Chapter Two
Warnings: none
A/N: I hope this chapter won't bore the shit out of you, dear readers, concerning the fact that it centers around Larissa and Lucy O'Sullivan. I've been told off once before for concentrating too much on my original characters, but please bear up with me. Somehow it was unavoidable for setting the stage for the next installments... I solemnly swear that the next chapter will focus on Damien's and Gerald's fate.
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Jaggonath, 1270 A.S.
About an hour later, Larissa finally managed to dry her tears of helpless frustration and sat up on the white wrought-iron bed with the shining brass knobs she had admired so much in the shop-window of Oliver & Sons. With her dad always short on cash and herself still at school, buying the object of her desire had seemingly been out of the question, and she had very nearly went over the top with joy when the bed had been waiting for her in her room after her return from school on her seventeenth birthday.
Her ire having died down considerably, the young woman had to admit that Damien Vryce hadn't been a bad father at all. He had provided for her and had rocked her to sleep when she had cried for her runaway mum, had paid for her riding lessons and dancing classes and bought her pretty dresses, and when he had succumbed to one of his frequent bouts of depression, there had always been the O'Sullivans who owned the Coach & Horses, the inn on the ground floor. With the sole exception of being abandoned by her wretched mother, her childhood had been protected, safe, her troubles not worth mentioning. A broken doll, a lost teddy bear and always and evermore chivalrous Jon who had mended her favourite doll in no time at all and found her teddy in a ditch covered by brambles.
Picturing the scene, the young woman sighed wistfully, snuggling the very same scuffed companion from younger days. Scratched, filthy and his clothes torn beyond repair, Jonathan had fondly smiled down on her tear-stained, red face without a whiff of the condescension and contempt older boys usually reserved for crying little girls. At this very moment, she had irrevocably fallen in love, and it would be a freezing day in hell before she gave up on him.
Whatever was going on in her father's stubborn head, she simply had to convince him that her beloved was the perfect son-in-law. After all, the two men had always gotten on very well, and Jon had spend many a pleasant evening discussing everything under the sun from politics to his favourite hobby horse medical technique with with his beloved 'Uncle Damien', sticking to a cup of tea while her father was nursing his damned whisky. On a planet where the human colonists still hadn't quite coped with the loss of the fae, he had already sold several of his inventions to enthusiastic companies at barely twenty. Thankfully, the money had finally stilled Arthur O'Sullivan's incessant grumbling that an additional hand helping out at his inn would be much more appreciated than wasting precious time and money on constructing weird apparatuses in their arbour, but the strangely distant relationship between father and son unfortunately still left a lot to be desired.
Frowning, the young woman remembered a scene which had taken place about three and a half years ago. Sitting in the O'Sullivan's kitchen which had represented her home away from home since she could think back, Lucy and herself had peeled some early not apples for a fruit flan while Arthur had buried his nose in the Times. All at once, the door had been flung open and an excited Jonathan had dashed in, overjoyed that he had been accepted by the engineering department of Jaggonath University, no small feat for a sixteen year old boy who had just finished school two years earlier than his contemporaries. Lucy had been beside herself with delight, kissing and hugging the mortified teenager until he had blushed furiously and Larissa had to hide her broad grin behind a not apple, but to the end of her days she would never forget the expression on Arthur's stern face. Resentment had mingled with something she would have called fear if that hadn't been outright ludicrous, and instead of a proud fatherly pat on the back, his achievement had earned Jon an admonition concerning tuition fees and the unnecessary expenditures caused by purchasing the required educational books.
Lucy O'Sullivan's withering glare had left no doubt her husband would be in for a hard time later, but with regard to several bills Larissa had accidentally found on his desk shortly afterwards, it had been her own father who had forked out the money in the end. At fourteen she had thought nothing of it. All that mattered was that Jon could go to university and marry her as soon as they had both grown up and earned their own money, but in retrospect the whole thing seemed rather fishy. Admittedly, the Millers weren't rich by any stretch of the word, but they made a good living while her father had to make ends meet by keeping their accounts and dealing with the suppliers.
Larissa shrugged. Be that as it may, for now were more urgent matters at hand. Quickly she got up and walked back to her father's office, dead set on bringing the matter to a satisfactory conclusion. When her knocking wasn't answered, she quietly opened the door, just to be greeted by a tableau becoming more and more common recently very much to her dismay. Bent over his desk and his head resting on his crossed arms, Damien was fast asleep, his stay in the realms of oblivion guided by an empty bottle of whisky. The girl sighed, torn between exasperation and a faint twinge of fear. Being in a flaming temper, she hadn't paid too much attention to it, but when she had left him her father had looked like death itself, his skin ashen and his hazel eyes staring bleakly into the distance, and she shuddered at the memory. Then her gaze fell on a painting she had never seen before, and the breath caught in her throat.
The small portrait had obviously been created by a very skilled artist, and the nobleman wearing a silver coronet decorated with mythological figures looked ready to step out of the picture and accept the cheers of his subjects at any moment. The young woman blinked confusedly, wondering why on Earth and Erna her dad owned a painting of the late Andrys Tarrant. Of course she knew the story how that very man had heroically slain evil incarnate, the Hunter, and how the Forces of the Dark had avenged their darkest prince shortly afterwards. Every child on the Eastern continent learned this tale by heart, and Andrys was still a very popular Christian name.
Somehow, though, Larissa couldn't help but wondering whether the man depicted truly was the last Neocount of Merentha. On a school trip to the famous Museum of Mankind, the pupils had been shown a life-sized picture of their saviour, and at the age of nine she had been scared to death by the haunted expression in those striking green eyes. Apparently, in his short life the man had seen things so monstrous that a part of his mind had never recovered from the ordeal and had taken refuge in the realms of madness.
The clear, grey eyes staring at her didn't contain a trace of insanity or fear. They were brimming with dominance and a detached, sardonic amusement which might have befitted a much older man, not one in his late twenties at most. The imposing aristocrat carried himself with consummate grace, and his visage was breathtakingly beautiful in an androgynous, angelic way, but a hint of glinting steel lurking just beneath the alluring facade made her shiver. No, this wasn't Andrys, she suddenly was sure, but certainly a close blood relative.
All at once, she remembered that there had to be a however distant connection between the O'Sullivans and the Tarrants. About once a year the dowager Neocountess paid a short visit to Lucy and Arthur, and from what Larissa had noticed, she always showed a lively interest in the couple's only child.
Jonathan! Completely flabbergasted by the strangest whim of nature she'd ever encountered, the young woman goggled at the painting, her mouth hanging open. Although the resemblance wasn't as striking as between Andrys Tarrant and the stranger, there was a definite likeness, easily detectable if one knew what to look for. Her beloved's lips, always ready for a good-natured smile or a kiss, were fuller, very much like her father's must have been before bitterness had drawn them into a thin, unyielding line, and his hair colour didn't quite match the golden-brown waves framing those perfect features like a halo. But the delicate bones were unmistakably the same, and although Jon's irises were a darker shade of grey than the pools of silver which seemed to laugh mockingly at her bewilderment, their eyes had been evidently cut from the same mould.
Dead certain that this wasn't just a strange coincidence, Larissa cocked her head and pondered the implications of the eerie alikeness between the three men. For quite a while now she had been suspecting that her father and Jon's parents were keeping some kind of dark secret. Being young was no equivalent of being stupid, and over the years there had been too many hushed conversations and knowing glances to go unnoticed. What if Jonathan wasn't related to the O'Sullivans at all, but was an illegitimate offspring of the Tarrants? A son of Andrys who had died, officially, without siring a child, for example? That would make him the heir to the title and the holdings which went with it, a sensible explanation for Narilka Tarrant's occasional visits. Suddenly an idea crossed her mind, and she gasped. With her now rapidly greying auburn curls and her regular features, Lucy must have been quite an attractive woman twenty years ago. From what she had heard off the record, Andrys had been one for the ladies before the Hunter had butchered his entire family, and it wasn't too far fetched a thought that Lucy and the young man had indulged in an illicit affair. No wonder that Arthur's attitude towards his alleged son was ranging between indifference and barely veiled hostility...
Her mind buzzing, she left her father's office without waking him up. If she was lucky, Lucy O'Sullivan would still be at home, getting some housework done before the vespertine onrush of the thirsty customers was bound to commence.
For once, luck hadn't deserted her on this abominable day, and Jon's mum was in her kitchen, ironing her husband's shirts. As usual, Larissa was greeted with a warm smile by the woman who'd been her surrogate mother for so many years now. At the sight of her red rimmed eyes, Lucy quickly settled her at the kitchen table with a cup of fruit tea and a couple of handkerchiefs. "What's wrong with you, lovely?" she inquired compassionately. "Trouble with your father? Or have you had your heart broken by a dashing young man?"
Larissa swallowed convulsively, her emotions threatening to overcome her self-control once again. "I don't know what has come over Dad," she forced out between gritted teeth. "I finally told him about Jon and me, and he very nearly threw a fit. Ordered me to banish the thought of marrying your son and forbade me to mention it again. Considering his behaviour, you'd think I had fallen for a rogue, and..."
When the innkeeper blanched visibly she trailed off, stunned by the look of stark terror on her motherly friend's face. "Jonathan and you? Marry? What... what are you talking about?" Lucy stammered, clutching the handle of the hot pressing iron like a lifeline to sanity.
The young woman gaped at her counterpart, at the loss of words. Why the hell hadn't Jonathan informed his parents about their marriage plans? Belatedly, it began to dawn on her that very likely it hadn't been wise to present her unsuspecting honorary aunt with a fait accompli. But even if the news had come as a complete surprise, she would have expected a somewhat more delighted reaction to the prospect of having her as a daughter-in-law. From the little she recalled from her early childhood, Lucy had never been particularly fond of her mum, a view not in the least changed for the better when the woman had deserted her family and run away with that sweet-talking musician, never to be seen again. Notwithstanding her feelings towards her mother, Arthur's wife had never shown her anything but kindness, and she couldn't truly believe that Larissa was bound to repeat the mistakes of the unfaithful bitch who had borne her. Or could she?
Like mother, like daughter, a mocking voice seemed to whisper inside her head, making her cheeks burn with embarrassment. Picking at the hem of her blouse, Larissa cleared her throat. "Hasn't Jon told you yet?" she choked out, fidgeting under the scrutiny of Lucy's wide-eyed stare. "I'm sorry for catching you by surprise, but he popped the question the day before yesterday, and I said 'yes'. We're going to get married in May."
Muttering something under her breath which sounded suspiciously like a curse, Mes O'Sullivan slammed down her slowly cooling domestic appliance on the ironing board and flopped onto the next available chair. "Oh no, child, please tell me that's not true," she gasped out, throwing her hands up in horror.
That did it, and her hot temper getting the better of her once again, the young woman jumped to her feet. "Have you all gone mad today? First my father, and now you! You'd think both of you don't want us to be happy! Jon loves me, and I love him, and no power on the entire vulking planet will succeed in separating us!" Dimly Larissa was aware that her voice had pitched up until she was yelling at the top of her lungs, certainly no proper fashion to address a matron more than thirty years her senior, but right then she didn't give a damn. Not when everybody seemed intent on ruining her life.
Sighing softly, the older woman took her hands. "Of course I want you to be happy, silly. I love you like the daughter the Lord in His wisdom has never gifted me with. Deep down in your heart you know that, don't you? And now stop screaming at me and sit down. I'd rather know the reason your father gave you for his decision."
Somewhat mollified by the mixture of honest affection and pity in Lucy O'Sullivan's eyes, Larissa took her seat again. "Reason? None at all, of course. Why explaining your actions to a silly child like me?" she replied in a huff. "But there was no mistaking that he wasn't pleased, to say the least. Dad very nearly jumped at me when I accused him of not being able to love. I know it was a mean thing to say, but I was so angry about his attitude that my mouth simply ran away with me. He went white as a sheet, and for a moment I thought he would hit me. He looked like a stranger, Auntie, a very dangerous stranger, and I was scared of him. Truly scared, although he's never harmed me before. He's been drinking more and more lately, and I fear he might have lost his grip at last."
"Don't be too hard on your father, lovely. You should have known him twenty years ago, before he lost everything. He used to be a gifted healer, and folks flocked to his consultation hours from all over Jaggonath. Such a kind, sweet man he was, poor Damien, and quite good-looking as well." Registering the disbelieving expression on Larissa's face, Jonathan's mum wagged her finger at her. "Don't you give me that look, Missy! I'm speaking nothing but the truth, and from what I've seen more than one of his female patients wouldn't have minded becoming Mes Vryce. But his heart was already taken. Gerald meant the world to him, and I think if he had asked for one of Erna's moons, Damien would have gone and..."
With a gasp Lucy cut herself off and clamped a hand over her mouth, apparently mortified beyond words. All her senses on the alert, Larissa leaned forwards, her nostrils flaring like a hound's who had caught the scent of his prey. "Gerald? Who the heck is Gerald?"
"That's not for me to say. I promised never to talk about it, and I should have kept my stupid mouth shut. It's a tragic tale, and it broke your dad's heart. He's never been the same man since."
But being Damien Kilcannon Vryce's daughter, Larissa wasn't a woman to give up so easily. She wanted some straightforward answers, and if dropping the metaphoric bomb was required to worm them out of her lover's mother, so be it. "Whatever my father believes I'm not a child anymore, and I think you owe me an explanation, Auntie," she replied adamantly. "But just in case you're still loth to let me in on the damned secret, I could give you a clue. Just before I came downstairs, I found my father asleep over a picture of a mightily handsome stranger. A face like an angel, grey eyes, golden-brown hair and as haughty as it goes. Looks like Andrys Tarrant's twin brother and, surprise, surprise, a bit like Jon. Does that ring a bell with you?"
Quite obviously, an entire orchestra of bells was ringing with the innkeeper who looked ready to faint on the spot, her face deathly pale. With no small measure of alarm, Larissa got up and hugged the woman she loved like a mother. "Dear God in Heaven, Aunt Lucy, what's the matter with you?" she blurted out with rising apprehension. "Who is that son of a bitch? And what about the uncanny resemblance? Are you related to the Tarrants? Is Jon... is he an illegitimate son of Andrys? And did my dad truly have the hots for a man?"
"A son of the famous last Neocount of Merentha and your old aunt Lucy, you mean?" Lucy O'Sullivan giggled nervously, and a hint of color returned to her finely chiselled features. "No, lovely, I never had the honour. Not that I regret it, mind. Arthur can be quite a pain in the neck, but he's the only man I've ever wanted. In many respects you were on the right track, though. As you might have gathered by now, Jonathan isn't our natural child, and he's indeed related to the Tarrants of Merentha. Promise me that you won't tell him, Larissa! Under no circumstances!"
When the teenager finally acquiesced with a faint nod, Mes Miller relaxed visibly. "I just wish my husband could have taken him to his heart like I did and accepted him for what he is," she went on with a heartfelt sigh. "After all, his genetic liability isn't the boy's fault, is it? But that's beyond Arthur's power, I'm afraid. As for your father... 'Having the hots', as you young things nowadays so offhandedly are wont to put it, doesn't even touch what he felt for that man. Gerald was one of a kind. Brilliant, courteous and so handsome it simply took your breath away. That it had to end so terribly..."
Her voice cracking with emotion, Lucy cut herself off, and to her astonishment Larissa realized that her moss-green eyes were brimming with tears. "Here I go again, crying about things which can't be undone anymore. Seems I'm getting sentimental in my dotage," the older woman snorted self-deprecatingly and blew her nose with a vengeance. "Now I've told you more than I was ever supposed to, and if you want the whole sad story and the true reason why you can't marry our Jonathan, you have to ask your dad. And now get off my back and let me finish my chores, lovely! If you don't stop pestering me with your questions, you'll be the one to tell your uncle Arthur why he has to wear a dirty, sweat-drenched shirt tonight!
Getting the message, the girl got up, graced her 'aunt' with a peck on her cheek and went upstairs, her thoughts in a complete turmoil. Passing the door of Damien's office, she paused for a moment, wondering whether she should wake him up and harry him until she had finally unearthed the genuine truth, but decided against it in the end. Very likely, the clash of her current foul mood with her father's damned inebriation would spawn a quarrel of epic proportions, something she could very well do without for the time being.
Talking to Jon was out of the question, as well. In spite of the late hour, he was obviously still at university, either burying his nose in the books or experimenting in the most well-endowed laboratory of Jaggonath, and Larissa knew better than to intrude on him when he was working. And what could she have told him? Going against her honorary aunt's wishes and informing him straightaway that the O'Sullivans weren't his parents wasn't a very advisable course of action. Of course he had every right in the world to know about his true origin, but a very insistent gut-feeling warned her against spilling the beans out of the blue. Something was indeed very queer about the whole situation, and only God knew what kind of ball she would set rolling. Not to mention that an indiscretion of this magnitude certainly wouldn't place her on the list of Lucy's most favourite daughters-in-law to be...
Stifling a sigh, Larissa took her fur-trimmed winter coat from the clothing hooks in the vestibule and made for the stairs again. As far as she knew, her father was a cocksure atheist who hadn't set foot in a church or temple of whatever faith for ages, not even on the day of her baptism. But accompanying the O'Sullivans to divine service on Sunday mornings, she had always found comfort in the presence of the One God, and with a little bit of luck Reverend Roshdan would still be around and lend her a sympathetic ear.
With darkness falling, the temperature had dropped considerably, and she counted her blessings when the doors of the small chapel around the corner had closed behind her. Inside the modest building smelling of candle wax and not incense, it was only marginally warmer than in the streets, but at least the biting wind wasn't threatening to freeze the marrow in her bones any longer. Snuggling up in her coat, Larissa sat down on one of the alteroak church pews, rubbed her hands to get the blood circulation going again and took a look around.
With the exception of two elderly women deeply absorbed in prayer, there was no soul to be seen. Unfortunately that included Reverend Roshdan, the white-haired priest who had baptized her seventeen years ago, and the young woman's mood hit rock bottom again. Try as she might, she still couldn't wrap her head around the fact that her father had loved a man once, not to mention that her beloved wasn't a child of the O'Sullivans at all and his true parentage was still shrouded in mystery. Along with both her father's and Lucy's horrified reactions to her marriage plans, those unexpected revelations doubtlessly would have given even a more mature person ample food for thought. Convinced that her whole world was coming crashing down around her, she couldn't help but succumbing to another surge of black despair.
Tearing up once again very much against her will, Larissa tried to regain a grip on herself by focussing on the two interlinking circles on the altar, but failed miserably. Very unkind thoughts utterly unbefitting a dutiful daughter were welling up from a place deep down in the darker recesses of her soul, thoughts which would have made her cringe with embarrassment had she still been capable of thinking straight. Of course everything was her father's fault! Her aunt could talk about his redeeming traits and his miserable fate until she was blue in the face, but there were no two ways about it that he was a drunkard who hadn't accomplished anything decent in his entire life.
All at once, the candles flickered as if hit by a sudden gust of wind, but the brittle winter air was perfectly still, the intricately carved alteroak door tightly shut. Askance, Damien's daughter let her gaze wander around, scanning the dark corners of the chapel for an unknown threat. Although she'd never seen one, even more than twenty years after the Second Sacrifice there were still demonlings preying on the human colonists. One of her schoolmates had been attacked by a winged, scaly creature not even two years ago, and only the dauntless intervention of a passer-by had saved her from coming to serious harm. But nothing moved in the shadows, and the rush of adrenaline slowly subsiding, she returned to her childish pouting. Wasn't it enough that the man who had sired her was a no-good loser? But no, he had to be a... a closet queen on top of that! No wonder that her mother had tried her luck elsewhere and that his offspring wasn't considered worthy marrying into the famous Tarrant family. Feeling very, very sorry for herself, she buried her face in her hands and let her tears flow freely.
"The meaning of the term 'closet queen' escapes me, but I'd appreciate it very much if you stopped calling your father a loser," a cool, composed voice suddenly cut through the sound of her desperate sobs like a blade forged from glacier ice. "Nothing could be farther from the truth. In his very best days, Damien Kilcannon Vryce was a priest, a natural-born healer and a mighty warrior who helped saving the world from eternal slavery. He was also the kindest and most forgiving soul I've ever met. You'd better bear that in mind before you dare to judge him once again. And now kindly stop wallowing in self-pity, child. We have to talk business."
Startled, Larissa opened her eyes. The first thing she saw were long, slender fingers offering her a floral white handkerchief with an embroidered coronet, followed by a midnight blue silk tunic and matching surcot she'd rather expected to encounter in the costume stock of a theatre specialized in staging period pieces. Dazedly she wondered whether the guy who had come to her father's defense was an actor suffering from a bad bout of jitters. The theatregoers of Jaggonath were a notoriously critical bunch, and a prayer or two right before the evening performance was about to start wasn't such a bad idea for a member of the acting profession. But naturally, that wouldn't explain why those obviously custom-made leather boots and the velvet cloak sweeping the ground at his feet were impeccably clean despite the snow slush covering the streets and pavements. And the rather unnerving fact that the man, who seemed to have dropped right from the sky, was aware of her most secret thoughts.
Slowly, warily, she let her gaze wander upwards until her eyes locked on the stranger's serene face. For several seconds, Larissa just stared in wide-eyed incomprehension, utterly incapable of processing the visual input. Then realization hit her with the force of a quake, and she sprang to her feet. Instantly, the room started to spin dizzyingly around her, and her vision rapidly narrowing into a tunnel, she wasn't even aware that the young man - the ghost from her father's past - caught her in his very solid arms before she hit the hard stone floor.
