I would like to welcome author Mark D. Evans to my blog today! He has written such an amazing short story as his guest post today. It is very appropriate for the month of February, so much so he was so excited about it that he politely asked if he could share it on his website first (I could hardly say no to that face, no can I?). Thank you Mark!
HEARTS
by Mark D. Evans
“Undo what evil you
have lain, or my bidding will be done!” Claudius looked down upon the
black-haired man at his feet. His wrists were held by two soldiers on each arm,
his torso forced forward and streaks of blood surrounded his knees from being
dragged on the stones.
Valentinus looked up
from beneath his own long curls that dripped with sweat. The robes that had
once covered him were now in tatters. “I will never undo what is so rightly
deserved,” he said calmly, fighting back the pain.
“So be it,” replied the
emperor. He glanced up from under his crown of golden leaves at the guards and
dipped his head in a single nod. From around the perimeter of the open-air
court, ten Roman soldiers marched slowly toward the centre where Valentinus was
being held down. As they closed in, the soldiers holding the sorcerer’s arms
stepped to the side, pulling on his arms and forcing him up to his feet. He was
being stretched, his bare chest feeling like it was about to tear apart down
the middle. The three guards facing him—slowly marching toward him—raised
their clubs. Each had been carved from a single trunk of oak, shaped and sanded.
The knots in the wood were pronounced, rising out from the bludgeons here and
there in small, sharpened burls. They were heavy things, their weight forcing
the muscles and tendons of the guards' arms to tense and stand defined while
they kept the weapons aloft.
All ten guards marched
to a stop. They could have been brothers, no one would know with the helmets
they each wore. Valentinus looked through the slit in that of the guard not
more than a few feet in front of him, and searched the loyal, steadfast eyes.
And then Valentinus
smiled.
The guard twisted his
torso, the muscles of his broad shoulders and thick arms sliding beneath the
skin as the club was swung. He grunted with the effort required before his
weapon struck Valentinus's side with a loud, dull smack. His ribs cracked and a
sharp knot stabbed him between two of them.
Forgetting the pain was
no longer an option. He roared. His body wanted to fall to the ground as the
club was removed, but the soldiers holding his arms didn’t allow it, pulling on
him and keeping him upright for the next blow that he hadn't even seen coming.
Striking him from behind, another sharpened knot punctured him above the waist.
With the pain came a searing light, and with the light came flickers of memory.
One Day Prior
Valentinus bore down on
the young beauty under him. Her gentle cries were those of pleasure and as what
little air between them grew hot, so too her cries grew louder.
A rumbling came from
the grand hall outside the chamber. Valentinus heard it, but he was good at his
craft and knew that anything outside this room was of no concern to the naked
brunette writhing beneath him.
Like thunder the heavy
doors opened with the force of ten guards, and through them as they parted
strode the emperor himself, the barbarian Claudius the Second. Valentinus
looked around, antagonising the emperor with his nakedness, infuriating him
with her’s. She was, after all, the emperor’s daughter.
“Guards! Seize him!”
Valentinus grinned a
wide grin and held out his arms as the guards charged. The emperor’s daughter
was in a confused state of shocked fear and explicit pleasure as Valentinus
performed his ultimate manoeuvre, bringing his hands together. The clap boomed,
stunning the guards for an instant by its impossible loudness. But they had a
duty to perform and continued forward, grabbing Valentinus’s hands and
separating them, spreading his arms wide before pulling him off the bed. Off of
the emperor’s daughter.
Claudius’s eyes
betrayed him as he looked on with horror. The beauty of his defiled daughter
was gone and she writhed now not in pleasure, but in pain. She clutched at her
heart, clawing at her chest as if trying to dig it out. Her eyes bulged and her
mouth widened. No sound escaped except that of distraught choking. Her back
arched and her body convulsed in a final display of violent animation. Then she
stiffened and collapsed to the side, sliding off the sheets and hitting the paved
floor with a heavy, moist slap.
Two Days Prior
“I present, my emperor,
Valentinus,” said Judge Asterius.
“I am humbled,” said
the handsome man with long, black curls, bowing to the formidable ruler and
making the women of the court swoon.
“And he can do as you
say?” asked Claudius.
“My liege, my dear
Antonia had been blind from birth.”
“I know, Asterius.”
“Look, now, my
emperor.” Asterius stepped aside, revealing behind him his daughter. Her head
was dipped, her blonde hair braided down her back. “Be gracious, my daughter,
and present yourself.”
Antonia lifted her
head, her bright blue eyes dazzling. The court gasped as she stepped forward
with no fear of tripping and looked straight into Claudius’s eyes. The emperor
himself found it hard to suppress his astonishment.
“You, Valentinus. Do
you proclaim to have done this?”
“Yes, your excellency.
It was I who healed the Judge’s daughter.”
“With magic? Do you
confess to performing miracles?”
“I confess to the
ability to heal, your excellency.”
“Do you not follow the
supposed Son of God?”
Valentinus dared to
meet the emperor’s eyes. “I keep my options open.”
Claudius paused in deep
thought, but not for long. “Your answers are not entirely to my liking, but I
have need for you. You shall be accepted in my court, and you will heal my
daughter of her muteness.”
Valentinus smiled
knowingly. “It will be my honour, your excellency.”
Three Days Prior
“You cannot say such
things under my roof!” Judge Asterius yelled at the young Valentinus through
the bars. “Is your arrest for crimes against the empire not enough that you
spout arguments for Jesus Christ?”
“Do you deny the good
he did?”
“What good?”
“Do you not believe in
the miracles, Judge?”
“Trickery.”
Valentinus tutted. “If
only I could show you. If only there were someone in need of healing on whom a
miracle could be performed, you would see that such gifts do exist.”
Asterius glared at the
man. “Are you trying to suggest you possess these gifts?”
Valentinus did nothing
but stare through the bars of his chamber with a sly grin.
“Speak now.”
Still, the young
sorcerer stayed silent.
"Very well. A test
shall then be performed. Either you convince me of the existence of such
divinity, or I will slay you here as you stand."
One Week Prior
“Valentinus, my love.
My heart has only ever beaten for you.”
Their eyes were locked
on each other’s, neither even daring to look away, fearful of losing even the
briefest moment of connection. Valentinus was sat on the ground, his lifelong
lover Decima lying on his lap, their hands together and their fingers entwined
like ivy. They were two magical souls that were meant to be forever as one.
Their love had always conquered any diversity, and this would be its final
test.
Could their love
conquer death?
Around them their
village burned. Claudius’s army had rampaged through it in the early hours of
dawn, the village folk under suspicion of siding with the Goths. And now Decima
was in Valentinus’s arms for the last time. The arrow had pierced her heart. Blood
soaked through her white robe, spreading like a lake bursting its banks.
“My heart,” croaked
Decima, “is yours.”
Her eyes glazed over
and rested past Valentinus’s shoulder, somewhere in the distance behind him. He
sobbed, a tear falling and mixing with his beloved’s blood, before he looked to
the heavens and roared. “I will take my revenge!” He looked back down into the
dead, soulless eyes of everything that had ever mattered to him. “I will be
with you soon, my love. For you, I will invoke the spirit of Cupid and destroy
the heart our enemy holds most dear.”
One Week Later
Valentinus stared up at
the blue sky. The sun was in the corner of the world and it made half of the
court glow. It lit up the red puddle in which he laid. He was unable to get up.
He was unable to move. Every bone in his body had been broken; cracked, smashed
or pulverised. Through meticulous effort his consciousness had only left him
fleetingly. His resolve was such as to see this through to the end, though he
couldn't ignore the chill in his body despite the radiant light.
“Heal, damn you!” spat
Claudius. “Heal yourself, or you will die.”
“That is a choice I've
already made, the only one I could make, for if two souls cannot be together in
life..." Valentinus croaked his words with strong defiance, his
implication clear.
With streaming eyes,
Claudius bent over the puffed, battered, split face of the two-faced Christian.
“Will you revive my daughter?” he shouted.
Finally, Valentinus saw
in his enemy the pain that he himself had suffered. “I will die, and be
remembered a Saint."
Claudius roared and
drew the sword from his waist, lifting Valentinus’s limp head from the floor by
his wet black hair, thrusting his blade down through the air between them
before swinging up, separating head from body in a violent and blood spurting
arc of heart-broken anger.
This
was the fourteenth day of the second month, two-hundred and sixty nine years
Anno Domini.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARK D. EVANS was born near London, England. He graduated university with a degree in something not even remotely connected with writing and went on to become a successful consultant. Then he threw it all away to chase his dream of being an author, via a considerable amount of travelling. Today, his life largely resembles that of a nomad, and he can currently be found typing away in a tiny flat in north London, sustained by coffee.
He is the author of two short stories, one of which made it into a Kindle Top Ten.
His latest work is his debut novel, No Shelter from Darkness, which is the first book in his series, The Cruentus Saga.
Mark also runs his own blog (
markaeology.com) and a third site devoted to The Cruentus Saga (
cruentus-saga.com).
AUTHOR LINKS
“Her hands began to shake as she looked down wide-eyed at the blood-soaked cotton that covered her.”
London emerges from the Blitz, and every corner of the city bears
the scars. In the East End—a corner fairing worse than most—thirteen
year-old Beth Wade endures this new way of life with her adoptive
family. She also suffers the prejudice against her appearance, an
abiding loneliness and now the trials of adolescence. But with this new
burden comes a persisting fatigue and an unquenchable thirst that
ultimately steals her into unconsciousness . . .
What happens next is the start of something Beth will fear more than the war itself.
She begins to change in ways that can’t be explained by her
coming-of-age, none more frightening than her need to consume blood. The
family who took her in and the former best friend who’s taken refuge in
their house can never know.
Aware of the danger she poses to everyone around her, Beth has never felt more alone.
But someone else knows Beth’s secret . . . someone who understands
just how different she really is. He alone can decrypt her past and
explain her future. But he’s been sworn to destroy her kind, and as Beth
grows ever more dangerous, he’s forced to take sides.
Can Beth keep all of the secrets? Can she trust a man sworn to kill her?
And can she stop the vampire within from taking her humanity?
PURCHASE
GIVEAWAY
Mark has graciously offered to giveaway 2 ebooks (International) and 1 print book (US only) of his book No Shelter from Darkness. Just fill out the Rafflecopter form below!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
