"Speak," he ordered. "Is my gesha alright?"
"Yes and no," Towaren said carefully. "I don't know what's going on between you and her and I'm not going to ask. A fated bond is private first and foremost, but she has not been herself and you have not been to the palace in a week."
Xaven didn't answer. He wasn't about to discuss his bond with Towaren, the aide was right about that.
"I finally decided to come and speak to you," Towaren said. "If the High Senator found out, I'm sure she would be furious, but..."
"Go on."
"This is bad," the young warrior admitted. "I have been there for every major event of her life since she became a general. I witnessed the failing of her first bond and fought off her rage when she was demoted to the High Senator.
"I've never seen her the way she is without you, Captain. She is like a ghost, a shadow. Like the fire inside her has gone out. I have seen no light emitting from her valor squares in a while. No anger, no sorrow, no joy."#p#分页标题#e#
That sounded eerily familiar. Xaven listened, feeling the painful cold grip around his heart tighten even more. It wasn't just him suffering, then.
Hoping that Eleya was faring better had been his only comfort. Not even the darkest hour of his life could make him wish anything else but the best for his fated. Eleya had broken her first bond and although Xaven considered the same thing happening to him worse than death, it had given him some much-needed peace of mind.
He'd imagined Eleya had to more prepared for the feeling of loss, but clearly he'd been wrong.
Xaven didn't know what to say. Not to Towaren and definitely not to Eleya. The last time he'd tried to speak to her had resulted in the worst heartbreak of his life.
For a Brion, being away from their fated was an unimaginable cruelty.
"Thank you for bringing this to my attention," he told Towaren. "I will do everything I can to fix Eleya."
The young warrior observed him with a curious expression.
"Is that what you think she needs?" he asked.
Xaven felt his fingers itching for the spear on his back. The aide had some courage if he dared to speak to him like that. Eleya was his gesha, his and his alone.
"She needs to know that I will do whatever I can to make her feel better, no matter how she feels about me," Xaven said.
"That's just martyrdom," Towaren said, raising his hand and reaching for the spear when Xaven growled so viciously the young warrior was forced to back away. "She doesn't want that. This is what I was afraid of."
"Say another word about my gesha and you will deeply regret it," Xaven snarled, pulling his spear.
"If I must fight you, I will," Towaren said. "Hear me out, Captain. I know that her image is tough and cold, but the High Senator is the last person who needs someone to sacrifice himself for her.
"She doesn't like feeling like a burden. I know you're her gerion and you don't think of her like that, but the fact that you use the word "fix" doesn't speak in your favor either. She doesn't need fixing."
The spear in his hands yearned to be used, but Xaven held on to his temper. The aide had no business talking to him like that, but it was clear he cared about Eleya and that he knew his fated much better than he did.
That was cause for concern, and cause to listen.
Xaven considered. Was it true? During the time he'd spent with Eleya, had he made an attempt to get to know her? Or had he done as she'd accused him? Trying to put in enough hours and effort to get close to her without ever bothering to figure out if there was an easier way.
He lowered his spear and Towaren relaxed visibly. The valor squares on his neck stopped pulsing battle readiness.
"I know," Xaven said, his deep voice filled with emotion. "Of all people, I should know that she is perfect."
Towaren said nothing. The truth was obvious enough and the question couldn't have been louder in his mind.
Why wasn't he saying it to her?
9
Eleya
She had always believed that the opposite of pain was peace. And that the opposite of happiness was sadness, but neither were true.
Eleya just felt numb.
Like a leaf adrift in the wind, she went through the motions that had become routine to her. Luckily for her, the High Senator could draw on years of experience. She didn't need to feel emotion toward something to know how she would normally react to it. Eleya just searched her memories for a suitable comparison and acted on it.
She kept herself busier than usual, because every free moment she had was spent pondering the same question.
How could it happen to her twice?
Eleya hadn't broken the bond yet, but she didn't see how they could take back everything that had already gone wrong. Calling your fated mate a blind fool wasn't usually the start of a beautiful relationship.
She worked long into the night, just to make sure she would fall to bed too tired to lay awake, tossing and turning. Missing Xaven.
Eleya had doubled her training sessions as well. Anything to make sure she was too tired to contemplate how much she wanted to start everything all over.
Unfortunately, there were still some events she couldn't avoid as much as she would have liked to.
The tourney to find the next leader of Briolina's militia was one of them.
Mostly because Eleya had declared it.
The last High Lord had been killed hunting rogue warriors who had wanted to start a rival academy for warriors. Blasphemous ideas like overthrowing the rule of the Elders had made them the number one target of the Militia, whose job was to keep order on the home world while the generals were away.#p#分页标题#e#
Considering the galaxy they lived in, it was very rare for any of the generals to be present on the planet, so the High Lord needed to be strong.
Eleya had deemed all possible successors unworthy, but for the sake of appearance, she couldn't say that out loud. Instead, she'd announced a tournament, hoping that a more fitting candidate would appear.
"How are the lists looking?" Eleya asked Towaren, sitting in her balustrade overlooking the grand arena where fighters were preparing for the initial rounds.
"Good," her aide said, checking the enlisted names of the warriors contending for the position. "It's a massive turnout, as could be expected."
Eleya nodded, frowning.
"That's the price we pay," she said. "I wanted to make sure no candidates were missing because of a technicality, but there's always the danger it attracts some powerful psycho. Any red flags?"
Towaren gave her a quick look that never boded well.
"Gods," Eleya breathed. "Let me have it. How bad is it?"
"As bad as it gets," her aide admitted. "Moroven enlisted this morning."
Eleya groaned, clenching her fists and trying to keep her expression as impassive as possible. The balustrade she was sitting under was well visible from every point of the arena and at any moment, a thousand pair of eyes at least were watching her. She couldn't show weakness and anger was by far the worst weakness there was.
"Moroven," she repeated. "Didn't I send him away? For this exact purpose."
The warrior in question was one of Eleya's most bothersome and prevailing nightmares. As the High Senator of a planet where every child bore the potential to become a world conqueror, Eleya had to deal with a lot.
Brions as a species were dutiful and honorable, if a little sharp – more often than not literally. Most importantly, though, they were manageable. Eleya used the fact a lot to calm down the Galactic union , always watching the warrior species with badly disguised fear.
The average Brion could be reasoned with. Moroven wasn't average by far.
As her luck would have it, the man was born to wield a blade in his hand. Eleya had kept an eye on him for a long time now. She'd hoped to push the warrior toward a suitable position, but had quickly found that Moroven was a very specific type of out-of-control.
First and foremost, he was an extremist. Eleya suspected that he was behind the death of the last leader of the Militia – the position Moroven would now be fighting for. And even if he wasn't guilty of that, the warrior had so much innocent blood on his hands that she wouldn't have given him control of his own breakfast.
Eleya was thinking quickly, drumming her fingers on the armrest of her seat.
"Do we have anyone?" she asked at last, speaking honestly with Towaren, one of the few people she trusted not to betray her confidence. "Moroven can't win this. He'd turn the Militia into a private army and I'd die before letting him do that."
She couldn't refuse giving the victor their prize. Brions didn't follow many rules, but the one that worked its way into every single aspect of their lives – whatever a Brion won was theirs to keep.
Towaren was looking through the tablet in his hands, searching for the answer to her prayers. It was taking him longer than it should have and Eleya started going through some back-up plans, each worse than the other.
She knew exactly what the problem was. Moroven was a brute, a force of nature with his massive ax. It said a lot that the warrior had never bothered to wield the traditional spear.
"I have one," Towaren said and Eleya let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.
"Alright," she said. "One is a good start. Who do you have in mind?"
She guessed the answer from the strange look in Towaren's eyes before the aide named the only warrior capable – and insane – enough to take on Moroven.