Things Unseen

by CJ Brightley

  Aria wasn’t sure whether she had the right to be there while they sang for Owen, but she couldn’t stay away. Niall saw her face and scooted to the side a little, and she dropped to sit next to him. Owen lay unmoving in the center of the circled Fae, scarcely breathing. The back of his head must have been bleeding too; the hair was thick with caked and crusted blood that had left a smear on the floor.

  Niamh spoke, her eyes not leaving Owen’s face. “Why did you not kill Grenidor?”

  “He forbade it.” Cillian’s voice was nearly inaudible.

  Niamh glanced up at him sharply. “He did what?”

  “He said, ‘Don’t.’” Cillian’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing else.

  Niamh stared at Owen again, and Aria tried to read her expression. Fury. Confusion? Grief. Doubt, perhaps, though Aria wasn’t sure on that one. After a long moment, she closed her eyes and began to sing.

  White stone cliffs fell away into crashing ocean waves. Owen picked his way along the narrow rocky shore, black curls crusted with salt. He knelt to pick up a stone and threw it into the waves. He turned, looked behind him, and smiled, white teeth flashing. He lifted one hand as if in acknowledgment, then looked back toward the water with a pensive expression. A wave surged toward him, and he waited, took a step deeper into the water, the sandy wash tugging at his trousers. He knelt again, pressed both hands to the ground beneath the water. It eddied around him, pulling at the hem of his white shirt, swirling sand and tiny bits of froth in chaotic patterns as it swept away.

  He looked back over his shoulder again and nodded, but he didn’t rise immediately. He stared out at the next wave for a long moment, waiting as it approached, then slowly stood, eyes on the water as it surged around his knees. He opened his hands to let the sand and pebbles fall, disappearing into the water. The wave had begun to recede before he turned and started back toward the narrow beach.

  Aria blinked as she stared at Owen’s body. The music faded around her, but she smelled the scent of the ocean, a salty tang in the air.

  The difference wasn’t obvious at first, but after a moment she realized his breathing was more regular. Niamh leaned forward to touch his forehead with one white hand, and his left eye opened slowly. The right was gruesomely swollen, and Niamh traced the line of his eyebrow with one finger.

  “Owen.” It was only one word, but there was a weight of sorrow in her voice that made Aria’s heart constrict.

  He blinked at her.

  Niamh frowned at him. “You should have let Cillian kill him. It is justice.”

  He said nothing, but his gaze roved slowly around the circle to rest on Aria for a long moment, then back to Niamh. His lips moved, but Aria couldn’t tell what he meant to say.

  Niamh drew back, her face tight. “Why? You ask why?” Her hand clenched.

  Owen closed his eye and his lips tightened. Aria wondered whether he was frustrated or simply fighting pain.

  “Let him be.” Her words came without thought, and she bit her lip as everyone stared at her.

  “This is not your concern.” Niamh’s voice was cool, but her eyes weren’t exactly angry as she looked across at Aria. Aria tried to read her face. Was she puzzled?

  “Let him be,” Aria repeated. “He needs to rest, doesn’t he? To heal? Don’t bother him with questions, then.”

  Niamh continued to study her and Aria tried not to squirm.

  The next question was addressed to her. “Did Petro help you in there?”

  Aria licked her lips and thought. “Possibly. Doors closed, blocking soldiers from shooting us. I didn’t do it.”

  Cillian nodded his head minutely and closed his eyes for a long moment. “There was more. We can discuss it later. Owen saw it too.”

  Niamh glanced at Owen. He opened his left eye again, but appeared to gaze thoughtfully into space, not meeting anyone’s gaze directly.

  “Do you truly love him?”

  The question startled Aria, and she blushed. “Yes. But I don’t expect anything from him, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s not like I know him that well, really.” She chewed her lip and tried to keep her voice from shaking. “I just saw how brave he was, and how he cared for Niall before himself. It’s heroic. But it’s okay if he doesn’t feel the same way. I understand.”

  She looked up to see his gaze resting on her. His lips twitched, just the merest hint of a smile.

  Niamh said finally, “We have done all we can for now.” She leaned closer, speaking softly to him. “If you wish, we will leave you.” He murmured something, and she leaned in further, her ear close to his mouth. Then she smiled, touched his face again with one hand, and stood. “Come.” She led the others a little distance away, where they settled down to rest.

  Aria slid forward to sit closer to Owen’s face. His eye drifted closed and then opened again with some effort.

  “Can I do anything? Would it help if I did human things? I can wash off the blood and put bandages on. I know it won’t heal you.” Her voice trailed away and she blinked away tears. She brushed at her eyes in frustration, feeling her face heat as his gaze rested on her.

  His voice was nearly inaudible. “If you wish.”

  “You don’t mind? I don’t want to hurt you.” She swallowed.

  “It would be acceptable.” He smiled a little, the expression more clear on the left side of his face.

  She jogged across the long platform to where the humans were grouped and asked Eli for bandages, tape, scissors, and water. He found a bucket, and she went in search of a faucet to fill it.

  Bartok accompanied her. He didn’t say anything, but she could feel his quiet sympathy. His company was welcome because the deep shadows in the upper platform were eerie and echoing. She found a long-abandoned restroom and ran the water for several minutes to let the pipes clear before cramming the bucket underneath the faucet.

  “They’re less like us than we thought,” Bartok said.

  Aria frowned more deeply. “I think there’s a lot we don’t understand. I don’t know how important any of it is, though.”

  Bartok reached out to put a gentle hand on her shoulder for a moment. “Be careful.” He didn’t say anything else.

  He carried the bucket back to Owen for her and then left her with the second lantern, picking his way back across the darkened platform toward the warm circle of light at the far end, where the others were.

  Aria settled in front of Owen. He watched her lay out the supplies without a word, and she couldn’t read his expression.

  “I think I should cut off your shirt. Instead of making you take it off.”

  He grunted softly, and she decided to take it as assent. She used the scissors to cut the shirt up from the bottom hem. It stuck in many places, and she used one hand to dribble water onto it, loosening the caked blood as she worked the fabric free.

  As she pulled the shirt back, she caught her breath, tears in her eyes again. It was even worse than she’d feared. Most of the skin was no longer white; black bruises covered his whole torso, and uneven bumps showed the ends of broken ribs. Dark circles the size of her fingertips filled with crusted blood showed where he’d been shot, eight in his chest and two lower on his right side. She felt his gaze on her face, but she couldn’t look up to meet his eye.

  “Why did he—” she stopped. Surely she had less right to pester him with questions than his sister did. “Never mind. Just tell me if I make it worse.”

  Doing something for him, no matter how little it mattered, made her feel better. She folded one of the bandages into a thick square and dipped it into the water, then squeezed it mostly dry. Her hands trembled as she dabbed at the blood smears, circling around each bullet hole.

  He kept breathing, but he said nothing and she didn’t look at his face for a long time. She focused on the cloth and water, the raw scrapes and bruises. Finally, she had cleaned as much as she could and taped small squares of gauze over each visible wound. She didn’t imagine it actually mattered, but at least it
looked like someone cared.

  Finally, she looked up to his face. Both eyes were closed, and she hesitated, but finally dipped the cloth into the water again and brought it to his swollen cheek. At the feather light touch, his left eye opened.

  “Should I wash your face too?”

  “If you wish.”

  She wished she could read his expression. She wondered what it felt like; if he wasn’t warm-blooded, would the cool, damp touch feel refreshing on his swollen eye and cheek?

  He submitted to her efforts without comment, and she moved on to explore the wound on the back of his head without asking. He turned his head to the right and she moved the lamp closer, but it was still hard to see the extent of the injury through his black curls and the thick, caked blood. With some gentle pouring and working her fingers through his hair, she got the majority of the blood out and decided that doing anything else would cause more pain than it helped. She folded a dry bandage and slid it beneath his head.

  She sat back and looked at him. It would be a stretch to say he looked “better,” because some of the wounds had been hidden before. His eye was closed again, and she leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees, her head hanging down.

  The exhaustion of the last three days threatened to overwhelm her. She bit back tears and tried to calm her breathing. He’ll heal. He’s strong, and there are others to help him. They love him, too, probably better than I do. We’re away from the hotel, and Grenidor won’t find us here. We have information, if we can decipher it. We’re in a better position than we have been since the Revolution. It’s just that I didn’t know about it before, so I thought everything was fine. But it was never fine. Now we have hope. The thoughts, logical as they were, didn’t keep her from trembling.

  She jumped at his touch. Owen had moved his left hand slightly, so the back of his hand rested against her knee.

  “Why?” he whispered.

  “Why am I crying?” She forced a tired smile. “I’m sorry. For you. For myself. For everyone. I used to think everything was fine. It wasn’t. Now I know about it.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Did you go to Petro?”

  “Cillian and Niall and I did.” She took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to steady her voice. “It was strange. They can tell you about it. Apparently he acted differently around me.”

  He swallowed. “That was dangerous. They should not have taken you.” He closed his eye again and his jaw tightened; it was obvious that speaking was painful.

  “They warned me about the danger. But they said they could not prevent me if I chose to go.” She thought back again to their words. That was odd. As if they spoke of rules understood, rather than a decision agreed upon by the group.

  He continued to watch her face. After a long silence, he asked, “Why did you say ‘love is everything’ to Petro?”

  “He said, ‘I’ve never understood why humans think love is important.’ I disagreed.” Aria blushed, thinking about what she’d said before that, but it didn’t matter. He already knew she loved him, and it probably didn’t mean anything to him. That was fine. She’d told everyone already. She didn’t expect anything to come of it. When did I become this brave? I never thought I’d bare my heart like this and care so little if anyone laughed at me.

  Owen blinked and stared at her. “I didn’t hear that.”

  “You were a little out of it.”

  “I heard what you said before it. I didn’t hear Petro’s response.” He closed his eye and took a slow, painful breath. “Please ask Cillian what he heard.”

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  “I think it might mean something. But I don’t know what.”

  “I will. I think you should rest, though.” She slipped her hand into his. He didn’t react for a moment, but then he squeezed her hand slightly. She smiled, a little sad, a little grateful, and then let him go as she stood.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Aria found Cillian, but he seemed to be sleeping, lying on his back with one arm thrown over his face. She stood for a moment staring at him, and finally found a bedroll and carried it back to sleep near Owen.

  They were all exhausted. Owen’s question could wait. He needed to heal, and they needed to rest before they could sing for him again. Perhaps it was improper, but she didn’t think he’d mind her staying close. They’d shared a room before, and it felt wrong to leave him lying in the dark alone at the end of the platform.

  She turned the lantern down low and curled up under the thin blanket. Cold, hungry, and aching with weariness, she finally drifted off to sleep.

  Shoulders relaxed, Owen stood knee-deep in the sandy ocean water. The cold wind frothed the tips of the waves, but it didn’t bother him. As she watched, he stood motionless for long minutes, staring out into the water. The waves moved in and out, tugging at his trousers, the damp fabric dark as it clung to his legs. Birds shrieked, and he looked upward, squinting into the bright sunlight as he watched them pass.

  She woke to the sound of quiet voices. Cillian and Niamh were closest to her, and they must have heard her wake, for Cillian turned to her immediately.

  “We have questions for you.” He motioned for her to come closer.

  Owen’s left eye was open, and the swelling in the right had gone down a little, though it was still probably impossible for him to see with it. He had not moved from his back.

  “I thought you’d be able to heal him more by now. There are a lot of you.” She meant the words as a question, not an accusation, but Niamh frowned.

  “Grenidor did much damage. Most of it is not visible.” She ran her hand gently over Owen’s forehead. “He is actually better than I’d expected. We wondered if somehow you helped him.”

  Aria swallowed. “I only cleaned him up a little. I doubt it actually helped any.”

  They regarded her for a moment. Cillian asked, “What did you hear Petro say as we were leaving?”

  “‘I’ve never understood why humans think love is important.’ That’s what made me so angry. Even if he did help us, he was watching like some creepy voyeur.” Even thinking about it made her tense in anger again.

  Cillian stared at her and then looked back at Niamh. “You see?”

  “See what?” Aria asked.

  “I heard him say, ‘I am not interested in love.’ The difference in meaning may be subtle, but the words were distinctly different. And Owen heard nothing,” Cillian said.

  Niamh frowned, still looking at Aria. “I am more intrigued by the fact that he helped. Did he explain that to you?”

  “He said it was required in order to avoid undesirable results.” Aria scowled. “Like us dying, I suppose.”

  Cillian rubbed his face thoughtfully. “That would not normally be a concern for him,” he said.

  Owen murmured and they leaned closer to hear him. “We have almost no information about his dealings with humans. Only with us.” He stopped to take a slow breath and then continued, “Perhaps the rules are different.”

  “What rules do you keep talking about?” Aria asked.

  Cillian frowned thoughtfully. “Perhaps. You humans have many choices, many options in how you deal with each other. We are more restricted. More bound. We can see many options, as if we were human, but we cannot always choose freely. Sometimes we have a choice, but certain options are much more difficult than others.” He must have seen the confusion on her face, because he continued. “Lying. We can lie to each other, but it is very difficult. It is even more difficult to lie to a human. Sometimes impossible. Sometimes merely difficult, with immediate consequences if we dare. It is difficult to withhold information that is directly requested. Especially if the human has a valid reason to request it. Even when it is harmful or dangerous to us, it is virtually impossible to deliberately deceive a human. This is one of many reasons we have kept our distance from humans; for our own safety.”

  Owen spoke softly. “I lied to Grenidor.”

  Niamh and Cillian both twitc
hed in surprise. “You did what?”

  “He wanted information. Your location. And the dark ones. How to contact them.” His jaw tensed and he closed his eye for a moment before continuing. “I told him of the hotel after ten hours. I guessed you would have moved by then.” Another difficult breath.

  Aria chewed her lip as she watched him struggle. She wanted him to rest, but obviously, he thought this information was important enough to justify the pain of speaking.

  “I lied about the dark ones. I told him it was impossible for humans to interact with them.”

  Niamh let out a slow sigh and looked back at Cillian. For Aria’s benefit, she said, “That should not have been possible. At all. Grenidor, for all his cruelty, genuinely believes in his cause. That gives him the power to compel answers from us. Especially one like Owen, who is so obedient. Perhaps the rules are changing.”

  Cillian leaned closer and touched Owen’s shoulder with the tips of his fingers. “And yet I cannot tell.” The whisper was soft, confused. “I am glad, my brother, but I don’t understand.”

  Owen twitched his hand; he had something else to say. “I prayed. For strength. Forgiveness. I didn’t think El would answer a prayer for the ability to lie, but He did.”

  Cillian’s nostrils flared, his voice low and angry. “You should give up these beliefs, Owen. They do you no good. If that is why you did not allow me to kill Grenidor, you are wrong. He deserved it, more than anyone in both our long lives. You know it would be permitted, and you know it is justice!”

  “They have something we don’t, Cillian.” Owen’s voice was fading. “They have choices. I chose. I went against the rules, and it was permitted. But it might be only because I chose mercy.”

  “But you were wrong!” Niamh cried. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she reached out to touch Owen’s face. “Why? Why would you let him live, after this?”

  Owen smiled. “Because I could! Don’t you see? We have never been permitted such freedom.”

  Cillian was trembling with anger, but he said nothing for a long moment, his eyes flicking from Niamh to Owen and back. At last, he said quietly, “I don’t think we understand humans as well as we thought we did. Or Petro. This is important, but perhaps not urgent. We must move soon. Grenidor will be searching for us, and especially you.”