by T. A. Miles
“It’s time for supper,” Darlevan said, pulling Korsten from his thoughts.
Korsten went reluctantly, his gaze moving to the windows and the shaded glow seeping through them. “It seems early.”
Darlevan smiled somewhat wryly. “The years can make the hours shift,” he said.
Though the man had been referencing Sethaniel’s age and likely not considering a mage’s potential lifetime, his words were alarmingly accurate. Unfortunately, regarding Korsten and his father, the hours shifted in opposite directions.
The dining room was an interior space of the house. There were multiple entryways, but no windows. The walls were occupied with portraits. Korsten tried to overlook the one of a certain red-haired young person, but couldn’t help that his eye continually caught on it. The painting wasn’t garish, but it was eerily pristine. The artist had projected maturity onto the face of a child, as if to capture adulthood in advance—perhaps on the chance that the child might pass from the world prematurely, that the parents might comfort themselves with both the memory of the child and the vision of an adult. Whatever the purpose, the complexion was a bit too pearlescent and the eyes too dark and aloof. Korsten felt as if he were looking at a doll of himself and, in his opinion, it was ghastly. On the contrary, he wasn’t bothered at all by the abundance of grace an artist had crafted into the portrait of his mother. Large red curls stacked on her delicate shoulders, an illusion of backlight tracing them with an almost fire-like glow. Her eyes were blue and brilliant, challenging the luster of gemstones. Fair skin glowed with a faint blush that complimented the intense shade of her lips. She looked entirely of another world, untouchable to the mundane aspects of this one. She had never been untouchable to Korsten … until she died.
He still couldn’t remember any actual details to the occasion of her death. He wondered if he had omitted them from memory deliberately. Worse, he wondered if he had tried to insist that she was still alive, even if somehow only privately for him. How unfair to his father. He was fortunate that Sethaniel hadn’t learned to despise him after all, for reasons entirely different than the excuse a demon had given him. How quickly and how selfishly he’d taken that excuse and fit it neatly into place. He was free to despise his only parent. Fand became his sole ally and with Fand’s death, he had only Renmyr. He had played directly into a trap that he was too ignorant to see.
Korsten’s eyes passed over the portrait of Sethaniel, done in stern and sturdy form … the unchallenged head of a household. Portraits of his sisters—dark-haired avatars of elegance and innocence—sat in line ahead of their brother. Elsewhere in the room was a portrait of his parents with all of their children, but Korsten was too ashamed to look at it currently. He looked to Sethaniel instead, sat at the head of a table with empty chairs and the tables that had once accommodated guests and extended family pushed along the walls in disuse. He imagined Sethaniel and others in the house had grown used to it, but it felt gloomy against Korsten’s memory of much more lively and populated meals.
His father’s dark eyes lifted while the elder ate. Sethaniel stopped, making use of a napkin while his gaze toured the same portraits Korsten had been studying over eating. Sethaniel made note of that latter detail by eyeing Korsten’s scarcely touched plate while he dabbed one last time at his beard.
“Mages do require food,” the elder said, managing to draw the attention of all three mages at his table, rather than only his son. Before anyone could reply, Sethaniel continued. “I’ve noticed the girls eating in their time here. There seems no reason why you can’t do the same.”
The dinner table had always been the place for scolding. Airing complaint publicly was an excellent way at shaming. Korsten had always refused to show how ashamed he was by a certain age. He also had refused to actually speak with his father much at all, so it seemed to make sense that a frustrated parent would take full advantage of one of the few places sure to keep a child for at least a short while. It made sense that most of their conversations had been used to issue complaint. They had been lashing out at each other, each in their own way. Korsten had not been equipped to understand that—not even to begin to understand that—as a child. He understood now, and while he thought it might bring upset—however unintentional—he managed to nearly smile at his father.
“My mind is somewhat preoccupied,” he said to the elder. “I apologize.”
While his eating requirements were likely different than that of two mages who had been very long absent from the Seminary, he made a point to eat some of what was on his plate anyway.
If Sethaniel was in any way surprised or suspicious of what would have appeared a very passive answer from his once-rebellious child, he did not demonstrate it. He simply placed his napkin down beside his plate and continued with his own food. What little attention the moment had drawn from the others at the table—which included Darlevan and his wife—quickly dissipated. The room settled into silence. When Sethaniel had finished his meal, he sat for a short while, not saying much of anything, and then Darlevan’s wife offered to bring him up to his bed.
Korsten found it helplessly uncomfortable to witness his father being treated as the very old man he happened to be. He fully expected Sethaniel to protest this treatment and when he didn’t, when he agreed that he was tired and proceeded to rise from his chair with some difficulty, Korsten found himself mentally stifled.
“Thank you, Lannile,” Darlevan said to his wife discreetly while she perhaps took her turn at caring after the parent they shared through marriage.
Lannile was a stout woman with darker hair than her husband and a soft, friendly-seeming face. She smiled easily and the light quickly reached long-lashed hazel eyes. Age may have strengthened her features somewhat, but it was the smile that defied her years. Korsten could easily imagine what she had been like in her youth, and if Cenily had always been her home, it may have been that he’d seen her in passing at some time during his childhood. Whether or not she recognized him at all, she gave no indication.
“He’s developed some contempt for night,” Darlevan said after Lannile and Sethaniel had departed.
Presuming the man was speaking of Sethaniel, Korsten simply nodded. He was still digesting what he’d witnessed, and the small amount of food he’d eaten. It wasn’t terrible, but felt heavy compared to the dishes served at the Seminary, or what he and Merran typically carried with them when hunting.
Thought of Merran inspired a small, antagonized sigh. He would not have anticipated this situation and being in it made him want for someone familiar. Merran had become more familiar to him than family … more familiar than home.
The thought felt odd and while it wasn’t an adverse sort of odd, it was nothing he wanted to dwell on just now. It would lead him to worry over his friend’s safety and perhaps even to leaving Cenily prematurely. He reminded himself that he had Reached here, or at least near enough to be carried here by sea or by spirits. He could not afford to stay long, but he at least needed to gain more perspective on Sharlotte and Lerissa’s plans. The library also would be getting another visit, and he would have to find a way to have some closure with Sethaniel. It would be foolish to believe that he might see him often after this, if at all. The gods had given him this, returning a small portion of what he had foolishly flung aside, directly into the awaiting hands of a demon.
You’ve done the same, Renmyr, but so much worse. At least my father is still alive. Even if Ithan had survived that night in Haddowyn, such a betrayal could never be undone. It could never be ameliorated. You destroyed everything he had, Ren. His wife … both of his sons … Your mother and only brother, Renmyr. How much will you remember once I’ve freed you from it?
For a fleeting instant, it crossed Korsten’s mind that he might have led the demon to Renmyr and thus destroyed an entire family, not to mention all of the families lost when Haddowyn was taken. But then he recalled what Ashwin had said about someone ha
ving led the demon to a descendant of its previous host. Ashwin made it sound as if it was deliberate, in the same way Adrea and other mages had tried tracing the bloodline of the Rottherlen family. His mind went next to Ecland, who had openly admitted to betraying the Seminary. Why? Again, Korsten could only wonder what the other mage had gained. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been enough for Ecland to have given away every secret of the Seminary. Korsten recalled starkly the moment Renmyr had tried taking his blood and how confused and angry he’d been to find the most substantial element of it hidden from his demon perception.
Korsten’s mind might have continued down that path, had someone not placed themselves in his peripheral view by sitting in the chair beside him. He didn’t have to look at Lerissa to know it was her.
The blonde mage began stroking her fingers idly through his hair at once. “Well, my lovely,” she said. “It seems clear that the three of us ought to make our way back to Vassenleigh.”
Korsten began to nod absently, but then stopped, glancing in Lerissa’s direction. “I can’t yet.”
“No?”
“No,” Korsten replied. “I left Merran in Indhovan, along with Vlas and Cayri….”
“I know Vlas,” Lerissa inserted.
Korsten continued. “…with Morenne verging on making its way down the coast from Sarily. I have to go back there first.”
Lerissa’s finger-combing paused and she leaned her head forward to get a better view of Korsten’s face. “Sarily fell? Since when?”
“Since several days ago.”
“Hell’s depths…” she murmured, resuming her futile detangling of Korsten’s curls. “Well, all right, we can go by way of Indhovan. When did this get so long, by the way?”
Korsten looked at her, then at her fingers holding out a lock of hair; the end of it was pinched between them. He lifted one shoulder slightly. “I haven’t any idea. And as to Indhovan, before we leave I’d like to pay a visit back to my father’s library, and I’d like to visit Sethaniel once more as well.”
“Sounds well and good to me,” Lerissa said with a smile, letting his hair spring back into place.
Trimming over the years had been minimal, especially in the last year. Attention had been mostly to keeping his hair out of his face, so the length varied, which meant that all but the foremost layers were getting well past his shoulders. He wasn’t certain that he really cared, so long as—once again—it was staying out of his face. Finding various ways to tie it back had become a habit during his time at the Seminary. Apparently, style had changed for Lerissa as well. Nodding toward her blonde head, he said, “I like your hair that way.”
She prodded the tightly wound and wrapped locks. “Being in the field requires a different fashion.”
Korsten smiled at her, though the expression didn’t last when he felt the glare of another. “You look very pretty, Lerissa,” he said while standing, determining to ignore Sharlotte.
Lerissa’s grin followed him to his feet. “Oh, not as pretty as you.”
“I shall henceforth be ignoring you,” he said, then stepped around her chair toward the nearest doorway. He excused himself to Darlevan along his route, then looked to Sharlotte, making eye contact deliberately since she continued to watch him. No, I haven’t shared a bed with Lerissa either. Gods, you must have found better ways to exhaust your energy in the last thirty years than despising me.
Her expression contradicted him openly. In fact, she seemed to regard his silence and departure as provocation. He saw her rise to follow him in the corner of his vision. He couldn’t say that he would have any head for confrontation at all, but that had not stopped Sharlotte in the past. With a heavy inward sigh, he went far enough down the passage outside of the dining room to not be in the direct hearing range of the others, then turned to face the woman following very closely after him. She came at him at such a pace that he thought she may have intended to strike him.
And strike him, she very nearly did. Korsten’s reflexes responded immediately, bringing his arm up to deflect her swing.
Sharlotte didn’t allow herself to be startled, following through with a verbal attack. “I wished dearly that you would have died in this time,” she said through a clenching jaw.
Her intensity was not quite as disarming as it had been thirty years ago. “Clearly, I did not, Sharlotte. Do whatever you must to come to grips with it. I once thought you validated, but now I can see that you’re selfish.”
She tried hitting him again for that, and he found himself with no patience for it. He hadn’t survived an encounter with a Master Vadryn and her minions only to be antagonized by an irrational grudge from someone who should have been an ally. That determination made it remarkably easy for him to avoid Sharlotte’s strike, as well as to seize her by the shoulders. When she resisted by trying to take hold of his arms and throw him off, he put her firmly to the nearest wall. She might have kicked him, but he quickly closed the space between them, pinning her with his body.
Sharlotte’s entire form went rigid. “Get off of me!”
Her protest was one of such acute, instant trauma that Korsten backed away at once. Fear jolted through her blood, and rage beyond even what she’d shown him when she’d left the Seminary. Korsten felt it so clearly that he became explicitly aware of Sharlotte’s soul-keeper in that instant. It drew his eyes to the creature—a brown moth—and in that very moment Sharlotte’s hand whipped stingingly across his face. The memory of the foil she’d ripped across that same side three decades ago came forward, like lightning to the ground. The Wind spell and the Reach that had followed in the past tumbled through his mind immediately afterward, leaving him queasy in the stomach … as the Megrim she’d initially cast that night had rendered him. He staggered back a step, but didn’t fall, nor did he get displaced by spell. Sharlotte refrained from casting anything this time, even before Lerissa appeared in the passage and called out her name.
For Sharlotte, that may have been self-control, but Korsten could scarcely see it as that while he fixated on the sensations emanating from her, as her blood raced through her veins and he felt it as clearly as if it were his own. It was fear of attack that Sharlotte had demonstrated … more a fear of being rendered helpless to attack….
The sensation was familiar enough to make the queasiness in Korsten’s stomach swell to sickness. His jaw tensed as he swallowed back bile, and he and Sharlotte stood glaring at one another with tears in their eyes. Now, finally, he could begin to understand her. He could see, as she failed to keep the edge on her own glare, that they might have just come to the threshold of understanding each other.
Sethaniel’s library was as good a retreat as any. After apologizing to their startled host, the three mages retired peaceably to the room that had once been Korsten’s private hiding place. He realized now, finally, that it was never private and that it wasn’t exactly a hiding place. It was where he went to be with his father, knowing that Sethaniel would always find him there. Even in the throes of vilifying him, Korsten loved his father. He understood that fully now.
He also understood now that Sharlotte didn’t hate him—though she was far from loving him—but he had become her target for the trauma she had been through as a younger person. Korsten’s arrival seemed late for that, considering the great length of time she’d had at the Seminary beforehand, but he doubted he was the first such target. Sharlotte’s appointed enemies were demons, above men, but men as well and especially, for being the instruments of the Vadryn’s will. In Sharlotte’s world there were few untouchables, though clearly Ashwin had been one and Lerissa seemed to be maintaining that status as well. Perhaps Ashwin was no longer untouchable in her mind, because he had been affected—corrupted maybe—by a man who seemed to willingly associate with demons, and to do so intimately. Korsten might as well have come to Vassenleigh harboring a demon and been there to purposefully seduce the only man she respected, and
loved … to ruin him. And now, he may just as well have tried to do the same to her, only by force.
Truly, Sharlotte?
Korsten was nearly at a loss to take all of this in. He sat near one of the library windows with his back to the shelf beside it. Sitting on the floor while Sharlotte half-stood, half-sat on the table felt reasonable after their altercation, as he was now terribly aware of just how much taller than her he happened to be. He still would not have considered himself in any way intimidating, but it was clear that Sharlotte had been intimidated. She’d been terrified. With her hands hindered, perhaps she should have been, as he might have been … as he had been when kept in that Morennish tower nearly a year ago. Sharlotte’s fear in those brief moments had been such a reminder to him. Clearly those moments had been a reminder to her as well, of an incident of forced violation. Serawe had threatened to place him under similar threat very recently, and he recalled very clearly how he went immediately for her throat. Sharlotte had been on the verge of similar violence; Korsten had felt it plainly. So now the two of them had something in common, besides Ashwin. The caustic tone of that thought put a bitter flavor on his tongue.
Korsten wished dearly that Ashwin could be present just now. The Superior’s descendant was not quite the same comfort. Lerissa currently sat in Sethaniel’s chair, equally silent as her fellow mages. Korsten wondered what Ashwin might have said in this situation and quickly determined that even if the Superior were also silent, Korsten would have appreciated his presence.
As it stood, Korsten didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t rightly criticize her for not telling him about her past; they were hardly friends.
Finally, Lerissa spoke. “I think that the two of you ought to sort some of this out before we go back to Vassenleigh.”
“I’m not going back to Vassenleigh,” Sharlotte said immediately.