Blood of Avalon

by ellennar

AU for DMC, AWE, & ST Cannon for CotBP - A tale in which Will's search for the father he never knew brings Jack face to face with his own past.

34. Sibling Rivalry

No, I haven't died, yes I should be ashamed of myself. No I haven't actually abandoned this story even though I haven't posted in forever. This chapter was supposed to go on a bit longer but given that it's already nearly 30,000 words I thought I should post it since I was at a good break point.

Blood of Avalon: Chapter 19b: Sibling Rivalry

Jack smirked looking down at the journal before Norrington dryly noted "Captain Sparrow indulging your own narcissism gets us no closer to aiding your brother."

Jack leveled a less than friendly glare at him before passing the journal to Elizabeth "Does that meet with yer approval?" he asked them both "Don't blink at me luv as yer bloody friend Zander pointed out we're burning daylight."

With a quick nod Elizabeth scanned the page and began reading.

I rested my head against my forearm ignoring both the fact that the ruby in my crown was drawing blood and that my hands were shaking. It might have taken me less than a fortnight to physically recover from the carchar (once I set my will to the task. I was frankly ashamed of my behavior. I was the Prince of Avalon and had NO right to be a malingerer and had NO excuse for my indulgence) but the last six months had more than proven Argellion's warning about the extent of the damage to my enaid. Things that had once come as easily as breathing were now tortuous at best and impossible at worst. Drawing a deep breath I leaned back surveying Pearl's nearly finished hull wondering just what she would be when she woke…if she woke. There was no mistaking the magic thrumming under my finger tips but with my own awareness unraveling nearly as quickly as I could restore it I had no idea what her personality would be or if she would even have one. I knew what I had TRIED to impart but….

Enough, leaning here wasn't getting Pearl any closer to being completed nor did it change the fact that I should have had her done months ago. I flicked an ear as one of the breezes that had accompanied Sparrow on his trip to town whispered that he was returning. I sighed with relief. I hadn't wanted to force the issue. The boy was neither blind nor stupid. It hadn't taken him a day to figure out that something was wrong with his benefactor. Since I'd been lost in the dark when it happened I'd had to glean why Sparrow was gone when I finally clawed my way back with the assistance of Argellion's gift and the old remnants of my lighthouse spell. Apparently not even the lure of captaining his own ship was enough to keep Sparrow in my 'completely daft' company. Peregrine had a point. I had no business trying to raise the boy, had no business trying to build a lledrith of any kind much less a floating fortress, and certainly had no business even vaguely considering trying to captain her. But I'd promised the boy in that giddy wash of joy at finally being free and I had every intention of keeping those promises even if it killed me. Besides what else could I do? Our Sire clearly had some plan for the child and I couldn't in good conscious abandon him to it. A bitter bark of something resembling laughter slipped past my lips. Poor child, caught between two monsters. The darkness fluttered at the edges of my vision threatening to pull me back into its embrace but six months of wrestling with my unstable enaid had taught me a few tricks and I remained in the waking world this time.

Sparrow hesitated on the edge of the clearing, intently studying the boots I'd bought him. I finished the setting the plank in place before turning toward him. He swallowed loud enough for dynol ears to hear as he crept closer.

"I'm sorry" he didn't look up from his boots "I shouldn't have said those things." He held out one entirely too grubby hand. How DID the child manage to be so unendingly filthy? "I brought ye some fancy…stuff." I took the proffered peace offerings with an elegant bow and my thanks. String, sealing wax, three mismatched buttons, and something even I couldn't identify.

"Ain't" Sparrow began but corrected himself to "isn't" before I could say anything "yer fault yer daft. I do want te learn from ye 'cause when yer really here yer" the boy paused waving his hands as what he wanted to say and his desire to not insult me further collided. "yer bloody brilliant and when yer not, well then it will be Captain Jack Sparrow's task te keep a weather eye out. Tis what partners do fer each other."

I was caught somewhere between touched and too furious to speak. I nearly choked on the rage before welcoming him back and telling him to wash up before he touched ANYTHING. As I straightened wondering what to do with three mismatched buttons, two pieces of string, and one unidentifiable object, the sealing wax might actually be useful at some point…darkness…light. My fingers brushed against Risanca.

'That has to be getting tiresome' Nimrais commented.

'I told you it isn't an option, I have no intentions of changing my mind' I retorted as I started back to the Pearl's nearly finished hull.

'But it would be so easy. The boy would die without pain.'

I shivered in the Caribbean heat blood running icy cold not even slightly tempted by Nimrais' abominable suggestion. Seeing that my gaze was on him the boy smiled and waved before scrambling around Pearl as agilely as any monkey with no idea that a dead Draig was trying to convince me to strip him of his enaid to stabilize the ragged bits of my own.

'You won't hurt anymore, you won't slip into the darkness' the Draig rumbled.

'I fell into one of your snares before hell be damned if I'll do it again.'

He hissed 'Fool' and then vanished to wherever it was the shades of dead Draigs went when they weren't trying to tempt me into being an even nastier soul than I already was. I put Sparrow to work on the railings while I returned to the working on the deck. I shook off a wash of darkness and instead ended up trapped in one of my own memories…

I had expected to be met by Mannwan as Captain of the King's Guard or failing that by some Udd but instead my escort consisted of an entire troop of red caps, several difabyd, a difaenaid, the Gwyilgi, and an extremely sour looking Puck Robin leading a score of hobs. Clearly he was still holding a grudge over Neidr. Well two could play at that game. I was none too happy about what had happened to him myself. One way or another his father was going to feel my wrath.

I felt naked without a Shadow to cover me but the days of my weaving Shadow every moment of every day were over until my Taithe. I made a point to appear utterly serene, even as my gut screamed that I should have seen another Ellyllon by now that the 'escort' that had met me after passing through the valley of the Draigs was no honor guard. I was a prisoner, or so my Sire thought. Even the Wind seemed still, slow, and…frightened. Earth was never my strong suit but that didn't mean that I wasn't moved when it groaned and mourned under my feet. The longer I was in Avalon the more furious I became. There was no question that something was seriously amiss from the Winds which carried the same stench as a Russian one to the rivers which flowed with out joy. Avalon more than any mortal kingdom above was tied to the will of its King and I was beginning to think that my grandfather might have had been wise to have me trained as an assassin. Not that I was considering usurping the throne. A flutter of nervous anticipation which I quashed. I was no longer among blind dynol. Control of the physical was no longer enough, it must reflect in my enaid as well. Neither my anger, nor my apprehensiveness, nor my curiosity must show. True nobility born and bred with all the 'quality' thereof. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. So, beauty, grace, style, confidence, pride, competence, patience and nothing more.

That aplomb was tested when the Citadel's magical 'gates' closed behind me. It was undoubtedly the fact that my escort looked more like detail from a prison guard making me so restless that and the fundamental wrongness of, well, everything. These were my lands as much as England had been Bess's. France Henri's, and the Low Countries Guiles'. Despite being able to bespeak Earth I had never truly felt the connection before and wished now that I had been kinder to them about it. This land was MINE in a way the Outlands had never been and someone had abused it, it didn't matter that I had seen next to nothing of what would one day be my Kingdom, the agony of my realm was a moan in my ears that made it difficult to hear aught else, a wound in my side that pulsed with every beat of my heart, a foul taste on the back of my throat, a fetid stench in my nostrils. I longed to break away from my less than cheery escort and heal my realm but first I needed to know what was amiss. Where better than in the court?

How could my father have allowed the situation to become so grave? Was he himself a captive of the master of the creatures that made up my escort? Mannwan would have died first. And perhaps he had. Softly, softly, nothing must show but calm until I had seen the full lay of the land and taken the weather gauge. If Mannwan had fallen he would be avenged. I was a bit surprised that we merely swept into the Great Hall without any sort of fan fare. Well, if these bumpkins could not be relied upon it introduce me properly I would have to see to it myself. I gathered the Draig, not in rage, but in majesty. Let my people see a Penthalion worthy of their adoration. To my gratification my escort fell back in awe as every head in the Great Hall turned. Summoning every scrap of regal grace I'd ever learned in the dynol courts and letting none of the maelstrom in my gut show, I glided towards the dais at the far end parting the Ellyllon and cyfae between like Jane's Moses through the Red Sea. I gave my Sire the proper obeisance of a Prince of the Blood to the reining monarch and rolled my eyes so far forward trying to peer at him with my head down that I was practically looking at the inside of my eyelids.

He appeared surprisingly old for his years since he was not yet four hundred, younger by far than his sister-wives (my mother was a full two centuries his elder and SHE was older still) though by no means aged and slightly…unkempt, certainly not raging wild man disheveled but not what I expected of a king even after Henri's frequently less than ideal concept of personal grooming. Green hair flared in untamed tangles that verged on dreadlocks around a face not quite as fair as my own but there was certainly no mistaking the family resemblance. I did NOT shiver as he bade me rise and I looked into my father's mad eyes for the first time. The color of quicksilver, a color that predominated his enaid as well I noted, it even moved like quicksilver. Nasty stuff, quicksilver and so was the gaze I found myself under. Desire, not as a man looks on a woman but as a greedy woman looks upon a bauble that she intends to possess, as a glutton views the finest of filets after a month's fast. He went so far as to rise and circle like a shark. Lust for something far darker and more depraved than mere rape radiated from him, sometimes perfection is its own punishment. It's never easy being better than everyone else. My dancing instructor would have beaten better grace into me if I had ever moved so… inelegantly. I forced myself not to tense with him at my back and met the hatred in Neidr's father's, Unben Udd of Lofrudd, eyes with pure loathing fully exposed in my own.

With the slightest tilt of his head he challenged me and with a flicker of my eyes I accepted before my father settled back into his throne. Even as I struggled not to let it show I could feel my heart sinking. Looking at them as Unben leaned down whispering into my father's ear I knew without a shadow of a doubt what was wrong with Avalon. The only question was, was my father twisted beyond saving by the monster behind him or could he be salvaged if I slew Unben? And could Avalon afford for me to try? Where should my first allegiance lie? To my father or to my country both of which I had never seen until today? He had tried to kill me, more than once, he had killed every other sibling I had ever had, he had killed his own father, I should set my entire will toward his destruction, except, except, he was my father and damn it all I did NOT WANT him to be the monster I rather suspected he was.

"Since you are past your Defod" my father had a surprisingly pleasant voice that drew you, tugged at you, wooed you like a siren song. I blinked as it curled around me wanting to shake my head clear of the need to obey but knowing it would be the act of a fool. The maelstrom in my gut froze as I realized he wasn't even putting any power behind it and already it coiled around my will like a constrictor. Forget mardeths and the shades of dead Draigs, my father was the most dangerous creature I had ever faced. "tradition dictates that you pay your respects to your mother" He pointed at a red cap who visibly paled when he saw the direction my father had indicated "Take that way."

Unben's laughter followed me as I stepped through a door that instantly vanished leaving me face to face with the most persistent of my nightmares, Her, my aunt Eiluned and I belatedly remembered that no member of House Penthalion was ever presented to the Queens until after their Oed which was at least seventy years from now. Unben's mocking laughter…

I shook my head the image of the past shattered by the fact that it was the red cap's screams not Unben's laughter that followed…and I could STILL hear Unben! I whirled seeking desperately for Sparrow, and for Unben. Apparently Unben and his two score red caps found Pearl hysterically funny. I breathed a sigh of relief that none of them had spotted Sparrow as I wrapped him in Shadow and directed the Winds to keep him hidden and unaware. I wanted to spend the next several days peeling the flesh from Unben's bones a hair's breadth at time but first things first, he couldn't possibly have been foolish enough to come after me with naught but two score of red caps? Well wrapped in Shadow myself I sent the Wind to check for others as I strained my own senses. Two score of red caps and two score of pidwidgin. I was flabbergasted. It was insult to injury. Did He actually think I had fallen so low that THIS pathetic attempt would be enough to apprehend me?! I swallowed a roar of rage and instead set about picking off the red caps in small, quite groups. Nasty little creatures, red caps, thoroughly in love with murder and mayhem, it wasn't surprising at all that they were enthusiastic followers of His. Well, He wouldn't be getting this bunch back but what to do with the pidwidginii? I had no doubt they were here under the influence of a gorchmyn and I was loath to harm them. They were essentially impervious to Fire which negated my preferred method of containing annoyances until I saw fit to deal with them, Earth was out of the question even… before, dwarves and Earth where too closely linked even for Mannwan to pull caging them with Earth off, Wind would get distracted at the most inopportune of moments, but unlike Neidr, Unben had just enough talent for Water that he would know if I spoke to Sea.

I'd been lucky at the ceremony, he hadn't bothered to listen. Sloppy of him and sloppy gets you killed. I licked my lips in anticipation of what I would do to him. Did I care if he heard? Best to finish slaying the red caps first. The pidwidgin were a little away from the rest, simple enough to cut them off at the proper time. I crafted Shadows of the fallen, let Unben mock the Pearl, I would have the last laugh. I wanted him dead, slowly, ever so slowly, for Neidr, the son he had so carelessly tossed aside as collateral in a deal he had no intention of keeping and then DARED TO BLAME ME for his death after I nearly died saving him. My fury raged to be loosed on the sack of filth, for Neidr wounded to the quick and forced to choose between the father that had nearly killed him and the Prince who had saved him. My grief was as sharp as my rage, oh Neidr, what a pair we might have made if you had only confined in me. If only you hadn't committed suicide convinced that there was no way out of following in your father's footsteps. For Avalon, how much of the desolation of my kingdom was purely my Sire's fault and how much was Unben's was impossible to untangle. They were like two briers, producing nothing worth having and wounding anything foolish enough to blunder too close. And for myself, I knew that the difaenaid attacks that had shredded my soul and the carchar had been Unben's idea. Over half my LIFE locked in a box. Oh, but he needed to pay for all of it.

The red caps were dealt with far too swiftly to be even vaguely satisfying. I let the Shadows fade revealing the bodies of the dead, as Unben nattered on how the Pearl's wards look like inept fumblings of mutilated moron. Granted wards weren't my strong suit and I hell be damn sure wasn't at my best, nor were they a tenth as elegant as my usual work but I was more than willing to bet my brother's life that the ugly, ungainly things would hold THROUGH Jane's God's Judgment Day. It took Unben a full sentence to realize that his audience was dead before whirling to call the pidwidgin to arms. I knew they could move far more swiftly than they did, on my side as much as they could be then and Sea easily encircled them. Once this was over She and I would be having a little chat. She had promised a full blockade of Avalon so what in Jane's Hell were they doing here?

Unben smirked as I pulled Nimrais. There were no curses in the tongues of Ellyllon or dynol strong enough. Wards. The strength of wards diminished the more area they encompassed, clearly Unben was coward enough that he'd only bothered to protect himself.

"Neidr admired your 'spirit'" he observed pointedly turning his back on me. INSOLENCE, ARROGANCE It was not to be bourn! It took every scrap of control I could muster not to fling myself at him. I'd spent more than enough time digging at his wards in the carchar. Vengeance was a dish best served cold, I could wait "the folly of youth" he said in a purr I had learned to dread in my Sire's torture chamber as he rounded to face me "you are simply too STUPID to know when to yield."

"LOOK at this disaster" he tried to sneer but a snicker escaped instead. I would have preferred the sneer "When you arrived in Avalon you would have screamed to the stars if anyone had even dreamed of associating your name with work this slipshod. Now it's the best you can muster. You would slit your own throat if you could truly see how far you have fallen."

I hated the fact that the words sliced through the bone because they were true. I was a shadow of what I had once been but hell be damned if I would lay down for anyone, least of all this piece of excrement. He did this to me and I will NOT let it go unanswered. He would NOT make me a scapegoat for Neidr.

"How it must burn, to have me this close and not be able to even touch me" his eyes glittered with malicious delight as he swaggered a little closer "or did the difaenaid strip you of that clever tongue?" His grin grew wider as he ran his own across his teeth "The King is MOST displeased and disappointed but this is ever so much sweeter" the fool reached out to actually touch Pearl's dark wood and got rolled arse over end for his folly, eventually landing in a sandy heap more than twelve yards down the beach. While I hadn't doubted it it was comforting to know that my work still had punch if not panache. Mind you I was rather…vexed about the distinct lack of elegance but despite my pride I wasn't so foolish as to put appearance before substance with my brother's freedom and life on the line. I snarled as Unben's own wards held firm. I had rather hoped if he was idiot enough to try to breech Pearl's that it would give me the opening I needed but as every other test had proven Unben was my better at wards. Ah, well, if it was easy anyone could do it. I was the Crown Prince of Avalon, I had a nation to save, revenge to take, and a brother to protect, failure was sloppy and unacceptable. Unben was sorely mistaken if he thought his skill with wards and a few score foot soldiers were enough to get him out of here alive never mind with me as a prisoner.

"Enough" he barked his tumble in the sand dispelling all his mirth whilst it was my turn to smirk but all amusement fled as he snapped he fingers and bade me come as if I was one of Mannwan's benighted red eared hounds.

I merely glared, content for the moment to let him think I could not speak as I briefly toyed with the idea of using the gorchmyn to force him to drop his wards. The mere thought of wielding the gorchmyn took me to my knees, retching, with barely the presence of mind to disguise my weakness with Shadow, my hold on the waking world staggered and wavered and I clung with all I could muster. I couldn't leave Sparrow alone with this monster, not NOW, no, No, NO, N…darkness….

…light, or more accurately, inferno, Sparrow was rather diligently trying to convince me that we should do the bright work in a skull and cross bones motif. I reflected that the child had NO taste as I tried to fathom how precisely I had just turned Unben into a pile of ash given that I'd never successfully breached his wards before. I was admittedly a bit disappointed that I hadn't had the chance to properly torture him both for information and personal satisfaction. I firmed decided I wouldn't even try to puzzle out which I had wanted more. He had seen Sparrow when the boy's wishes had sliced through the Shadow hiding him like a sharp knife up under the ribs, now he would never tell a soul the boy lived. It was enough, or at least it would have to be enough, it wasn't nearly enough, not really but then nothing ever would have been, not for all his crimes. I thanked the Draigs Sparrow had dynol eyes and the Winds had remembered my instructions for once, my brother was blissfully oblivious but the pidwidginii had seen. I was going to have to kill them all. I was not doing well at becoming a kinder, gentler, me this time round. I could NOT do this in front of Sparrow even if he would never know a thing.

"Sparrow, would you like to take Peregrine and fetch the supplies we need?"

My brother blinked those huge brown eyes that were the undoing of my least day dream of being stern with him at me with a little surprised and thrilled gasp before demanding the list, ecstatic that I'd finally 'come te me senses aboot the fact that he was just fine all on his onesies.' I had most certainly NOT. I felt a brief pang of sympathy for all those I had snapped at through the years for similar sentiments. Of course I really HAD been able to take care of myself…

Elizabeth paused as Jack's grinding teeth actually reached a pitch that drowned out the diary.

"Captain Sparrow" Norrington intoned as his most acerbic "there isn't much sand left in the hourglass."

Jack clearly bit down hard on a witty retort but stopped grinding.

It was all I could do not to follow my brother as I committed him to Peregrine, Sea, and Wind. Peregrine and Sea I trusted implicitly to watch over him but neither could (safely) follow him onto the docks and Wind was so bloody fickle. I gathered my resolve and turned to the pidwidginii, if must be done best that it be done swiftly so that I could follow Sparrow post haste.

They bowed low at my approach and their Master begged "One boon, our rightful King."

How could I refuse? "Name it."

"The Usurper has bound us against you in life, let us serve you in death. Your fortress shall need guns and your Earth skills have been gravely diminished. Let us craft your guns, let our life's blood quicken them into lledrith, let us defend you and your brother beyond the grave."

Touched and humbled I bowed. Sparrow would truly have to look after himself for this would likely take a full fortnight. I sent a message with Sea to let Peregrine know to delay. Pearl was designed for thirty-six guns, I would have to add a couple of smaller guns fore and aft to make up the full count. I sent Sea to fetch iron ore from her depths and dropped down as close as I could come without rousing the gorychymyn that would compel them to attack me at every opportunity and began to speak with my subjects. One day I would return home in triumph, I wanted to know to whom the reward for their noble sacrifice should go but something deep inside coiled in icy dread. Sea's barricade was insufficient. Once they enlightened me as to how they had gotten here the gaping breach in my defenses was painfully obvious but it had never occurred to me that the Ellyllon created the Underhill simply by being there. It was perforce a very slow march but I had no doubt that these brave, loyal pidwidginii that would become the Pearl's guns, whose voices I would hear every time they were fired, were but the first of my own to fall in the battle for both my freedom and Avalon's.

Jack winced and muttered "Sorry, 'bout that mates."

"Captain Sparrow?" Commodore Norrington inquired.

"Ah, well, I gave the guns names back when I was just a wee lad and…"

"I assume that they were disrespectful to the brave souls that swore to serve you" the Commodore had that 'there's something distasteful stuck to my shoe' tone again.

Jack raised his chin "I didn't know."

The Commodore's sniff spoke volumes. Elizabeth rolled her eyes and skipped several pages before smirking at Jack.

I love my brother, Will, I really truly do. I would gladly lay down my life for him. But Jane's God about and Draigs below I COULD BLOODY GLEEFULLY strangle him. There were all of four people on the planet when the first murder occurred and I was feeling immense sympathy… for CAIN. My diminutive sibling is without a doubt the LAZIEST, MOST INCONSIDERATE, IMBICILIC, SLOB it had ever been my displeasure to meet. The… the...the, Draigs Will I speak dozens of tongues and mere words fail, the BRAT has the crew teetering on the edge of mutiny. If I hadn't made certain that they were more than half terrified of Captain Mallory they would have already tried to maroon us. What WAS the little monster THINKING? Easily answered - he wasn't, he never did. If he had been real moron, it would be some much easier to forgive but the boy's wits were as sharp (or sharper) than my own. I surveyed the disaster that had previously been my cabin. One small boy should not be able to cause more havoc than a hurricane. He wasn't taking the loss of Marie-Anne well I reflected as I started setting the cabin to rights while trying to ignore the cold dread that anything 'sloppy' left in my guts. He wasn't the only one I reflected as I neatly folded yet another article of wildly scattered clothing. I still expected to hear her shouting orders up on the deck, could still pick up her scent in the mate's cabin next door, still wanted her so badly it burned. Fool, I hissed at myself, what was I bloody THINKING bringing her aboard? Well, truth told I hadn't brought her aboard. I dropped back onto sheets that so tangled one would think Neidr and company had had a chocolate induced orgy on them (and blast it all I wanted a girl, more specifically I wanted Marie-Anne. Draigs I burned for her. Marrying her off to someone else had been no easy task made ever so much more arduous by her eyes and enaid daring me, inviting me to take her. I couldn't, parts of my anatomy stridently disagreed, very well, MUST NOT. I was a Prince of Avalon even if I was not a hunted exile I could not marry a dynol and the thought of what a Wild Hunt might do to a lover left behind was enough to shrivel all desire.) rather than one small boy supposedly taking a brief nap since he insisted on taking a night watch. Oh Neidr, you damn idiot, what I wouldn't give to have you here. I sighed old grief distracting me from the more recent ache of shoving Marie into another man's arms. They would be much better for each other than we ever would have been. I pushed back out of the mess. Wishing that. Bloody hell, if wishes were horses the world would be heaped sky high in horse flesh. Ruminating in here got me no closer to figuring out what I was going to do about Sparrow before he got us all killed. I wasn't THAT keen to see Neidr again. Besides given what I had done to his wife and son I doubted it would be a happy reunion. I had done well by his only grandchild and his great-grand children before I went to Avalon. I'd sent Wind seeking his decedents but had heard nothing yet. I'd discovered in Avalon that it might NOT be too late for me to set his son free, that the Dark Lady might be…I shivered…if what I had uncovered was actually true. Draigs and Jane's God save us all. Did I dare call on her, him, it? to repair what I had destroyed as Draco? And at what cost? The rap at the door was both welcome reprieve and the knell of doom since now I had to decide what to do about Sparrow's latest foray into disaster.

I made a point of turning my back to the door while keeping watch in the strategically placed mirrors. While they were a critical tool from maintaining my perfect coif (a quick check confirmed I was still fairest of them all. Physically the ravages of the carchar had been erased save for the worrisome fact that I looked the same now as I had over 80 years ago when I'd buried Bess. I suppose starving for 77 years could stunt one's growth but it seemed…off) they also served other nearly as important purposes. I kept the Shadow's eyes facing forward while my real ones watched the door. Sparrow entered first, sullen and pouting, with a murderous looking Mr. Kidd following hard upon. Clearly neither of them had ever looked at their current expressions in a mirror. Sparrow was a comely boy and Mr. Kidd by no means ugly but you wouldn't know it now. There were ways to convey displeasure without making oneself unattractive. I let the silence stretch while Sparrow fidgeted angrily. The boy clearly considered himself ill treated. Draigs! If it wasn't for my skill with Fire and Sparrow's own luck Pearl would have been reduced to so much charred timber and every man aboard but Sparrow knew it.

"I assume order has been restored in the magazine" it wasn't actually a question but Mr. Kidd's "Aye, Captain" was immediate and much more reserved than his expression. Clearly I needed to speak to young William about the use of mirrors. Sparrow knew but didn't care since he clearly considered himself unjustly abused. I decided that sword practice was in order after I dealt with Sparrow since the crew would expect nothing less than a marooning and I no intention of evicting my brother from his own ship. I disliked bullying but it was preferable to killing my own hand-picked men. This was the best crew afloat and it was no easy task finding the crew that was…appropriate. I needed more than a touch of honor in men who were willing to be pirates and they needed to be skilled or at least have the potential to develop them quickly. They had to be able to think for themselves but also instantly follow my orders. The Pearl's crew was a rare breed and one way or the other this was going to cost me some of them. Time to remind them that I could kill any and all of them at will. Damn. I preferred my lessons to be about improving their skills for the inevitable attacks every merchantman who eschewed a military escort risked rather than pure bloody intimidation.

"My thanks, Mr. Kidd, you may go. Oh no, Mr. Sparrow" I turned to glare at the boy. Basilisks cringed under the weight of my glare, Sparrow rolled his eyes. Of course, basilisks had far better sense than my more than slightly mad little brother.

"I take severe umbrage te those remarks" Jack huffed looking in Mallory's general direction.

"And what, precisely, did you do Captain Sparrow to elicit such a reaction?" Commodore Norrington inquired archly.

"Do ye actually expect me te recall some minor incident o me youth that was obviously blown all out o proportion?" Jack shot back but I was willing to wager he knew exactly which mishap Elizabeth was reading about "Me darling Elizabeth as the Commodore pointed out I am not the point o this little stroll down memory lane, time and tide wait for no man so it would be expedient te set sail for more profitable waters as it were."

Elizabeth just smirked before continuing…

"So, Mr. Sparrow, why exactly were you setting off fire crackers in the powder magazine?"

Commodore Norrington sounded like he was choking on his wig.

"Because that's where they have the most tumultuous effect." I was still considering a proper response to that when the boy sailed ahead. I had effortlessly manipulated kings, queens, popes, cardinals, guild masters, lions, draigs, and the natural forces of the planet itself but Sparrow was ship of a different build. He treated me to an explanation that involved excessive amount of hand waving as he tried to lure me around to his point of view. He had potential but he was no Nimrais or…Him though Sparrow had certainly inherited more of the sack of excrement that sired us' silver tongue than I had. As if the worm had simply been waiting for me to think of him he twinned his way about me.

(You know what you have to do)

(You've long since flogged the flesh off that dead horse) I rebutted (I have no intention becoming a difaenaid myself.) The idea of ripping anyone else's enaid apart to patch the rents in my own was anathema much less Sparrow's. The thought of his eyes as empty and dead as the one's the journal recorded of my own when I was lost in the dark was enough to make me consider abandoning the boy to make the possibility moot. I loved the little scamp far too much to leave him to Fates' non-existent mercies or to whatever Wild Hunt He sent next. I had every intention of standing between my brother and all harm for as long as the boy would let me.

(You wouldn't hurt any more)

I nearly choked on a mirthless laugh (I'm not the naive child you trapped a century ago. You'll not find me half so easily taken. What do you want Nimrais?)

(Moi?) I wasn't certain what was more bizarre Nimrais speaking French or the air of wounded innocence he was trying (and failing) to portray. (I'm only trying to be helpful.)

(Draigs are predators) I reminded him thinking of the fable of the scorpion and the frog.

(You know quite well that wise predators are concerned about the well being of their prey)

I'd spent enough time among the wild lions of the great African plains and cavorting with dolphins that I couldn't argue the point thought I'd never thought to hear that the Draigs ever gave it a passing thought.

(I know you hear them)

So that was his angle this time. The Winds of Avalon and the Winds of the Outlands normally had very little congress but since my escape I had been treated to a nearly constant East Wind. I had no idea if it had been Unben's parting gift to torment me or some subject's hope to inspire me to save them. Either way, either way, I knew what the current 'King' was doing to MY lands. They screamed, they wept, they called for me night and day, I was the prayer on their lips as they waited for me to save them. They haunted me and disturbed what sleep I managed to get.

(I know it grieves you, that you burn to set things right)

Nimrais coiled tight and whispered like a lover (it is your place and purpose to protect what is yours. This is the hour for which you were preserved).

Instinct flared as the Draig within burned in righteous indignation. Hate. Rage. Desire. The need to destroy, to wreck bloody vengeance, to tear, to rend, to be bathed in the blood of those who dare to abuse MY lands and MY people was like liquid fire in my veins. I trembled caught between the drive to act and the impossibility of it.

(But it isn't, not at all. What you need is right here. Free your lands. Take your vengeance. They will remember your name until the end of time. Liberator. Savior. Just one little act and you can save them all.)

I could hear them begging. They'd been pleading for years. I was a healer as well as a killer. It was maddening. It was a lance to the chest. An ache to rival what he had done to my enaid. (How?) I would give anyth

(Wed the boy's power to your own) Nimrais' tone called me every kind of fool.

Almost anything.

(You know the prophecies) Nimrais snarled, enraged himself (It's his life or yours and if you fail to retake Avalon you father will destroy it and the Outlands above with it).

(No) I retorted, heart sick. (I couldn't).

(Not CAN'T) Nimrais thundered in a roar. Sparrow stumbled to a halt in whatever bit of nonsense he was uttering which would supposedly excuse playing with firecrackers in a room full of gunpowder looking confused. NOTHING excused playing with fire in a room full of gunpowder and I was the greatest Athro Tanio ever born. (WON'T)

(Won't) I agreed weary but adamant.

I could feel him distance himself (For the sake of a single half-breed child you would risk all? You are more unworthy that your father to take the throne). Nimrais' contempt was thick enough to slice as he vanished. I fought for breath. It shouldn't matter what he thought of me, it shouldn't, but it felt like someone had just opened up my guts and let them spill on the deck.

Pearl and Sparrow asked what was amiss simultaneously. If I hadn't been ready to rip something apart I would have laughed but once started I doubt I could have stopped. I left the Shadow of Mallory standing radiating haughty censure while I sank to the boards head in my hands thinking of as many of Melerie's sing-song nonsense verses that I could remember. IF Melerie was right there were essentially three possibilities. If he turned on me, it was over, I could never overcome them both, not as I was now, if I destroyed him myself I would be unstoppable, if we allied I might gain the throne but only at the cost of my brother. There had to be another way, I would MAKE another way. "I'm sorry, forgive me" I whispered to Avalon. Destroying Sparrow was the right thing to do, one life for hundreds at least and perhaps hundreds of thousands, but I couldn't do it. I was unworthy to be king but there was no one else.

"Are ye alright?" Sparrow repeated. Was I alright?! I swallowed a tirade. No, no, I wasn't alright, I was in unremitting pain, I had a kingdom that desperately needed saving and I was saddled with a child who simply would NOT show a lick of good sense.

"I'm fine" I retorted forcing myself back to my feet. I was the Prince of Avalon. Princes do not sulk, they do not wallow in self pity, particularly when they are free and their subjects enslaved. Now for another odious task, it was time for Sparrow to kiss the gunner's daughter.

"Get that shirt off" I said brusquely as he blinked those huge brown eyes at me. I couldn't fold this time. He'd gone much too far. The men believed it was a miracle he hadn't killed us all and Pearl, dear girl that she was, hadn't the wit to realize what Sparrow had nearly done. Poor Pearl, I'd failed her, strong as a blue whale, swifter than a sailfish, maneuverable as a hummingbird, but not the sharpest tool in the proverbial woodshed. Given that Peregrine was smarter than I and Revenge my equal it must have been a result of my decidedly less than ideal mental state during her construction. Regardless I worried about them when I left. More than once Peregrine, or even Revenge, had steered me away from folly. Somehow I doubted Pearl would ever be able to do the same for Sparrow and if anyone was in need of a steadying hand it was my little brother. I could see the same sullen anger forming in Sparrow's face that Skeffington had always inspired in me. No beating had ever done me any good. I was less than certain they ever did anyone any 'good'. It just taught you who had the power. That wasn't the kind of power I cared to have over my brother, not after the pleasure of our mutual Sire's attempts to teach me who was dominate our relationship. I glanced at my reflection, seeing weary, wary eyes. Eyes that had seen, been through, done, and dared entirely too damn much. Sparrow's eyes weren't shadowless. He'd spent too long on his own in Tortuga for that but hell be damned if I would do a thing to make them like mine and any man who expected it could take his leave and man who demanded it could face my blade. Truth told, most of the time I loved the boy more for the scrapes he got into than despite them. He made my heart glad and I laughed myself to stitches a half dozen times for every time I wanted to throttle him. I had no idea what I'd do without him to distract me from the damnedably bleak circumstances both I and Avalon were in.

There was still a valuable, and costly, lesson for Sparrow in this because actions had consequences. I stepped into the warm Caribbean sun. Part of me was still surprised and perhaps always would be to be free of the carchar. I drank in the experience that I would never, ever again take for granted, decades buried alive had seen to that, it was one of the few good things to come of the entire debacle. Small pleasures that I had all but ignored before I savored as I should have all along. There was an ugly murmur when Sparrow emerged behind me clearly still unscathed followed by a hum of dark anticipation. Sparrow, who was by far and away the quickest witted idiot I'd ever met, instantly picked up on the tone.

"Why is everyone so bloody upset?" Sparrow might swear magic didn't exist and that he didn't hear the Wind but I noted that that had absolutely no effect on his habit of using Wind to facilitate private conversations while we were in crowds.

"One assumes you are aware of the somewhat explosive nature of black powder" the question was rhetorical and for once I layered my disgust and annoyance in my tone.

I received an irate "O'course" in reply.

"So do they. Your poor choice of venue could have destroyed Pearl" a wince on that "and killed everyone on board" an indignant little huff.

"NOTHING happened"

I was one frustrated breath from snapping exactly why that was, of making it abundantly clear to him just who is was who kept plucking him back from the edge. I wasn't ALWAYS going to be around to catch him when he fell. I clamped my jaw shut NOT ready to set that tempest loose yet. I shivered remembering Henri's eyes the day he discovered I was an Ellyllon, his hate branded into what was left of my tattered soul. I wasn't certain what remained of my black heart could endure if Sparrow did the same. Troth, it was more than a bit pathetic just how terrified I was of the Brat's rejection. I was the bloody Crown Prince of Avalon, Heir of Sea and Fire, I had endured more torture and privation than Dante ever dreamed of in his Divine Comedy. I did NOT need the approval or affection of some fool too stupid to realize that playing with firecrackers in a powder magazine was a piss poor notion.

Once I'd mastered myself I rebutted "But it could have and they want you marooned to be certain you won't risk your comrades' lives so lightly ever again."

"What could o happened shouldn't matter" he mumbled petulantly.

Princes do NOT grind their teeth "You still intend to be a pirate captain don't you?"

"O course" he retorted rolling his eyes.

"Pirate captains are ELECTED" I reminded him "granted successfully bringing in booty is the most important attribute of a pirate captain but the men also need to either fear you or trust you. Today you lost every man on board this ship's trust, mine included, and by not beating you within an inch of your life I've lost them too. If they didn't fear me we'd have already been put over the side in the ship's boat. If I were a pirate captain the Pearl would already be in the hands of another."

A flick of brown eyes followed by dawning realization that he had, just perhaps, not been quite as clever as he thought he'd been. If my little brother didn't start paying closer attention to my lessons he was going to find himself on a speck of land with a day's supply of food and water and a pistol loaded with a single shot a fortnight after I left this boat.

"And Mallory claims he isn't a prophet" Admiral Norrington noted dryly.

"My crew isn't in Davey Jones Locker" Jack shot back, eyes flashing "nor will ye find them fermenting mutiny."

"Then why is Anna-Maria needed to stand guard over Mallory if your crew is so trustworthy?"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen" Governor Swann broke in "please, if we could continue with the matter at hand." Neither looked pleased but both fell dutifully silent as Elizabeth turned a few more pages.

I cursed writhing in the darkness, scrabbling futilely in an endless night courtesy of one Jack Sparrow who I was going to be sorely tempted to thrash if I ever found my way back out of here. My darling little brother might not believe in magic, might have no notion that my enaid was in more scattered fragments than a ship's sails after a hurricane but that hadn't stopped him from using my…discomfiture to his advantage. When he wanted something I would deny in my right mind, well, the no longer so little BRAT gave me a good, hard shove into my 'daft' one since he'd found me more easily led then. I howled in frustration KNOWING I was tantalizingly close but unable to bridge the gap back into the waking world whilst Jacky boy wished not.

There was no way to track time as such here in the dark but I had the nagging sense as I made another pass just below the surface that he'd held me here for WEEKS. A few years ago I'd have had no notion of who or what I was out in the dark but entirely too much practice was teaching me to 'breath underwater' as the saying went. DAMN HIM! Maybe, maybe I should explain, Sparrow truly didn't understand what he was doing to me and I wanted to believe he would stop if he did.

I 'shivered' in the lonely silent dark, darker even than the carchar for Ellyllon can generate their own light in a pinch and I was the Heir of Fire as well as Sea. But that didn't matter here in the long dark endless night of my shatter soul. In the carchar there might have been no voice but my own but at least I could talk to myself when the silence grew to be too much to bear. The endless night of my soul granted no such comforts. No way to call out in the slightest prospect of someone hearing (not that anyone would have dared in the carchar either but it was always nice to have a slender thread of hope). While he certainly had a great deal left to learn he was already older than I was when I'd faced my first mardeth. I would explain and…if I had had flesh I would have curled into a ball with ice in my veins. All my mind's eye could see was Henri's face when he learned the truth. My heart couldn't bear the same look in Sparrow's eyes. Better to endure, safer to stay silent, and hope that the boy didn't get himself killed before he let me back out into the light. Better to let him keep imprisoning me in ignorance than to discover he would choose to betray me.

I blinked in the sudden brightness nearly stumbling "Captain?" Kidd sounded nervous and unsettled neither typical of my overly brash first mate. I stared at the Forte Michelangelo knowing exactly what building I was looking at but not quite able to convince myself that even lost in the dark I'd been stupid enough to let 'Jacky boy' talk me into setting course for Civitavecchia, as in Italy, as in Europe, as in so VERY, VERY NOT good. Speaking of 'Jacky boy' he was conspicuously absent.

"Mr. Kidd?"I returned stepping free of the offered arm. Just what HAD my body done while 'Jacky boy' had my heart and mind shut out in the cold? A quick skim of the journal on my breast revealed that he was likely already in Rome, too bloody far inland for me to fly in and give him a little surprise. He had no idea what disaster he was courting bring us both here. Fear and frustration bubbled into anger which turned to seething, blinding rage. I wheeled sending the Winds scattering to find which merchant would give me the best prices for my current cargo and what was likely to fetch the most profit in Venice. To hell with cowering. I was sick of slinking like a whipped cur if He wanted us let Him come to claim us. Men stumbled out of my path as I stormed down to Pearl's berth where the crew unloaded the ship so swiftly you would have thought they were caught in double time with me. I waited, patiently, for the opportune moment to let the rage coiled in my chest strike. The terrified merchants practically threw money at me to get me out of their warehouse. With a heavy purse I rounded up the crew and paid them well. I considered following them into the several cuts above the typical Caribbean port town tavern but I didn't want good food, good wine (not that there was such a thing as far as I was concerned), and good company. I wanted to kill Him, baring that I wanted to kill SOMETHING, preferably something I wouldn't feel badly about when the rage passed. William Kidd, worried, tried to follow me down into the darkest warrens of the harbor but I lost him easily and then dropped my Shadow, disguising only my ear tips and slit pupils.

As expected it took no time at all for word of a lone boy wearing a king's ransom in jewels to find the kind of men who kill for a pence. At first they came in ones and twos. Kills far too quick and easy for my mood so I began to play with them. The pairs swiftly became bands and by moonrise the streets were empty, every cutthroat in Civitavecchia either cowed or dead on the cobbles. Blood still boiling I stalked into a 'tavern' I normally wouldn't be caught dead patronizing hoping my new made reputation hadn't followed me. Disappointingly it clearly had. I tossed a coin on the table and demanded a bottle of absinthe.

I paused bottle at my lips (there wasn't a glass clean enough to bother pouring anything into) but its contents untasted. This was rank folly served with a side of stupidity gone to seed. A mardeth could be overhead at any moment, Sparrow's most recent bit of idiocy had put him out of any hope of my reaching him, and I sorely doubted having me this close that He could resist sending the mother of all Wild Hunts against me. I had absolutely no business doing anything but sending someone to fetch Sparrow and getting us both out of the Mediterranean with all possible speed. I was the elder brother (never mind that Sparrow and I were physically essentially the same age) it was my duty to be responsible. I should leave this bottle on the table this instant and get back to the Pearl posthaste.

The absinthe burned all the way down.

What had being good, responsible, and decent gotten Jane? Beheaded Or Sandro? Shot through the head. Or Guiles? Murdered Or Will? Or Henry's whole bloody family? Chopped to bloody bits Or Milady Latimer? Poisoned by a man she would have died for Or Henri? Assassinated. I drew a ragged breath wishing for an instant that I could weep for too damn many friends who one and all had died too damn young and drank a long, long toast to them. The good had died young leaving only a twisted monster behind to mourn them and what had trying to do right gotten me? A shredded soul and a brat of a brother who despite being repeatedly told that sailing to Europe would risk my LIFE had taken it upon himself to get us both here anyway. He'd put himself in the damn fire and done everything in his power to make certain I couldn't save him from whatever disaster he dreamed up this time so to hell with him. For that matter to hell with Avalon. I shouldn't even bloody BE Crown Prince, I'd had six, count them, six elder brothers. One of them certainly would have made a better king than I ever would. All my hidebound, couldn't be bothered to give me a name because it wasn't PROPER, grandsire had to do was rescue them like he had me. Hell's bells as the King he'd had just as much right as my Sire to save his grandchildren. I should have been back in Avalon married to one of my seven sisters as the best Healer ever born, instead I was a lonely assassin drinking lousy absinthe (Bledri might not have drunk this swill. I wondered briefly what had become of Bledri) in an armpit of a tavern. There were several dozen Ellyllon and cyfae who could have nipped the entire bloody mess in the bud, but they'd all just let it happen and now they expected me to sort out their folly. Let them sort it out themselves and to hell with the throne. A little piece of me was howling in protest that I was being rampantly sloppy not to mention moronic and that I 'was born to privilege and I had specific obligations'. I did my level best to drown it with bottom of the barrel absinthe. That persistent little voice reminded me that absinthe had never solved a thing for anyone and my behavior was unbecoming to a gutter bred twelve year old much less the Crown Prince of Avalon.

One of the doxies desperate for coin finally gathered the nerve to sidle over hips swaying so hard I was vaguely impressed she didn't tear asunder a-midship before she set her ample (and filthy) bosom on the table angling to give me an excellent view of her cleavage. Sparrow would be mightily impressed. Being good bit more discerning than my stag-in-rut brother I wasn't. On my better days I offered the doxies the same gallantry and courtesy I would a foreign queen since they received precious little respect from anyone else. Today wasn't one of my better days and I fastened a glare on her that lent wings to her feet.

Absinthe makes piss poor company. Bledri was a fool. (And what does that make you?) that persistent little voice snipped nastily (don't you remember what happened the last time you were stupid enough to be less than sober?) I nearly drained the bottle trying to silence that voice and erase the memory of Neidr's suicide. I flipped another coin onto the table not caring that I could likely buy the whole bloody place with that much gold. Damn them all for leaving me behind. Hey, I was a necromancer, granted utterly untrained, but when had that ever stopped me?

Not ysbyrd, I'd had more than enough of death. Clearly I'd had enough absinthe to make me muddle headed because I simply could not seem to come up with a good spell. Hmm…how horribly vexing. What was that song Neidr had liked? Ah yes…

Kind friends and companions come join me in rhyme

Neidr's voice joined mine and every living soul but I hastily vacated the premises. I gave it an hour before the priests arrived to do an exorcism. Been awhile since I killed a cleric I was undoubtedly overdue.

Come and lift up your voices in chorus with mine

Given that this was an English drinking song, Sandro, Guiles, Gran, Milady Latimer, and Jane didn't join in, they hadn't sung it in life and the echoes I'd called up were just that echoes.

Let us drink and be merry all grief to refrain

Easy for them, not so easy for me as Will, Jonathan, Henry, and James along with two score Old Blood servants, loyal and true, added their voices. I had to wince at Matt Blakes' (all four generations) complete inability to carry a tune in a bucket.

For we may or might never all meet here again

Never, ever again. I sucked on the fresh bottle until I had to come up for air.

Here's a health to the company and one to my lass.

Jennet joined him looking happy and whole and so deeply in love. I would NOT think about what I'd done to her as Draco, would not, would not. I'm so damn sorry about that. Will always insisted it was better to have loved and lost than to never loved at all. I doubted Bledri would agree. I looked for him among the Alltude but he wasn't there, still alive then, but Anuion was. Damn. How typical of my luck. Bledri who wanted to die was alive and Anuion was gone. I hadn't wanted to draw my Sire's eye to the Alltude so I had avoided even looking for them.

Let us drink and be merry all out of one glass

I took another deep slug of entirely too weak absinthe, heavy on the alcohol and light on the wormwood and given I could drink a barrel of alcohol without getting drunk...

Let us drink and be merry all grief to refrain

Now where the blazes was Henri? The annoying man never missed a party unless there was a woman involved.

For we may or might never all meet here again

Hated that line.

Here's a health to the dear lass that I love so well

Her style and her beauty, sure none can excel

There's a smile on her countenance as she sits on my knee

Sure there's no one in this wide world as happy as we

I could only conclude I was a masochist, having no desire to watch my friends die I had instead called forth their moments of bliss, generally in the arms of someone. Milady Latimer was laughing at some witty comment of Thomas'. Looking at them now you would never guess he would poison her less than a year later. So much for love conquering all. The bottle was empty, why was that? Given that I'd frightened off the help I was going to have to go in search of another. The room swayed a bit, hmm, that was why the bottles were empty. I turned my back on Neidr and Jennet as he whispered in her ear making her flush and giggle only to have Bess and Eyes dance through me. Jane was the only ghost in the room without someone and she was deep in a book on theology which was as close as she was ever going to come to true love. I found another dusty bottle its color darker, almost ominous. A quick whiff when I popped the cork was enough to assure me that this bottle contained enough wormwood to be dangerous. I wondered how a bottle from Bledri's favorite suppliers had ended up in the back cupboard of this…place. Well this would certainly finish what the other two bottles had barely begun. That persistent little voice was kicking up a storm howling about how even Bledri watered down this absinthe. I settled back at the table and with the single swallow the voice of res, res, yeh, that, drowneded in a warm tingling rush. What this rev, revel, revelry requ, requ, bugger, needed was more music. I cast about for my cetera but it wasn't here. Henri wouldn't be happy 'bout that. Where was Henri? Henri never, nay, no, never, no, nay, never no more, missed a mer, merry, merrymaking. Never missed a lass either. I wanted Henri. I was the Crown Prince of Avalon and I DEMANDED his ghost atten, attend me. No Henri. If at first you don't, umm, ah, how did that go? I wanted Henri's ghost here NOW. I growled and PULLED. No Henri. I was a ne'mancer. It was against…something for a ghost not to, to, come when a 'mancer called. Did he hate me that much? I reached for the 'sinthe. I missed the bottle on the first three tries but I caught the sneaky bugger on the fourth and then the edges of the world faded while Bess and Eyes danced and danced….

"What" a shake "Are" another shake "You" a slam against the back of the bench "DOING?!" the question ended in an ear splitting shriek.

"Ssh" I laid the finger of the hand that didn't have a death grip on the 'sinthe against my, oops, I missed my face, what did it think it was doing dodging like that? "Y'll wake the neigh'rs"

"What neighbors?" she shouted. That did fascinating things to her chest. A good bit smaller than that first doxie, cleaner too. Pretty. My breeches were suddenly several sizes too small and I was breathless, enraptured. "You've raised every shade on the continent, we're the only living enaids for a mile in any direction. You shouldn't even BE here." She tried to wrap her hands into my doublet for some reason but the jewels encrusted across it foi, foiled her. She made an ex-as-per-ated sound and shifted her weight. I wasn't certain what the fas-cin-a-tion was with really buxom wenches, hers while not much more than a handful seemed more than fine to me. The paper thin cheap cloth teased me to lean forward and…she flushed, rocked back, and disappointingly, put the table between us in a quick scramble. A gentleman never forced himself on a lady, no matter how tempting. She seemed surprised when I didn't follow. Recalling my difficulties with my finger I focused all my attention on getting the bottle successfully to my lips. Someone plucked it out of my hand.

"Don't you think you've had enough?"

Not fair, her holding the 'sinthe was almost more temptation than this tattered soul could bear. I blinked at her trying to pose a witty riposte but all my clever phrases practiced in a dozen courts had fled leaving me dumb in her rad, rad, um yeh.

"Or maybe not" she returned softly and I (with difficulty) forced my eyes off that ex-quis-ite breast. Blue eyes color of the vault of the sky on a sunny summer day. They were too round to be Ellyllon, too pointed to be dynol, an adhil? She had too much power to be merely Old Blood but she was no Ellyllon. Sparrow was years younger and already stronger. Round ears, red blond hair that could use a washing but not hopelessly filthy either. If I'd seen a scrap of pity I'd have driven her off with flame lapping her heels but she mostly looked profoundly annoyed. The feeling was mutual. She'd been quite a beauty once. Preachers, priests, and puritans will tell you any 'fallen' woman is besmirching her soul, they aren't ENTIRELY wrong. Some women chose the life, if they're very fortunate they establish rewarding bonds with a handful of select clients and those were what colored their enaids no matter how many others passed through their beds. They thrived but they were rare. Most, whether they chose it or were forced into the 'profession', had enaids that looked like mud pies as they either eventually went catty, numb, or withered. A few, a few were like the woman across from me. Every encounter was an open wound. My enaid was in far worse shape but hers wasn't precisely thriving either and I was willing to bet she would be dead inside of the year if she stayed on her current course. She set the absinthe back in front of me. My head was rapidly clearing, ever since those poisoned arrows in my chest had left death just waiting for the slightest misstep I'd turned my healing talent into an ever-vigilant watchman which made it difficult to stay inebriated for long. That annoying little voice was back. She was adhil, she was in trouble, I was her Prince. I should be doing something. I didn't want to be involved. One good swallow and that voice would be quiet for a little while. Maybe even long enough for her to leave me in (relative) peace. And there was the other problem being roused by a woman astraddle had caused. I couldn't very well deal with that with her standing there glaring at me (well I could but there was enough of Jane's prudery in me to make me flush at the mere thought) and cloth of silver might be appropriate to my station but it wasn't ever going to be comfortable even when I wasn't…I forced my eyes back up because staring at her chest was NOT helping. I'd certainly been through far worse tortures (Unben carving off my original set to add to his collection of my fingers & eyes rather came to mind, well not precisely my eyes because he'd taken or rather my darling papa with Unben whispering encouragement had left my eyes for last). I didn't grind my teeth, it was unseemly, as the current set persisted in insisting that even if she wasn't as pretty as I'd first thought she was still MORE than pretty enough to…Damn it I was the PRINCE OF AVALON not some dog in heat or chocolate hazed whoremonger. I would not be ruled by my testicles. Usually making a point of reminding the current set what had happened to their predecessors was enough to have them heading for my shoulders via my…

"Elizabeth!" Governor Swann's protest was a horrified squeak, his face as pasty as his wig with cheeks flaming scarlet "That will be more than enough young lady!"

I winced as I crossed my legs (as had Jack and Commodore Norrington. I wondered if they realized they'd inched back to back hands on hilts while Elizabeth had been reading with far too much relish.) That was precisely the WRONG tone to take with my wife.

"I'm the one that got the journal from Mallory and I'll read what I like."

Jack leaned over and whispered to Commodore Norrington "And now ye know the real reason she chose the Whelp over ye" while making a snipping motion. I rolled my eyes the joke was so very, very old. And somethings were never, ever funny.

"You aren't going to sensible are you?"

I wasn't in the mood to be courteous but there was no call to be nasty either "Likely not."

She sighed. Who knew watching someone breathe could be so enthralling? Eyes UP! I had the distinct impression she found me irksome and in need of her assistance. As if! "Can the living join this revelry or would you prefer to simply continue wallowing in self-pity with your dead?"

I briefly reconsidered setting fire dragons on her before pushing the bottle in her direction "The more the merrier."

She drank more than was safe and when she put the bottle down I made a point of making certain that it was out of easy reach. I could handle its potency, I wasn't so certain about her. Adhil could be hard to figure, each one reacted differently. I had not intention of allowing another Neidr regardless of what else happened tonight.

"Grand-mere always said you were a prickly bastard."

"I resent the slur against my mother" I glance over at her shade. She looked slightly lost. I'd called up 'best memories' did my mother not HAVE any? That was just… tragic. If some necromancer ever called my shade and asked for a happy moment I'd have several hundred perhaps several thousand to choose from. I knew we hadn't been close in the year I'd danced just out of His reach (she insisted on cooking for me, it would have been cheerily domestic if I hadn't known all the way to my bones that if I'd let my guard down for an instant she would have been picking them clean and licking her lips afterward. If we had met at the proper time perhaps things would have been different..) but I'd made her laugh a time or two if there was nothing better…maybe? I suppose not. I tried not to feel disappointed, perhaps knowing her brother she hadn't wanted to care if that was even possible. She had hunted us too, not with HER determination but I had no doubt that my mother had been the one kill more than one of my siblings. The Draig ran much stronger in my mother and HER than Meleri. Meleri had loved me in her mad way. I kept my eyes on the table NOT wanting to see her ghost, not wanting to be reminded of what he'd made me do to the only member of my family who had ever cared for me.

Jack made a strangled sound of protest as Elizabeth hurried ahead.

That wasn't fair, not to Sparrow who did care in his mad feckless way, and to my poor dear twin who I had abandoned to Her. I was suddenly glad Henri had somehow refused to behave like a proper ghost. I didn't need any further reminders of what kind of monster I was.

"Interesting" Jack muttered, "Very interesting." I glanced up at him but he was looking at Elizabeth whose eye suddenly lit. I wondered what it was the two of them had just realized. Commodore Norrington & the Governor looked as unenlightened as I was which at least made feel slightly better about not seeing what Jack & Elizabeth clearly did. Mr. Not Cotton was wearing his usual expression but his not parrot had been unusually quiet.

"And your Grand-pere?" I knew her bloodline now, I could walk away but I'd need to get a lifetime supply of those bottles.

"He died before my father learned to walk."

I didn't bother to hide the wince, add another body to the butcher's bill. I should have known Anuion would never have let Henri die if he was still alive, my last order had been to protect Henri, Anuion would never have failed me like that. I took a sip of absinthe, just enough to take the edge off, well and truly tipsy not but no longer sloppy drunk, it wasn't an option anymore and with my own sigh of resignation asked "How came you here?"

"I don't matter" she retorted angrily "You do. Draigs what possessed you to come here just to sit in this pit drinking yourself insensible?! I heard you were INTELLIGENT, daring yes, arrogant, yes, relentless, yes, but no fool. THIS is the act of a fool."

I couldn't actually argue about my folly which was a shame because she flushed most becomingly when she was angry.

"Since I'm determined to be a fool and you certainly can not stop me, what is a girl like you doing in a place like this?" I really didn't need her to say a word since the truth was depressingly clear from her enaid. Less than four years ago she'd been a blushing bride in a good match, more than just lust less than true love but certainly the basis for a happy life. One problem, the tubes that ran from her ovaries to her womb were damaged. In her current state she couldn't conceive. So she'd been cast aside and shunned and turned into a whore. The only questions were the details – had it been her husband or his family? Looking at her I suspected the latter but one couldn't read everything from an enaid. If I was right and it was his family did he even know what had become of her? Was he looking for her? Remarried? Those answers were critical to any plans for helping her. I dispatched several breezes to collect what they could.

"I told you I don't matter" she snarled back. Oh, but she needed to work on that it made her terribly unattractive – what if her face really did freeze like that someday?

"I say you do and I'll not budge for the King himself" an absolute lie but she'd never know "before you speak."

Chin high but eyes damp she waveringly spilled her tale of woe. It was the mother-in-law who in her quest for a grandchild had arranged a kidnapping and shamed by both the brutal rapes and her barrenness she'd never even tried to go home to…Venice? What was she doing married to a Venetian? I marshaled another batch of breezes. I could easily heal the initial cause of her problems but would she want that given her current predicament?

"Would it please you, milady, to go home?"

She was no lack wit, she instantly realized both that I was offering to heal her and to rectify the situation back in Venice. She was undoubtedly well aware that I was capable of permanently handling the mother-in-law question. She blinked, stunned, a single tear cleaning some of the dirt from her lovely cheek.

"My liege is far too kind but I am already beyond hope. If you will grant me a boon then go, now, ere a Wild Hunt arrives."

I leveled the glare that sent everyone but Sparrow scurrying for cover. She swallowed but held my gaze. It was a damn shame I shouldn't bed her I suspected it would do us both more than a little good. Given that that was out of the question and I certainly had no intention of leaving port without my brother the wise course would be to retreat to the Pearl posthaste and weather whatever came under her wards. There were two problems with that, first and foremost Sparrow (presumably) intended to return from his little foray at some point (the boy would follow the Pearl to the ends of the earth I sometimes doubted the boy would give me a second thought once he was captain…

"Hold that thought" Jack snapped, plucking the journal from Elizabeth's hands "while I give me brother a piece o' me mind."

"Do honestly think you have any to spare?" I was surprised Jack didn't even bother to acknowledge Commodore Norrington's barb while Elizabeth rolled her eyes before whispering "Wouldn't it be more satisfying when he's AWARE?" so softly I could barely hear sitting next to her but Jack paused mid-swagger and tossed the journal back growling "I wasn't bloody ungrateful, I wasn't bloody thoughtless, and I didn't bloody forget about Mallory."

"Indeed?" it was amazing how many different shades of meaning the Commodore could fit into his favorite word. This one was positively scathing disbelief. My own eyes widened as Jack rounded on him, suddenly straightening and taking on an accent every inch as lordly as Mallory's "Commodore Norrington I am Captain of the fine vessel you find yourself aboard and even if it was a dory I would STILL be CAPTAIN. Given your position in Her Majesty's Royal Navy and your illustrious pedigree you are well aware of the respect my position deserves and you will accord me that respect or you will find yourself being towed in said dory."

Commodore Norrington flushed crimson but his gaze dropped first while Elizabeth lost no time returning to her reading.

regardless if I retreated to the Pearl I might well find a besieging army if our Sire moved swiftly between us and even battered as I was Sparrow was by far the frailer of us and ignorant of the danger besides. I toyed with the bottle as I was once more torn between the need to appraise my brother of the full dire circumstances of our existence and the desire to shelter him for as long as possible. Sparrow was only fourteen, time enough later. (But not much) that little voice whispered (not long at all until he's grown and gone). I took a long pull of absinthe NOT wanting to think about it.

(Not if he gets you killed or captured first) Nimrais gloated (Not a thought in his empty head for anyone but himself and how often he can mate) being physically the same age I could sympathize even if I couldn't join him in his rabble rousing. I growled a curse at our Sire. Sparrow and I could have had a decidedly different relationship if I had really just been a young Crown Prince on a Taithe. The burn of the absinthe was nothing compared to the inferno of rage in my gut. Alaetha (not the name she'd been granted at birth but I was hardly one to quibble about giving oneself a name and what a pair we made 'ill-fated' and 'lamentation') made a disapproving sound so I took a second swig, guzzling 'til the room spun while I was sitting. Damn disconcerting. I restrained a shiver not liking that at all, sloppy and sloppy gets you killed. To hell with that. To hell with caution. To hell with responsibility. To hell with reputation. Which was the second reason I couldn't go back to the Pearl yet. Captain Mallory had a reputation which given the current condition of my enaid I could ill afford to tarnish, for being sober, serious, and wise. I was not the sort of man that men follow out of love, the best I could hope for was respect and fear. Draigs that was depressing. I wrapped myself back up in the shadow of Captain Mallory. I had work to do and no time for lollygagging but I kept my hand wrapped 'round the bottle anyway.

I worried about Sparrow when he became Captain, he had no desire to lead as I did and I had never mastered whatever special alchemy it was that wooed the hearts of men. Oh there had been a rare few who were loyal to my person rather than whatever position I held but certainly never an entire crew or even a tithe of one. There was of course the purely mercenary which I coupled with my ability to inspire fear, while I never raised a hand to any who followed the ship's Articles I was a terror to violators. I paid my men regularly and well. Granted not the fortune they might earn as pirates (WOULD earn with me as Captain, the Draigs and Jane's God my witness but I had a knack for piracy) but without most of the risks as well. I'd never lost a man to poor sailing and only a few to raids. Men knew that when they sailed with me they would get regular pay and had the better chance of coming home alive than with any other captain afloat. Sparrow had no lack of wit and given his magical bent more luck than any mortal had a right to but Sparrow wasn't necessarily after loot, he was after a reputation and well… I sighed – what was going to become of Sparrow when I turned my full attention back on Avalon?

(So you do recall that you have a realm to rescue) Nimrais snipped nastily, I ignored him. If he kept the crew I would be leaving him he should be fine but dynol aged faster than adhil and at some point he would be making his own selections and Sparrow…did not make the wisest choices of companions. One stalwart companion could make all the difference among a crew if he was the kind of man the others would respect, ideally someone just a touch older than Sparrow (and with a good bit more common sense)…

(Stalling again) Nimrais hissed (Lie to yourself if you must, mayhap you've thought it so often you even believe it, but I can sense just how close your Sire came to breaking you and just how much terror there is under all the hate and rage. You may claim to love the boy all you like but we both know that if you drained him and wedded his strength to your own you would have no excuse to dally here but would be obligated to face your Sire forthwith. I've watched you since you were a hatchling and I never dreamed I would ever have cause to name you a coward, until now.)

The waking world wavered like the Sahara on a particularly hot day, recognizing the signs of my enaid crumbling around me I tried…darkness…

"M'liege? Alaetha frowned clearly uncertain what had happened but understanding something was seriously amiss.

I shivered. As Elizabeth had flipped pages I'd had impressions of how 'together' for lack of a better term Mallory was. A little more than half the time he was himself, of the time that he spent 'in the dark' he was usually close to the surface often able to sense Jack, the Pearl, Sea, and the Peregrine even if he couldn't quite reach them. This was bad, the worst I'd sensed since he'd been brought forth from the carchar. I wondered if Nimrais had done something or if this was a result of one of Jack's wishes. A glance across the cabin revealed that both Jack himself and Commodore Norrington had had the same thought. The Commodore appeared to be in serious danger of swallowing his own tongue while Jack looked like he might prefer a good tongue lashing.

The haunts had vanished the moment Mallory had fallen apart and Alaetha's eyes flicked to the door in alarm.

"M'liege" she gave Mallory a hard, desperate shake but got no response of any kind. She tilted his head so she could look into his eyes and let out a string of curses that would make a pirate blush.

Jack looked impressed while Commodore Norrington and the Governor looked mortified. I suspected Elizabeth was taking mental notes.

She whirled as the rickety tavern door disintegrated under the mere approach of the watch. The soldiers were skittish but they clearly feared their commander more than whatever uncanny power had raised the haunts.

Their captain wasn't the great hulking brute I was expecting. He was the kind of courtier Mallory despised most – a true fop, a useless ornament, just like the beautifully bejeweled but utterly useless blade at his hip. This was a man who was far too much of a coward to risk his own life others would do all of his dirty work whilst he sat like a spider in the web. His long fingers even looked spider-like. He brushed back blond lockes whose color had more to due with a generous application of lye than with his natural coloring if his brows were any indication. The fact that I'd notice meant I'd been spending far too much time in Mallory's head. I wondered who the soldiers were actually afraid of.

"Alphonso?!" Alaetha's eyes widened in shock and I sincerely hoped this wasn't her missing husband.

He gave her a mocking bow that was shabby seconds indeed compared to Mallory's.

"Gwynyth, how delightful to renew our acquaintance" he purred as he minced across the dirty floor in a manner eerily reminiscent of Mallory. He made a moue of distaste "my carriage would be far more comfortable – shall we? Unless you'd prefer to wait for the Inquisition" His smile was as warm as a shark's.

"What did you do?" she snapped in an angry growl.

"Gwynyth, you wound me. After all the trouble I went through to find out where Mother had abandoned you."

I didn't need Mallory's talents to know he was lying, at the very least he'd known precisely where she'd been the entire time and it wouldn't surprise me to learn he was behind her plight.

"I never would have expected you to wait so long to show your true nature, nor was I led to believe you would be a necromancer."

Gwynyth's mouth dropped open much to Alphonso's amusement. "Oh my dear little half-breed, do you really think I would have suggested you become my bold brother Anthonio's blushing bride without some notion of the advantages you would bring to the family? I confess I was hoping for a quiver full of youngsters bearing talents that could an asset to the family" he sighed dramatically, bejeweled hands on hips "Your barrenness has been SUCH a burden. I had SO been looking forward to nieces and nephews, and Tonio has done NOTHING but brood since your death."

"Death?"

"Honestly we couldn't very well get Tonio properly remarried with you still alive now could we? Imagine the scandal" he flung his glittering hands wide, "My heirs would be sullied."

"Your heirs?" Gwynyth echoed, confused.

Alphonoso fluttered his kohl lined eyes, and was he wearing eye shadow?

"Well, Magno certainly isn't going to get me with child, not that he doesn't try diligently" another flutter as he cooed to someone of the edge of Mallory's fixed line of sight. But when his eyes turned back to his sister-in-law they were icy cold, "What AM I to do with you?"

After waiting a few beats for dramatic effect Alphonso chirped "No suggestions? Well, I've a few thoughts." He gestured for her to join him, when she hesitated he arched a brow in the direction he'd been cooing earlier.

A few seconds later I felt a stab of envy as Elizabeth gasped in appreciation as a lion of a man passed through Mallory's fixed gaze.

He dwarfed Alphonso both in height (he had to be close to seven feet tall) and bulk but this was no muscle bound hulk, I knew a swordsman when I saw one. Most big men lacked the speed to be truly great I suspected this one would mop the floor with me. Hansom enough to model for one of the planters statues of a Greek god with golden hair and a few small scars which just made him look dangerous without actually marring his face. My wife was far too drawn to dangerous. I shrugged given his proximity to Mallory the man was probably long dead and uninterested in women anyway.

Magno's pale brown eyes begged Gwynyth to comply, clearly not wanting to force her but also having every intention of doing whatever his lover ordered him to do to her as well.

Magno gave her a bow almost worthy of Mallory's standards "Won't you please accompany us, milady?"

I'd been expecting a voice so deep it would rattle your bones but he had a very pleasant tenor (and likely a fine singing voice).

Gwynyth flashed a pleading glance at Mallory but he remained as empty as when the carchar was first opened. Magno caught the glance and signaled his men "Take him."

Jack was clearly as stunned as I was when Mallory allowed himself to be herded as placidly as a thirty year old plough horse. Elizabeth skimmed ahead. The view of mountains out the carriage window was bouncing more than a ship in a hurricane – was there an earthquake?

I realized when Alphonso hissed "What is wrong with him?" at Gwynyth that the problem was Mallory. I'd only seen someone having fits once before but that was clearly what was happening. Maybe they'd gotten too far from Sea?

"Get him out of here" Alphonso ordered Magno.

"But fits aren't catching" Magno protested.

Alphonso squealed as Mallory flopped into him like a gaffed fish "Out! OUT! OUT!"

It was difficult to really see anything with Mallory's eyes rolling in his head like marbles in a barrel but Magno looked apologetic as he tossed him like so much garbage out of the moving carriage. He crunched when he hit the ground without even trying to cushion the impact, then rolled through the brush down a steep bank, continuing across a second road (or given the steepness of the grade perhaps just across an earlier switchback). His downward plunge was finally stopped with a bone breaking crack against the unforgiving trunk of a pine tree. Mallory lay like the dead through the day as at least a half dozen travelers passed within a few feet of his resting place. I wondered if they could actually see him from the road or like the parable of the Good Samaritan were they just leaving him there?

I flinched as the setting sun filled his unblinking eyes but the blinding light faded quickly leaving a blackness darker than any I'd ever known which was odd since I could distinctly feel the warmth of the not-quite-down sun on his face.

"And bloody well STAY out!" someone shouted as by the sound of things a second body followed roughly the same course down the hillside that Mallory had. There was a distinctly masculine groan/grunt as he landed on Mallory.

"Thank ye kindly" Jack muttered as he caught his breath back to back with Mallory "and I beg yer pardon for the churlish manner in which I made me intro…" Jack's voice trailed off. I was a little surprised it had taken so long, Jack was usually much more observant. He made quick work of snapping up Mallory's purse. I counted two footfalls before he muttered "No, no there must be hundreds o' bags like…" He frantically picked at Mallory rolling him roughly over. How Jack could NOT realize he had his hands knotted in bejeweled clothe o silver was beyond me.

"Ye are NOT allowed te die on me" Jack growled sounding positively Draigish. The power of the wish that accompanied those words would have dropped me to my knees if I'd been standing. Nimrais' roar of triumph as he reached for Jack changed to one of rage as Mallory's presence swept back from wherever he'd vanished to and interposed himself between Nimrais and the waking world.

"Not for you! Not EVER for you. As long as I" gone? Nimrais had retreated. Why? The fight hadn't even STARTED and while there was no denying that I was a power to be reckoned with there was no reason to assume that victory was a given versus the shade of Nimrais. Granted I was good but no Ellyllon tangled with Nimrais' wraith without significant risk. Ergo Nimrais had ATTCHIEVED whatever this little farce was intended to do. But what? Why? Nimrais was no closer to laying a claim on Sparrow and Angnar was still ignorant of his existence.

"Damn ye BREATH" Sparrow hit my chest hard enough to shatter three ribs and I reflexively sucked in a breath. Honestly, I was only mostly dead. There was no need for all the bloody drama (though I probably should have let Jackie boy stew over things a bit longer). I drew second breath NOT wincing as the broken shards grated against one another. Hell and damnation, far enough ashore to make a healing difficult so it was blind eyes, broken ribs, and a broken left shoulder for at least a bloody mile. I'd fought with worse and laughed. I rolled to my feet leaving Sparrow sputtering in my wake. What had Nimrais gained? There was no question that I would be sailing for Venice. I could not leave Anuion's grandchild in peril but I had no doubt Nimrais would have several scathing comments to make about my intent to rescue her. No this wasn't about so half breed child of a noble house. The Draigs barely acknowledged the rights of the Royal Houses (or House since the other two were long fallen and the land they once rules drowned deep under Sea). This was about Sparrow and I. I stopped in the road giving Sparrow a chance to scramble back alongside me. I never would have expected Sparrow to pack that kind of raw power into anything. Not that my brother at fourteen wasn't the most powerful half breed (of any age and that with a fair bit of growing left to do) I'd ever met but he still couldn't rival the power of a pure bred noble but that wish would have surpassed anything I'd have been capable of at his age. Something had given that wish a boost in power. Something Nimrais needed me 'away' for. Something the journal hadn't picked up on. And now that wish was loose in the world doing Jane's God (given that he existed) knew what. I swallowed hard. Desperate and guilt-stricken Sparrow had placed no limits on that wish – given Meleri's prophecies my little brother might very well have signed his death warrant.

He snagged my arm, spun me round to face him, and still reeling under the implications of that wish I stumbled going down on my knees in the road. I wasn't Meleri I had NO power of any kind over time and even I could feel that wish racing backward and forward through it. All those times I really truly SHOULD have died, when even I couldn't fathom why I was still alive, Sparrow's wish had been the life line that bridged the gap. I wondered if that paradox is what had finally sent Meleri over the edge into full blown insanity. Without Sparrow's wish I definitely would have died three times before I ever met him perhaps more, without Sparrow's wish he'd have never survived long enough to wish it. It made MY head ache and had the hairs standing up on the back of my neck what must it have done to a temporal mage?

My broken shoulder did a wonderful job of reminding me of the present when Sparrow shook me. Eww. I was LYING in the road. Granted everything was going to need to be laundered from the tumble out of coach but that was no reason to get even filthier. I started to roll to my feet but Sparrow's hand on my chest set those broken ribs shrieking. I, of course, gave no sign.

"Just rest a moment" Sparrow's voice had a strained note to it. Damn what was wrong? Sun-blindness was becoming distinctly annoying.

I swept his hand away with my right and surged to my feet ignoring his sound of protest only to nearly crumple right back into the dust. This made no sense. I wasn't THAT hurt. Certainly not hurt enough to swoon in the bloody road like some overwrought damsel in distress. Not far enough inland for the damage to my enaid to be sufficient to st…oh bloody hell. Well, now I knew where the extra power had come from. Something had run me nearly dry here and now in order craft those bridges in the past and one assumed future. My own power scattered through time. And not by Nimrais, Nimrais had simply been trying to take advantage of an opportunity arranged by someone else. Had Nimrais FLED in the face of this other? Knowledge was power and I knew nothing save whoever, whatever had maneuvered us into this position favored me to the detriment of my brother. It more than stung it burned. I had played to courts of Europe for a generation. I was NOT supposed to be played myself. I was the Prince of Avalon! Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy and sloppy gets you killed. Or in this instance gets your brother killed under a sun that has yet to rise. No, NO, NO! I had time. I'd figure a way around this.

I needed to get Sparrow back to the Pearl and I needed to do it now. I was tempted to send him ahead under the pretense that I needed assistance getting back but my pride wouldn't let me. That and the fact that I didn't want him out of arms' reach. We were leagues away from the Pearl and I'd no notion of what was abroad tonight. My ears flicked in his direction trying to place what he was doing by the sound of his movements, thankful for both Cromwell and Mannwan's insistence that I drill blindfolded at least two hours a week. Ripping clothe? Bandages? I clicked a few times to take the measure of our surroundings. It wasn't nearly as easy to do in air as it was in water and I wasn't QUITE as good at as a bat but I could certainly navigate my way off this bloody hill and back to the port.

"I'm not wounded" I said over my shoulder letting the echoes of my footfalls guide me safely away from the steep drop off an arm's length to my right. Turn in three paces to avoid going off the edge of the switchback...

"No" Sparrow snapped behind me "ye just have a shattered shoulder, broken ribs, ye can't see a blooming thing, and ye're a listing a good five degrees te starboard."

I turned raising a challenging brow that his dynol eyes likely couldn't see in the dark. Only a crescent moon tonight, Sparrow would be nearly as blind as I was.

"Yer clicking, ye have" a pause and a softer tone, almost the one I used with skittish horses "ye had excellent night eyes. Ye're blind."

"They'll heal" I riposted harshly, annoyed, proud, and slightly uneasy that he'd figured it out so quickly. "We need to get back to the Pearl."

"At least let me bind the shoulder and ribs" he protested.

"No time" I pivoted, clicking to ascertain how many paces until the next switchback. Rut in the road in four paces, next turn in twelve.

A breeze carried the sound of grinding teeth, music to my ears. I couldn't help smiling with a touch of admittedly petty glee knowing in my own way I drove him every bit as mad as he did me.

"I already have the sling ready. It won't take much more than a minute" more grinding "Ye don't have a bloody thing te prove te me. I KNOW yer the roughest, toughest captain te ever swagger across a deck and I'm sure ye could fight yer way through a legion right this instant. We'll take it off before anyone sees. Ye can pretend ye aren't in bloody agony but I've broken bones. I KNOW better. Please don't make me watch ye walk the entire way back with that arm pulling on it."

I paused. Never, EVER let them see you bleed, never let them know it hurts. Not ever. But whatever was pulling the strings tonight already knew. Did it matter if I let Sparrow have his way? Probably not, except Sparrow wasn't a child anymore. My Shadow didn't match the real me. Letting myself be touched always carried the risk that the differences would be noticed. Who was I trying to fool? Sparrow had himself so convinced that certain things simply couldn't be. I could probably perform Hamlet Shadowless in the nude in front of him and he'd think of a way not to notice. I sighed and stopped.

I could FEEL Sparrow glaring at me even if I couldn't see it before he proceeded to prove that not all my lessons had been in vain. I couldn't find a single flaw in his method as he wrapped my arm and ribs effectively and efficiently causing minimal pain for maximum benefit while keeping up a constant prattle of inanities at just the right pitch to sooth and lull the mind. He had actually been listening on occasion.

"Poison again?" he asked and it took me a breath to register the question. Sloppy, desperately sloppy. I was thick and muddled all the way 'round tonight. Not poisoned but not right either. Oh, bloody hell. Tipsy. I'd still been tipsy, still was tipsy, or actually a bit more than tipsy now that what strength I had left was all focused on keeping the lit fuse in my chest from killing me. I shook my head not certain if he would be able to see in the weak moonlight or not. My breath had to REAK of the alcohol the wormwood had been mixed with but it would never occur to Sparrow that I was more than half drunk. It didn't fit with the somber, sober Captain Mallory he knew.

I did NOT sway as I started back down the road. Sparrow heaved a long suffering sigh before falling in to my right. Or perhaps he hadn't been paying attention at all. I considered making a point of putting him to my left but I was reasonably certain that whatever was playing games with us wasn't intending a physical attack, at least not tonight, and there was no Wild Hunt within range of my senses.

"What happened?" Sparrow's tone was a challenge.

"Nothing" I replied not even bothering to come up with a creative lie. I'd TOLD Sparrow that sailing to Europe would put my life at risk. He'd chosen to find a way to get us here anyway. I felt my earlier anger and resentment flare back to blazing despite the worry that the life he'd ended up laying on the line was in fact his own.

He counted to ten in Mandrin under his breath, "I thought ye were dead back there" a hard swallow and the next in a near snarl "did ye stage that?"

"No." Draigs I was drained and tired enough to sleep on my feet. Only the knowledge that SOMETHING was stalking us was keeping me awake and moving. We needed to get back to Pearl and Sea. I felt the anger slip away, I was too bloody tired to do anything but concentrate on listening to the echoes so I didn't tumble off the edge of the road and break something else.

"I'm sorry. I should have bloody listened."

I missed a step in shock. My shoulder reminded me that that wasn't a good idea and besides it was undignified and a prince should NEVER be undignified.

"Please let me help."

"Never" Not ever, ever, ever.

This time his count was in Gaelic. Ah, so that was Sparrow's game. I had to do some counting of my own. I didn't like attempts to force my hand under the best of circumstances and these weren't the best of circumstances.

"Not your affair, Sparrow" since thinking I was dead had spooked him I'd give him a bit of truth to chew on "the only way I'd ever let you get tangled in this net is over my drowned, burned, ground to ashes, and scattered on the wind bones."

I heard him gulp and then push forward. Draigs but the boy did NOT know when to quit but then neither did I. "Don't ye think that's my choice te make?"

"No." Time for a change of subject "So it's been years since I've been to Rome, how is the Queen of Cities?"

Sparrow was silent a moment probably counting in his head this time before starting to regale me with his latest set of near misses and improbable events, I was completely unable to resist a fond smile. Some things never change and no one could get into and out of trouble like my little brother...

"We should probably take that sling off soon" Sparrow murmured in my ear sounding inordinately pleased with himself. Huh?

I blinked, then blinked again as the night came into sharp focus. We were little more than furlough from the Pearl. I snatched the arm that had been draped across Sparrow's shoulders back and put several swift paces between us, heart hammering triple time in my chest. Granted I'd been tired, tipsy, and injured but Sparrow should never have been able to lull me so thoroughly. Close enough to support me the entire walk back without me even NOTICING was close enough to slip a knife up under your ribs a thousand times. No one was EVER supposed to get that close. Not ever. Trust. NO. ONE. Be. Eternally. Vigilant. Sloppy. Gets. You. Killed. I shivered again half expecting the beating I richly deserved for being so sloppy.

Sparrow's brow furrowed, the thin, weak moon not giving his dynol eyes enough light to see much more than silhouettes. I tossed him the now useless sling and nodded in the direction of the Pearl not trusting my voice. I made certain to keep him in front of me the rest of the way to the ship as I fought to calm my racing heart. Sparrow's own enaid was looking ragged 'round the edges. The boy had no idea how tired he really was. Once he sat down I wagered he'd sleep the clock round if not more.

"Take her out with the tide, Mr. Sparrow and sail south along the coast" at least I'd kept my voice steady and made Sparrow's whole week I nodded to Mr. Kidd before locking myself in the captain's cabin. Sparrow would be far to busy bossing everyone around on deck to come down here. The excitement of being in charge would keep him up for a few more hours before he folded up. I threw myself into the far corner chair where I could keep an easy watch on both the doors and the windows. Act don't react I spat at myself. This debacle must never be repeated. Plan. Don't ever let the opposition dictate your moves. I carefully striped off my ceremonial dress, secured a piece of sail cloth and slipped on spare ring before taking flight.

I wrinkled my nose (why must prisons always reek so?) as I pursued the list of prisoners due for a flogging. Twenty-four lashes for stealing an apple? A touch harsh. Mind you in lean times I'd seen it earn a death sentence. I looked up at the cell numbers and then at their occupants. Actually it might as well have been a death sentence because the starving little waif wouldn't have survived four lashes never mind the score to follow. I studied his enaid for a moment, after all it had been a very long time since I had been a proper Changeling.

"Go" I told him as bemused brown eyes flickered between me and the open doors. I dropped the ring in front of him "and have a whole cart load of apples." It felt decidedly odd to be playing someone shorter and physically younger than myself. I pulled the cell door back into place and settled in to wait. I'd rearranged the order so I'd be the first one flogged but the local judiciary didn't seem to be in any hurry. The crowd did look a bit thin yet but they did look enthusiastic. This was going to be decidedly unpleasant but then that was rather the point. It would have been both swifter and more efficient to do this to myself on some snatch of an island than this. If someone under my command had pulled the stunt I had yesterday I'd have had them flogged and dismissed so fast they would have met themselves on the way. How could I hold myself to a lower standard? Aside from the shed blood I was planning to collect on the sail cloth and then have wind scatter across the Continent (since there was no reason to make it EASY for the Wild Hunt to find me until after I'd rescued Gwynyth) the beating was irrelevant. I'd had far too many for even a hundred lashes to impress but the public humiliation of standing there and taking it especially while playing at being a gutless little street urchin like the one I'd just set free. I was going to have to pretend I couldn't handle it. I was going to have to whimper and squeal while being laughed at by the crowd. Oh this was going to be extremely unpleasant. Speaking of the crowd the muttering had just spiked. The wind brought me a whiff of just what was in store. I loathed public floggings. The peasantry could always be relied upon to show their true base colors.

I'd bathed thrice a day since the flogging & I still felt filthy but Sea and Wind had done a marvelous job with the blood I'd shed. Anyone seeking to track me would be turning in circles around the entire Med. That should buy me enough time to save Anunion's granddaughter. I nonchalantly snapped my spyglass shut before turning to Sparrow. As usual I was elated and deeply annoyed. After days of doing little more than sleep he was finally clear in both eye and enaid. The slow recovery of his strength from that wish had been troubling to say the least. My own shredded enaid which had contributed the bulk of the raw power behind it had been back to its new 'normal' within a day. I had begun to fear he had crippled himself but at long last he was brighter than ever. Just in time to make port. Damnation. I had been hoping to take advantage of his 22 hour a day naps to settle matters in Venice with my danger prone little brother safely held in Pearl's bosom. So what was I going to do to distract a newly bright eyed and clearly ready to fly Sparrow?

Keeping both the relief and the vexation out of my voice and expression I coolly offered him the glass.

After a moment he chirped a confused "I do NOT chirp" Jack grumbled. "Venice?"

In a tone like an Arctic wind I retorted "Are you asking or telling?"

The flutter in his enaid told me that he'd gotten the message while giving no outward sign to dynol eyes. Good on both counts.

"O'course it's Venice. I may not hae the head for figures that ye do but I can bloody well read. I just di'n expect ye te sail FURTHER inte the Med." From the flares racing through his enaid he was both angry and worried.

"I have business in the city. I'll need you to keep the Pearl ready to sail at a moment's notice."

"That's yer first mate's job."

"Not this time" I said as I closed the cabin door in his face and turned the lock. I could feel him debating picking the lock, not one of his strong suits, walking away followed by sneaking ashore after me but he'd learned the hard way just how futile that was if I didn't let him track me, or talking to me through the door. I was a bit surprised when he opted for the later, perhaps Sparrow was learning.

"I've never been te Venice, think o' the lovely ladies that will be missing out if ye keep me away."

I rolled my eyes before opening the wardrobe. I kept a few outfits suitable for court. I'd never actually worn them since tradition dictated wearing the coronation outfit until the end of the ceremony and I hadn't lingered for it. Silk, Draigs, I missed silk. Clothe of silver may cut a fine figure but no one ever claimed it was comfortable. Not that anything suitable for court ever was. But silk, glorious silk, came as close as anything ever did. Bugger all. I slithered out of it taking a moment to admire my gemcraft, the one bit of earth magic I'd ever been truly good at. Someday, I swore to myself, someday my sire would lay gutted at my feet and my enaid would be whole again. Someday I would claim the throne that was my birthright and do all within my not inconsiderable power to restore what my sire had done his best to destroy. I swallowed hard knowing that much would be forever lost. Every moment I lingered here I had no doubt something or someone was laid to waste. Once I could have flown across the continent. I would have laughed and seen the mardeth ring around England as nothing but an amusing challenge as I slipped through it like a knife under the ribs. Now I couldn't even get TO the gate. I ground my teeth in impotent rage.

"Ye know the crew won't be able te keep me here if I truly want off."

I checked the look in the mirror. Back at court, I hadn't been at a proper court in SO long.

"If ye take me with ye, ye'll be able te keep me in line."

As if. I'd have better luck herding three hundred cats than my Sparrow. I opened the door taking advantage of Sparrow's shock at my change of style to sweep past him. The boy scrambled catching my sleeve. He dropped it at my glare but leaned close to whisper "Please" my brother had his pride, that please cost something. "Ye were dead, ye were dead. Ye told me ye shouldn't come here, ye told me it could cost ye yer life and I didn't bloody listen and ye died. Please, can we, please, just sail back out o'here?"

"I can not."

"Is some slight worth yer life?" he snapped angry.

"This isn't about vengeance" he gave me a dubious glance. So much for my attempts to be a kinder, gentler soul this time around. "It isn't" I insisted. Sparrow cursed under his breath knowing from experience I had said all I intended to but persisting anyway "then why?"

"Once upon a time an extremely narcissistic young man had a very, very loyal servant. A servant who lived and died trying to do what was best for his master with every breath. I discovered that his granddaughter is in dire trouble. Even if it kills me, Jack Sparrow" not that I expected it to "I can not leave her to die. I just can not. I owe him too much" I'd surprised us both by making that revelation.

"So you're intending to brave all, hasten to her rescue, and so win faire lady's heart?"

"Yes to the former, no to the later." Why was I having this conversation?

"Pity" he mumbled "ye could use a good lay."

He was probably right, hmm, if I was being honest he was decidedly right but I wasn't desperate enough to let some poor woman bear the consequences.

"Eunuch."

It would be decidedly less frustrating if I were.

"Let me help."

Trying to keep Sparrow safe wouldn't make matters any easier but when had I ever taken the easy course?

I did NOT sigh as I realized Sparrow wasn't listening to word I was saying. Oh, he was hearing it & could likely parrot it back just as well I could with Argellion. What I wouldn't give to have Argellion here. I suspected he'd found it just as annoying then as I did now. I made a note to apologize for that at the first possible opportunity. Princes do not grind their teeth. I could tell just looking at his face never mind his enaid that we were about to have the 15,000th rendition of the why won't you tell me who you really are argument. On one hand I could sympathize with Sparrow. It might have been over a hundred & fifty years since Mannwan had told me I was a Prince of Avalon but I could still remember with crystal clarity exactly how wretched it felt to have no idea who you were or where you came from. I'd made damn sure though that from the moment I arrived that even if I had withheld what little I knew of his past that he had an unmistakable course to his chosen future and I had never allowed Sparrow to be treated the way the Tudors had treated me. Regardless even if he had known we were brothers Sparrow had NO right to demand MY history. My past was my own & no business of Sparrow's but the boy simply would NOT leave well enough alone. And to add insult to injury when I did let some tidbit slip he refused to bloody believe me. If he called me daft one more time when I was telling him the plain unvarnished truth I was going to have him refresh every inch of Pearl's brightwork with a single strand of hair as a brush.

I rapped the hilt of the small dagger I'd been using as a pointer against the desk and cleared my throat eloquently (there was a knack to it) "Sparrow."

A long suffering sigh "On April 25, 1684 the Most Serene Republic declared war on the Ottoman Empire whilst the Turks were too busy securing their northern bord"

Sparrow stopped parroting to give me a worried look, "Ye're not entertaining the notion o' joining the Doge on his campaign are ye?"

"Of course not" I replied smoothly though I had to admit it was tempting now that I was here. Except I wasn't certain I wanted anything to do with someone who would blow a great bloody hole in the PARTHENON and merely call in a good shot. To then add insult to unimaginable injury he'd tried to steal some of the finest statuary and botched the job. Priceless, irreplaceable, sentient stones shattered. Damn the Turks too for using something so precious to store powder. Perhaps when I came into my own Mannwan could do something. I hoped Mannawn could do something the Parthenon had been unique & precious. It was as if thousands of years of supplicants seeking wisdom had somehow made the place wise. She wasn't lledrith in the classic sense but the ysbred of the girl who had been sacrificed for the original temple beneath the current one had lingered becoming progressively more aware through the centuries in which the Greeks had come until she had become if not truly Athena the closest thing that had likely ever existed. She was confined to the temple itself but within it she had a power & majesty all her own. I wondered if she had survived the cannon ball and subsequent explosion. I doubted it but maybe just maybe between us Mannawn and I could restore her. If they HAD to blow a historical building to bits why couldn't it have been the Coliseum? I shivered just thinking of that monstrosity.

"Really" Sparrow's skepticism was a palpable presence. I LIKED Venice (certain individuals disparagement of four thousand years of history notwithstanding) I'd never particularly cared for the Turks. I hadn't led a proper campaign in ever so long.

"Really" I replied firmly & then ruined it with a yearning sigh.

"I'm not a child anymore" Sparrow offered but his enaid had faded considerably.

"No, but you aren't quite ready to stand on the quarter deck alone either" I returned "thank you for the offer."

Sparrow drew a deep breath – here it came. I could feel the wish building behind it & my own flash of anger in reply. I swallowed it hard. If I wasn't going to give Sparrow the full truth I could hardly blame him when he pushed with far more than mere words. I had told him, repeatedly, to be careful what he wished for but he'd so firmly fixed his mind on the fact that he didn't do magic that nothing short of a full reveal was going to convince him otherwise, hell's bells he might not even finally believe then.

"We could stay in port for a while. Let the crew get their land legs back."

I cocked a questioning brow at him.

He shrugged "Haven't seen ye like this since" a lick of the lips as he thought better of what he was about to say. "in far too long. Even back in Tortuga I could take care o meself."

"Sparrow" I began

"I know that there's a difference between surviving and living. Ye TAUGHT it te me but I don't think ye've been listening to ye own lessons, Captain. I know ye love the sea but ye're different here. It's like ye've come home and…"

As soon as I caught the distress in his enaid I grasped his chin and raised those chocolate orbs to meet mine,"Sparrow, Sparrow you aren't holding me back " Nimrais snorted in disgust "In days of old when I was long at court I was just as keen to be back at Sea as I am to be at court now." Draigs I hadn't realized how deeply I'd been missing being at court. "Even if I wouldn't be risking my life staying, I would still be sailing on the Pearl once matters with my erstwhile servant's granddaughter are settled. I intend to see Captain Jack Sparrow with a firm hand on both rudder and wheel ere I disembark."

"So ye'll be going off on yer onesies then?"

"Not for a few more years" I assured him "but I can't stay forever Sparrow."

"So it is that ye've affairs o' yer own" he paused.

"Yes, and they are mine ALONE" I shuddered as I recalled Meleri's prophesies. I wasn't letting my little brother anywhere near the fight that was waiting for me.

It was Sparrow's turn to grind his teeth. It was petty of me but given how often I was tempted to strangle Jack the Draig in me was pleased to see Sparrow equally frustrated.

"Rec-i-pro-ci-ty, mayhap ye've heard o' it."

"Not a word any proper pirate should have in his vocabulary. What's the motto? Oh, yes, 'take what you can, give nothing back'?"

"Then mayhap ye shouldn't hae taught it te me" he riposted.

"I'll make you a deal, Captain Jack Sparrow, if when the time comes for me to take up my own affaires I find myself in need of a pirate you'll be the first I think of. Do we have an accord?"

Sparrow narrowed his eyes & crossed his arms, "So whatever it is ye'll be doing won't be involving things maritime in any way, shape, or form or ye wouldna hae made the offer." Draigs but I hated to see even a shadow of pain in those dark eyes. I would cheerfully rip the heart out of anyone who so much as looked askance at him which made those moments when I was to blame a blade in the vitals. I hadn't meant to insult him but my brother while occasionally mind blowingly daft was never, ever stupid.

"I'm sorry"

"Fer insulting me intelligence or for the fact that ye fully intend te vanish when ye deem the time te be ripe?"

"Yes"

Sparrow muttered several decidedly unkind things about my mother. I closed my eyes and very firmly did NOT remember how I'd last seen her. What He had made me do to her and my aunts. My mother's name should have been Deirdre for she had been fairest of our House and her eyes had held bottomless sorrow. She hadn't deserved what He made me do to her, hell She hadn't deserved it either. I'd have killed Her. The same way would have any other mad animal, quickly, cleanly, and as humanely as possible. And Meleri, Jane's Christ but I didn't want to think about gentle mad Meleri. She'd forgiven me in the end, she and my mother both. They'd known that I'd tried to save them, known that I'd brought His wrath down on my own head by ending their suffering more quickly than He'd planned. I swallowed hard not wanting to remember…

"Mallory?" Sparrow's tone had me snapping my full attention back to the present, Risanca half unsheathed. I whirled every sense straining. I shot Sparrow a questioning look when I could find nothing amiss. Clearly I'd let far too much show. Sparrow was going to give himself worry lines which simply would not do. I drew a breath to reassure him when the Blood silence truly hit me. I'd known the Rigion had all been slaughtered but this was the first time I'd been to the continent and understood all the way to my bones that that soft song of several thousand very distant relations I'd taken for granted to the point that it didn't every really register in all the days Before was GONE, that all that was left was Sparrow. One last precious Rigion. I might not know who his mother was but Gwyla, my little gull's, blood ran in his veins as sure as our Sire's did.

"I need a little air." I used the Wind to say as I swallowed the bitter bile at the back of my throat. What does He want with you Sparrow? Jane's God save us both. I paused on that thought. I was more desperate than I realized if I was praying to a God I didn't believe in and who I knew too damn well didn't eve save his own.

Sparrow started to follow.

"And Venice has some of the finest book stalls in the world." THAT gave him pause. It wasn't that Sparrow disliked reading he just didn't share my love of it. He'd learned the hard way I could cheerfully spend a full day and my share of an entire voyage in the book stalls. He wavered.

"I'm fine."

I received a dubious glance but he didn't actually call me a liar. "Be careful. You aren't on the Pearl. Remember what I've told about courts in general and this one in particular. One wrong word, the wrong gesture, hell the wrong button can land you in prison or worse."

Sparrow rolled his eyes "yes mother." I shouldn't be leaving him, I really shouldn't but I needed a little distance. I wouldn't go far, the best book stalls were close but I needed a little distance from those perfectly Rigion eyes staring out of a face that favored our Sire's more every day before I thoroughly embarrassed myself. Usually the utterly different enaids were more than enough for me to see nothing of the monster that Sired us in Sparrow but today, today I fled, memories I'd have gladly fed our Sire's enaid eating fiends nipping at my heels.

No sooner had I left the room than I felt Sparrow's most recent wish slip past me. I reached for it (I'd discovered in desperation that if I could catch a wish immediately I could destroy it, once they were loose Sparrow was the only one who might have an influence on one) but it fluttered out of reach and Jane's God knew what that one was going to do.

"What precisely did you wish Captain Sparrow?" Commodore Norrington inquired in as close to a neutral tone as I'd ever heard him manage around Jack.

Jack's eyes narrowed and I could see the Commodore swallowing several biting comments. "Mallory had talked about torture's uses, techniques, and how te deal with it medically but it was all very… academic. That was the first time I realized someone, somewhere had tortured Mallory. I knew he'd deny it if I asked but I'd seen that same look in the eyes o'men I knew had been tortured when something throws them back inte it." Jack swiveled his rings "He'd been so bloody… morose is a little strong, burdened." Jack nodded as if agreeing with himself. "Burdened, ladened, fraught, beleaguered, beset like he'd been carrying the weight o' the world which I suppose he was or at least a significant piece. He'd been getting progressively more distant and broody for a couple o' years afore my little jaunt inte the Med. So seeing him downright giddy from the moment Venice came inte view was like a breath o wind on a becalmed sea. But he'd told me more than once te stay away from Europe, and he'd bloody well DIED on me. I was concerned. He wasn't acting like himself, he was like those heroes in the old tales when they say 'he went fey' and ye know in about three stanzas he's going te end up bravely but tragically dead."

"But what did you wish" the Commodore pressed.

"I hadn't meant te ruin his good mood. Hadn't meant to dredge up old ghosts. Certainly hadn't meant to send his mind back inte a torture session I'd never dreamed had happened. So I wished that he'd be happy but without that strange mad, self-destructive edge te it. I wished that whatever it was we were in Venice for would come to a conclusion that would both please him and allow us te get the hell back out o the Med posthaste and still breathing. Now, if I've answered te yer satisfaction can we please get back te the matter at hand."

I breathed deep as I stepped into the shop. Letting years of older, happier memories wash away those of Him. I ran a shaking hand across an empty hidden shelf my fingers finding the spot I'd burned in the smallest, finest lines my mastery of fire could manage the lighthouse spell and the names of my nearest & dearest from before. All gone now. I'd hadn't lied to Sparrow once upon a time my patronage had made this the finest book shop on the Continent. Jane & MiLady Latimer would have loved it but they were both long dead ere I had first come here. That hadn't stopped me from adding their names or their cofarwydds. I reached for Milady Latimer first as was appropriate since hers had been the first enaid to truly touch mine but I hesitated at the last instant. I had created these after Draco, Milady Latimer, Jane, and Nedier's were done from memory. Memory fades, I'd spent considerable time in the carchar trying to remember anything about my twin but her death and to recall the dynol wet nurse who had cared for us in our first year. I had little doubt He'd had her killed in spite, I OUGHT to at least be able to recall her face but all I could recall was an out of tune hum and the impression of a sweet, safe, golden place. I wasn't even sure if the gold was real or if I'd substituted Milady Latimer. Or mayhap I'd been drawn to her from the beginning because I was half remembering someone else? Regardless Princes of the Blood do not pant when all they've done is a short hop from the Doge's Palace. I drew two deep breaths and looked back at the cofarwydds. They were meant to be created during life as mementos far more accurate than any portrait. When properly done they were woven of bits of shorn hair infused with the light from the living enaid which was then passed through the casters preferred element. I'd fused the ash to the wood in this case. I'd made over a dozen once I'd regained my senses after the Draco debacle but this was the only one in reach. I read the names wondering if my memories would prove true or if down there in the long dark of the carchar I'd warped them out of all recognition. Who should be first? I settled on Henry, staunch friend from the moment he'd saved me from toppling down the Tower stairs until the day he'd died.

It took far too much will to still the tremble in my hand as I traced Henry Pole, 2nd Baron Montegu, by right of birth King of England at the final d for just a moment it was as if Henry was here. Not some damn faded ysbrd but Henry as he was and just as I recalled. I didn't hurt? I'd been in unrelenting agony for so long I'd forgotten what it felt like to be painless. And then it was back. But why had it gone? I gazed at the names. I considered taking the shelf but the integrity of the spells might be disrupted. I flicked an ear listening and lit a quick flame. Sparrow was in the kitchens flirting with the scullery maids. He was focusing all his attention on the blond (dyed, or lyed more accurately) who fancied girls herself while he could have the brunette he was ignoring on the table right now. She was prettier too. Sparrow seemed to have fixation with dyed hair. Satisfied that my brother hadn't gotten himself into any dire trouble and that he clearly hadn't figured out when a girl wasn't interested I looked back down at the shelf. Speaking of girls should it be Elizabeth Regina Glorianna, Queen Jane, or Grainne Ni Mhaill Chieftain of Umaill Pirate She-King of Clew Bay? If only we had met on my Taithe. Gran would always be my first love even if I'd been too young and she too old. Oh, Gran. Dead nearly a century and I still regretted what had never been. I traced her name and there she was bald an egg, flaming red enaid that I could have cheerfully watched for all of my days, and wild as Sea in a hurricane. When the moment faded I realized why it didn't hurt. A cofarwydd was essentially a moment locked in time and it was crafted not just of the subject's enaid but perforce the casters as well. In that moment my enaid was whole again. I swallowed looking down at the shelf – was I doing myself more harm than good with this? It was a delight to see my friends but this wasn't going to bring them back. And there were no words for how good it felt to be as I should have been, but it was just an illusion that made returning to what I was now that much worse. If I kept this up Bledri was going to have company in that bottle of his. As I pushed away I noticed Anuion in petrified wood at the bottom. I'd expected to see Anuion on my Taithe since he Should have still been alive. This one wasn't my work, it was a message from beyond the grave from Anuion. Draig's but it BURNED as what was left of my earth magic tried to contact stone. Just as I tried to pull back (only to discover my fingers had melded into the petrified wood) Anuion's final 'gift' made an appearance.

I was next to Henri in an open coach. Draigs, Anuion are you going to make me WATCH him die? I wanted to look away as the mad man plunged his blade into Henri's breast. Where the blazes were the bloody guards, what the HELL were you doing in an OPEN coach Henri? How many times did I tell you. What the hell? Atroi the word I'd never heard bubbled into my brain. There was a reason that all of the King's guard came from Mannwan and Anuion's House. Atroi was the magical equivalent to castling in chess but with far graver consequences to the rook. Anuion had traded his life for Henri's, and bequeathed him the greater part of a noble Ellyllon's life and power. Now I knew why Henri's ysbyrd hadn't come. He didn't have one. Henri was still alive. I'd traded my most faithful servant for a man who despised me and I didn't honestly know if I was devastated or ecstatic. I watched as with his lifeblood flowing in a river from a severed aorta he wrapped a bloody hand around Henri's doublet and begged for me as Henri blinked in amazement both to find himself not dead (and the Duke de Sully rather than King) and face to face with a second most trusted servant who was an Ellyllon.

"Please, please you have to help him" I was enough of a healer to know what every word was costing Anuion. Henri's face twisted as he realized the him in question was me. "You OWE him, he saved you so many times. He's in trouble, terrible, terrible trouble."

"Good" was Henri's succinct reply. Jane's God Henri how could you do that to a man who'd just given his LIFE for you? No matter what I was Anuion had never been anything but honorable and he hadn't deserved to die in despair. By your Christ Henri you could have given him the comfort of a lie, or if that was too much for the 'Most Christian even though I cheat on my wife with ever woman that will lift her skirts for me King' you could have given him a mere I'll consider it. I reft my hand back leaving most the skin seared to the shelf and curled my scorched left hand against my breast. I kicked the wall until bones most of the bones were broken in my feet wishing I could weep. Draigs, Jane's God, and all the little fishes in the Sea what the Hell was wrong with me that I never wept? Every name on that list was more than worthy of my tears yet I'd never shed a single one. The first four letters of Anuion's name were branded all the way to the bone on each finger tip of my left hand. A N U I. I let slip a bitter laugh – it spelled unjust in El'lan. Now THERE was irony. I was half temped to leave it but doubted my subjects would find such a sight reassuring. I was also loath to erase it. I settled for leaving the faintest of scars. If I were to dip my fingers in ink you would see the letters but I doubted anyone else would ever notice them. I knew the Duke de Sully had 'died' in 1641 I wondered where Henri had gone after that. I wondered how he felt about being denied Heaven in exchange for Anuion's magical abilities. And I hoped desperately that he didn't believe himself cursed or evil.

I wasn't certain how long I'd just sat on the shop floor staring into nothing when I was distracted by the sound of a slap. Oh, honestly Sparrow. Yes, you're quite attractive despite your horrible fashion sense but no matter how pretty or charming girls who like girls are not going to change their minds. I considered doing something unpleasant to her but he really had deserved it and there was no lasting harm. Oh, well that would drive some of my lessons about matters at court home. Again I considered intervening but I suspected a little time in the stocks might do Sparrow some good. On the other hand having him come back to our rooms covered in shite and rotted fruit simply would not do. I dusted myself off made a few quick purchases to cover why I hadn't come to his rescue and set off to ensure I didn't spend the night trying to get my brother clean.

I hefted one of the sponges out of the bucket of soapy perfumed water I'd replaced all of the offal with (it never ceased to amaze me how the dynol would believe their eyes no matter what their fingers & noses told them) and took careful aim at Sparrow as he sat in the stocks. I'd TOLD Sparrow one of these days I was going to wash his mouth out with soap. As Sparrow managed to keep up a steady stream of witty abuse despite the pelting he was getting (and I could tell by his enaid he was more than half enjoying this. Sparrow loved being the center of attention far too much to hate this entirely) I considered where to place my next shot. I ran my thumb across the fingertips of my left hand. Unjust. The world had always been unjust. It was unjust that I was alive when so many good and decent souls had gone to early graves. But as the Dark Lady had said I couldn't change the past only strive for a better future. I refused to diminish Anuion's sacrifice by brooding myself sick. I had set events in motion to restore his granddaughter to her proper place. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the next opportune moment. I laughed as the little girl who'd missed with her last four throws finally raced forward and mashed her sponge against Sparrow's forehead getting thoroughly soaked herself in the process. It was good to be alive and I could only hope wherever Henri was he agreed. I resolved to let it go for now. As I sent my next shot winging toward Sparrow I had to admit this was bar none the most fun I'd ever had giving Sparrow a bath and the easiest time I'd ever had getting him to do 'laundry'. Now if only I could do something about the halitosis….

The rest of us glanced over at Jack expecting a comment only to find his spot empty. My first thought was that he must have finally gone to give Mallory a piece of his mind what I hadn't expected was to see him holding his pistol under Mr. Not Cotton's chin. When he was certain he had everyone's attention he asked in the politest of tones,

"So Henri Bourbon, erstwhile Prince of Navarre and King of France why are ye here? And what are yer intentions regarding me brother?"

The parrot fluttered its wings and squawked indignantly. "Are ye refusing te answer?" there was a Draig like edge creeping into Jack's voice.

"Those were rather open ended questions given that he can't speak" Elizabeth was quick to point out.

"You'd be surprised how much Henri here can say in spite o our Sire. Me brother has no idea yer here and if I don't get assurances that ye'll be doing him no further harm ye'll be on an eternally becalmed spit o land with a single shot. Savvy?"

"Becalmed, becalmed!"

"I'm going te need more assurances than that" Jack retorted as he backed Henri all the way up to the stern windows. Henri ended up sitting in the casement with nothing to stop Jack from shoving him out into Pearl's wake.

"In deference te Lizzy's point let's see if I can make a few guesses given that time's wasting. De Sully 'died' in '41 which would hae made him eightyish ancient but not so old that you HAD te leave a comfortable life. Ye told me brother a few nights ago that ye went willingly te Avalon but were ye coerced, blackmailed, or otherwise threatened inte it?"

"Becalmed."

"So why risk yer life for a man ye'd reviled? And why after so many years had pas… oh" you could hear the ah-ha in Jack's voice. "That would hae been about the time me brother's soul started te take a beating. Bledri would hae had reason to keep a weather eye on what the difaenaid were up te. He came te ye, I'm guessing that Mallory learned te make cofarwydds from Bledri. That Beldri had ones o his children. That he told ye exactly what happened te his eldest, mayhap even showed ye. Being a fine upstanding religiousy gent ye know all about Matthew 10:28 – how am I doing so far?"

"Wind in the sails."

"Soul eaters" Jack whispered in a tone to freeze the blood "that thought offended yer Christian principles didn't it? It was fine, peachy, excellent well, and just bloody brilliant that he was in trouble. Ye just decided he was reaping what he sowed as ye lot like te call it. Forty bloody years o hell and ye just let him rot. Never mind that while Martin Luther may have been the first one te stand up fer the freedom o men's souls me brother was one whose wit and magic tipped the tide away from the might o the papacy, the Hapsburgs, and the Valois. Time after time when the Protestants praised their God for a 'divine intervention' at the opportune moment it was really me brother hard at work for your oh so very bloody cause. " Jack hadn't made it a question but the parrot bobbed its head while looking down. "Did it rock yer faith when ye found out he had pointy ears?" Jack made certain his own were showing. "Or did ye just decide that God was using evil te mar evil? And then the real thunder bolt, the Ellyllon were originally o human stock. Sons o' Adam, daughters o' Eve with souls. What was happening te his body didn't matter, but his soul, now that was a different matter. Ye wanted him in Hell and he couldn't be if his soul was devoured."

The parrot "Shiver me timbers" was nearly drowned out by Henri's gagging attempt to speak for himself. Jack had to shove him back into the casement as Henri ignored the gun.

"Not quite right am I then? Oh" Jack smirked "what a feather in yer cap his soul would be. The soul o' the Ellyllon Crown prince come inte the Protestant fold bringing his Kingdom with him. What kind o' reward would that be fer ye at the Final Judgment? Do ye think it will balance the ledger for all those Catholics ye killed? For all the Protestants who died under yer banner? That's what yer here for isn't it Henri o' Navarre? Ye've come te 'save' me brother's soul. I'm tempted te let ye take a long swim. I learned by constant EXAMPLE that there were men o true kindness, compassion, charity, justice, and honor from a man ye deemed unworthy te live. Ye didn't know him away from yer sanguineous wars and hypocritical causes. I had te translate yer letters. All 12 volumes inte 4 different languages. I know ye Henri o Navarre and I know him. He is a better man than ye ever were" Jack finally took the barrel out of the hollow under Henri's chin "but sometimes he wasn't. I don't honestly know if yer going te do some good or far more damage te what's left o him. I can only warn ye, if ye make me regret not marooning ye here and now ye will wish fer hell." The parrot ruffled its feathers but made no sign of protest or agreement.

Jack walked backward to his seat never taking his eyes of Henri or the not-parrot before waving his hands at Elizabeth to continue.

Apparently the

"The tide's running on us Lizzy"

Elizabeth frowned clearly wanting to see more of Venice.

"Do ye really think me brother failed te give Anunion's great granddaughter a lovely happily ever after?" Jack fiddled with his rings "She was the only one that ever agreed with me that Mallory was daft. She actually hit him, not slapped, closed fist round house right te the jaw when she realized he'd come after her. Cursed him fit te make a pirate blush for a fool when she laid eyes on me. She asked me te look out fer him, but she wouldn't utter a single word about his real name or where he came from, or for that matter what her grandfather's had been. When I asked her if her grandfather'd noticed if Mallory had already been daft back then all she did was weep. Not one blasted word." He glared at Henri "All I had were hints and oblique references. I didn't KNOW anything."

Elizabeth cleared her throat "Then what do you think I should be reading next?"

Jack leaned over flipped a couple of pages before pointed about half way down and sighing "Start there."

Dearest Will,

My apologies for the long lull in missives, though I am certain if your Heaven exists you have far more spectacular diversions to entertain you. Matters have been a touch hectic of late. Sparrow's advancement to Captain started out fortuitously enough but now I heartily wish I had never heard of Nassau let alone suggesting we…visit. I knew quite well that Captain Sparrow could hear the winds whispering about Henry Every's successful raids, about the Fancy's sad state and about his decision to disperse the crew to give them a better chance at getting ahead of the authorities but he would never admit it. So it fell to me to state what was obvious to both of us that woefully undermanned and bursting with ill gotten gains Nassau was ripe for the plucking. Captain Every had found Gov. Trotter of Nassau most accommodating after he and his crew had paid a very hefty bribe. He'd also left behind a tip in the form of over fifty tons of ivory and a lovely selection of silk.

I could hear Jack rolling his eyes as Mallory had to pause & savor the memory of it running through his fingers.

The blue would be absolutely lovely on Marissa. Draigs, Will, but you lot grow so FAST. Sparrow's gone from downy chick to nearly full grown in the blink of an eye and my god daughters arent' far behind. Outwardly Marissa is going to be the beauty of the family but there's something rotten at her core Will. Jane's God knows I've seen it often enough in the torture chambers of Europe and I haven't a clue how to fix it. If I can't figure something out she's going to break her parent's hearts when she starts killing slowly for pleasure. I glanced up looking long and hard at Sparrow's pristine blazing red enaid. I winced at the resentment of me flickering through it. Sparrow might yet break my heart but it wouldn't be out of the twisted darkness that stalked the rest our House. His enaid held not even the faintest shadow of the blood lust that marked even 'gentle' Meleri and ruled our Sire. I wondered just how dark my own was.

No, sadly, Captain Sparrow wasn't going to live to die old in his bed. As the saying goes 'there are old pirates and there are bold pirates. There are no old, bold pirates.' I could only conclude that I'd let him read a few too many tales of Robin Hood. Whilst my little brother certainly had no plans of giving to the poor, he'd clearly taken the notion of the 'clever trickster' to heart. Captain Sparrow wanted to be the brilliant pirate who always got the booty and the girl and never harmed a soul doing it. It was a fine goal to be sure but there was a reason new pirate Captains were so brutal to their first few prizes – once a sufficiently ruthless reputation was acquired one could afford a touch of leniency for those who submitted immediately but Captain Sparrow wanted to do it all through sheer cleverness. If anyone can do it it will be Sparrow. He has a sharp wit and even more importantly he's a gwelt but as Nassau had made unambiguously clear both can fail spectacularly. This time I'd been perfectly placed at the tipping point in the whole thing to seize the opportune moment and neatly salvage the situation. Someday very soon I wouldn't be at his side and…

Mallory's chest tightened to the point it was difficult to breath

…And he's going to get himself killed. Ironically probably for doing the right thing. He's going to spare the wrong man or save the wrong woman's life and be slaughtered because of it.

Mallory closed his eyes listening to the drunken Tortuga brawl being waged to his right.

I can't stay forever Will. I just can't even though we make a damn fine team. If it weren't for Meleri's dire predictions I might have tried to find some way for him to set that gwelt talent loose on our Sire while I attempted an assassination in the confusion. Even if I was just on a normal Taithe I'd need to leave for a little while. My Sparrow is chafing at my over protectiveness. And I am Will, I KNOW I am but I just can't stand to watch him fall. There's so much I have to explain before I go. I've already left it for far too long.

Mallory opened his eyes taking in the tavern with a sneer. Draigs, Will but I loathe this town. As he'd been every waking moment for nearly a month Captain Sparrow was dead drunk and still angry as hell with me. Angry that I was the one who'd salvaged the Nassau raid even if he and I were the only ones that knew it, angry that he knew little more about me now than when we'd met in the street in front of this hovel, angry that he owed me everything he had, angry that when he came back here looking to prove that the gutter rat had made good no one even remembered the gutter rat (which is not my fault!). It was hardly the opportune moment for divulging the truth but there was a Wild Hunt nearly here. At least I didn't have to worry about him getting in the way of this one even if I did owe him my life and freedom from the last one. That had been entirely…

"Lizzy!" Jack barked.

Elizabeth looked…quite put out at being interrupted so rudely. I resolved to find a peace offering at some point, Jack was on his own. "Did you require something Captain Sparrow?" she asked far too politely.

"Let me see that bit"

"Ohhh" Elizabeth smirked "You mean this line where he says you saved his life?"

Jack still looked a little gob smacked, "It says that?"

"I must confess I'm having difficulty believing it myself" the Commodore said dryly.

Elizabeth turned the journal. Both sets of eyes showed clear confusion. "With your permission then" Elizabeth didn't bother to wait for either of them to continue

And unforgivably sloppy on my part even if it had been the largest Hunt heretofore. Thank the Draigs that mardeths have zero ability to work together or the six of them would have had me, they nearly had me even working at cross purposes with each other before Sparrow distracted them at the opportune moment. I wondered if telling Captain Sparrow that the last time we'd faced far worse disaster (though in my defense I'd TOLD him I had no business being anywhere in Europe) he had been the one who'd held the tipping point would make things better or worse.

Speaking of the Hunt I sent Wind to ensure young Ned Teach (not his real name but he refused to inform him of his – I could hardly judge him on that was another sore point between Sparrow and I since he'd specifically come wanting ME to train him in fine art of piracy) one of the only three Old Blood sailors currently on this wretched rock was still safely tucked away on the Pearl. I toyed again with simply knocking Sparrow over the

head, carrying him down the Pearl, and ordering the crew to set sail. Somehow I doubted it would improve our already straining relationship. I would just have to keep the Hunt well clear of this…place once I got Bill 'Turner' back here to keep an eye on Sparrow. I'd spent the better part of the month making it was securely warded, blessed, and otherwise protected as I could since Captain Sparrow seemed to prefer it to the ship I'd built him. Which left Mr. 'Barbossa' (seriously? was I supposed to believe that was his name?) and as far as I was concerned the mardeth was welcome to eat his braying ass. With my luck the mardeth would spit him back out.

Well, speak of the devil. I expected him to go back to toadying and lick spittling to Captain Sparrow as he had been for weeks whilst completely ignoring me. If he had been dynol or even most Old Blood that would be right and proper since he would have had no idea that I was anything but the first mate (though if he had any kind of honor he would have the decency to tell me he was trying to take my 'job'). I would like to say that my brother was too wise for 'Barbossa's' quite frankly piss poor flattery but he was sucking it up faster than the rum he'd been imbibing. To my surprise he came towards my table for the first time.

"A bit o' privacy if ye please"

I glared at the cocky bastard a moment before complying.

He swept off his hat and gave me the proper bow of Old Blood to a Prince of the Blood but not to the Crown Prince I noted.

"Yer Grrrace" his manner of speaking alone was enough to make me want to send him packing. He paused clearly expecting me to reply. I'd sooner chat with a shark and by the look of his enaid the feeling was mutual.

"I couldn't help but notice that we're about te have some company" he was practically purring in delight. "I'd have thought ye'ddd want te be getting Sparrow and the Pearl off te deep water first."

"Captain or Prince Sparrow to you" I snarled at him "Mr. Cromwell."

Oh, but he didn't like that, not my insistence on Captain Sparrow's proper title or that I knew his name.

"As I see there's no fooling ye" your toadying ways might work on Sparrow I thought but they won't on me. This snake wanted something and I was willing to bet it was the Pearl. Fortunately I was reasonably certain Captain Sparrow loved his ship far too much to let this blackguard anywhere near her. And had the man never heard of dental hygiene? Or a razor? And what were those things over his eyes. Tweezers are our friends. "though I'm curious what gave it away?"

As if it wasn't brutally obvious "I understand that Cromwell isn't the safest of names right now but why Barbossa?"

"Arrr, it's a looong and interstin' tale that's not te be told nor heard whilst sober" he replied while calling for a round of absinthe. By all the little fishes I'd just left an open invitation for this kiss arse to presume to sit in Our Presence. I considered my options, first and most tempting I could dump the absinthe over his head and find a new perch to watch over my Captain, second I could burn him to ash for his audacity and impudence hmm actually I liked option 2 better but it was out of keeping with trying to be gentler and kinder this time. Three I could take my leave but that smacked of a retreat or fourth I could let the absinthe run into the pockets sewn into the sleeves for just such occasions (honestly I'd been surprised to find even one soul who could see through my Shadows but that was no excuse not to be prepared) and listen. But what would be the point? With one word from her Captain he'd be a pile of ash if he tried to take the Pearl. The baying of the hounds was growing fainter which meant Mannwan was nearly here. Could I take him? He was Avalon's finest warrior, or had been in my youth. While not old he was no longer in his prime. Could I break him free? If I did would he side with me or would his honor bind him yet to my Sire?

"They're nearly here" Barbossa noted as he sipped his absinthe. He waved the filthy mug in Captain Sparrow's direction. As if I'd bring that anywhere near my lips even if I was inclined to drink before battle. "He'll be needing a steadying hand while yer….otherwise engaged. I'd be obliged if ye'd put in a good word."

I'd have sooner endorsed the monkey on his shoulder. I was sorely tempted to kill him here and now but he knew things he shouldn't. I wanted to know where he'd learned them and who he'd told. I put a hand on his shoulder and heated it just short of branding hot. "Captain Sparrow has a steadying hand & if you harm one hair on his head I won't kill you."

"Do I have yer word on that?" he asked my back as I went out to face the Wild Hunt and to kill an Ellyllon I dearly loved.

Elizabeth flipped the page skipping over the Wild Hunt since we'd already heard at least some of it from Jack.

I won? I'd never heard Mallory that stunned. No cocky 'I'm the Prince of Avalon' just a drop down on one knee blinking into the shadeless empty gray of newly crafted cynfyd in confused amazement.

I won?! I won! I shut my mouth (it was a good thing I'd moved the battle into the tunnels created by the Wild Hunt on its long march to Tortuga. If we'd still been on that slop heap I'd have caught a score of flies by now. Except there would be nothing left of the entire island if the full battle had been fought Above). I started to rise but the grey spun and went dark…

"That" Jack announced "was a swoon worthy of Lizzy."

Blech! My mouth tasted like something had died in it and I'd tried to get rid of the taste with ash and sand. The cynfyd the Wild Hunts had created to get past Sea's blockade had constricted to a bubble barely bigger than the carchar. Utterly alone I indulged in a slight shudder at the memory. That was sloppy. What you indulged in private would eventually creep into public view. Never let them see you bleed. How long did it take for cynfyd to contract once there was no one maintaining it? And more importantly how long had I been away from Sparrow & Pearl? A glance down at the rings spinning loosely around my near skeletal fingers proved it had been too long but this had been the hardest fight of my life and there hadn't exactly been time to stop for sustenance. At the rate I had to have been burning through my reserves it might have been no more than a fortnight. My empty gut though still not complaining (would I ever actually be hungry again? Given how miserable starving had felt in the carchar one would think I'd be ecstatic that I seemed to have escaped hunger pangs forever. Except I bloody well SHOULD be hungry. In the grand scheme of all the things that were wrong with me courtesy of my Sire the lack of an appetite and the ability to be satisfyingly full were the least of my worries. But it was vexing) insisted it had been far more than that, months not weeks. My brutally dry throat concurred. Ellyllon with powerful enough enaids could go decades without food but even motionless in the carchar I'd required water, granted only a gulp every few months through the air holes had been enough. My breath hitched. I needed water, and I needed it now. Getting to my feet was far too hard. The grey no-place spun and there was nothing for me to brace myself against. I landed on my knees. I was so desiccated it hurt to breath. If you can't walk, crawl. Princes of the Blood do not crawl. I got my feet back under me and then wondered what to do next. I hadn't a clue where I was. There had been a labyrinth of 'tunnels' honeycombed under what seemed like the entire Caribbean with at least four (five? six? I'd lost count in the last desperate fights) separate Wild Hunts all trying to flank me. I'd never crafted cynfyd and the warren had clearly collapsed once I destroyed the Wild Hunts. I couldn't just surface. I'd discovered crush depth the hard way and without the ability to properly prepare if I came up too deep Sea would kill me before She ever realized I was there, if I came up too far inland I'd have an entirely different set of troubles. I swayed as my vision tunneled. I needed water and more rest. I needed to know where the shallows were Above. So stop rambling and whining and figure it out already I told myself. My Earth gifts were gon….huh?

I saw Jack start a little out of the corner of my eye as Mallory dropped onto his arse stunned beyond speechless. It was several blinks before his mind seemed to spark back to life.

The difaenaid. When at the very last moment of the fight I'd destroyed the difaenaid I'd gotten back the pieces of my enaid it had taken. Taken, not devoured as it should have. Why hadn't it been devoured wholesale? My Sire, my Sire had forced them to take but not truly feed. But why? What was he trying to achieve? My eyelids felt like sandpaper against my eyes. Water now, implications later. But I might be able to be whole again. I'd told myself for years I'd get the pieces back but deep down I'd known better. Except I might be. Not likely, not at all likely. His gorchmyns would fade at his death and they would finally feed or he would order those pieces devoured just to spite me. The hope that had leapt up nearly guttered out but refused to die completely. I'd gotten a bit of myself back and the rest still EXISTED and as long as it did there WAS hope. But not if I didn't get off my arse and find some water posthaste.

Oh there was water Above alright, but it was salt and nearly a thousand fathoms deep. Far too deep even for my skill with Wind and Sea. With the newly regained scraps of my Earth gifts I reached out for where Sea met Shore. There four days hard run due south was an island with fresh water. I tried to shallow but my throat was already too dry. Sooner started sooner finished...

My share of the green silk from the Nassau raid would be spectacular on Marie. Which of the newest fashions would suit her best? Or should I ignore fashion and tailor purely to them? Decisions, decisions. And what to do for Anna-Maria? My wild goddaughter would gleefully destroy any dress presented to her so there was no point in designing her one. The current fashion would suit Marissa nicely but for my Marie I wanted to SET fashion. Something with a low neckline, age and child bearing had not yet marred milady's lovely breast and since reaching the age to appreciate such things I'd found the current fashion less than ideal. While I had nothing against cleavage (though I wasn't nearly as fixated as Sparrow, or at least I managed to be more discrete in my leering!) I was firmly of the opinion that mashing them with a corset that barely let the ladies breath was no way to treat a divine bosom. So if I intended to improve upon the situation I would also perforce need a better corset. Did I have any boning on the Pearl? No matter I could still weave finer boning magically than any merchant would have. Lace though I couldn't do a proper corset without the finest of lace to trim the silk. I was far better at lace than anyone I knew but I wanted the dress done soon I couldn't do the stitching, appliqué, embroidery, and make the lace too if I wanted Marie and Marissa to have their dresses while they were still young enough to enjoy them. All the best lace was in Europe. Who was going to Europe who owed me a favor? I sighed as if I knew anyone these days with a proper sense of fashion. I simply could not make do with inferior lace. The entire effect would be utterly ruined. I wondered if I could teach Wind to knot lace…hmm not a good idea. Would the crew mutiny if I set them to lace making? I suspected several of the better riggers could make a tidy bit in retirement if I taught them how.

Now what coiffure would suit both milady and the exquisite ensemble I was going to fashion? Something elegant and intricate. Fortunately Marie had a lovely head of long, thick, lustrous hair. I wouldn't need to add much in order to recreate Henri's favorite style and the fact that I was likely the only one who remembered how to do it would be the perfect excuse to get my hands into her tresses. Henri loved the style both because it beautifully framed a lady's face when it was up and when affairs of state were over, remove a single pin and it would cascade down to perfectly frame milady's breast whilst leaving the delicate rim of the ear and the curve of the neck bare for milord's attentions. I closed my eyes and drew in the scent of …. TORTUGA?!

Oh honestly if I was going to keep hallucinating due to dehydration it could at least be something pleasant! I opened my eyes and realized that no, it wasn't another hallucination, I'd just spent however long it had been walking to bloody Tortuga. Draigs! I hated this place. So get a drink, catch back up to Sparrow, and then figure out what to do next. I tried to laugh but my throat was too dry. I had a piece of my soul back. I had a piece BACK. I just might get them ALL back. Tortuga was beautiful.

I wrapped one hand round my boot dagger while continuing to draw in water as quickly as I could. Someone was looking for me. I could feel the intent even if neither of us had spotted the other. My throat protested as I pushed away from the barrel. I'd had enough even if I hadn't had my fill. A quick glance about the courtyard of the inn revealed young Ned Teach. Who SHOULD have been on the Pearl which was NOT in the harbor. The look on the boy's face filled me with dread as I dropped the outer Shadow letting him see Mr. Mallory. One look at him had me seeking Sparrow and the Pearl. Sparrow's Blood should have been a beacon as clear as the Lighthouse spell housed in Peregrin's main mast. Instead I got only echoes. It doesn't mean he's dead I told myself desperately. It doesn't. It can't. Please. I didn't know who or what to direct that plea to. I'd bled myself several times since escaping the carchar and had Sea scatter the Blood to muddy my trail. Except Sparrow didn't know that. Didn't know that he COULD be tracked by his Blood. And chillingly didn't share my ability to be bled nearly dry and still recover. That amount of Blood…. Draigs could he survived losing enough Blood for all those echoes? If he was alive then he was sorely wounded or had been bled regularly in small amounts the entire time I'd been gone.

Ned Teach was grim as death. I wanted to run more than I ever had in my entire life. I latched onto the barrel forcing myself to stand, expecting to be told the manner of my little brother's demise. No, no, no, no, mercy I begged of whatever powers might watch over the affairs of men. Not expecting it, not expecting that there were such entities but desperate enough to beg anyway.

"He took the Pearl."

What? I had assumed the Pearl had sent herself to the bottom in grief with Sparrow gone.

"Jack let him onboard and they set sail for Isla de Muerta. Jack put me off before he left with Barbossa's crew. They came back without him but with the treasure. Captain Barbossa set sail for Maracaibo last full moon."

Pearl was still afloat which meant, which meant Sparrow might still be alive. It didn't guarantee it. With the Blood echoing the way it was it might be years before Pearl with her less than quick wits knew Sparrow's fate one way or the other but she hadn't SEEN him die, hadn't felt him die and they WERE linked so maybe? I clung to that hope like a barnacle.

I snarled realizing the reason for the echoes. That conniving Old Blood bastard meant to use those years to bind her to himself. To HELL with that. Pearl was Sparrow's. I wasn't Pearl. I should be able to tell the difference between mere echoes and the vibrant song of my brother's Blood. One of them shouldn't have just been an echo. But that's all I could find. That's all there was. My knees went out and I slid down the barrel curling into a ball without caring that Ned Teach was watching. Sparrow was gone. Draigs, draigs. I drew several ragged, shaking breaths. I couldn't even keep one boy safe how the hell was I supposed to save a kingdom?

I could hell be damn sure avenge him. "Captain Barbossa" was going to die, horribly, repeatedly, and for as long as necromancy could keep it that way him and his whole very, very damned crew.

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