PART III | Chapter XXXII
3:32 | All These Things Unspoken
Alroy appreciated the simple things in life. Alcohol. Women. The occasional man…
Mostly women.
Finding out within the span of thirty or so minutes that: a.) the second son of the man whose family he’d sworn to protect was in grave danger, partially thanks to his own actions, b.) his youngest nephew was in similar peril, and c.) that his eldest nephew was not only halfway on his way to being mated to the first son of the man whose family he’d sworn to protect but also
pregnant with (presumably) said first son’s child – did not mark the start of a good day. Or future, in general.
Said eldest nephew was not making the situation any easier.
“You
helped him?”
At Baisyl’s sharp, thoroughly aghast outburst, Alroy stifled a cringe. “Ah…” He cleared his throat. “Well-”
“How could—you…” Baisyl floundered, at a loss in his outrage. “He nearly
died, Alroy…because of you! What were the chances that we happened to find them when we did? An hour later—gods,
minutes later, and both Rhyan and the other might have lost their lives, and yet still you play with fate as though-”
“Do you think that was my
intention, boy?” Alroy snapped, and Baisyl’s lips, for the moment at least, clapped shut, startled.
Then: “I am not a child-”
“And yet that hardly stops you from behaving like one, hm?” Alroy countered, continuing before Baisyl could add a word in. “Your brother came to me, seeking help to aid
you, and I swear to our immortal ancestors I made my best effort to deter him in his plans, but he persisted. The
result of our efforts on the other hand…was mutually unexpected.”
A pause. Baisyl released a paced breath. “And how do you explain your presence here, now?”
“I followed him, naturally. I hoped to ascertain his…” Alroy frowned, awkward again, “…safety, such as it were.”
“Mm,” Baisyl huffed, “…and a fine job of that you did. For the both of them.”
“If it hadn’t been for me-”
“If it hadn’t been for you,” Baisyl growled, “I wouldn’t have been riddled with this curse in the
first place.”
That came completely unexpected.
“If…” Alroy shook his head, utterly thrown. “You blame
me for-” He cut himself off again. “Do you have even the
slightest clue what’s been going on around you?”
“Mother-”
“Melsinna has been my sister
centuries longer than she’s been your mother!” Alroy interjected, forceful and unremitting. “Do you think I don’t understand how her mind works? If that woman had been provided with no other alternative, she would have seen you dead in a heartbeat before she allowed you to be looped up in the volleying for power going on now and thereby threaten her ability to manipulate events according to her whims. You are a
toy at present…and that curse was a quite way to spare your life and your safety.”
“And what a lot of good it did me,” Baisyl hastened to point out, “…seeing as I was still attacked by pirates, imprisoned, chased down by ravenous wolf…demons…not counting any number of times the body alone made me the subject of lewd, unwanted, and several times forceful advances for which I-”
“Speaking of the curse…” Alroy’s attention flicked to Baisyl’s neck, centering on where the pendant currently keeping the curse at bay hung, though he kept it tucked into his shirt, “…I see you have an interesting new trick up your sleeve…last I heard you were safely on your way to Brittaney. Now you’re fighting your mother’s spellwork, making sweet love in hay cots to restless vagabonds and striking deals with pirates in the city of rascals?”
Heat trickled up his nephew’s neck, blooming in his face and sticking there. Baisyl pursed his lips, and diverted his eyes. “I wasn’t about to live my life as a woman-”
“So you…what? Seduced and ran off with the first man who-”
“Our ship was
attacked,” Baisyl snapped. “We were stranded, his brother was captured, we-” Baisyl bit his lip. “To draw a long story to a short close, there were few options. Kedean set out to find his brother and at the time…following with him seemed to be for the best.”
“Nnh…and now? Now that he’s found Zyric, where will you go? Or was that the extent of your carefully laid plans.”
Baisyl frowned, eyes to the ground, expression mixed. “I’ll admit I have come to a relative standoff. I…don’t suppose I can go back, at this point. Making an arrangement with the fairy captain and seeing where that leads me seems to be the next logical step.”
“And of your engagement with Kedean?” Alroy asked, watching tension furrow his nephew’s brow.
“I’ll need to see to it that he’s appropriately reimbursed for his extensive efforts regarding my safe keeping up to this point. Aside from that…I don’t suppose I have any further business hassling him. We will…soon go our own ways, I’d think. He’ll want to see his brother home safely and…carry on with his life.”
“Baisyl…”
“I’m not a fool-”
“Did I suggest that you were?” Alroy countered immediately, and Baisyl’s eyes rose, his expression at once guarded and sharply vulnerable, and Alroy sighed. When he spoke, his tone softened. “You probably won’t take this as a compliment,” he said, weary, with only a faint quirk of his lips betraying his subtle amusement, “…but you really are very much like your mother in many ways.”
Baisyl frowned. “You are correct, I find it difficult to take that as a-”
“You know, she came to me once,” Alroy interrupted, speaking breezily as though Baisyl hadn’t so much as started to speak. “About…” He tilted his head, musing, “…twenty-two years ago or so, now. It had been planned for some time then that she would be mated with someone she more or less detested, but the date was fast approaching at that point, and she sought me out in exile, came to me. She said, ‘Brother, I will die before I go through with this. How do I get out of it?’”
He shook his head, almost chuckling. “I didn’t take her fully seriously, of course. I wasn’t in a particularly clear state mentally, and I didn’t have a pleasant disposition towards her or any of our kin at that point, but I turned to her, and I told her, I said, ‘Mate a human. Carry
his children and bring them into this world…see how willing or able they are to pair you off
then.’ I was kidding.” He glanced to Baisyl. “Obviously…she took me a bit more literally than I intended. Went out and found your father, and some time later…” He shrugged, “…you were born.”
“Forgive me for failing to see how this relates to me in any way other than a…poignant, if unnecessary tale of my modest beginnings.”
“However she might deny it,” Alroy continued, “…your father…is quite likely the only living thing on this earth Melsinna cares about more than herself.” He said it flatly, point blank. “More than you or I, either of your other brothers or any of her family…if it came down to it, I can’t see her placing a one of their interests in front of hers. Your father, though?” He tisked. “She’d die for that man.”
Baisyl’s lips tightened, but he shifted his weight, as though suddenly self-conscious, and looked away again.
“I can’t pretend to know what exactly has gone on between the two of you,” Alroy pressed on, choosing his words carefully now, wholly serious and contemplative as he weighed Baisyl’s reactions, “…just as I cannot begin to guess what occurred between your father and mother which enabled him to become anything more than a tool in her eyes, but you won’t be convincing me it’s a trifling matter. To either of you.”
A pause stretched between them, quiet but heavy with unspoken words. Finally, “Trifling or not…” Baisyl responded, “…certain practicalities exist which cannot be ignored-”
“Baisyl-”
“He is a
man,” Baisyl cut in sharply, “with a life and cares which extend beyond my own. I cannot expect him to drop such things at a moment’s notice because someone he met a week ago’s life is in chaos. Mine are not his problems to deal with. He-”
Someone cleared their throat, and Baisyl and Alroy looked up in tandem. Natara’s attention flicked between them before settling on Baisyl. “Your brother is waking, and calling for you.”
Immediately, Baisyl straightened, concern replacing frustration, and he dipped his head once, respectfully. “Thank you. I will…” His eyes darted to Alroy, but didn’t linger long, and he nodded again. “I will go to him then. But Alroy,” he added, pausing a second after he turned to leave and glancing back, “…we still have much to discuss.”
“Of course,” Alroy conceded, and watched, a thoughtful frown settling into place as Baisyl retreated down the hall.
The room in which Rhyan stayed was small, unfurnished but for the bed he lay in, and tucked into the corner of the establishment. Baisyl entered quietly after receiving an ushering in from the woman previously in the room looking after him, and his brother stirred as he came up beside the cot – heavy, deep red lashes flicking upwards sleepily. He looked, Baisyl thought in that moment, like a tragically ill heroine from a novel of the sort noble women read, waking from an age-long dream. When he spoke, his voice sounded fittingly thin – papery, almost – as though a tiny breeze might catch it and brush it away.
“Baisyl…?”
A knotted lump tightened in Baisyl’s throat, unbidden and unwelcome.
“Is that…? Are you…?”
Abruptly weak, Baisyl succumbed to instinct, falling to his knees at his brother’s bedside, catching Rhyan’s hand in his own and lifting it to kiss his knuckles. “There are…” He spoke hoarsely, the words raspy and quiet against his brother’s skin and his eyes tightly shut for fear that if he opened them, they might fill with any one of the emotions fighting tooth and claw to break forward, “…no words…to aptly describe the extent to which you terrified me. Know that.”
Rhyan made a quiet cough of a sound which might have been a laugh, and when he spoke again, it was gentler still. “Baisyl…” By the time Baisyl convinced his eyes to open, Rhyan rewarded him with a meek, but curious smile. “You’re alive.”
“I might say the same of you.”
Rhyan’s smile broadened, and this time, he definitely laughed, though quietly. Baisyl reached up, tucking a loose strand of hair away from his brother’s face. “You’re also…” Rhyan tilted his head, facts sinking in as his eyes darted over Baisyl’s face, calculating. “You removed the curse?”
“It’s a temporary fix,” Baisyl said, explaining quickly the origin and limitations of his current solution. After which, before Rhyan could interject a word in edgewise, he added, “You never told me you inherited magic.”
Heat blossomed immediately in Rhyan’s face, stark against his otherwise pallor complexion, and he diverted his gaze. The moments dragged before he broke the silence. “I never told anyone.”
“You nearly killed yourself. I have never known you to be so reckless…”
“You’re one to talk-”
“This is not about me,” Baisyl clipped back, instantly sharp, and Rhyan bit his tongue. Time stretched again before Baisyl continued. “I realize…that I may not have always served as…the most ideal of role models,” he conceded. “However-”
“I couldn’t watch,” Rhyan blurted, and Baisyl quieted. “I couldn’t…” Rhyan bit his lip, hard, and then pushed on. “They were
killing him. I’d never…watched someone I knew…
die…like that. He was my
friend, I can’t…I had to do something. I couldn’t do nothing. I don’t…know how else to explain it…”
Baisyl frowned, feeling the shake in his brother’s hand without another word passing between them, and after a moment he drew his thumb over Rhyan’s fingers, squeezing gently. “I never meant to suggest you were in the wrong to attempt to help him,” he said. “I merely wish…” He hesitated. Then eventually, giving up, he shook his head. “Perhaps there are no words for it. I can’t imagine how I might have reacted had I lost you…”
“If-”
“How did you come to be here? You’re a long ways from home, and it’s not safe.”
He listened then as Rhyan described his travels – his troubled dreams, consulting Alroy, the accident with his own magic, meeting Zyric, and their various scuffles from there – and by the time the tale finished, Baisyl tilted his head, eyeing his brother with a newfound curiosity.
“So you have befriended him then…I’ve never seen you taken with someone so quickly.”
“I’m not taken with him,” Rhyan blurted, and Baisyl’s eyebrows twitched up, noting with amusement the immediate rush of heat that flooded to his brother’s cheeks at the suggestion. “He’s irritating,” Rhyan insisted, “…and foolhardy, and reckless…never quiet. I don’t
like him, he’s just…” He hesitated frowning. “He’s kind…” he added, softer, “…and…selfless in spite of his rashness.”
“Mm.” Baisyl smiled, watching the progression of Rhyan’s expressions with interest, and after a moment, Rhyan huffed, blush darkening.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” he sniped tersely, “it’s not true.”
“Oh, I see.”
“I hope you do.”
“I do indeed.” Baisyl smirked, and Rhyan glowered. When Baisyl chuckled and leaned in, placing a kiss on his brother’s forehead, he earned himself a pout from the latter. “I’m glad you’re well.”
“I feel like lead.”
“You look like ash,” Baisyl agreed, “…or…” He tapped Rhyan’s cheek, teasing, “…when you aren’t blushing, at least.” A garbled, disgruntled sound answered that, but when Rhyan opened his mouth, Baisyl cut him off. “Regardless, you ought to rest. Your body needs it, and for good reason, you’ve put it through quite a trial…”
“Is he…is Zyric…” Rhyan faltered, and Baisyl’s teasing look softened.
“Alroy saw him to safety and tended to many of his most pressing wounds with basic spellwork immediately after. He is resting now, in this keep in a room down the hall and healers are seeing to him. Provided he receives proper rest and protection for the duration of his recovery…he should walk away from this incident with nothing but scars and memories to show for it. He will live, and he will be fine.”
Something visibly eased in Rhyan at those words, but he only nodded in response. A long pause stretched between them before he asked, “Stay with me? A bit longer, at least…’til sleep takes me again…”
“Of course,” Baisyl agreed.
“And tell me…all that I’ve missed since you left port. Surely you have at least one tale worthy of telling?”
The edge of Baisyl’s lip quirked up. “I suppose…one or two, perhaps.”
And so Baisyl filled his brother in, recapping what he considered to be the most important parts of his journey – detailing their dealings with the fairy captain, the demons set on their trail and the various egregious hardships he’d had to endure along the trip including but not limited to: abysmal sleeping conditions, gag worthy foodstuffs and serious lack of adequate bathing conditions – and tactfully leaving out other details, namely all but the most rudimentary of his interactions with Kedean.
It was hours later, long after Rhyan had passed into sleep and Baisyl had departed, that in the midst of idle wandering he happened in on a conversation likely not meant for his ears. It was Kedean’s voice that prompted him to stop and listen.
“…
trusted you, and now what am I to think? I owe you my brother’s life…but if it were not for your actions, his life would not have been put in danger, and…I thought I knew you. My entire life, I’ve thought as you as second only to family, and now I don’t so much as know what you
are…”
“I thought,” Alroy’s voice answered, “…it was rather obvious what I am.”
“And for all the years that I’ve known you, you never once thought it appropriate to
mention-”
“That
what?” Alroy snarled back, abruptly defensive. “That I’m not human? That I’m an outcast? Trash? Filth? Scum? That because of a choice I made willingly to protect
your family, I haven’t been welcome among my people for decades?”
Baisyl blinked, at once startled, confused, and innately curious – a curiosity which won out over the easily-ignorable voice in the back of his head muttering something about this not being entirely his business to eavesdrop on in the first place. Kedean went quiet, and Alroy continued.
“Humanity is my life now. I am all that you see. Whatever remains of my life before this…is history, and history alone. I will admit openly to keeping certain things from you, but…” A pause. “At the time, all things seemed for the best. I never meant you, your brother, or any of your kin harm.”
“You knew Baisyl.”
“He is my nephew.”
“You knew him, you have relations with his family, you knew what he was, all about his curse, what he would be up against-”
“I didn’t-”
“-and yet you threw me into this
blind,” Kedean snapped. “You told me I would be guarding a fourteen-year-old
girl.”
Alroy cleared his throat. “Well, yes, but-”
“Baisyl…” Kedean emphasized, slowly and sternly, “…is
not…a fourteen-year-old girl…”
“Ah…no,” Alroy admitted. “No, he is not.”
“Did you not think,” Kedean asked, “that somewhere along the line…little inconsistencies might add up? That I might
notice something was off?”
A sigh. “You didn’t even want to guard a fully grown woman, Dean…do you think you would have accepted if I’d told you I was interested in you protecting the bewitched son of a nobleman being shipped out of his home to protect him from a power-thirsty horde of centuries old dragon immortals after his slot in ascending a throne that’s been contested for millennia?”
A pause. “Why…me?”
“Because I
trust you,” Alroy snapped back, “…is that so difficult to comprehend? You’re a good man and the boy, heavens help him, needed all the protection he could get. I’ve known you…from the day you were born. His brother—Rhyan—came to me because I work with a number of men in your field but
you…” A shuffle and a pause. “You may well be the only man left, those two boys aside, who I would sincerely trust with anything precious to me. Baisyl…is a case…and a complicated young man with much in store for him, but if it had been left up to his father to see him guarded…he might as easily have been made the girl toy of every man on that ship before they made it halfway to Brittaney. Do you truly regret me coming to you to look after him?”
“It’s not that,” Kedean conceded quietly. So quietly, Baisyl nearly missed it.
“Then what?”
“I left Ire…with a beautiful, confusing woman. I jumped off of a ship…after an insane…reckless man. I got driven off of a wagon train by furious merchants and rode off on horseback with a brilliant, addicting noble and…I’ve arrived in Carthak…made a deal with pirates, seen my only brother whipped within an inch of his life, found out that a man I’ve known all my life is in fact
hundreds of years my senior…and…” He drew a breath, “…I am…hopelessly in love…with your nephew.”
For a moment, Baisyl forgot to breathe.
“I can’t have him. I am…nothing that he needs,” Kedean continued, and Baisyl opened his mouth, only to shut it a moment later, biting his tongue and closing his eyes. “I need to see my brother home, and I ought to be thinking in practical terms, but I…I don’t…” He trailed off. Finally, he said simply, “I do not know where to go from here.”
“You might start…” Alroy said eventually, obviously proceeding with caution, “…by discussing these things with him yourself…”
Kedean scoffed. “Because I need more reason to feel helpless around him.”
“Because-”
“You said you’ve known me since the day I was born, that you’ve known my family for longer than that,” Kedean cut him off. “I have no family. None that I know of, my brother and father aside. I have no memory of anything before my brother’s birth and I was already past twelve summers then,” he continued. “Explain that. Why were you ‘banished’? What have you done ‘for me’, and why don’t I remember?”
“You changed the subje-”
“I did.”
“Dean-”
“I’m tired of having all questions and no answers. I’m tired of working blindly, trusting
blindly, taking only one step at a time because I can’t see farther than a foot in front of me and have no idea where I’ve come from either. If you are half of what you’re showing yourself to be, you have
answers, Alroy…and I want them.”
A/N: Oh boy, look at me, after three months...I finally have something to show you guys. With even a shred of luck and inspiration, it should not be that long again before I update again. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this semi-short chapter, and here's to hoping the next one will be out sooner!
