Redamancy

by T D Cloud

  “Is that…?”

  Navidae ran his fingers through his hair. “The Lady Avarria Lichenith,” he announced, smiling as his entire world shattered around him. “Née Marrowick. My mother.” It was a quiet sound, he noticed. Not at all like he imagined it’d be. Still as painful though. There was no escaping the dizzying dread squeezing his heart until it ached.

  Khouri seemed to feel the same. He locked up from head to toe, eyes darting from one end of the room to the other as if he were a cornered animal that needed an escape route. He held tight to Navidae’s shirt. Navidae imagined it was to drag him away with him, and that thought helped ease the pain for a moment.

  “Oh,” Khouri said, his cheeks flushing indigo. “That’s…” He bowed his head, hiding his eyes behind his fringe.

  Navidae sighed, settling his hand on the back of his neck to let

  him know it was okay when it really, really wasn’t. Could she see how fond he was of him? Could she tell that this was the place to hit him hardest? Fifty years he’d kept Khouri from her. Cocky of him to assume he could manage longer than that when she hated him this much.

  “Is this why?” Avarria posed, breaking the silence that stretched far past the rules of polite society. Her tone was level. Her expression was carefully blank.

  Navidae still looked at her confused. Khouri just hid his face a little more. “Why what?” he asked, unable to stop himself from running his fingers through Khouri’s hair. The shells wrapped around his wrist chimed softly with the move.

  Khouri’s matching ones answered as he shifted, a soft song that belied the mood of the room.

  Avarria looked at Navidae’s wrist. Then she looked at Khouri’s. Her eyes traveled downwards, spotting the ones wrapped around Khouri’s ankles as well. Her lips pursed. “Is this the reason why you did what you did,” she clarified, her voice firmer than it had been before. She even went as far as to gesture towards Khouri with her hand.

  “That’s…” Navidae began to sweat. Khouri peeked up at him through his dark fringe, and Navidae knew he needed to get him out of here before he went on with this conversation. “That’s a topic for the two of us,” he decided, grimacing when Khouri blinked at him. A quick glance at Avarria showed that she wasn’t going to complain or insist otherwise. Navidae swallowed, turning his attention back to Khouri.

  “Khouri, it’s time for you to leave,” he said gently, walking him towards the door. “Go find Sorin, okay? I’ll meet you in our room when this is over.”

  Khouri didn’t argue, and for that Navidae thanked Inden herself. He just nodded his head and held his arm, taking one last look at him and then Avarria. Before he let Navidae usher him out the door, he turned though. His eyes were wide and his lips pressed tightly together. “You promise?” he whispered.

  “I do,” he replied, giving in to the urge to kiss him despite the eyes watching their every move. It was quick, chaste, just a brushing of their lips to soothe Khouri’s worry. It was over far before either of them wanted. Khouri made a small sound, something raw and worried. Navidae let his hand linger on Khouri’s hip, but then he nudged him away, guiding him out the door. He closed his hand on nothingness once he was gone, holding the residual warmth tight for as long as he could make it last.

  He closed the door and turned back to face his mother. Only, she wasn't looking at him now. Her eyes were down-

  turned, locked on the floor beneath her feet. Navidae put his

  back to the door and leaned on it for support. It was silent again. Awkwardly silent.

  “Do—”

  “Is—”

  They both stopped, averting their eyes once more. Navidae coughed, waving at her to go on. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “What were you going to say?”

  Avarria stared at the far wall. To Navidae’s shock, she began to move. She hid her eyes behind her hand and sat herself down in the chair behind Navidae’s desk, despite her vocal desire to leave as soon as possible. Navidae knew better than to mention it to her.

  “Do you know why I hated your father?” she asked quietly, folding her hands in her lap. “Do you know why I wanted him dead?”

  If Navidae had thought it would be better to have her sitting, he was wrong. With her behind the desk like this, he felt far more like a child than he ever had before, standing before her while he waited for a punishment to come. He crossed his arms to hold himself, shaking his head as he struggled to make eye contact with her.

  “You hated him,” he said weakly. “He hurt you. He hurt the both of us. Isn’t that enough to want him dead?”

  He was spared her scrutiny for a moment as she covered her face with her hands. Her carefully swept back locks mussed as she ran her fingers through her hair, and Navidae was met with the uncomfortable realization that he must have learned such a habit from her.

  When she spoke again, her voice was muffled.

  “You were young, Vida. A child.” She rubbed at her temples and kept her face pointed down. A blessing, really, because Navidae hadn’t heard her call him that in a century. His heart pounded. His eyes pricked.

  “I still remember,” he said quietly. He may have been young, but he could never forget those years of fear and worry.

  Avarria glanced at him. “Perhaps you do,” she murmured. “I never cared for that man. I hated him from the moment we married.” A tight, loathing smile tugged at her mouth. “Perhaps from the moment we met. He knew it. He reveled in it. My only solace from him was when you were born. You were the only thing I had.”

  Navidae closed his eyes, his stomach churning painfully. A part of him wished this had never come up. He remembered those days vaguely, like half-forgotten dreams that teased him when he dozed or lost focus on the present. Warm hands, soft linen, the scent of expensive perfume and the feeling of gentle kisses against his temple. He’d followed her everywhere she went. He held her hand every step of the way.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw his mother twisting a handful of her hair between her fingers. Her lips contorted into a snarl. Her eyes glared at the desk through her fingers, and Navidae struggled to remember why they were both here.

  “Your father… He noticed. He saw how I doted, how I… how I loved.” She turned her eyes up and pinned Navidae in place, her lips pulled back from her pointed teeth in an ugly, hateful sneer. “You were his heir, he would say as he tore you from my arms. I was poisoning you. Dulling your teeth with such tenderness.” She scoffed venomously, her hands curling into fists. “He made me stop. If I was anything but cold to you, he would…”

  She trailed off, the fight leaving her just like that. Her fists loosened. She wrapped her arms around her middle, staring at the ground as she remembered. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. “I had no one then. No one but endless faces at those galas. The ones who probably knew but did nothing. The ones who probably agreed with what he did and encouraged him on with it.”

  “Mother,” Navidae breathed, but she wasn’t done. “No one but Caritan.”

  His mother smiled, her cheeks flushing a little as her posture relaxed. “She knew,” Avarria said, finally meeting Navidae’s gaze. It was as if all the pain lingering in the air had disappear- ed, just from the sound of the Lady Rotthenia’s name. “She knew and she understood. She cared. Cared for me. For my plight. She… I could love her, I realized. I could love her and no one could take her from me.”

  The way he took you. She didn’t need to say it for Navidae to hear it regardless.

  “I knew that,” Navidae said, finding his voice through everything he was feeling. He’d been young, perhaps sixteen, seventeen. The Lady Rotthenia was beautiful. Her sense of humor was well known for its sharp wit and fearless insight. He’d been young but not so young that he didn’t know the sort of relationship they shared. “I remembered seeing you together. You…” He swallowed, looking at the floor. “You only smiled when you were with her.” He’d been so jealous in the way only a child could be.

  Avarria let out a mirthles
s little laugh. “I’m surprised you remember any of that,” she said, closing her eyes as she listed against the arm of the seat. “So buried in the laps of those distractions you found for yourself. That girl next door, Netherin. You’d found your way to cope. I’d found mine.

  Only…”

  She paused, sighing. “I had been a fool to think it would last.” Her eyes glanced up, finding Navidae’s. They grew hard the moment they settled on him. “Do you love him?”

  Navidae started, looking at her with wide, frightened eyes. “What?” he asked dumbly, hating how his palms sweated and his heart pounded. He wanted to dive out the window and it was getting harder and harder to dissuade himself from acting on the impulse.

  Avarria just blinked, her lips forming a flat line. “Do you love him,” she repeated just as flatly, staring him down until he felt an inch tall. “Khouri. Do you know what it means to love another?” She added it as if Navidae needed it specified, as if he wouldn’t know or couldn’t begin to understand the notion. “I loved Caritan. I love her still. That man sought to take her from me. He’d known for years of our affair but he only sought to act when he knew I was truly happy.” Her sharp fingers dug into the leather of the armrest. “I didn’t kill him because he hurt me, Vida. I didn’t do it because he hurt either of us.”

  Her voice, her probing, watchful voice finally found what it was looking for. Her lips curved into a smile. “I did it because he tried to have the House of Rotthenia destroyed all because he knew it would hurt me worse than anything he had done to me yet.”

  The events of the past year or so filtered through Navidae’s mind in rapid succession as if drawn from the depths of his memory by her words alone. The way he’d demolished any and all who’d given him even the slightest reason to think that they had lusted for Khouri. The frantic, fevered way he’d dug through every single letter he’d ever been sent in hopes of finding the one that had dared take his blackbird from him. That fear. The sickly, pervasive fear of losing everything and being willing to do anything to avoid it…

  Navidae sucked in a breath of air, numb from head to toe. It was… They had done the same thing. The details were different, their fears based on slightly different things, but their reasons were practically identical. He’d acted out of desperation and had been blinded by that fear, but she had to understand the reason why, surely. He braced himself against the door, allowing himself to feel the smallest inkling of hope.

  “Mother, that’s—”

  Only Avarria stood up then, cutting him off with a glare so hot that it stifled the words in Navidae’s throat. “So, you can imagine my utter revulsion upon hearing the news that my own son, heir to that claret-haired monster, sought to do the same to me again,” she spat. “You destabilized all I’ve worked so hard to build, you jeopardized the life I now live, and for what? For some petty satisfaction? To get back at me for leaving you the name and House and wealth you’ve inherited from a man that taught you the same mindless hatred that served him so well?”

  “If you’d just let me explain—”

  She slapped her hand against the desk with a loud, shocking smack. Navidae flinched and she leveled him with a glare. “I don’t need to hear your excuse,” she told him. “It’s clear to me already that I shouldn’t have expected anyone sharing that man’s blood to behave with more compassion than he ever pretended to show strangers, let alone his own family.”

  “That’s not fair,” Navidae whispered, shaking his head. He took a step towards her, and then another until he was nose to nose with her across the desk. When she opened her mouth to say something, to shut him down again, he shook his head harder and spoke over her.

  “No,” he said, putting his hands on the desk. “No, you are going to listen to me. I’ve got too much on the line to let you end things like this. You think I’m so different from you. That of all I took, I took from Father more. But it’s not true. It’s…” He bit his lip, struggling to say it.

  Her eyes narrowed meanly. “It’s what?” she prodded. “You want to tell me? Then tell me. Spit it out, Marrowick. Let me hear your pressing excuse as to why I shouldn’t see this entire manor burned to the ground with everything you’ve amassed in it—”

  “Because I did it for Khouri!” he shouted. “Not myself! Not out of some— some selfish, idiotic desire to hurt you,” he spilled, curling his fingers into fists atop the letters and pages spouting his guilt. He was past seeing, past caring. His mouth moved quicker than his thoughts could follow. “I woke up and Khouri was gone. Gone. I had— I didn’t know where he was. What had happened. I panicked, alright? You’ve seen him at galas. You’ve seen how people stare, how they approach him and want him.”

  He brought up a hand and pressed the meat of his palm to his temple, a headache building behind his eyes. How long had it been since he’d last slept? Truly, really slept? “I feared the worst,” he continued in a whisper. “I… I was so worried. I tore apart the Duskriven looking for him. I sent out hunters here and to the surface. I…” He forced himself to look her in the eye. “I went through every single letter I’d ever been sent by the scavengers after him, and I began dismantling them one by one. Just for the chance that he might be there. For the chance to have him back.” He hadn’t known that one of those Houses had been affiliated with his mother’s assets. Even if he had, he’d been too sick with fear and worry to think on the possible repercussions.

  He’d just wanted Khouri back. That’s all he ever wanted. When Avarria only stared at him, her lips parted in a gape,

  he bowed like a weak-willed servant, leaning heavily against

  the desk to keep himself on his feet. “Mother,” he pleaded, hiding his eyes behind his hand. “Please. Please don’t do this. If you take my title from me, I won’t be able to keep him safe.

  They’ll take him from me. They’ll…”

  Hurt him. Auction him off on that blasted block like the chattel they all saw him as.

  “This is all my fault,” Navidae whispered, knowing that no matter how much he wanted to believe otherwise, the truth was as plain as day. “I took him in and put him on display. I let everyone see what I had because I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that I’d found someone like him either. But I didn’t listen to him enough and I let myself think the worst had happened. I fucked up. I know I fucked up. But he doesn’t deserve to be punished for it too.”

  The thought alone took the strength from him completely.

  He went onto his knees and rested his forehead against the edge of the desk. A muted gasp rose up in response, and he knew why she held that reaction, but he had no pride left to maintain. He didn’t care. He just... He didn’t care anymore.

  Navidae sucked in a painful, stinging breath and whispered, “Do what you want to me, Mother. You’re going to think what you want, and you’ll do what you want just like you’ve always done. But…” He lifted his head the slightest amount, letting her see the resignation in his eyes. “All I ask, all I beg of you is that you don’t punish me by hurting him too. Take whatever you want from me; just don’t take away what little I have that keeps him safe.”

  Silence. Tense, breathless, horrible silence. Navidae held onto the edge of the desk, clutching it so tightly that his fingers began to go numb. He lowered his eyes once more. He couldn’t bear to look her in the eye as she did it anyway. He’d do whatever he had to do to change her mind, but the moment he saw the decision be made, the second she stamped out the last of his faith that this could be mended was one he didn’t want to see. He shook when the chair scraped the floor as it was pushed away from the desk.

  A shift in the air; his mother had stood.

  He looked up when warm fingers circled his wrist, pulling it free from his grip on the table. Avarria was leaning over the desk. Her eyes were locked on the shell bracelet tied around Navidae’s wrist.

  “You went and became obsessed with your pet,” she said carefully, her thumb tracing the smooth back of a red and cream colored she
ll.

  Navidae shook his head. That wasn’t right. “He was never just a pet,” he answered. He was Navidae’s everything. He was… He was the only thing that mattered. “And it’s not… I love him, Mother. I fell in love with him and I can’t—”

  He sucked in a harsh breath, shaking his head harder. “I can’t lose him. I have nothing without him. What would you have done? If it had been Caritan? What would you have done?”

  Avarria tensed. She bit her bottom lip and trembled, holding Navidae’s hand tighter. “I didn’t think him capable of love,” she whispered. Her eyes cut Navidae to the bone, like looking in a mirror. “I didn’t think anyone of that bloodline capable of such weakness.”

  “I’m not my father,” Navidae told her. “And… it’s not weakness. It’s not a weakness to feel like this.” It was painful. Agonizing. But… he was stronger for it. Right?

  “Stand up,” she ordered as she tugged on his wrist, “and come here.”

  For some reason this reaction worried Navidae more than an outward rejection might have. He carefully made his way to his feet, and even though he stood perhaps three or more inches taller than his mother, he felt thoroughly cowed. She pulled him around the side of the desk and then let go of his wrist to push on his shoulders, making him sit in the seat.

  It was an easy thing to do; black spotted Navidae’s vision.

  The weeks of stress and exhaustion weighed too heavily on him. Once he was seated, she removed her hands entirely to fix her hair self-consciously. Navidae took the chance it was to hide his face in his hands. Every inch of him felt like it had been turned inside out and then rubbed raw with something abrasive. He didn’t know what was happening anymore.

  All he wanted was to be put out of his misery.

  He lifted his head when he felt the desk shift slightly. He blinked when he saw his mother had lifted herself onto the edge, perching on it with her hands clasped in her lap and her bottom lip between her teeth.