Chapter 14 Kaly’s Childe
KALY’S CHILDE
Balthazar set a chair down in front of Legion’s cell and gracefully sat upon it.
He crossed his left leg over his right and picked a piece of lint from the vest of his three-piece suit.
He then studied his fingernails that were, of course, clean, closely trimmed and buffed.
His idea to bring several salons and their staff to the Ever Dark really had been genius even if Caemorn had thought it the height of indulgence when he’d first brought it up before the academy had opened.
“The whole idea is to have a working city here, Caemorn,” Balthazar had wheedled. “You want the students to look like Weryns after a particularly hard night? Long unkempt hair? Shaggy beards? A wild light in their eyes?”
“I suppose there is some value in this if it is for the students,” Caemorn had answered.
“And should we not look our best, too? Come now! Your hair is always just so. Your chin is now clean of your goatee, but even when you had one, you kept it neatly trimmed. Your outfits are immaculate.” Balthazar pointed to each point of interest on Caemorn’s very trim form.
“You aren’t out there washing your own clothes, polishing your own boots or cutting your own hair, are you?
I know you’re not! So don’t even try to pretend you aren’t as fastidious as I am and have a legion of people serving you. ”
Caemorn crossed his arms at the wrists behind his back. “True. And all that you’re saying has merit about the students.” But then he narrowed his eyes at Balthazar. “I just want to make sure these people are not just here to serve you.”
“Tempting, but no. I actually am bringing my own staff with me from Ravenscroft Manor. I even managed to get Manx to commit to the whole year of dressing me,” Balthazar said as he swept one hand down one of the many suits that she had made for him. “I must look my best for the cameras.”
To his surprise, Caemorn gave him an almost indulgent smile. “We cannot have you looking shabby or, dare I say it, caught dead wearing the same thing twice.”
“Yes, well, you can get away with it as most everything you wear is black!” Balthazar sniffed. “Even if your clothes are all slightly different with a buckle here, a zipper there, a few more buttons or less, they are black and they cover you from toes to chin.”
“It is more practical. I do not need to think about what I am wearing,” Caemorn admitted.
“That is a crime, you know?” Balthazar shook his head.
He felt Caemorn’s confusion before the Kaly Vampire clamped down on the idea.
“For goodness sake, Caemorn, you realize that you’re handsome, don’t you?
Heads turn when you walk past! There’s a whole fan base out there that speculates about your sexuality and if you’re dating anyone.
They’re writing fanfiction and drawing fanart of you happy and paired off or something like that. ”
He peered at that rather beautiful face for a long moment when Caemorn adopted a blank look at his words.
“The value of outer beauty is only in how it affects others. I do not care how I affect others,” Caemorn answered stiffly. “Not in that way in any case.”
“You are so like Christian! Or maybe he is like you!” Balthazar chuckled softly.
“He hates when people notice him for his beauty. For his mind, yes, that seems worthy, but anyone who sees his luminous good looks and is drawn to him like a moth to a flame… eh, he becomes ice. But I understand the reasons why he is suspicious of such attraction.”
Balthazar tried not to think of David often.
In his view, that bastard stalker and molester of his beloved fledgling got off too easy.
Caemorn knew the story too. David’s had been the second voice that Christian had heard, revealing to all that he was a Speaker to the Dead, his mixed Kaly-Eyros heritage burning brightly.
Suddenly, it occurred to Balthazar–rather stupidly late, in his opinion–that maybe Caemorn had some similar attack on him by another person.
He thought of Caemorn as being so bloody powerful that he hadn’t considered it, but just as Roan had tortured him, Artemis had tortured Caemorn.
Could he ask Caemorn if it was so? No. Maybe. No. Not yet.
“Not that… What I mean to say is that sometimes people are… well, you needn’t worry if someone gives you unwanted attention,” Balthazar awkwardly offered.
Caemorn tilted his head to the side. “Because I will take their soul and use it as a light bulb in my palace?”
“Ah, well, yes, there’s that. But I mean I can…
I won’t let that happen!” Balthazar let out a ridiculous laugh.
His crow laugh that seemed to annoy people but really only came out when he was uncomfortable and trying to cover it up.
“I’ll know what they’re thinking and I’ll stop them before it ever comes to that.
You’ll be left alone. You’ll be… safe. Or whatever. ”
Caemorn stared with him for long moments without blinking. The urge to look into his mind was so strong, but he manfully resisted. He would not violate their friendship by looking when he hadn’t been asked. Finally, Caemorn dropped his eyes and said quietly, “Thank you, Balthazar.”
Balthazar blinked. He’d expected a different reaction. Not this heart-felt one. Perhaps a reminder that as Kaly, Caemorn hardly needed protection. As Kaly, people needed protection from him. Kaly didn’t need Eyros to step up.
So he babbled, “Not that you need protection, but–”
“Thank you,” Caemorn repeated quietly.
“Well, you’re welcome, of course. It goes without saying really. But I wanted to say it. So you knew. For certain,” Balthazar told him. “Not all of us can read minds or others’ intentions.”
There was a companionable quiet then. Balthazar often filled silence with talk, because it made him feel less lonely, which was ridiculous as he heard everyone’s minds thrumming around him. But it also allowed him to ignore those minds and be present.
“I don’t know if I would ever be able to pull off the colorful plumage you adorn yourself with,” Caemorn said still quietly, “but if I ever had a mind to try, no one would say a word with you around, would they?”
“They wouldn’t even remember if you didn’t want them to! In fact, I could make them think you were still wearing black. Or make them think anything. At all. Well, you get the idea,” Balthazar assured him.
A faint smile appeared on Caemorn’s lips. “Then perhaps if I am feeling in the mood, we might do something foolish one day. You and I.”
“Oh?” Balthazar’s lips twitched.
“Yes. And you will make sure no one remembers except for us. It will be our… secret,” Caemorn said.
Balthazar nodded. “We’ll have to think of something good.”
“Indeed. For all that trouble, it must be something very foolish and… and perhaps fun. Definitely fun,” Caemorn suggested. He had tugged at the top of his collar as if nervous. “We need bookstores. Clothing stores. And several coffee shops.”
“Wait? What? Are those your foolish ideas because they sound good!”
“They are not. These are things I think we need in Nightvallen.” Caemorn again smiled. “Bars, restaurants, and cafes, too. Places where Vampires and humans can meet.”
With every word, Balthazar’s eyebrows had lifted a little. “You’ve been thinking about this.”
“I was trying to decide which way we should go. Should we make the academy solemn and serious where the students must meditate on what it means to choose a Second Life that is eternal after they shed their first one? Or should we remind them how good the Second Life could be?” Caemorn wondered out loud.
“A little bit of both,” Balthazar suggested.
A nod. “But mostly the second. Because, as you have said often enough, we must sell the humans on the wonder of us.”
Balthazar tried not to preen at the fact that Caemorn remembered what he’d said.
Even if he’d said it “often enough.” He found himself relishing Caemorn’s good opinion, sometimes as much as Daemon’s.
He tried not to think of himself as a puppy frisking around them, being adorable to get their attention, but there was an aspect of that.
Roan had really done a number on him. His parents in this life hadn’t been much better.
And the truth was, if he ever peered into his deeper past, he remembered being just as insecure, but hiding it far more.
Yet this way, his insecurity was going away slowly but surely as he revealed it.
“I know after the Order exercise that you are keen not to encourage a false narrative,” Balthazar said.
“But I like to think of this more as curating the Vampire experience. Those who join us will know the truth. But the wider public will already have enough wrong, dangerous ideas about us to fill their heads that we shouldn’t put more out there.
Nuance is not a thing for groups. For individuals, yes, but not the masses. ”
Caemorn nodded. “I used to think that you didn’t care about the truth, Balthazar, but I know now that it means very much to you.”
Balthazar shrugged. “We need to know the truth so that the lies we tell are more effective.”
“An Eyros must have a desire to know the truth that is bone deep,” Caemorn said.
“In some ways, you’re quite right. We cannot stop ourselves from trying to know,” Balthazar agreed. “Even if it burns us to ash in the end.”
That was the danger of being an Eyros. One could know everything people were thinking.
It often didn’t lead to good places. The millions or more little lies people told to keep society sufficiently oiled were useless with the Eyros.
They knew and most counted every single one.
And no one was totally honest, even if they tried to be.
Yet he had seen many Eyros throw themselves into the search for truth with the zest of a zealot.