Veria swallowed through a nervous lump.
“Since I got back from Barril.”
Andon reacted like the answer was a slap in the face, backing away and looking at her in shock.
“Why...why would you keep that from me?” he uttered.
“I—you stayed here to get away from everything. This! Things with us, and with your fiance and—if I had told you, you would have come rushing back!” she explained in a defensive, flustered rant.
“With good reason, Veria! For my child,” he snapped. “That wasn't your choice to make!”
“It was my choice, Andon!” Veria said. “You weren't there to give the information to, because once again, you decided to run from whatever is happening between us—”
“Oh, this again!?” he scoffed, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. “Just when I thought maybe you had forgiven me for that mistake, since now you have rejected me twice—”
“I have, Andon.”
“It doesn't sound like it.”
“I'm simply saying that I couldn't bring myself to call you back when it was quite obvious that you didn't want anything to do with me.”
“If you had any idea how hard it was for me to...stay in Barril and watch you leave, you wouldn't say that,” Andon said. “Hard to be around you? Yes. Wanting nothing to do with you? Not even close.”
Veria felt her lip tremble as she held back tears.
“I didn't know what to do, Andon,” she said softly, sniffles and gasps for air interrupting her every few words. “I found out Irea was yours...and not two minutes later...I found out I was with child again. I've just been...waiting for you to come back all these months...so I could tell you all of this in person.”
Somewhere in her explanation, the tears had wrestled free and escaped down her cheeks, and sobs had decided to accompany them.
Andon pulled her into his arms. “What are we going to do?” he murmured.
Veria would have said she didn't know if she could talk, but all she could do was cry. She knew it was common to be more emotional when carrying a child, and that coupled with all the stress she had carried along with the child inside her for the past five months seemed to be working together to cause an unstoppable flood of tears.
Andon shushed her and rubbed her back.
“You need rest,” he whispered. “We both do.”
“I need to get home,” she managed through sobs. “I lied to come here. He will expect me back within the week.”
“What is he doing? Keeping you prisoner?” Andon pulled his head back as concern and confusion mixed on his tired, gaunt face. “You are a free woman, Veria. You should be able to leave the castle if you so choose.”
“I don't think he sees me that way,” Veria sniffled as she felt suddenly calm. Was he calming her? “Not now. Now I'm just the carrier for his child. I suppose that's better than being his secret weapon.”
The words came out before she could stop them. He must have been using a light natural state on her to quell her crying so she could rest, and now she was feeling like she could tell him everything. All of her deepest, darkest secrets.
“Secret?” he cocked his head at her. “I mean, I think most of Londess knew you were his weapon. It's not a secret.”
Damn, she thought. It was still on her, she still wanted to talk and she couldn't stop it...
“But we did secret things...” she said softly and matter-of-factly, her voice sounding foreign in her own head.
“We? Who is we?” Andon asked. “The Guard?”
“No, just me and Strelzar,” she admitted calmly, as everything in her brain screamed at her not to keep telling him things. If he would just stop the natural state! she thought. But it was not a complete natural state, and was very subtle—he had probably forgotten he even started it.
“You did secret things...for whom?” he asked, grabbing her elbows, his face concerned and alert now.
“The King,” she answered in a droning, mellow voice.
Andon stumbled back a half step, as if the words had dizzied him, but he kept his hands on Veria, gripping into her arms a bit to steady himself.
“Veria...what did you do for the King?” Andon whispered, his voice filled with fear and urgency.
Stop! she screamed in her head. Damn! This was it...it would all come out now and she couldn't stop it.
“We destroyed the encampment at the Govaland border,” she answered, and Andon looked like he would be sick, reaching one of his hands out for the window sill next to him and leaning his head out the window, gasping for the fresh morning air. His body slumped forward, the weight of her secrets and her darkness now resting on him, pressing him down to the ground like it had done to her for months.
Still, the natural state clung on. And she felt the next answer coming.
“And we killed Ellory Mielyr.”
Andon shot up and rounded on her, his face as angry and horrified as she remembered ever seeing it, except maybe on the ship to Barril when she had accused him of not being a gentlemen.
“You what?!” he barked, his face a mix of anger and confusion and shock and pain.
“The King ordered us to,” she said. “We didn't want to, but—”
“But you'll do whatever he says, right?” Andon spat with disgust.
“But when we got there...Ellory wanted it too.”
“He...he wanted you to kill him?”
“Yes,” Veria said. “He told me to do it. He made a bargain with me. He gave me one of my memories back, in exchange for me ending his life.”
“And what memory was that?”
“The one you took from me.”
Without a word, he turned from her and walked to the bed, sitting down and burying his head in his hands.
“I can't hear anymore today,” he groaned. “I think I've heard enough for an entire lifetime.”
She watched him in silence for several moments as he rubbed his eyes and temples as if they were in excruciating pain.
“You have to go back to him,” he said reluctantly, not able to look her in the face. “And you should hope that child is his.”
Veria's heart would have crashed down into her feet if he didn't still have the natural state in oblivious effect. Instead, she just listened to the words that she didn't want to hear him say in calm silence.
“If he gets mad enough, Veria...the Twin Dragons?!” finally he looked up at her, and he dropped his voice to a harsh whisper. “He will expose the two of you and let the rest of the world do his dirty work. Go. You have to go. Go along with everything he says. I mean it.”
His face was full of pain as he pointed to the door, and she would have given anything to comfort him, but in the natural sate, all she could do was grab her coat and do as he said. She walked slowly, out of the room, out of the inn, and it wasn't until she was a decent distance away, in the stable where the black horse was napping happily, that the natural state broke, being too far away from him for it to stay connected.
Her heart pounded and she filled with all the emotions that had been suppressed under his powers. She ran back into the inn, up the stairs, and burst into the room.
“Veria, what are you doing? You have to go!” he looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes, tears flowing freely down in his hollowed cheeks.
“I will,” she said breathlessly. “But I wanted to say...I'm so sorry.”
“Don't apologize,” he said, his voice weak from crying. “It wasn't your choice.”
“I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Irea, either,” she whispered.
“I forgive you,” he said softly. “I don't agree with your choice, but I understand it.”
A hot stone formed in her throat. “The memory...it was from your point of view, not mine.”
“Since I was present for the same moment, my memory assimilated yours into mine when I took it,” he explained, matter-of-factly. “You know,” he laughed a dark, scoffing laugh, “there have been a few times I've been alone in a room with you and thought, fo
r a fleeting moment, maybe this is it. Maybe we can actually be together and be happy. And that memory was not one of those times, at all.”
“Was today?” Veria whispered, moving toward him.
He nodded. “Yes. But, as I said...fleeting.”
She stood before him and wiped the wet tears from his cheeks.
“We don't know what will happen,” she said softly.
“I think that we are both better off letting this go, finally, and just living our own lives,” he said, his sad eyes boring into hers.
“Is that what you want?” Veria asked, her throat feeling like it had caught fire.
“Veria...” he sighed, reaching out and taking her hands into his as he shook his head in fervent denial. “Absolutely not. But it has been two and a half years of this, and every time we leave each other is more painful than the last.”
Veria dropped her head and stared at her feet. He was right. And she'd had the same thought many times before—wondering if the love was worth the pain that always followed them, that would surely accompany them into any future they would attempt together.
“You really should go,” he murmured. “It's four days back to the castle in Londess. I will leave from Jorriza, which is four days longer by sea.”
“What will you do when you get back?” Veria asked.
“Try to figure out how to tell Emmandia I have a child, I suppose,” he shrugged. “And then go visit my daughter, and try not to be rude to your mother when I do so.”
“Give her an extra kiss from me,” Veria said, feeling a tear run down her face, which Andon brushed away quickly and tenderly. He nodded.
“And then I will have to report to the castle, I'm sure,” he sighed. “Should I ask for an audience with the Commander of the Elemental Guard when I am there?”
“You may, but he will probably just make fun of you the entire time,” Veria laughed through her tears.
“Ah, it's Strelzar, then? Of course the King would not allow you to continue...” Andon said. “Well, how can I check on you?”
“I don't know,” Veria shrugged, her lip quaking.
“I promise I will figure it out,” he whispered. “Now, you have to go, or you'll miss the midday boat in Barril.” He stood and pecked her gently on the forehead, lightly caressing her arms. “Asta prosi noa reuno.”
“Until next we meet,” she whispered, and reluctantly left the room again, wanting nothing more than to stay in his arms and not leave him with his sadness.
Before she had reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard his sobs from the room behind her, muffled by the door and walls, but still audible throughout the inn. She froze in her tracks, unable to move her feet from the wooden floor as the soft, muffled sound filled her ears, then her entire head, and then settled in her chest like shards of ice. How could she leave him? she thought, her own tears and sobs threatening to break free the longer she stood there.
But she knew she had to get back. She had no idea what consequences would await both of them if she were found out...
She slipped the innkeeper an extra gold for forgetting he ever saw either of them, and he tried to refuse again, and only let her go when she took an entire loaf of braiberry bread and a full bag of jewelsnapper jerky, boasting about the quality of the jewelsnapper in the southern seas of Esperan.
As she rode north toward Barril on the steady black horse, full of sorrow and munching the salt-drenched jerky of the 'treasure of the Southern Seas', she wondered what the 'Terror of the Southern Seas' would have for advice and admonishment when she got back to the castle.
-VII-
Strelzar didn't admonish her even close as much as she'd expected he would when she returned to the castle four days later, after another nausea-filled three days on the sea and one day on horse from Solderess to Longberme and then from there to the castle. She had to come up with an excuse to see him, as she apparently had to do for everything lately, which irked her to no end. Browan, after insisting on a full day of rest after her “travels”—if he only knew how much she had actually traveled he'd be furious if he would make her rest for a full day after a two-hour carriage ride—agreed to let Veria take her morning walk through the garden with Strelzar to “share some news from Longberme”.
The morning was crisp and chilly, though the sun was a bright yellow crystal that they had to shield their eyes from as it filled the ice blue, cloudless sky.
“You should have told me, Birdie,” Strelzar muttered in her ear as they meandered through rose bushes. “I could have done it for you.”
“I didn't want anyone to do it for me,” Veria snapped. “Besides, it was easier for me to get away for eight days than it would have been for you to have done. Commander...” she added with a teasing grin and a nudge of his elbow with hers.
“Well, you know, it's only temporary until we can go through an official selection process,” Strelzar said, mocking King Browan's voice and mannerisms almost perfectly, and sending Veria into a fit of laughter.
“Is this what you've done since I've been gone from the Guard? Perfect your impression of King Browan?” Veria giggled.
“No, I did that when you were in Barril, actually,” Strelzar corrected. “This time I've been...studying.”
Veria peered at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “What have you been studying? More memory reversal?”
“Yes, that's where it started, but it's gotten into more than that, dear,” he explained. “I tried to find any other reported or documented instances of Diamond Magers, as few as they are in rank and recent as they are in conception, practicing their skills on others, specifically children. Because of the two reasons I mentioned, I had no luck, but I'm mulling around an interesting theory, nonetheless...”
“And what theory would that be?” Veria asked, cocking her head.
“Another element has a veritable mother-lode of reports of elemental skills being practiced on children, particularly the practitioners' own offspring, and in fact, I hasten to use the word 'practice' as it's such a mundane and practical skill,” Strelzar spoke. “In all of these instances, the younger generation who had been on the receiving end of the skill in question from their parents or elders were exceptionally adept with the skill, and generally within their element as a whole, at an alarmingly young age.”
“What skill is it? What does that mean?” Veria questioned.
“Wind communication. And I think it means that when parents practice elemental skills on their children, they make the child stronger in their element,” he answered. “So, I am now in the process of looking for any other clues to support my theory across other elements—Water, Fire...I'm fairly convinced of my Earth case, though.”
Veria stopped walking and spun on him. “You think—me? Because of—my father?”
“Yes, that's precisely what I think,” Strelzar nodded. “And he must have done it a lot because I've never met anyone as strong or adept at new skills as you, Birdie, and that's saying a lot. You know, the age and all,” he smirked.
“I'm glad for the skill level, I suppose, but I don't particularly like thinking about my father wiping my memories all the time when I was a child,” Veria groaned, taking a seat on a stone bench near a patch of flora bushes, heavy with the full, drooping, amber blooms, each nearly the size of her head.
“Trust me, I completely understand,” Strelzar sighed, sitting next to her. “I doubt I'd even do anything with my findings, as I'd prefer certain skills never be used on children...or anyone, for that matter. Certainly not for the sake of making them 'better'.”
“What if it isn't just practicing on them?” Veria asked, turning her upper body towards him.
“What do you mean?”
“Daloes and Turqa have both mentioned to me that practicing elemental skills while the child is in the womb has resulted in increased levels of energy in the child later in life,” Veria said.
“Then I hope I live long enough to see your children, whenever they start training,” S
trelzar teased. “From what you've told me of your fist pregnancy, all you did was train. And, obviously I know what you've been up to with this one.”
“Strelzar...” Veria sighed. “You will live long enough. Don't stress me more than I already am by making me think about that.”
“Fine,” Strelzar sighed, leaning back in the bench. “I'll try to keep the morbid to a minimum, but I make no guarantees.”
“I suppose that will do,” Veria smirked and leaned back in the bench, as well.
“So, Andon knows everything?” Strelzar asked.
Veria nodded. “Andon knows everything.”
“Birdie...” he murmured her name, shaking his head.
“What?” she asked quietly.
“If he still wants to be with you after hearing all of that, I think you had better listen to him this time,” Strelzar advised.
“I don't think he does, Strelzar,” Veria muttered. “Or at least he doesn't think we can, and I'm inclined to agree with him on that.”
“What idiot wouldn't want to be with you? What idiot wouldn't fight with every thing he's got for you?” Strelzar asked.
“I think we have long since established that I have become involved with a slew of idiot men,” Veria laughed.
“Well, I no longer think Andon is an idiot,” Strelzar said plainly. “And I expect to be proven right on this matter.”
“Don't stick your nose in it, you nosy old man,” Veria warned playfully.
“My nose is already in it, thank you very much. But if you mean don't 'tamper', then I suppose I can oblige. I'm rather fond of watching real love take its course untrifled with. It's like a very long, very satisfying stage drama,” Strelzar mused, closing his eyes both to guard them from the bright sun and to lose himself in his thoughts.
“You like stage drama?” Veria giggled.
“Of course I like stage drama! I'm not an imbecile!” he whipped up to sitting and turned on her with a knavish smirk. “And Morenet—ooooohhhh, Morenet had the finest stage dramas in the world, until I...well, you know.”
“Oh, I know but I like to hear you say it,” Veria said.
“Conned the Queen out of the royal fortune, declared myself leader, ran the mines dry and then sold the kingdom off to Londess,” Strelzar mumbled quickly, feigning embarrassment.
Daughter of the Diamond: Book IV of the Elementals Series Page 6
