by M. D. Grimm
I brooded into my ale and barely noticed what I ate. I felt Aishe’s eyes upon me but I couldn’t bring myself to speak yet. I feared I would activate my magick and burn down the pub. The disgust in Elorn’s eyes was the same as what I’d seen as a child. I’d hidden in a corner when they first came. The five mages from the Hand were large to a child’s eyes. Big like my father. Cruel and angry like my father. To this day I couldn’t remember what was said, only that Master Ulezander was the unbreakable wall between them and me. But I hated my fear, and I’d sworn to myself I’d never be a coward again. Stupidly, I came out into the open, and while I didn’t speak, they’d seen it as a challenge. But before anyone could let off blasts of fire or force, or whatever they planned, Uzzie scooped me up into his arms. His comfort and touch were so foreign as he held me with such gentleness...like the Mother had. He’d taken responsibility for me then, putting his life on the line to save me. The Hand didn’t like it and warned him about me, but Uzzie was steadfast. Now here I was, decades later, going back to the source.
“Do you want to visit Olyvre this evening,” Aishe said, interrupting my brood. “Or wait until morning?”
I shook myself and tried to shove aside my anxiety. “If we don’t see him this evening, I won’t be able to sleep. I can’t put this off anymore.”
“All right.” He set his hand on mine. It was a light, reassuring touch.
The music became louder, faster, and patrons started to dance. I shook my head at them.
“I knew Elder Elorn resided here but I never thought we’d literally run into him.”
“He’s the king’s mage?”
I nodded. “The Queen’s. It’s such a big kingdom, I’d hoped to be swallowed by the masses. Why must the Mother find humor in my misery?”
Aishe gripped my hand. “This is not her doing.”
I snorted but didn’t have the energy to argue. We finished our food, took the horses, and left Illum. I glanced at the directions in Olyvre’s letter before leading us down dirt roads, past numerous farms. Crops swayed in the wind, farm animals bleated or booed or mooed and it was all so serene and calm, I wondered if we had stepped into a parallel world. The sun was beginning to set when we arrived at a modest farm with a small, humble cottage set in the front, the expansive fields in the back. I figured the workers had already left because no one was in sight.
The cottage was similar in structure to our old home, and my gut lurched as memories flashed. I ordered myself to toughen up and rode Lax right up to the porch. I tied the reins to the railing. Aishe did the same. Then I took a deep breath, suddenly hesitant. Did I really want to see him?
Aishe placed his hand on the base of my back. “I’m here.”
I managed a small smile. “I know.” I ran my fingers through my hair and straightened my shoulders before walking up the three steps to the porch. A large, rectangular window dominated the wall and the door sat right next to it. I raised a fist, my palms sweaty. How much had Olyvre changed? It also never failed to occur to me this could all be some elaborate trap, yet I didn’t feel any magick humming, nothing to indicate spells or enchantments.
Oh well. Here goes everything.
I knocked.
A moment passed before the door creaked open. I frowned when I didn’t see a face but then I looked down. A large pair of blue eyes stared up at me out of a round face. Pigtails of brown bordered her face and freckles danced across her nose and cheeks. I barely hid a grimace. Save me from children.
I cleared my throat. “Is Olyvre home?”
“Lyli! What have I told you about opening the door? Especially this late?”
That voice. I knew that voice. Sure, it was a mature voice now, but it was also kind like I remembered, yet sounded slightly exasperated. Obviously this was a discussion that happened often. A strapping seela male came to the door and gently pushed his—what I assumed was his—daughter behind him. He kept the door mostly shut as he focused on me, then on Aishe, then back to me. Before I could speak, I saw recognition flash. His light brown eyes widened, his jaw dropped, and he flung the door fully open.
“Creation’s Light! You’re here!”
I raised an eyebrow, trying to settle my own nerves, trying to see any deception. “You asked me to come.”
“Indeed, I did. But when I didn’t receive an answer...it doesn’t matter. You’re here!” He grinned, and damn if I didn’t see genuine pleasure in his eyes. But there was also caution, which relieved me some. I dearly hoped this brother of mine wasn’t an imbecile.
“I’m glad you’ve come, I really am, Laz—um, Morgorth.”
Happy with his correction of my name, I introduced Aishe. Olyvre blinked in surprise but seemed pleased.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Aishe. I’m glad my brother isn’t alone in that fortress of his.”
I blinked. “How did you know...?”
“Oh.” Olyvre laughed. “One hears a great many things about the Dark Mage of the East. Come in, come in!”
He gestured emphatically, and I ushered Aishe in before me. There was a strange prickle at the base of my neck, and I glanced over my shoulder. A large bird perched on the top of the stables a few paces from the house. The feathers were mostly brown and speckled with grey. It wasn’t an unusual bird around these parts but the intense observation it seemed to give us did create an itch between my shoulder blades. Even as I noticed it the bird launched into the air, vanishing quickly. Narrowing my eyes, I shut the door with a definite snap. We stepped into the parlor where the fireplace was cold. Olyvre picked up the little girl and led us down a short hallway to the dining room. The cottage, though humble, had plenty of room.
“Lyli, this is Morgorth, my brother,” Olyvre said. “Morgorth, this is my daughter.”
I nodded to her and she only stared at me. But when Olyvre introduced Aishe, my mate smiled and held out a hand. She giggled and shook it.
“You’re pretty,” she said shyly.
Aishe chuckled. “Thank you, Lyli. I find you quite pretty as well.”
She blushed and buried her face in the crook of her father’s neck. My brother’s neck. That’s when it hit me: I was an uncle. Fucking A. Clearing my throat, I took the seat Olyvre gestured to, where it sat next to his. He sat at the head of the table. Aishe sat next to me.
“Lyli, go to your room. I’ll read you a story later.” He set her down, and she walked down another hallway, frequently looking back, mostly at Aishe.
When Olyvre turned back to me, I asked, “Your wife?”
A pinched look came over his face. “Dead.”
I winced. “Sorry.”
He waved that away. “You didn’t come for that.”
“No.” But I looked at him. I let myself look at him. He had laugh lines around his eyes and mouth. His jaw was square, his hair a sandy blond much like our mother’s. But his eyes were brown, like mine, and he was stocky, and muscled from manual labor. I could sense he’d had a hard life but he seemed pleased with it despite that.
I couldn’t believe I was sitting at the table with one of my blood relations. It was fucking surreal.
“Tell me what you didn’t in the letter, Olyvre. When did our father find the stone? How do you know he has a stone?”
Olyvre blew out a breath, studying me. Then he stood and got himself a drink. He looked back at us. “You want?”
We shook our heads. Olvyre sat back down and took a large gulp before speaking. “I need to start at the beginning, Morgorth. After... after you left.”
I shifted slightly in my seat. “If you must.”
“Well, after father discovered you gone, he sent us all looking. We obviously didn’t find you. Then, of course, you came back and... We were too preoccupied with putting out the fire to see where you’d gone afterward.”
I didn’t hide my smirk. Flushed with success at finding my magick as a child, I returned to the farm and set our house on fire. But I hurt myself in the process and fear sent me running back into the forest. I c
ouldn’t control my magick then, and it was still surprising I didn’t kill myself with my first few fumblings before Uzzie found me.
“Then, well, we sort of fell apart after that,” Olyvre continued. “Father drank more and brooded. Lazylin tried to take charge, and for a while, the farm held up. Mother was no help to anyone, having been subservient most of her life.” He paused to take a drink. “Father began to disappear for long stretches of time. Once for an entire week. Then he began to be gone for months, and we stopped expecting him to come back. Lazylin, well...you remember him. He was a lot like father, but with a better head for business.”
I nodded curtly. He was one who had enjoyed whipping me.
Olyvre didn’t meet my eyes as he continued. “Anyway, we grew up and lived our own lives, chose our own families. Mother died two years after father stopped coming home. She just gave up, I think.”
“She always was a weakling,” I said, my voice on edge.
Olyvre said nothing, only took another drink. “Anyway, about a week before I sent the letter to you, Derkun came barging in one morning, babbling about Father and a stone of power.”
I sat up. This is what I wanted to hear.
“I hadn’t seen him for several months. The others visit or send letters now and then, usually demanding money since I’m the most successful of them.” There was a note of pride in his voice, and I personally thought it well-deserved. “I tried to calm him down and finally Derkun managed to tell me he’d found father, and father had shown him an emerald. He claimed it was a stone of power and...that father began to do magick.”
I grew very cold even as my magick flashed hot. That bastard didn’t have any right harnessing magick. None at all.
“Derkun was ecstatic. I could only sit there, numb.” Olyvre shivered and finished his drink. He pushed his goblet aside and finally met my eyes. His own held a plea. “I know I ask a lot, Morgorth. But...I’ve kept tabs on you, listening to whatever anyone had to say about the dark mage. I’ve left you alone. I’m sorry to pull you back here. I know it’s the last place you want to be. But...we need your help. Father can’t be allowed to use magick, he just can’t.”
“I heartily agree with you.”
“Besides”—Olyvre rushed on—“what’s the point of having a powerful sibling if I can’t ask for help now and then?”
I snorted. He gave me a shaky smile. I stared at him, noting he was very nervous. He was sweating slightly and eyed his ale now and again, as if wishing for more but denying himself. He wasn’t nervous because of me, not really, then why the behavior?
“Olyvre.” I leaned across the table. He reluctantly met my eyes. “What haven’t you told me?”
“I...nothing.”
I gripped his hand hard and let my magick rise just a tad. I let him see my eyes turn amber, I let him see the glow of my skin. “You’re hiding something, Olyvre.”
He gulped. He glanced at Aishe but I knew he wouldn’t interfere. He probably sensed Olyvre’s anxiety as well.
“Morgorth.” His breath hitched, and I saw, with alarm, his eyes water. “I’m so sorry. I...Father came to see me. It wasn’t Derkun. I haven’t seen our brother in years... It was Father. That’s why I wrote the letter. He demanded I get you here. He wants you here.”
I jumped to my feet. “What?” I said.
“You sold out your brother?” Aishe said at the same time.
Olyvre flinched before rising, backing away. He held up his hands, and when he spoke, it was rushed. “I didn’t want to, but he threatened Lyli. She’s all I have! He has a stone of power, and he threatened to use it on her, to torture her.” His eyes hardened, his fists clenched, and he met my eyes, challenge in his own. “What would you do to protect the ones you love?”
Most of my anger dissipated and the sense of betrayal ebbed. Olyvre didn’t owe me anything. I owed him, actually. He’d helped me escape the hell I was living, and what was I compared to his daughter? I glanced at Aishe. What would I do, indeed, to protect him? The better question was, what wouldn’t I do? The answer was simple: nothing.
I took a deep breath and put a hand on Aishe’s shoulder. His color was up but he seemed to understand Olyvre’s position as well, probably better than I did, even. He glanced at me and nodded.
I turned back to my brother. “Did you see the stone?”
“Yes. He shoved it in my face.” Olyvre rubbed his arms, looking suddenly exhausted. “It was an emerald, that much is true. I could actually feel the power pulsing inside it.” He shuddered. “I didn’t like it, but...at the same time....”
“It called to you,” I said, knowing how seductive those stones could be. “It tempted you to take it.”
Olyvre nodded. “The strangest thing is, I haven’t heard of any mass destruction. It’s as if our father is lying low.”
That scared me more than if he was massacring towns. It meant he was planning, scheming. Then I clicked on a thought. “He’s practicing.”
Both looked at me.
“What?” Aishe said.
I swallowed hard and had to sit down. “He’s a brute, but he’s not stupid. If he’s done his research, he knows what the stones do to their users. He must be fighting the temptation to go full speed and is instead using it slowly, training himself how to harness the power.”
I rubbed my hands over my face, my skin like ice. “I don’t know what stone he has, but if it’s a major one....”
I didn’t have to finish. Aishe certainly knew what that meant, and I was sure Olyvre did as well, because he didn’t ask me to continue.
“He wants you here,” Aishe said softly after a moment of silence. “He wants to confront you.”
“He wants to duel with me.”
Aishe cursed and gripped my shoulder. I barely felt his touch. My father wanted to fight me one-on-one; he wanted to pit his newfound strength against mine, the son who left him, abandoned him, who ruined all his plans. The son he wanted to make into a weapon, one aimed at the world.
I lowered my hands and looked at Olyvre. “Did he say anything else? Did he have a meeting place, a time?”
My brother shook his head. “No, he just ordered me to write the letter. Once I sent it, he left. I haven’t seen him since. But there were a few times I’ve felt eyes on me or on Lyli.”
I nodded slowly. An image of that damn bird came to mind. “He hasn’t gone far. Maybe I can track him, bring the fight to him. I can’t let him have control.” My voice lowered, my magick bubbling below the surface. “Never again.”
A knock at the door startled all of us. Olyvre shook himself before walking down the short hallway to open it. I stayed where I was, looking at the opposite wall, my back to the front of the cottage. My hands were clasped in front of me and Aishe rubbed my shoulder. I felt his eyes on me. Then the voices in the parlor finally penetrated my brain. I stiffened and Aishe tensed, reading me. I knew those voices, and they weren’t welcome, not by a long shot.
“This could get ugly,” I murmured.
“I’m by your side.”
I glanced at him, met his eyes. Nodded.
“You’ve got some nerve coming back here, Lazur!”
I didn’t move, but my magick flared at his use of my birth name, the name of our father.
“Lazylin,” I drawled, lowering my hands. “What an unexpected displeasure. I’d hoped to avoid seeing your face, Brother.”
“I’d hoped never to see yours, either.”
I slowly turned in the chair, taking a deep breath as I did. There they were, all of them except for Derkun and Julyn. They all took after our father in their coloring, Olyvre being the only one to gain our mother’s hair. Black, brown, and pale, the lot of them.
Lazylin, Crystif, and Alyin. My brothers. My tormentors.
I stood, stepped into the parlor. Aishe stayed behind me and to my left. I met Lazylin’s fuming gaze and for a moment, I remembered what it was like to be a child at his mercy: the fear, the pain, the helplessness, the sense of betrayal. Hi
s dark eyes caused my heart to lurch, for my stomach to tighten. He’d certainly taken after our father in color and temperament. He’d once berated me, whipped me, ordered me around. He’d even poured salt in a shallow cut our father made on my arm with his damn dagger. Painful memories spun through my mind, quick and cutting; memories I’d forgotten, memories I’d repressed. They all came up and I felt ill, nauseated. My hands trembled.
I took a breath. I smelled Aishe.
The memories faded... they would never vanish. No, they would be with me for my entire life. But Aishe’s scent settled me, made me remember other memories. I remembered who I was. I was the mate of a courageous dialen, I was a powerful dark mage, and I could squash all of them like bugs. They only had power over me if I gave it to them. Never again.
A weight seemed to lift off my shoulders. I relaxed a little and even smiled slightly. “Well, what a wonderful family reunion. Almost brings a tear to my eye.”
Alyin scowled. “Jokes, Lazur? You dare to tell jokes after you destroyed our family?”
I winged an eyebrow, snorted. “Now who’s telling jokes, Alyie? I greatly doubt what we once had could be called a family. More like a horde. A monster horde.”
My fourth eldest brother reddened. “Don’t call me that,” he said through gritted teeth.
I looked at Olyvre. “Where’s Julyn?” He was our fifth brother, a year-and-a-half older than Olyvre.
He opened his mouth but Lazylin cut him off. “He’s dead. Died two years after you’d gone, the same year as mom. Too sickly. Just another crime we can lay at your feet.”
I blinked slowly, looked over at him and kept my voice cool. “Pardon me?”
Lazylin got in my face, towering over me. He’d always been the tallest of us. “You left, dad left, and the farm suffered. We didn’t have enough coin for food or for a healer. Julyn and mom died because you never once thought of your family when you abandoned us.”
I gaped. I couldn’t stop myself. I just stared up at him, realizing he believed what he said.
“Lazylin, I have no idea what you remember of our childhood, but it was hardly warm and fuzzy.” I clenched my hands into fists, my anger growing. “You do happen to remember whipping me, right? Beating me? Father holding my head under water until I nearly drowned? Me going to bed hungry?”
