Chapter 13 #2
Or not. She’d left her sense at the Rivenholde border.
“If you won’t stop her, I will,” Jesstin said, but both Estelar and Ryquin stood and blocked him. “Is this supposed to scare me?”
“It would be easier for you if you simply trusted us,” Ryquin said lightly. “And her.”
Estelar was less diplomatic. “Your assessment of what you’ve seen here, what you’ve been allowed to see, is irrelevant. You’re here because Aelloven needs you to be, but that can change at any time. You are our guest, but that, too, can change.”
The implication could only be clearer if they’d come right out and said they’d kill him if he didn’t fall in line.
Jesstin looked around. There were esguards everywhere, at attention, staring their way. He might take a few of them, but not all of them.
He sat back down and thought about an alternative plan.
With a punch of dark irony, he realized there was only one other person who would care about her well-being as he did, and it was the same person he’d been trying to protect her from.
But when Jesstin searched for Taven a second time, he was gone.
Acheron reminded Taven more of Gennady than Ellie.
The strawberry-haired half brother had a calmness he saw could so easily become rage, and he maintained it with impressive control.
His consort, Dasha, was more discernibly chaotic, either unwilling or unable to hide her disdain for everything and everyone except Acheron.
The man had been ranting about how no one appreciated their magic anymore or cared where it had come from. How children played in blissful ignorance of the histories that had shaped their abilities, or the war being fought daily to preserve them.
“Ellie has to be wondering where I’ve been all these hours,” Taven said when he finally found an opening to speak. He watched her stumble into the pretor’s box—intoxicated. Jesstin was the only one who reacted with any concern. “And the show is starting soon.”
“Yes, wouldn’t want you to miss that,” said Dasha, her words drenched with condescension. “Why delay, Acha? He isn’t a market flea you need to haggle with. Tell him. He already knows.”
“Knows what?” The vague statement shifted Taven’s gaze back to the couple.
Acheron’s sharp look at his consort was too quick to interpret. He fluttered his long eyelashes toward Taven. “You’ve been hearing a voice in your head for years. I know you have, because it was mine.”
Taven cocked his head. Well, that was an interesting proclamation. Two different Rivenholde men had now claimed to be responsible for his clairsight. “An easy thing to say but harder to prove.”
“There is no such thing as clairsight, Taven. There are visions. There’s telepathy.
Your magic affords you neither, not without assistance.
” Acheron leaned onto the wall of the box, his feet crossed.
“I’ve been sending you messages for years.
I could recite them back, if you really require convincing, or you could simply believe what you already know to be true. ”
He’d always suspected the clairsights were coming from something rather than somewhere; the messages were far too apt, too fortuitous, while others’ premonitions were typically more fragmented.
But there were gaps in Acheron’s claim. “If this is true, why didn’t we meet when I came to Rivenholde before? ”
“I needed for you to know the way and to know the obstacles, on your own, before bringing Aelloven with you.”
“All right for me to perish to some unfortunate accident, but not Ellie?” Taven laughed bitterly. “I see.”
“I never said you were expendable,” Acheron said coolly. “That conclusion stems from your own insecurities with my sister.”
“It’s a shame your mother never taught you about your time magic,” Dasha said.
“You could have seen backward and forward in time, seen this entire line of truth in forward and reverse. The fluidity of the unending circle of existence and nonexistence.” She flapped her fingers like a butterfly’s wings.
“You’d have known Aelloven could not have come here before now.
The Aelloven before her trials was not ready.
She’d not yet been broken on the wheel of hardship, ground into the remnants required for destiny’s purpose. ”
“I do know that,” Taven replied, growing hot in the face. Did they take him for an imbecile? “You think I’d have let her suffer so horribly otherwise?”
“No, you don’t,” Dasha said and turned toward Acheron. “He still doesn’t see it.”
“Aren’t you a beacon of clarity?” Taven growled.
“Dash...” Acheron stayed her with a gentle raise of his hand, drawing out the sh in her name. “Taven’s right. The show is starting soon, and we need to be there. I only wanted you to know we’re on your side, where Aelloven is concerned.”
“There are sides?” Taven’s eyes narrowed as he took in Ryquin, Lexsea, and the others sharing conspiratorial looks. He needed to know what the devil was going on in that box. Why Jesstin looked like he’d put his sword to all of them.
“We want you to bond with her. We encourage it. Fate encourages it.”
Taven hadn’t expected that. But could he trust it? “You think we require your endorsement?” Could he trust any of them, now that he knew they’d been manipulating him from afar, for years? Could he even count on his own intuition, when it had been so easily led?
Taven deeply disliked these insinuations.
“You think we’ve been manipulating you.”
“And reading my mind.”
“If only we could,” Dasha said with a tight grin.
Acheron held out his hands as if to say, You got me. “Mal intent isn’t required to meet the definition of manipulation. You wouldn’t trust someone you didn’t know, and if you were aware a stranger was sending you the visions, you’d never have come here, would you?”
Taven watched, his eyes narrowed, as some aerialists in skintight gold uniforms approached Ellie. He couldn’t shake the sense he was being kept from her intentionally, but revealing the depth of his suspicion would render him even more vulnerable. “Why? Why do you want this?”
“There’s a lot you need to know, but we don’t have time now.
Things are moving faster than we anticipated,” Acheron said quickly, with a dark glance at the box.
“But I will tell you this much. Esmeray is not your friend. She worked against you and Aelloven for years, going so far as to bring my sister to Curia Rosedown in secret when she was a little girl.”
“No. No, she didn’t do that. Why would she?”
“To ward Aelloven from mating with you. But as all solace comes at a cost, the payment was Aelloven’s suffering. All those years she spent in torment with the sylvan sadist? Esmeray bought that for my sister. What kind of ‘mother’ enables such a thing? Encourages it?”
Taven was floored by the enormity of Acheron’s claim. It was stunning if true, but it did not harmonize with the Esmeray he knew. “Ellie hasn’t been back since she was taken.”
“Aelloven doesn’t remember visiting.”
“What are you saying, that Esme had her sterilized?”
“Not exactly,” Dasha said sweetly. “Aelloven is only warded from having your child.”
“But why? Why only mine?” Taven had always been good to Ellie, even if their relationship was hard for others to understand. If there was anyone she’d needed fertility protection from, it was her late husband. Had she birthed a child by that man, she’d never have seen it again.
Acheron glanced anxiously at the box again. “While she cannot have your child, she could certainly have Jesstin’s.”
Taven blurted a laugh to cover his dread. Jesstin and Elloven kept returning to each other, over and over. Choosing each other when they didn’t have to. Their behavior confirmed what their words denied. “She has no interest in that cretin.”
Acheron said nothing.
“And he’d never force himself on her.” Taven wasn’t being charitable. For all the heathen’s faults, he seemed to possess some limitations.
“Why would he need to?”
“You’re wrong,” was all Taven could muster. He needed to get to her, to be near her so all these terrible postulations could be dispelled.
“See that we are, or the result will be more than a slight to your arrogance,” Dasha said. “Keep them away from each other. It will be devastating for everyone of the blood, including her, if they get any closer.” She laughed. “Closer than they already are.”
“Why?” Taven demanded. “Why will it be devastating?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Acheron snapped, looking more at Dasha. “She’s going. She agreed.”
“And how am I supposed to keep them apart when your pretor has put them together?”
“For the bond, he had to.” Acheron sighed, but he’d grown distant as the conversation wound down.
His attention was fixed on something in the box.
“We’ve kept them apart all evening, yes?
It’s to prevent the bond from planting roots not so easily pulled.
More of that, Considine.” He clapped him on the back.
“More of that, until the matter is sorted properly.”
All Taven could do was shake his head. Acheron and his insolent lover were unbelievable.
“You’ve spun the cloth of her life for nearly two decades,” Acheron said, no longer as pleasant as before. His words were an arrow, aimed perfectly. “If you’re not up for the task, say so. There are others. It doesn’t have to be you.”
What task? What was he supposed to do? Did they think he wanted the two staying together, that he had any say in it? And what others? “But we could be here for months. Years.”
“Oh, no, it will not take that long!” Dasha remarked. “Just do as we say. When the time comes, and it will come soon, I’ll even kill him for you.” She grinned. “To express our gratitude.”
The brew Elloven had taken in the field had unbalanced her, but she wasn’t as drunk as Jesstin and the others thought. She wasn’t drunk at all. She was remarkably aware. Heightened. Awake. More awake than she’d ever been, yet less attached to the world than she’d ever thought possible.