Chapter Eighteen –Darkwine

  Gray left bloody footprints across the house, but Rynn said she’d clean it up.

  He wanted to be out in his special place in the courtyard, in front of his little fireplace there. He got a tiny fire burning, and the flames were nice. Like he thought, sunset was a bloody affair. The Hellbinder Barrier was painted red, as were the few clouds in the sky.

  Rynn was cleaning up his blood when Ames came out into the courtyard.

  He was on the stone, and she was in the old chair. She took his hands in his. “We heard you,” she said softly.

  “I think you heard Settie and Rynn shouting at each other.”

  Ames nodded. “Because the captain was hurting you. But it was for your own good. That was what she said, wasn’t it?”

  The beautiful Quelling girl closed her eyes, and Gray couldn’t help but stare at her dark skin, her white hair, her sculpted features. The lust was easy to access, but he kept himself in check.

  He saw her midnight blue mana rising up from her core, and then flowing down her arm, into her fingers, and then into his flesh. It hurt for a minute, before the tingling started, and then the itched. Mana really was like water, flowing to where it needed to go. Or, in his case, being dammed up by some source.

  Why did Settie not want to pursue the ancient brands? Was it just out of hatred for the Widow?

  He still had so many questions.

  Rynn came out and found them sitting there, holding hands. She had a wet washcloth in her hands. “Hello, Amaranthis.”

  “Greetings Rynnanatha. I am done with the healing. I’ll go.”

  “You don’t need to,” Rynn said. She bent and started to wipe the blood off Gray’s feet. She talked while she cleaned Gray’s feet. “I apologize, Gray. I wasn’t in my right mind. She was hurting you, and it was killing me. I was being selfish.”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Is the captain going forgive you?”

  “I went up there. I apologized. She said not to do it again.” The elf girl sighed. “She is so hard, so cold, so unforgiving. Sometimes I think she might’ve killed her last two squads. That can’t be, can it?”

  “One squad died in the Hunting,” Ames said suddenly. “The other died in the Reckoning. I can’t remember which is which. There is the Testing, the Training, and the Hunting. Then, hopefully, we are chosen by a family to join their kills squads.”

  “That is the hope,” Rynn’s voice was quiet. “What if we are not chosen to be in the same family, Gray? What will happen?”

  “That moment is not here yet. Let us stay in the day.”

  His bonded moved on to clean the blood off his hands. “You’re right. I worry, though.”

  “I worry as well,” Ames said. “I heard you upstairs. We all were listening to the shouting. We were all afraid. Me. Tomi. Midj.”

  Gray flexed his hand and still felt the pain. “Sorry about that.”

  Ames shrugged. “I know how pain can be used to awaken the magic. It brought back memories of Father.”

  Her words were very clear…as was the emotion behind them. She looked shattered. There were no tears, no, this pain went far deeper. It was a pain that was beyond tears.

  Ames glanced over at Rynn, then at Gray, and then she looked down at the aged stone under them. “I could tell you more. It might…it might help you. I don’t know. It helped me but not in the way one might think. Maybe it gave me strength. But it’s a brittle strength. It wearies me.”

  Again, Gray wasn’t sure he was ready to hear about Ames’s past. But he knew the power of sharing pain. It was one of Blind John’s oldest lessons.

  He spoke his thoughts out loud. “A burden carried together breaks no backs.”

  “You don’t want to hear about me or my woes. We are just squadmates.”

  “No,” Rynn said. “We are more than that. You know, sometimes, when you talk, we don’t understand what you are saying. I think it’s because you don’t want us to know you. It’s safer that way. You’ve been hurt, I know, but you’re safe with us.”

  “Safe.” The Quelling girl said the word once. Then, she said it over and over. “Safe. Safe. Safe.” She shook her head. “No. Not safe. It all ends, don’t you see? It all ends, and it’s sad. So sad.”

  Gray let that thought hang in the air. It was true enough. “Not today, Ames. Today, we are safe. Today, we have life. Today is not sad. We are together, we have a fire and food. Midj is going to make us something delicious for dinner. Today, right now, is good.”

  “But not safe.” Ames stared into his eyes. “Because I have to tell you the truth. It is a risk. When I tell you, you might never look at me the same.”

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  Rynn leaned forward and gripped Ames’s hand. “Maybe not. But we’ll know you a little bit better. And what if your past can help us now? Then your pain can be turned into something good.”

  Ames smiled sadly. “It’s a risk, but what if I can help? What if I can bring my own sunlight?”

  “Because there’s more to life than darkness.” Gray paused. “It can’t rain all the time.”

  Then Ames did get tears in her eyes. “It can’t rain all the time. And it never rains when I’m with you…with you both.” She smiled at them shyly. “Did you understand that?”

  Rynn laughed a little. “I did.”

  Ames sighed. “Then I will tell you my darkness, and maybe, just maybe, your sunlight will shine through.” She let out another breath slowly “Father was like Tomi.”

  “Cat ears?” Gray asked to lighten the mood a little.

  He was glad when Ames smiled. “No. Father loved history. He took pride in the fact that the Quelling made the journey south seeking power and knowledge. We were not afraid of the demons, or hell, or dark magic. Like most elves, we were ambitious. Envious. Driven. We make our home on the Mal’Mireth Peninsula, and there were many experiments, and many failures, even before the Troublemaker came. And then, our kindness turned to cruelty. It was a cruel world that the Quelling created. My ancestors built Castle Darkwine to be safe. It is south of Ossareth. Mother died giving birth to me. Father never said it, but I think he saw it as a sign.”

  “A sign of what?” Rynn asked, barely breathing.

  “A sign that I was brought into this world to be cruel. To inflict pain. To kill.” She shrugged. “But he never said it. Maybe I just thought it. My thoughts are bees, sometimes. They sting. Why? Would I want to sting myself?”

  Gray didn’t know, but he could understand every word. Some thoughts were worse than wasps.

  “You didn’t kill your mother,” Rynn said gently, “Giving birth is dangerous.”

  “It’s not safe. Life is risk.” Ames then began to breath faster. “Let me just tell it. All at once. The memories are sharp but not as the words that I’m going to say. They are the sharpest of all. To say it out loud. Father experimented on me. He knew of the trayah jalana. He burned me. Over and over. For all my life.”

  “Why?” Gray asked. He knew about parents torturing their children in all sorts of ways. Some of the children at the Children of Order house weren’t orphans. They were just desperate to escape the cruelty of their parents.”

  Rynn tried to soften that question. “What was he trying to do?”

  Ames sighed. “To make me stronger. To give me multiple resonances. To make sure I can keep myself safe in this dangerous world. He said that modern Quelling elves are cowards. They stopped experimenting. He thinks that through burning, we could all become Divine Core Lords. We could transcend all just as Zaccai of the Fire did. But no, Father thought we’d be even more powerful than Zaccai of the Fire because he was human. Elves were better than humans in every way. He let the castle go to ruins, he didn’t take care of his finances, he bought expensive books, not caring about the cost. He was so certain that once his experiments on me, on himself, worked, he could sell the knowledge, and we’d be rich, so very rich. Poor in pleasure. Rich in pain because the pain would eventually pay, wouldn’t it?”

  Gray and Rynn couldn’t answer that question, and a silence fell over the courtyard. It was unthinkable. A father burning his daughter, over and over, to make her stronger. And from the sound of it, he’d also been burning himself. Did that make it better or worse?

  Gray had questions, but he wasn’t sure if he should ask them.

  Rynn went and held Ames, who sat woodenly, her eyes unseeing.

  There were no words. And the questions didn’t matter. No wonder Ames didn’t think safety was possible. She’d grown up with a monster in her own house.

  Gray went and knelt and held Ames’s hand.

  Ames eventually closed her and let herself feel the presence of her friends.

  She let out a shuddering breath. Then, she eased them back. “Sit. Rynnanatha. Gray. Sit back down. I want to finish.”

  She stared at them. “It didn’t work. The experiments didn’t work, the burning, the healing, and the burning again. But they motivated me like nothing else. If I could be strong, if I could get multiple resonances, if my powers were unlocked, then Father would stop burning me. I studied, I trained, it was all…it was all I could think about. I read books on the Cambrosians, wondering if they had done anything like what Father was doing to me. I never…I never hated him for it. He didn’t want to hurt me. He was just…experimenting.”

  “It was cruelty at its worst, Ames,” Rynn said. “I’m sorry but it was.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I see that now. Getting away from him, having my own life for a time, talking to Midj, I see it all more clearly now. She…she had such a loving family. She grew up safe. No one tried to hurt her. There was love and kindness, not envy. Just love and kindness and…food. I do believe there was a great deal of food.”

  She laughed, which gave permission to Gray and Rynn to laugh.

  They could laugh together.

  Ames sobered. “So when we talked of the trayah jalana, I was suspicious, and at the same time, I was hopeful. Maybe the pain would help you. It didn’t help me. But you know, the rain finally stopped falling. It can’t rain all the time.”

  “There’s more to life than the pain,” Gray agreed.

  “There’s more to life than the pain.” Ames closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and held it. She let it out slowly. “Can I show you…can I show my scars? They are from the trayah jalana. He didn’t heal those. He healed my other wounds. Mostly, they were my mana marks were.”

  “Yes,” Rynn said before Gray could say a word. “Show us.”

  Ames stood and unbuttoned the jacket of her uniform. She eased it off and then pulled the top of her blouse down to show a brand over her heart. The skin was gray there, a complicated sigil.

  Rynn stood as well. “Can I kiss it, Ames? I want to kiss it and make it feel better. I know, I know I’m late. I wish I would’ve been there. I would’ve stopped him. I would have found a healer for you. I would make sure the brands were gone forever. I would’ve stopped your pain.” Tears streamed down her face.

  Gray admired her courage. It was unusual, but he could see Rynn wanting to help the Quelling elf, both as the woman she and as the little girl she’d been, growing up being tortured.

  “Yes,” Ames said. “You can kiss it.”

  Rynn kissed the brand, and then, the two women held each other.

  Gray went to them and held them both.

  They stood there, in the courtyard, as the first droplets of cold rain fell. Cold because they were so close to a frigid hell. But there were all kinds of hells.

  Ames then showed them the brands on the inside of her ankles and feet. “Those hurt the worst,” she said. “I always found that odd.” They were the same sigil as the one on her chest.

  The Quelling girl then lifted her blouse to show them her two mana marks, on either side of her belly button. “Those I earned from my own magic,” she said. “Father had nothing to do with them.” She said it with pride.

  Rynn helped her dress, including sliding on her black boots.

  Ames then went to Gray. “Would you hold me, Grayson Fade? Would you hold in a way my father never did?”

  He nodded.

  And then the very tall, very powerful dark elf curled herself up into his lap.

  Rynn sat with them.

  Gray stroked Ames’s hair, held her, and felt her breathing, her slow steady heartbeat, and he felt the warmth of her core.

  It wasn’t long before she fell asleep in his arms.