The Princess and the Blade

[Emora Deen]

Tenele drummed her fingers against the sword's blade. "Shall we try?" she asked, smoothing her hand along the blade. "It doesn't hurt. Tenara's magic is more her fathers' than mine. Let's see..."

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad scoffed. "Why would he approach you?"

[Emora Deen]

Rami blinked, bewildered, as if he never thought to ask himself that question. "I don't know... He knew that I knew her." He frowned. Tenara had kept it secret. So secret that not even her parents knew about it. Someone had known she met him. A servant? A guard? "Someone must have been watching her. Following her. I don't know! He just did. That's all. That's all I know. He came. He paid me. I went on my way."

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi's body stiffened as she touched the blade. "Wait."

He lurched up before his brain could think, planning to knock the weapon from her grasp. Even as he did so, he realized how close her hand was close to the sharpened edge and aborted the motion, stopping on a dime. His confused leg immediately objected to the abuse. He froze, staring at her warily as he tried to decide what to do.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad smiled sharkily. "And his ship?"

[Emora Deen]

Tenele's hand began to glow over the metal as she drew it across the blade. It felt different than healing a mortal. Healing people felt a lot like sewing. It was placid and focused, though it could be draining. This was like forging something. She felt as if she needed to drive her power into it, hammering her will into it. But, she felt the metal become malleable beneath her hand, and, eventually, flatten out. "There..." she said, sighing heavily. She took her skirt and began to polish the steel. "Feel any different?"

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi's leg collapsed under him as the bones began to churn beneath his skin... or so it felt. He made a choked sound and staggered sideways into the wall. The room swung wildly in and out of focus for a minute. Then, as if absorbed by a sponge, the pain began to fade. No pleasure or euphoria. No sexual excitement. Just a phantom throb where the real pain had been just a moment before. His answer to Tenele was a string of half-whispered curses as he slid down the wall to sit on the floor. He propped an elbow on the knee of his healed leg and plunked his head down on his forearm.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele appraised Havitharon as he sat on the floor, finishing her dusting of the sword. "That great, huh?" She went to her daughter and sat on the bed near her, resting the sword to lie on the other side of Tenara. She was quiet for a long time, brushing her fingers along her daughter's cheeks and into her tangled hair. "She left the palace. Got much further than I thought she could go, being attached to the sword and all. I guess this means if someone takes the sword from her, she will not be harmed? There is nothing binding her to it anymore..." She flashed her gaze towards him. "Nothing except you..."

-----------------

Rami shook his head. "Let me go. Promise you won't kill me. Swear it!"

Atul smiled dizzily. "Cross my heart, I won't have you executed."

Rami hesitated. "Swear it."

"I said 'cross my heart'," Atul replied, his voice dripping acid. It wasn't his normal tone, which made it even more obvious how upset and exhausted he was.

"Crimson Gail." Rami huffed. "I met him at the Indigo House. He paid me at the Crimson Gail. I left on a merchant ship bound for Ighten immediately after. I didn't hurt your daughter. It's not my fault."

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi raised his head slowly and studied her. Ah, he thought. Here it was. He knew it was coming. The pit of his stomach throbbed like someone had reached inside him and squeezed. He still wasn't ready.

"I placed her in danger. If not for my action, she would be safe right now. Even had I not helped her run away, she would be enduring a different type of danger for my sake." He swallowed. "I am not a pet." He thought of Vlad's warning earlier, and shook off nausea. "I have no intention of continuing to take from her more than I can return."

[Emora Deen]

Tenele watched him with an unreadable expression. Then she sighed, her eyes misting with tears. "You distracted us so she could escape us," she said. "It should make me angry. I should be furious with you... But you did it to help her, and I cannot hate you for that." Tenele turned her gaze on her daughter. She bit her tongue on asking if he knew anything about the ship or who had hurt her. "Tenara let you into her life. She let you close to her, after something—someone—hurt her. She trusts you in a way I'm not certain you understand or, perhaps, want. I, on the other hand, am still deciding if I can trust you. You helped her today. You saved her, when you could have saved the sword, so there is something there... something I can see and hope to trust. But you have to understand... I never wanted any of this for her. I spent my life fighting and wounded and brutalized, and I didn't want that for her. If you being near her brings that..." Tenele pursed her lips. She stood slowly. "It isn't my place to make you leave. I can't. It would break her heart, I think, if I tried. It will need to be her choice, or yours."

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad's nails slid down through the man's forearms, pinning his flesh to the stone. Rami screamed, twisting violently to escape the pain and only injuring himself more. "There is a loophole, you see." He leaned his face close to the desperate man's. "Husband, correct me if I'm wrong, but executions are a matter of public record. This, here, would just be simple murder."

_______

Havi met her eyes, a little surprised. He expected her to reject his presence in her daughter's life, but she was giving him an opening. A condition that would make his presence in her life fair to her. He nodded, and looked at Tenara's sleeping form. "If that day comes, and I bring danger into her life, I will be the one to make that choice," he vowed.

[Emora Deen]

Atul sighed. "I do believe you're correct, my love." Rami sobbed. Atul's gaze left the man's horrified face and fixated on Vlad, finally noticing his strange, terrifying eyes and the glow of his skin. Was he that angry? He had never seen Vlad look as such. It was beautiful and horrifying.

-------

Tenele nodded, believing him. "I should check on my husbands and make sure they've caught this Rami person..." She edged towards the door. Tenele felt she didn't have to ask him to guard Tenara well. She could see the look in his eye. Perhaps that was the thing that frightened her most of all. She knew that look well. The queen paused at the door. "What did Knight ask of you... The man who pulled you from the rubble. What did he say?"

[Soran Nightblade]

"Knight?" Havi file the name with his memories of the strange man who helped them. He wondered if she would even believe him, or if she would assume his words were a self-serving lie. "He said, 'Be at her side when I am not.' He spoke as if mourning her."

_____

Vlad clenched his claws, prepared to shred the man's pretty little arms into ribbons. However, a unpleasantly rational thought occurred to him. How would his daughter feel about the man's fate if they took care of him here without discussing it?

[Emora Deen]

Tenele's face fell. Her eyes watered and she looked around the room, trying to find something to focus on. She paused in her exit, closing the door she'd opened. "He's her father, her true father. Knight is an amalgam of Vlad and Atul. He is their souls made one. He isn't meant to exist, so he exists temporarily and at a great cost to them." She looked at her daughter and then to Havitharon, and for a moment her eyes brightened, as if she'd discovered a secret. "I wonder... I wonder if that's why you two are connected. She is the daughter of an impossibility. She is not meant to be in this world any more than you are. Maybe that is why her soul bound so easily to the blade—to you." Tenele seemed to want to speak on it more, but instead she retreated for the door. "Do as he asked. If he asked it, some part of Vlad or Atul wants it as well, even if they don't want to admit it." Then she ducked out of the door, leaving Havitharon and Tenara alone.

------

Atul noted Vlad's hesitation and rested a shaking hand over his husband's arm. "Are you worried Tenara will be unhappy?" he asked, because he'd felt it too. That was part of the reason Atul hadn't killed him and dumped him in the woods. It seemed unfair to kill him without asking Tenara if she wanted to do it herself. "We could put him in the dungeon..."

Though, he knew his daughter. Killing wasn't her thing, at least... it hadn't been her thing before all of this came to pass. She was gentle. Kind. It infuriated him to no end that this creature had abused her trust, abused that soft-hearted, sweet young woman. When he thought of it, it was harder to find the empathy to wait for Tenara to make the choice. "He can die, Vlad. Tenara knows what we would do with him when he found him."

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi tried unsuccessfully to think of a response to Tenele's words. He couldn't make sense of the woman's opinion of him. She saw him as an unfortunate blight on Tenara's life, but also seemed willing to encourage his presence at her side. He should be relieved that they didn't plan to force him from her, but their conversation left an ominous residue on his thoughts. If he brought her misfortune, he would leave her of his own volution.

He watched the door shut behind Tenele and then took her place on the chair beside Tenara's bed. He watched her sleeping expression, marking the discomfort tracing her features. She looked pale, and hurt.

"I am sorry," he told her sleeping form quietly, even as he selfishly wondered when she would wake up. He sat still and straight beside her and waited, keeping alert for signs of intrusion from outside. He wasn't sure how long had passed before Vlad returned. The vampire entered unannounced via teleport, startling Havi into an attack reflex. Vlad evaded Havi's strike, but didn't bother to retaliate. He seemed to expect the alien to be guarding his daughter's bedside, and the reaction met his approval.

Seeing his daughter safe, Vlad seemed eager to return to Atul. He informed him, rather casually, that Rami was dead, and that the servants had been instructed to knock before entering. With that, the vampire showed himself out, apparently leaving his daughter fully under Havi's charge.

Havi watched Tenara through the night, doing his best to quiet his thoughts.