends’ hopes and dreams. 

“Yes, he is, I feel it,” Cath admitted, unconsciously checking for the bond that attached him to his lost sibling, still unbroken and more vivid now that he was so close to the one who knew where he was.

Besides Cath, Nela corrected her posture, nodding in admiration, her movements swift and efficient like the ones of every loyal soldier waiting for orders.

“Just tell me how to help,” She said, her words a mere whisper in the rainy night, her gaze suddenly glowing with hope.

Cath’s gaze traced the flight of a raven – its black wings darker than the night itself, its motions slow and void of life. He still had time to fix this, to forget Red and the wicked queen and just do what he was supposed to do in order to obtain the location of his brother’s prison. Or he could just forget for these five weeks of his life and go back to his home up in the mountains, and his great lake, where peace was still alive and Balance thrived. 

“I need to extract somebody from the tower. Not Bel” he added quickly, noticing the hope in his first general’s eyes. “It’s… it’s a long story and it doesn’t have anything to do with my brother. We walk from the tower two nights from now, no weapons, no provisions. So, bring them to the northern cave. Don’t wait for us.”

“Who… who is this person, my lord?”

“Just somebody who I can’t leave behind. He will not be joining us in the mountains. Just…” Cath felt his voice was about to crack without having any idea why and decided it best to just let his words trail off. “It is a matter of conscience, not of necessity.”

“I didn’t say nothin’ ” Nela murmured playfully, the mischievous smile dancing back on her dark lips.

“The hells you didn’t.”

“You sure you are alright?”

Cath looked into her black eyes for a long moment before answering, the rain suddenly pouring heavier than before, soaking their clothes and making his braids stick to his neck. No, he was not alright. The decision to take Red with him against the male’s will was still making him feel guilty as hell for not doing the impossible to save his own blood. Ever since Bel disappeared shortly before the declared war on the humans and the elves, Cath as Bel’s younger brother and is the only remaining nature’s whisperer among all the elven tribes was appointed as the East Mountains chieftain. A child forced to lead his people to a doomed war. Having to bear such a title felt like a burden the whole time and he couldn’t help but feel like a fraud. Each of his steps felt like this, even the last one – it was as if what he was doing in the tower with Red was exactly that – a fraud, a prove he was failing and a sign of the prophecy about him bringing destruction to the balance was actually going to come true. It was as if everything around him was falling apart for so long and now nothing could ever be saved from the ruins.

“I will be fine.” He said with a deadly voice. “Once I steal all of Anya’s secrets with me, I will be alright.”

“You are doing what?” Nela interrupted him, worry and suspicion in her lowered voice. She made a few steps forward grabbing Cath’s forearms, forcing him to look at her even in the darkness. “Don’t tell me you are going to make a whispering!”

Cath just shrugged his shoulders with indifference.

“For years the demons say we are without honor. It is time we proved them right, don’t you think?”

“But it is… it is dark magic, you can’t…”

“I will do whatever is necessary to bring Belar back.” Cath snapped. “He is my brother and the only one who I have left. If he is alive somewhere, being tortured and…” He couldn’t go on. Just the thought of Bel having to go through what Red had gone through, made him blind with rage. For someone like the White Queen, even whispering was not enough of a punishment and Cath just didn’t care about the wellbeing of the damn b***h. Or his own for that matter, so he was ready to do whatever necessary to avenge his brother and his tribe

“Belar is not the only one you have left, you know it,” Nela whispered with passionate desperation and even in the darkness, Cath could feel her intense gaze and the everlasting hope in those words made him tremble with guilt.

“Nela, you know I… I love you so much, but…”

“Just be careful.” Nela sighed and gave him a cold friendly hug, her small frame bony and familiar in Cath’s arms. “You are the last of the high kabirians and without you, we are all lost.” She whispered in Cath’s ear, the wind whipping away every trace of intimacy left in her voice. “Let the Balance guide your steps”

“Let the Balance bring your true destiny to you,” Cath answered before fleeing back to the tower, choosing to remember his friend’s scent and words of courage and not the overflowing guilt and desperation.