by Kallysten
* * * *
Relief swept through Bradan as soon as he entered Vivien’s house. Without taking one step further, he could see her, standing past the door on the other side of the kitchen. He turned back to the driveway and nodded once at Aedan, whose shoulders slumped for a second before he caught himself. Aedan nodded back, then moved away from the door. In moments, he all but disappeared into the darkness. Sunlight didn’t hurt him here the same way it did back home, but entering a house uninvited was still one of his limitations. Regardless, it made sense for him to stand guard outside while Bradan talked to Vivien.
What he would say to her, however, was still a mystery. He’d already tried to explain everything to her and she clearly hadn’t believed him. If she had, she wouldn’t have run out alone where Rhuinn’s guards might have snatched her.
He took slow steps across the kitchen. He’d been there before, always when Vivien was at school or asleep, and he knew the purpose the front room served. More than once, he’d teased Anabel about the strange use she had found for her Quickening in this world. He pushed those memories away to focus on Vivien instead. Why was she standing so still on the threshold? Why was she trembling, one hand against the doorjamb as though she needed the support?
“Vivien?”
She shuddered when he said her name but didn’t turn to look at him.
“Vivien, are you all right?”
When he reached her, he laid a careful hand on her shoulder. She finally turned to face him. She was ghostly pale, her expression reflecting a child’s fear. It had been a long time since he’d seen her so scared. They’d been children then, and Bradan had been too young to help. He felt a pang of guilt at the thought that, even now, he’d been unable to shield her from whatever was upsetting her.
“What is it?” he whispered. “You’re safe, we won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”
She raised the hand that wasn’t clutching the doorjamb and showed him her fingers. They gleamed wetly, covered in thick blood. Bradan’s eyes widened in alarm, and he grabbed her shoulders, turning her body fully toward him so he could look at her. He could see no injury, no blood on her clothing, only on her hand. Still, he had to ask.
“Are you hurt? What happened?”
“It’s not mine,” she said in a broken voice. “It’s... It was on the floor. I think... Ana isn’t here. I don’t know where she is. Someone came in. They... Upstairs. They were looking for something.”
Her eyes met his, and for all the fear he could see in them, her voice was firm when she asked, “What’s going on? Who did this? Why did they take her?”
Bradan realized that he could try to explain it all to her again, but she still wouldn’t believe him, not until she saw the truth for herself.
“I told you why. But I can show you.”
His words came out slowly as he focused on gathering the Quickening; it was harder in this world, with less energy around him to draw from, but he could always call on the power within him. His heartbeat accelerated, his vision changing until everything had turned a dull gray.
“What are you doing?” Vivien asked, breathless. She was staring at him; could she see the Quickening flowing around him, pulsing with colors?
“I told you. I’ll show you what happened. And then you can decide if you believe me or not.”
He brushed his thumb against the inside of his wrist, an habit he had developed while in this world. His Quickening, every last bit of power he possessed, was at Vivien’s service. It had been part of the QuickSilver vow he had sworn, and that vow was a part of him as surely as the tattoo was.
Raising his left hand palm up, he made a wide, sweeping gesture in front of him, freeing the Quickening, directing it to do what he needed. A silver mist instantly rose through the room, swirling as though from a light breeze. It coalesced into a human shape sitting at the table. Both her hands rested on either side of the cards in front of her, but her eyes remained on the door that faced her. It suddenly burst open. Two men walked in while a third one remained outside the threshold.
“Is that...is that Ana?” Vivien whispered. “Who are they? How are you doing this?”
Bradan did not reply, focusing instead on feeding the echo. The Quickening had flowed through all four of these people and left an imprint on the Otherworld. In a few hours, it would fade, but for now it allowed Bradan to show Vivien what had happened.
One of the two men, probably the leader of the unit, talked for a few seconds, his lips moving soundlessly; the echo retained images, but no sound. The only answer the man received from Anabel was a shake of her head. On a signal from the leader, the other man backhanded Anabel over the mouth, splitting her lip and sending her to the floor. Vivien gasped and lurched forward. Through the echo of the Quickening, Anabel’s blood was like liquid silver, small drops splattering down as she sat up but kept her head bowed.
“Do you want me to stop?” Bradan asked, already preparing to release his focus.
“No!” Vivien’s gaze flicked toward him, then back to the men. “I want to see what happened.”
Bradan inclined his head and continued to direct the flow of the Quickening, even if he was beginning to struggle with it. It had been a while since he had channeled to such an extent, and never in the Otherworld.
After a few more seconds, the same man who had backhanded Anabel grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. The two of them accompanied the other man out of the room and up the stairs. After a second of hesitation, Vivien followed them, with Bradan on her heels. He watched her hand rise and brush through the silvery mist that formed Anabel’s body. He wished he could have reassured her as to Anabel’s fate, but from what Aedan had told him of Rhuinn’s temper, she very well might be dead.
Upstairs, Bradan and Vivien could do nothing more than watch as the leader searched the two bedrooms, his frustration visibly growing as he failed to find what he was looking for. Again, he interrogated Anabel, and again she refused to answer, staring stubbornly ahead of her—and as luck had it, straight at where Vivien now stood.
Finally, the three of them returned downstairs. In the front room, the leader brought both his hands together; when he separated them again, the open front door was gleaming. The three men Passed Through, taking Anabel with them. Before she disappeared, she glanced one last time to where Vivien was standing as though she could see her, a small but genuine smile touching her mouth. Although the echo held no sound, when she spoke it was easy to read Vivien’s name on her lips. Her captor pressed a hand to her back and pushed her through. As the portal dissipated, the door banged shut.
Breathing hard, Bradan let go of the Quickening, and color returned to the world. Vivien, however, remained pale as snow. Her wide eyes shone when she looked at Bradan.
“Where did they go? Where did they take her?”
“They Passed Through back to our world,” Bradan said gently. “Back to Foh’Ran. I don’t know where, but those were Rhuinn’s men so I would guess they took her to him.”
“But why?” She shook her head. “You said they want me. Why would they take her?”
“She spent the past fifteen years at your side. Who knows you better than she does?”
Vivien crouched down and picked up a card on the floor. She held it in both her hands, watching it for a long time before she finally looked up at Bradan again and asked, “How did you do this? How did you make all this appear?”
Yet again, Bradan could only lament that Anabel had opposed telling Vivien anything about who she was or where she had come from.
“She forgot Foh’Ran,” Anabel had said, years earlier. “She barely remembers her mother, and if she remembers seeing anyone channel the Quickening, she just thinks it’s all her imagination. Why upset her with all this now?”
Bradan had only been a teen, then. He hadn’t thought it was appropriate to argue with his elder, especially since Dame Eleoren herself had entrusted her daughter to Anabel. Now, he wished he had been more persuasive, es
pecially the last time they had met and he had told Anabel about Aedan’s warning. He had so much to explain to Vivien, he didn’t know where to start. It didn’t help that she was looking at him as though she were finally ready to listen—finally ready to believe him.
“People from our world... Well, most of us, anyway. We have a...power. It’s called the Quickening. We can learn to do things with it, like opening a portal between Foh’Ran and Earth, like Rhuinn’s guard did. Or like summoning images of something that happened in a specific place a few hours ago, like I did.”
Vivien considered the card in her hands. Her voice rose no louder than a whisper when she asked, “Like reading the future in cards?”
Technically, Anabel didn’t read cards, but auras; Bradan didn’t think Vivien needed that bit of knowledge at that moment, though. He didn’t want to overwhelm her with trivia, merely show her that her world was different from what she had believed for the past fifteen years.
“Like that, yes.”
Her frown deepened, and she dropped the card. Bradan instinctively crouched to pick it up. As he did, Vivien pushed past him out of the room. Alarmed, Bradan pocketed the card and followed her as she rushed back upstairs. She entered the first bedroom—Anabel’s, Bradan would have guessed—and went straight to the dresser. The drawers had been pulled askew, the contents searched, and clothes scattered on the floor. Vivien put both hands in the first drawer and searched, flinging whatever was left aside until the drawer was completely empty.
“What are you doing?” Bradan asked, confused.
Vivien stood in front of the drawer, her lips pinched tight and her brow furrowed until she finally said, “This morning, Ana said something. She said... She said she had to talk to me about something important, but I didn’t have time. So she hugged me and she said my birthday present was in her first drawer.” She turned to look at Bradan. “Do you think she knew they...they’d come and take her?”
Bradan sighed softly. “I don’t know. It’s possible.”
She returned her gaze to the empty drawer, still frowning. “What were they looking for? Why did they search our rooms?”
“I don’t know,” Bradan said again. Maybe Aedan knew, but Aedan was outside, standing guard and growing restless. They had to Pass Through, and soon. “But they could return. We should...”
His voice trailed off when Vivien’s eyes suddenly widened.
“Not in her drawer,” she muttered as though to herself. “Under it.”
She pulled the drawer completely out of the dresser and set it on the floor before turning it upside down. Something flat, wrapped in tissue paper, was taped to the recessed underside.
“How did you know?” Bradan asked, stunned.
“It was in a movie we watched a few months ago.” With feverish hands, she pulled the tape apart and freed the wrapped object. “Anabel said, if she ever had to hide something important, that’s where she’d hide it.”
She opened the tissue paper, and something round and metallic fell into her open palm. Bradan held his breath as he recognized it. Each Celden ruler had worn the QuickSilver insignia, the men as a pin over their heart, the women as a pendant around their neck. It had been the visible symbol of who they were, like human rulers wore crowns. And from the time of Lahien the Great, all members of the QuickSilver Guard had worn the same symbol imprinted on their skin.
Without thinking, Bradan dropped to one knee in front of Vivien and raised his hand toward her, closed into a fist, his wrist facing up.
The swirls and spirals of the tattoo gleaming on his skin were a match for the finely crafted metal in Vivien’s trembling hand.
CHAPTER FIVE
QuickSilver
The instant Vivien unwrapped her birthday present, her entire world shifted on its axis.
Brad’s story still made no sense. The magic he had performed for her was still beyond anything she could comprehend. She was still scared and confused.
The difference was that now she believed him.
She’d been meaning to ask him what his tattoo meant from the first time she had noticed it. Now that she’d found an exact replica of that strange symbol where no one but Anabel could have hidden it, she had all the proof she needed: the link between the strange stories he was telling her and her real life, the one in which Anabel had taken care of her since she’d been five and her parents had died.
“What...” She gulped. Her throat felt too tight, too dry. Her eyes went back and forth between the pendant in her hand and the elegant lines on Brad’s skin. If she had laid the pendant against his wrist, it would have only been a little smaller than his tattoo. “What is this a symbol of?”
“It depends who wears it,” Brad said with a small smile. “On my skin, it’s a symbol of the oath I swore as a QuickSilver guard, a reminder that I’ll give my life if need be to protect the true king or queen. And when you wear it, it’ll be a symbol of what you are. The heir to a long tradition of rulers. The person who takes care of Foh’Ran—” He reached into her hand to follow one spiral of the pendant with a fingertip. “—of those who channel the Quickening—” He brushed against a second spiral. “—and of the vampires.”
His finger followed the last spiral, ending where he had started. As he pulled away, his fingertips brushed against Vivien’s. She shuddered, and the pendant fell from her hand. Brad caught it before it could tumble to the floor and offered it back to her in his open palm.
“I can’t be a...a ruler,” she murmured, crossing her arms over her chest so she wouldn’t be tempted to take the pendant again. She didn’t want it or anything it symbolized. She didn’t want to be part of this strange world where people were kidnapped or killed in broad daylight. “I don’t want to be a ruler.” Her voice was firming up with her resolve. “I just want to live here and be me. You can tell that to your king.”
Brad looked crestfallen. He got back to his feet, his hand still extended in front of him. “Vivien, this is you. You can’t just push it away like this.”
“Why not?” she challenged. “How can I pretend to be a ruler when I know nothing about your world or its people? I can’t do magic. I’m not a...a vampire. I’m just a college girl.”
“You’re a lot more than that.” Brad’s gaze was burning with the same intensity as when he had first told her about his oath, back at his apartment. “And what about Anabel? Are you just going to leave her in Rhuinn’s hands?”
Guilt flashed through Vivien. How could she have forgotten Anabel?
“How am I supposed to help her?” she protested. “I don’t even know where she is. You said you don’t know either.”
“But we can find out,” Brad said urgently. “We can go to Foh’Ran, find out where she is, and find a way to free her.”
“Why don’t you go and do that? You and your brother. I’d be of no use to you.”
He shook his head. “We swore to protect you, not her. We aren’t going anywhere without you.” He hesitated for a second before he added, “Aedan and I... We’re not as strong here as we would be in Foh’Ran. I can use the Quickening to make it more difficult for Rhuinn’s guards to come into this house, but you’ve seen how it didn’t stop them before. Any shield I build here will fail eventually; that’s the nature of this world. Come with us back to Foh’Ran, and we’ll get Anabel back.”
“But I can’t!” Vivien folded his fingers over the pendant. “My life is here. We’ve got that presentation tomorrow. Finals are in a month.”
“Anabel could be dead already.”
Vivien had never been sucker-punched before. As she struggled to find her breath, she imagined it felt a bit like this.
“Time passes faster in Foh’Ran than it does here,” Brad continued, stone-faced. “Every minute we argue here, five minutes pass there. If she was taken two hours ago, she’s already been there for ten hours. Rhuinn is not a pleasant man. If he wants her to tell him everything that ever happened to you, from how many times you skinned your knees while growing up t
o how many years you studied fencing, she will tell him. It’s only a matter of time. And when he has what he wants from her...”
He let the sentence hang between them. The men downstairs, whoever they had been, had had no qualms about hitting Anabel, however old or frail she might be. She was the only family Vivien had, and someone might be hurting her at that very moment because of Vivien. She swallowed back the tears that stung her eyes.
“Should I... Should I pack a bag?” she asked, looking at the ruined room around her rather than at Brad’s cold eyes; he resembled his brother more in that moment than he had before. “How long will we be gone?”
“I don’t know,” he said more softly now. “But it’s best to assume you won’t be back. Or at least not for a while.”
That last part was clearly an afterthought. It made it harder to believe she’d be back at all.
The strangest feeling took over Vivien, and she felt like she was watching herself as she left Anabel’s room and entered her own. She dug the duffel bag she had once used to carry her fencing gear out of the closet and set it on her bed. She picked up clothes from the floor and threw them in, not really searching for anything in particular, merely filling the bag.
She put her MP3 player in there. She’d have taken her computer, too, if it hadn’t been destroyed. The thought gave her pause; she wouldn’t be able to keep in contact with her friends from that other place, would she? There’d be no one there she knew other than Brad—other than the man she’d had a crush on for so long and who had rejected her that very morning. She grabbed a few favorite books from her shelves, too; at least she’d have something to do.
The entire time, she was aware of Brad’s presence just outside her room. He watched her without a word, offering no advice about what she should pack. Was that place cold? Should she take a coat? Would she need sunscreen? She was beginning to resent him, both for the bad news and for his silence. When she pushed past him to go to the bathroom across the hall, she gave him a hard look. He stopped her with a brush of his fingers against her arm.