Legacy

by A D Starrling

  Howard crossed the floor, hand extended toward the nun. She blinked in the face of his mega-watt smile.

  There was a silken sound of metal sliding against leather. A blade touched Howard’s neck. He froze in his tracks.

  ‘Back off,’ growled Asgard. ‘That’s my niece.’

  ‘And she’s a nun, so she’s definitely off limits,’ Ethan added.

  Although alarm was evident on Olivia’s face as she studied the impressive arming sword Asgard was holding to Howard’s throat, she also looked puzzled. Her expression cleared.

  ‘Oh. I can see why you may have gotten the wrong impression,’ she said. ‘Although I lived at the abbey, I’m not a nun.’

  Ethan gaped. ‘Huh?’

  Asgard lowered Armistad half an inch. ‘What?’

  Howard swallowed and rubbed the spot where the Bastian noble’s blade had dented his skin.

  Footsteps rose from the direction of the foyer. A short woman with glossy black hair and a tray full of canapés stopped at the top of the stairs. Her eyes darted from the sword to Asgard’s stormy expression and Howard’s contrite appearance.

  She gave Bernard a dark look. ‘You should have told me Mr. Godard was intending to kill Mr. Titus. I would have prepared less food.’

  ‘My apologies,’ murmured Bernard. ‘I did not foresee that the situation would deteriorate so rapidly.’ He glanced at Olivia. ‘That was a terrible oversight considering the presence of the young lady.’

  The woman turned and glared at the assembled immortals. ‘This had better not be like that incident in 1984. It took me days to get the bloodstains out of the couch.’

  ‘Seriously, you guys are hurting my feelings here,’ grumbled Howard.

  Ethan barely listened as Rosa, their housekeeper and cook, berated Howard while Bernard looked on with a long-suffering air. His gaze remained locked on Olivia’s face.

  ‘Would you care to repeat what you just said?’ he asked carefully.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Although I lived under the same canons as the other Benedictine nuns, I remain a postulant to this day. Mother Edwards refused to give me permission to be initiated into the novitiate.’

  ‘A postulant?’ said Howard.

  Olivia nodded. ‘Yes. A postulant is one who wishes to enter a religious order. Once a postulant candidate is admitted into the novitiate, he or she undergoes a period of intense, supervised training prior to being called to take formal vows.’

  They were sitting on an open-air, limestone deck next to a beautifully-lit, slate-lined infinity pool that looked out over dark canyons. Carefully-positioned spotlights hidden among the rocks and bushes on the landscaped terraces around the mansion added a warm glow to the evening gloom.

  Music reached them faintly from the direction of the kitchen one level above, where Rosa was clearing up after their evening meal. The lively Latin tunes were at odds with the somber mood on the patio.

  Ethan did not detect any bitterness in Olivia’s expression. Although it was evident that she had wanted to become a fully-fledged Benedictine nun, she seemed to have long come to terms with her mentor’s decision to deny her wish.

  Howard cocked an eyebrow. ‘So technically you could have left that place whenever you wanted to?’

  Olivia hesitated. ‘Yes. But I never saw the need to leave the abbey. I was happy with my life there.’

  ‘I suspect after your powers became evident, you were pleased at the privacy afforded by such an isolated setting,’ Ethan said in a sharper tone than he had intended.

  Howard glanced at him, surprise flashing briefly across his face.

  Olivia flinched. Her gaze shifted to the invisible ocean. ‘You’re right. It seemed an appropriate prison for the monster that I had become.’

  Guilt stabbed through Ethan. His emotions had been all over the place since he met Olivia Ashkarov. He could not explain why he felt so defensive in her presence. Still, none of this excused his boorish behavior. He leaned forward, lips parting to deliver an apology.

  Asgard beat him to it. The Bastian immortal moved from his seat and got down on one knee beside Olivia’s chair. He took her hands in his own large ones.

  ‘I am going to say this only once. Beyond that, I will get very angry if you dare repeat those words again. You are not a monster, child. If anything, you are the opposite.’ He raised a hand to the back of her head, pulled her forward, and gently kissed her brow. ‘You are exceptional. Unique. A gift this world doesn’t deserve. In another time and place, you would have been revered as a god, Olivia Ashkarov.’ He cupped her cheek. ‘And you are a very welcome blessing in my life.’

  Tears shimmered on Olivia’s eyelashes. She swallowed convulsively, her murmured ‘Thank you’ barely audible.

  Ethan looked away from the intimate tableau and caught Howard’s shrewd stare.

  ‘You remind me very much of your mother,’ Asgard told Olivia. ‘I thought that the first time I saw you, at the abbey.’

  Olivia blinked. ‘I do?’ She hesitated. ‘Is that—is that why you looked so shocked?’

  ‘Yes,’ Asgard confirmed with a nod. ‘Until that point, I didn’t know that the Olivia Ash we were trying to rescue was the daughter of Natalia Ashkarov. You are the image of her. People always assumed she was a fragile soul because of the way she looked. But she had an inner core of steel that she drew upon when she needed to.’ He grinned. ‘It kept your father on his toes.’

  ‘Tell me more.’ Olivia wiped her eyes. ‘Tell me about them. My mother and my father. And Sara, my aunt.’

  The immortal’s smile faded. He lowered himself to the deck and looked blindly into the darkness beyond the terrace. Olivia dropped down next to him and hugged her knees to her chest, bare feet peeking from beneath the white, floaty dress Rosa had unearthed from somewhere in the mansion. From Howard’s grimace when he had seen her in it, Ethan suspected the item belonged to one of his ex-girlfriends.

  ‘Your father and I met the Ashkarov twins at one of the social events organized by the immortal societies following the end of the war that had blighted our races for millennia,’ Asgard began haltingly, after a short silence.

  Ethan looked down into his drink. A familiar ache started to swirl through him, like the ribbons of color dancing in his bourbon. Although he had heard the Bastian noble’s tale before, it never failed to sadden him and remind him of his own loss at the hands of their enemies.

  Howard knocked back his whisky, his expression similarly troubled.

  ‘This is the war you mentioned, back at the motel?’ said Olivia.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Asgard. ‘Your father’s name was Kristof Kovach. He was a Bastian noble and my best friend. He was also an extraordinary swordsman. As Bastian Hunters, we fought in many battles before the first truce was declared in the late 1300s and he saved my life on more than one occasion during that time. Then the plagues came. The Black Death killed more than half the human population in Europe and Asia, with an estimated death toll of around two hundred million souls. The Red Death decimated the immortal races by an equal number.’

  His voice grew quiet. ‘I lost my mother and many close companions to the illness.’ He glanced at Olivia. ‘Even your father was not immune, although his affliction was not as serious and he made a full recovery.’ He paused. ‘But it was the aftereffect of the Red Death that almost brought the immortal races to the brink of extinction. Those who survived the infection discovered they could not bear children. It didn’t take long for the two immortal societies to realize that they would cease to exist if their war efforts continued.’

  A bitter smile curved Asgard’s lips. ‘Although factions on both sides had been working toward a solution for peace for centuries, it took the Red Death to force our councils to come to their senses about the futility of a conflict that had gone on for so long that no one could recall the exact reason why it started in the first place.’

  Howard rose and poured Asgard another drink. The Bastian noble accepted it gratefully
and swallowed half the glass before he continued.

  ‘With a treaty in place, the two races were keen for unwed immortals to choose suitable mates from among their own societies and reproduce. They even implied, quite brazenly at times, that those whose spouses could no longer give them children should choose new partners, for the good of all. To kill two birds with one stone, the First Councils decided to hold functions where Crovir and Bastian nobles could interact civilly with each other for the first time in thousands of years. These events doubled as marriage marts, where immortals could browse for fitting partners, but only from among their own race, since mating between a Crovir and a Bastian was strictly forbidden by one of the immortals’ most ancient edicts.’

  ‘That all sounds very…mercenary,’ said Olivia.

  ‘I was one of a minority of nobles who had not contracted the Red Death, more by sheer luck than fortitude I must admit.’ Asgard’s expression grew awkward. ‘As such, I became a highly regarded candidate for matrimony.’

  ‘Oh.’ Olivia raised her eyebrows. ‘You mean, like a prized bull?’

  There was a strangled snort. Howard sprayed a mouthful of spirits across the deck and coughed, choked laughter rocking his body. Ethan masked his own grin and slapped his friend on the back. They had never heard this part of Asgard’s history before.

  Olivia reddened, her eyes moving from the chortling Crovir immortal to Ethan’s poker expression. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Asgard’s startled look was replaced by a smile. He chuckled. ‘People rarely married for love in those days.’ His expression grew sober. ‘Despite the fact that your father and I were Hunters, a role few nobles adopted due to its association with a socially inferior status, we became very much “hunted” in those circles. But women wanted me not just because of my disease-free status and my noble origins. As a pureblood immortal, I had become a premium commodity among our races.’

  ‘Pureblood?’ Olivia’s brow furrowed. ‘You said that word at the motel. What does it mean?’

  Asgard rocked his glass and watched eddies form in the coppery liquid.

  ‘A pureblood is an immortal whose lineage can be traced all the way back to the progenitors of our races,’ he said quietly. ‘Purebloods are like royalty in our societies. They were already scarce before the Red Death; after the plague, only a handful remained. My father, Tomas Godard, myself, and my sisters, Catarine and Lily, were four such Bastian immortals, as was Kristof. Although the Ashkarovs lost their extended kin and their patriarch, they were another family of pureblood Bastians who had survived the Red Death.’ He glanced at Ethan. ‘So were the Knezevics, Ethan’s Crovir ancestors.’

  Olivia drew a breath in sharply. Her gaze danced across Ethan’s stiff face before moving to her uncle. ‘My parents were purebloods?’

  ‘Yes. Although Natalia’s mother wished for her to marry someone other than your father, someone who had never contracted the Red Death, like me, it was clear to both of us the moment we were introduced that we were ill-suited for one another. However much an offspring derived from our two gifted bloodlines would have been welcomed by our families, there was no way I could be with Natalia, nor she with I.’ A wistful smile dawned on Asgard’s face. ‘Instead, your delicate, blonde mother fell hard and fast for the hulking, red-haired giant who stood by my side. Whereas I lost my heart to the devilish brunette who watched over Natalia.’

  Olivia brightened. ‘So you did marry for love?’

  Asgard laughed. ‘The four of us did, in the end. And we had many happy years together.’ The smile slipped from his face once more. ‘Until the day we crossed paths with a Crovir noble by the name of Jonah Krondike.’

  His knuckles whitened on the glass and he fell into a meditative silence.

  Olivia bit her lip. ‘He’s the one behind what happened at the abbey?’

  Asgard nodded, his expression hardening. ‘Jonah Krondike is guilty of some of the most despicable acts ever visited on humankind and immortals alike. Although I haven’t gathered enough evidence to present this as fact to the First Councils, I am convinced of his involvement in devastating wars and genocides over the last six-hundred-odd years.’

  Olivia paled. ‘Why? To what aim would someone go to such lengths?’

  ‘To answer that question, I must first tell you of a fable that had its roots in the history of the immortals before it spread to popular human culture,’ said Asgard. He turned and looked at her steadily. ‘Have you heard of the Elixir of Life?’

  She hesitated. ‘Yes. It’s also known as the Philosopher’s Stone, is it not?’

  ‘You are correct. Throughout the history of mankind, many tales have circulated about the origins and properties of the Elixir of Life. And a number of legendary items have been associated with this mythical entity over the ages.’ Asgard frowned. ‘I was not one who readily believed in such fanciful stories. As far as I was concerned, they were the figment of people’s fevered imagination, even their desperate wish that an article of that nature should exist.’ He paused. ‘It was not until the day I discovered the existence of a sect by the name of Kronos that I realized there might be some truth behind those accounts after all.’

  Olivia looked puzzled. ‘Kronos?’

  Asgard gazed into the night with hooded eyes. ‘In the spring of 1398, when Sara and I were visiting Natalia and Kristof, a group of masked men broke into our castle and killed several of our servants. Natalia had a vision of the event just before it unfolded. By the time we got back, the intruders had disappeared. We believed it to be a random act of thievery since a number of valuable items went missing from our estate, mostly articles of gold and some of Sara’s jewelry. But Natalia remained uneasy for days afterward. We convinced her that it was an isolated incident.’

  A muscle jumped in his cheek. ‘We were proven wrong a few months later. The same thing happened again, the day after we travelled to Vienna for a meeting at the Bastian First Council. On that occasion, they turned the castle upside down. Natalia was certain they were searching for something. To test the theory that we were being targeted, Kristof and I set a trap. Shortly after that second episode, Sara and I left our home under the pretense of attending a function in the neighboring town. Sara and Natalia stayed with a friend while Kristof and I returned to my castle with our men, under the cover of darkness. The intruders returned to the estate that night. We confronted and eventually overpowered them after a terrible clash. There were a few lives lost among the immortals in our group. All but one of the trespassers were killed.’

  Lines creased the immortal’s brow. ‘They were determined to fight to the death, despite our offer of armistice if they surrendered their weapons. We never got to interrogate the boy we captured. He bit his tongue and drowned in his own blood moments after we seized him.’

  Horror flashed across Olivia’s face. ‘These men were part of this sect?’

  ‘Yes. It was several decades before Kristof and I discovered the name of their group and what their true intentions were.’ Asgard’s voice turned bitter. ‘It was around the time of the attacks that we were introduced to Jonah Krondike. In hindsight, our first encounter was not an accident but a cleverly engineered ploy to help him infiltrate our extended circle of friends. It happened at an event held by the Crovir First Council in the Electorate of Saxony, in what was then the Holy Roman Empire.’

  Ice clinked at the bottom of his glass as he absentmindedly tilted it. ‘Little was known about the Krondikes at the time and even less so now. They were a wealthy, reclusive noble family who had refused to get involved in the affairs of the Crovir Councils, a rarity among people of their status. Jonah professed to be the only Krondike who survived the Red Death. He became a familiar face at social functions and soon expressed an interest in the history of the noble families. It wasn’t long before he was being invited to look at their personal libraries and artifacts.’

  The Bastian noble grunted. ‘It was only later that we discovered some of those immortals had been the victims of a
ttacks on their persons and properties. In the meantime, Kristof and I were still trying to uncover the identities of the intruders who raided my home. Apart from their weapons, the men had come to the estate empty-handed. But they had a unique marking on their bodies that would eventually help us track down their origins. It also gave me an idea of what it was they had been looking for in the castle.’

  ‘A marking?’ Olivia glanced at her right hand. ‘You mean, like a birthmark?’

  ‘No,’ said Asgard. ‘It was a symbol that had been etched into their skin with a pigment. A cross with a rose entwined around it.’

  Olivia startled.

  Asgard’s eyes narrowed. ‘You know of it?’

  ‘I’m…not sure. I feel as if I may have seen something similar in one of my nightmares,’ she murmured.

  Ethan stiffened and exchanged a surprised glance with Howard. Her admission unnerved him, like so many other things about her. Was it coincidence or fate that she had dreamt the very mark that symbolized their enemy?

  Asgard observed his niece for a silent moment. ‘That doesn’t surprise me, considering your abilities.’ He turned and gazed into the darkness once more. ‘In 1399, while Kristof and I were in Buda investigating a potential lead, Jonah came to my castle unannounced. He claimed he had been traveling in the area and wanted to pay his respects. Although Sara had never taken a liking to the man, she had no reason to refuse him. Jonah asked whether he could look at our family library. Sara grew suspicious and refused, claiming she needed her husband’s permission to allow a stranger access to our collection of ancestral manuscripts. Jonah excused himself and left. Natalia arrived at the estate hours later, distraught. She had a presentiment her sister had been in mortal danger. Since nothing sinister actually happened that day, Sara dismissed her fears. Despite my wife’s objections, Natalia shared her concerns with us when we returned from our trip.’

  Asgard’s tone grew leaden. ‘To this day, I still blame myself for not trusting Natalia’s instincts and for believing Sara instead.’ His voice caught in his throat. He took a shuddering breath. ‘Not long after that event, Natalia started to have terrible visions of wars that would engulf entire nations in the centuries to come. Many invariably involved shadowy figures bearing the symbol of the cross with the rose. Kristof and I grew more determined to discover the identity of the intruders. Two months later, we unearthed a clue that took us to Pozsony County. We were away for three weeks. It was during that time that Sara was murdered.’