Chapter 9 #2
“What is it, my sweet?” he said, his happy smile spreading. Papa always got jovial after drinking mead.
“I need to tell you something.”
Papa frowned and sat up. “You’d better not tell me you’ve rejected another suitor. The townsfolk are talking. They’re saying you’re out of control. They’ve seen you with a man, only your mother, and I don’t know who this man is.”
“Oh, Papa. I’ve been seeing someone since Tomaso was murdered. I didn’t think I could tell you about him, but now I must.” My heart quivered in my chest, fearing my father’s rejection. “He’s the only man I want to be with.”
Papa’s jaw tightened as if he were biting iron. “Who is it? Who is this man?”
His fingers balled into fists by his side.
Anxious by his reaction, I slid from the chair arm and stood before him. “It’s Lord Balthazar. He’s my true love.”
Papa’s face grew red, and he looked like he might hit me. “You will not be with Lord Balthazar!” he roared. “He’s lived in our village since I can remember, here for lengths of time and gone for equal amounts. Foul deeds happen when he’s here. He’s a dangerous man!”
I folded my arms across my chest. The room had grown chilly despite the fire crackling in the fireplace behind me. “He is the most beautiful man I’ve ever been with—he understands and adores me, Papa, don’t you see?”
“I don’t see, amore! Everyone knows Lord Balthazar. He has a horrible reputation and, most importantly, is dangerous. There are whispers of him and the darkness and danger he carries. People say that he is a killer and a murderer.”
Could the rumors be true? Balthazar had never shown me anything but passion and love.
Gooseflesh rippled over my skin, and I had to look away from the journal.
I turned to Emily. “Can you believe this? How our mother fell for Balthazar—how he ensorcelled her?”
I shoved the journal into her hands, my mind reeling from what we had just uncovered. Balthazar had seduced my mother when she was only sixteen. A sickening wave of loathing coursed through my insides. Wrapping my arms around myself, I rocked as if that could soothe me.
Emily’s voice finally pierced through the silence. “Let’s finish reading.”
“I need water first.” My eyes landed on a ceramic pitcher perched at the edge of Malik’s desk beside a delicate teacup painted with tiny violets. I rose, poured water into the cup—its rim stained brown from years of tea—and downed it in a single gulp. “Want some?”
Emily shook her head.
Setting the teacup aside, I drifted to the window. Outside, the wind howled, shrieking like a wounded creature through the eaves.
“Olivia, come sit with me again,” Emily urged.
Sighing, I returned to the velvet sofa, sinking beside her. She handed the journal back, and with a deep breath, I flipped to another page.
Once more, we huddled together, bracing ourselves for the ghosts of our mother’s past.
My father stood before me and said, “I’m not your birth father.”
I frowned at this and turned the page. Was Mom adopted?
“Why are you telling me this now?” I cried out. “Are you trying to distract me from your fears about Balthazar?”
“Hear me out, child. I’m your adopted father,” my Papa said. “Your mother and I couldn’t have children, so we adopted you. We were in the park—you know that beautiful park with all the statues of gods?”
I numbly nodded but still stood with my arms crossed. I was reeling at this new admission, barely tracking his words. Adopted? Me? My legs trembled like they couldn’t hold me aloft, so I sat on the sofa across from him.
A cascade of sparks shot above the flames in the fireplace, perhaps in keeping with my mood.
Father continued speaking. “So, we were walking, arm in arm, enjoying the park’s beauty, and we saw a baby in a basket with a note. A baby! Can you believe it?”
His eyes shone as he looked at me, but I could barely meet his gaze. How could I be adopted? What kind of parents would give up their child?
Several small blotches stained the page, slightly smearing the ink.
Had Mom been crying when she wrote this?
I turned the page.
Father spoke again. “There was a handwritten note in the basket. And you were tucked inside a blanket, staying quiet, like someone had told you not to make a sound.”
He smiled wistfully as if he were back in the park.
“This is my daughter, Alina. Please take care of her. That’s what the note said.
Your mother and I felt like it was providence smiling down on us.
It was a sign that our prayers had been answered.
” Father wiped at his eyes with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket.
Then, he continued. “There was this dagger in the basket.
Only one man I knew would know about the knife—Giovanni.
Giovanni liked to study ancient antiques, maps, and things out of this world.
“So, we took you home with us, overjoyed to have found you. The next day, I went to Giovanni and showed him the dagger. He paled when his eyes landed on it. He told us that you were a Timeborne who could time travel. But with that, you would unleash the darkness, and that darkness will hunt you and try to kill you.”
Now, Father looked sorrowful. The skin around his eyes pinched, and he looked like he might cry.
“And I won’t lose you to Balthazar. I think he is that darkness who wants to destroy you.
” He clenched his fist and shook it. “There are whispers about Lord Balthazar…They say he is a dark, vicious monster that hunts people and kills them for power. Alina, you must stay away from him. He will eventually grow tired of you and kill you.”
I felt so confused, torn between my defiance and refusal to listen to reason and a niggling fear in the back of my mind. What if Father was right?
I shook my head. He was telling tall tales based on fear.
“What about my siblings?” I asked him. “Are they adopted, too?”
“No, amore. After you came to us, your mother got pregnant with your siblings. But that makes you no less precious to us. We love you from the bottom of our hearts.”
I didn’t know what to think.
I flipped the page, letting it all sink in.
July 18, 1561
I couldn’t stop thinking about what my father had said to me. It bothered and ate at me. How could my father believe that I was a time traveler? How preposterous!
And the foul things he said about Balthazar. I still couldn’t understand or believe what he said. My father has been imbibing in the mead too much. I fear he has lost his mind. But I still loved him.
Later in the day, I was out for a stroll through the park, and I saw it with my own eyes—so horrifying—the man I love, Balthazar, killed another woman.
I was horrified! He strangled her with his bare hands right there in the park!
I don’t believe he knew I was there, for why would he want me to see such a thing?
But, see it, I did, and, without thinking, I ran away, frightened to death!
Balthazar chased me and caught me. It was awful. We had a huge fight right there next to the dead woman.
Balthazar captured my wrists and drew them behind me, holding me with such force that I couldn’t free my hands.
I did not know any man was capable of such strength.
Then, standing behind me, he leaned close to my ear, so close I could feel his warm breath tickling my neck.
He used his other hand to stroke my neck.
Ah, mercy, it was such a torment to have this woman lying there dead while I stood so close to him as he seduced me with his touch.
I am a fool for him. And yet, crazier was how I still desired this man, my evil, despicable lover.
I craved him with an unearthly desire that scared me.
How could this be possible after witnessing such a horrific scene?
I gathered my wits around me and said, “Why did you slaughter that poor woman?”
He said, “She was a bad woman. I saw her kill her children.”
I desperately wanted to believe him, but I had not heard such a tale of a woman murdering her kin in our village. But what did I know? Lord Balthazar traveled in different circles than me.
“My father thinks you’re dangerous. He thinks you are a bad influence on me,” I said, leaning my head against Balthazar, taking solace in his warmth.
“I am nothing of the sort,” he said, caressing my neck and collarbone. “Villagers are afraid of power. I am very powerful.”
“And would you kill me just as easily?” I said, wanting to turn around and beat his chest, but my wrists were held in his iron grip.
His soothing voice landed in my ear.
“I will never kill you or hurt you, Alina. You are my love, my life.”
I saw the dead woman’s blood puddling on the ground. Some of it had seeped near me and stained my shoe. My father might have been right about Balthazar—he was cruel and dangerous. But I was obsessed with him and couldn’t imagine life without him.
“Let me go,” I begged him.
“I can never let you go,” he said. At the same time, he released my wrists and turned me so swiftly in his arms I was dizzy. And then he savagely and brutally kissed me, claiming me with his passion.
I could not resist him. I let him take me away, and we made love through the night like two wild savages.
August 10th, 1561
I have not been able to stay away from Balthazar. He is my soulmate, my very heartbeat.
My father surprised me when I sneaked into my home tonight after midnight. He was sitting in the dark next to the hearth, which still burned with embers from an earlier fire.
“Alina,” he said, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“You frightened me, Papa! I was out getting some night air—I couldn’t sleep.”
I heard Papa’s noisy sigh.
“I am old, but I am not a fool, child. I know where you were. I have been watching you—you were with him, weren’t you?”
My father is a good and loving man, but his watchfulness angered me. “I am a grown woman, Papa! How dare you spy on me!”