Free Reaper Of Sorrows (Book 1) by James A. West Page B

“Sit in the center,” she instructed.
    After he settled himself with an accommodating grin, she placed a candle at each corner, no two the same color or size. Poking a wooden taper into the stove, she coxed its tip to flame with a gentle breath. Murmuring strange words, moving right to left around him, she lit each candle. Rathe thought he sensed the small flames as cold prickly fingertips caressing his skin, but dismissed that. Drafts rising through the floorboards, nothing more.
    Nesaea knelt before him, the individual candle flames shining like golden sparks in the depths of her eyes. Their slow, fiery dance brought to mind Nesaea’s dancing earlier. How she had moved, a beautiful flame to excite passions….
    He noticed the candles dimming, radiating a smoky, sullen light. At their dimmest, an eldritch aura materialized around the tiny flames. Crimson flecked with black, they seemed to press in, threatening to extinguish the candles’ infinitesimal heat.
    A skirling wind suddenly whipped around him, disturbing neither the flames nor the curtain before Nesaea’s bed, nor the sheaves of parchment atop her desk. The gust touched Rathe alone, bringing with it profane words spoken in a mocking tongue. Both the Eyes of Nami-Ja and the candles dimmed … dimmed … and went out. A smell wafted from the dead wicks, that of meat rotting in a winter wood.
    Rathe sat in the dark, trying to beat back a child’s fears. When that failed, he spoke, longing to hear Nesaea’s voice. “I suppose that always happens?” The camp’s joviality filtered into their confined space, seeming every bit as irreverent and scornful as that voice he had heard.
    “Never,” Nesaea breathed, sounding terrified.
    For a time, she said nothing more. In the silence, the ensorcelled orbs from the isles of Giliron gradually regained their luminance, revealing the stark terror in Nesaea’s gaze. As if that light gave her leave to speak, she whispered, “The blasphemous voice was that of the Khenasith , the Black Breath. Rarely is it heard, for it speaks only to the irredeemably accursed.”
    Rathe digested that. “So I spoke the truth when I guessed my own fortune, and I will be eaten by some fell beast?”
    “No,” she muttered hollowly. “Yours is a fate buried in shadow, a life of woe, a harrowing storm to trouble your every step. Turn this way or that, but you will never escape distress until the grave draws you to its loveless bosom.”
    He mulled her grim words. “What other fate is there for a man?” he asked, trying to comfort her more than himself. “Is not life but pinnacles of brief triumph and joy, followed by valleys of tedium and misery?”
    “Perhaps,” she allowed, looking to her hands fidgeting in her lap, “but the Khenasith has spoken, revealing the curse upon you. That’s what I sensed in my heart, that yours will be a life of woe.”
    Rathe snorted. “Maybe you should have kept it to yourself?”
    “I should have,” she agreed.
    “Well then,” Rathe murmured, edging closer to Nesaea, “if I am twice cursed, then to the darkness with my vows of reformation.” He swept her into his arms and stole the kiss he had coveted since first laying eyes on her. Her soft lips tasted of honeyed spices—
    With surprising strength, she shoved him back, a shocked light replacing the apprehension in her eyes. He grinned sheepishly, and she slapped him, hard .
    Blinking, Rathe worked his jaw, wondering how he had misjudged her earlier desire. He made to stammer an apology, then her fingers were suddenly tangled in his hair, pulling him close. Before their lips met, she whispered, “Promise you will always act with caution. Promise me! ”
    He nodded, and sealed his promise with a lingering kiss. A scream from outside broke and scattered all other plans he had in mind to prove his pledge to Nesaea.

Chapter 10
    N esaea pushed him away and jumped to her feet. Before either could speak, an iron arrowhead punched through the flank