"Sit," Sam ordered, his voice gentle and patient. "You're going to overexert yourself,and Wynne is going to make us both miserable about it."
I giggled and nodded. "I can see that being true. So, are you going to pull a Kieran and just be sulky while you guard me, or are you going to be entertaining while you're here to make sure I follow Wynne's orders?"
Sam laughed aloud, long and hard. "You're not cutting him any breaks at all, are you?"
I shook my head. "No. I'm still mad at him."
Sam sat down in the wooden chair across from my bed and studied me with interest. "Rumors have been buzzing around for days about some serious tension between the two of you. Why are you mad at him, exactly?"
I chewed on my bottom lip for a while before answering. "Honestly?"
"Yeah," Sam nodded. "I'd prefer honesty."
I buried my face in my hands. "You're going to think I'm crazy."
"Not necessarily," Sam replied, his voice gentle and coaxing.
"Okay," I sighed, leveling an intense stare at him. "Are you prepared for some serious insane rambling?"
"Absolutely," Sam nodded.
"I'm mad at him for several reasons. I'll start at the top and work down. First of all, he has the gall to look exactly like this sketch I drew of what I think my best friend who's been missing for the past eleven years would look like now. I mean, yeah, Kieran has longer hair than I put in my sketch of Noah, but he looks a scary amount like that sketch I did, and it freaks me out. I know it's probably not his fault, and he was just born looking like Noah, but still." I shrugged and let out a frustrated sigh.
"That's interesting," Sam murmured. "You said you were angry with him for several reasons. What are the other reasons?"
I pushed my hair back out of my face and sighed again. "He's an impatient, abrasive jerk. Not only is that generally true about him, but he's also been a complete nutcase since that Adele chick showed up. When I tried to point out that she is the most likely candidate to be a spy inside the fortress walls, he decided to tell me I'm jealous of her, and remind me that I'm the real outsider here, not her."
A hot, angry flush stained my cheeks as I gave Sam the much-abbreviated version of my recent arguments with Kieran. I crossed my arms in an effort to tamp down the wave of pissed-off energy that was bubbling in my core.
"He said what?" Sam was staring at me with a horrified expression.
"Please don't make me repeat myself," I hissed through gritted teeth. "I'm still way too pissed-off about the whole situation."
"I'd be angry, too," Sam nodded his agreement. "Very angry. He had no right so say something like that to you."
I shrugged and frowned at the floor. "He can think whatever he wants, I guess, but I wish he'd kept it to himself, at least. I haven't exactly been confident of my usefulness in this entire situation, and he basically reinforced that lack of confidence I've been struggling with ever since I woke up in Sigrid's palace."
"He can't think straight around Adele," Sam snapped. "And I'm sorry he made you feel bad about yourself. I am, however, very interested in what you said before, about him looking like what your missing best friend should look like now."
"Really?" I sent him a puzzled look. "Why?"
Sam ran his hands through his pale blond hair and scrubbed his hands over his face, as if he were suddenly both tired and frustrated. "I'm not even sure I should tell you this, to be honest. I don't want to give you false hope or anything."
My heart jumped up into my throat, and my pulse pounded in my ears for a second. I took a few deep breaths, trying my best to keep calm. "Please tell me, Sam. I need hope right now, false or not."
He met my gaze, and his expression was heartrendingly grave. "Are you sure?"
"Please, Sam," I breathed, desperate to grasp at any possible connection to Noah, however thin it might be.
He held my gaze, emphasizing every word with deliberate care. "You do understand that most of what I'm about to tell you is predicated entirely on mere suspicion and probable coincidence?"
"Yes," I nodded. "Tell me anyway."
Sam took a deep breath and sighed, shaking his head. "I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but some of the things you've said can't go unanswered. Did Kieran tell you that we grew up together?"
I shook my head. "He hasn't told me anything about his childhood, Sam. I don't think he likes to think about it, for some reason."
Sam nodded. "Oh, he's got plenty of reasons not to want to think about it." He paused, cracking his knuckles before he continued speaking. "We were best friends until roughly eleven years ago."
My heart stuttered as its pace doubled at the mention of Kieran's behavior changing eleven years ago. "Eleven years? Are you sure?" I felt like I was teetering on the precipice of a big revelation of some sort.
Sam's expression was grim and unwavering. "I'm certain. Eleven years ago, I saw my best friend fall from a high window, high enough that I didn't believe there was any way he could have survived the fall."
My breath caught in my chest, and I waited with baited breath for Sam to continue his story. "Go on," I whispered. "I know there's more."
Another nod. "Yes," he sighed. "There's more. I tried to get to him, but I wasn't quick enough. Sigrid whisked him away, put him in seclusion with her best healers and mages, and she left for seven days and seven nights. I don't know where she went, but when she returned, she brought Kieran out of seclusion."
Sam dropped his head in his hands, shaking it slowly before he looked back up at me, his blue eyes dark and turbulent with thoughts I could almost follow, but wasn't sure I wanted to. "And?" My mouth was dry, and my voice was hoarse with the need to know if what Sam was saying was leading where I thought.
"And the Kieran that came out was...different," Sam murmured. "It was subtle, but he wasn't the same. Sigrid tried to reason with me that no one would be the same after a terrible fall like that, and it worked for a while."
"Only for a while?" I stared wide-eyed at Sam, begging him to confirm my suspicions. "Why?"
"It's going to sound utterly mad," Sam muttered. "My best friend went into that room, but a very convincing stranger came out."
"How do you mean?" My heart felt like it was going to develop a permanent beat-skipping arrhythmia if Sam didn't answer me soon enough.
"I mean that every secret we ever shared as best friends disappeared when he entered that room. The boy that came out of that room only knew the things that Sigrid knew, only had thoughts and memories that she could have sown. Nothing that happened outside the queen's sight existed for him anymore." Sam shrugged and shook his head, looking distraught. "The only logical conclusion I could come to was that the real Kieran, my best friend, was dead, and that she'd replaced him with one of his doppelgängers."
My heart pounded so hard that all I could hear was the rush of blood in my ears as I got lightheaded and dizzy. "You believe that Kieran is my long-lost best friend Noah?"
"I do," Sam nodded.
"But if that's true, why doesn't he remember me? Why doesn't he remember our world, or his real family?" My voice hummed with the tension of an over-tightened guitar string that had been strummed to its breaking point. I felt overwhelmed by hurt, desperation, and hope all muddled together, and the emotional concoction left a bad taste in my mouth.
Sam's face was sorrowful as he shook his head. "Do you really think it would have been difficult for her to use her magic to alter the perception and memories of a six-year-old boy?"
I felt sick at the thought, and pressed my hand so hard over my mouth that it hurt, but it quelled the urge to vomit. "Sigrid brainwashed him." It was a dreadful statement, not a question.
"Yes," Sam agreed. "And now you know why 'Kieran' and I have such a poor, strained relationship." An ironic, self-deprecating smile twisted his lips. "I went on a crusade for the truth, and the poor deluded fool saw me as an insanely jealous backstabber. Sigrid supported that idea, of course, I suspect to cover her tracks. Adele had ju
st entered the picture at that point, and Sigrid used her as the linchpin of my supposed jealousy. That was the final blow to the wedge between us. Sigrid sent me away to boarding school to keep me from raising any more troublesome questions, and the supposed Kieran had a new playmate to replace me."
"Jesus," was all I could think to say, and Sam responded with a bitter, mirthless chuckle. "We need to go see Rolf right now."
Sam shook his head. "If you're going to insist on going to see Rolf, I probably need to go occupy Wynne so she can't throw a fit at you for being up and about."
"Okay," I nodded. "Good thinking." I gave Sam a quick, fierce hug and murmured, "Thanks for telling me."
Sam gave me an awkward, detached sort of pat on the shoulder. "If I had to lose my best friend, I can only hope that it is because you needed more desperately to find yours."
I hugged him again, in what I assumed was a sisterly way, and gave him a sad, empathetic smile. "I know what it's like to lose a friend. If you see Mack, tell him I miss my dog, please."
"Happy to," Sam whispered, as he bowed out of my room.
I followed him out and snapped the door shut behind me. The noise from me slamming the door echoed up the hall behind me as I headed for the stairwell and stormed to Rolf's study. I suspected that Rolf had known all this time that Kieran was really Noah, and I intended to confront him about it.
I burst in without knocking, my whole body burning with fiery conviction and a strange sense of possessiveness. If Kieran was actually Noah, I intended to find out, and I was determined to save my best friend.
“I have a question, Rolf, and I need you to answer it honestly.” My voice sounded alien to me, icy and commanding instead of timid.
Rolf grimaced at my abrupt intrusion and grumbled, “What is your question?”
“Kieran isn’t really your great-grandson, is he?" I snapped, certain that I was right. "I know that you’re cursed not to age until you find your true love, so don’t try to sell me on there being a bigger age gap than it looks like. I know that you’re much older than you look. I still don’t believe Kieran is your great-grandson.”
Rolf tried to feign innocence. “Whatever makes you think such a thing?”
“Sam told me about how he fell out of a very high window, Rolf." I crossed my arms and stared unerringly into the older man's dark eyes. "Not only that, though. Sam also told me how different 'Kieran' was when he came out of the seclusion with the mages and healers. If he were really Sigrid’s son, and your great-grandson, he would have come out the same. If it were really Kieran, he would have remembered the secrets he and Sam shared as childhood companions. I believe that Kieran is actually my childhood best friend Noah, who has been missing for the last 11 years. Am I wrong?”
Rolf sighed and slumped into a chair, suddenly looking quite a bit older and more haggard than usual. “I’m afraid not.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell him, Rolf? Jesus H. Christ!" My voice broke and tears flooded my eyes. "Why would you continue to let him live a lie like this?”
Rolf shrugged, but at least had the dignity to look ashamed of himself. “I know of no way to send him back to your world, what good could possibly come of him knowing he has a real home somewhere if he can’t get to it? All it would do is hurt him, and he’s been through enough as it is.”
I paced like a caged animal as I berated Rolf. “The Messengers told me that I can save him if I succeed here, Rolf! He needs to know that his entire life is a lie!”
“No!” Rolf's voice was a bitter mixture of fear, rage, and exhaustion.
“Why the hell not, Rolf?" I was screaming and waving my arms wildly by that point. "What are you holding on to?”
“My great-grandson was everything to me!" His desperate rage bounced and echoed in the small stone room. "I know that Noah is not really Kieran, but I’m willing to take what I can get. Losing him once was too much to bear already!”
“Noah isn’t yours to keep!" I screamed as hot, angry tears spilled down my cheeks. "He has a family back in my world that has been missing him and desperately searching for him for the past eleven years, for God’s sake! Sigrid had no right to take him, and you had no right to deceive him for all these years! You tell him the truth, Rolf, or I swear to God I will. I think it would be better if he hears it from you.”
Rolf hung his head, looking even older and more exhausted than he had since I’d met him. His dark eyes were brimming with tears when he looked back up at me. “Will you stay, please? I want you here when I tell him. I think that would be for the best, don’t you?”
“Of course,” I nodded. “I will do everything I can to help you both through this. I’m just glad you’re finally willing to do the right thing.”
Tears trickled down Rolf's cheeks as he nodded his agreement. “As hard as it is, so am I. It will be a relief to let go of the lies after carrying them for so long.”
“I’m sorry," I rasped around the lump that had formed in my throat. "I know this must be awful for you, painful even, and I apologize if it hurts you. I just want what’s really best for Noah.”
“I understand that," Rolf sighed. "It’s what I should have wanted for him all along.”
I cleared my throat, trying to force the lump to go away. “Would you like me to go get Kieran for you, sir?”
“No, please stay." Rolf let out a grim chuckle. "I’m afraid if you leave I may lose all my backbone and sink back into the comfort of the old lies.”
“I can send someone to get him, if you like." I shrugged, hoping he saw it as a kind gesture. "There’s almost always someone waiting on something just outside your door.”
“That should do." Rolf nodded and wiped at the tears staining his chiseled face. "Thank you.”
I opened the door just enough to see Mack waiting to speak to Rolf with Gabriel at his side and cleared my throat to get his attention.
He snapped to attention and gave a quick bow. “You have need of me, lass?” Gabriel gave an excited bark and I spared him an adoring smile.
“Yes," I nibbled on my lip for a moment. "Could you please find Kieran and tell him that Rolf needs to speak with him immediately?”
“Consider it done.” Mack bowed again, and Gabriel nosed his way through Rolf's door to lean heavily against my legs, his tail wagging overtime.
With that, Mack scurried up the hall, hardly slowed by the slight limp that made his movements unique and easy to recognize. I closed the door and seated myself on the bench across the table from Rolf, stroking Gabriel's head. Part of me desperately wanted to judge the man harshly for his selfish motivations, but the bigger part of me understood that desperate need to keep a connection with someone who was gone. I’d been that way about Noah for eleven years, and the grief of Grandpa Alex’s loss was still fresh with me, too.
“I know what it’s like to lose people, you know.” I murmured, my voice both gentle and heavy with the sadness death brings. Gabriel sensed my sadness and pressed against my legs again, offering me his steadfast, unquestioning comfort.
“You’ve never struck me as the type who’s experienced real grief, not in all the time you’ve been here.” His tone was harsh and bitter, as if he already regretted his admission that Kieran was in fact Noah.
“Just because you can’t see the grief doesn’t mean it isn’t there, Rolf," I chastised. "There are a lot of people in this world and mine who can’t afford to show their emotions, and there are those that don’t know how. Some of us have to bury the grief, and our other emotions, just to make it through every day without falling completely apart.”
Frost: An Otherworld Tale (The Otherworld Tales Book 1) Page 23