A quarter of an hour passed, and I began to think she had fallen asleep, until I heard her voice in my ear. “I know you’re awake.”
I stayed quiet. That was the mistake so many pretend sleepers made, they answered a question, giving themselves away. I was too good for that. Rose’s palm pressed against my chest. “Your heart is beating too fast,” she told me.
Stupid heart, I thought. It never did what I wanted it to, in more ways than one.
“Do you understand how glad I am that you’re not dead?” she asked. “That I wasn’t a party to your death?”
Despite my best intentions, I nodded. Sleeping people moved sometimes.
“You don’t have to tell me what happened. There will be time for that tomorrow, but you should have come to see me when you got back. Why didn’t you?”
I didn’t dare turn to look at her. “I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
I said nothing.
“You heard about Dorian’s return,” she said simply. It wasn’t a question.
Of course, I had. I had seen him before the cage sealed me away. I knew not only how it had happened, but also what must have happened later. He had been my best friend, but he had been Rose’s husband, her one true love. His brief visit would have torn the wound in her heart wide open and then rubbed salt in it. “It was because of me,” I said at last. “They wanted to use him against us.”
I felt her smile in the dark. “They tried, but after he and Gram sorted it out, he did just the opposite. He stopped one of them from killing Karen.”
It felt good to hear that, and yet it caused me a faint twinge of jealousy. I had loved Dorian like a brother, and given the opportunity I’d have gladly taken his place. But it also hurt. He had always been better than me. Not smarter, not more powerful, not even more handsome, but he’d been perfect. He hadn’t compromised, he’d been nearly incapable of lying, and his honor had been without fault. In comparison, I was none of those things. The best that could be said of me was that I was sly, or perhaps clever, but the truth was darker. I was deceitful, petty, vengeful, and worst of all, selfish.
My only redeeming quality was my role as a father. I had done a decent job there, but I owed much of the credit to Penny.
I hadn’t said anything in quite some time, but Rose, in spite of her lack of magic, could read my mind. “You’re worried I’ve changed my mind after seeing him again. Or perhaps you think you don’t deserve happiness.”
“Something like that,” I admitted.
“I’ve had similar thoughts,” she replied. “But fortunately, I’m smarter than you.”
I started to turn over, to remind her who had lost our last game of chess, but her arm tightened, holding me still. “Don’t roll over,” she said. “I don’t want you poking me with that thing…” After a long pause, she added, “…yet.”
Regardless of the situation, I hadn’t been thinking of that—a first for me.
“I never told you that Penny came to me,” she said suddenly, changing the subject.
“What?”
“It happened when we were lost on that strange beach,” she explained. “You fell asleep and she took your place. We talked about a lot—the past, the present, the children, and you.”
The tension in my back reached new heights, so much so that my kidneys began to feel as though someone had punched them.
“I promised to take care of you, and them,” she told me. Her voice was firm when she continued, “I keep my promises, Mort.”
“What about…?”
“Most of them already know, or have some idea,” she said, stopping me mid-question.
Self-restraint flew out the window, and I rolled over. Our faces were less than an inch apart and in the dim light we studied each other for a moment before I pressed my lips to hers. The fire that kindled grew rapidly, until I thought it would burn me to death, but like a moth to the flame, I couldn’t control my desire to get closer to the light. When my hands started to roam, tugging at the edges of the gown she wore, Rose stopped me.
“I can’t,” she told me. “Not tonight. Despite what I said, today was a shock.” The beast inside me roared in disappointment, which she probably saw in my eyes, though I didn’t utter a sound. “I need some time,” she added.
We lay together and I held her for a while, enjoying our closeness, but even that proved to be too much for me. I rolled back over and she held me instead, claiming it was easier to sleep without a dagger in her back.
I pretended not to know what she was talking about, though I couldn’t help but chuckle a little. Somehow Rose fell asleep, though I didn’t; not that I minded. My body was frustrated, but I was happy for the first time in at least a year.
A few hours later, Rose quietly got up. Moving like a ghost, she left my room and returned to her own. Over the course of the next week, she returned frequently to hold me in the warm dark, but we remained apart in the most intimate sense.
The week after that she began staying longer, until one night I woke to find myself in the jaws of a hungry beast. It had been a long time since I had been so pleasantly imperiled, and from that night on we took turns at being both the hunter and the hunted.
Epilogue
Rose and I kept our private matters, well, private, and if anyone noticed our odd glances or nighttime visitations, they didn’t mention it. With the worst of my problems behind me, life settled down, but it wasn’t easy. After all the explanations, I—and more importantly—everyone else, had to deal with the consequences. Other than Chad, no one left my house for a full two weeks.
In part, it was for comfort. All of them were tired, grief-stricken, or traumatized, and everyone handled it differently. The only common denominator was that they sought solace in the presence of their fellow survivors.
George had it the worst, I think. Myra, and especially Irene, spent a lot of time with him. Irene and George hadn’t really known each other well before then, but they seemed to find a lot of common ground in the weeks that followed. I was glad to see it and didn’t think much about it.
My survival removed a great weight from Matthew’s shoulders, and for a while he was more social than Conall, who was still dealing with some guilt over his choices. In time, however, they both returned to their usual selves, with Matt spending most of his time alone and Conall becoming more relaxed and open.
Something about meeting his father changed Gram, and he spent more time with Carissa afterward, though they had little in common. Meanwhile Rose decided to take up cooking and asked Alyssa to teach her, using it as an opportunity to become closer with her future daughter-in-law. To be honest, the results were mixed. I trusted Lynaralla in the kitchen more than I did Rose. My She’Har daughter might do something outrageous like trying to serve rat, but she had gotten to the point that you knew the rat would at least be properly done, rather than raw or burnt.
Lynaralla turned out to be the most pressing problem. When we finally learned the news of what had happened on the Wester Isle, she informed us that she only had a few weeks left. Being a She’Har ‘child’ meant she required calmuth, the fruit of the mother-tree, to retain her human form. The supply we had in stasis would run out, and once that happened, she would begin to take root about a week later.
The news hit me like a slap in the face, and the others were just as unhappy about it. Irene and Karen were particularly upset. Unfortunately, the only solution I knew of was the barbaric procedure Tyrion had created thousands of years before, burning out the seed-mind and leaving his victims with irreparable brain damage.
That was obviously unacceptable, so neither I nor Matthew mentioned it. Instead, he and Lynn talked it over and she decided to take root in a place that would at least benefit everyone. Matthew was already working on plans to restore the dimensional boundaries that kept our world neatly divided into two separate demi-planes. Lynaralla’s choice to take root made that much easier, as she chose to plant herself in the spot where Kion had been, serving
as the gatekeeper that maintained the dimensional enchantment.
It would still be the work of a lifetime to find and repair all the damage that had been done to the dimensional boundaries, but at least it wouldn’t degrade any further while Matthew and the others worked on it. Needless to say, Irene was unhappy with the choice, especially once it was revealed that Lynn would be dormant for ten years or more after the transformation before she could be expected to be able to converse with people again.
It was like losing someone else, and we were all still tender from the deaths of Elaine, Cyhan, and Moira.
Before she left, we held separate memorials for those we had lost. Without a proper body, we had Moira’s at the mountain cottage, since no one outside of our small group of family and friends would have understood. As far as the world knew, Moira was still alive.
George took Elaine’s remains back to Arundel and we had a private service for her there, while Alyssa decided to bury her father in the private Cameron graveyard at Castle Cameron. Gram had decided to live there and take service with the new Count di’ Cameron. Since Rose had lost the title of Lady Hightower, their family no longer had much to their name in the way of lands.
It was a year later when Gram and Alyssa finally made their vows. Chad took his role seriously, standing in for Cyhan during the ceremony (and offering Gram a few token threats if he ever made Alyssa unhappy). Rose was rather displeased when she learned that Cyhan had appointed the hunter to be her godfather, even if it didn’t have much legal weight, and I made a point of not mentioning that it had actually been my idea.
It was the first large event to be held at Castle Cameron, even though the keep itself was still a work in progress. The shining black stone I had built it from proved to be exceptionally difficult to work with, making it a nightmare for the masons and carpenters who had to fit it with doors and other necessities. Conall nearly worked himself to death assisting them until Matthew suggested he provide the craftsmen with enchanted chisels and other tools to help them cut and shape the stone.
Not long after that, Matthew and Karen were wed, primarily because she became pregnant and they could no longer hide their relationship. It wasn’t that they didn’t love each other, but neither of them had been particularly interested in making it official in the public’s eyes.
Ariadne, the Queen of Lothion, gave birth to a daughter, and while there were plenty of rumors regarding who the father might have been, the official story was that it had been her late-husband’s. The child had dark hair, unlike Ariadne or her purported father Leomund, and as she grew older, I couldn’t help but note her resemblance to Brigid. I had no doubts about who her sire really was.
Rose and Carissa moved back to her house in the capital, and by coincidence I decided I would move to the old Illeniel house there. With Tyrion gone it was mine again, and I developed an uncharacteristic interest in the center of Lothion’s political life. In reality it was to be closer to Rose of course, and we made quite a production of secret meetings and trysts, behaving like people half our age.
Carissa probably would have caught us, but not long after that she met the son of the Viscount Ledair, from Iverly. She and her grandmother moved there before long, and eventually she married into Gododdin’s nobility. After that Rose and I didn’t bother much with the pretense; we took turns living at one another’s homes and the servants knew better than to talk.
Lady Rose returned to Lothion’s social circles, much to the dismay of those who had formerly defamed her. With the Queen’s open support for both of us, and the groundwork Moira had done previously, changing the minds of Lothion’s most powerful nobles, no one dared do more than whisper. In fact, Rose seemed to relish the rumors, turning her infamy into yet another bartering tool in political circles as she gained a reputation for being untouchable.
A big surprise came to me when Irene announced that she would be marrying George Prathion, for I had been utterly clueless. I had known she was spending more time in Arundel, which was growing into a prosperous city, but I hadn’t understood why. She had always claimed to be involved in this or that charitable project, and I had believed her. Needless to say, Rose had known about their relationship long before I did, and she shook her head in disbelief at my ignorance.
“I’d have told you, if I’d known you were that oblivious,” she told me when the letter came. “How can you be so obtuse?”
Never one to accept my failings without making a joke, I winked at her and then cast my eyes lower, staring at what I lovingly referred to as her ‘charms.’ “I was distracted,” I said, using my most frequent excuse.
Her response was a stern look that was no more serious than my remark. “No dessert for you after dinner, sir, since you can’t behave like a gentleman.”
I genuinely hoped she meant the pie she had put in the oven earlier. She was still continuing her efforts at cooking, and lately that had been baking. I had pleaded with her to let the servants handle the kitchen, but she insisted on dabbling, much to my stomach’s dismay. Too stupid to keep my mouth shut, I asked, “You mean the mince pie—right?”
Her eyes simmered with annoyance when she saw the hopeful look on my face. “I meant exactly what I said,” she retorted coolly, “and you will be trying the mince pie.”
In the end I had the pie, and I did such a good job of praising it that she forgave me. It wasn’t actually too hard to pretend, for she had improved considerably.
After Irene’s marriage, she and our other children began to put pressure on us to end our sinful ways and make our own relationship official, which we eventually did, creating another big stir in Lothion’s social circles.
The decade that followed was a busy one, for everyone else. Rose continued to dabble in politics, but I stayed resolutely out of things. The Queen’s daughter, Mariana, grew into an interesting woman, precocious and unpredictable. She delighted her mother and proved to be both intelligent and talented in magic as well as politics. At Ariadne’s request I spent a considerable amount of time with the girl, mentoring her in the magic she had inherited and providing her with some of the lessons I had learned in life, but she likely profited most from the things Rose taught her.
Rose and I enjoyed her autumn years, for there were plenty of grandchildren. Gram and Alyssa gave us three, and Carissa produced five. Conall had married a niece of the Duke of Cantley, and he and Irene had two children each, while Matthew stopped with his first. He was too careful and too taken with his various projects to bother with more, though I harassed him about it continually. Myra never married, having come to the conclusion that the Centyr gift would end with her, and while I wanted to argue the point, I had a genuine fear of what a child with her sort of power might be like.
With advancing age, I began to worry about Rose, but her health remained strong. Great-grandchildren were beginning to appear, enriching our days and giving us plenty of reasons to travel. It was one of the best periods of my life, especially since I wasn’t personally responsible for any of them. My only job was to show up now and then to teach them bad things, and nobody dared to try and stop me. People think normal adolescents are bad, but quite a number of my great-grandchildren were mages, and I delighted in encouraging them to do things that earned me the ire of their parents.
Say what you will. I call it justice.
Things took a darker turn for me in Rose’s ninety-second year. Her health began to decline precipitously, and there was no longer much I could do about it with normal wizardry. A shadow fell over my heart and I spent my days contemplating how I would endure without her. I became desperate enough to consider drastic options, such as enlisting Gareth Gaelyn’s aid to create a new body for her or tempting fate by touching the void magic that still dwelled in my soul.
She refused everything, and as her days drew to a close, I abandoned my pride to beg her incessantly. I was desperate to find a way to save her, but she adamantly defied me, no matter how wild my tantrums became. “I’ve lived long enough
,” she told me, patting my hand with hers.
It looked smaller than I remembered, wrinkled and weak. Mine seemed old too, but it was a lie. I had altered my appearance over the years to match hers, but inside I was still young. The light touch of her fingers brought fresh tears to my eyes. “You could live longer,” I said, trying again to convince her.
She shook her head. “I love you, Mordecai, but there’s someone waiting for me. It wouldn’t be right for me to ask for more time. I’m ready to see him again.”
But there’s no one waiting for me, I wanted to yell. Penny wasn’t really dead, she was still trapped in limbo, in some strange corner of my heart. Rose’s passing would create a second scar as great as the one I had from losing her. I couldn’t imagine how I would survive it. I didn’t want to.
“I still talk to her sometimes,” said Rose. “She loves hearing about the children.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe her words. She had to be hallucinating.
Reaching out, she pulled my head down and kissed my cheek. “I’m sorry for not telling you. She thought it better that way.”
“Penny did?” I could barely get the words out.
Rose nodded. “Remember when Dorian came back? She thought it might be like that. She didn’t want to reopen old wounds. She wanted you to be happy.”
My breath came in gasps as I cried. “How many times?” I finally managed to say.
“Every few years,” she answered. “Whenever you got sad or started reminiscing about the past. She would wake me up in the middle of the night and we would talk about things.”
“And how did she feel?” I asked.
Rose closed her eyes. “Happy—and sad too. She hated missing everything. She tried to hide it, but I knew her too well for her to fool me. Time has been different for her. She still looks the same. I think she’s only lived a month in all the years we’ve been together.” Rose’s voice began to drift, as though she was dreaming. “I can see him, Mordecai.”
Transcendence and Rebellion Page 42