Chapter Eleven
Southward Bound

After they’d retrieved horses from the royal stables and Clarus had found himself a sword — nobody was going to stop the two of them — Vera, Aesling and Clarus rode south. Vera let Clarus ride ahead, partially because he seemed to be a capable tracker, and partly because she wanted to adjust her armor. Aesling was a great help, since she seemed to have a greater awareness of their body, and between the two of them, they at least managed to reduce the discomfort to a minimum.

It wasn’t all that difficult to follow the trail, really. While the southbound road was well trod, the inhuman demonic tracks left by the Cavean’s creatures were visible even to the untrained eye. Horses didn’t have claws that left deep grooves in the mud. Still, Clarus was being thorough, not wanting to waste time following the wrong trail. They probably didn’t have a lot of time left, and neither did Rubicus. 

Vera pulled her cloak a bit tighter. Had the temperature dropped? A chill went down her spine, making her wonder if the Cavean’s influence on this world was so great it would blanket even the nation’s south in frost. Was its grasp really that terrible and terrifying? She squeezed her eyes shut, imagining windswept tears freezing on her cheeks. 

“Don’t be dramatic,” Aesling said. “No, it isn’t any colder. It’s not the Cavean, it’s you. No frostbitten tears on your face, Vera. Your body is just not as good as withstanding heat as it was before.” Vera blinked a few times and reached up to her face. Yeah, sure, it was cold, but Aesling was right. The air wasn’t all that much colder than it had been before, just her perception of it. “I think I might be able to do something about it, if you like, but my reckoning is that you’ll be hungrier if I do.”

“I can live with that,” Vera replied with a little smile. It was strange. She’d heard women speak of being cold while, back then, she’d been fine wearing only a loose-fitting shirt, and had chalked it up to a lower tolerance. Now, being as cold as she was, she understood. In a strange way, the discomfort was validating. It made her feel like things made more sense now. On the other hand, she really didn’t like shivering in a cold that made her teeth chatter. 

Inside her, Aesling did whatever magic she did, and slowly, Vera felt herself warm up a bit. Her fingers got some of their feeling back, and she stopped shivering. “Is that better?” 

“Much,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Aesling said. “I enjoy the cold as little as you do. Winter is the season of death before rebirth, and it’s a natural part of the cycle of life and so on and so forth, but it’s also really rotten cold, and if I could do the entire thing without it, I would.”

Vera chuckled at Aesling’s little tirade, causing Clarus to turn around and raise an eyebrow as he slowed his horse down a bit. “It’s nothing, Prince Clarus,” Vera said with a smile. He returned it brightly. “Aesling does not like the cold.”

“She never has,” Clarus said. He exhaled softly, his breath a little cloud on the wind. “I personally have never minded. You aren’t cold now, are you?” There was some visible concern in his eyes, even if he made some attempt at hiding it. 

She shook her head. “I’m not. Not anymore.” She smiled reassuringly. “Ash saw to that.” There was a pause as Vera bit her lip. “Can I be frank, Prince Clarus?”

“Always,” Clarus said. “It’s my deepest wish that you always speak your mind.” Inside her head, Aesling smirked at Clarus’ always ridiculous, always delightful superlatives. 

“Initially, I was worried about sharing a body with another being,” Vera said. Aesling perked up, but said nothing. Clarus just nodded. “To have my body not be my own anymore. Not entirely. But it is also not unfair to say that it never felt like mine, and that perhaps it is easier to consider sharing a house that isn’t yours to begin with.” Clarus looked ahead to the road, but he nodded. 

“I can relate to your trepidation, at least,” he said, “though I never experienced this disconnect between myself and my body. No body is perfect, of course. Milk does not agree with me, and I have a knot in my shoulder that will not go away no matter what. But it’s always been mine, and I’ve been quite proud of it.” He looked at his hand. “The thought of sharing it with another was… scary, at first. When I first met Aesling.”

Inside her, Vera felt Ash flickering up a bit more, and a sensation of warmth washed over her. It must have been a happy memory, then. Aesling smiled, and Vera felt herself responding in kind. “It was,” Aesling said to Vera. “You could ask him about it.” 

“Where did you two meet?” Vera posited. Clarus looked at her. “She told me to ask you,” she added sheepishly. Clarus grinned. 

“I had been traveling. The seas, the mountains, the plains of the world. This was before the war, of course. When the Empire declared its intent, began its campaign of conquest, I hurried home as fast as I could, and I decided to take a shortcut through what had been described as a haunted forest.”

Aesling chuckled. “And haunted it was,” she said.

“And haunted it was,” Clarus said. “I stopped to rest in a glade, where I bathed in a river. An angry voice told me to cover myself, so I did, quickly, for I thought I had been alone and I did not wish to cause impropriety.” Vera felt herself blushing at the thought of Clarus stripping down to wash himself off in a forest stream. 

“It was… more difficult than you imagine,” Aesling said. “He’s a, uh, beautiful man.” The blush got worse. Way worse. 

“When I was somewhat presentable, Aesling showed herself. She was beautiful beyond compare, a wisp on the wind, barely a whisper, barely visible. I was sure I had met the haunting spirit, and despite my fear, we spoke. She had not, she told me, met with a living, talking being in some time, and she told me she wished to see the world. I told her of the war, and of the Empire’s advance.” The Prince’s face fell a bit. “I promised her I would do what was in my power to save her forest, her glade, but one man cannot do much to stop an army.”

After only the shortest of exchanges with Vera, Aesling now rode next to him, and she reached over to take his hand. “You’ve done nothing wrong, love,” Aesling said. “Had you stayed, had I stayed, we would have burned with it. Trees burn. Ash falls. Life begins anew, in a new place, as it always does.” That seemed to bring Clarus some comfort at least, and he continued his tale. 

“Thank you, my Aesling,” he said. “When you… when she learned of the war, and of the Empire, she asked if she could come with. It was strange to share a body with her, but we had a space, within our souls, where we could speak, and be together. In time, we fell in love, quite deeply so.”

“We did,” Aesling said as she retreated to the back of Vera’s mind again. “Those were beautiful days.”

“What fascinates me,” Clarus said, “is how often she seems to exist without as well as within. When we shared a body, she only asked to speak through me once, maybe twice. She said she found it uncomfortable.”

“As it turns out, I too did not enjoy being in control of a masculine body. You and I have that in common, Vera,” Aesling said. 

“I think that’s because being a woman in a man’s body is difficult, Prince Clarus,” Vera said. “Or even one a lot like one.” 

“I… Of course,” Clarus said, his jaw clenching and unclenching like he was chewing on the idea. “Knowing people like yourself exist, that makes sense.” He turned back to her, and his glittering smile dazzled her again. “Then I am happy for both of you, and myself, that Aesling, and yourself, now have a body in which you feel more at home. And it allows me to look into her eyes with my own.”

“You’re an incorrigible romantic, my love,” Aesling said. Switching back and forth, for Vera and Aesling both, was getting easier and easier. Every time, there was a request for permission, from both ends, but it was getting faster each time, less spoken and more… simply understood. 

“I know,” Clarus said. “And I’ll stop the day you ask me to.”

“Not until the last day of the last year in all of time,” Aesling said with a candid smile, and then slipped back. Vera took the reins and looked ahead. She wanted to ask more, but there was movement ahead. She pointed. Clarus followed her gaze. 

“I see it,” he said. “Frantic, too. A fight, I believe!” Without saying another word, he whipped the reins and with a shout, his horse shot forward. It took Vera a moment to do the same; his charge had been so sudden and abrupt, she hadn’t had the time to react. 

It didn’t take her too long to catch up to him, though. She was quite a bit lighter than he was, she realised, and it was actually harder to control the horse in full gallop  than she was used to. Her weight shifted differently. 

As the skirmish came into view, Vera’s heart began to thunder in her throat. She recognised the hulking figures as Demons immediately. Four of them, circling a lone figure, struggling to stand. A figure in rust-coloured armor. This, Vera realised, must have been where Rubicus had caught up with the Cavean. This was where he was going to die, unless someone did something. 

Something stupid, possibly, she realised, as she saw Prince Clarus throw himself off his horse with abandon at the demon closest to them, having turned itself around to face the new attackers. Vera had seen people fight like that. Almost always the sons of nobles, in small border skirmishes between duchies and baronies. They never lived long, usually hitting their head on a rock on the way down. 

“He’s not just a noble’s son,” Aesling said. “He’s Clarus.” 

Unsheathing his sword mid-jump, Clarus came down blade-first, and it pierced the creature’s mask of rage and hatred, splitting it in two. The creature screamed and raged, swinging its claws wildly at Clarus who twisted and pulled his blade back and, in the same movement, deflected the raised claws of the dying creature. 

“There,” he said, panting slightly at Rubicus. “Three against three. I’d take those odds, wouldn’t you?”

Rubicus had obviously turned to see who had joined the fray, but the look in his eyes was hazy. It was clear he was not doing well. Despite that, his face lit up in a grin. “I may consider it, your highness,” he said. “If your handmaiden can fight, we may escape with our lives just yet.” 

It took Vera a moment to realise that he’d meant her. Well, she’d show him. He’d trained her, after all. She dismounted quickly, pulling her own short sword out of the sheath, and immediately dodged sideways as one of the remaining demons threw itself at her, infernal profanities dripping from between its jaws like toxic bile. Her reflexes had saved her, but when she was back upright on her feet, she found it impossible to move. Memories, old and new, buried their ways forward.

She was a child again, her parents dying before her. She felt their blood on her face.

She was facing an unstoppable horde of claws. She felt them pierce her heart.

She was here and now, and the creature barreled down on her. 

“Vera,” Aesling said. “Move!”

She did. Dodging again, faster than she used to be able to, she swiped at the monster’s arm with her short sword. It didn’t cut through the limb entirely, but the creature’s roar of rage and pain was confirmation that she’d struck true. She rolled under its retaliatory swipe and came to a stop next to Clarus and Rubicus. 

“Good of you to join us,” Clarus said. “Now I feel our large friend is losing some strength, so I’d like to finish this quick.”

Vera blinked. There were still three demons. Even one old, fading one had been almost too much for four experienced mercenaries (well, three experienced mercenaries and Vera. She wasn’t exactly battle-hardened), and now Rubicus was swaying on his feet. “Prince C—” she said, but Clarus was already gone, lunging forward with a battlecry as heroic as it was ridiculous in its zeal and conviction. “He’s mad,” she said. 

“He is,” Aesling said. “Now, go help him before the fool kills himself.”

Vera shook her head. She couldn’t believe she was about to do this. She charged.

Elamimax

And we continue on! Remember, if you enjoy the story, feel very free to let me know! It always means a lot to hear from you ^_^