Abandoned (Born From Shadows #2)

Her touch. It was doing things to Koltalla’s mind that he couldn’t imagine nor ignore. Why did it feel so good? Why did he make that sound? After feeling her, he had been getting flash after flash of memories that leaked through the cracks. Visions where he saw himself with a female after female in a twist of pleasure and pain.

Shut up, he swore at every picture that ran through his mind. He had a job to do.

He walked over towards the small desk at the side of the room, after finding a pen in one of the draws he began writing.

The words poured out of him instinctually, but if anyone asked him how to actually spell the word, he wouldn’t know how. It was like his hand was acting on its own, not that he minded.

He checked over the letter, hoping it was right and told everything he wanted it to.

The girl has been working on magic, better control. The male is gone to eleven city, while the female is going to the dark lands. Nothing else to say.

It didn’t seem perfect to him, but he couldn’t remember all the letters yet so it would have to do. He folded the piece of paper intending to give it to an elf to send via magic. From the way that one store owner acted, he assumed an Elf would be willing to do this for him no questions asked. And they did exactly that, “for you, anything,” they had said. What power those words held.

The other Fae was currently staring at him as if trying to speak. Kol listened to everything around him. The Elves that glared from the street.

“Is that…him?” one whispered.

“Perhaps the Coward fulfilled his mission,” replied another. At those words, Kol watched the other Fae’s features tense. A touchy subject.

“No he probably broke out on his own, now the cowards begging for forgiveness,” answered the first Elf. Kol decided to ignore their conversation that held no worth.

“Do you know why they call me that?” Tyrion asked him from the other side of the table that they were both seated at.

“I don’t care-,” his words didn’t get the chance to fade into the page before Tyrion interrupted him.

“I was ambushed. And when everyone died, I was the only one to return. People thought it was because I ran, but it wasn’t. I didn’t choose to run, I was forced to. You forced me to,” Tyrion said answering his own question that Kol had no desire to hear.

He remembered an ambush. He remembered the blood. He remembered the Lady of the Night taking him away from the massacre. He remembered her giving him food, giving him his name. That was enough.

“Do you even still have your magic, or did they take that too?” Tyrion asked.

“Fuck off,” Kol replied sick of the questions. He was here for her, no one else, certainly not to make this male feel better about being a coward.

“I am going to go to Lyracris and talk to the King before heading to our home, to Zarenda,” Tyrion said as if the words were supposed to bring a feeling of nostalgia to him. “Will you join me?”

Kol thought on it for a moment. He still needed to give her information and seeing the King seemed like a good place to be. “Yes,” he replied.

Tyrion sighed in relief. “Good, I did not want to have to drag your ungrateful arse all the way there.”

Kol rolled his eyes, because that was definitely freedom. This Fae was so hypocritical, he thought. At least the Lady of the Night was upfront about everything.

“Good, we leave now. Have you recovered enough to fly?” Tyrion asked. Now that was a question Kol was interested in hearing the answer to. He was yet to try and use the black wings embedded into his back.

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

“Ok so what you want to do is tense your-.”

“Shut up,” Kol quietened Tyrion’s instructions.

“It’s your funeral,” Tyrion muttered before saying, “Off you go.”

Kol took in a deep breath staring off the edge of the cliff. The walk up there was tiresome, by Tyrion insisted the first lift-off be off a cliff to get him into the flow of things again instead of a ground take-off.

Kol took one last look at the setting sun before stretching out his wings like a shadow amongst the red clouds. Then he took a step.

The air smacking into his body was the first thing he felt. His back muscle strained to keep his wings spread out as the wind wished to push them closed. He was falling, perhaps slower than a rock, but he was still hurtling towards the ground, watching the trees race towards him.

Then instinct kicked, the air gripped onto his wings like a crab, clinging onto his feathers when he changed his angle of attack. The floor began to move away from him as he started to fall into the sky. He could feel the high pressured air pushing up against his wing as it tried to meet its low-pressured companion. With a pull of strength, he pushed his wings through the air in one large flap, propelling him forward before gliding. His edge feathers twisted down on his right wing, to move in a circular motion.

This was freedom.

He had never felt anything better than the cold breeze that whipped through his hair and ran its finger through his wings. Nature had never looked better than it did at that moment. He felt more alive than he had ever felt before.

He circled around, making a landing back onto the cliff, stumbling a bit but regaining his balance.

“We will leave tomorrow morning,” Tyrion said, then sat on the edge of the cliff looking out at the fading sun.

Kol decided to join him, letting his feet hang. It was so beautiful. The dusting clouds were a vortex of colour. It felt peaceful, just sitting there. Nothing seemed to matter to Kol at that moment except for the retreating sun running from the moon whose darkness was soon to conquer the sky.

“Kaycion,” Tyrion’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “When all this is over, I want a house on a cliff like this.”

For once Kol couldn’t help but agree with him. That sounded perfect.

“My name is Koltalla,” he simply replied.

Tyrion turned to look at him. “Do you know what that means?”

Kol looked back, eyebrows scrunching slightly. “Slave. Koltalla means slave in the ancient tongue. Do you still want to be called that?” Tyrion asked

He did reply, looking back at the view. Lies, they were all lies…truth had died long ago, and only his twisted mistress remained.