Chapter Three #2
Xiathen moved forward. “I assure you no harm will come to either of you,” he remarked softly. “But it means a lot to the Triarc. And to our people, if you would let them see your worth.”
“Fine,” Connor said in exasperation. “Anything to keep the peace.”
The woman acknowledged his reluctant compliance with a nod.
“Please, both of you, stand back-to-back,” she requested, gesturing to Connor and Adrian. Connor looked over at Adrian, who shrugged and walked over. He leaned back against Connor, his warmth bracing him.
“Like an old-fashioned duel without the paces, non?” Adrian murmured. “Relax, you are as stiff as an old wooden marionette. I will not bite, I promise.”
Connor swallowed a retort and reluctantly met Adrian’s back with his own. He was all too aware of the other man’s closeness and the faint scent of an expensive aftershave.
The woman lifted her hands, palms up. “Valour,” she chanted.
The dark-haired man’s voice came again, heavier now. “Valour.”
The child repeated it, and this time it sounded like a warning. “Valour.”
The word hit Connor like a bell strike inside his ribs.
Adrian, standing half a step behind him, went rigid. Connor felt it, felt Adrian’s breath catch, felt the sudden heat of his presence like a spark.
“What the hell did you do to us?” Connor demanded. “Some sort of supernatural bullshit?”
The pale-haired woman smiled then, slow and bright, and Connor didn’t like it. Not because it was cruel, but because it was satisfied. Because it looked like certainty.
“It was inevitable. ” she said, as if she were sealing a pact older than any of them. “So noted. So witnessed.”
She turned her gaze to Adrian, and the room shifted again. Another collective intake of breath, another wave of awe threaded with alarm.
“And you,” she said, her tone changing, gentling without losing its weight. “You too are one of them. You are more than anyone else here.”
Adrian stared at the three as if he’d stepped into a story he’d been told as a child and never believed. “I echo his sentiment.” He jerked a thumb at Connor. “What did you do to us?”
“We simply made you both who you were meant to be,” the older woman said, the words formal, ceremonial, and beneath them ran a current of resolve. “We wish you and your kind well.”
Her eyes flicked once toward the marked sigils carved into the lintel above the door, etched into the stone like scars.
“If the Council of Veils has moved two Valours into our midst,” the dark-haired man added, his voice low, “then they have done it for a reason.”
“And reasons,” the child whispered, her blank eyes fixed on a point far beyond Connor’s shoulder, “always demand payment.”
The woman’s smile didn’t falter, but it sharpened at the edges. “We will stand with you,” she said, and it sounded like a vow and a plea in the same breath. “For as long as we are allowed.”
Then she turned, and her companions followed.
The young girl turned back, her pale eyes focusing on Adrian. “Watch for the shadows,” she whispered, “for they will come to take you away. The dark aches to reclaim one of its own, and all may not be as it seems.”
Xiathen bowed again, deeper this time, as if the act might anchor the world in place. His face had turned a little paler at her words.
And the crowd parted, reverent and shaken, watching Connor and Adrian as though they were both salvation and storm.
Connor stood where he was and felt the room’s hope settle on his shoulders like armour he hadn’t agreed to wear.
Adrian didn’t move either, no doubt digesting what the girl had told him.
But Connor felt him. Felt the strange, quiet steadiness within him, the way Adrian’s body seemed to accept the weight as if it belonged there. He felt it like a hand tightening around the thread between them, pulling them toward a future neither of them could see.
And for the first time, Connor understood why the Triarc and Xiathen looked afraid.
Because he had the feeling being a Valour wasn’t only a function. It was a turning point. And turning points always broke something on the way through.
Finally, he ran a hand through his hair. “What the fuck was that all about?” he asked Xiathen, trying to sound less discomposed. “I feel like I’ve been anointed as a knight or something.”
Xiathen inclined his head, face both hopeful and wary. “That was a blessing for you to become our Valours. Our protectors in this strange world. The Triarc recognised who you both were and deemed you fit to carry that mantle.”
“The Triarc?” Adrian said. “They were quite intimidating. Beautiful, all of them, but rather unsettling. What did she mean, ‘I’m more’? More than what? And who the hell is the Council? And why would shadows be trying to take me away? To where?”
“So many questions I can’t answer yet,” Xiathen said, and Connor decided the Mystic knew far more than he was letting on.
“The Triarc have been around as long as I can remember.
They are ageless. Melanus, the young woman, records the cultures of the people of Utharia.
Cariah is responsible for scribing all the events in our history.
Battles, wars, births, deaths, he sees them all.