Bloodchild

by Kallysten

  To them, maybe, she looked the part of the silent and regal dame they wished to serve, but she had no doubt that someone who knew her better than they did would have seen through her mask in an instant—which was why she was very careful not to look toward Aedan as he stood to the side and bore witness.

  The next step was almost worse than the oaths. Having welcomed them as her guards, Vivien now found herself having to mark Olric and Savel as though they were cattle. It was what they wanted, and they had both asked to receive the QuickSilver mark from her, but it didn’t stop her from hating every second of it.

  Savel had chosen to receive the mark on his right arm, while Olric wanted it on his neck, “where everyone will see,” he’d said. Vivien channeled the Quickening, using her discomfort as her focus emotion since it was what she felt most strongly, and she did what Aedan had explained she should: she held Savel’s arm with both hands and envisioned his skin marked by the silvery curls of the symbol she’d learned to know so well, the same symbol she had first seen on Brad’s hand, back on Earth, before she had any inkling of what it might mean.

  She’d expected it would be difficult to alter skin and living flesh with the Quickening, but on the contrary it was surprisingly easy. It was moments before the mark, as wide as her palm, stood on Savel’s bicep. Even out of direct sunlight, it gleamed like silver, and flexed as though it were part of his skin when Savel, beaming, shifted his arm to have a good look at it.

  Olric’s mark took even less time; now that she knew she could do it, it was easier. It felt as awkward, though, both because she had to hold his head in her hands and because she knew all too well that, if she died, he’d continue to bear this mark where it couldn’t be hidden for the rest of his life.

  The next step was for her new guards to write their names in the large leather-bound book that served as record of all the QuickSilver guards. Vivien had seen the book in the library, but she’d never looked at it, and felt some trepidation as she watched Savel open it on the desk where Aedan had set it, turn the pages to the last one, and write his name in fresh ink. Olric did the same, then blew softly on the page before closing the book again.

  The two of them were still smiling when they took their leave, the same pride suffusing both of their faces and erasing the few decades that separated them.

  As they left the room to go back to their training, Vivien opened the record book again. She turned the heavy cover, and could see at once on the first page the very same oath she’d just heard, written in elegant letters that formed a strange language she could read as easily as English.

  She flipped through the pages, stopping here or there to take in the name of a ruler, or glance over the lists of names of the guards who had served her ancestors. Soon, she reached the last two pages on which something had been written. On the left, her mother’s name graced the top of the page, with a long list of names underneath. Most were followed by a small star.

  “It means they died protecting their dame,” Aedan said when she asked about it.

  Vivien’s throat tightened.

  “Anabel should have a star, too,” she whispered. “She died because she wouldn’t tell Rhuinn about me.”

  “This register is yours,” Aedan replied. “You can change it as you wish.”

  She gave him a quick glance before picking up the quill and carefully inking a star next to Anabel’s name. As she set the quill down again, her gaze continued to the next page. Beneath her name, she found Brad’s and Aedan’s, and remembered how they’d sworn the oath when they’d both been so young, little more than children.

  She touched Brad’s name with her fingertip. She missed him terribly, and had half a mind to ask if she could reach out through the Passing Room and talk to him, but she could already guess Aedan would have half a dozen reasons why it was a bad idea. Tomorrow, she told herself. Tomorrow she’d get to see him.

  “Dame Vivien?” Aedan said quietly as she closed the register. He waited until she’d raised her eyes to him to continue. “When you first came back to Foh’Ran, I asked to swear the oath back to you. I don’t think you understood back then what it meant for us. For me.”

  Vivien’s lips curled in a self-deprecating smile.

  “No, I didn’t,” she admitted. “I’m not sure I do now, either. But I’m trying.”

  Aedan nodded.

  “I know you are. And I’d like to ask…” He lowered himself to one knee in front of her. “I always wanted the mark, from the moment I gave Bradan his. I knew I couldn’t have one yet, I understood why, but it was always something I felt was missing. But I also knew some day I’d be able to ask you for it. Will you please hear my oath and mark me?”

  On one hand, Vivien had heard quite enough oaths already, and she had no desire to hear more. On the other, Aedan had asked her before, and she suspected that if she declined now, he would ask again, sooner or later, until she agreed. Besides, he’d already sworn the oath, and repeating it to her wouldn’t change anything. What he truly wanted, she knew, was the mark.

  “Where would you wear it?” she asked, swallowing back a sigh.

  Something flickered over Aedan’s face, as though he were happy but didn’t dare to hope too much quite yet.

  “On my palm, please.” After a second, he added in a whisper, “That’s where our father had his.”

  Surprise left Vivien wordless, and she could only stare at him. His palm… How many times had she dreamed of that man whose features she couldn’t quite see, a man who bore the QuickSilver tattoo right in the palm of his hand?

  Aedan couldn’t have failed to notice how troubled she suddenly was.

  “Dame Vivien? Is something wrong?”

  Blinking and pulling herself out of her thoughts, she shook her head and took a step back, rubbing her hands together absently.

  “Nothing wrong, I just…”

  She paused, unsure of herself. She’d never told anyone about the dream because she’d always thought it was nothing more than that: a dream. But what if she’d been wrong?

  “There’s this dream I often have,” she continued, speaking slowly. “Well, I used to think it was a dream, but I’ve started to think it might be a memory.”

  Aedan pushed himself to his feet. When he considered her, she thought she understood why. She remembered very little of her childhood before Earth, and every memory retrieved was like a small victory.

  “What kind of memory?” he asked.

  Should she tell him? She might as well. Maybe he’d be able to clear it up for her.

  “I’m very small in the dream,” she said, pacing back and forth through the room and letting the familiar images play in her mind. “I’m running in the woods, and something or someone is chasing me. I’m very, very scared. When I come out of the woods, there’s this man standing there. The sun is behind him, and I can’t see his face, but he’s holding his hand out to me, and I can see the mark on his palm.”

  Stopping abruptly, she turned to face Aedan.

  “You said your father’s mark was on his palm. Do you think it could have been your father?”

  Aedan’s brow furrowed and he inclined his head.

  “Possibly. But not necessarily. I don’t think he was the only guard who wore the mark on his palm.”

  Disappointment flashed through Vivien. It would have been a small thing to know who it had been, since she still had no idea why she’d been in the woods or even anything else. But in the absence of anyone who might remember more than she did, small things were all she had.

  “Do you remember a lot about my mother’s guards, then?” she asked, returning to the register and opening it again on the page titled with her mother’s name.

  “Not really. We weren’t much older than you, Dame Vivien. And we were supposed to stay out of the way of the guards.”

  She did a quick count; there were more than sixty names on the list, broken down pretty evenly between men and women. She paused at the names she recognized: Anabel again, Lasdan
and Meriel, Brad and Aedan’s parents, and Stephen. She taped a fingertip on that last one, remembering vague features and pale bright eyes.

  “This one,” she said, drawing Aedan’s attention to it. “You mentioned him before, didn’t you? Stephen?”

  “Lord Stephen, yes.”

  “You said he was her husband, didn’t you? How could he be her bodyguard and her husband? He swore to protect her and obey her to the death, but how could she ask that from him if she loved him?”

  From Aedan’s puzzled look, it seemed as though he didn’t understand what she meant.

  “What better way for him to show what she meant to him?” he asked in reply. “And what should she have done? Refused to acknowledge his gift to her?”

  The words struck Vivien like a jolt of electricity. All this time, she’d struggled to accept that anyone would want to swear an oath such as the QuickSilver one, but now she was beginning to get it. It wasn’t so much about the person who swore wanting to be heroic or anything like that; it was about how they saw the person they swore to. For Savel and Olric, it was about how they saw in her the end of Rhuinn’s reign. For Brad, it was about her being the person he loved. And for Aedan…

  It was about the same thing, wasn’t it?

  She closed the book again, nodded, and he put a knee to the floor again. The oath was the same she’d just heard, but somehow he made it sound different. Perhaps it was the intensity of his gaze, never lifting from her as he recited the words, or perhaps it was the fact that he sounded so much like Brad.

  She took his hand afterward, holding on to his fingertips as she formed the QuickSilver symbol, making it fit exactly into the center of his palm. When she was done, she followed one of the silver swirls with a finger, feeling how cool it was, metallic and yet not. Realizing what she was doing, she let go of Aedan’s hand and stepped back, feeling heat creep into her cheeks.

  “Thank you,” Aedan said very softly as he stood. “This means a lot to me.”

  The intensity in his eyes troubled her, and she had to look away again, unable to bear seeing it any longer. She told herself it was proof of how much he believed what he said and nothing else, but deep down, she knew better. She’d seen that look in Brad’s eyes before. Every time he had told her he loved her, he had looked and sounded like Aedan did now.

  Brad’s words came back to her, those words that had made Aedan retreat two days ago. Aedan hadn’t denied them. He hadn’t laughed them off. He hadn’t said anything at all and had just left Brad and Vivien alone after being, oh, so careful to always be there with them.

  She hadn’t wanted to think too much about it at the moment or even since, but it was true, wasn’t it? Aedan was in love with her, too. Every time he’d argued with her about what she ought to do as ‘dame’ Vivien, she’d thought he could barely stand her and was making do with the potential ruler he’d been given, but the truth, she now realized, was much different. How hard had it been for him to keep his feelings hidden and stick to the role of helpful guard from the very beginning? Brad had given it a token attempt, but it hadn’t lasted beyond Vivien’s admission that she had feelings for him, too. Aedan on the other hand…

  Aedan had stood there, watching their love grow, trying, sometimes, to remind Brad of his duty, but eventually giving up. He’d watched what he couldn’t have and remained as loyal as ever, both to her and to his brother.

  Should she acknowledge that she knew, that she understood how he felt? To what end? What would it help? There was nothing she could do. She couldn’t change his feelings, and she couldn’t return them. Acknowledging aloud what they both knew would make things more complicated between them, and she couldn’t allow that. It was selfish of her, but she needed him. She’d needed him so far because he knew Rhuinn and the court and could tell her what to expect from both. She needed him even more now that Brad had left.

  In front of the other guards, and even in front of Doril and Elver, she tried, as best she could, to be the queen they all saw in her. It was, after all, why they had all joined her, and she didn’t want to disappoint them. But Aedan was different. She could show him her fears and hesitations, and act like an ‘Otherworlder’ in front of him, because he’d already seen her that way. Just like Brad.

  “Dame Vivien…”

  Vivien started at Aedan’s voice and realized she had spent a while lost in her own mind. She glanced at Aedan and found no trace of what she had seen a moment earlier. His face was a mask, impassible, as devoid of emotion as marble.

  “If I did anything to upset you,” he continued with a small, stiff bow. “You have my apologies.”

  “You didn’t upset me,” she assured him. “If anything, maybe I’m the one who owes you an apology. All this time you’ve been trying to explain why you swore the oath, but I never truly understood.”

  He looked down, opening his hand on the symbol she’d branded into his palm then closing it when he raised his gaze up at her again. The familiar gleam had returned to his eyes.

  “And now you do?”

  Vivien swallowed hard and tried to smile.

  “And now I do.”

  Never had Aedan looked as much like his brother as when he smiled back at her.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Before The Duel

  Vivien couldn’t sleep. Too many thoughts were swirling through her mind, the least of which being that, in a few hours, she’d duel Rhuinn. The outcome of the first duel would determine how the rest of the duels might evolve, including whether or not one of them would need to kill the other to win. And yet, as she paced through her room, Vivien realized that it wasn’t so much the duel that had her so jittery, but the prospect of seeing Brad at the palace and what he might or might not do then.

  If she had the chance, she intended to ask him to come home—just ask, not demand, not even if making it an order would ensure he would come back. But what if she didn’t get the chance to talk to him, or even see him at all? What if she asked, and he declined?

  And what about Aedan?

  No. She stopped her pacing abruptly, like she stopped that train of thought. She wasn’t going to think about Aedan. There was nothing to think about. He was her guard, and maybe her friend, or at least on his way to being her friend, and his feelings for her didn’t mean she had to do anything. She’d never done anything to encourage him, and he knew how much she cared about his brother, so he couldn’t expect to have a chance with her. She didn’t need to make that clear; it was already obvious. So, nothing to think about on that front.

  But not thinking about it, or about the rest, didn’t make it any easier to find sleep. She’d gone for a run earlier, doubling her usual number of laps around the castle to tire herself out. She’d read for a while the most boring etiquette book she’d found in her mother’s library. She’d lain down, closed her eyes, and tried to clear her mind while listening to the ‘nighttime’ playlist on her MP3 player. None of it had made any difference, and here she was, still pacing in circles in her bedroom.

  Tired of the lack of space, she walked out through the small office into the sitting room, thinking she might light up a fire there and read for a while. Being in here, however, reminded her both of Brad lying down in a growing pool of his own blood and Brad kissing her within an inch of her life, and neither memories helped in any way.

  When she peeked out into the corridor, she was sure she’d find Aedan there, as he always seemed to be. Maybe she even hoped he would be the one guarding her. She missed Brad, and seeing his face reflected in his brother’s, while bittersweet, always comforted her.

  Aedan wasn’t there, however, and instead she discovered Savel standing against the wall opposite her door. Her first reaction was guilt that the oldest of her guards would be made to stand all night like this, and she came close to voicing her displeasure. She caught herself just in time. Savel had been keen on proving that his age did not change the depth of his commitment, and she had a feeling he might have been the one who had requested
this particular duty. She might offend him if she hinted he was too old.

  He pushed away from the wall and gave her a stiff bow as soon as he saw her.

  “Blessings, Dame Vivien. Do you require anything?”

  “Nothing, no, thank you. I thought…” She scrambled for a reason she might have had to peek out. Saying she’d hoped to see another of her guards standing there might not have been the best of explanations… “I’m a bit hungry so I thought I’d go get myself a snack.”

  He bowed again; and to think she’d found it annoying when Aedan was the only one doing it…

  “Please, Dame Vivien. Allow me to get the cook and she will bring you what you require.”

  She had to grimace at that. Bothering Doril in the middle of the night was the last thing she wanted.

  “It’s not necessary,” she said, firmly enough that he’d know she meant it. “I feel like getting out of my room for a while.”

  She didn’t bother telling him she didn’t need an escort to go down to the kitchen, and instead tried not to be annoyed as he walked ahead of her, as though to protect her from the shadows that might jump at her. He had her best interests at heart, she reminded herself. And she had accepted as much when she’d branded him with the QuickSilver symbol.

  Down on the first floor, he entered the kitchen ahead of her and channeled to light every candle and oil lamp in the room, only then saying, “The room is safe, my lady.”

  She was already three steps inside the kitchen when he said so, and she realized then that he might have been expecting her to remain outside until he called her in. But seriously, what kind of danger did he expect to lurk in here? Feeling awkward, she nodded at him.

  “Safe, right. Thank you.”

  He retreated to stand against the wall next to the door, and while she had grown used to Aedan, it felt incredibly odd to have someone else there. Fighting not to scratch the itch between her shoulder blades, she went to the cupboard and brought the bread and jam to the table, just like she’d watched Brad do, what felt like a lifetime ago.