Crouching down beside her, he lifted a glass of water to her lips. “Feel better now that you finally got some rest?” he asked, waiting for her to drink. “Sio gave me some meds and told me to pump you full of them. I’m not sure what they were, but hey—she’s the doc. Who am I to question her? She also prescribed lots of sex because apparently it releases all the right healing hormones, so let me know when you’d like some therapy. Aren’t you going to have a drink of…”
Visola had been staring at him as he tried to make friendly chatter, and finally she jerked her chin violently and knocked the glass of water out of his hand. “Don’t be nice to me, Vachlan,” she hissed. “I know you want to hurt me. Why don’t you go ahead and do that? Where are your toys?”
Vachlan sighed, releasing a gush of air. “I did,” he said. “I did when I mistakenly thought that…”
“You knew,” she said, with a sadistic smile. “You knew all along I would never do whatever King Kyrosed implied that I had done. Not to you, not ever. It was all an excuse. You wanted to believe it so you could justify leaving me. And you left me, so leave.”
“Is that what you really want?” he asked, kicking aside the broken shards of glass so that he could move closer to her.
She immediately attached herself to him like a second skin. “No. It’s reverse psychology.”
“You don’t need to trick me into honoring my vows, love.”
“But I do, Pumpkin,” she said softly, pressing her lips against his neck. “Although I think that if you went away, I’d go back to being myself. I’m strong when you’re gone. You make me crazy.”
“You do the same to me,” Vachlan admitted. “I have good and bad news for you, but you can’t have one before the other because they’re the same news—it has to be simultaneous.”
“Forget the news,” Visola said as she continued to rub her face against his neck. “It’s time for my therapy.”
“While you were sleeping Trevain and Elandria ratified that contract.”
“What!” she screamed, suddenly yanking fiercely at her chains. Vachlan moved a few inches away from her as she flailed, trying to rip herself away from the wall. “They did what?”
“We needed this Viso. It was my plan from the beginning. I told you when we escaped Zimovia that this would be the only way…”
“Of course it was your plan!” she hissed. “You’re the enemy. This was your plan all along! And I brought you into my home, into my bed!”
“I didn’t expect the bridge,” Vachlan muttered. “That threw me. I knew they’d want something, and I expected to empty a few bank accounts. I thought maybe they’d want us to help them find oil deposits, or to help them locate good mining…”
“This is why they killed Alcyone!” Visola shouted, almost to the point of tears. “Vachlan, why don’t you believe me? My daughter’s death was not natural! That facility…”
“Shhh, Viso,” he said, moving close to her again.
“They killed her to take me out!” she insisted. “They knew I would never let Adlivun touch those contracts! They killed her because I was the weakest link. My daughter was my weakness and…”
“Darling, that does make perfect sense. But there wasn’t a drop of evidence to suggest foul play, and she left me that letter…”
“You don’t trust me,” she said helplessly. “You never will.”
He sighed, cupping her cheek in his hand. “I do. More than anyone else, even now when you’re stark raving mad. You’re the only person I trust.”
Visola leaned her face into Vachlan’s palm, closing her eyes for a tranquil moment. When she opened them, there were suddenly flecks of flame in the emeralds which matched her blazing hair.
“Hurt me,” she commanded. When Vachlan frowned at her, she lifted herself up onto her knees and glared at him. “You tortured me and broke my body in a dozen creative ways. Then you just expected everything to be okay. Wanna know a secret?” she asked in a whisper, leaning forward. “I’m not okay.”
“I know. Believe me, Viso, I can see that. But I’m going to heal all the parts of you that I broke…”
“But I don’t want that,” she told him with a smile. “Can’t you see? I got addicted. I grew comfortable with it. The pain is something I know and trust. It’s real, and I would like some more. I’m already tied up again, so why don’t you break my other kneecap. Go get your toys.”
“No,” he told her, frowning. “Visola, I love you…”
“Like how much? You have to be specific. Shakespeare would be specific. Tell me how wide and tell me how deep. Tell me the expiration date on the package because I can’t read those jumbled, faded letters. Is it June? Is it July? I’m useless.”
“Darling, Shakespeare didn’t know squat about love. Met the fellow once, and he was a pompous ass,” Vachlan said gravely. “You are not useless, my love.”
“My first duty,” Visola said, lifting her wrist. The shackle slid down to reveal her golden bracelet. “King Kyrosed appointed me to be the one who would take care of his infant daughter. I was to stay at her side, to be her friend, to be her shadow, to love her as though she was the only thing that existed in the world. Back then, Kyrosed was the scourge of Scandinavia. He was a great man, and it was an honor. I failed.”
“Visola...”
“My second duty,” Visola said, “suddenly a mother. A little baby, and she’s so beautiful. She somehow came out of me, and she’s so tiny, Vachlan. You never saw how tiny and beautiful she was. It was just the most moving thing in the world. I cried. I didn’t know what to do. I loved her, and I couldn’t stop kissing her, and I couldn’t stop crying. I cried for months, and I cried for you. I wanted you to come and see how beautiful she was, and I didn’t know why you wouldn’t come home. I thought maybe you were dead. I cried and cried, and I said your name over and over, wishing for you, praying for you. If you think I’m cracked now, you should have seen me then! I would sit with Alcie on the beach, all wrapped up in blankets and looking at the stars.” Visola paused, her green eyes glazed over with the memory. Vachlan swallowed, almost unable to bear seeing her like this. “Her first word was a garbled version of your name because she’d heard me say it a million times. That’s when I knew you weren’t coming back. But I didn’t know you were going to try to kill us. And I didn’t know that you would suddenly appear when it was too late, when Alcie was old and dying and dead. I failed.”
Vachlan could not bring himself to respond. He felt his whole body flushed with the heat of anguish at imagining what his wife had suffered. It was challenging to accept that it was all his fault.
“My third duty,” Visola said, lifting her shackled wrist in a mock salute, and causing the chains to clank together. “General of the army. Protect Adlivun. Don’t screw up, don’t screw up. Now guess what? My army’s gone. Ripped out from under me while I was sleeping. Documents signed. I’m replaced by a bigger machine. Is that failure, Vachlan? What is a general without her army? And even if I had them, they wouldn’t be enough. Everything’s gonna burn. Do you have a match? Let’s burn Adlivun together, and let’s burn ourselves up with it. We’re a joke, you and me, our marriage. Let’s burn that too and dance in the ashes.” She reached out and gripped a handful of his shirt. “Burn me, Vachlan. It’s what you’re good at. Destroy me.”
“Fine,” he said, grasping her wrists and slamming them above her head. “If that’s what you want. If that’s what you know. With the life you’ve had, I see that you don’t understand tenderness. Neither do I, and I’m really sick of trying to be tender.”
“Good,” she said with a smile, sticking her chin out daringly. “Sink your teeth in my flesh, Piranha. Cleave me apart with all your sharp edges. Peel the plastic off, peel back the leather and denim. Get under my Kevlar to where it’s all soft, and I’m not quite so bulletproof.”
“Do you think I won’t, Visola?”
“Yes. Your guilt was heavy, so tough like rubber, and you became nice to send it away,” she ac
cused. “Who are you? Where is my Vachlan? He was so many things, always different things, but he was never nice.”
He smirked down at her as he reached down to slide his fingers under her top. He splayed his fingers against her side, digging the rough digits into her soft waist. “If you need a little physical pain to have something familiar to fight against, I’m happy to oblige.”
“Not a little. Lots. Be as rough as you can with me. Like you wanted to when you held me prisoner before. You wanted to, didn’t you?” she asked, teasingly.
“Of course I did. But I’m a gentleman.” As he said this, his hand urgently ripped at the zipper of her pants.
“Be as gentle as you like,” Visola said, “as long as you make me bleed.”
There were lawyers in Adlivun, but Trevain still insisted on reading every word himself. He was startled from his progress when a young female voice interrupted him.
“King Trevain?”
Trevain looked up to identify the intruder. He was partly relieved and partly disappointed when he saw two women standing in the doorway, and neither of them was Elandria.
“What can I do for you, Namaka?” he asked a bit impatiently. “As you can see, I have a lot of work to do. Has someone else died?’
“No,” Namaka answered. “I am here because I have become friends with a powerful priestess, and I wanted to know if you would like her to pray for Queen Aazuria’s return.”
“I really don’t think…” he began, but then he shrugged and sighed. “Sure. Nothing else seems to be working. It can’t hurt.”
“Allow me to introduce Mother Melusina,” Namaka said, gesturing to her friend. “She is the founder of an exciting new religion.”
“Uh huh,” Trevain said, trying to sound interested but failing miserably. He glanced at the papers he had been reading longingly.
Meanwhile, the woman named Melusina was giving a deep curtsey. “I am a priestess of the sea, good king. I interpret its desires and tell my followers how to please the goddess to obtain bounty and find everlasting happiness.”
“Mhm,” Trevain mumbled, fighting a yawn. He had not known that religious fanatics were present in Adlivun, but it made sense. The citizens were just human, after all.
“I can pray to the waves to find your wife, and they will speak to other waves who know the answer. You see, this way, my knowledge is endless. All the world is made from one continuous ocean—it is all one boundless sea. The land is what interrupts the divine flow…”
“And now, apparently, this bridge,” Trevain joked, gesturing to the papers before him.
“Yes. The land prevents us from having our eternal happiness with its unholy divisions, and sweltering arid fields…”
“And agriculture,” Trevain felt the urge to add. He did not know why, but something about the brunette priestess annoyed him. Perhaps it was her hairstyle; she wore two buns on either side of her head from which little wavy pigtails descended.
Mother Melusina frowned. “King Trevain, the sea is holier than the air. There is energy and life in the water. It nurtures our bodies and allows us to live longer than our land-dwelling neighbors. If we accept the sea into our hearts…”
“Exactly how long is this prayer thing going to take? I have lots of paperwork to do.”
Chapter 16: The Biggest Douchebag
Clad in a yellow satin nightgown trimmed with black lace, Visola lounged on the divan with a glass of wine in her hand. The garment was not her style and neither was the beverage, but they were a strict part of her sister’s actual prescribed therapy. A thicker, more armor-like fabric was close at hand, along with a reliable bottle of rum. She was slowly flipping through photo albums in Trevain’s library for the hundredth time since she had been exiled from Adlivun.
The ‘exile’ was more of a forced sabbatical combined with running away. Even after she had been released from so-called solitary confinement and allowed to mix with the other kids on the playground, Visola had found it difficult to do everyday tasks. The most challenging thing was to look at her grandson. She had never realized how much his eyes resembled her daughter’s distinct jade irises. It had also grown difficult to be around her husband, for she felt like she was using him to artificially empty her mind. Certain moments in his arms were so consuming that they were fully liberating—she would become utterly devoid of thought until shortly afterwards when the guilt and madness would settle in and amplify exponentially.
She could not continue to live like that, and she had needed to take a step back. Trevain had offered his Soldotna mansion to her for a retreat, and she had gladly accepted. He had cautiously informed her of the location of the family albums and begged her to be gentle with them. Although the word was not an accepted part of her vocabulary, she recognized that the grainy photos from the 1960s and 70s were more precious than the crown jewels of Adlivun.
To Visola’s surprise, Trevain’s hair had been red when he was younger. The first time she had seen a photo of him as a redheaded schoolboy, she had burst out in giggles while slapping her knee. The fearsome, intimidating, white-haired sea-captain turned king had once been an adorable innocent-looking schoolboy. He had resembled Visola as a lad—that thought warmed her heart a little, and made her feel closer to him. Callder’s hair was brown like his father’s. Visola had paid close attention to the photographs of John Murphy, the boys’ father. Alcyone had told her a few stories, but she did not know nearly enough about her deceased son-in-law. He did not smile often in the photos, but he seemed to have an air of dignity and responsibility about him. There were some silly photographs of him holding up large fish with the young boys.
Mostly, Visola looked at the photos of her daughter. They helped to fill in the gaps of Alcyone’s life that she had missed, and they helped her to heal. Each photo of her daughter’s smile convinced her a little more that she had done the right thing in sending Alcyone away from Adlivun. Of course, Trevain and Callder, and even Brynne had become indispensible parts of her world, and she was grateful for her charming grandsons. But she could never stop thinking about her daughter being locked away in a psychiatric facility for so many years. Had she given her the best possible chance at life?
The photos often answered ‘yes.’
Turning the page, Visola’s lips curled at the sight of Alcyone holding a chubby baby boy. Both mother and son were smiling, and Trevain’s little fingers were lifted in a curious, candid capture. How could she have missed all this? But then, she was sure that it was harder on her husband. She still had not been permitted to see the contents of the letter Alcyone had left for Vachlan. She was not sure she wished to.
Visola had spent the past few weeks on land drinking herself to sleep or practicing martial arts in Trevain’s swimming pool until she collapsed from exhaustion. She usually floated to the hard flat bottom of the pool once asleep, and always awoke with weird aches and pains in her back. She was far too lazy to consider having a mattress installed in her grandson’s swimming pool. It was more Spartan this way.
The only thing missing from her training was the crushing pressure of being deep under the sea. Usually, the deeper she swam, the greater the pressure became. It added a nice element of difficulty sometimes, making her feel like her body was growing much stronger through tribulation. However, it was nice to have the privacy. Losing her army to the bridge had stung, but she had focused on training others for so long that it was nice to be alone and to fully concentrate on her own body.
Sometimes she was conscious enough to put herself to bed before passing out from drunkenness, and she would gravitate towards Aazuria’s room. She would huddle around a pillow, and think of her friend lovingly. She would brainstorm ways to find her queen until her brain shut down. Then she would wake up and scold herself for not having a concrete plan of action. Mostly, she missed Vachlan. She felt that having some distance between them would help her mental health, but she now knew that she had just been naturally grieving for her daughter. She should not have taken it
out on Vachlan and caused him such stress—she feared losing him. She expected to lose him. She feared caring too much about losing him.
She was still flipping pages in her album when the doorbell rang, and a smile lit up her face. She had missed her husband so much. She could not wait to throw her arms and legs around him and apologize while covering him with kisses. But when she flung open the door, it was not Vachlan standing there.
“Marshal Landou,” she said with surprise. She quickly looked around for something to throw over her flimsy nightgown, and found one of Trevain’s bulky winter coats. Slipping it around her shoulders, she felt ridiculous, but decidedly more modest.
“It’s good to see you, General. I understand that you are still grieving the loss of your daughter, and I apologize for not being able to do more for her.”
“You did all you could,” Visola said with a forced smile. “How did you find me here?”
“I asked around in Upper Adlivun. I’ve been working with your military leaders to develop a strategy…”
“I don’t know if I should be hearing this,” she told him, gesturing at her head. “Forced sabbatical, crazy streak. The military’s not mine any longer. In fact, there isn’t going to be a military anymore.”
“That’s why I’m here. It’s a long shot, but it may be possible for me to help you tweak the contract so that you’re a little happier with the terms.”
Visola’s eyes narrowed at the bald man. “You can’t do that. It’s signed.”
“Nothing is set in stone, Visola. And even stone can be broken with a jackhammer.” He smiled at her. “I could propose to get rid of this whole bridge requirement altogether. Or, I could just include more rights so that your workers get paid for their labor. Or I could maintain that…”
“Why are you suggesting this?” Visola asked with a frown. “Why did you come here?
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