CHAPTER XI #6
My heart stills from across the table. I catch Elena’s glance, feeling Keane shift in his seat next to me as he drops his hand to my knee.
The damn Bardots, I sigh in my chair.
The family has always been an intrusive one.
Regardless, this is something I meant to speak to Elena about. I was just hoping to do so privately and away from Keane.
Where to even start?
“Etter,” Elena says softy. “Start with Etter. I feel the loss of sadness coming from your thoughts.”
Keane grips my knee hard and moves closer at my side. Desmond watches me quietly from across the table, his eyes narrowed.
“When we last spoke,” I sigh, truly wishing the men weren’t here right now, “you told me that you used to watch me prior to my parents’ death…”
“I did,” she nods.
I hold Elena’s gaze and relive my exploration of the village from the last few days.
“You said that I was happy. Smiling…”
“You were.”
“From what?” I ask genuinely, holding back the cry of emotion as I lean forward on the table.
“I tried to find that happiness in Etter after everything passed. I tried to find a connection to the village that would make me happy of the past life I couldn’t remember.
But it was as if I was viewing the village as someone just passing through might! ”
Keane’s hand on my knee grips me tight, his full body going stiff.
“Your heart moved away from that place a long time ago, Alexis,” Elena replies softly, “do not dwell on the lack of connection.”
“My heart?” I nearly scoff, “or the summoning your brother pushed into me?”
The Princess watches me coolly, her sharp blue eyes fixating on mine as my voice goes delicately soft.
“I couldn’t even find the interest to learn more about my parents...”
Keane’s eyes are boring into the side of my face. I can feel the heat and anger behind them, can feel the way he grips my knee again, willing me to look at him.
But all I can do is stare back at his sister, a sister who always seems to have the perfect explanation for why Troy does the things he does.
Elena takes a deep breath as the air tenses around us.
“I told you before and I’ll tell you all again,” her eyes flick to Keane at my side, “Troy’s summoning of emotions into a being only works if they are willing to receive it. You were done with the village at fourteen, Alexis. You were ready to move on.”
“That can’t be true,” I shake my head, “because Troy’s summoning worked on both Keane and Desmond the second night we spent in Etter.”
Elena’s eyes round in shock at the news, turning from Keane to Desmond next to her as if needing affirmation. I finally have the courage to look back at Keane but notice his gaze is also on Desmond, the two of them grimacing in silent communication.
“Do you want to tell her, or me?” Desmond asks.
Elena narrows her eyes at the same time I do.
“What is it?”
“It’s not that we weren’t without doubts, Alexis,” Keane turns to me slowly, “but we didn’t have the same suspicions as you did in Etter. I think my brother and I were hoping that what we saw of the village was real. Because if it was, we knew how to deal with it and how to move forward.”
“We were both willing to work with the Lord,” the Master Informer adds, “to engage with Troy and Kaven that night with an open mind…”
“Too open,” Keane scowls.
“So it makes sense that Troy’s summoning would work on us,” Desmond continues. “We wanted everything to move smoothly and without conflict. Especially with the delegation from Aireal in attendance. Troy read into that.”
The brothers were willing to receive complacency, they mean. If only for a night.
“And had the summoning continued,” I scowl, not letting either of them get off so easily, “what then?”
“Golem,” the Master Informer shrugs as he turns to the magical creature in the room. “You. I personally think we would have broke through eventually on our own. My only desire was to have a peaceful night without confrontation.”
“Gambles all around,” I scoff, sitting back hard in my chair.
My anger at Troy is now matching that of Desmond’s on the morning they woke. What if they didn’t break through? What if Golem couldn’t use his own summoning to combat Troy’s? Nothing would have come from Etter, then. The brothers would have taken the news we had with indifference.
Ancients.
I shudder to think of Keane’s hollow eyes looking back at me for the remainder of our travels through Woodlands. The thought alone would have had me riding straight to La Cour to greet his brother head-on.
“He will answer for this, Alexis,” Keane says, his voice hard.
He runs his hand up my thigh as I reach for the toddy in front of me.
“Yes, but how much of what he tells us will be truthful?”
All of the siblings remain quiet at the table.
“Something else is on your mind…” Elena adds.
Fucking Ancients.
No privacy at all where the Bardots are concerned.
I sigh and take a swift drink, watching as Stormfall turns his head from the table to look directly at me.
You know already, Storm, I shake my head in apology, as does Hiro.
The Bird of Ash caws in return, reaching his beak for my fingers as I hold my drink.
“I wanted to speak to you about the Ancient,” I look back to the blonde Discerni, “and if you know of a way in which I can block him from reading my thoughts?”
Elena, to my surprise, chuckles before she shakes her head.
“If I knew of a way then I would’ve stopped all the push of thoughts into my own mind.”
The door of the room suddenly opens without a knock.
“There is a way,” a beautiful woman walks into the room with Heysan grinning behind her, “the countless times I’ve tried to fight against my brother in our sleep. He was always pulling out my visions of you.”
Stormfall caws loud from the table, spreading his wings wide as he stares back at Sianoa.
“Hello Ancestor,” the Ancient narrows her green eyes on him, “why has my brother not come to visit me personally yet?
I stare at Sianoa completely befuddled as she stops in her walk, the Ancient unlike anything I could have ever envisioned…
I expected a young woman who resembled Elena, quiet and reserved but with a sharp coolness about her.
The woman who stands before us now is everything opposite of that.
She’s fiery and steadfast, quick in her comments and the presence she holds in this room.
She wears no soft greens or greys like the quiet seers that follow her, and instead is adorned in a brilliant white dress, the fabric shining brighter than the walls around us with her skin colored in a healthy tan.
She has a full and voluptuous body, curving in all the right places as her hair curls around her face in tight blonde ringlets.
Her green eyes are sharp and move over Keane openly and without shame, apparently liking what she sees as the four of us begin to stand.
“He’s moving to wake our brother Nolan, sister.”
Heysan winks at me from behind her, grinning in amusement as he walks around the table. “I’ve told you this four times since you’ve been awake.”
“And I’ve told you more than four times that it will take me fortnights before everything in this Old World begins to align, brother.”
She smiles at Keane and reaches down in front of him, grabbing the decanter of toddy and nearly brushing his chest with her hand in the process.
“So you are the brother to my own champion, King Keane Bardot…”
“An honor,” Keane nods, watching the Ancient as she turns to Desmond.
“And you, Desmond Bardot, Master Informer of the Kingdom of Disce, the third brother who looks over my Elena.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Ancient,” Desmond bows.
“Sianoa, please,” she flicks her hair back from her face. “Ancient makes me feel so old.”
“We are old, sister,” Heysan laughs, also reaching for a drink.
Sianoa huffs and adjusts the bust of her strapless white dress before she takes a close seat next to Keane’s vacant chair. I watch her eye him appreciatively, watch as she crosses her legs and angles her body perfectly in his direction.
Surprisingly, her assessment of Keane doesn’t garner any jealous reaction from me.
If anything, I’m appreciative of her. A part of me knows that if the Ancient has visions of me in her sleep, then she must have also seen Keane in those same visions.
She would have seen the man he is to become, and the look she’s giving him now tells me exactly that.
The King reaches for the small of my back, his head tiling down as I look up at him with a smile.
His glance is slightly curious as I give him a small shrug, truly having no problem with Sianoa’s unabashed glances.
Most women in Gaumond or in our travels look upon Keane with lust, only wanting his power and prestige or the sexual confidence he exudes.
But at least Sianoa looks at Keane with the deepest respect, even if it does come with a hint of flirtation.
Keane’s brows lift in surprise before his lips tip up in the smallest of smirks. His hand moves just above my rear in quiet approval as he motions for us to sit back down.
“You say there’s a way,” I turn to the beautiful Ancient, watching as she nearly downs the full of her drink, “but does it even work? If you couldn’t block Hiro, how can I?”
Sianoa eyes me over her drink, her gaze washing over my face and down my body before she shrugs.
“It works. My brother is just strong. The strongest I’ve ever met. And he’s crafty. If he sets his mind to something, there’s no amount of summoning I can teach you that will thwart him from getting what he wants.”
“Sounds like someone else we know,” Desmond chuckles.
I narrow my eyes on the Master Informer, only prompting him to laugh again.
“But why would you want to block him out?” Sianoa takes another large drink, still eyeing me thoughtfully. “You are his champion, are you not?”
“So he tells me.”
Heysan walks around the small table with his own drink, eyeing me wickedly before he stands behind his sister. He leans into her shoulder as Sianoa drops an ear to him, letting him whisper something so that only the two of them can hear.