Heirot

“She’s here,” Tenele said, but hesitated to speak on if she was okay. She met his red eyes, searching to see how far into his hunger he might be. She knew he retained some of what Knight knew, because part of him still lingered in Vlad, while the other part went to Atul. “They…” but she couldn’t bring herself to say the awful thing out loud.

Laurius did his best not to scoff. He would try to outrun him. He knew a few places they could hide in Arken. He still had clients that owed him things other than money. He glanced at Havitharon, and then his sword. He hadn’t noticed before, when the god called Havitharon from the sword that he’d damaged it… “Oh, shit,” he hissed and slowly crept forward, stretching out his fingertips, trying to be so quiet the family in front of him didn’t notice him barely curl his fingers over the hilt and pull it toward him.

Despite some residual animosity toward his fellow male, Havi felt steadied by Laurius's grip on the sword. It dulled some of the screaming in his chest.

Vlad was busy frowning at his wife. As usual, Knight's memories were more of a vibe than concrete details inside him. He could feel that something awful had happened, and that Knight's anger had spiked into near-hatred. Of Tenara's three father figures, Knight had the evenest temper, so the residual rage surprised the vampire. Rather than push the issue, he touched Tenara's cheek. "Daughter," he called to her.

Laurius examined the bent sword, frowning. He ran his fingers over the deformity, trying to understand how he could possibly begin to fix it, or at least in a way that wasn’t agonizing.

“Brother,” Lelana began. “I helped her sleep…”

Tenele touched her daughter’s head, brushed fingers over her scalp. She shook her gently in her arms. “Sweetheart,” she said. “Come on. You’re safe.”

Tenara took a breath, like coming up from water, and her eyes fluttered open. Her gaze darted around, searching. “Mom…” she said, feeling as if she were dreaming. She had to be dreaming. Everything felt unreal—happened to fast. It was so dark, save for a distant, orange glow. Were they still in the cave? “Daddy… “ She was so tired. How much magic had she used? It felt like a lot, like her bones themselves had burned away to fuel it. “Havi?”

Vlad was so relieved to see his daughter's eyes open. He was grateful to Knight. He'd somehow gotten her back. The vampire sighed at the request for her bodyguard, but didn't think twice about granting it. "Spiky..." he said, looking over his shoulder only to find the Ivis far worse off than he'd seemed when he transformed. "What happened to him?" he asked his wife conspiratorially.

Havi stared at Tenara and her parents and didn't move. It would only take a few strides to reach them. But should he?

"What are you waiting for? You have a problem with your chest?" Vlad asked. He might have missed the bleeding before, but he was certain Havi hadn't been gripping his chest that way earlier.

“He’s probably dying because your counterpart saw fit to crush his…” Laurius wasn’t quite sure what to call the sword. It wasn’t a body. It was a vessel. It was almost impossible to tell what part of the sword was connected to a part of Havitharon, or if it even worked that way. Laurius pursed his lips together and kept his eyes down, before he got them in anymore trouble than they already were. The vampire, it seemed, didn’t know how angry he should be. That might benefit them some.

Tenara tried to sit up but couldn’t. “What did he say?”

Tenele glanced back at the huddled men. “It will be fine,” she said. “Don’t worry. Rest. I will see to them in a moment.”

Tenara nodded, her eyes heavy. She rolled them around, because she didn’t quite remember where the portal had pulled them too. Then, she saw the familiar pattern on the canvas and began to breathe quickly.

“Easy,” her aunt said, and shifted closer to them, filling the gap on the other side of her father, blocking her view. “We should get back over the border, if possible. If Arken is coming back, as the merchant believes, it would be best if we aren’t here. Though, you look like you could use a drink, brother.”

Vlad waved a hand dismissively at his sister in law, in no mood to be fussed over. He was confused. What had gotten Tenara so spooked all of a sudden? Why would Knight have crushed the sword, when he knew she treasured it? Something wasn't adding up, but it was clear this wasn't a good place to linger.

He assessed the group of males that had seen Tenara through the portal, and who had probably taken her into it in the first place. It annoyed him to have missed the explanation, but he wasn't the type to patiently sit for storytime either. It seemed more important to get his daughter out of this place. It was freezing cold, and there were no resources to help her recover here.

"Nobody seems in the right spirits for a long-distance port, and I'm not a fan of road trips," he sighed. "Marr, hope you have fresh fluffy towels, 'cause we're using your house."

Laurius laughed, thinking about the mansion he had worked so hard for. “My home is gone, but my laboratory was unharmed. It will give us shelter from the cold at least.”

“Just don’t eat the fruit,” Tenara murmured.

"Noted," Vlad said, his attention sticking curiously on the word "gone". The truth was, he just wasn't all that interested in Laurius Marr's house or his life. As long as there was a secure location where they could rest up.

"I'm going to need a mental image of your place," he told the merchant, and glanced to Lelana. "Mind taking a looksee in his head for me?"

Lelana’s eyes brightened. “With pleasure.” She patted Tenara’s head, and nudged her to nuzzle into her mother and avoid looking at her surroundings while she stepped away.

Lelana approached Laurius with a grin that sent a chill down his spine. She reached out her hand toward him. “Don’t worry, Mr. Marr, I’m just going to get a clear picture of our destination.”

“I can describe it very accurat—“

One second Laurius was tilting his head back to avoid Lelana’s long fingers, and the next he was swirling through his own memories. He felt nauseous and disoriented, and then he found himself in his dining room. It was on fire. He was on fire. Then, he was out in the snow. Then, in the conservatory, prying stones from Havitharon’s blade on the table. The table. He had fucked Ren on that table. He was fucking Ren on the table. No. Not this. This isn’t for anyone else. The conservatory. He was looking at the sun coming through the glass. Sitting in his chair, surrounded by plants and rich wood and towers of books.

Laurius took a breath and he was staring at the stars. The snow was starting to fall again, and Lelana was walking toward Vladimir with wicked delight. She touched his head, and she wondered if she was passing all his secrets to the vampire—all the dark and light that had happened in those glass walls.

“We are going to die,” Laurius thought aloud, turning his sower frown on Havitharon's ruined blade.

Vlad tilted his head to Lelana's touch as he absorbed the data she'd acquired. The emotions behind the memories didn't transfer, but the visuals did. His eyes flicked briefly to Marr, as if taking a fresh interest him. Burned alive. He hadn't expected that. Most humans would have lost their minds after surviving such an experience. "Explains the hair," he muttered. "Spiky II will go wherever his wielder goes, like Spiky?"

Ren frowned, but nodded.

"Good. I'm low on seat belts. Marr, you're coming with us. Hold on to that sword." He reached out for Lelana's hand, and Lelana grabbed Laurius's. He touched Tenele's shoulder with the other, and a portal swallowed all five of them. The temperature dipped even lower than the frozen climate, then returned to normal as they appeared inside Laurius's study, all of them collected on top of his hardwood table.

Laurius shook the dizziness from his head as he looked around and found himself safely inside his conservatory. The warmth had gone with the sun, but it was much more warm than the snow outside.

He slipped off the table and almost stepped on Havitharon and Ren.

Tenele settled her daughter in her arms. Tenara had drifted off again, a product of having spent too much energy with her magic. The woman’s gaze drifted to the sword she had healed once. She should heal it again. She knew she should, not just because it was the right thing to do, but because she had a feeling that Tenara’s heart would break if she discovered her father had harmed him. Knight could sort out a more permanent punishment later.

“Vlad,” Tenele urged him to take Tenara. “There’s a sofa. Can you put her there?” When she was out from under Tenara, she edged toward Laurius Marr and the sword be held. The merchant’s eyes widened as she approached. “Let me see it.”

Laurius brought it closer to him.

“I mean him no further harm,” she said and beckoned him to turn it over with the curve of her fingers. Laurius, reluctantly, did as she asked. Tenele sat the blade on the table top.

“My forge is in the back, but…”

“I don’t need a forge,” she said. But… she had not seen it so damaged. It surely hadn’t been this bent the last time she’d done this. It looked as if her husband had crushed it like paper. She winced and looked down at Havitharon. “I will try, but I make no guarantees, and I can’t promise he won’t bend you in half tomorrow.”

Havi had staggered sideways and leaned into a pillar to keep himself upright. Tenele's offer pried his attention back up to her. Part of him wanted to warn her not to strain herself. Part of him wanted to ask why she was thinking of helping him at all. In the end, his body made the choice for him, because when he tried to speak, he ended up choking up a mouthful of blood.

Ren jumped toward him, not quite mustering the nerve to touch him, but looking ready to catch him if he doubled over. Havi held up a hand to the other Ivis, relieving him of the obligation. He showed Tenele a cooperative nod and lowered his guarded expression into something closer to obedience. He wasn't useful to anyone in the situation; the least he could do was not be actively disruptive.

“Lelana, make yourself useful with the lamps,” Tenele said, smoothing her hands over the blade’s damage and set herself to mending it. Like before, she poured her power into it, similar to how she would a person. The metal shifted in her hand, unfolding and contorting and putting itself back to the way it had been before. It was a slower process to how she might have healed a wound in flesh. The metal was stubborn, spiteful almost. Eventually, after several long minutes, the blade was smooth and flat once again. Tenele lifted it, admiring the steel in the dark with warping vision. It had taken a little more than healing flesh, but not enough to cause a problem.

By the end of healing the sword, Lelana had lit most of all the lamps in the west wing of the conservatory. She had done so out of necessity, but her pace slowed as more and more of the room became illuminated. Now she was stuck by Laurius’s books, admiring all the titles with a stroke of her finger.

“Are you well now?” Tenele asked Havitharon without looking at him.

Havi had slid to a seat at the base of the pillar. His head rested between his knees, hiding his expression as his insides twisted and bent. When Tenele's voice trickled into his dizzy thoughts, he looked up slowly. His body was drenched in sweat, but the pain that had crowded out all useful thought in his mind had faded to an echo. "Yes," he said hoarsely, rubbing blood from his chin with the back of his wrist. "I thank you." Tenele wasn't looking at him, and that was probably just as well. He wasn't ready to meet her gaze, or anyone else's.

Now that Thvoros seemed unlikely to drop dead imminently, Artisuren allowed himself to step back and take a better look at the room. Once glance at the table made him regret it, as his perfect memory brought back images of what he and Laurius had done together on it. He looked up at the skylight ceiling and could hear his master's challenge to see if his screams could break the glass. He closed his eyes, not wanting to picture such things surrounded by all these potential enemies. But at the same time... it occurred to him that he was glad this place, at least, had survived the fire.

Vlad sat with his daughter, content to hold and monitor her while he watched his wife work. He could see the strain in her eyes and hear it in her pulse and breath, but he knew her limits, and so did she. "Where can Tenara rest?" he demanded of Laurius.

“The sofa in here, and there is a table in the east wing with a thin cushion…” Laurius said, referring to the place that Tenara had gone to be treated by that crackpot healer he had hired—the one that had knocked her out against her will. The merchant shifted slowly to the end of the table that the vampire was at. “Has she… ever had blood?” He had a theory. Of course, he had a theory. Why did he get them spontaneously, and at the most inappropriate times. “She is… partly your daughter. Her magic seems to feed on her own life force. Yours—I mean, I think, vampires, that is—is powered by the life force you take from others…” Laurius faded off when he saw the vampire’s red eyes.