2. Bad Excitement
Bad Excitement
Fiona swallowed down the blood wine. Who was she kidding?
She chugged it. It wasn’t because she was simply hungry–she was as turning back time had scraped her clean of energy–but also because she felt they had a limited time here in Destiny.
She knew what happened to Eyros and Elgar.
Eyros was besieged by Vampires who killed him and Elgar, in his never ending grief, grasped his Master’s body–or maybe just the head–and dug deep into the earth in Solace not to emerge for thousands upon thousands of years.
And then he was only a shadow of himself.
She knew all that. Eyros also knew all that, because he couldn’t help himself from looking into their minds.
What she feared was that somehow she was a part of why it happened.
Was being here what would cause a breach in Eyros’ defenses and let Kaly in?
She hoped not. Gods, she truly hoped not.
So she needed to figure out a way to get them back to their appropriate time as fast as possible.
There was a light knock on the door. She called out, “Come!”
Charlie popped his head in and gave her an almost bashful smile. “Care for some company, Fifi? I brought some more wine.”
Charlie lifted up a decanter that was all the way full and sloshed it about a little as if to indicate just how much he was willing to share. She swallowed the last few drops of her own and gestured for him to come in.
“Thanks, Charlie. I’m not sure how much energy I’ll need to get us back home so best to be filled to the brim,” she said.
She was seated at a table out on the balcony.
Her view was partially of the sea, but mostly of the vast forest that surrounded Destiny.
She’d been watching two birds–a raven and a falcon, oddly–flying together nearly wingtip to wingtip.
They looked to be having so much fun with one another.
She wondered if such a pairing could work. She hoped it could for their sake.
“For certain.” Charlie shut the door behind him, sat down opposite her and filled up her glass before he gave himself about a quarter as much.
She lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t you need to be fully energized too? We don’t know if we’ll need you to glamourize us into–into furniture or something.”
Charlie let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, this is my second bottle. I charmed Elgar into giving me two. But as for furniture… I did that once! Glamourzied myself into an armchair. You should have seen Horys’ face when he sat down.
He was so angry. Shot me in the ass with lightning. But it was worth it!”
Fiona grinned. She couldn’t help it. “I would have paid to see that. Ah, Horys isn’t around in our time, is he?”
Charlie shook his head. “No, no, that I know of anyways. He did pass.” He sighed and looked mournful, but then shook himself. “Mustn’t dwell! It doesn’t pay to. We have plenty of terrible things we have to deal with now. Might as well not get weighed down by the past.”
Fiona nodded, but found herself saying, “I’m not sure how you do it. Bear the weight of all that’s come before and still be… well, happy.”
“Drink a lot of blood wine.” Charlie grinned, but then said, “To be honest, I sort of made a habit of forgetting. I almost forgot who I was. I kept telling myself I was just Charlie until I believed it at times. It took me a tick to get back to myself back there in Lasting. Not exactly the time to be unclear about one’s powers. ”
Fiona nodded again. “Yes, it was definitely not. I can’t believe we pulled it off.”
Charlie put a hand over hers. “You pulled it off, Fifi. When you needed to. When there was no time left. You did it. That’s why I’m sure you’re going to get us back to our time lickety split!”
Fiona grimaced. “Well, let’s hope.” She downed her wine and he refilled it for her. “I’m not really sure how I did that, Charlie.”
“It was all very exciting.”
“It was at that.”
She lifted her right hand. That was the one she had used to turn back time. She had literally turned the air like one would a dial. The air had seemed almost solid under her fingertips and she’d wrenched it back.
“Do you suppose I do it the same way to go forward? Like spinning a dial?” she asked him hopefully.
Charlie’s eyes went wide. He had no idea. She knew he had no idea. He smiled at her. “Maybe! If that’s what you feel you need to do then do it!”
“The thing was that pulling time back was really difficult and that was only a few minutes. To go forward we need to go thousands of years… well, maybe it’s easier to go forward than back.
” She drained her glass and stuck it out again.
He refilled it. “Or perhaps the gate itself will do the heavy lifting and I just need to do the fine tuning like picking a moment in time to take us back to, which is going to be difficult all in itself, because how will I know what the right time is exactly?”
Charlie blinked. “The Eyros gate to Nightvallen opens up on a hill just outside the city.”
“That’s something. Nightvallen will be empty until Daemon returns and the school starts so hopefully we’ll be able to see the lights on or movement or something like that.”
Charlie bobbed his head. “And if you get it wrong, we can always just use the gate again. You know if we show up and it’s way too far in the future, we’ll just toddle back.”
“Right. Of course. It’ll be no big deal.” Fiona nodded along with Charlie.
They looked like two bobble-head dolls. Both of them stopped nodding and drank their wine. Would it be no big deal? Could Fiona just continue to make mistakes and take them over all creation until they found the right time? She couldn’t see why not unless they ended up some time very bad.
“Eyros said he’d come back to get me in a little while. He had to check some things,” Fiona said, resisting the urge to pace. She needed to conserve as much energy as possible.
“Yes, probably checking the gate to Solace to make sure that’s locked tight,” Charlie sighed.
“He knows how he’s going to die this time. I suppose since he knows that he’s going to come back that makes it a little better?” She made that sound like a question, because it most definitely was.
“Oh, I think if it weren’t for what happens to our dear Elgar, he wouldn’t be exactly all jolly about it, but the future is so much better than being imprisoned in Destiny so he might be a touch okay with it,” Charlie said.
“And we’re all friends again. Daemon is back.
Julian and Christian are there. Plus all the new potential Children.
It’s very exciting in the future, but in a good way unlike here where it’s exciting in a bad way. ”
Fiona cracked another smile. “Yes, I quite agree.” Shyly, she said, “You know… I might be taking on a fledgling myself.”
Charlie’s eyes widened. “Which one of the students has caught your eye?”
“It's not a student.” Upon seeing his confusion, she quickly explained, “It’s Joanna Harrow.”
“Fifi, that’s stupendous!” Charlie was boggling now. “The Prince’s mother! What a wonderful thing!”
“I know.” Fiona couldn’t help the beaming smile that filled her face and made her cheeks hurt.
“She came to me a few months ago to learn more about my Bloodline and we just started to hang out. I had no idea she was interested in Wyvern really anymore than she was interested in any of the gifts. And I hadn’t given a thought myself to taking on a Childe. I…”
She hesitated. Why was it so hard to speak of this?
Until Joanna, she’d felt almost an abhorrence at the idea of it.
Even though she knew that growing her Bloodline was important.
But she told herself she needed to grow it in the right way and her not turning anyone was prudent, not cowardly.
She’d had to deal with her own rogue Mistress and then there was Arcius. Her beloved Arcius.
She hadn’t wanted him to feel in any way deprived of her by taking on a Childe.
So no, she hadn’t been planning on it at all.
But then Joanna had come and… well, the rest really was history.
Yet, here she was: throat tight, words stuck there, feeling like she might cry and not necessarily happy tears even though Joanna made her feel unmitigated joy.
“You lost a lot of them in the War, Fifi. That leaves a mark.” Charlie patted her hand.
“You know, I can’t remember it, but I can.
Like the echo of a scream? It’s so strange.
You would think because I can at least remember the pain of it that I should want to remember the rest, but I can’t seem to make myself do it,” she admitted a little shamefacedly.
“You must think we’re all such cowards in comparison to you. ”
“What? Why would I think that?”
“You kept going, Charlie. We died and were reborn. We’re hiding from who we were because we have the luxury of doing so. But you… you have to live with it all,” she said.
“Didn’t you just hear me tell you how I forgot myself? Fifi, you have an excuse for not remembering! You died and were reborn. Your soul went into a human body. You lived a wholly other life while I–well, I just…” His voice died off. “I was just Charlie.”
It was her turn to take his hand. “Just Charlie? I’ll have you know that the Mirryr adore you. You kept them together. You took care of them. Everyone says so. In fact, I rather worried how you would take it when Mirryr did return.”
“Oh?” Charlie cough-laughed. “Would I feel replaced? Put out? The great Mirryr returns!”
“Yes, I rather did think that. You’d done all the hard work for your Bloodline and then Mirryr was going to take all the credit for it,” she explained.
He tilted his head to the side and looked at her fondly. “How kind of you to think that, Fifi. You thought I was just a little person after all, but you still cared.”
“I’m just a little person.” She shook her head. “I mean I still feel that. A singular Vampire. Not very well liked. Standoffish. I only had any standing or friends because of the Order. And the latter was really because of Arcius.”