Chapter 25

Shortly after Kisara had mysteriously left, Arados had gone back to running cold water over his arm to help with the itching. Nearby Lus sat on the edge of his small bathtub, watching him and casually chatting. For the most part Arados wasn't really paying any attention to what he was saying; since his arm had started itching he'd found his mind wondering much more easily than it normally did. Although he'd only really started noticing that since Lus had arrived.

Giving a kind a frustrated grunt, he pulled his arm out of the water and dabbed it dry with one of the hand towels. It may still have been itching like hell, but the cold water had made his arm painfully numb.

'She knows something,' he found himself turning on Lus.

'What?' Lus shot him a look, as though he wasn't completely sure what he was on about.

'That Kisara girl, she knows what this is,' he pointed down towards his arm. 'We need to corner her and find out.'

'What makes you think she knows anything?'

'You saw the way she left. And she did pretty much declare herself an expert so why wouldn't she know?'

'You can't just jump to conclusions that aren't there.'

'But the conclusion is there, don't you see that?' Arados's face filled with a serious look, as the tingling numbing sensation of his arm began to settle a little. 'You have to go find her for me.'

'What?'

'Well I can't leave here, remember? So you can go track her down, bring her back here and then we'll find out what we need to know.'

'What you need to know, you mean? And it's not like you physically can't leave here, you're not trapped, you're just frightened.'

'Because that doesn't basically equate to the same thing.'

'In your head maybe,' he shrugged. 'If you want her, go get her yourself.'

'I can't and besides, I know you're just as curious about this as I am.'

'Is that what you think?'

'I think…' suddenly his mind became distracted and he found himself examining the blue line again. 'You can't even see the skin of my underarm anymore.'

'Huh?' Lus frowned at him for a moment.

'You can see it moving now too, look.'

'This isn't right.'

'You're telling me,' Arados gave a heavy sigh. 'So then we're agreed; you'll track her down for me.'

'I still don't think she has the answers.'

'I don't care, it's the only lead we have right now. And… and…'

'Alright,' Lus got to his feet, 'I get the point. But I'm really not sure how much its really going to help if she doesn't actually know anything.'

'At least I'll know for sure that is the case.'

'Okay, okay, I get the point. Alright, one ditzy Vii Sen coming right up.'

Nichee had been nice enough to give him time to think things over, so False had made a strange kind of beeline to Dayena's offices. He wasn't going to tell her what Nichee had said to him because he didn't want her to think less of him for it. He just needed the friendly face of someone he considered to be like a mother to him. When he arrived he was amazed to find Kisara there too, babbling herself into a state beyond frantic madness. Instantly sensing something was up, he made no hesitations in breaking into the conversation she was having with Dayena.

'What's happened?'

'Oh gee,' Kisara stared at him wide-eyed, 'something really, really bad might be about to happen False.'

'Bad like how?'

'Bad like… like… like…'

'Your secret being exposed?' False's eyes glanced between Dayena and Kisara for a few moments. 'But how? Did you say something?'

'No, that wretched Ashmar queen did something,' she turned away from him, clearly half infuriated at the thought of it. 'I know I shouldn't be mean about her Dee, but she really is wretched.'

'She didn't do this to expose anything,' Dayena reassured her, clearly trying to act calmer than she was, 'you told me yourself about her heir being gay, what other choice did she have?'

'She shouldn't have even had access to that knowledge,' Kisara shook her head. 'You told me no one remembered things like that anymore. You told my mother that it would all be fine, that nobody would ever suspect a thing. I don't exactly have a family history I can make public as it is. The last thing I need people to know was that my mother used…'

'Why have you always been so ashamed of it?' False frowned. 'That's the one thing I've never understood. Of the hundreds of reasons you have to be all cloak and dagger about your past, that one…'

'Blue Ice only exists in lines descended from Desmitus.'

'So, there was more than one Desmitus that had descendants, you could easily…'

'It's still forces people to question the family history,' Dayena averted her gaze. 'It may be long kept, but it wouldn't take much digging for someone to find out the truth.'

'You're overestimating how much interest anyone would have in this.'

'No False, you're underestimating human curiosity. Or are you deliberately forgetting the reason you even found out about it in the first place?'

'Not everyone's as curious as me though,' he squirmed slightly.

'You're right, most people are worse.'

'Then… then maybe it's time people did know,' he hardened his own expression, 'wouldn't that be less stress?'

'We can't False,' Kisara's voice was so low it was almost inaudible, 'you know we can't.'

Taking a deep breath, False let out a strangely exasperated noise. He couldn't help but feel like they were both blowing everything out of proportion. But then he'd been thinking that ever since he learnt the truth. It wasn't that he didn't get why it was better kept a secret. He more than understood why; it was one of the reasons he'd always been careful to make sure Kisara didn't give the game away to anyone else the way she had to him. And he was loyal enough to both Kisara and Dayena to want to keep their secret protected. But at the same time…

'We need to set up damage control before this gets a chance to leak out,' Dayena interrupted False's train of thoughts. 'If people must learn of this, I'd rather we kept it to as few people as possible. And that the information is given out on our terms.'

'So we're in a state of ICDC then,' False nodded slowly.

'Information Containment Damage Control,' Kisara sighed. 'You haven't required that for any of my line since my great-great-great-grandfather was born. And that was only because his father was stupid enough to tell his mother the truth.'

'What else could he do when I came to take the child away,' Dayena wearily clasped her hands together. 'He was the first one for a few generations to choose a mortal girl.'

'It's one of the few things I'm grateful to my mother for; she at least had the decency to choose someone who'd expect the child to be taken away anyway.'

'Vii Sen can't be allowed to raise their own children, it was the ruling made when my sister and I agreed to give them the legal right to breed with each other.'

'To limit how many of us would want babies.'

'Exactly.'

'And we can't resent our parents for wanting us,' Kisara lowered her gaze, 'only for not being able to keep us.'