by Kallysten
She inclined her head in what could have just barely passed for a bow, pretending deference when her words, yet again, sounded like a threat.
“I have another message,” she said. “This one for Aedan Oryonis from his clan leader. With your permission, Vivien Te Celden, I would speak to him in private.”
Vivien made the connection right away. That clan leader was Ciara herself. What did she want to tell Aedan? Chastise him again for talking for Vivien? For fighting for her? Whatever it was, Vivien felt oddly protective of him. If anyone had a right to dress him down, it was her, and no one else.
“You do not have my permission,” she said, holding back the urge to stick her tongue out at the woman. “If you have something to say, say it now, then leave. You said you had a message from the king, and you’ve already delivered it.”
Aedan half turned to Vivien again, but said nothing. After a few seconds, Ciara spoke in an icy voice, her focus entirely on Aedan like it had been on Vivien moments earlier.
“You betrayed your clan, Bloodchild. Your clan, and your king. You know the penalty for that.”
As deeply as the threat rang in her words, Aedan did not react to it. Brad, on the other hand, shifted for the first time as though uncomfortable.
“I betrayed neither,” Aedan said calmly. “The oath I swore to the king and the one I swore to you came long after another oath that trumps them both. I joined the QuickSilver guard when I was eleven. It never came into conflict with my other oaths until the king sent me to the Otherworld. When he did, I had no choice.”
Ciara looked at him thoughtfully. Her fingers tapped along the hilt of her knife like she wanted to draw it. “Either you lied to your Maker,” she said slowly, “or you kept secrets from her. Either way, I will have your blood. Unless the king gets to it first.”
Vivien didn’t like at all the way Aedan bowed his head, as though accepting her judgment. Before she could say a word, however, Ciara gave that small bow again, offered a formal, “Blessings, Vivien Te Celden. Until noon tomorrow,” then turned and passed through the door of light that had remained open at her back. It winked out of existence, and immediately Brad and Aedan relaxed and glanced at each other.
“That’s not good,” Brad said quietly.
“It could be worse,” Aedan countered. “At least there’ll be witnesses. He won’t be able to just make her disappear.”
Vivien didn’t want to hear another word. “I’m not going,” she said, drawing both their gazes to her. They reflected the same shock.
“It’s a summons from the king,” Brad said. “You don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, I do. You’re going to take me back to Earth, and I’m going to stay there, just like Anabel said. This isn’t my world. This guy isn’t my king. I want to go home.”
* * * *
Vivien turned on her heel on the last word and strode out of the room as though the discussion were over. Bradan looked at Aedan, and found the same shock on his face that Bradan felt. She didn’t understand, did she? Bradan had tried to explain to her, but he must have failed. The Vivien he knew—the Vivien he loved—wouldn’t run away and leave an entire world to fend for itself when she could do so much good...would she?
“If she doesn’t go to the king,” Aedan said urgently, “he’ll stop being subtle. So far he only sent a couple teams at a time, with orders to get her to him unharmed. If she ignores a summons, it’ll be the entire guard with a kill order. She won’t listen to me, but you have to talk to her.”
Bradan nodded once and hurried after Vivien. He caught up with her in the kitchen. She had found a metal tray somewhere and was arranging food on it: a plate with two slices of bread and some ferbec and fruit, and as he watched, she pumped water into a goblet.
“Vivien—”
“I’m bringing some food to Ana,” she said without looking at him. “I’ll pack up while she eats, and then you can take us back.”
Bradan passed a hand through his hair. Where should he even start? Her little fantasy might be comforting to her, but it wouldn’t work, not in any way Bradan could see.
“We need you here,” he tried. “You’re the only one who can challenge Rhuinn for the throne—”
She set the goblet down on the tray with such force that water sloshed over the edges.
“But I don’t want the throne,” she said, her voice shaking with intensity. Her eyes had rarely seemed so dark. “I’m just a girl, and whatever you say, this place—this world—isn’t my home. Why would I want to go against some king?”
“Because he stole what was yours by birthright?” Bradan tried.
Vivien shrugged and picked up the tray. “I don’t believe in monarchy,” she said, “or that anyone has a right to rule because they were born to the right family. You can’t force me to want that throne.”
Bradan stood in her way and took hold of the tray, his fingers brushing against hers. She raised her chin and held on to the tray, her eyes daring him to forcibly take it from her. He didn’t. Instead, he said in the gentlest voice he possessed, “Anabel doesn’t need food. Her body is shutting down. She’s dying.”
Vivien’s grip on the tray slackened, and had Bradan not been holding it too, the plate and goblet would have tumbled to the floor. Tugging lightly, he pulled the tray from her and set it back on the table. He tried to ignore the shimmer of tears in her gaze and her quiet, “But you healed her.” Both broke his heart, but he had to make her understand.
“She’s dying because the man who stole your throne doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He arrests or kills anyone who so much as contradicts him. He’s been forcing people into an army, and only the Quickening knows who he intends to attack with it. Maybe the elves, up north. They can’t channel, but they are fierce fighters. Maybe the aurgerds beyond the mountains. We’ve been at peace with them for hundreds of years, but to people like Rhuinn, they are little more than animals. Maybe he wants to conquer his way into the Otherworld. Foh’Ran used to have a territory there in times past, and to some, it was a sign of our grandeur. Whatever he plans, people will die. You’re the only one who can stop him.”
Vivien shook her head weakly. “But I can’t! I don’t know anything about this place. I can barely channel. I’ve got two bodyguards against his army. What good would it make for me to stand against him?”
Raising his hand in a slow gesture so he wouldn’t startle her, Bradan stroked her arm. “Right now you have the two of us. But as soon as people learn that you are back, they will rally behind you because you are the true heir. When he took the throne, Rhuinn was only a regent, reigning in your stead until you were of age. Why do you think he’s suddenly so interested in you? You’ll be twenty in just over two weeks. The throne will be yours then, whether he acknowledges it or not. You will have support.”
For a moment, he thought he had reached through to her. While earlier she had exuded determination as she spoke of leaving, now she appeared to be wavering. He waited, holding his breath, as she turned the ring on her thumb in that nervous habit of hers.
“If you take me home,” she said in a low voice, her eyes pleading as she covered his hand with hers, “then we could be together. There wouldn’t be a dame or a guard anymore. Just us. And someone else would rise to challenge Rhuinn.”
Temptation rang through each of her words, too hard to ignore after Anabel had raised the same possibility earlier. This time, though, Aedan was close enough to hear, and the flash of distress that came through the bond sobered Bradan.
“I can’t,” he said with what he hoped looked like a smile rather than a grimace. “If you won’t be who you are, then what is my oath worth?”
“But you love me,” she protested. “You said so. It’s not just your oath.”
“I do love you.”
His hand slid up to cup her face, like he had earlier. More than ever, he was glad they had been interrupted. It would only have complicated everything if they had made love. His heart was already telling hi
m to follow a path he knew wasn’t right; if they’d been together, he’d have been unable to even give this token resistance.
“But I love Foh’Ran, too. I love my brother. I’ve spent years away from both, waiting for you to be ready to come back. Please don’t ask me to choose now.”
She took a step back, breaking free of him. “If you won’t take me back,” she said, blinking away the tears that still gleamed in her eyes, “I’ll find a way back on my own. Or Anabel will teach me before she...” She gulped and looked away. “But I’m not going to that man just so he can kill me. And you can’t force me to.”
She didn’t make a noise as she slipped out of the room. Bradan took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. What else could he say, he wondered as he joined Aedan in the corridor and they followed her upstairs. Maybe he could try to talk to Anabel, remind her of Dame Eleoren and the duty she had given Anabel when she had entrusted her with Vivien. That Anabel had come to love Vivien as her own daughter and wanted to keep her safe was understandable, but too much depended on Vivien. Had Anabel’s long years in the Otherworld caused her to forget what was at stake?
Bradan would never get to ask. Seconds after Vivien had entered Anabel’s room, she wailed, a long, broken, wordless cry that spoke of pure grief. Bradan rushed forward, knowing what he would find already, but he had not expected Vivien’s tear-streaked face to hurt as much as it did.
He had not expected that it would remind him so much of the day Dame Eleoren had sent Vivien away with Anabel, and Vivien had cried and cried, clinging to her distraught mother until Lord Stefen had gently unwound Vivien’s arms from her mother’s neck and handed the child to Anabel; Bradan had watched from afar then, unable to do anything and hating that he was so young.
He had not expected his determination to crumble in front of her pain, his loyalty to his land and brother faltering even when he uselessly tried to hold on to them.
And he hadn’t expected that one simple certainty would rise inside him when she let him draw her into his arms and sobbed against his chest: whatever she wanted, wherever she wanted to go, Bradan wanted that for her. He would do his best to give it to her, however much it cost him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Grief
They had all known it would happen sooner or later, and a tiny part of Aedan wished he could shake Vivien and pull her out of her grief. They didn’t have time to cry over what the Quickening couldn’t fix. Channelers were born, lived, and died; Aedan had seen his share of deaths—he had even caused a fair number of them himself—and if he knew one thing, it was that Vivien was lucky she had had the chance to talk to Anabel one last time.
However, he watched his brother comfort Vivien, one arm curled tight around her waist and his other hand stroking her hair gently, he felt Bradan’s grief through the bond, a strange mix of pain and love, and Aedan remembered what it was like to know that your life would end, that you would lose those you cherished and there was nothing you could do about it. From the moment he had become a vampire, death had become more abstract to him, something he didn’t need to fear as long as he learned to fight well. This was a sharp reminder of what loss had been like before he had been remade.
Bradan turned his face toward him and met his eyes in a silent question. Aedan nodded. Yes, he would prepare the body. It was only fair, since Bradan would have to return Anabel to the Quickening.
Vivien was sobbing when Bradan guided her out of the room, and even after Aedan had closed the door, he could hear her. His hand clenched, still against the door, and as it closed his nails scratched the wood. He hated that old, familiar sound. It had been decades before he had stopped hearing a little girl’s tears in his dreams and the many tears that had come after hers...
Shaking that thought away, he pushed himself from the door and turned toward the bed. A muscle tightened in his cheek. It wasn’t the stillness of that empty shell that unnerved him; it was the silence that filled the room, crushing everything. Channelers’ bodies were full of sounds, heart ticking, food digesting, the Quickening whispering just under their skin, waiting to be used. Vampire bodies had no blood pumping through them, but the Quickening was louder in them, crackling like a roaring file, giving them life. Only when a body died for good did the Quickening leave it fully.
Stepping into the washing room, Aedan activated the water pump. After decades of disuse, the metal creaked and groaned, and it was a few seconds before stale-smelling water finally flowed out. Aedan continued to pump until the water ran clear, its scent speaking only of cool, dark places.
A basin waited on the window sill, covered in dust. Aedan rinsed it twice before filling it with water. He rinsed a washcloth as well, and took both back into the bedroom. He set the basin on the night table and the washcloth along the edge. It dripped water onto the floor.
Turning to the bed, he drew the cover down Anabel’s body. He unbuttoned her dress and, with slow, respectful movements, stripped her down.
She had been barefoot when she had Passed Through, stumbling on unsteady legs, the scent of dried blood letting him know of the nicks on her feet. There were more on her arms and knees; she had been made to kneel and prostrate herself, of course. When she lay bare on the sheet, Aedan dipped the washcloth in the basin again before wringing most of the water out. Then, he took her hand in his and lifted her arm.
A wrinkled petal fell from inside her hand, the same petal she had pulled from Vivien’s hair earlier. Aedan picked it up between two careful fingers, set it in the palm of her hand, and closed her fingers over it. He ran the washcloth from her shoulder to her hand, first the top of her arm, then the inside, where her skin was paler and a tiny QuickSilver tattoo, no bigger than his fingernail, gleamed at the crook of her elbow.
Unexpected sadness flowed through him at the sight of that symbol. He hadn’t known Anabel had sworn the oath. Aged and frail, she would have been fairly useless in battle, but she had defended Vivien the best she could. The same had been true for Aedan’s mother. He had never known that she, too, was part of the QuickSilver Guard until he had needed to prepare her body to return it to the Quickening. Her tattoo had been as wide as his palm, high on her shoulder, and at that moment he had regretted not having the QuickSilver symbol inscribed on his skin like her, his father, and Bradan.
He’d known when he took the oath that he would join the king’s guard at some point while waiting for Vivien’s return; displaying the QuickSilver tattoo would have drawn the king’s attention to him, and not in a pleasant way. Now, though, after Vivien had refused to let him swear his oath again and she had demanded to be brought back to the Otherworld, he wasn’t sure he wanted that tattoo anymore. Like Bradan had said, what did their oath mean if she refused to be Vivien Te Celden, heir to the throne? At least Bradan had told her no. Aedan didn’t know what he’d have done if his brother had left Foh’Ran forever with their dame.
With his thoughts going around in grim circles, Aedan finished bathing Anabel’s body, then wrapped her into the bed sheet, his gestures as gentle and reverent as they had been with the washcloth. Her spirit was gone, back to the Quickening, but her body still deserved respect. He wondered what had happened to Dack’s body, left behind in the human world. What about his spirit, for that matter? Had it found its way back to Foh’Ran? And what of Sensh? Vampires didn’t leave anything but ashes behind, but they had a spirit, too. A spirit that could be crushed more easily than their bodies.
All these deaths already and Aedan’s own Maker had called him a traitor and laid claim on his blood, yet Vivien only wanted to go back to the Otherworld. The mere thought caused him to slam the door shut rather than close it softly when he left the room, and he winced, feeling vaguely guilty. It wasn’t long before his thoughts returned to Vivien.
How could he convince her to confront the king? More importantly, how could he keep her safe if she did go, when she despised being under his protection? Witnesses would make it necessary for the king to be cautious, but very li
ttle actually stopped him when he wanted something. Kings and queens were all-powerful, Rhuinn liked to remind everyone, quoting past rulers’ deeds and sometimes imitating them like it would strengthen his claim to the throne.
Aedan froze midstep in the middle of a corridor, afraid that if he moved, that tenuous silver thread of an idea might break before he could fully take hold of it. He remained still a few more seconds, winding that thought until he knew where it led.
An old story, half forgotten, echoing within him to the sound of his mother’s voice; it was probably more legend than truth, but it was exactly the kind of thing that appealed to Rhuinn, the same kind of story he displayed as artwork on his walls. As he ran down to the library, Aedan was so excited he could have sworn his heart had started beating again.
* * * *
“I could have tried to heal her.”
The words tore at Vivien’s heart. Brad’s shushing whisper didn’t soothe her, and neither did his hand, still gently sweeping through her hair.
Not that long ago, she would have been delighted to be curled against his side like this, sitting on a stone bench with the warm caress of the afternoon sun upon her, the chirping of birds in the distance, and the low whistling of the wind for music. How far away that time seemed…
“I healed you.” She clutched his arm like he needed the reminder, or maybe to remind herself. “I did the Quickening thing, and I healed you. I could have healed her. At least I could have tried.”
Brad’s hand never stopped its slow, regular stroking. “I tried,” he said gently. “And I have a lot more training than you do at channeling. There was nothing I could do, and nothing you could have done. She knew it. She told you, didn’t she?”
For the first time since he had helped her out of that room, Vivien pulled away from Brad, raising her head from his shoulder, where her tears had disappeared into the black fabric of his shirt.