Bound

by Hill, J. Elizabeth

  Fay turned her back then and began to walk away, her heart racing and struggling to calm the rage that she had only suspected before now. Behind her, she heard a clatter as something fell to the stones. She turned to see her father standing bent over, one hand to his chest, and his cane lying fallen to the ground. His face was stricken and rapidly losing color. She suddenly felt guilty for the words she had spoken so heedlessly when he was obviously unwell, and it cooled her anger a little.

  "It's too late," he said with an effort, his voice barely carrying to her ears. "Too late to stop, gone too far. Won’t let me. Did it for you, Faylanna, can't stop..." He trailed off as he crumpled to his knees, folding forward until his head nearly touched the stones of the square but not collapsing sideways. The air around her stirred, faster with each passing second as she to go to him, her concern suddenly outweighing the past. Then she stopped, frozen in horror as a shape straightened out of her father, a man. Marcius. He turned his blue eyes on her and took a single step out of her father, toward her. He stopped, closed his eyes and then opened them again. This time, she realized she could not see anything through him. She thought that somehow he was really there.

  A shocking thrum of heat and need bolted through her in a rhythm so fierce that it nearly shook her whole body. Her last dream of him rose in her mind, his hands and mouth on her naked skin and she felt a blush rising all over her face. His satisfied smile suggested he knew what was causing it. The wind continued to build, swirling like a tempest around the square and making the branches that spread over this memoria whip around until they groaned on the verge of snapping. The candle in the memoria's hands blew out and was carried away into the storm. Fay's hair rose in the wind, streaming out in the growing gale but her eyes never left Marcius. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came to her mind. He took another step toward her, then stopped, turning to look at something. She followed his gaze to the entrance to the square.

  Tavis was walking through the break in the hedges, undeterred by the rising storm. He wasn't looking at her though. His eyes were fixed on Marcius, his face determined and stern as she had never seen it before. She turned back to Marcius and saw that he returned Tavis' gaze, his own aspect a mix of amusement and understanding. After several moments, a crack of lightning split the howling of the wind around them and Marcius turned back to her. She realized then that the wind did not touch him, which meant he must still be no more than a projection. His voice spoke, firm and challenging, coming not from him but from everywhere around her, and she marveled that a mere image could display such power.

  "The time is coming when you will have to make your choice, Faylanna. Or will you make it now? Will you come with me, or stay with him?"

  Looking from Marcius to Tavis, she tried to understand what she wanted, when the hesitancy to consider bonding that had haunted her for years abruptly shattered. It was replaced by a sudden need to be with someone. The change and the intensity of the sensation left her breathless. She turned back to Marcius and he nodded after a moment. His voice came again, softer, his amusement clearer this time. "Perhaps this is not the time, but it’s close, my sweet. I will give you time to decide. Choose wisely, Faylanna. Remember what I told you. I know you will make the right choice. I can wait, but not forever."

  The image of Marcius took a further step forward, closing the distance between them. He reached out and put a hand on her cheek, cupping it. The touch set her nerves on fire in a way that reminded her again of her dream and rendered all questions of how it was possible unimportant. He smiled, and again it was as if he were reading her reactions through her thoughts. Then his face changed, rage blooming as they were forced apart. Fay could feel the shield between them expanding, causing her to stumble back across the stones of the square as the wind roared around them. She glanced over and saw Tavis standing there, his face set in concentration, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, and she knew it was his shield. She heard a snarl of anger and frustration and turned to see Marcius fading out. The wind around them slowed and died. Pain spread its black tendrils through her, and she felt it swallow her as one final cry of fury echoed around the square and in the darkness that claimed her.

  Chapter 12

  A buzzing sound drew her out of the abyss. She became aware of light, red and diffuse. It distracted her from the angry hum as she puzzled over this, and then she realized that her eyes were closed. She opened them and the light became golden morning sunshine, streaming through the window. She realized that her hand was enveloped by something warm and saw long, tanned fingers wrapped around it. Tavis was sitting in a chair beside her bed. She looked around the room and they were all there. The buzzing sound that had drawn her back came from Ki and Eliar, who were arguing off to one side of the room, and she sensed the magic that kept their words indistinct to her. It seemed wrong for them to be arguing with each other, and she tried to understand what had happened. She knew she shouldn't be in bed, and that it shouldn't be morning, but didn't understand why those things were wrong. Frowning, she worked painstakingly to reconstruct her memory. At first, it wouldn't come, as if she was resisting it somewhere deep inside. Then she remembered.

  Turning back to Tavis, who hadn't moved since she'd opened her eyes, she said, "You followed me."

  The two men ceased arguing. They had clearly heard her despite their barrier. Ki and Eliar approached the bed. Lydia put a hand on her arm from her chair on the other side. When Fay turned to her, the expression that met her was a blend of concern and wariness.

  "It's a good thing he did, too. I thought we had explained to you why we were against your idea. Now do you see why? You might have been killed, from the sound of things."

  Closing her eyes and shaking her head, Fay said, "That wasn't what they wanted. My father wouldn't hurt me." Her eyes flew open. "My father! Where is he? Is he all right?"

  She looked around at them, but no one spoke. She waited, worry gnawing at her, and the silence stretched out for several moments before Ki broke it.

  "Faylanna, what happened?" She was surprised at how much anger she heard in his voice. It seemed wholly out of proportion with what had happened. "Why did you arrange that meeting after we specifically told you not to? Do you understand the risks you took? What if Tavis hadn't followed you there, hadn't been there to save you?" She stared at Ki as he stopped and took a deep breath. From the way his eyes closed, she thought he was trying to calm himself down.

  "You don't know your father as well as you think, Faylanna," Eliar said, and she found her temper rising at the scolding tone he was using. "Surely, whatever happened, the little bit that Tavis saw and has told us of should be enough to make you see that he is not the man you once knew. In fact, I'm not sure what he is anymore."

  "Tavis, how could you let her go? Why didn't you tell us what she was planning?" Ki asked, his anger flaring again.

  "Ki-" Lydia began but Fay lost her temper entirely at that point.

  "Don't you dare blame him for this!" she snapped, trying to sit up, though both Tavis and Lydia held her shoulders to prevent this. "I make my own choices! You're as bad as my father, telling me what to do like I'm a child. Who I can see, what I can do, what I can't do. That's my choice to make, not yours, so I made it. Tavis didn't tell you after he found me because I asked him not to. If you're going to blame someone, blame me, but don't think I'll just accept whatever you tell me, the little bits that you think I should be allowed to know or be involved in. Whether I met with my father was never your choice to make."

  Everyone else was glancing from Fay to Ki as they stared at each other. Her eyes ached from the force of her own outrage, but she didn't look away. Finally, she saw some of his anger depart.

  "Do you remember what happened? Tavis told us he wasn't there for much of your meeting, only the end. Tell us what happened with your father," Ki said in a calmer voice, though not the low tone he usually adopted. Fay thought she might be hearing his normal speaking voice for the first time, and
it was more familiar than anything she had seen about him. She did not miss the note of command in his final sentence and wondered who he was to use it so naturally.

  For a minute, she pondered this mystery, then what to tell them. Parts of what had happened were too personal for her to be comfortable to sharing, but she wasn't sure what Tavis might have already said. She explained about the argument with her father, his appearance and mental state. Knowing that Tavis would have mentioned Marcius' presence, she explained how he had come out of her father somehow. Here, she paused and decided she'd said enough. Turning to Tavis, she feigned distraction and asked, "Why did you follow me to the Gardensia? I was supposed to go alone. I told you that you couldn’t come with me."

  Tavis didn't speak, but looked down at his hand, still holding hers, instead. She could see that he was embarrassed by the question, and she wondered how he would answer. Before he could though, Lydia asked, "Did you see what happened to Calder?"

  Fay looked at her in confusion. "I- No. After Marcius touched me and Tavis cast-" She looked back at Tavis in wonder as she remembered the power of his spellwork, "cast a shield, everything went black. That's the last thing I remember. Tavis, didn't you see what happened to my father?"

  Before Tavis could speak, Ki responded, his voice returned to its usual low tone. "Calder hasn't been seen in the day and a half since, so far as I can tell. He missed the meeting with the Emperor we told you about. In a way that's good, because he's missed the opportunity to do whatever he might have had planned for it. My f- My feeling is that the Emperor will not grant another such audience. But it worries me at the same time. Where has he gone and why did he miss that audience? He worked for months to be granted one, so why wasn't he there for it?"

  "What I would like to know, my dear, is how Marcius was able to appear to you like that. It shouldn't be possible for him, unless he's somehow escaped the Mirror in which he was imprisoned," Eliar said.

  "I don't know," Fay admitted. She thought about it, tried to remember everything about that part of the encounter, but couldn't think of anything. "My father dropped his cane and his hand was at his chest when I turned around. He fell to the ground, and then Marcius stood up from where he had fallen, where he still was. It was different from-"

  She had been speaking absently, lost in her recollection, and only realized in the middle of what she was saying that it was too much. Looking at Eliar and feeling Tavis' fingers stiffen around hers, she knew her slip had not gone unnoticed.

  "Different from...?" Eliar prompted when she didn't finish her sentence. She could feel them all focusing on her now.

  "I- I thought I must have dreamed it," she invented, trying to cover herself, knowing she would have to reveal at least some of what had happened the first time she had seen Marcius outside of her dreams. "You know I've dreamed about Marcius before, Eliar. Well, a- a couple of nights ago, I guess, I saw him here, in my room. It was after I suggested the meeting with my father. I came up to my room and was getting ready for bed, and then there was something strange in the air in the middle of the room. When it cleared up, solidified I guess, he was standing there, but then he disappeared. When I woke up, I thought I must have dreamed it, but after what I saw in the Gardensia, maybe I didn't." She closed her eyes as she finished her story, trying to make sure she had covered well enough. She wasn't entirely sure why she was lying to them about this, except that it felt right. She was sure Marcius didn't mean her any harm, and she was coming to like the way he made her feel, strong and desirable. She was sure they wouldn't understand though.

  She opened her eyes when she felt the grip on her hand first tighten and then release completely. She looked at Tavis, who was now frowning at his hands in his lap. She turned to Eliar, who looked worried. "I'll have to investigate this. I don't think I've heard the like in all of my two hundred years. I must go to the Imperial Archives right away. I'd meant to before, but then this- Well, no time like the present."

  He stood and left the room in a hurry. Ki stared at Fay for a minute, and she thought she read suspicion in his eyes. She shook it off, telling herself that he had no way of knowing she was holding anything back. He came around the bed and leaned down to Lydia's shoulder, whispering something that Fay thought was a request to speak with her. They both left the room. To Fay, it felt like a set up, an excuse to leave her alone with Tavis, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. She tried to sit up again, not wanting to have this conversation lying down like an invalid, but was surprised at how weak she felt now that her anger had departed.

  Tavis stood, gently helped her to sit up and then looked at her for a moment. Instead of returning to his seat, he grasped the back of the chair and moved it aside. "I'll see about having someone bring you some breakfast. You probably need something, and then you can rest."

  "Wait," she said and was annoyed when he didn't sit back down or look at her. "Can you tell me anything about what you saw? Maybe something about what happened after I blacked out? What about my father, did you see what happened to him?"

  "I didn't really see much. I heard raised voices, then the wind was rising. When I got into that square with the memoria, this Marcius was already there. After I cast the shield, he just disappeared. I was too busy trying to catch you before you hit your head to see much else. I was worried when I couldn't bring you around right away, and I brought you straight back here without thinking of anything else. I'm sorry."

  "Tavis, please sit down." He seemed to wrestle with himself for a moment and she wondered in astonishment if he might refuse her. He returned the chair to her bedside and sat down after a minute. "You didn't answer my question before. Why did you follow me to the Gardensia, and how did you find the right part? Why did you cast that shield? He wasn't hurting me, so why would you do that?"

  Tavis looked up at her, and the expression of pained understanding in his eyes confused her. "I- It didn't seem safe, you meeting alone with your father, and I didn't have time to get anyone else. Besides, I figured that I was the one person he might not recognize. I thought that, if I was close by, I could help if he tried anything, so I followed your trace through the Gardensia. As for the shield, well, I just- I didn't know who he was, or what he was doing, but it didn't seem like a good thing for him to be touching you like that."

  This last was mumbled to his lap, and Fay saw a flush creeping up his neck. She thought about what he had said and recognized the telltales of leaving out, having just gotten away with a remarkable amount of it herself. "There's more, isn't there?"

  In his lap, Tavis' hands clenched on each other, as if he was trying to restrain himself. The silence lengthened and they gradually relaxed. He seemed to force himself to look back up at her, his brilliant eyes capturing hers firmly. They were full of such a tangle of emotion that she was lost trying to decipher it all. His voice was hesitant as he spoke. "I don't like the way he looks at you. It's like he thinks he owns you, like you belong to him. I- No one should try to own you, Faylanna. Not ever."

  This response stunned her, confounding her expectations. She reached out and placed her hand on his. "Why did you follow me? It wasn't just about my safety, I don't believe that. There's more to it. Tell me, please."

  "It doesn't matter."

  "But it does. It matters to me, and I think it matters to you, Tavis. I've seen you watch me. You never say anything, but you watch like there's something you want from me. Ask me, tell me what it is." He opened his mouth but nothing came out, so she pushed a little more, hoping it wasn't too far. "No magic in the world will let me read your thoughts. You want something from me but you'll have to ask me out loud."

  "You. I want you." His eyes cleared of the tangled emotions and in its place was warmth, love and a deep need. Her heart reached out almost instinctively, and she felt the same hum, the hot pulse that coursed through her when he was around and they were alone, stronger now than ever before. The silence between them lengthened as she tried to understand what it all meant. Before she could
move or say anything, Tavis blinked and stood up abruptly, his face very red now. He left the room without speaking another word. As the door closed behind him, she almost called out after him, suddenly not wanting to be as alone as she felt.

  She sat there, feeling torn, for several long minutes before climbing out of bed carefully and walking slowly over to the bathing room. A long soak in the tub helped rid her of the last feelings of physical weakness but did nothing to sort out the chaos in her thoughts. The only things she managed to figure out were the choice Marcius had told her to make and the way both men seemed to call to a deep part of her. Why does it always have to come down to choosing a partner, she wondered. After drying off, she clothed herself self-consciously in the dress Tavis had given her and was wondering what to do when her hand automatically slid into the pocket. She sighed in relief at finding the pendant still there. She hadn't been aware of worrying about it but was glad to discover it undisturbed.

  She left the room and went downstairs. She had expected to hear something, but the house was quiet and felt empty. She wandered aimlessly through a few of the rooms, clutching the pendant in her pocket. Suddenly she missed Ganson, and wished he was there to talk to. She knew she needed advice from someone she could trust, but she wasn't even sure if Ganson was alive, or if she would ever see him again if he was. The thought set off a dull ache in her heart.

  She was walking down the hall that led to the private garden when she heard the sound of paper being moved and a quill scratching in a room just ahead of her. Grateful for a sign that they hadn't all abandoned her, she peered through the doorway. An older man, with deep brown hair that hung to his broad shoulders, was bent over a desk facing the window in a study that reminded her forcefully of Ganson's in Voleno. At first, she wasn't sure who he was. She didn't remember seeing him in the house before and such a fine linen shirt, embroidered down the back from what little she could see, would have remained in her memory. Then she noticed two garments folded over the back of the chair he sat in and recognized them. The loose cream robe and black scarf Ki wore everywhere.