by J. McSpadden
Langhorn lifted his eyes to Vesyon's. "It doesn't mean she'll remain that way. We both know blood rage isn't a Praetorian ability. Not a single Praetorian has been able to achieve the level of power and strength Camille did that night," Langhorn said with exasperation. "LeMarc used Camille's power for his convenience, and he'll do so again. Ephidra Lily is something he needs, Camille is the other, and he won't stop until he has both within his grasp. She isn't like the rest of you, and to be honest, I can already see she's unlike the Dai'Cia as well. There's something incredible about her, and LeMarc knows that. He never really wanted Praetorians; he desired a powerful soldier to do his bidding without question, someone lacking in compassion, brimming with ruthlessness. Night Raves are the perfect soldiers in LeMarc's eyes, and Camille was going to be his golden jewel."
"LeMarc will never have her again," Vesyon said with finality. "Not after what he did to Jesabelle." Vesyon's voice croaked as a Praecollection washed over him in a swirl of memories he'd never been able to sufficiently suppress—of Jesabelle's smile, her emerald eyes, and her sweet, soft-spoken demeanor.
He once thought love would bring Jesabelle back, but the hold of LeMarc's tightly wrapped bonds kept her soul out of sight.
"Do you think Camille knows what she is?" Vesyon asked, trying to pull his mind away from the surge of protectiveness building inside him. He blew out a puff of bluish smoke, allowing it to waft in lazy curls up toward the roof.
"I don't think she has a clue, but I do believe her mind will soon awaken to all we forced her to forget," Langhorn murmured. "She'll find out what we did. You understand that, right?"
Vesyon balled his hands into fists. "That's what I'm afraid of."
"I will need to run more tests. It's been too long since I've seen Camille; there is so much I don't know. Only her blood can reveal the truth. Until then, I won't know for certain what will happen. I honestly don't know if this is a natural effect or a side effect from our meddling."
Vesyon nodded in response, but his glare remained fixed forward as though he were no longer seeing the deep grooves of the table from years of use but the memories of long ago playing painfully through his mind.
"She wouldn't have recovered if we hadn't taken her memories Vesyon, you must know that."
Their eyes connected for a mere moment, but Vesyon knew Langhorn's words were a hollow comfort. There'd be no way to see if they'd helped her or harmed her after rescuing her from the clutches of LeMarc. Only time would tell, and so far, the truth was becoming a more substantial burden to bear by the day.
"What about Phillip?" Langhorn questioned softly. To change the subject away from a festering open wound, Langhorn guided Vesyon into a different one.
His grey eyes shot upward to Langhorn's face, a flicker of pain dappled in his features. "Phillip's gone. Charlie decided to stay behind."
Langhorn stared at him for several long seconds, neither betraying emotion nor offering comfort. The mossy glare remained stoic and unchanging. "I'm sorry to hear that. I know how close you were to the General."
Vesyon felt the heat of tears slide down his cheeks, and he couldn't muster the strength to wipe them away. His reasons to fight for his freedom were slipping away, buried beneath the pain of those friends and loved ones he'd lost along the way.
"The village, is it gone?" Langhorn asked, his tone low in cadence and purposefully under his breath.
Vesyon rubbed a hand down his face, ridding himself of the sharp prickling desire to let loose on his emotions and give in to the anguish building within his chest. He nodded, rubbing his thumbs deep into the groove just beneath his eyebrows. "It's rubble. There's no reason for LeMarc to go back in search of Ephidra Lily. I'm not positive if Acher made it out alive—" Vesyon said, stopping suddenly at Langhorn’s sudden intake of air.
"Acher?" Langhorn asked, his tone uncharacteristically sharp.
Vesyon nodded, feeling the weariness of the last few weeks press into his flesh, the heavy weight so evenly distributed across his mind and body that he felt a massive sense of relief just sitting down and closing his eyes for the barest moment. "Yes, Acher was the leak to the crown. I'm surprised your inside man didn't fill us in on that detail."
His tone was clipped and short, with a hefty dose of acidity to it. Of all the reasons to have someone on the inside of the High Court, the greatest was to extract pertinent information. Langhorn had his secrets, mountains of them, and Vesyon would never dream of trying to crack the vault to his chunk of history. It was the current issues that bothered him to no end, the blatant disregard for people around them because Langhorn felt the knowledge was on a need to know basis—he being the only one that really needed to know.
"Well," Langhorn said, his eyes drifting toward the edge of his teacup in obvious misdirection. "It wasn't that important of a detail." He waved in an off-hand gesture as though they were talking about a small disagreement like their favorite color.
"Langhorn," Vesyon warned. He felt his cheeks flame with heat as the black most assuredly slipped from his eyes and down the angular planes of his face. "That small detail might have caused us far more deaths than we had to afford. It would have been helpful to know," he said with a growl, feeling the energetic zip of Praetorian anger surge through his system.
Langhorn didn't seem to mind or notice his change of tone. Instead, the doctor sipped his tea, smiling blandly and without humor in his general direction but remained quiet.
"You aren't going to tell me his name, are you?" Vesyon asked. He drummed his fingers in quick succession on the panel of wood, thumping out a steady purr of sound, but it didn't appear to affect Langhorn in the least.
"My source tells me what I need to know, and nothing more. He told me to be ready to destroy the village when LeMarc started his search for Ephidra Lily. That is the information I needed and what we prepared for. I can't ask him for more than that."
Vesyon snorted in response, lifting a mug of lukewarm tea to his lips. "I don't see how you can expect me to blindly trust someone I don't even know." The tea leaves were bitter and sharp on his tongue, leaving an unwelcome aftertaste coating his mouth. He craved more of the smooth, earthy tang of his pipe leaves but refrained.
The elderly man glared at Vesyon, green eyes sharply piercing. "I haven't once asked you to trust someone you don't know. I have asked you to trust me."
"It's not the same thing Langhorn, you know that."
One green eye peered at Vesyon from beneath the thick tuft of his shaggy grey brows, but Langhorn didn't respond. He nodded and sipped his tea, knowing that to argue with Vesyon on this account would get him nowhere.
"You need to rest, my boy," he finally said, pushing away the empty mug and shifting his weight to stand.
"I don't even know if it's possible to find sleep tonight."
There would be little rest for all of those within the gates of White Wall. It would be impossible to pretend ignorance of a rebellion now well underfoot. The slow game of waiting was now in the past; the fight for freedom had well and truly sparked flame again.
Langhorn tucked his hands into the wide-billowed ends of his sleeves and bowed slightly to Vesyon in a bid of farewell. "Be at ease Vesyon, for the moment at least. You are here, Camille is here, you're all safe." The old man's lips quirked upward in a smile before his slippered feet shuffled him silently out of the dining hall.
"Safe," Vesyon repeated, his voice sounding hollowed and foreign in his own ears. "For the moment."
Chapter Twenty-One
Demons Within
She was breathing so incredibly slow that it hurt Theo to watch. Her chest rose and fell with slight, almost imperceptible motions. His eyes were beginning to ache as he strained to ensure she was indeed breathing. Langhorn had told him she would be alright. "You better not be incorrect, doc," Theo said, gripping the side of the bed, his fingers white from the pressure.
Despite his terror of her never waking, she appeared in decently good health. Her soft porcelain ski
n practically glowed in the room’s lamplight, a sheen of pink across the plains of her cheeks and nose, with a spray of freckles where the sun had touched her most. Every surface of her skin that had been marred during the battle at Romeo had healed, which was beyond incredible—even for a Praetorian.
Lifting the tattered sleeve of his grubby tunic, Theo spotted several scabbed wounds, and a couple of deeper cuts still oozing beneath the layers of bandages. Camille didn't have a single mark on her anywhere. It seemed unnatural even to him, but then again Camille had always been faster at everything.
Growing up together she'd been the faster runner, the stronger contender in hand-to-hand combat, and by far the best hunter. She'd been trapping rabbits and shooting down dinner from the sky at the age of six, and it seemed natural to everyone around her because it's Camille. It wasn't until they pledged their loyalty to the crown by taking the bond that he finally felt he was equal to her. The difference had been night and day; one day he could barely keep up and the next he was pushing past her.
Despite his sudden ability to maintain speed with her, there were still so many things in which he fell markedly behind in. Theo healed rather quickly, but he rarely walked away without any scars. His skin was a field of history; any wound deep enough to gush in blood left a mark of his adventures. The worst was the jagged line from his temple down the side of his cheek, a calling card from an angry Asperian unwilling to die because the High King demanded it.
It had been the first time Theo had questioned his actions so thoroughly that he almost hadn't followed through. Vesyon had saved him from making the final decision, and Jesabelle had carried his bleeding body to the closest village to manage the deep gash as best she could. He'd been more than lucky; if the blade had sliced down his face a hairs width closer to his eye, he would have lost it.
The scar remained and never healed completely, although it lessened its ostentatious display over the years. It reminded Theo to take every order he was given with serious intent. If he half-assed his responsibilities, he'd find a blade or a bullet hitting a more permanent mark. He no longer was one to believe in the fight for LeMarc's kingdom though; his honor and sense of duty lay with Vesyon and Langhorn in the rebuilding of the rebellion. He had his doubts, still. Looking down at Camille's body, barely breathing, he felt that perhaps fighting hand to hand combat for freedom against such a powerful king wasn't the smartest option.
"Dear Ma'Nada, let her wake up. Let her be alright, please dear Mother," Theo prayed. He scooted as close to her bedside as he could, gripping her hand like a lifeline of support. There was no way he'd be able to survive without her; he'd never be able to forgive himself for failing to protect her.
His heart paused in his chest as he watched her breathing stop. "Cam?" He tentatively shook her shoulder. Nothing happened. He stood quickly, kicking his chair out as he leaned over her. Placing one finger beneath her nostrils, he waited for the heat of her exhalation but felt nothing whatsoever. "Camille, damn it, don't you dare die on me!"
Tears fell freely down his cheeks unchecked and without notice. Words tumbled thickly from his mouth as he leaned over her, begging the Mother for help. Her skin felt cold to the touch, as did her medallion. It was wrong but he wasn't willing to accept it; she wasn't going to die, she couldn't.
Thick auburn hair glistened around her head like a wreath of fire about her face, alive and fiercely demanding of attention. He couldn't stop himself from touching it as he spoke utter nonsense to her, running his fingers through the silky strands to feel close to her, to absorb her within him just one last time.
"Cam, please, I can't do this without you," he begged, leaning his forehead upon hers gently, willing her to take another breath. "Please darling, come back." There was nothing, just pure and empty silence.
He heard her then, a soft sigh of breath through her lips, and then, without warning, she was violently awake. "Theo!" She croaked, her voice ragged with weariness and hours of misuse. She jolted upright in bed, almost slamming her skull against his. Her hair flew wildly around her shoulders, creating a lion’s mane of vibrant auburn, cinnamon, strawberry, and ruby to curl about her pallid face. Her eyes blazed with sudden heat, a sharp inky black sliding over the glossy surface before settling into a brilliant emerald with flecks of gold and a ring of forest green encircling the iris.
"Holy Ma'Nada, you're alive," Theo said on a whisper, tears streaming down his cheeks in relief. She appeared not to notice his emotional response as she stared at him, her own expression a mask of shock mixed with a tinge of horror. "What is it?" Theo asked, beginning to take note of a tremor rippling through her body.
"I saw her," Camille said, her voice raspy but firm. "Theo, I saw my mother in Charlie Town."
He shook his head in bewilderment, unable to comprehend what he'd just heard. "You what?"
"I saw my mother!" She repeated vehemently. "She's alive. I saw her face—she wasn't quite..." she said in a rambling mess, her words running into nothing as her eyes glossed over in deep thought. Her lips scrunched into a bow, and he saw her descend into the depths of her mind.
"She wasn't what?" Theo pressed.
Her green eyes turned toward him with such unbridled fear that he suddenly felt desperate to crush her to his chest and rock her into safety. Instead, he took her hands in his and sat as close as he could to her on the bed, slowly coaxing the words lodged in her throat.
"She wasn't herself Theo, but then again, neither was I," she finished lamely as her right hand pressed two fingers to the side of her temple. "How long have I been asleep?"
"A little over a day."
Camille's face lit up with unbridled excitement. "Then she is still there, in Charlie Town!" She burst out loudly without restraint. "We must go; we must find her!"
Theo's eyes squinted at her, trying to assess what it was that she was remembering and why it was suddenly so urgent to her. "Cam," he started gently. "It's not possible for Jesabelle to be in Charlie Town right now."
"She is, I swear! I saw her there Theo, I found her!"
"Cam," Theo started again, coming to a clear understanding of what was happening. "The last time you were in Charlie Town was over eight years ago."
She blinked at him, her head tilting questioningly to one side. "No." She stated it firmly as though it were the most obvious thing in the world that Theo was wrong. "I…I was just with…" she said as a cloud of confusion washed over her features. "I was just—Lunci," she said slowly, as though trying the name out on her tongue. "I was just with Lunci."
Her eyebrows drew together, the long elegant slants scrunching close in seeming desperation to join.
"Anything else that you remember?" Theo pressed, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt. "What happened after being with Lunci?"
"After?" Camille said in a hushed whisper. He watched a storm of panic shift through her features. The sides of her lips twitched downward, twisting her features from hope and surprised shock into doubt and fearful worry. "I was...I saw her. My mother was at Charlie Town."
She said it with such conviction that Theo had no doubt she meant it. "What else?"
"They attacked her Theo." Without warning, her eyes flashed deadly with a surge of black spilling past the fleshy lining of her eyes and into the once bright pink flush of her cheeks.
"Hey sweetheart, it's ok. There's no need to get angry. You're in White Wall. You're safe." His hand extended toward her but stopped mid-air when a snarling growl rumble from the back of her throat.
"Did you know?" Her black eyes locked on him with deadly intent. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as he subtly leaned away from her, his Praetorian response slipping down his spine in preparation.
"Did I know what?" he asked warily.
Her voice rippled with accusation and fury, her body tensing, but fluid in motion, like a predator ready to pounce. "What they did to her? They attacked her. She was their Praetorian! They dragged her out into the street by her hair, stripped her
of her clothes, and beat her. They put their disgusting, filthy hands on her." Camille began to shake, the muscles beneath the skin twitching and shaking uncontrollably as she spoke. "She begged for them to stop, not wanting to hurt them, but they wouldn't listen. They called her a monster, Theo. They whipped her, beat her, sliced into her flesh. They murdered her," she said on a gulp of air, and a slight, croaked hesitation as though she were confused again.
"Cam, I don't know what you are..." Theo started to say, but she turned on him in an instant, jumping out from beneath the sheets of her bed. She stood before him in a blaze of fury, her breaths exploding out of her airways like a charging steed.
"I know what it is they did!"
The infirmary floors were shiny white and brilliantly clean beneath the blooming pink outlines of her toes. She was naked except for a pair of thin cotton shorts and a slim white cotton tank top. The black shock of her Praetorian response spilled like a tidal wave into the fiery red roots of her hairline and down her neck as she stood before him, the rage of her past thrumming through her like an unstoppable fire burning everything in its wake.
Short quick breaths puffed out from between her lips as she glared at him through black, emotionless eyes. The depth of her silence dared him to speak, but he was unable to formulate a single word. He couldn't breathe. A choked cry clawed its way up his throat, but nothing escaped his lips when he opened his mouth wide to scream.
It was then that she smiled—a smooth and unemotional action without an ounce of humanity displayed. It was the most terrifying expression Theo had ever seen painted across Camille's features. "I killed them," she purred, taking slow, menacing steps toward him. "I killed every single one of those treacherous Asperians. The men. The women. The children. They all deserved to die."
Theo shook his head slowly, uncertain of what to do. It'd been a very long time since he'd feared for his life, but as he watched Camille slink toward him, her eyes pure black and swimming in hatred, he felt a familiar panic surge like bile in the back of his throat. She was lost to him, crushed beneath the tangled lies of her past and completely unreachable as the fury swallowed her whole.
