Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (65 page)

“What happened when you woke up?” I asked, holding back a grin. “Did you try to kill David?”

“Yes. But Drake held me down,” she said simply.

“Did David try to hurt
you
again?”

“He said I didn’t deserve to be alive and that if it weren’t for who I was to you now, he’d kill me again just for the sport of it.” Her face broke into a smile, her eyes distant. “Drake threatened him then—said if he ever said anything like that to me again, he’d rip out his tongue.”

I smiled, knowing how much that would’ve pissed David off.

“I didn’t care what he said, though. I wanted him dead and nothing was going to stop me.”

“What
did
stop you?”

“Aside from being held down by a more powerful vampire?” she said with smirk. “Drake yelled over the top of my screaming—told me that he had a secret to share—about my sister. I stopped fighting him and told him I didn’t have a sister anymore, that Eve was dead, and that’s when he said I did, but she’d been taken by my grandmother Safia and we needed to rescue her.”

“So you knew Safia was your grandmother?”

“Well, I grew up thinking her son Callon Le Fay was my father, remember? I just never imagined that it was actually because my mother was Anandene, but it does explain my witchcraft and my immortality—the combination of witch and vampire.”

“Right,” I said, my eyes wide as I nodded. “I wonder if your birth is what triggered the idea for Safia and Anandene to get their own immortal bodies—seeing that it was possible.”

“Maybe.”

I thought of another question then. “So, all this time, did you know Safia was linked to Drake—her immortality?”

She shook her head.

“Would you have killed her if you’d known?”

She shook her head again. “But, if she had my niece and was threatening to hurt her, I guess I would. So I don’t blame you for doing it to protect your daughter.”

I smiled down at the baby, forgetting all of my problems for that moment as she pushed the bottle from her mouth with her tongue and pursed her little lips, stuffed as a fat pudding.

“Have you named her yet?” Morg asked delicately, braving another inch of closeness.

“Not yet. I thought about naming her for David’s mother, but—” As the words bled through my thoughts, bringing the memory of Arietta and then her death, Arthur popped to mind. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Morg sat to attention, looking around for danger.

I put the bottle down and shuffled forward to the edge of the bed. “I left Arthur down in the cells—half dead. Well, as dead as a vampire can be,” I added.

“Do you want me to go get him?” she asked.

“No, it’s okay.” I turned and laid the baby on the bed. “Hand me that bag.”

Morg grabbed the diaper bag off the bench and placed it near the baby’s head.

“I’ll just change her and take her to Emily, then I’ll go down and heal him up before David finds out what Drake did to him.”

“What
Drake
did?”

I nodded absently, peeling away the very wet nappy from the baby’s skin. “He took him shortly after…” I stopped. That whole story needed to stay in the past. “Arthur betrayed him in the worst way, and Drake promised he would punish him for that.”

“He’s unforgiving in that way—if you betray him,” she said, her head down.

“Well, Arthur certainly suffered.” I wiped the baby clean and placed a dry nappy under her bottom. “But he’ll be okay. Eventually.”

“Not when he finds out what happened to Jason.”

The blood left my face, making it cold. “No one can know about that, Morg. David intends to erase it from his mind—if he ever remembers, and the more people that know—”

“I get it,” she said, her hands up to stop me. “I won’t say anything.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I care about Jason, too, you know.”

I smiled at her, bagging the soiled nappy. “I know.”

***

All around the castle, people were rejoicing. Men that hadn’t been in the branch of Drake’s army that attacked had joined the force to help their King, and not one of them right now was aware of his passing. Knowing him now like I did, I could understand why his people had loved him so much—and feared him. I knew they would grieve him, and I finally knew why so many of them stayed under his reign when I offered them an alternative. I wanted with all my heart to go back up to that tower and piece him back together—live a life with him in it. But it would never be worth the risk that Safia would also live. The spell she used on Jason to connect David broke when she died, as did the spell that gave the spiders life, but what if the spell she used on Drake was more powerful? Older? Maybe it had taken a stronger hold.

Maybe I would resurrect him when the baby was older, I told myself, because it was the only way I could stop my chest from shaking and force myself to hold my head high. Right now, after all that had been undone, my people needed a strong Queen to put our world back together. David needed a strong wife. And my baby needed a strong mother. There would be time to grieve one day, but that was not today.

I walked the halls around the castle as if I’d grown up here, taking turns and tunnels quickly until I reached the stone passage to the underground cells, and stopped. The silence down there was eerie. There were no screams echoing deep within the tunnels. No cries. No whimpers. And it seemed all of the guards had regained consciousness and moved on, but I stepped very carefully just in case, not wanting to crush one of their removed… appendages, as I blended with the darkness down the stairwell.

At the three-way crossroad, it took me a moment to figure out which tunnel to take, but a brief sniff of the air pointed me in the right direction. Arthur was still down here. I could smell him. I just couldn’t actually see anything and had no idea how far down the last cell was.

I shook my hand out and brought the gentle glow of my Cerulean Light to a fingertip, aiming it around in search of a lantern. When I found one hanging on the wall between two cells, I took a quick look around for some matches, realising, with a shake of my head, that I could just transfer my blue glow to the wick.

I wandered forward then with the lantern raised, checking each cell for prisoners that might need to be released, but when I came upon the last cell and shone the light into it, I couldn’t see anyone. I thought maybe I’d taken the wrong passage.

“Arthur?” I whispered.

A soft murmur bounced off the very back wall. His throat cleared then, and I heard my name in a stronger voice than before.

“Where are you?” I could smell his blood mingling with dirt—aged and putrid and slightly dried. If I didn’t love him so much, I would have backed from the cell as the stench licked my nostrils, and made this David’s problem. But I couldn’t let that poor man suffer another moment.

I spotted his shadowy figure and ran to his side, where he lay flat on his back, his arms spread wide, a pool of black blood surrounding his legs. His chest moved rapidly with shallow breaths, like a wounded dog, his shirt and hair soaked with sweat.

Propping the lantern in the dirt by his hip, I knelt over him, smoothing his hair away from his face and wiping the sweat back with my hand. “Arthur. These are fresh wounds,” I noted, taking in the cuts on his face, the defensive wounds on his forearms, and the pool of blood around his legs. “Did someone hurt you while I was gone?”

His head twitched to the right, his eyes scrunching tight, as if he fought the fog of agony to come to the surface.

“I’m going to give you my blood, okay?” I lifted my wrist to my teeth, but as I opened my mouth to bite down, his hand shot up and covered mine, his ice-blue eyes fixed around a plea.

“Bite me, Amara, please—just let me die.”

“I’m not going to do that, Arthur.” I cut my flesh open with my teeth, bringing my bloodied wrist down to his lips. “You’re going to live—”

“I have no reason to live.” He scrunched his eyes tight, arching his back as a wave of pain rolled through him, his fists tight by his sides.

When it settled, he cried for a moment, keeping his eyes closed as he spoke. “I am a disgraced man—”

“No. It’s over. All of it. David will forgive you—welcome you home as his uncle. I know he’s sorry for what happened between you that night, I—”

He shook his head fiercely. “It’s no matter to me now, Amara. I cannot stay here on this godforsaken earth another day. I’m old. I’m tired.” He sounded so weak too. “I want to go home—back into the arms of my beautiful Arietta and our stillborn child.”

“But, Arthur, there’s still good left in this world for you.” I leaned down and kissed his clammy forehead. “You have a great-niece now. I gave birth—”

“I’m sorry, Amara.” He opened his eyes then and looked at me, revealing the depths of the wise man I knew so well. My confidant. My friend. “It brings me…” He strained to get the words out, wincing as he shifted his legs. “It brings me great joy to hear this news, but I’m damaged beyond repair, I—”

“No, we can heal you. We can heal everything.”

“Not the emotional damage.” His eyes went cold again, and he looked upward, the muscles in his face twitching as images moved through his mind, dragging him down to a very dark place. “I just want to die. I beg of you—have mercy on me.”

“Okay.” I rocked back on my heels, bringing myself into a squat, and covered my mouth as I tried to figure out a way past this.

“Ara?” David called cautiously into the dark.

“Back here.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Um…” I looked at Arthur, shaking and sweating, and stood up, walking to meet David at the cell door. “Who told you I was down here?” I whispered.

“Emily.” He tried to look past me; I blocked his view. “What’s going on?”

“Arthur…” I put my hands against his chest to keep him there. “He asked me to kill hm.”

“What did they do to him?” He pushed past me and rushed to his uncle’s side, taking his hand as he knelt beside him. “Uncle?” He shook his shoulder. “Uncle?”

Arthur groaned, bringing himself awake against his better wishes, and looked up at his nephew.

“Uncle, what happened?”

“David, my son…” His weak voice broke at the end. He reached up with his other hand, turning slightly at the shoulder, and as he cupped David’s neck, I saw the patch of darker blood on the seat of his jeans. “Son, forgive me.” He broke down then and rolled his head into David’s lap, sobbing his pleas for forgiveness.

“I forgive you.” David curled around his uncle’s head, kissing his hair. “I forgive you, Uncle. Please. Just let Ara heal you—”

“No,” he whispered coarsely, shaking his head as he came back up again slightly. And feeling the obvious pain, laid back down again. “My heart aches for them, David—every day.”

“For who, Uncle?” David asked, and Arthur looked across the room, his smile landing on the empty space in the corner.

“My beloved Arietta.”

“Don’t look at them, Arthur.” David made him turn his head. “You’re not leaving me. You can’t leave me here alone—for eternity.”

“You have
her
.” Arthur smiled, reaching back for me. I moved over and knelt down, taking his hand. “She will make you strong—love you as I have loved you.”

“No,” David demanded. “I won’t let you go. Not like this. Let us heal you, make you human again, if that’s your wish, and then you can decide. But with a clear head, Uncle, with—”

Arthur moved his head in a no, smiling at that place across the room again. And as if his touch connected me to the vision he saw, when I followed his gaze to the darkness I saw them too—a picture of feminine perfection, her gentle eyes fixed on her beloved, a small child in her arms, tangling her golden hair around its tiny hand.

My quick intake of breath made David look too, but he clearly didn’t see it.

“Uncle.” He grabbed Arthur’s face again and turned it away from the spirits. “Uncle, look at me. Don’t look at them. Uncle—”

But Arthur’s eyes wandered again, and he reached up as the apparition appeared on her knees beside him, leaning closer to show him their daughter. “My Arietta,” he said, touching her face.

She looked at me then, and offered a warm, familiar smile, as if she’d known me my whole life.

I wanted to set Arthur free to go with her, but unless David was willing to let go, how could I take his uncle’s life?

My shoulders dropping, I looked at David.

“No.” He pointed at me. “Ara, don’t.”

“He wants to go, David—”

“I don’t care. He’s gone mad, can’t you see? He—”

“She’s here,” I said softly, cutting him off. “Arietta’s here—with him. He’s not insane, David. He’s just ready to die…”

David’s face dropped and his eyes filled with tears. He followed his uncle’s gaze to the nothingness I knew he saw there, and reached out a cautious hand.

Arietta reached out too, touching his face, and as if he could feel her, he closed his eyes.

“Let him go,” I said softly to David. “He’s wanted this for such a long time. It’s what you’d want—if that were me and our daughter.”