by T. A. Miles
The library also would be getting another visit, and he would have to find a way to have some closure with Sethaniel. It would be foolish to believe that he might see him often after this, if at all. The gods had given him this, returning a small portion of what he had foolishly flung aside, directly into the awaiting hands of a demon.
For a fleeting instant, it crossed Korsten’s mind that he might have led the demon to Renmyr and thus destroyed an entire family, not to mention all of the families lost when Haddowyn was taken. But then he recalled what Ashwin had said about someone having led the demon to a descendant of its previous host. Ashwin made it sound as if it was deliberate, in the same way Adrea and other priests had tried tracing the bloodline of the Rottherlen family.
His mind went next to Ecland, who had openly admitted to betraying the Vassenleigh Order. Why? Again, Korsten could only wonder what the other priest had gained. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been enough for Ecland to have given away every secret of the Vassenleigh Order. Korsten recalled starkly, the moment Renmyr had tried taking his blood and how confused and angry he’d been to find the most substantial element of it hidden from his demon perception.
Korsten’s mind might have continued down that path, had someone not placed themselves in his peripheral view by sitting in the chair beside him. He didn’t have to look at Lerissa to know it was her.
The blond priest began stroking her fingers idly through his hair at once. “Well, my lovely,” she said. “It seems clear that the three of us ought to make our way back to Vassenleigh.”
Korsten began to nod absently, but then stopped, glancing in Lerissa’s direction. “I can’t yet.”
“No?”
“No,” Korsten replied. “I left Merran in Indhovan, along with Vlas and Cayri…”
“I know Vlas,” Lerissa inserted.
Korsten continued. “With Morenne verging on making its way down the coast from Sarily. I have to go back there first.”
Lerissa’s finger-combing paused and she leaned her head forward to get a better view of Korsten’s face. “Sarily fell? Since when?”
“Since several days ago.”
“Hell’s depths…” she murmured, resuming her futile detangling of Korsten’s curls. “Well, all right, we can go by way of Indhovan. When did this get so long, by the way?”
Korsten looked at her, then at her fingers holding out a lock of hair; the end of it was pinched between them. He lifted one shoulder slightly. “I haven’t any idea. And as to Indhovan, before we leave I’d like to pay a visit back to my father’s library, and I’d like to visit Sethaniel once more as well.”
“Sounds well and good to me,” Lerissa said with a smile, letting his hair spring back into place.
Trimming over the years had been minimal, especially in the last year. Attention had been mostly to keeping his hair out of his face, so the length varied, which meant that all but the foremost layers were getting well past his shoulders. He wasn’t certain that he really cared, so long as—once again—it was staying out of his face. Finding various ways to tie it back had become a habit during his time at Vassenleigh.
Apparently, style had changed for Lerissa as well. Nodding toward her blond head, he said, “I like your hair that way.”
She prodded the tightly wound and wrapped locks. “Being in the field requires a different fashion.”
Korsten smiled at her, though the expression didn’t last when he felt the glare of another. “You look very pretty, Lerissa,” he said while standing, determining to ignore Sharlotte.
Lerissa’s grin followed him to his feet. “Not as pretty as you.”
“I shall henceforth be ignoring you,” he said, then stepped around her chair toward the nearest doorway. He excused himself to Darlevan along his route, then looked to Sharlotte, making eye contact deliberately since she continued to watch him.
He saw her rise to follow him in the corner of his vision. He couldn’t say that he would have any head for confrontation at all, but that had not stopped Sharlotte in the past.
With a heavy inward sigh, he went far enough down the passage outside of the dining room to not be in the direct hearing range of the others, then turned to face the woman following very closely after him. She came at him at such a pace, that he thought she may have intended to strike him.
And strike him, she very nearly did. Korsten’s reflexes responded immediately, bringing his arm up to deflect her swing.
Sharlotte didn’t allow herself to be startled, following through with a verbal attack. “I wished dearly that you would have died in this time,” she said through a clenching jaw.
Her intensity was not quite as disarming as it had been thirty-five years ago. “Clearly, I did not, Sharlotte. Do whatever you must to come to grips with it. I once thought you validated, but now I can see that you’re selfish.”
She tried hitting him again for that, and he found himself with no patience for it. He hadn’t survived an encounter with an archdemon and her horde, only to be antagonized by an irrational grudge from someone who should have been an ally.
That determination made it remarkably easy for him to avoid Sharlotte’s strike, as well as to seize her by the shoulders. When she resisted by trying to take hold of his arms and throw him off, he put her firmly to the nearest wall. She might have kicked him, but he quickly closed the space between them, pinning her with his body.
Sharlotte’s entire form went rigid. “Get off of me!”
Her protest was one of such acute, instant trauma, that Korsten backed away at once. Fear jolted through her blood, and rage beyond even what she’d shown him when she’d left the Vassenleigh Order. Korsten felt it so clearly, that he became explicitly aware of Sharlotte’s soulkeeper in that instant. It drew his eyes to the creature—a brown moth—and in that very moment Sharlotte’s hand whipped stingingly across his face.
The memory of the foil she’d ripped across that same side three decades ago came forward, like lightning to the ground. The Wind spell and the Reach that had followed in the past, tumbled through his mind immediately afterward, leaving him queasy in the stomach. He staggered back a step, but didn’t fall, nor did he get displaced by spell. Sharlotte refrained from casting anything this time, even before Lerissa appeared in the passage and called out her name.
For Sharlotte, that may have been self-control, but Korsten could scarcely see it as that, while he focused on the sensations emanating from her. Her blood raced through her veins and he felt her fear as clearly as if it were his own. It was fear of attack that Sharlotte had demonstrated. More, it was a fear of being rendered helpless to attack.
The sensation was familiar enough to make the queasiness in Korsten’s stomach swell to sickness. The Morennish tower surged forward from memory. His jaw tensed as he swallowed back bile, and he and Sharlotte stood glaring at one another with tears in their eyes. Now, finally, he could begin to understand her. He could see, as she failed to keep the edge on her own glare, that they might have just come to the threshold of understanding each other.
Sethaniel’s library was as good a retreat as any. After apologizing to their startled host, the three priests retired peaceably to the room that had once been Korsten’s private hiding place. He realized now, finally, that it was never private and that it wasn’t exactly a hiding place. It was where he went to be with his father, knowing that Sethaniel would always find him there. Even in the throes of vilifying him, Korsten loved his father. He understood that fully now.
He also understood now that Sharlotte didn’t hate him—though she was far from loving him—but he had become her target for the trauma she had been through as a younger person. Korsten’s arrival seemed late for that, considering the great length of time she’d had at the Vassenleigh Order beforehand, but he doubted he was the first such target. Sharlotte’s appointed enemies were demons, above men, but men as well and especially, for being the instruments of the Vadryn’s will.
In Sharlotte’s world there were few untouch
ables, though clearly Ashwin had been one and Lerissa seemed to be maintaining that status as well. Perhaps Ashwin was no longer untouchable in her mind, because he had been affected—corrupted maybe—by a man who seemed to willingly associate with demons, and to do so intimately. Korsten might as well have come to Vassenleigh harboring a demon and been there to purposefully seduce the only man she respected, and loved…to ruin him. And now, he may just as well have tried to do the same to her, only by force.
Truly, Sharlotte?
Korsten was nearly at a loss to take all of this in. He sat near one of the library windows with his back to the shelf beside it. Sitting on the floor while Sharlotte half-stood, half-sat on the table felt reasonable after their altercation, as he was now terribly aware of just how much taller than her he happened to be. He still would not have considered himself in any way intimidating, but it was clear that Sharlotte had been intimidated. She’d been terrified. With her hands hindered, perhaps she should have been, as he might have been…as he had been when kept in that Morennish tower nearly a year ago.
Sharlotte’s fear in those brief moments had been such a reminder to him. Clearly, those moments had been a reminder to her as well, of an incident of forced violation.
Serawe had threatened to place Korsten under similar threat very recently, and he recalled very clearly how he went immediately for her throat. Sharlotte had been on the verge of similar violence; Korsten had felt it plainly. So now the two of them had something in common, besides Ashwin. The caustic tone of that thought put a bitter flavor on his tongue.
Korsten wished dearly that Ashwin could be present just now. The patriarch’s descendant was not quite the same comfort.
Lerissa currently sat in Sethaniel’s chair, equally silent as her fellow priests. Korsten wondered what Ashwin might have said in this situation and quickly determined that, even if the Superior were also silent, Korsten would have appreciated his presence.
As it stood, Korsten didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t rightly criticize Sharlotte for not telling him about her past; they were hardly friends.
Finally, Lerissa spoke. “I think that the two of you ought to sort some of this out before we go back to Vassenleigh.”
“I’m not going back to Vassenleigh,” Sharlotte said immediately.
Korsten looked up to see Lerissa making a mildly beleaguered expression.
“Sharlotte,” the blond sighed. “We’ve discussed it, and discussed it. Breaking long term is favorable to imposing exile on ourselves. For the sake of others, who rely on all of us.”
Sharlotte rolled her eyes, holding onto a tight frown, but didn’t argue any further for the moment. Instead, she took aim at Korsten. “What exactly have you been doing all of this time?”
She asked it as if she verged on catching him in some manner of lie, and she only required him to condemn himself with his own words. He hoped that his expression let her know that she was not only thoroughly taxing, but she made no sense.
“I’ve been performing my duty as a priest,” he told her. “I haven’t been avoiding Ashwin, if that’s what you’re driving after. One, he’s my life-mentor and it requires us to speak to one another. Secondly, I love him very dearly—and not, I’ll add for your benefit, as a lover. Truth be told, I don’t know if Ashwin has taken anyone since you’ve been gone.”
“Don’t patronize me,” Sharlotte snapped, but as she was only being abrupt and not aggressive, Korsten didn’t bother himself to get further agitated.
“I think what actually needs to happen,” Korsten continued, “is that you need to go back to Vassenleigh and speak to Ashwin yourself.”
“There’s nothing that we have to talk about,” Sharlotte murmured.
Korsten wondered if that was true. It occurred to him immediately after the thought finished that Ashwin probably did know of Sharlotte’s past trauma. It very likely had been Ashwin who helped her to cope with it, much as he had helped Korsten…and maybe that was when she fell in love with him, and insisted on being his only love. Or maybe it wasn’t. Korsten had no actual idea, but he could see that Sharlotte and Ashwin plainly had suffered some form of oversight in their relationship where trust was concerned. She trusted him to not be a danger to her physically, but somehow, she or they had overlooked emotionally.
But Sharlotte wasn’t the only victim in this. Based on what Korsten had lately learned of Adrea, she had passed away relatively recently. Much as it would pain anyone to know, it was possible that Sharlotte was as much a comfort to Ashwin in his grieving as he had been to her during her trauma.
Once again, Korsten found his mental tone more sarcastic than he cared for and once again, he came to the conclusion, that the two of them may simply not have been for each other. It was nothing for either of them to be ashamed over. Misunderstanding was an unfortunate situation of being alive in this world. Unfairly, Ashwin’s abundance of years had better-equipped him to overcome these situations. Sharlotte was young compared to Ashwin, and Korsten was near an infant compared to them both. So, it would seem to make some logical sense, then, that Sharlotte could have come to these conclusions ahead of Korsten.
He tried not to consider how he might respond to someone lauding themselves to him as Renmyr’s lover, after all of this time spent away from him, devising a way to help him—devoting his extended life to that cause. Being replaced was damaging just in idea. He understood where Sharlotte was coming from with that. He truly did. But what more could he do? It wasn’t his responsibility to take care in Sharlotte’s comfort where his own relations were concerned, least of all thirty years beyond it being a relevant point. She and Ashwin had parted ways, on Sharlotte’s insistence. She was being unreasonable.
“We know that the three of us are going to Indhovan,” Lerissa said in the rigid silence between Sharlotte and Korsten. Korsten nodded and Sharlotte didn’t disagree, so Lerissa continued. “We’ll know better what needs to happen next once we’ve arrived there, I’m certain.”
“Yes,” Korsten said. “We’ve a contact there. A man by the name Treir. Presuming the city hasn’t been toppled by the sea, his doors will be open to us.”
“That seems fair enough,” Lerissa replied. “When should we like to be on our way?”
Both women settled their eyes on Korsten in that moment. Sharlotte at least respected the fact that this was his family home, perhaps recognizing that it was an opportunity many priests were not granted after committing themselves to the Vassenleigh Order. He appreciated that, and he did also know that the state of their country and ensuring its future afforded little time for reunion with the past.
“Tomorrow,” he promised them. That would allow him the remainder of the evening to spend in his father’s library before attempting sleep and hopefully finding some semblance of closure with Sethaniel the following morning.
A lengthy stillness settled in the library—perhaps the entire house—after Sharlotte and Lerissa had withdrawn for the evening. Korsten wondered if Darlevan and his wife kept a schedule to match the elder of the house, or if they retreated from the indoors altogether in the still warm southeastern autumn. It certainly felt as if not a soul were awake or present to Korsten’s exaggerated perception. The longer he himself remained awake and away from his dreams, the more honed his senses seemed. Or they were sensitive rather; honed felt a bit too deliberate for all that he had undergone as of late. He was still not in full control of his talents, and at this late hour that could only count for recklessness.
He’d overexposed himself to demons. Pondering the matter drew him to the conclusion that the amount of Allurance he’d been projecting along with Song and finally paired with the casting of Siren was as crying out from hiding in a dense thicket. The beasts looked in his direction now. They knew the vicinity of his hiding place, but they could see neither it, nor him.
How long before they tracked the magic to its source? How long before they made true contact with the vessel and, through exploration and attempts to possess
it, would they locate the rest of him? Had his spell undermined the safeguards of the priest’s way? Or was that not what had happened at all? Would the Vadryn remain ignorant, as insects to firelight, flinging themselves mindlessly at the heat of his blood’s being until they’d managed to destroy themselves in the process?
It was with these questions in mind that Korsten carried himself to Sethaniel’s books and began to look for the more fantastic writings the elder may have been hoarding amid volumes of history, political culture, and social structure. While it was no easy assignment, it was not as difficult as he might have previously imagined, given his lingering perceptions of a dry scholar with little tolerance for dreams of fancy. It was then, as he pulled down a mythological bestiary from an upper shelf, that he reminded himself that his own pragmatism, allowing such views as the essential relationship of myth and history, was likely inherited.
Cradling the book in one arm, Korsten turned through the pages of the volume’s contents until he located an entry titled: Waterborne Serpents, Sirens, and Sea Folk. He bypassed a detailed illustration of a coiling serpent with a beaked head terrorizing a ship and instead ran his forefinger down the text on the adjacent page until he located the topic of sirens. No illustration was provided, but given the information offered, it may have been largely preferred to leave appearances a mystery. The entry stated that along the eastern shores of Edrinor sirens were regarded as bodiless voices on the wind over fitful waters; storm singers was a term that came to mind from childhood.
Korsten recalled that as a child he’d likened them to ghosts…perhaps of those who had died at sea. However, the book was quick to dash his childhood theory of restless spirits, labeling them the Unseen, and also faeries. The songs of these creatures would charm and lure susceptible men and women, leading them often off course, if they were aboard a ship. But more precisely, they would entice an individual into the water, whether from deck or from shore. The victims would then drown, thus feeding the sea and its inhabitants.
