Spying

Arawn stepped back into being in the back courtyard of the palace and walked slowly through the corridors towards his given chambers. Sirona was a mystery. He wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t in league with Anu in some way, but he couldn’t afford to dismiss the possibility. Anu had always lacked creativity, but she craved power and dominion.
Getting a powerful young deity under her control wasn’t something he could put past her. They were different in many ways, but he knew that, at least in this, they would have come to the same conclusion to use Sirona against one another.
He entered his chambers and closed it behind him, stepping across the stone floors towards the magical pool he used when he didn’t mind if Anu would see him. It was about time that he gave her a bit of information about his activities to keep her in the dark about his true agendas.
The surface shimmered. The silver surface was mercurial and gleaming in the low light. It clouded with darkness for a moment, then the darkness parted to show him a scene of an execution in the middle of the duchy of Gunning. The people looked fearful and terrorized. Anu’s priests were screaming above the masses and lighting a massive pyre where four people had been bound.
It seemed that Anu’s religion was growing even more than he had anticipated. He let the mirror drift south towards Durin and found a very similar scene. The harbors had all been burned. The cult of Anu dragged young men and women into the temples as their eyes went vacant with hopelessness and pain.
A young man watched his younger sister be taken away and dressed as a maiden with a furious gaze as a priest smirked at him and stroked her hair. There was a nefarious smile on his lips as he said blessings over the child.
He shook his head, searching for the edge of where Anu’s march was now, and growled. She’d reached the western and southernmost coasts on her campaigns including Durin. It seemed she was expanding into Huron and north.
Would she never stop? If this kept up, she’d turn her sights to the Tara River. Anu’s desire for power was nearly unquenchable.
The pool shifted and he tried to look shocked as the view was pulled to a bedroom. Anu’s human form, Queen Blodeu, sat in a chair with her legs crossed in nothing more than a dressing gown. The bed behind her was a mess and the naked shoulders of the king were visible.
“Spying again, Arawn?” she asked, sipping her wine and bouncing her leg lightly. The firelight cast her face in sharp shadows as she lowered her gaze at him. “Don’t tell me that your human mistresses have bored you already.”
He chuckled, “They are far more interesting and entertaining than your… consort.”
Her eyes narrowed at him, “Apparently not, as you are speaking with me.”
“You established this connection. I would have been happy to see your latest quest for dominion in the northern continent.” He chuckled, “Perhaps you miss me, or are you simply wondering what it is like?”
She sneered, baring her teeth, “As if I would ever lower myself to the likes of you.”
Arawn laughed, “I have seen your consort, Anu. A peasant would be an upgrade, let alone myself."
King Haron was at least in his late forties and well on his way to death. Since marrying the king, Anu had laid a bloody path across the continent. Anu had found a way to control Haron through the beauty of her chosen vessel. Just like him, she was using the monarch to fuel her power and lead the spread of her cult. Unlike him, she had chosen a man she felt no attraction to.
Her eyes narrowed as he loosened the collar of his shirt, baring just a bit of his skin. He and Anu had always been at odds. Their magic was too different to ever find harmony and though she had always chosen very attractive vessels for her purposes, he had never found her attractive.
He had long thought that it was a point of irritation for her. She knew him well enough to know that her only chance of subduing him in any sort of peaceful manner was to feed his hedonism, but she couldn’t.
“You may pretend we are so different, but I know what your gaze feels like,” he smirked. “You took a form quite similar to the woman you last watched me with. Did you imagine crying out my name the way she did—?”
“Silence!” Anu hissed.
A jolt of power shot through the pool, shoving him back with more force than he anticipated. The mercurial liquid turned to spikes and shot out at him. He dodged most of them, but one stabbed into his shoulder.
The liquid drifted into the air, taking the shape of her face, “Perhaps now you will be more careful with your words.”
He chuckled and pulled the spike out of his shoulder, looking at the near glowing red liquid and tossing the spike aside. He narrowed his eyes, trying not to show how much it hurt or how surprised he was.
“I must have struck a nerve. Perhaps if you ask nicely, I may give you a taste.”
“The only thing I want from you is surrender,” she said with a smirk. “Next time it will be your head.”
The liquid dropped back into the basin. The spikes in the wall melted and slithered across the stone floor back into the basin.
He grit his teeth as he healed himself. He had meant to irritate her. It was the best way to keep her off the trail, but he had no idea that she had grown so powerful so quickly. He vanished the blood in his shirt and turned away from the pool towards his scrying glass that allowed him to slip unseen across the continent. He wondered how much longer that would last with the way Anu seemed to be gathering power.
There was one thing that he wanted to see, though it would require more focus than he was able to gather at the moment. Anu’s burst of strength worried and irritated him.
How much longer did he have before she set her eyes on his continent. Perhaps it was time to start showing her a bit more to deter her than to just lull her into a false sense of security.
She’d been using all this time to ensure her security by spreading her reign of terror across the continent.
Fear was a powerful tool, almost as powerful as belief and true worship, but Anu wasn’t capable of garnering much without fear. It wasn’t in Arawn’s personality to strive for true worship, and what belief he had instilled and nurtured in the people was starting to pale in comparison to Anu’s fear-mongering.
“Arawn? You’ve returned?”
He looked over at Fedelm, wanting to tell her to knock, but he realized that he had left the door open. He swallowed the rebuke though the irritation remained. Her dark blond hair and gem-blue eyes were as striking as ever. She walked with all the dignity of a noblewoman with a little more sensuality than most.
He’d taught her the pleasure she was capable of reaching and she clung to him as guidance, support, and a lover. While she tended to want more than he was willing to give emotionally and irritate him, he restrained his annoyance with her. She was a beautiful and willing woman. He also needed her to increase his power.
“You’ve come to find me, my queen?” Arawn asked lightly, drawing his gaze over the cut of her gown.
The rich blue made her eyes seem brighter. It was cut to flatter her full curves and show how wealthy the throne was. Fedelm was known for her beauty when she’d married the late king, but now, she was known for so many other things that her beauty simply added to her allure.
Her crown sparkled in the light of the magic crystals hanging from the wall.
Arawn stood turning to her, “Is it time for me to warm your bed?”
Her cheeks pinked and her gaze dropped. He wondered if she’d agree outright. Maybe she was feeling a bit bold today. That would be a welcome distraction from his frustration with Anu. He hadn’t intended to sleep with her, and he wasn’t exactly in the mood for it, but the thought of losing himself to pleasure for a little while was welcome.
“I was just walking by and the door was open. I heard a commotion and thought maybe someone had broken in.”
Arawn’s gaze dropped to the sword at her hip and he smiled.
“It is only I.”
Her gaze drifted towards the pool then to the scrying glass in his hand. She gasped and her gaze jumped back to his face.
“What have you seen?” she asked, “Is there trouble?”