“Let's go for a walk,” the oracle said. “We could both use a break.”
They walked, the crunching of leaves and gravel beneath their feet the only sounds they made. Around them the forest kept up a hum of noise from the birds to the breeze and the faint rushing of a stream. After some distance, his frustrations at being unable to master the three stones eased and, in their place, settled frustrations of a different sort. His skin buzzed being this close to Hame, and suddenly he needed to fill the silence with talking or he’d fill it with something else.
“How long have you been an oracle?”
“A long time.”
“You don’t look old enough.” In fact, everything about Hame seemed youthful—his smile, his body, even his demeanor. It couldn’t be easy being an oracle and seeing the things he must see. “I’d say you have barely more than a score of years.”
“I haven’t been that young for a very long time.”
“How old then?”
Hame halted. “I’m four hundred years old.”
He choked. “Really?”
“Give or take a couple of decades.”
“Magic?”
“What else?” Hame looked away, suddenly becoming more interested in the leaves than in their conversation.
“You and Aurelia are the same age.”
Hame nodded, then started walking again. Carn followed after a few steps. He ground his teeth to wear away the jealousy crystallizing within him. No wonder Hame and Aurelia were so close; they’d had an eternity together. He couldn’t compete with that.
He thought about what he would do with a life as long as theirs, of the abilities he could master, and the strength he could gain. One lifetime had always seemed insufficient, and now he knew he didn’t have to settle for just one. What would it be like sharing those lives with Hame? The oracle walked with his head down. Knowing his true age did nothing to dampen Carn’s desire for him. If anything, it burned stronger.
“You must have seen a lot.”
“Sometimes I think I’ve seen enough to last me until the end of time.”
The sad tone in Hame’s voice made Carn itch to take the oracle’s hand. “Have there been many horrors?”
“Too many to count. But that’s humanity.”
It seemed too cruel that this man should be forced to witness the worst of people. Carn wanted to protect him. “Can you ever not see?”
“If it must be seen, it finds a way in. Don’t let it worry you, Carn. This is my purpose.”
“It’s unfair.”
Hame laughed. They kept walking along a barely worn path. Carn didn’t know where they were, but Hame seemed sure. He wondered how long the oracle had been here, and then thought it didn’t matter. He probably knew much more than Carn would ever know. But that got him thinking.
“How much about me do you really know?”
He chuckled. “I get a lot of seekers concerned with how far into their lives I can see. Thankfully, I don't see it all.”
“But with me? You know I have five brothers. You know the village I come from. What else?”
He thought Hame hesitated, a flick of his tongue over his bottom lip. “Apart from you being a witch, nothing really.”
“And my future?”
“Unwritten, for the most part.”
“And the part that is written?”
He stopped. Hame laughed again, only this time it sounded like stalling. “Do you really want to know?”
A fist squeezed his heart. “Yes.”
Hame scrutinized him, while carving his fingers through his hair. He spoke once his hand left his head. “You walk a path between good and evil, and one day you will have to make a choice.”
“That’s it? Hardly seems difficult.”
Hame smiled and shook his head.
“Did I say something funny?”
The oracle looked at him from beneath hooded lids, a look that turned his rancor to hot desire. “How do you ever know that the choices you make are the right ones? They’re just choices, often with unforeseen consequences.”
He took a step closer. “But that’s why you’re here.” His voice came out in a throaty whisper. “To see the unseen.”
Hame’s lips parted, like they were gates opening to welcome a returning conqueror. Carn surged forward, claiming his warm mouth. He moaned, desperate for more as his tongue darted in. His fingers coursed through fiery red hair and his palm cupped the back of his head. Hame pushed him against a tree, his body a crushing weight grinding against him. It had been so long since he’d tasted another man inside his mouth, feeling another’s hungry need rub against his own.
To hell with waiting.
His cock stood firm between them, the friction bringing both pleasure and pain. He wanted the oracle, wanted to take him there on the ground. He wanted to fuck away the past, forget there were centuries between them, and that Hame was a powerful oracle while he was nothing more than a fledgling witch who’d likely never rival Aurelia in her strength.
But he had to stop.
His body screamed to feel naked flesh, but reason cut through the roar. His hands braced against strong shoulders, and he pushed him away, turning his mouth so Hame couldn’t kiss him. It hurt, every inch of him wanting to keep going until he lay sweaty and spent in the dirt with the oracle resting in his arms.
Hame resisted at first, but then stepped back. He couldn’t have felt further away if a wide and bottomless chasm ruptured the earth between them.
“I’m sorry,” Hame said. “I thought…I misunderstood.” He spun to leave.
Carn grabbed Hame’s tensed bicep. “No, it’s not that. I want to. God, do I want to. But I made a promise I wouldn’t until I’d achieved what I set out to do.”
Hame frowned at him, a disbelieving breath stuttering out of his mouth. “You know I don’t care how powerful you are, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “I’d like to believe it, but truly, what you think doesn’t matter. This is something I have to do for myself.”
“I see,” Hame said, in a way that meant he didn’t.
“I bet you were born with your abilities already in place.” He couldn’t possibly know the chest-sucking unworthiness.
Hame snorted and shook his head. “You sound like me back then. How Loic put up with me, I don’t know. Come on, let’s go home.” He turned and walked back the way they came.
Resentment brewed within him, but he didn’t want to be left behind. “Who was Loic?”
Eventually Hame told him the story of his master and how terrible a student he had been. He laughed throughout, but it was obvious the memories stung. That failure—knowing from the beginning you weren’t good enough—never really went away. Loic died before Aurelia helped Hame unlock his abilities.
“What you should know,” Hame said, “is that in the end it doesn’t matter. Sharing a deep connection with someone, that’s what’s important. So even if you never master any of it, it wouldn’t matter to me.”
“I know. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s something I want. You never gave up. Why should I?”
X
The sun had set by the time Aurelia had Liesel to herself again. Their brief meeting when she arrived had quickly been swamped with others vying for their host’s attention. The Baroness could not refuse, so she endured endless gossip about people whom she had never heard of. If Aurelia had been alone with her friend, it would have been a treat, but with these women…
Before long, her cheeks ached from holding a rigid smile. Only when Liesel caught her eye and encouraged her with a knowing wink did it ease into something real. Her friend knew how little she cared for these gatherings. Although she thought her a little strange for it, they nevertheless had a good chat when they later retired alone to Liesel’s rooms.
“I do not understand how you can listen to that drivel.” Aurelia collapsed into a chair.
Liesel laughed and sat with more decorum. “It’s not as bad as all that.”
/> “But it’s all so trivial.”
“What you see as trivial, I see as essential. Without these small details of life, we would be swept away with terrible talk of a world gone mad. Hearing Christine talk tonight—please don’t roll your eyes—I’m taken back to my younger days when life was fun and easy. You’re still too young. Wait until you’re my age.”
Sorrow swamped her exasperation. She’d lived so long already and would continue to do so well after the Baroness had passed away, and yet Liesel had lived to the full, while she had hidden herself away. Her experiences were not those of a normal life, her journey wholly removed from her friend’s, and yet the younger woman seemed wiser.
“Oh, my dear, I didn’t mean to upset you. Are you thinking about your beloved again? There is little joy in loving one who does not return your favor.”
She failed at a smile. While she hadn’t been thinking about Hame, nevertheless he was always there, a part of everything she did.
“I know he cannot love me the way I would like, and I have accepted that.”
Liesel hummed a laugh, which made Aurelia blush. “Whatever you say, my dear. But perhaps some other distractions might help.”
“Being here is distraction enough.”
“I am glad you feel that way, especially as I have two special guests arriving soon.”
Her heart froze inside her throat. She had to cough to get her voice working again. “Oh yes? Who are they?”
“A most beautiful set of twins, young men I met in Dresden. Oh, they are young but such fun; well, one of them is. The other is more introspective, but their eyes. I don’t mind telling you there is something totally enthralling about their eyes. I look into them and feel things I haven’t felt for years. If ever.” The Baroness giggled like a girl a quarter her age, but Aurelia couldn’t muster the same levity.
“I see you don’t approve.”
“It’s not—”
Liesel waved away her attempt at explanation. “I know it’s not seemly, but you wait until you meet them and see how demure you can be.”
The Baroness laughed, and the sound thawed Aurelia’s fear enough to allow her to titter as well. At that moment the two of them could have been ordinary women talking about ordinary men. She tried to hold that feeling for as long as possible, but as the hours wore on and she eventually left Liesel to go to bed, her brothers’ approach filled her soul with dread.
XI
Carn fired another pebble into the darkening sky. Though his skill at doing this had improved immensely, jettisoning the little missiles only made his frustration worse. He’d abandoned trying to complete the original task hours ago and grown weary of waiting for Her Holiness to return.
The vice that crushed his balls every time he looked in Hame’s direction did nothing for his concentration either. As if the thought summoned him, the door to the house opened and out Hame stepped, watching him.
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t look at me like I’m some helpless duckling,” he growled. His belly twisted, but the words had already escaped. It wasn’t Hame’s fault he was useless.
Hame sighed, taking a seat on the grass opposite him. “She’s going to flay me for telling you this, but the trick is to treat them as one. Levitate them, project out your power in one wave that affects all of them, and then set the power to the task, not the stones.”
Iron sluiced through his veins, and his tongue thickened. He didn’t want help. The tone in the oracle’s voice made him feel every bit the dullard Hame obviously presumed him to be. He’d never want him now.
Hame tutted. “You’re as stubborn as Aurelia. Instead of glaring at me like some teacher who’s whipped you, why don’t you humor me and give it a try?”
Carn didn’t speak. Being compared to Aurelia was bad enough, but now he had shamed himself in front of Hame. It would be better if the oracle left.
“I’m waiting.”
Hame could throttle Aurelia. She should be here doing this. Then he could berate her for running off the way she had. But she continued to ignore his summons. They had never gone more than a day without contact between them, but now she’d frozen him out, and his neck ached thinking about it.
Meanwhile Carn’s black mood heated his blood. His tongue pressed hard against the roof of his mouth to curb his impatience. Children and their tantrums did not endear him in the slightest, especially considering the horrors he had to witness on a near-daily basis. But Heaven curse him, he wanted to help this one.
Just when he thought Carn was going to wait him out, he broke his stillness, shuffling his shoulders so he looked human again. He kept the scowl.
He levitated one stone, then the second, and finally the third. Grouped together, Carn kept them steady. He sent them out, slowly, one after the other to circle around him. But as soon as the third started to move, the other two dropped.
Carn snorted like a ram ready to butt heads.
“Don’t get angry. Concentrate.” He would be damned if he allowed Carn to give up on this. “Remember what I said. Set the power to the task.”
Carn pierced him with a thorny glare, but he smoothed his face.
“Try again.”
The stones levitated.
“The power affects them all as one, not as individuals. Feel it push out from you so that whatever it touches moves as the power wishes it to move.”
One stone moved, then the second. The third began to shakily follow the others. The first two dipped a little, but Carn saved them. He ground his teeth together so hard he was in danger of cracking them.
“Close your eyes.”
Carn refused.
Air rushed out of his nostrils. He repeated the order in a flat voice. “Don’t see them; sense them.”
Carn glowered at him, but Hame wasn’t going anywhere. This was about more than Carn mastering some trick; this was about proving to Aurelia he was right.
And reaping the reward of Carn’s gratitude.
Carn’s eyelids closed and his body relaxed. The stones moved smoother than before, using awareness instead of force.
He’s getting it.
And with his and Aurelia’s guidance, he would be a staunch ally.
If Hame kept him on the right path.
“Carn, look.”
XII
Aurelia expected storm clouds to gather on the horizon, heralding the arrival of her brothers into this secluded enclave in the forest. Her jaw ached from clenching. She listened for any disturbance in the hall announcing their presence. She clung to Liesel, going wherever she went throughout the day, holding her hand whenever they sat. Yet for all her closeness, her mind darted elsewhere.
“You are distracted, my dear,” Liesel said for the third time that day, patting her hand.
The gentle tapping brought her attention back into the parlor. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure where my head is at.” She pressed Liesel’s hand gently, just to feel her warmth. Too much of her life happened in the ephemeral, others passing away like wind dancing across a field, buffeting the grass but leaving it unharmed.
A servant appeared and informed Liesel of her new arrivals.
Liesel squeezed her hand. “Oh, they are here.” She bounded up to meet the twins.
Aurelia remained seated, while the others in their little group filtered away, giving her polite but unfriendly nods. She didn’t care. Olivier was about to invade her friend’s home.
They’ve come sooner than I expected.
She forced herself to breathe as panic clawed her spine. Hame had said they would set in action a chain of events that led to the key’s discovery, but she couldn’t stand idle. She’d warn Olivier away from the Baroness and hope his own sense of self-preservation kept him from harming her, at least directly. It grated to know that so much depended on him, that for all his evil, for all his wickedness, he was their savior.
Well, him and Thierry.
She clung to the one consolation that the process assured Olivier’s obliteration.
&
nbsp; She rose from her seat, smoothed her dress and walked to the doorway, her sure and certain footsteps belying none of the tremor in her breast. Olivier and the Baroness, engaged in chatter, ascended the stairs.
Her nails sliced into her palms.
Calm yourself. He won’t do anything so soon.
The Baroness was too low a target. She had no subterfuge, no airs. Olivier preferred a challenge. He went for the biggest, the meanest, the highest. Thankfully so far no one here fit that description.
With Olivier gone, she watched Thierry as he looked around the hall. Her beautiful brother with hair the same coal black as hers, and his hard, unsmiling eyes. He exuded a stone’s geniality now, but she remembered the better times, the few there were. It had been many years since they’d been close, but this acquaintance from afar stirred up old gratitude of when she was a little girl and he’d protected her from Olivier.
If only she had protected Thierry from his twin, then he would have died long ago, perhaps in Etienne’s arms. But then they’d have no hope of banishing Xadrak.
With a veneer of serenity in place, she emerged from the parlor and crossed the floor as Thierry turned to exit. She touched his shoulder.
Startled recognition danced across his eyes. “What are —?”
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Marquise de Villiers.” She held out a gloved hand for him to kiss.
“Ahhh…my name is Tomas.” His eyes narrowed.
They left the castle and stepped into the garden. Once alone, they dropped the facade but along with it went the civility, and they argued about what they usually argued about: Olivier.
Thierry couldn’t give her the assurances she hoped for, and she knew she could not jeopardize the key’s discovery. The best she could do was to preserve what she could. Before long, Olivier joined them, and his presence reminded her that she would follow fate and fulfil the promises made to her mother.
The key must be found, her brothers sacrificed, and Xadrak banished and slain.
Burning Blood: Bonds of Blood: Book 2 Page 14
