Mark of Betrayal

by A. M. Hudson

  He croaked at me and hopped back into the water, and as I sat up and looked across the reflection, I thought I saw a child on the rope swing.

  I spun around quickly to look at the tree; the leaves rustled in the soft, warm breeze, and the swing rocked purposefully back and forth, but there was no child there. “Hello?”

  No one answered.

  When I looked at the pond again, the ripples were gone, leaving a definite image of a little girl in the reflection—swinging on the swing. But, sure enough, when I looked up, she was gone.

  I got to my knees, leaning right over the water to focus on her, gasping when her eyes met mine. I jumped back, landing on my butt and hands in the grass, while a soft giggle trickled around the treetops then, following the child as she hopped off the swing and ran through the gates, out of the garden, leaving me feeling very alone.

  The clouds closed in above me, bringing the night sky with them, and a cool chill settled on the pond, making plumes of fog rise up off the surface in whorls.

  I got up and walked backward toward the gate, squealing when an ill-mannered crow yelled at me from the brick wall.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked it.

  It buried its beak in its wing, pulling something silver and long from within. I walked slowly toward it and held my hand out, looking up quickly when it dropped my silver key into my palm.

  “That’s mine!” The little girl appeared beside me, snatching the key.

  The crow cawed again, swooping at me as I covered my head.

  When I looked up again, the girl was gone, the garden gone, the crow, everything.

  I sat up in my bed and looked around.

  The key.

  On my dresser, the music box sung when I opened it and moved my treasures aside; David's moonstone bangle, my coral earrings, my engagement ring and—phew, still there—my key. I closed my hand around it, feeling its warmth, then tucked it safely back in the box and closed the lid. But somewhere, maybe resonating from within that dream, I thought I could still hear that child giggling—like the sound was coming out of my fireplace again.

  I shook the idea off quickly. If there were actually ghosts haunting this place, I was not going to go looking for them.

  Outside, the sun was quite high in the sky, and despite today being Sunday, it seemed odd that no one had come to wake me. I wandered over and looked out my window, seeing Jason down in the Garden of Strategy, running about with Petey and some old rag they were using as a chew toy.

  He stopped as Petey ran off to fetch the cloth, and looked over his shoulder, right up at me.

  I waved; he waved back and went about his game.

  He was a different kind of guy when he played with that dog, almost like a younger, freer version of himself. I liked that version—a little too much.

  I turned away, shut my curtain and headed to get ready for the day.

  Morgaine pulled a chair out next to her when I stepped in late to the council meeting. But, since learning she might be a traitor, I’d had a hard time pretending to be her friend, so I stood slightly behind her instead, pretending not to have noticed her gesture.

  “It wouldn’t be a bad thing,” Quaid said. “At least then David can come home sometimes, since it’d explain the scent.”

  “True,” Blade said.

  “It’ll also explain a pregnancy if it ever happens,” Falcon added.

  I realised then that they were discussing the idea of my feigned relationship with Jason.

  “I say we fake a pregnancy so we can crown David now—why wait until Ara actually conceives?” Morgaine said.

  “Hey, good idea, Morg,” Quaid said. “What’d you guys think?”

  “I'm okay with it,” Eric said, and it seemed everyone else agreed.

  But not me, because it spoiled my plan to draw out Morgaine’s motives. I shrugged when they looked at me. “Works fine for me.”

  “No,” Mike stated, standing taller. “It’s out of the question.”

  “Mike, they will force her to marry soon, and I can't be back there yet—”

  “Why?” Mike cut David off. “All your reasons for being away make no sense, given current events, David. What's really going on?”

  Morgaine shifted in her chair; I finally sat down.

  “I'm with Mike on this one,” Eric said, looking at the phone. “How can we protect our queen, and our nation, if you’re keeping things from us?”

  “It’s like I said.” Morgaine stood up. “What Margret or Walter or any of the Ancient Rune Readers have to say is irrelevant. Drake believes David to be the knight of the prophecy, and the only reason he didn't attack before the coronation is because, Ara might be powerful, but she is not worth a damn without that child.”

  “I agree,” I said, though I didn't agree. In truth, I knew David had things to hide, but I trusted him. After all, he was the one person who absolutely had my best interests at heart. So, I’d help him keep those secrets for now, even if I didn't know what they were. “David's been busting his chops trying to find another Lilithian—trying to find Vampirie, and you guys have the audacity to question his motives.”

  Everyone looked at me.

  “He has nothing but our best interests at heart, and you would all do well to respect his decisions,” I finished.

  “Right,” Morgaine said. “We stick to plan A; get this prophecy child conceived and get David crowned under disguise of Jason.”

  “And to do that, Jason has to be Ara’s husband,” Mike yelled. “They have to wed!”

  “Not if she’s pregnant first,” Morg reasoned. “They don't have to be married if he is king by right of heir.”

  “But the child has to be born first, doesn't it?” Quaid asked.

  “Nope,” Blade said. “As long as it’s conceived, the father will have rights to be ruler.”

  “Yes, which get revoked if the child dies,” Morg finished for him.

  “Right. So, again, we’ll feign a pregnancy and crown David in Jason’s place,” I said simply. “Like we planned before you started debating this, Mike.”

  Mike dropped his head against his fist. “Ara, you're killing me.”

  “We won’t really be together,” I said. “And it means David will inherit greater powers from the Stone, too. Who knows, maybe he and I can kill Drake together.”

  Mike sat down.

  “How long before we can announce a pregnancy?” Emily asked, her voice quieter through the phone than David's had been.

  “A month—maybe less. Better give it about that long, anyway, since Jason’s only just arrived,” David said. “I'm not sure how the people would react to an instant pregnancy.”

  “Right.” Mike nodded, pushing off the table to stand up again. “A month then.”

  “Good,” David said. I knew he was happy because that would give him a month longer to do whatever it was he was doing out there. But I was sad because it meant a month longer that he’d be gone—for reasons I knew nothing of.

  “Okay then.” Morgaine clapped once, seemingly happy with all this. “Then Jason will officially be Ara’s new boyfriend.”

  “Ara?” David said, his voice disappearing under the crappy connection.

  “Yeah?”

  “Take the phone somewhere private, please. I want to talk to you.”

  I felt everyone’s eyes on me as I snatched it, then flew up the stairs to the Throne Room, switching it from loudspeaker to handset. “Hey, what's up?” I said chirpily.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For covering for me in there.” He paused. “I’ve been an absent husband—left you alone, yelled at you, confessed that I'm keeping things from you, yet you stepped up to support me despite that.”

  I smiled to myself. “Well, what else would I do?”

  “You just don’t know how much I appreciate that—especially since you don't even know what you're supporting.”

  “I do, David. I'm supporting you. Whatever you decide, I k
now it’s always for the best. So, you don't have to be honest with me, yet, okay. You’ve got my hundred percent backing.”

  He went quiet for a very long time.

  “David?”

  “Still here.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I've missed it.”

  “Missed what?”

  “Seeing you grow up.”

  My bottom lip pouted. “You think I'm grown up?”

  He sighed. “My love, you have no idea how different you sound each time I talk to you, and it makes me so happy to see you becoming the woman I always knew you were—deep down inside.”

  “Really deep down,” I said, laughing.

  “Well, the past doesn't matter now. I'm so proud of you, and I can't even begin to tell you what your support means to me.”

  “Well, I love you, David. I trust you.”

  “I love you, too, Ara. And I always will. No matter where I am or how long we’re apart—I will love you in this life and the next.”

  “The next?” I laughed. “We don't get an afterlife.”

  He cleared his throat. “With immortality, we live many lifetimes, and in that, we change our lives. That's what I meant.”

  “Oh, okay.” I smiled. “Well, I look forward to thousands of lifetimes with you.”

  “As do I,” he said and hung up the phone. I stared at it for a second, turning around when my council came out from an adjourned meeting. “Anything interesting happen while I wasn’t there?” I asked Mike.

  He snatched the phone, then took my hand. “Yes. I'm taking you down to see the new Immortal Damned house.”

  “Really?” I grinned up at him. “It’s finished?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I wanna be with you when you see it for the first time.”

  After following a leaf-covered trail, we stopped by some hedges, and Mike covered my eyes. “No peeking until I say, okay?”

  I nodded, placing my hands over his as we walked forward.

  He guided my heels with his toes, and after about thirty paces said, “Okay. You can look now.”

  “Oh, Mike.” I touched my collarbone, taking in the white rendered brick and red roof of the prettiest little home I ever saw. “It’s perfect.”

  “See that?” He pointed forward. “We painted the bars on the windows white—so they’d blend in.”

  I nodded, covering my smile.

  “There’s plenty of sunlight, comfortable beds, toys, games—everything you asked for.”

  “Bathrooms?”

  “Yep. Even a few recently immortalised child-health experts to help teach the Damned how to use them—since most of these children have never seen a modern toilet or shower before.”

  I couldn't take my eyes off the house, imagining how happy the children would be now, how nice it must be to live in darkness for so long, and then suddenly feel the sun’s warmth, see the grass, splash fresh water over your face.

  “Come see.” He headed down the small hill toward it.

  I caught up and looped my arm through his. “When can we move them in?”

  He patted my arm, grinning to himself as we neared, and I heard the unfamiliar sounds of children laughing and talking nosily under the booming of a loud yet kind voice.

  “Is that them? Are they in there?”

  He nodded, smiling warmly, as if he knew what that meant to me. “Now, just be sure you don't get this building mixed up with the training hall.”

  We stopped by an iron gate. “Mike, it may look the same—aside from the bars, but it’s at a completely different end of the grounds. I'm not stupid.”

  “Yeah, but if I caught you here alone, that’d be the first excuse you'd think to give me.”

  “True. So, for you to think of it, does that make me smart, or you stupid?”

  “Neither—it makes me big and you small, and if I catch you here with these demons, alone, I will hurt you.”

  “Liar. You wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “Don’t test me, Ara-Rose. I'm at the end of my tether with you, young lady.” He gently squeezed my cheeks between his fingers, smiling, so I squiggled my tongue out through my puckered lips and licked his hand. “Er! Ara, that’s gross.”

  I dried my mouth, laughing.

  “Now—” He wiped his hand on his jeans then grabbed a key from his pocket and turned it in the lock. “We have a double entry. It’s important to make sure you close and lock this gate before you open the interior one. Clear?”

  “Clear.”

  “Uh, wait.” He placed his hand on my shoulder as I stepped inside and moved toward the second door. “I'm not letting you in there today. You can watch from back here.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re not ready for visitors, yet,” he said, closing the outer door.

  “Oh.” The entrance was small, with a bench to the left for personal effects, a door off to the right leading somewhere else, and just enough space for about four people. I peered in through the glass screen covering the next iron door, and there, across the room, in a square of sunlight over the floorboards, sat a little boy, pressing a sail into place on a wooden boat.

  “Max?”

  The boy looked up; his hair was golden and clean, his face round and his cheeks coloured with pink.

  “Yeah, that’s him,” Mike said warmly.

  “He looks so…human.”

  “Yeah.” Mike laughed. “He kinda does. Hey, see what we did with the beds; space and planet theme for the boys, and princesses for the girls.”

  “Very cute,” I said, my eyes running along twelve or so small beds with squishy quilts, lining one side of the room, then over shelves full of books and toys on the other side. The keeper stood centre to it all, tall and clean-cut, his metal stick beside him like a staff. “Why does he still have that stick?”

  “Because the children aren’t cured, Ara. They are still dangerous and we do still have a few issues with them. It’s why we’re only moving ten over at a time.”

  “And where are the rest?”

  “They're in the cells, still. But they have beds and sunlight and they’re being properly cared for. We had to take all the toys away, though, because the little buggers used them as weapons against their keepers.”

  I smiled. “But these kids are okay?”

  “These are the ones that showed the ability to be reasoned with.”

  Behind Max, another boy squatted down and pointed to the sail, then picked up some glue and helped him put it in place. “Who’s that other boy?”

  “That’s Joshua.”

  “How old is he? He looks—”

  “He’s twelve.”

  “Twelve? Why would they lock away a twelve-year-old?”

  “He wanted to stay with his brother.” Mike nodded toward them.

  “Max is his brother?”

  “Yep.” He ran a hand over his head. “We hold the most hope for those two.”

  Joshua looked up at Mike with a timid smile and a half-wave.

  Mike waved back: his eyes lighting up. “We’re pals.” He shrugged.

  I looked around the room, seeing children on beds, talking to each other, watching them play cards or knuckles on round rugs by the window, and thought back to the first day I met them. “Mike?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened to the little boy the caretaker beat?”

  Mike moistened his lips, smiling, and nodded to a child coming in from the bathroom, holding the hand of woman with soft brown hair and a kind smile.

  “That’s him?”

  “Yep.”

  The little boy glanced over at us, curiosity showing in his frown. I gave a little wave, but he looked away, sitting down with his carer on an armchair by the bookcase.

  “Is he okay?” I asked Mike.

  “Uh, well, physically, yes, but we haven't been able to get him to speak yet—or sleep.”

  My eyes closed around the image of him cowering under that metal weapon. “Maybe we should have Jase come down and erase hi
s memory.’”

  Mike’s head moved quickly, his eyes going a little wider. “Hey, that’s not a bad idea, Ar.”

  I nodded. “Shall I ask him?”

  “Yeah. Sure, go ahead.” He took my hand. “Come on. Let’s leave them to it.”

  “So,” I asked as we headed for the door again, “do you think they’ll be okay? One day?”

  “You know, Ara?” He stopped and placed both hands on my arms. “I think, for once, you might’ve been right. I'm sure they’ll be fine—one day.”

  Self-satisfaction made me smile; I wanted to bathe in the glory of being right, but didn't want to ruin the moment. “Even if there’s no such thing as this prophecy child?”

  “Yeah.” He looked back at Joshua and Max. “I mean, it’ll be a long eternity for them—never growing up, but, they do have the option of death—if they want it.”

  I didn't like that idea—or the idea that they’d never grow up, never marry, never get their first car or have their first beer. But this was the best we could do for now, until I figured out all these different agendas and uncovered the truth of the past that we so solidly based our entire future on. “So, um, when will you bring the others?”

  “When this group are successfully adopted out.”

  “Have you lined up any Lilithian families yet?”

  “I'm pleased to say, yes, we have.” Mike opened the door for me, closing it behind us. “And there are even a few vampire families.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, nice couples too. Very human.”

  “So, they're not still mental from the blood-lust?”

  “No, the couples who’re adopting are one’s who’ve been in love with a human before—most of them still with that partner. So, they’re only as messed-up as you or David.”

  “That's great, Mike. This is the kind of thing I've been needing to hear.” I stopped walking and stood on my toes, my lips by Mike’s cheek. “Thank you.”

  “No worries.” He grinned as I kissed him. “Now, about this Jason thing.”

  “Oh, come on, Mike. Don’t give me hard time.”

  “No, Ara,” he said softly. “I was just going to say I give it my blessing. I don't like it, but I understand it. Okay? Just don't let me down—just don't—” he paused, “—don't do anything with him.”