Tell me!
“CAD, PLEASE…”
Tell me!
The shapes came closer, the ground shook now with their steps. Glowing eyes flared within the muted fog. Searching, sniffing, seeking.
Cyan reached for the babe and took Brynn into his arms. “What am I supposed to do with her?”
“Run. Keep her alive. Train her in aetheurgy. No failure must she possess. You will see me again. Now I must return for the heir of Drenth.” She shoved him as a lumbering creature skulked from the Sea. Valeria raised the golden blade of her family. Of Kalderim. Of the Golden Throne. Of Bliss. “Flee now. GO!”
The vicar turned tail and fled, carrying with him the child and, if the prophecy was true, the fate of the world. The massive daemon stalked forward, thick claws scratching, jaws with serrated teeth. Arms the size of tree trunks…
…the vision ended, Cadrianna stormed awake into a swirling of an ice-cold black and white snowstorm, a woman’s hands on her cheeks, her frozen lips touching Cadrianna’s. Drawing away the cold, the woman released her. The Vision Form fading.
Cadrianna bellowed in the emptiness of the memory, the blistering frost in her body exploding outward. It flew from her mouth as she expunged the hoarfrost in great bouts of clear blue shards. It snowed down all around her.
Savior and shield. She thrashed against the bonds that held her wrists, the chair near to toppling over. “Please no. Please tell me that isn’t so. Brynn. Please…”
A Kanjan elfir was crouched defensively a few feet away, a wheellock pistol in one hand, a knife in the other. Her argent hair swept across her face, a peridot gemstone flickered on a chain across her forehead. The black sucked in the light only to be radiated by the ivory white.
It was the bikrome from the visions. Valeria Dunleith of the Golden Throne of Kalderim.
They were in a rundown room, boards planked across the windows, the door ajar only because there was no door. It was dark, only a single aethecite-powered lantern sitting atop a warped table. Beside the lantern was the Strix, sheathed. She yearned to grab the comforting blade but couldn’t.
She jerked again, trying to yank the chair’s arm from its fasteners, gritting her teeth as she did. “Release me, bikrome.”
A wry smile curled at the edge of the bikrome’s lips. “Not until you cool the inferno inside you, Cadrianna Benld. The song of Nightingale resides in you.”
“What have you done to me?”
There was a hint of curiosity within the bikrome’s bi-colored gaze. “Woke you from the dreams of your past.”
“Lies!”
“Forgive me for leaving you, my love,” came a voice from behind. A voice she recognized, one she both loved and loathed in equal measures. The rebel she was sent to kill, she realized now that she knew the truth. The man moved into her field of vision. “I wanted, no, I tried to save you both.”
It can’t be.
There was no mistaking him, she’d recognize that posture, that swell of shoulder, that curl of hair, the very presence. If a thousand years spanned the time between their last words, she would know him still.
Emre Benld, her beloved husband. Her betrayer.
No, not him. Not now, not here. “Emre?” She couldn’t mask the genuine fear in her. The memories had broken the lies binding her, but her mind still wasn’t ready to concede the truth. “How?”
“CAD, LISTEN TO HIM. STAY. TRUST ME. THE LIES HAVE NOW BEEN BROKEN.” The Strix still lay upon the table, but she could feel the daemon’s sorrow. She tried to call to it, but the blade held firm, as if stuck. “THIS IS FOR THE BEST. I WILL REMAIN. YOU SHOULD TOO.”
“I… I… I can’t.” Nocturne, O Nocturne, why?
“Not all deaths are final, my beloved. You know this all too well.” Emre’s normally loose curls hung about his temples, salted grey flecked his hair. Pentax, he looked as handsome as the day she’d married him. As handsome as the day he betrayed her. “Val, release her. Until she’s ready to see the truth, she cannot help us. Cannot help Brynn.”
“The girl has the Eye, Cadrianna Benld,” the elfir said in naught more than a whisper. “The Eye will lead her back to Eminence. You know what Lu Har desires with such an outcome. The blood of a Nightingale must claim their entitlement.”
“You lured her here? Brynn?” No!, It cannot be her. How?
“She is the Godsblood, Cad,” Emre said. “He needs Nightingale’s blood.” He looked toward the Strix. “Whatever he told you, isn’t true. Everything that man spews is a lie. It’s what drove us apart. It’s what took our daughter from us.”
“You took her from us! With your silence!”
“I did what I had to. Same as you would. It was the only way to save her. To save us. To save Drenth.” Emre put a hand to the bikrome’s shoulder. “It was the only way for us to be here for her, Cad. She needs us.”
‘KILL HIM!’ Lu Har screamed at her in her mind.
No! Stay, Cadrianna. Stay. “You play a dangerous game, Emre,” she said instead, fighting back her warring emotions with everything she had. All her training paled against it. She had to remain strong. For Brynn. But…
“No,” Emre said softly, “this isn’t the dangerous part.” The bikrome sheared the binds on her wrists. “Brynn has the dangerous path. Ours is but a minor obstacle.” He gave his forearm a scratch. “You need to see the truth, Cad. Until then, you cannot help her as I must. I wish you to be by her side when she takes that first step.”
Cadrianna rubbed her wrists. She felt the urge to draw upon her aetheurgy, but also a reluctance. Cadrianna eyed the black daemon blade on the table. Emre was unarmed, all it would take was a burn of aetheurgy and she could have the blade in hand, pressed against her beloved’s neck. The neck of the Gutter King. Then Brynn would be freed.
Her resolve failed her. She couldn’t, not now. Not yet. There had to be truths still yet uncovered.
She turned from Emre, finding it nigh on impossible to face him. “Soon, I expect?” Stay, Cad, stay! He is still your beloved. Don’t fight him. Kill him! No… I cannot. I must!
“Tonight, it all ends should you wish it. I cannot undo what I did. But it was what I had to do. You will understand one day, I hope.”
“Never!” she screamed all while her heart ached. “Brynn suffered because of what you decided.”
But she didn’t, hasn’t at all. Nocturne, were the visions true? Could it be that simple? A spell to make her complicit?
