The Darkest of Dreams

by Emigh Cannaday

  “You’re madder than a maenad!” he spat, trying to reign in his breath. “How could you imagine such a thing?”

  “I thought that’s what you wanted from me,” she taunted. “Didn’t you say that the only reason Talvi must’ve married me was that I had a hell of a—“

  “Oh, I can see exactly why you’re his type, but you’re not any ordinary woman! You’re not even human!” he growled. “What are you?”

  She arched her back again, noting the presence of a semi-hard bulge along the left side of his pants that hadn’t been there earlier. She grinned and laughed to herself.

  “I’m not sure what I am, but I think I might be your type, too.”

  “Stop doing that!” he hissed, trying to avoid brushing against her. Annika refused. “I said stop it!”

  “Why? I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  She heard an angry rumble sound from above, and then Heron flipped her onto her back while continuing to hold her down and glare at her. Blood was trickling from his nose, which he wiped on the shoulder of his black shirt. It was almost sunset, and the dim light was making his sun-streaked black hair appear almost red in color.

  “You couldn't pay me to fuck you…” he sneered down at her, with nothing but pure contempt. “And I'll do just about anything for the right price!”

  “Then what are you going to do with me?” she challenged him. “You can’t hold me hostage in here forever! At some point, a bunch of Sanctorum Militum are going to bust in here and take me back home. I’m sure they’ll hit you a lot harder than I can, and this time I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

  “You’re bluffing,” he said, tossing his long hair out of his face. “You’re not worth their time. The Sanctorum Militum protect heads of state and former royalty…not selfish, spoiled little modern girls like you!”

  She laughed to herself and nodded.

  “I know, right? I was surprised too! But Cyril Sinclair said that they’re escorting me home and staying with me indefinitely. I think it has something to do with my name being carved into Sariel’s family tree.”

  There was a sudden mix of unease and awe in his expression as he glanced at the nearby wall made of black granite, and then back at her.

  “Your name is etched on that wall?” he asked in disbelief. “You wrote it on there with the black quill?”

  Annika nodded and gave a prim smile from the floor.

  “Yep. In the upper left section. Except my last name is Brisby. Annika Jane Brisby. I can show you, if you want.”

  “I think you’ve shown me quite enough for one day, Annika Jane Brisby,” he said through his teeth. He turned towards Finn’s desk, searching the rug underneath it for a black ink stain that thankfully wasn’t there, and sighed in relief. Then his head swiveled back to lock eyes with hers. “If your name’s on that wall, that means you’re part samodiva. No wonder your mind went where it did just now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Wood nymphs are notorious for being insatiable lovers.” His shoulders fell in disbelief and he gave her another skeptical look. “But you can’t possibly be the girl Talvi was destined to marry! That girl is supposed to have a child that brings us freedom, and all you’ve done is bring misery! Furthermore, Talvi’s wife should’ve been someone from this side of the veil, not a modern, selfish little—”

  “I’m not selfish! You are!” Annika cried out. Noticing that he’d eased up on his grip, she yanked her wrists out of his hands and rubbed her throbbing forehead from where she’d slammed it against his nose. It was healing quickly, although not quickly enough. “You act like you’re the only one whose feelings matter—like you’re the only one who cared about Talvi and Finn! I lost them too, you know. We all did!”

  Heron frowned and lowered his eyes ever so slightly, trying his damnedest not to show how close he was to crying. He wasn’t a ghost or a demon at all. He was flesh and blood and bone, equally blessed and cursed by his name and his looks. Blessed to be born elven but cursed to be born a man…a man who didn’t know how to express his emotions. A man who bottled them up like brandy brewing in a still. When there was too much pressure, the fumes would explode upon the smallest spark. It made sense why he was so volatile. From what Annika had gathered, he had no outlet besides violence. He had three brothers to fight with, and it sounded like his twin brother Hawk was even nastier than he was. Heron didn’t grow up with sisters to teach him any differently, and his parents Corbin and Weaver were rarely seen without a glass of wine in their hand. They owned a vineyard, after all, so it was easier to open another bottle of wine instead of working through complex and painful emotions. Annika had learned earlier that week that Heron and Hawk’s mother was called Weaver not after a bird, but because she couldn’t walk a straight line. Her real name was Janelle.

  “I’m sorry that you look so much like Talvi and Finn that it makes everyone uncomfortable or upset,” Annika continued. All of the sarcasm and sass had left her voice, and she let herself be vulnerable. “I have a pretty good idea of what that feels like…to have everyone feel worse when they look at you. Nobody’s really talked to me since Talvi…since Finn…since it happened.” She felt another round of tears forming at the corners of her eyes, and she furiously blinked them away. “They don’t let me leave the house or read the paper. You said it yourself, that I’m having the same effect on them as you are. We’re living ghosts. I’ll only make things worse if I stick around. That’s one of the reasons why I’m leaving first thing in the morning. Which reminds me…” She brushed a few strands of her long red hair out of her face and looked up at him. “Asbjorn’s going to help me sort out my inheritance, so if there’s something of Talvi’s that you want, you should probably tell me now. I don’t understand how money works here, though. Asbjorn said I should wait to deal with it until after the trial. If Talvi only gets the minimum sentence of a hundred years then I’m sure he’ll be pissed if I give it all away. But if he gets a worse sentence, then…I don’t know.”

  There was another moment of silence before Heron shifted his weight off of her and sat down by her side. Rather than run away from him, she pulled herself up and sat across from him.

  “I don’t want money.”

  Annika shot him a dubious look.

  “Said no one, ever. You were so bent out of shape when you thought I was keeping everything for myself! You must want something of Talvi’s.”

  Two glittering eyes glanced up at her, and a sullen mouth pressed into a flat line…too ashamed to admit he’d been mistaken about this Annika Jane Brisby, and too proud to acknowledge it with a spoken apology. The only physical evidence of his private thoughts was the faint hint of color on his cheeks.

  “I don’t want money. I want Ghassan.”

  It took Annika a moment for it to register what he meant.

  “You want Talvi’s horse?”

  Heron nodded, then reached into his right boot and pulled out a weathered and dented flask. He took a sip from it, then offered it to Annika. She didn’t hesitate to take a long drink of the refreshing and sweet apricot fairy brandy. For all the trouble that it caused, alcohol still had its redeeming qualities, such as diffusing tension between two parties.

  “Ghassan doesn’t do well without a proper job to keep him busy, and Cousin Ambrose and Althea already have more horses than they need,” he explained, sounding more than fair. “There’s no reason to burden them with a bored and destructive stallion if Talvi’s not going to… and Finn’s not here to manage the breeding or the…”

  He was too upset to bother finishing his sentence. His blue and green eyes glassed over once more, and his lower lip began to tremble.

  “He’s yours,” Annika assured him. “I don’t think anyone will care if you take him, but are you sure you want him? He sounds like a pain in the ass. Finn said he’s broken the fence five times this year. Actually, I think it’s six.”

  A wave of memories filled her head; Finn and Galileo ent
ertaining her with parlor tricks in the backyard, Finn complaining about having to fix the fence yet again, Ghassan’s black nose waking her up the first morning after being introduced to Talvi, and riding with each of them over hill and dale.

  “He’s a pain in the ass because he’s clever and he’s bored. I want to give him the life he deserves. That’s all I want…along with the truth about what happened between the three of you,” Heron whispered. A tear rolled down his cheek, which had healed enough that it showed no trace of Annika’s earlier assault. “I know what the papers have said, and I know the family’s side of the story, but it doesn’t make sense. Whether or not Finn was officially your korvaaminen, he’s the last fellow I’d ever expect to get involved with someone else’s wife, let alone that of his own flesh and blood. He’s so…he’s so proper about things like that! He’s certainly not one to fly off the handle when he doesn’t get his way. I know there’s more to the story than the family’s letting on, but I can’t get two words out of Asbjorn or Cousin Ambrose. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

  Annika took another swig of brandy from the flask and handed it back to Heron. She could leave him in the dark to suffer, or she could enlighten him and maybe let him suffer a bit less.

  “Are you going to testify at the trial?”

  Heron’s blue and green eyes cast her a curious sideways glance.

  “No. Why would I? I wasn’t involved in the ordeal whatsoever,” he replied, and took another sip from the flask before closing the lid. “Why do you ask?”

  Annika chewed on her bottom lip before taking a deep breath.

  “Because it wasn’t an affair, but if that’s what the judges decide, then that’s what the family’s going to let them believe.”

  Heron’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  “What are you saying, exactly? Why would the family intentionally mislead the judges away from the truth?“

  “Because the truth won’t change the verdict…or the sentence. I think they’re trying to protect me. You were right—I’m not completely human. Maybe not at all anymore. I don’t remember exactly what happened between Finn and I, but I’m pretty sure that we…” Annika faltered. Her skin was burning up and she found herself struggling to explain things in a tidy way for him. But there wasn’t a tidy way of explaining it. She reached for Heron’s hand and gazed into his eyes, playing a watered-down montage of highlights from the past ten months since meeting the Marinossians.

  The first thing she revealed was the visit from the unicorn when she arrived in Srebra Gora, followed by adding her name to Sariel’s family tree with the black quill. After that came her wedding day, when Talvi slipped a ring onto her finger that had yet to come off. Then, her strength was increasing, her body was healing at an abnormally fast pace, and all of her senses were expanding tenfold, including the telepathy she was currently using. In the next part of her montage, Talvi was cajoling her into a car with Finn before returning to work, and then Finn was trying desperately to resist the onset of the ovulatory phase of her annual cycle. Toss in a kidnapping by a doppelgänger, being sold to the highest bidder of a coven of vampires and held prisoner in their dungeon, then being rescued and recovering in the warm safety of Finn’s bedroom, and things started to make a little more sense to Heron.

  “Am I to understand that you’re more like us elves than you are like a human or a wood nymph?” He fiddled with the lid of his flask and shook his head. “And you were with Finn during your three days?”

  Annika nodded.

  “So…Talvi and Finn were fighting to the death because you became bonded to the wrong man,” he said softly under his breath.

  “Ultimately, I suppose so,” she frowned. “I don’t know how you’d test for that…to know for sure whether you were bonded to them or not.”

  “I can tell you exactly what it would’ve felt like to you,” Heron said with a rueful grin. “You would’ve known full well that you were married, and you’ll have truly believed yourself capable of being a good wife. You would’ve tried your best to think of no other man. But every time he comes around—the one you’re truly bonded to—your love for your husband will fade into the background. If you haven’t formed that bond with your husband, you’ll make him look a fool. Even if you have bonded to your husband, you’ll still make him look a fool whenever your lover comes near.”

  “Why would that still be a problem?” Annika asked. “I thought the old bond goes away once you make it with someone else.”

  “It’s not quite as simple as that,” he explained, and pointed up at the murals on the ceiling over their heads. “Think of it like this…you would like to paint over this complex artwork and hide every brush stroke that you see. In a perfect world, you would cover most of it with one or two coats of paint and be finished in a matter of days…perhaps a matter of weeks if you’re very slow at the task. Does this make sense?”

  Annika nodded in agreement, watching as Heron’s eyes continued to gaze up at the painstaking imagery.

  “However, we do not live in a perfect world. And in this situation, there is no paint that covers a mural with one or two coats. Instead, you only have a thin, watery whitewash available to use, and you can only complete a single layer of it once a year. You must be patient.” He returned his focus to his companion, giving her a sympathetic look. “The bond grows stronger over time, you see, and it fades the same way. You have to make an active choice to reinforce your decision, whatever that may be. Otherwise, there will always be a force between you that the two of you can’t ignore. It’s a look that you share every time you’re in the same room. It’s the whispers that follow you wherever you go. Inappropriate bonding happens, to be sure, but the shame is worse when it happens in a family as it has in this one. I suppose the pain is deeper as well. I’ve always wondered…”

  Annika scooted a little closer to him, and she knew that he was no longer on the verge of tears. He seemed more analytical in his sadness, dissecting it mentally so that he might understand it better.

  “What did you always wonder?”

  “I was always curious about who feels the pain the most when something like this happens? The couple in question? The lovers who were mistreated? Or perhaps the children that were born of their illicit union? Personally, I believe the wound cuts deepest in those who place the most unrealistic expectations on Mother Nature. She wired us to be driven by pleasure, after all. Yet society often expects the opposite of us.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?” Annika muttered in agreement and took a sip of brandy.

  “Of course that’s the truth—that’s why I’m telling you,” said Heron. “And while it’s true that magic can bend Mother Nature’s rules, nothing can ever break them completely. You were placed in an impossible situation, and you did what you were designed to do. If you can accept that, then you’ll be spared from the pain of unnecessary guilt. There’s no reason to feel worse than you already do.”

  Heron sat back and grinned softly to himself. “If you think about it, it wasn’t Mother Nature who turned us into social outcasts. It’s the fault of a society that works against her…against us. It’s all the guests here today that have us hiding together in this room, is it not? We certainly didn’t ask for their judgment.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, we,” he confirmed. He toyed with his long black hair, smoothing it away from his face. Again, that resemblance to Finn and Talvi overwhelmed Annika’s heart, and she found it aching for the connection that she’d lost when they’d been taken away forever. There simply weren’t many people left whom she could speak to about this topic. Heron gave her a nod of silent understanding. “Isn’t that why you felt safe in telling me your secret about not being human? You chose to confide in me because you know an equally damning secret about my father. Both of them.”

  Annika shifted from her place on the floor, suddenly too embarrassed to look him in the eye.

  “Come now, Annika Jane Brisby…you can’t expect me to believe that you’re
too shy to admit what you know. Not after that depraved scenario you imagined us acting out on top of my brother’s desk.”

  A hot flush bloomed on her skin as she remembered what she’d done not so long ago. It was quickly replaced by the cool, crisp realization of what he’d just said.

  “Your brother’s desk? So then it’s true…Talvi and Finn are actually your brothers?”

  Heron lifted a black eyebrow and grinned just like Finn did when he was about to give in to her pestering. But his eyes were twinkling just like Talvi’s did when he was up to no good.

  “Yes. We have a lot more in common than the shape of our noses and mouths, you know,” he snickered, which only made her blush harder. With every deeper shade of scarlet she turned, his smile grew wider. “Don’t worry—I’m not going to show you.”

  “Thanks,” she squeaked.

  “I do have another question for you,” he said, letting his voice take on a more serious tone. “Aside from Hawk and myself, I thought only my parents and Talvi’s parents knew the truth, so how did you learn of our family’s secret?”

  “Talvi told me the last night I saw him,” she said with a hapless little shrug. “He said his dad only told him because he wanted us to know that we weren’t the first ones to have to deal with this.”

  Heron shook his head and sighed. Not with the weight of guilt or shame, but with an acceptance that he simply didn’t have the power to change the circumstances of his birth.

  “Seeing as how it’s been kept secret for hundreds of years, I wouldn’t quite say that my family has dealt with it. Hawk and I rarely speak of it to one another…not even when Ambrose comes to help at harvest time. He says he’s there to lend a hand, but the true reason is to see how the two of us are getting on. Althea almost never visits, though I can’t say I blame her. She was raised very differently than my father was. I trust you and I are both capable of keeping one another’s secrets safe?”