Chapter 31 #2
“Right,” David said flatly. “And I’ve been having a party.”
“Bel said there’s a possibility…I might…kill you. Or vice versa.”
Silence greeted this declaration, and Sean gathered the courage to meet those incensed green eyes.
“That’s unfortunate,” David said, each word sharp, “since we sort of, oh, I don’t know, share a soul now.”
“I’m not even sure this prophecy is about me.”
Dragging a hand down his face, David said, “Of course it’s about you. Have you met you?”
“I am not the person they think I am,” he said for the thousandth time.
David sighed. “Do you know what I thought earlier today when I realized they wanted to kill me?” Sean cocked his head, so David went on. “I thought…I get it. I’d kill for him, too.”
He blinked, unsure whether he’d heard right.
“And I don’t even like you that much,” David added.
Unable to stop the laughter, Sean let his tired brain revel in it. There was so little to find amusement in lately. He could at least laugh at himself.
Eventually, silence fell as they sat side by side, an invisible cord connecting them.
“I can’t believe no one told me,” David said. “I thought they hated me because of my blood, but I’m named in this prophecy?”
“I don’t know.” He hesitated. “Can I ask a favor?” David turned to him, but Sean couldn’t meet his eyes. “Will you wait just a little bit to read it?”
“You’re kidding,” David said, full of disbelief.
“They’ve finally decided to send me—us—to Viterra in a few days. I was going to talk to you about it today, but then…”
“I was almost lynched by an angry mob?”
Sean groaned. “I just don’t want our minds muddied by whatever the Sending says when we need to stay focused.”
“They…they’ll let me go with you?”
“I don’t plan to ask permission.”
David nodded, slow and thoughtful, then finally, “Alright. I’ll wait for you.”
“Thanks.” Sean dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I need sleep.”
“I hope you don’t get any,” David said. “Can you leave? We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
With a bitter laugh, he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. See you bright and early.”
Back in his bed—alone, thanks to his current fight with Isobel—Sean stared at the ceiling, reliving everything he’d just read.
Soul bound.
Irreversible.
Sentient alignment.
All at once, a new memory flooded him.
“You—You have betrayed us?” Galadaine said, staring wide-eyed at Meléan.
“This is what my mistress desires,” she replied.
“Your mistress? Who—”
“The Exorcism must die,” Meléan interrupted, “and it never will while its leader lives. There are no other choices.”
“Lhynion,” Galadaine said, moving his dire gaze toward Sean, “you must leave now. Now, brother.”
“I cannot leave you,” Lhynion said, sounding broken. “Either of you. Meléan, please see reason. This is madness you have fallen in with.”
“’Tis not madness. She is a visionary. This is how we win the fight for Viterra.”
“By laying down our swords?” he asked. “Indigo will decimate us.”
“Those are the Queen’s words. Your Exorcism is nothing more than a bid for power and territory. Peace—”
“We are dying!” Lhynion snapped. “Indigo takes and takes, and we are but a shadow of what we could be.”
Meléan sighed. “Pity. I had hoped you would see reason so I need not do this.” She extracted something from the folds of her dress, and Lhynion jolted, knowing she planned to harm him.
“No!” Galadaine shouted, ripping his blade from its scabbard. The sword aimed for Meléan, but standing behind her, Lhynion didn’t step in the way as Sean had been told. Instead, Meléan darted to the side, and the sword plunged into Lhynion’s—Sean’s—chest.
Galadaine’s eyes flew wide. “No. Brother!”
Lhynion collapsed to the ground, and the memory grew hazy.
Galadaine fell beside him and cradled Lhynion’s head in his lap. “No. Please, no.” His voice raised to a yell. “You fix this! Fix it now!”
“How can I fix this?” came Isobel’s—Meléan’s—voice from a place Sean couldn’t see. “This is what she asked of me.”
“This death was meant for you. You are infected! Diseased by madness. Who is this mistress who has beguiled you? She is ripping us all apart.”
“She is the truth. I have only done what I believe to be right. Lhynion Sidera has grown too powerful. The Queen relies on him too much. Indigo is not our enemy, Gal. He has to die, and so does the Exorcism. And you will too if you do not obey. Please just listen to her. I cannot bear to lose you.”
Tears streaked Galadaine’s face as he gazed at his brother, but Sean’s vision of it was darkening. “You made him love you,” he said. “Made him trust you. He was the best of us. How could you do this?”
“I never wanted this! I only ever wanted you. You tried to kill me.”
“You would have murdered my brother!”
Tears weakened her voice. “I thought you loved me.”
Galadaine looked up. Light from the stained glass behind dyed him red and blue in splotches. “Your kiss is a bewitching poison. It fooled me for a time, but I never loved you better than him.”
Meléan sucked in a breath, and her voice hardened. “Well, he did. You should know better than anyone how easy it is to manipulate someone who loves you.”
“I never manipulated you,” Galadaine spat at her. “But I will now.”
“What—”
“I will steal your poisoned kiss and make everything as it should be. Swear him your life.”
The taint was present in Galadaine’s voice, and Lhynion fought to stop him, but he was weak with blood loss and air hunger.
Meléan balked. “But—”
“Do it now, Meléan. You do not live while he dies. You will return this life you’ve taken.”
“A blood oath? No, Galadaine!”
“Do it now!” he screamed. “What you’ve taken will follow your soul through time. Swear him your life’s blood, Meléan. Swear your soul will love his the way he loves you. Swear you will repay this debt, even if in another life. You will die for him the way he would have died for you.”
Meléan’s face dominated Lhynion’s hazy field of vision, and while he shook his head to stop her, she was cutting her hand, swearing on her blood everything Galadaine forced of her—to love him always, to repay this lost life, to follow him through the illusion of time.
The force of the magic she created cocooned him in warmth despite the blood loss.
“Goodbye, brother,” Galadaine murmured. “We shall meet again someday.”
Sean’s vision faded to black, and the memory ended with Lhynion’s life.
Unsure how to broach the subject, Sean decided against speaking of the memory until he’d fully processed it, but everything he’d learned since coming to this realm had inverted.
Galadaine hadn’t killed Lhynion at all. His death had been an accident, a byproduct of a cowardly, disloyal woman and some player acting from the shadows.
The mistress.
Did Isobel know Galadaine had forced that blood oath on Meléan to protect his brother?
Surely not. It left Sean wondering two things: First, why did he feel so tied to Isobel?
Love hadn’t forged this blood oath between them.
Coercion had. So why was he forced to endure the obsessive love Lhynion had felt for Meléan?
Was that part of Lhynion simply impossible to ignore?
Second, why had David ever hated him? Where had that hate come from? Certainly not from Galadaine. He’d loved his brother, and Lhynion had loved him back, right to the very end.
In the days following Sean’s enlightenment of the soul bond, he could see why.
David was not terrible. Once Sean trudged past David’s icy exterior, he discovered a dynamic, complicated, pleasant person.
…Who was giving Sean some major side-eye.
“You sure you want me at your side?” David asked.
They stood near the arms tent at the Border Watch. The place was a madhouse, with people coming and going in no apparent order. The Shamans who ran the Exorcism lorded over the chaos with little supervision, and for a rank so high in the hierarchy, Sean was unimpressed by their lack of order.
Perhaps the lazy or inept pixies were the ones who chose the Shaman path…
“I’d prefer you at my side over hidden in the shadows,” Sean said, strapping a dagger to his ankle.
“I think they’d prefer me dead,” David said, gesturing toward the strangers darting not-so-subtle glares his way.
“Hey!” Sean shouted at them. “Mind your business.”
The strangers scampered away.
Beyond the outpost, the mist rose in a dense gray wall, and Sean’s insides tingled with anticipation. Since the moment Bowenn had mentioned an expedition into Viterra, Sean had scarcely been able to wait. Training was well and good, but this was real. This was why he was born.
“Careful,” David said, his tone light. “You start showing them you like me, this whole place might fall apart.”
“Who said I like you?” Sean asked.
Kywyn, shuffling through some weapons in the arms tent behind him, chuckled. “I see you’ve overcome your differences, eh?”
Sean and David exchanged glances. As agreed, neither of them had told their parents about the soul bond, but their sudden comradeship hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Aunt Blaire grabbed Sean’s face and planted a kiss onto his temple. “It’s about time you two became friends. I always knew it was possible. It’s why we kept forcing you together as boys.”
“Yeah,” Sean said, submitting to her hugs. “It all worked out great.”
David snorted.
“Didn’t it?” Blaire said, then subjected David to the same affection.
“Did she just kiss me?” he whispered as she joined Kywyn in the arms tent, bewilderment lining his face.
“I hope you’re feeling guilty about that time you tried to seduce her in front of me last year.”
David’s lips flattened. “I was just trying to get under your skin.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Which clearly worked, since you’re still salty about it,” he added.
Autumn bounded up before Sean could answer, dressed in the most mortal clothes she owned—a white peasant-looking thing and yellow pants. “You guys ready?”
Isobel followed more slowly, wearing a simple blue dress, her face a tad pale.
“You okay?” Sean asked.
She nodded and touched her stomach. “Just nervous, I think. You ready to see what you’re going to spend the rest of your life doing?”