by Andra Leigh
Cyan looked over to her, his eyes silently prompting her to conclude the story.
“Forrest and Fletcher have Faust’s scar,” she said.
He nodded. “The Clinic was fascinated with their connection. Though this was an aspect of it they never got to see. It speaks of a connection so much larger than the Clinic could ever have imagined. It’s completely baffling and if the brothers know the extent of it, then they’re keeping it to themselves.”
She couldn’t blame them.
“What if one of them received a life threatening injury?”
Cyan sighed, his expression telling her this was something he had considered many times before. “I can’t say for sure. How about we just hope we don’t ever find out?”
She nodded her agreement.
They had reached the twisting staircase leading up to the Manor and down to the Playground. She heard Acanthea’s voice float up to them.
“Do you think she can be trusted?”
“Time will tell,” Cyan said, offering her a weary smile before ascending to the Manor.
●
Significant looks and tense comments had become commonplace in the three weeks since the Gentle Reigness had graced them with her presence.
It would seem the girl never had a shortage of things to complain about. Her bath water was too heavy to lug four feet to the tub. Her food was too bland or too flavoured. There was absolutely, positively nothing to do.
On top of her complaints, she had annoying habits. She would itch the insides of her wrists loudly, drum her fingers and feet against any surface and continuously chew on her tongue. With each day that passed Acanthea appeared to grow more irritable, which as it turned out, made her more irritating.
Eliscity wasn’t as concerned with the Reigness as the others. But then she had an escape. She was spending more time in the past than the present. She would spend her days in Vance Manor with the Family and her nights under the old oak tree with Drae.
The nights she didn’t dream were the nights she barely slept. It was as if her mind was constantly awake. Unable to remember how to stop and rest. She would awake and live in the present, she would sleep and live in the past. She knew Laleita could probably offer a solution and find a way for her to get a good night sleep, but she was too afraid it would mean losing Drae. And she couldn’t have that happen. Between constant exhaustion and the emptiness she feared she would experience if Drae was lost to her, she chose exhaustion.
She knew it was silly, living her life in the arms of a memory, but it wasn’t like he was imaginary, he was real. He was out there somewhere.
Although she had no power over her actions in her memories, she felt more in control of herself when she swam in the lake with Drae and climbed the oak’s branches, than she ever did awake and under the floors of Vance Manor.
Because back then she had been in control.
She hadn’t been Blooded, her Born lineage remained dormant in her veins. Her body still belonged to her.
Except…
Her last memory flashed across her mind.
Had she let herself belong to someone else?
Someone wrong…
Someone named Harmon Reinhold.
She had gone to sleep last night expecting a new memory with laughter and joy. That hadn’t happened.
When she had woken in the memory, she sat in the sitting room of her family home, facing a man she didn’t know. He was in his early twenties with a sharp nose and impeccable haircut. He was also wealthy. That much was obvious from his tailored shirt, shiny cufflinks and snobbish expression.
He was flanked by an older man and woman. They were his parents. She had figured that out almost immediately. They shared too many similarities with him to be anyone else.
Dropped in the middle of the memory, she fought to decipher the purpose of the meeting.
Her Papa sat beside her while her Ma bustled around them, nervously arranging teacups and biscuits. She could see her sisters trying to spy on them from the hall.
“Are your rooms okay, Mister Reinhold?” Her Ma looked at the older man.
“Satisfactory.”
“Wonderful. It was so great you could all stay with us. There’s barely time to get to know you. It’s all happening so fast.”
“I think that’s the point.”
“Yes.” Her Ma sat down beside her, patting Eliscity’s knee absently. “So Harmon, I feel like we know nothing about you. Why don’t you tell us something?”
Harmon, the son, regarded her Ma with bland disinterest.
“He has a fondness for accumulating objects with a rarity or flaw unbidden of their ordinary design,” Madam Reinhold boasted for Harmon.
“Oh, you, er, collect things?” her Ma said uncertainly.
“I acquire unique items,” Harmon corrected. “Paintings. Sculptures. Goblets. There are subtle differences in taste to be elicited from wine, when sipped from different goblets. Especially a unique goblet.”
Eliscity wondered if her past self had wanted to laugh as much as her present self currently did.
The man was positively ridiculous.
“Oh. How…” her Ma looked perplexed, “interesting.”
An awkward silence fell across the room. Well, awkward on her side of the sitting room. The Reinhold family seemed perfectly content in their stillness.
When her Ma couldn’t handle the silence any longer she jumped up, grabbing the teapot from the table to replenish everyone’s drinks.
“We still have the flowers to arrange and I was thinking a matching hair piece for the bride would be so pretty.”
Her past self flinched at the statement but didn’t react beyond that.
Bride?
Who was getting married?
The eyes in the room all swept over to her.
It couldn’t be…
No.
How absurd.
Was she marrying Drae?
If so, why was Harmon Reinhold sitting opposite her.
“Perhaps we could also weave some flowers into the arch, what do you think Harmon?” Her Ma rambled. “Do you have a preferred flower? After all, it’s your day too. I should have asked before. We could entwine the two flowers in the arch, maybe in the bouquet. Unless it’s yellow. Yellow and purple should never be mixed in my opinion,” she laughed nervously.
It’s your day too.
Had it been arranged for her to marry this man, this Harmon Reinhold, before her?
Why on earth would she ever have agreed to that?
Why was she just sitting there?
And most importantly, where was Drae?
“I find flowers a poor substitute for beauty,” Harmon drawled.
“Oh.”
“They’re neither rare, nor coveted.”
Clearly the unique attracted Harmon and he was willing to spend money in order to surround himself with it.
The way he looked at Eliscity, with slightly squinted eyes and furrowed brow, suggested he did not find her up to his personal standards. As if he would have preferred her with a marring that made her a bit more than plain and ordinary. Perhaps a scar or deformity.
Inside her past self she wondered what he would think of her now.
Her Ma finished pouring Harmon Reinhold and his parents tea from an antique teapot. Harmon’s eyes trailed over it, breathing in everything from the hand painted design to the small chink in the spout, with intrigue.
That intrigue disappeared as soon as he looked at his patterned teacup, its twin and triplet in his parent’s hands.
Harmon did not pick up the drink. He regarded its uniformed appearance with bland indifference.
In fact, Eliscity couldn’t help but notice the similarities between how he treated the teacup and how he treated her.
“Oh,” her Ma breathed again. “Well, you just let me know if there’s anything you’d like done. There’s no reason why the day can’t be beautiful, just because it’s…” she trailed off.
“A marr
iage of convenience?” Madam Reinhold finished pertly.
“Yes.”
Eliscity knew the term. A marriage of convenience. The joining of two for the profit or services they were able to offer one another, rather than for love. Some were arranged privately, just through the families involved, though more often than not it was an offering from the Realm. When a family or person of particular importance or stature was struggling with their business, reputation or life, the Realm would reach out to them with the offer of a marriage of convenience to another suffering family. It was a means of salvaging the things each family had lost.
It was also a wonderful method of strengthening and adding to the families of those dedicated to the Reigning family and everything they stood for.
Eliscity viewed it as a demeaning reward system designed by the past Reigners and Reigness’. As she watched through her past eyes, she wondered if she had once considered differently.
Her Papa tried to indulge Mister Reinhold in some talk of their farm and the animals they had, but the man was disinterested. Her Ma continued babbling about wedding plans no one seemed to care about. Madam Reinhold stirred more sugar into her tea every time she took a sip, to the point where it was more sugar than tea. And Harmon offered little of himself, though still looked perfectly comfortable, lounging against the sofa.
Finally, they called the ridiculous charade of a family talk to an end.
Her body stood as everyone rose to their feet. Her present mind was clear and sharp but the way her body moved, too slow to smile and lagging in response, she guessed her past mind was foggy with the weight of everything.
“I look forward to our joining,” Harmon smiled but it came off as a smirk.
“Yes,” her voice cracked. She realised it was the first time she had spoken since she had been dropped into the middle of the memory.
The Reinholds announced they would be taking a trip into town to ‘sample the market’s tastes’ leaving in a black carriage with golden trim pulled by two dark horses.
Her own family moved through to the kitchen where her Ma immediately dumped the remaining brown tea out the window and busied herself making a new brew of tea, this one a colourful orange.
Her sisters joined them, making themselves comfortable on the various seats and cushions around the room. It seemed they spent more time in the kitchen than the sitting room.
“Are you really going to marry that mean man?”
“Delora, watch your mouth,” her Ma scolded.
“But he’s never taken me swimming,” she whined back, like this should settle the matter. “If Eliscity has to have a wedding she should have it with Drae.”
“You don’t marry someone just because they’ve taken your stupid sister swimming.”
“I’m not stupid. Ma!”
“Celosia, be nice.”
“But you tell me not to lie. I can’t be nice and tell the truth.”
As Celosia continued to be scolded, a hand rested on Eliscity’s shoulder. She looked up into her Papa’s eyes.
“No one’s making you do this, ‘City. There’s still time to say no.”
“I know, Papa. This is my decision.”
He hugged her tightly, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
As he released her and went to help his wife, Delora scrambled off her seat near the fire-pit and up onto the cushioned window bench where she sat.
“But you and Drae love each other.” Delora wrapped her small arms around Eliscity’s waist. “I see it. Why don’t they?”
Her eight year old sister had been observant.
“Because you’re rather clever, Delora. And they’ve all lost their child eyes.”
“If I was clever I’d know what that meant,” she frowned, blinking her eyes rapidly up at Eliscity.
“It means you bother to notice other people.”
The young girl looked like she was desperately trying to understand. “Why would someone ever bother not to?”
“Sometimes it’s hard to remember,” her past self said lamely.
“Can I visit you every day?” Delora whispered.
“Not every day, no. Harmon lives too far away for that.”
“You’ll live too far away for that,” she corrected sadly.
She leant her head down against her youngest sister’s dark waves. “Maybe you could train those birds of yours to carry messages to me.”
“They’re not mine. They belong to themselves.”
She smiled against Delora’s hair. Glancing out of the window they sat beside, she found Chief standing on the lawn, ears drooping, eyes fixed on her.
“Tell Ma I’m feeding the goats if she asks?” she muttered in Delora’s ear.
Delora followed her sightline, spotting Chief. Understanding, she nodded and climbed off their seat.
Chief met her at the front door where he received a scratch behind the ear before trotting off across one of the fields.
She followed the dog.
It wasn’t long before she was climbing the steps to the Niall house, where Drae sat waiting for her. She sat down next to him, her legs dangling off the edge of the porch. Chief placed his chin on Drae’s knee, looking pleased with himself.
She had been fetched.
Drae reached for her hand, curling his fingers around hers.
“This was always going to happen,” she sighed.
She could see Drae’s head shake out of the corner of her eye. “You didn’t know that for sure.”
“This is why I didn’t want to like you.” She tilted her head, gazing into his caring eyes. “I knew something like this could happen and I knew it would hurt so much more than it could have.”
Drae held her stare, a soft pleading evident in his expression. “Tell your family about us. You know your parents wouldn’t ignore that.”
“I know,” she agreed, but shook her head. “They’d cancel the wedding. They’d be so happy for us.”
“But you’re not going to do that?”
She felt her hand squeeze his. “My family is in financial ruin, Drae. This year hasn’t been kind. And then the storm, Delora’s illness. This marriage will save the farm. It will save my family.”
“Do you love him?”
“Of course not. I met him a few days ago.”
“Then why would you marry him?” Drae stressed.
“I can give my family a better life.”
“What about your life? If you stay we could work to give everyone a better life together.”
“I want so badly for it to be that easy.”
“It is that easy.”
“Drae…” Her eyes were welling, clouding the handsome face in front of her.
Drae reached out, twirling a strand of her wavy hair between his fingers and stroking her cheekbone. “Don’t leave me.”
“The Realm is giving me a chance to save my family from ruin. For some reason the Realm saw fit to offer us a chance. We’re nothing special, but I guess our land and farm is important enough for them to want us to survive.”
Trapped within her past’s body, she felt ill. Her marriage of convenience to Harmon Reinhold had been arranged through the Realm.
“If I fight for this, would it change anything?” Drae asked, his deep voice a gentle caress.
Her vision went black as she squeezed her eyes shut. Finally, she opened them and found Drae’s green gaze. “Yes.”
“Do you want me to fight?”
Her mind was yelling at her past self. Of course she wanted him to fight. There was no way she had wanted a marriage of convenience to the cold Harmon Reinhold.
But her head shook. Slow and contemplative. “I need to do this for my family.”
Drae’s face told her he understood. But that he didn’t want to accept it. That he wanted to argue and reason. But instead he said, “I know.”
A sad silence fell between them, punctured by small concerning whines from Chief.
“Meet me one last time,” Drae said when they had sat in stil
lness for a while. “As you and me. This, us. Without talk of marriage or leaving. Let’s just have one more night of being happy and pretend that nothing’s about to change.”
She smiled. “That sounds nice.”
Eliscity disagreed. She thought it was mad. How could they have simply pretended there wasn’t a sharp nosed collector ready to tear them apart? She was worried she had let this foolishness play out. She didn’t know what her thoughts had been back then. She didn’t know her past self. Not properly. She only knew what she witnessed of herself in her memories. She’d been a different person back then. Lighter and secure, with an air of naivety. She hadn’t lost anything. Yet. And now she was worried it was because of her naivety and stubborn foolishness that she had lost everything.
She was afraid she had married Harmon Reinhold.
Snapping out of the memory, Eliscity pinched the bridge of her nose.
She was in the library examining a map of Rylock, as if hoping something would jump out at her and scream, ‘Here I am, here’s home!’
The cities sat on the south western bank of the giant lake, fed by the Mythenra Ranges. Its river source flowed across the top of the Northern Cities into the lake, while another flowed out of it, the one that ran between the Northern and Southern Cities. The cities were only a small section of Rylock.
Below the cities lay The Horizon, a particularly uninhabitable area of the dry Cityel desert. It was large; the size of the Southern Cities put together. Small towns like Talcony and Owaine sat to its east, while Tequail stretched down its western side. Tequail was a large farmland. Previously the desert, its people had worked its earth, finding ways to irrigate the soil. The same river that separated the Cityel Border from the Northern Cities forked and ran along Tequail’s edge, from the north to the south. The Tequail workers had dug trenches out of the river, redirecting water to flow into them. On the map, the little delicate blue lines of these trenches sprouted from the river, like branches on a tree or tendrils of ivy. Woods of green leafed around the streams and small rivers, a testament to the hard work of the Tequail people. The river continued south until it split into three, one mouth remained with its Tequail border, the other two separating in the Glycine Forest. One of the forks appeared to end in the forest while the other snaked through it, breaking out and carrying on through Eltarn and other small towns. Above the cities, the Cursain Valley sat in a line at the base of the Mythenra Ranges. It was a fresh and plentiful valley against the dry Cityel, due to the mountain’s sustenance. Another larger forest was dotted down the eastern end of the Cursain Valley, starting at the base of the Mythenra Ranges.