Cruel Fates
Book III: Chapter 2
By: IQ

I wrote this in about December…maybe…I just didn't post it.

AN: I'm sorry everyone! I'm so sorry! I haven't written anything in so long! This part is pretty short too, but it's a necessary sweetness, and I'm always bad at writing those. Angst, hearbreak, and misery are my specialties. Still, I hope you at least think its okay.

Disclaimer: Ya'll know the drill, go back to previous chapters if you want the details! ^_^
__________-----------__________----------_________ *Silvara's POV*

For such a long time I've wanted to come home. Yet, when I find myself here (well not really, I'm at Jaenelle's house), I have the urge to run and flee; leap over the garden fence away from all the tension and resentment.

Jade squeezes my hand and out of the corner of my eyes, I see her smile knowingly. *Running away didn't solve anything all those years ago, and it won't solve anything now,* she tells me on a gray distaff thread, sent to me and me alone. Sometimes I wonder how someone as seemingly abrasive as her can have such flashes of tenderness. A total paradox.

I nod while frowning. Much as I didn't want to admit it, she was right. I looked up through the courtyard and into the room my mother was staying in. Sarai stood, leaning on the door jamb and gave a jaunty wave before returning back into the sick room. Gabrielle hadn't woken yet, but she would soon. Two days, tops.

The breeze shifted and Jade's nostrils flared. Her head turned and my eyes followed the movement. There, moving silently toward us was the person I wanted to see least right now. Chaosti of the Dae al Mon. My father, biologically at least. He looked older than he had when I'd left. I thought Dae al Mon were supposed to have longer life spans, 'course not as long as the long-lived races.

His face was neutral, carefully blank, as it had been since I'd stepped into the Hall. Jade's fingers dropped away and she stalked silently by Chaosti. There was a moment of communication in which like smiles appeared on their faces, both with the same unnameable something in them. Then the twin looks were gone and so was she.

"Silvara," Chaosti said with a courteous nod. For some reason him greeting me so formally squeezed my heart.

"Chaosti." My face became as blank as his. Must be an inherited trait.

"May I sit here?" He asked, indicating the carved stone bench I sat on. I just shrugged, indicating I didn't care, then nodded.

"I noticed you weren't at breakfast today," he began.

"I wasn't hungry," I said.

"You weren't at any of the meals yesterday either." He slanted a look at me. You know, one of those male-interrogating-female ones.

"I wasn't hungry then either." A very lame excuse in the face of my father. He knew that I could eat whenever, wherever, and whatever. I was a virtual bottomless pit when it came to food. It was a wonder I wasn't the size of a barrel....or Mrs. Beale.

"I'm starting to think you're avoiding the family," I looked over at him while he was talking, and he was smiling ruefully, "I know we've given you plenty of reason to. Still, a witch of your power should be eating properly."

"Daddy!" I cried on instinct, horrified that he was trying to baby me.

Chaosti looked at me, smiling warmly, the same smile he had given me every day for fourteen years of my life. "Father," I whispered suddenly, overcome with sadness. Abruptly, I threw myself at him, hugging him. His arms came around me and hugged me back. "Daughter," he whispered in my ear.

"We have much to talk about," I pointed out to him.

"Yes," he agreed.

_____________-----------__________Jade_________----------_____________

I walked to the sickroom at an easy pace, chuckling to myself. The brief "chat" I'd had with Chaosti was still making me smile. I replayed it again in my head, just for kicks.

*If I sense any sign of distress from her, I will gut you like a fish.* That was what I said, of course. Just a little warning. Let him know I'd be waiting, watching, listening. Make him think twice. Then that smile...in another life, maybe Chaosti was a predator. Or maybe that's just the way Dea al Mon were. What did I know? Sure, I'd lived with one for a few years, but she wasn't exactly your typical Dea al Mon bitch-- oops, I mean witch.

I reached the door and didn't bother to knock, knowing if Sarai were deep enough in her healing, she wouldn't answer anyway.

Sarai was mixing some sort of poultice or some other concoction at the bureau top she'd taken over as a makeshift worktable.

"Why didn't you ask Jaenelle if you could use a workroom?" I asked, scrutinizing the haphazardly stacked jars, bits, baubles, and other oddities. I'd never understood healing magic that I couldn't use my Widow's gift for.

Sarai looked up and smiled, eyes twinkling. She looked tired despite the spark in her eyes. Black bags sat under her eyes, and her hair was combed back into the tiniest ponytail I'd ever seen. When Sarai was too tired to do her hair properly, you knew she was working too hard. Too bad Alex wasn't here to stop her, because I wasn't going to. She'd just turn the same argument back on me. "I didn't want to impose," she said sweetly.

How did she ever make it on her own? Then I realized she'd never truly been on her own. She'd gone from being raised by a Circuit to running one. I shook my head and sighed. "Anyway, I came to ask if you needed any help, since I can't do anything else around here."

"Not really, but you can keep me company." She shot me a smile over her shoulder.

"Okay," I said and flopped down in the chair despondently. I was so bored. There was nothing to do here. I didn't have enough privacy to do my exercises, I didn't have anyone to teach. Without the Circuit, and having people all around me I knew and trusted, I just didn't quite know what to do with myself. Oh pooh. I wondered how Nathaniel was doing back at the Circuit with my people and his. I wondered how he and Alex were getting along. I wondered if Keely was keeping up with her lessons for Alex was a horrible influence on her educationally.

__________----------------________Silvara________--------------__________

The door shut with a quiet click and I sighed in relief. Chaosti-- it was too odd calling him 'father' and 'daddy' was too childish-- had just left after I'd finished telling him everything. Well, almost everything except for the stuff parents don't need to know about their children.

"That was a cute story. The one about Sarai and hand-to-hand combat." A honeyed tenor voice said in back of me. The sound made me shiver just a little because it reminded me of someone. However, the psychic scent in the room was more like Daemon's. Dark and mature.

Turning, I looked at one of the most beautiful creatures the Darkness had ever spawned. Tall and tan with golden eyes, he looked so much like his father. The hair was black and silky-looking, like a cat's fur, and the front of his hair, which was longer than the back, fell forward, hiding an eye.

"Hello, Damien," I said, my voice gone weak and whispery.

"Hello? After so long is that all you have to say?" He asked with neutral tiger eyes. Eyes that said no matter what, it would eat you alive.

"What would you like me to say?" I asked carefully. An angry male on your hands was always a bad thing. An angry Warlord Prince whose Jewel was darker than yours was ten times as worse.

"For starters," Damien began while gliding into the room, "How about an explanation." The way he said it stated that he was going to get an explanation no matter what. It was just a fact in his mind. I knew what he meant by wanting an explanation and decided not to play dumb. Damien would see through it anyway. He always had.

"I left because I needed to. You must understand that," I told him, staring down at the fabric of my sapphire pants. I could see his black-clad legs stop moving right in front of me. I looked up, feeling my breath catch and it was all I could do not to throw myself at him and babble about how I'd missed him.

He was gorgeous and he knew it, damn him. I wasn't going to flounder at his feet like fish caught in shallow water, just because he was fuckable. I wouldn't be like every other bitch in town.

" I know you left because you felt you had to," Damien said, enunciating a bit. The words had cost him a lot, just that little bit of understanding. He sighed and shook his head, a bit of the Damien I'd grown up with peeking through. I took it as a good sign.

"Sit down," I order nicely and patted the seat next to me. He looked at it consideringly, then plopped himself down. "Thanks," I said, feeling a warmth in my heart. I didn't mean for sitting down. He understood and took my hand in his, which had lain on the couch, near to him.

"I was scared," he admitted after a long silence.

"So was I," I said with tears in my eyes for the second time that day. Then I threw myself at yet another male close to my heart, hugging the life out of him.

"That was the greeting I was hoping for," Damien said fiercely in my ear.


Next chapter: Gabrielle the Uber-Bitch wakes up! ^_^ lol