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A Whole New World

Chapter 57

"Where were you taking me before?" Azrian wondered.

She and Sinte were resting together in the tall golden grass of a meadow. They lay side by side as the grass rose around them in a rippling wall. The meadow was dotted with flowers, pink and yellow and red, white and buttery gold and blue, and their petals tumbled across the pink sky. Azrian stared at the sky, thinking that for the first time in a long time she was free.

She was free of the burden of becoming queen of Varimore.

But Azrian still intended to help her kin. Somehow. Just not with the methods of a dog. She was tired of court intrigue, politics, backstabbing, and games. She thought of all she and Primus had done - setting up Hellene to be raped and having Echridge die for a crime he hadn't committed - and she realized it wasn't who she was. She couldn't live that life or play that role. And she absolutely refused to. The gods be damned.

"I had to ritualistically sacrifice you," Sinte said nonchalantly. He was lying on his back, blowing a dandelion clean of its seeds. All the seeds hadn't cleared, so he pursed his lips and blew again. The white seeds drifted away to the bright sky, and an orange butterfly flapped lazily through them. The pretty insect trailed sparkling orange light. All the insects in this world trailed light.

Azrian and Sinte were not on earth. They were in Hilo'tera, the eighth tier of Skkye. It was where Sinte lived and where the all demigods were allowed to stay. All the tiers had designations, with the ninth - Hektaten, the highest tier - being reserved for the gods and their fully immortal children alone. E'cru, the lowest tier, was for those mortals rewarded with immortality, while Sinte explained to Azrian that the other tiers were occupied by other immortal beings created by the gods but not important enough to live in Hektaten.

Azrian liked Skkye. It was peaceful. The singing was like nothing she had ever heard on Aonre, and Hilo'tera was gorgeous. It was one big endless meadow with rolling hills and the occasional giant tree. Golden clouds streamed across the pink sky, and more clouds drifted across the grass on level with the very ground. If you fell on one, it would carry you away without stopping. The gargantuan trees always bore sweet fruits, and their monolithic trunks could be entered the way dogs entered buildings. Azrian walked through the streams of light and thought it was paradise, a whole new world.

But Hilo'tera was also empty.

Demigods were very rare, as the gods rarely deigned to breed with mortals, which would have required that they risk their immortality by descending to Aonre. Azrian and Sinte only encountered one demigod in their leisurely stroll through Hilo'tera: a male fox, bright orange as a butterfly, who did not draw near but solemnly watched them from afar, his ears pricked forward and his red wings tense, as if he might spring away.

And though she was with Sinte, Azrian found herself thinking of Etienne and wishing she could share the beautiful place with him. Sinte saw her expression, and rightly guessing what troubled her, he reminded her that the fact that Etienne couldn't come to Skkye was the reason she should be with someone like herself.

"Ritualistic sacrifice?" Azrian repeated incredulously.

With the dandelion devoid of seeds, Sinte dropped his paw to his belly and twirled the stem in his fingers. "Yes. It had to be done first. To make you mortal. To keep you from Skkye. I was to place you on an altar and stab you with the glass of Skkye. To simply kill you would have meant to send you here, in which case you wouldn't really have died. The glass would have broken your tie to Skkye. Then I would have been free to really kill you."

"Glass?"

"Crystals that grow from the ground in great pillars . . . you would have to go to Hildrith'el's palace to see it."

"Have you been to her palace?"

"Once. When I was a boy."

"How long ago was that?"

Sinte looked away and didn't answer. Azrian had noticed immediately that he was touchy about his age. And Hilo'tera was so empty . . . She couldn't imagine what it was like to spend eternity alone here, despite the place's beauty. But she had the feeling that an eternity alone was exactly what Sinte had spent. And she had to wonder . . . was Hilo'tera his home . . . or his prison?

"But where were you keeping the glass?" Azrian blurted, staring at the sky. "I mean . . . you were just wearing a loincloth."

"Yes," said Sinte irritably. "And I wore it specifically for the ritual. I liked that loincloth. Damn you."

Azrian smiled at the sky.

The moment they came to Hilo'tera, modest Sinte took her to the tree where he lived and dressed himself - and her. He wrapped her in a long white gown, as everyone in Skkye tended to wear gold and white and walking about naked was forbidden.

Azrian didn't mind. She thought the gown was beautiful. It was sleeveless, the thin gold straps hanging loose over her shoulders. The neckline was deep, and the skirts ran smooth to her feet and frothed up again, as if she were walking on a cloud. And the fabric was light and incredibly soft. She curled her fingers in it as they lay in the grass.

Sinte was wearing a short white skirt with gold trim, and a thin ribbon of a gold belt that held the skirt on. His hard chest was bare, and his wings were spread under him in the grass. Azrian rested her weight on her elbow, her red mane tumbling around her as she stroked the silky black feathers of his wings.

He glanced at her and put his big arm behind his head. "I left the glass dagger at one of my mother's shrines. I was to bring you there . . . and slay you. The ritual would have made you mortal. You wouldn't have really died - though to a god, it's the same thing."

"And then when I was mortal, you would have killed me."

"Yes."

Azrian lifted her eye and looked at him. "So you would have what . . .? Just stabbed me with a magical crystal dagger?"

"Right in your heart," Sinte said to the sky.

"Before or after you had your way with me?" she teased. She was still leaning her weight on her elbow, and as a lick of red mane tumbled forward to touch her cheek, she looked at him steadily, a reproach in her eye.

Sinte sat up, his great wings rustling softly as they folded behind him. He rested his elbows on his knees and peered off. Azrian sat up beside him, her red mane tumbling as she leaned her weight on her arm. She dropped her gaze to the grass and waited for him to speak. A little ant crept by her toe, golden to camouflage himself in the grass.

"I never meant to . . . want you," Sinte said with shame. "I didn't expect you to be so beautiful . . . or to make me feel . . ." He frowned and looked away. "What does it matter? I didn't go through with it."

"What changed your mind? Just sex? Really?"

He turned without warning, and slipping his big arm around her slender waist, he drew her close and kissed her. Azrian melted into the kiss, parting her lips to accept his gentle tongue as it slipped against her own to taste her. He kissed her deeply and slowly, turning his head as the stroke of his lips and tongue intensified. Her heart was fluttering when he pulled away again, and she sat beside him, trembling a little.

"You changed my mind," he said quietly. "I still meant to kill you. Even when we were talking. You still didn't seem to grasp that what you and Ti'uu were doing wasn't a solution. But then you spoke of Etienne and your love for him. . . . and I realized . . ." He swallowed and was silent.

"Sinte?"

"I realized . . . I wanted you to love me that way . . . I have lingered here so long . . . alone." He glanced at her. "And you'll be alone one day too. If you go back to him. You'll wind up like me."

Azrian frowned as it slowly dawned on her. "Sinte . . . who did this dress belong to?" She pinched her skirts with pink nails and looked at them.

His face darkened and he didn't look at her. "No one."

Azrian stared at him a long time, trying to decide if she should push. Finally, she licked her lips and looked out across the meadow. "But if I love Etienne, why should I regret even a moment that I spend with him? Why not be with him?" She dropped her gaze and whispered to herself, "Even if it's only a moment in my own eternity?"

Sinte didn't answer. He got up and strolled off. Azrian rose and followed him, wading through the frothing white cloud her skirts formed around her ankles. The skirt was split up the front, and occasionally, one of her long slender legs emerged from the spilt as she glided to his side.

They were silent for a long while, Sinte occasionally plucking flowers and twirling them. It was going to be dark soon. But the sunsets in Hilo'tera, they lasted for hours.

Eventually, Sinte took Azrian's paw without looking at her. She smiled when he swung their clasped paws. And then he kicked off, and they were flying side-by-side, their manes whipping back in the breeze. A cloud drifted by, and they landed on it and sat, feet dangling. Their feet were bare. No one wore shoes in Skkye.

"Sinte?"

"Azrian?"

"Is there some way the ritual could work in reverse?"

"To make Etienne immortal," Sinte said with a small smile.

"You told me E'cru is where mortals go when they've been gifted immortality. So why couldn't Etienne . . .?"

"You and I do not have the power to grant a mortal eternal life. Believe me . . ." His face darkened again. "I know."

Azrian stared at Sinte in silence, trying to understand the bitterness in his narrow eyes. It was clear that he had loved someone before. And it slowly dawned on her that he had tried to make this someone immortal. . . . Sinte had loved a mortal.

What had happened to the mortal? Was she dead? Azrian wanted to ask, but Sinte looked so tense and hurt, she rubbed his back and his wings instead, and his tight muscles relaxed. His wings trembled a little each time she touched them, and she noticed his eyes hood from the pleasure. She smiled and stroked her fingers deeper along his feathers, and a shiver went down his back and to the tip of his tail. He caught her wrist to stop her. And they looked at each other.

"You are making me . . ." He glanced down at his lap, and Azrian could see the bulge happening behind his skirt.

". . . sorry?"

He let her go, and they sat in silence a long time, watching as the distant sun sank bloody into the sea of pink clouds.

"What if I used a glass dagger," Azrian said eventually, "to make Hellene mortal? It would take all her power."

Sinte snorted. "You don't need to take her power to stop her. You are as strong as her. You always were. When Ti'uu healed you in the sea, he only restored what strength you had lost due to your injuries. And my mother's touch. Zihma drained you as much as Hellene."

"But when I stop Hellene, I don't want her coming here to live for all eternity. I want her to die. _Really_die." Azrian's eyes glinted as she thought of Primus, whose head she had sat with in her cell. For weeks.

"Then you must use the glass of Skkye to stop her."

"Where is your mother's shrine?"

"That dagger would be long gone by now, taken by one of my mother's disciples. I will give you another," Sinte said calmly, "if you tell me what you intend to do. To help our kin. You say you still wish to help them, but it seems beyond you and your father to understand that perhaps the foxes do not need your brand of help."

Azrian looked at him in amazement. "Yes, they do!"

Sinte shook his head. "See?"

"Fine," Azrian snapped and frowned at the sunset. "Maybe it isn't best to just merge them into dog society and expect them to live as second class citizens. Maybe that life would be worse for them. But what if I restored their kingdoms? Gave them their own land again? They would live in palaces and have cities . . . what?"

Sinte was shaking his head. He sighed. "And then every newly empowered fox tribe would be foaming at the mouth to take back the rest of their lands from the dogs. There would be war. Bloody and endless and savage. And Aonre would burn and drown in its own blood. Just as it did thousands of years ago."

"I find it hard to believe Ayni wouldn't want Aonre to burn."

Sinte blinked at her, his narrow eyes dancing thoughtfully over her face. ". . . then clearly you do not know Ayni." He looked away. "The foxes are her children. So are the other gods, in a way. She wants what's best for everyone. The dogs were sent to our kin like a spanking when they defied her . . . a harsh spanking."

"And now they're being hunted down in their own forests," Azrian said in disgust. "Like rodents. Skinned like prizes . . ."

"You think you know what's best for them, but did you ever stop to wonder what any of them wanted for themselves? Maybe they would rather live in their forests."

"Does Ayni ever stop to wonder what they want?" Azrian demanded.

Sinte's black ear flicked. "Yes, actually. She has walked among her worshipers, spoken to them, guided them -- while you have barely had contact with your own kind. You only bothered to notice Ayni's tribe in the Nahet because you were horny. You never even cared about their plight until Ti'uu asked you to care."

Azrian sputtered angrily. But she had no retort. He was absolutely right.

"So if you come up with a proper solution," Sinte went on and pulled himself up on his wings. He hovered over her where she sat on the cloud, flapping his wings slowly. ". . . I will give you a dagger of glass to do with as you wish. But only then."

Azrian scowled as he took off across the sky. She leapt up and followed him, pushing her arms and legs back to cut faster in his wake. "Why don't you solve the world's problems!" she demanded when they were flying shoulder to shoulder.

"I was asked to make you mortal and kill you," he said, not looking at her. "I wasn't asked to play savior. I wasn't asked to care about my kin on Aonre. I may still have to complete my task, if you prove foolish enough to do what I think you are."

Azrian scowled. "But you _do_care - or you wouldn't bother trying to stop me!"

"That is true," Sinte admitted calmly.

The great tree where he lived appeared in the distance, skirted in a sea of pink clouds. In the front of the trunk was a great hole like a door, while smaller holes acted like round windows. Balls of softly glowing light bobbed gently in and out the windows, and Azrian knew they were insects, humming their soft tune to the twilight sky. Sinte swooped inside one of the windows, and Azrian followed.

She landed on the wooden floor inside and recognized Sinte's bedroom. She had only been there once before when he had given her something to wear, and ever since, they had roamed Hilo'tera together, sleeping at night in the grass, beneath the stars. But tonight, Sinte wished to sleep in his bed. And he wished to sleep alone. He said so as he went to the bed and leaned against the bedpost to untie his skirt.

The posts of Sinte's large four-poster bed were wound in vines and billowing with soft white curtains. The pillows and sheets were white as well, rumpled from where he had lay before. Wooden tables and chairs and shelves made up the room. There were books stacked on the floor, juggling half-eaten fruits and candles burned to pools of wax. Azrian went to a book that lay open on a table and smiled to realize it was poetry.

"Why are you still here?" Sinte complained.

Azrian glanced over at the tight muscles of his back. His skirt fell away to reveal his hard backside, flexing as he stepped out it. His penis swung softly against his thigh, and she licked her lips. She could feel the lips of her sex swelling as she looked at him, all tight muscles and bulging arms. They hadn't touched since that first night under the sea. He had kept her advances at bay. And she was secretly quite frustrated.

"I don't want to sleep alone," Azrian admitted. There were many rooms in the tree, and she could have easily gone to one of them. He had told her once before to pick any room she wished and it was hers.

Outside, darkness fell across the sky, cool and purple as the first stars winked in the heavens. The little insects glowed all the brighter for the darkness.

Sinte sighed as Azrian came to him. He was still leaning his shoulder against the bedpost, and his wings were folded tight behind him.

"To be god-touched," he said unhappily, "is to be alone."

Azrian peered around his muscly shoulder at his face, her gaze sympathetic, her red mane tumbling against her cheek. She closed her fingers slowly on his arm and rubbed. "That's not true. You don't have to be alone."

His ears were flat when he looked at her. "Don't I?" He pushed from the bedpost and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. "You will return to your Etienne, and you will see the way of things are soon enough. Goodnight, Azrian."

Azrian didn't leave. She took his belt from the bed . . . and slowly tied it around his throat. He swallowed hard as she shrugged the thin gold straps of her dress off, letting them fall to reveal her breasts, full and high.

"Az-Azrian . . ." he whispered, and his paws were trembling with desire. He placed them on her hips and dropped his forehead against her slender belly. "You can't . . ."

"I can," she whispered and tugged hard on the belt, choking him to silence.

He grunted and squeezed his eyes shut against the commanding tug. Then his fingers curled in the fabric of her gown . . . and he slowly tugging it down, revealing her long legs, her shapely thighs, and the sex squeezed between them. She closed her eyes when she felt his tongue slap between her thighs, gently, obediently . . . then harder, with hunger, flowing with hard finesse against her sex and curling to slip inside. His lips found her clit and he breathed hard through his nostrils as he sucked it, the hot breath steaming the swollen lips of her sex as he became aroused.

Azrian pulled on the belt and forced his mouth away. She wanted to watch him getting hard, though he looked at her sex with greedy hunger, and she knew he wanted to keep eating her. She didn't let him. He led him on paws and knees across the bed, pulling him along on the belt, and he followed, his muscular body moving with a predatory slowness that said he just might pounce her.

She tugged the belt to make him stop crawling, and he obeyed, sitting on the center of the bed as he watched her lean naked against the pillows and spread her legs. His eyes traced over her swollen breasts, down her narrow waist, and to her sex, and as his gaze burned with desire, his dark penis started to swell. It moved slowly, flinching as it started to lift, and he grunted when it was finally standing thick and strong, throbbing against the air in a silent plea.

Azrian came to him and plucked one of his feathers. He winced, watching with a thudding heart as she tickled the feather against his erection.

"Azrian, you can't just take what you -- ah!" She pulled on the belt to silence him, and her eye peered into his face, waiting for him to speak again. When he only bit his lip, she dropped her gaze to his erection, and tickled with the feather again. Slowly. Gently. Twirling it lightly in careful strokes along the shaft. He thick penis flinched against the pleasure, he gasped, he grimaced, his fingers curling tight in the sheets. She saw his muscular belly trembling and knew it was too much. His eyes begged for release, but she kept going, tickling his heavy sack before twirling the feather along the shaft again.

She saw his penis flinch again, and watery precum trickled free. He was on the verge of releasing. She dragged her tongue around the head of his penis, and he watched, helpless to stop her when he made a sudden move, only to have her wrench hard on the belt.

She licked his precum off, gently and wetly, and sat up, savoring the taste of him. Then she grabbed him by the throat and slammed him on the bed. He grunted, his wings rustling behind him. But his eyes softened as he looked at her. He wanted to kiss her.

She straddled him . . . and carefully smashed her moist sex over his shaft. His belly was still shaking as she took him to the base, and as her lips clenched hungrily on his erection, they both sighed. She began to ride, rolling her hips gently and slowly, and she could see the bulge of him pressing through. He was so thick and strong. A shudder went through her, and she leaned back on her paws, thrusting her hips forward as she sucked her hungry sex on his shaft.

He gave a shuddering breath, and when she looked at him again, his eyes were burning. She had let go of the belt without thinking, and it fell away as he suddenly sat up and grabbed one of her breasts. She gasped as his tongue rolled her nipple, as his lips closed to suck. He squeezed the other one and sucked it at as well, eagerly, hungrily, and so deeply, her head fell back with a toss her mane. She fumbled for the belt, but he caught her wrist and continued to suckle her, and when she twisted to get free him, he fumbled her back into his arms and held her tightly as he bit her neck.

"Ah!"

"You think you can rape_me?" he whispered, licking her long neck gently, lovingly. "I am not your pet. I am your _match."

Her only response was to tremble as he slowly pushed his hips to punch himself up and in. She bounced from every sudden punch of his penis, and she could hear the moisture of her arousal squelching on him. His big arms were locked tight around her, holding her in place, and her breasts were smashed in his face. He continued to suckle them carefully as he moved against her, and she wriggled - not to get free but to get him deeper.

His arms slowly loosened as she surrendered, and she was able to slip her arms around his neck. He looked at her lips . . . and slipped his tongue in her mouth. She gulped on the sudden intrusion, and their tongues twisted wetly, their heads turned slowly as they kissed, rocking together on the bed.

He pulled back to look in her eyes as they rocked, and his gaze was intense as he whispered, "What about Etienne?"

Azrian blinked sadly. "I have already lost him . . . as you lost your lover. Long ago."

He blinked sadly as well . . . then dragged her with sudden aggression to the bed. She gasped when he grabbed her by the tail and flipped her on her belly. She suddenly felt limp and weak as he took control, pulling to her by the hips to her knees and kicking her thighs apart. Her mane was draped in her face when he bit her on the neck and punched himself in again, hard. "Ah!" Her head snapped back in a toss of her mane and her lashes fluttered as he grabbed her by the arms and roughly took her - so hard her breasts flapped, her backside jiggled, and the bed slapped the wall from every heavy slam of his hungry penis.

Some time later, Azrian's eye fluttered open as she awoke in the bed beside Sinte. She lay on her side, curvy and naked on the white sheets, her red mane tumbling around her as the morning sun spilled over the bed. Sinte had taken her. Roughly. Passionately. And all night. And when it was over, he fell asleep holding her.

He was still holding her now, as if he was afraid she would fly away and leave him. His big arm was draped across the dip of her waist and pulled back on occasion so he could smooth his paw over the round rise of her hip. Azrian felt good in his arms, felt good any time he touched her, and smiled as she dragged one leg against the other, her golden eye fixed on the sunrise and reflecting the light like glass. He breathed a long moan and smoothed his paw up to cup her plump breast.

"Azrian," he whispered in her ear. He squeezed his fingers tight in her soft breast and buried a kiss in her neck.

Azrian closed her eye and frowned with pleasure. "Hmm?"

"Are you sure you won't go back to him?"

Azrian sighed sadly. "How many times are you going to ask?"

"I have to be certain you aren't thinking of Etienne when you are with me. I will not live that life. I will not be . . . the other lover."

"I don't even know where Etienne is," she protested feebly.

"And yet, you intend to find him. You still wish to help him become king of Varimore. You wish to be rid of Hellene, to guide him from the shadows like some sort of angel, even if you will not be with him."

Azrian was silent.

"That path will only lead to bitterness. To frustration and sorrow . . . I know what I'm talking about: I am the Son of Sorrow."

"I have to help Etienne," Azrian said in a small voice. "I won't let him know it's me . . . but I'll help him. I can't let anything happen to him."

"Then you still love him," sighed Sinte. "And I suppose you are destined for sorrow. As I was destined. Long ago." He pulled his arm away, and Azrian listened as he turned over.

She felt a terrible pang of guilt and didn't know why. She had never promised Sinte that by coming here she would fall in love with him. And she had never promised to fall out of love with Etienne.

"Sinte . . ." Azrian took a breath, knowing that she was going to regret asking. "What happened to her? The mortal . . . that you loved."

There was silence. And Azrian went very still, expecting him to ask her to leave, to glare at her in anger, to do . . . something. But he did nothing. He didn't even move. Finally, she sat up and looked at him. He was lying on his side with his back to her, his black wings around him as if to hide. She peered over his shoulder at his face and was surprised to see the tear in his eye. She frowned and rubbed his arm.

"I shouldn't have asked. _Avell,_Sinte."

"No," he said quietly. "I will tell you want happened. And then maybe you will understand."

Azrian waited.

"She was mortal, a vixen I spied through the waters of Skkye. She called out to my mother in sorrow, begging Zihma to help her bear the grief of having lost one of her kin. She was so young and beautiful and sad . . . my mother didn't answer. I answered."

". . . what happened?" Azrian whispered.

"I loved her," Sinte said simply. "And she loved me. And such things she whispered as we embraced. I begged my mother to make her immortal. I begged all the gods. They said no. It is very rare that a mortal is allowed to come here. Only the high gods will allow it."

"The high gods?"

"Ayni . . . your father . . . Hildrith'el the First Light."

"Oh."

"So I set out to make her immortal myself. I tried everything . . . nothing worked. My own magic could not bring her here, though I had believed for so long there was a way. I prepared this home for her . . ." He glanced at Azrian. "I prepared her clothes. Believing that one day she would come here. And be mine.

"My mother hated my love for the mortal. She said it was a phase, that I would get over it, and she shut me away here so that I could not return to Aonre. For years, I watched through the water as my love experienced the joys and pains of life. She soon forgot me and she married . . . she had children and she took joy in raising them . . . one of her children died in the Hunt, she cried out again to my mother, and I watched as my mother comforted her with the caress of the rain. She grew old . . . and she died. She lived her life without me, experienced its pains and its ecstasies without my interfering, and she died. And it was so brief." His eyes blinked at the wall, incredulous. "But beautiful. And sad. And I . . . hadn't been a part of it."

Azrian stroked his mane sympathetically.

"I went to my mother . . . and I asked her 'Is that all? All the years she will have?' And my mother told me it was. And I asked why. Why, in those short years, did my love experience more of life than I had in all my centuries? Why was I forced to lounge about here . . . doing nothing . . . while my love felt and breathed and knew joy and pain and ultimately came to her end, while the gods knew nothing of pain had no end? My love's mortal life . . . it made eternity seem so . . . empty. Especially when lived alone."

Azrian dropped her face in his neck and slipped her arms around him, hugging him.

"And even if you weren't god-touched," Sinte said softly, "you are still fox kin. And foxes live a very long time. Either way, you would have watched Etienne grow old and die."

"That doesn't mean I shouldn't love him," Azrian said firmly. "I would rather spend a few decades of happiness with him than face all of eternity alone. And your mother was wrong to lock you away here. She should have understood that."

"I suppose. The gods aren't right all the time." He smoothed his paw over hers, almost absently.

"Foxes shouldn't be apart from their gods," Azrian said with a frown.

"Maybe they should. You do realize they started a war on Heaven itself?"

"Only because they had been separated from Hildrith'el and wanted to be near her light."

"What are you suggesting?"

"Maybe they need a new goddess. One who will walk among them."

"What?"

"Maybe the foxes need . . ." Azrian smiled as it dawned on her. "A new world."