The ship sped along the coastline of the Isle of Tanarus before docking a few nights later in the capital of Lennadon. This was the city linked to London by the elegant building that housed the embassy and the portal between the two worlds. Finn had thought to bring his Fairy Poppins box filled with a few changes of clothes and some toiletries for Talvi, which he had made use of on the ship. The minute they stepped through the front doors of the London Embassy, Talvi went straight to the dormitory bathrooms and took the longest shower of his life. He remained underneath the warm water for so long that at one point Finn came in to check on him and see if he was alright. He was fine…all things considered. The only issue was figuring out how to scrub so many months of pure misery from his body and from his soul.
He turned the large, luxurious bar of soap in his hands over and over again in his hands, wondering what he could make out of it, and how long it might take him. He thought about all the smiling and pouting pairs of lips he’d made for Nillin out of his little prison soaps. He thought about all of the crude jokes they’d exchanged…the kinds of things they’d never say in front of their mothers. He thought about the stories Nillin had shared about his home, and Talvi found himself yearning to explore the forbidden realm. More than anything, he thought about their parting words, along with the despair in Nillin’s voice when he’d made his confession about that golden helmet. The implications weighed so heavily on Talvi’s mind that after his shower he cut himself shaving for the first time in 301 years.
Once the scraggly beard was gone and his sideburns were trimmed, Talvi re-examined his reflection and decided to leave his hair as it was. It had grown a few inches longer since he’d last cut it; long enough to weigh it down and stop it from appearing so unruly. He combed it back and then he took a look at what confinement had done to his body. He began to wonder if Nillin wasn’t right about the prisoners being fed somnomium-laced food to keep them subdued. The longer that Talvi was away from Bleakmoor, the quicker his mind began to function, and the sharper his senses became.
His muscle tone was still firm and intact; besides his conversations with Nillin, it seemed that the only other way for him to stay moderately sane in solitary confinement was through exercise. His arms and shoulders now displayed proof of the hours upon hours spent doing push-ups in his cell. His physique had always been lithe and slim, although he was less toned than before. The extended liquid diet had forced his body to use up every percentage of unnecessary fat. Not that there was much to begin with, but that level of leanness on his 6’6” frame combined with the sallow color of his face and his sunken cheekbones made him look like a devilish ghoul in the artificial light. The smart suit from his brother worked wonders on his appearance, however, it wasn’t good enough in his eyes.
Would it be good enough in Annika’s eyes? Was that even possible? She hadn’t written to him in prison, after all. Maybe she wasn’t as interested in picking up the pieces with him all over again. He recalled Cyril’s advice to avoid contacting his wife until this latest turn of events had calmed down in the local media.
“If you’re seen with her in public, they’ll tear her to shreds all over again,” he’d warned.
“Don’t worry—I don’t anticipate being seen with her in public,” Talvi replied through his teeth. Cyril and Ambrose shared a skeptical glance.
“You forget that her vocation requires her to be in the public eye. Even if she were on this side of the portals, she’ll be rather difficult not to notice given her part in the recent scandal,” Cyril pointed out. “The same goes for you…and your brother, for that matter. If we’re going to do a proper job of clearing all of your names in the court of public opinion, then you must maintain some distance from Annika. At least for a little while, until things settle down. Spend some time with your family. Show the world that your only crime was being too loyal to them.”
“Annika is part of my family,” Talvi pointed out. “What about my loyalty to her?” Instead of shaking his head in frustration, Cyril gave his most talented operative a cool, firm stare.
“Don’t be cheeky, young man. I moved the bloody heavens to have your charges dismissed, and have you released from Bleakmoor early, and arrange for the press conferences commending your exemplary service to your country. Which, I might add, you’ll be expected to resume as soon as you are able. I have a field assignment for you, once you’re in better physical condition.”
Talvi shot him an incredulous frown.
“So I’m to go out of the frying pan and into the fire?”
Cyril took his gold case out of his pocket and handed a cigarette to Talvi before lighting one for himself.
“That’s your bloody job description, Marinossian. The world kept turning whilst you were away, so you ought to be pleased as punch that I’m ordering you to go home and rest. Take in the fresh air. Keep up on your exercise without straining yourself. Eat something proper three times a day that doesn’t require a straw. Sleep as much as you can. Then report back to me.”
Talvi took a long pull from his cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs as he pondered his orders. They were simple, although they were not meant to be easy.
“Where does Annika fit into this, exactly?” he asked. Cyril’s eyes brightened with a curious light.
“Where does she, indeed?” he mused. “I can’t answer that question, but I can assure you that if you go back to your modern human wife now, you’ll make yourself look like an ungrateful ass to the entire empire, including me. I will have no choice but to take it very, very personally. I’m certain my colleagues would feel the same.”
“You and Annika have all the time in the world to catch up,” Ambrose added with an equally stern tone. “Let’s not spoil everything now…not when we’ve come so far and through so much. We’ll send her a message to let her know that all is well, and that you’ll visit her when it’s less inappropriate. In the meantime, you can return home and ease your poor mother’s mind. I shouldn’t have to tell you how sick she’s been over you.”
Talvi tossed his head and briefly considered the consequences of going back to Annika instead of returning to his home in Srebra Gora. He thought about letting the modern pace of life in America distract him from all the unhappiness that he’d just lived through. Then he thought about how his mother would react if he didn’t drop in to soothe her nerves…at least for a few weeks. She would be incredibly unhappy, which would make Ambrose even more unhappy, and the word unhappy didn’t begin to describe how Talvi’s father would make him feel if he didn’t come home. Reminding himself that Annika hadn’t written to him while he was locked up, he nodded his head in humble agreement to his father’s and Cyril’s wishes.
An emergency appointment had been made with a discreet orthodontist to deal with the veritable muzzle wired into Talvi’s face. Although he was anxious to liberate his sharp tongue and outspoken voice, he couldn’t stop staring at his left canine teeth once the metal cage was gone. His jaws had healed just fine, without any gaps in his grin, but the wires and bars had held these pointed teeth slightly out of place during the entire healing process, leaving him with a snaggletooth instead of a perfect smile. It gave his grin even more of an ornery effect, if that was possible.
The moment his jaws were freed, he brushed his teeth and watched in disgust as the sink was colored with the red-stained spit from his bleeding gums. It only confirmed that Annika would never want to kiss him in such a state. Better to wait just a little longer, until he was worthy of receiving all of her affections…if he was even worthy of them at all.
After being fed a proper meal for the first time in months, he gave a detailed account of his treatment at Bleakmoor, along with his very disgruntled opinion about certain policies regarding the overall treatment and well-being of the prisoners.
“I’m not demanding gourmet cuisine for them. I simply don’t understand why it’s so bloody difficult to wash the damned blankets or replace the mattresses when they’re infested with lice,” he�
�d complained, still speaking through clenched teeth out of habit. The clerk taking note of his extensive report nodded with sympathy, yet there was nothing to be done. The care and maintenance of prison linens was someone else’s responsibility. So was the delivery of mail, along with the rest of Talvi’s grievances.
His security clearance had been reinstated, and the re-issued Embassy ID card was practically burning a hole in Talvi’s pocket. As much as he wanted to dig through the historical archives and learn everything he could about Prince Dillon’s involvement in the Battle of Veselle, he couldn’t have picked a worse time to become obsessed with the topic. Between his father, his brother, his boss, and all the other Embassy staff members wanting statements and proper documentation from him, he was scarcely left alone for longer than a few minutes at a time.
Finn, on the other hand, had plenty of time to poke around the embassy’s vast libraries and research areas, which was exactly what Talvi was counting on.
“I want you to gather some information for me,” he said, and pressed his ID card into his brother’s hand. He motioned to the numerous floors that surrounded the central atrium, which were filled with nothing but hundreds of thousands of books. Finn’s dark brown eyes glanced at the card, then peered up and down at the floors around them.
“How fortuitous. I was actually hoping to gather some information for myself,” he grinned, and slipped the card into his wallet. Talvi tilted his head to one side in curiosity.
“I thought you were in a monastery learning how to clear your mind. What could you want to fill it back up again with?”
“Ancient languages and their various dialects,” Finn said with a shrug. “Now that I’m not teaching, I have more free time than is good for me. I have to fill it with something productive.”
“Do you not have your hands full enough with taking care of Ghassan?”
Finn’s eyes lit up in bright warmth at his brother’s question.
“You don’t know, do you? Ghassan has been placed in someone else’s care. He’s been gone for months.”
“What? You gave away my horse?”
Finn shook his head.
“Given that I was presumed to be dead, I had no say in the matter. It was Annika who gave him away. A very wise decision, given how bored he was without you to keep him busy.” Finn could barely contain his satisfied smile. “A horse like that needs a proper job—otherwise he’ll get bored and kick down the fence.”
If looks could kill, Talvi was certainly trying his best to rein in his spiteful gaze.
“Who did she sell him to? It better not be that stain of an elf, Elden the papermaker,” Talvi spat. “He’s always sniffing around at the horse shows…claiming that our animals are inferior, but I know he’d love nothing more than to get his hands on one of—”
“She didn’t sell him to Elden,” Finn interrupted. “She gave him to Cousin Heron.”
“Cousin Heron?” Talvi repeated. Even though he was still nettled by the news, a particular softness had entered his demeanor.
“Yes. And you know how good Heron is with animals,” Finn said. “Annika did what was best for Ghassan, so there’s no use in throwing a fit over it now. What’s done is done, which is why I have more free time than I expected. You know what they say about idle hands.”
With his ego still recovering from the shocking news of his horse, Talvi half sneered and half smiled.
“Yes, I know all about your idle hands. You’re lucky you still have them.”
Finn raised an eyebrow at his brother, half scolding and half grinning as he leaned closer.
“And you’re lucky that Father’s allowing you back into the house after what you did to that poor bastard in our kitchen. After you pulled a knife on me last summer, he specifically said that if you harmed anyone under his roof again, you’d be banished forever. I don’t recall him specifying whom that applied to and whom it absolved. Perhaps I should ask him?” Finn waited just long enough for Talvi to scowl before going on. “Now then…what was it that you wanted these idle hands of mine to do for you?”
“I want to know everything about the Battle for Veselle,” Talvi muttered under his breath. “Everything. If there are accounts from generals, I want to know. If there are accounts from soldiers who fought, I want to read them. Use my card to check out as many books as you like, but don’t be obvious about it.”
“Don’t be obvious?” Finn said with a chuckle. He took another look around the imposing atrium before turning back to his brother. “If I had to wager a guess, I’d say that this building holds somewhere close to eight million books…give or take twenty thousand. I doubt anyone will notice how many I borrow.”
“Either way, put them in your Poppins box so they go unnoticed.”
“Why the air of secrecy? It’s only a bit of Estellian history,” Finn pointed out. He glanced over Talvi’s shoulder and gave a nod to Cyril as he approached the two of them.
“I’ll explain it to you later,” said Talvi, and waved him away. He turned to face his supervisor, folding his arms across his chest in frustration. “Would you mind if I ring Annika before we go to our next meeting? Something’s come up that I need to address with her.”
Cyril gave him an amused look.
“Is it an urgent matter of national security?”
“No.”
“Is one of you in immediate danger?”
Talvi had to glance away so that Cyril wouldn’t see him rolling his eyes.
“No.”
“If you explained this issue to the directors we were supposed to meet with ten minutes ago, do you believe they would be sympathetic?”
Talvi shifted from one foot to the other.
“Most likely not.”
The more annoyed Talvi appeared, the more amused Director Sinclair became.
“That’s what I thought. Now, I understand that your time in solitary confinement has left you all sixes and sevens, but your acting skills are far better than what I’m seeing. I need you to at least try to behave like a rational adult.”
With a gentle tap on his shoulder to coax him along, Talvi let himself be led to the next debriefing.
With the last official statement that Talvi gave to his superiors, there was nothing left to do but go home and wait for the papers to break the news. While Ambrose was happy to be heading back to their forest in Srebra Gora, in the private little corner of Sivita province, Talvi took no joy in traveling through one town after another. He hated being paraded through the empire like the hero that he was now said to be. There was still so much scandal surrounding him, and just as much swirling around Finn. Everyone wanted a look at the famous Marinossian brothers and the man who’d fathered them.
They were shuffled through a network of ships and horse-drawn carriages, cutting across the narrowest part of Sirana province until they reached a port on the southern border. From there they boarded a larger passenger ship which cruised through the tenuous, zigzagged waters of the Estellian Straits…or the Ellunian Straits, depending on which empire one was in. They kept close to the coastline of the Estellian empire, as were the rules of the hundred-year-long ceasefire. Talvi found himself staring to the south, wondering if he might catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of Sinaryos. He hadn’t promised anything to his friend in prison, but there was a reassurance in that fact. A promise that hadn’t been made couldn’t be broken.
While sailing from one port to the next was by far the fastest way to travel through the empire, it brought a different set of issues. Namely, there was no way to escape from the unique scrutiny found on a passenger ship. Instead, Talvi longed to take the more direct and discreet route by staying on Earth long enough to fly to Sofia, then hike through the mountains until they reached the waterfall that led to the samodiva cave on the threshold of their world. It was an unofficial point of entry and almost completely unknown, which was the exact reason why he failed to convince his father and brother to take that route.
“Reporters could be lurking any
where, trying to get an exclusive interview with you two before anyone else does,” Ambrose advised him from inside their private cabin. It was small for three adult elven men to be sharing, yet in comparison to Talvi’s former prison cell, it was huge. “The last thing we want is for one of them to find out where Sariel’s home is. Otherwise they’ll be using it like Waterloo Station before we’ve even had a chance to give her fair warning.”
“Perhaps it’s time we thought about using it. She’s not living there anymore, and it cuts our travel time down to nothing,” Talvi pointed out. Ambrose shook his head.
“She might not be living there at present, but it’s still her home. Sometimes I fear we’ve abused it too much as it is. How would you like it if complete strangers began using your personal quarters as a public turnstile?”
“I wouldn’t like it much at all,” he said, and pulled a tattered history book out of his bag. He smirked as he opened the cover. “That’s why I’d charge accordingly for the inconvenience. You of all people know that money has a way of soothing ruffled feathers.”
Finn shared a look with his father.
“You know, Father, it’s not too late to take him back to Bleakmoor,” he joked. Ambrose merely closed his eyes and rested his head on the soft pillow behind him. He never thought he’d be so happy to hear his sons bickering with one another, and he smiled to himself for a long time before falling asleep.
Somewhere in between riding in the cushioned coaches and resting in the cozy hotels, Finn and Talvi managed to reconcile. It hadn’t been a tense, drawn-out, melodramatic affair. If anything, it was a quiet understanding shared by two brothers who’d both grown up considerably since the last time they’d crossed paths. All of the bad decisions that changed the course of the past year had suddenly been placed into a new light. Annika was safe and well, Finn was sober and alive, and Talvi wasn’t going to rot in prison for killing him. The outcome was better than anyone could’ve hoped for. The papers had finally come out, which meant there was no turning back now. All that the Marinossians could do was move forward.
The Darkest of Dreams Page 26