Chapter 35 #2
“One measly loss of control and it’s all anyone can focus on.
” Lyriat snatched the bottle away. Staring at Vann, he rolled the neck of it between his hands.
“Considering you just told us there were countless Fae standing by gawping instead of helping, tell me… How do I know you can be trusted? What proof do you have the Tempusrealm and its people had nothing to do with any of it?”
Vann considered that. “At the moment? None, other than my assurances as your friend. The creatures who saw the battle were not warriors, and you know it’s more complicated than that to go from realm to realm.
Flying across a chasm isn’t done, eh?” Another drag, another twining whirl of smoke.
“I’ll admit the Eternal Ones have been rather tetchy of late, but the reason is personal in nature. Sadly, I’m forbidden from saying more.”
“Aye, definitely getting throttled.”
“For fucks’ sake, Magnus.” Lyriat took his own deep pull of the wine and scrubbed a hand over his face.
Vann reached over and gripped Lyriat’s shoulder. “I promise you my queens are focused inward right now, not outward. They had no motive for what was done to Baldrir, and all of us were just as shocked as the next to hear of the dreadbeast. You have my vow to the Sisters.”
Brand found himself staring intently at his Fae brother, searching, a small part of him ashamed he would even consider Vann’s guilt or feel the need to look for it.
“Fuck it.” Lyriat plopped the bottle into Brand’s lap and sat forward. “Since you already know all that, there can’t be any harm in the rest of it. Brand?”
His turn for a drink. The amber liquid went down like honeyed sunshine, the slightest fizz crackling on his tongue.
Normally, he might’ve savored the sweet, floral taste or the way his limbs went weightless.
This time, he was only grateful it wouldn’t run out or give them a hangover, no matter how much they imbibed.
Blind fucking drunk with none of the ramifications had a certain appeal this evening.
Brand dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. “Baldrir came back from his torture with a message…”
He, Mag, and Lyriat took the story in turns, right up to their return. Vann remained silent throughout, only his eyes and breath betraying his disturbance.
“You’re being targeted,” he said when they were finished. “Both the Demons and the Wolflords.”
“So it would seem.” Lyriat’s gaze moved inward. “But for what?”
“The same thing any and all of the past offenders have wanted,” Vann replied.
“Power. Control. The money that comes with it. How many times have we done this dance? There’s always someone who’s unsatisfied, convinced they’d do it ‘better,’ and they rarely care who they hurt to get there.
This business with Faldir being in two places, though… That’s the most confounding part.”
“Aye, no shite.” Mag plucked the smoldering dart from Vann’s fingers and put it to his own lips, breathing deep. “If it’s a shapeshifter, anyone could be anyone.”
“If it’s a shapeshifter, we are on an entirely different level of issues than we thought.”
Lyriat eyed Vann for a moment. “You’re going to need to elaborate. Convincingly, since having a creature such as that in my realm is another clue pointing towards the Fae.”
Vann chuckled, unbothered by the accusation.
“True shapeshifters are so rare as to almost be fiction in Kohamaia. No one’s seen or heard of one being born in a couple hundred years, and the documented instances before are almost as few and far between.
The land has… forgotten that old magic, except for within the Imperial Line.
Even then, we can only do it the one, uncontrollable time.
” He reached for the wine and his herbs in turn, partaking of both before he said, “Tell me, did you see Faldir in the chasm at any point?”
“No,” Brand answered. “Only heard his voice, clear as day, and found signs of a struggle. At the time, it all made sense. Now…”
Vann shrugged, settling back. “Seems to me you have no evidence of an actual shapeshifter and are possibly letting your imaginations run away with you.”
“We aren’t bloody children.” Lyriat loosed a long-suffering sigh. “How else would you explain Hedda and Faldir’s accounts? He swears up and down she came to him during his watch and commanded him home for reinforcements, while she insists—vehemently—that such a thing never happened.”
“Are you certain she was drugged? For all you know, she took too much of her own tonic, told Faldir to go, and simply cannot remember. Or one of them is lying.”
“Neither of my cousins is lying,” Lyriat growled. “I would know.”
“Hmm.” Vann’s head tilted, almost animalistic in his movement.
“Fair enough. Might be time to look at the Nachthellians. If you heard, but didn’t see…
Overturning the soil and mimicking a person’s tone are well within the bounds of their magic, and procuring blood to further trick you would be no hardship for them. ”
All eyes went to Brand, their implication clear.
“Don’t even think about accusing Lunara again,” he hissed.
“In fact, since we’re on the subject, allow me to make myself perfectly clear.
” Brand stood from his chair, head spinning with drink as he leveled a trembling finger at Lyriat.
“That meeting was an insult to everyone in it, but especially her. If you ever do anything like that again, Sisters help us both. She’s off limits. Find your answers another way.”
“That was awfully close to disloyalty, my friend,” Lyriat murmured. “Perhaps I should be wary of you instead. You did send Baldrir to the Westrealm, after all, starting this chain of events.”
Brand recoiled, blinking. One beat of utter silence, two… Both Mag and Vann disintegrated into choked laughter, falling all over each other as they wheezed.
“Your face!” Vann managed, barely keeping hold of the wine.
“Ach, put your curling horns away and sit down, you wee shite.” Mag grabbed the back of Brand’s trousers and yanked him backwards into the seat he’d vacated.
“We all know there isn’t a creature in all of Bordoroth less likely to betray their people.
Weeping Sisters, the lass has you half out of your head if you can’t see he was joking. ”
Mag’s reminder that he was, in fact, feeling every raw effect of his incomplete mating tempered the rage he hadn’t noticed rising. The rest of it bled away at Lyriat’s unrepentant smile, leaving Brand more dizzy than before. “Bloody arseholes.”
Lyriat chuckled. “Usually.”
Vann turned serious, sending up a small shower of sparks as he flicked the spent dart of herbs away. “Your mate might be innocent, but that doesn’t mean her people are.”
No. It didn’t.
Brand buried his head in his hands, the thought too depressing. “It doesn’t make any sense for a realm to be plotting against another, and none of us brothers have heard a word of it. And for what?”
“Three of us brothers haven’t heard a word of it.” Vann’s voice was gentle as he waved the wine beneath Brand’s nose, goading him into having more. “Who knows what Amun or Araxis might say.”
“We’ll not be hearing from either of them until Da chimes in,” Mag said. “Amun’s up to the neck in Heir duties, and Axie is, well… Axie. You know how they are. Coaxing them out before their presence is necessary will be difficult.”
“What if chaos is the goal?” Lyriat said, rubbing at his temples. “To wreak havoc and confusion, and force us into these pointless conversations that go ‘round and ‘round to keep us distracted?”
“Distracted from what, exactly?” Mag pushed from the railing to sit on the foot of Vann’s lounge. “There doesn’t seem to be a damned thing going on elsewhere.”
“We’ve got an army of Forgotten in the Thodelemaia chasm, dreadbeasts, potential imposters, kidnapping and torture, mass murder.
There’s plenty going on elsewhere. We just don’t know what it is.
” Vann toyed with his box of herbs, a spark of mischief in his mismatched eyes. “Could it be… the Prophecy?”
They all burst out laughing, Mag shoving a hand in their brother’s face. “Ach, away with that dragonshite.”
Indeed.
Same as their father and uncles before them, their entire childhood had been built around the Shadow Prophecy—a manic poem of pending doom delivered to their grandfather, Emperor Stennyx, by an oracle of unknown origins.
Battle training and constant lessons, memorization of its claims and time spent theorizing its meaning…
After centuries of anxious dissecting, the only thing her words yielded was the splintering of Stennyx’s mind and family. Brand and his brothers knew better now, wiser with their years, and had long ago decided to put it in its place—little more than a joke, used to cover all manner of sadness.
No Daughters being born since was mere coincidence. Plenty of creatures didn’t have female babes, and ‘gender’ was almost irrelevant in Bordoroth anyway.
Truth was, this round of shite was just another drop in the bucket of terrible things that sometimes happened—things that had fuck all to do with that sham of a foretelling—and they were well aware of it.
Vann slapped Magnus away, grinning. “Admit it, you toyed with the idea.”
“Never,” Mag countered, puffing up. “Not even when Thad said the same thing a couple weeks ago.” He flopped backwards and crossed his feet, planting them in Brand’s lap. “Light up another and pass it around, Vann. We’re all too sober for this fucking superstitious nonsense.”
“Here, here!” Lyriat called out, brandishing the wine bottle. “To forgetting our troubles for a few hours.”
Brand tamped down his groan, torn between his heart and head. He gave in to the camaraderie but, even as they cackled through the night to welcome the first rays of morning, he was only half there.
The other part of him was across the castle, with Luna.