Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.
(Anaïs Nin, French-Cuban American diarist, essayist, novelist, writer)
Alia accepted gladly Diantha's hospitality in New Orleans. Her place was a nice house in Jefferson parish, and the short afternoon flight from downtown allowed her to have a good look of the area. The sparse urbanisation, due to several floods and the large money involved in rescuing those areas from the waters, ensured privacy and good neighbours.
The house itself seemed afloat over a clearing close to the shore of Lake Salvador, and a precious unfenced garden surrounding it hinted at lazy sunny afternoons. Only when the flycar was descending on the landing pad, Alia saw the tapered pillars the house rested on. Dangerously thin and visible only when the light cut through them at a certain angle. A few steps introduced to the veranda circling the house and to a door that did not look like one.
Alia watched the seamless wall where the door was supposed to be and thought that everything had more sides than the eyes could see. It was an apt reminder to use all her senses and not to trust only one of them.
Diantha was not home but a code on Alia's tablet gave her the key needed to pass the automatic security and open the door. She followed the instructions to find her bedroom on the first floor.
The large room faced an extensive patch of wood and the lake. Alia opened the French window to the terrace and unfolded her mind, opening it to the green area in front of her. The wet, warm air of the swamps carried dead plants smells and ducks' cries. She detected some wild mammals mindprints (pigs, otters?) and a lot of reptiles (mostly alligators, she reckoned), but she did not feel like checking into them. The alienness of those primitive minds made her retreat in her own skin. Then, some weres in the distance, maybe hunting or providing security. Her mind lingered some more on the nearest houses, where she identified daemons and humans' minds.
Alia was slowly reacquainting to Earth dimension features. Though, the otherness she had felt in Fairy, deeper at the beginning, then just a thin crust, was still with her. Probably this was the price she had to pay for her mixed heritage, or just for her gift. No place felt really hers. Rhiannon, herself with a foot in two dimensions, had talked of a constant uneasiness, like a negligible bruise that never healed. Alia had felt out of place for all her life, but in Fairy that feeling of dislocation had somehow diminished and now, back in the human dimension, it had resurfaced. Maybe, it was just the way she inhabited her own mind. Chadwick had spoken of the several natures they could discover in themselves, and about the obligation to welcome and learn all of them. The welcoming part she had done, accepting and fully embracing her fae essence into her human core. Now, it was time to learn how to make human, fae and a good pinch of dae thrive together.
Alia laid down on a lounger and set to absorb the last rays of the descending sun. She needed all the energy available to face this new world, hers for the moment. And to approach again the vampire world.
Eric woke up a couple of hours before sunset, as usual.
Since a few years his residence was a house in the middle of the Lake des Allemands, southwest of New Orleans. After human authorities had forbidden hunting, fishing and swimming in the entire area and its surroundings, the crown (disguised as a medical research company) had purchased the exclusive right to use the whole area for ninety nine years and, later on, the king had built his house.
The structure seemed to float over the waters and employed materials and technology derived from aerospace research. It was completely shielded against detection (both terrestrial and aerial systems) and energetically self-sustaining.
Eric watched the descending sun from his study, interrupting his reading from time to time to drink in the beauty of the view. The windows panes were screened against the most dangerous sun radiations, another by-product of aerospace technology he enjoyed since a few decades.
A buzzing noise disturbed his musings. It was a recorded voice message from Earth Three, the geostationary station serving as research laboratory for scientific experiments, and for the testing of spacecraft systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon and Mars. His second-in-command was in a very delicate mission up there to pave the road for a consortium of companies, led by Eric and Rehema's Space Life Foundation, whose aim was to be selected as the tenderer to negotiate the construction of Mars Two (expected to start in five years).
Karin sent reports every night and she had already updated him. Eric touched the play icon wavering on the screen and watched a fifteen second video.
His child's face appeared briefly, then she unfolded her tablet and turned it to the camera. A very young Sookie smiled and said something. Then Karin appeared again and spoke. "The video is genuine, coming from Louisiana yesterday late afternoon. Careful. Karin out."
Eric froze.
He ran the video again. Twice.
The voice was hers but lacking any southern accent, a foreign taste to it. Hers, nonetheless. The face, too. It was thinner and somehow different, younger than how he remembered from the last time, marked by a new attitude. Hardness. Strength. Her words filled his head as a toxic fog. Hi Karin, this is Sookie, back in Louisiana. Hope you're fine and to hear from you soon. My contacts are attached. Love. Then a true smile and a blown kiss.
It was that smile that broke him. He stood up and cursed loudly.
Whoever had sent that message wanted to upset him. Handsomely.
Eric threw the tablet to the window in front of him. Then lifted a chair and threw that too. Then a marble orrery. He probably screamed more. The fog threatened his vision now, becoming a physical barrier only Sookie's smile pierced.
And this someone had succeeded, thought Eric.
More than forty two years and a girl who looked so much like her made him freak out as an ape lacking any self control. Someone played with him and he jumped at his tune like a puppet. He was definitely incensed. At himself. And what was worse was that that someone knew him too well to be unknown to him.
Someone very close wanted him angry and out of hand.
He stopped his racing mind and stood in the middle of the room. He had not foreseen the side from where a blow could have come, but a move he had been expecting. This time, though, he did not appreciate the subtlety of his enemy. His precision.
He tried to remember his next engagements. The SunEnergy conference in three days, then the Waters Management 2070 in Texas. He could not think of other delicate items.
The familiarity of his study seemed weird. The dark rosewood table with an African design lamp, the colourful Berber rug with leather cushions, even the real paper books piled below the windows looked different. He had been attacked at home.
Eric searched for his tablet to call his secretary, but the device stood scattered in a dozen pieces below the window. Someone was playing with him. Someone who knew him all too well. Who wanted to die in a long, subtle way.
A knock at the door, then a deceitful thin voice asked, "It's me sir, everything alright?"
Xeres Macon was his day guard and the child of his former day guard Minuette Macon, a werecougar who had proved loyal and resourceful in her long time at his service. She was the exact copy of her mother down to her homosexual preference, but with an harder underside built in years of fighting training. She was born under the regime of the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs' ignominious laws against supes and borne its mark with ferocity.
"Come in," shouted Eric.
"Excuse me, sir. Latsis was calling you and… asked me to see if everything were fine with you," her yellow eyes did not falter under his scrutiny.
"All is fine," Eric muttered. "My tablet is out of service. Definitively. Bring another one."
"Latsis is on my tab. Do you wish to answer him, sir?" Xeres stepped forward into the study and watched the untidy result of the king's outburst.
Eric reached out and took the tablet. "Speak."
"Good evening, sir. Your only appointment tonight is the reception of yet another scion of the Brigant house. I sent you a report—"
"Uh," Eric snapped. "Sum it up."
"I'm sorry, sir, but all our info are from my dae sources and very patchy, indeed." Latsis' voice conveyed his frustration, as every time he could not perform adequately. "She's a young fae, probably Aengus' sister. She's been seen quite often as of lately, with the prince or his son at daemons' business meetings with fairies. Rumours say she can read minds. Every mind."
"Rumours or facts? What is she supposed to do in my kingdom?" Eric was wary in all his dealings with fairies, but in the last two decades vampires had opened up to daemons and fairies alike.
"Rumours, at the moment. No specific requests on their part. It seems she needs to spend some time on Earth."
"Fairies don't spend time here idly," Eric huffed. "Keep a close eye on her movements."
"Easy enough," Latsis replied. "Her sponsor is Cataliades and I offered to pick her up this night. She's a Brigant and that house is still standing at the top after all the upheavals of their political mess."
"Cataliades," Eric repeated. "I wonder why he did not introduce her himself."
"Daemons business, at the highest level. He's busy for the whole week. He tried to postpone the audience, but it was not possible."
"You did not mention it."
"It's average administration, sir," Latsis sounded surprised. "Your next appointments are more important and couldn't be—"
"Yes, sure," Eric cut it short. "Speaking of those, check them and highlight all the relevant points, our downsides. From our counterparts' point of view. From a fae point of view, either."
Latsis' silence lasted a few seconds, then he carefully asked, "Is there something specific I have to take into consideration, sir?"
"Maybe," Eric paused. "Maybe, I am under attack and don't know yet."
"Should I inform the queen?"
"I will do it personally at the end of the audience, tonight."
Xeres left and Eric contemplated the aftermath of his tantrum with a detached glaze. His pleasant life could be tilted dangerously with a short video. It was a subtle and far fetching lever, not necessarily referred to his most immediate business. And then this last Brigant. And Cataliades as her sponsor on Earth. Cataliades. Something moved in Eric's head, not yet a thought but more than flicker.
He wished to be done quickly with the reception and have some time to discuss it with Rehema. He needed a larger and more dispassionate view on the matter than the one he was mastering at the moment.
The house of Brigant had specifications and procedures for every occasion. In the event of a formal contact with another house, clan, kingdom or important counterpart of any kind, a dress code applied. Alia watched her limited wardrobe, contained in two medium trunks, trying to decide what was adequate for the impending audience.
She remembered the pomp of the formal vampire gatherings and the attention Pamela dedicated to her clothes. The choice was between elegant or traditional fae. She knew nothing of the current fashion on Earth, and was not really interested in exploring it any time soon. Then her eyes fell on the long dress she had worn at her Ceremony of Awakening and she smiled. This was another introduction to a world to rediscover, and she was a different traveler this time. After some pondering she opted for a full fae apparel and dressed.
Diantha had informed her that the king's secretary would have come to pick her up, showing a high level of respect for the house she represented and, probably, to assess any danger she could pose to the king.
"Danger? Me?" Alia puzzled. "It's called paranoia, and vampires invented it."
"Somedangeryoucanbefae," the little daemon grinned. "Youlookgorgeous."
"Do you like it?" Alia turned to show the way the precious weightless fabric billowed around her, mostly of its own choosing. The lavender robe hugged her loosely but not enough to hide more than a small knife. Her main weapon, as Chadwick had pointed out many times, was her mind. Yet with vampires it was not such a sharp tool, and she was nervous.
"Is there a danger to me, Diantha? Vampires, I mean. These monarchs, their court, whatever…"
"OncleDesmondworksforthem."
"Yes, he told me," Alia said, and added, "What about a traditional blade? Fae use to wear one on formal occasion…"
"Notallowedatcourt," Diantha shook her head.
"Never thought to visit a speech therapist?"
"What?" the dae's tone was infused with laugh and thrill.
"Let me settle here and I'll show you," promised Alia caressing her cheek and kissing her forehead. "Wish me good luck."
"Goodluckfae."
Alia wore a cape, a darker shade of lavender, over the scimitar Aengus had presented her with the day of her ceremony. The blade was held on her back, diagonally as a sign of respect for the host, through a decorated sling joined between her breasts with a jewel lock.
She walked till the green clearing just outside the house and waited for the flycar to land. Alia lifted her gaze and noticed the aircraft approaching. The king's secretary was on time and, judging by his mindprint, a daemon.
"Lady Alia," the daemon bowed reasonably without being servile, "my name is Nikomachos Latsis. I am the king's secretary."
"Pleased to meet you," Alia nodded in turn and unfolded briefly her mind: the daemon's mind was completely shielded. She did not push further.
She got on the car, a model she did not recognise. The crew was composed by a human pilot and two vampires guards. No one mentioned her blade, whose hilt sticked out on the right from behind her head and she sat with her hands over her legs. The secretary, his black hair ruffled and his black eyes glinting in the night, sat in front of her with a blank face.
The flycar took off. It was the first time Alia went to an official meeting without her own guards or one of her relatives.
Latsis led the fae to a private sitting room in the royal palace. It was a set of old style mansions, enclosed by several gardens and protected by a tall wall and taller trees, which appeared like some historic remnants of the previous century architecture but, obviously, had been provided with every modern technology. An elegant and inconspicuous choice that hinted at a powerful and self-assured monarch, or a not yet well established regime that still trod carefully. Alia already knew the first impression was the correct one.
Security seemed very tight but, again, without any remarkable show of strength. Probably technology accounted for much of the quiet character of the ambience. And, again, no one objected to her blade, showing they knew fairy traditions and allowed them. Alia was satisfied but went to stand close to a window, an easy way out, facing two doors and a wall strangely lacking furniture and decor. The minds she had detected since her arrival had been mostly vampires and a few weres.
The daemon secretary's voice was warm and soothing, while his eyes never moved from her. "The king will be here shortly."
Alia smiled. A little waiting just to make clear who wielded the power, but not too stretched to offend the guest. She started counting to measure how much respect her house could command. The secretary, as Alia anticipated, filled the silence with polite conversation.
"It was some time since I saw such a remarkable piece of craftfaeship, lady Alia," said the secretary pointing out to her blade.
The fae's face softened at his attempt to flattery and she decided to play his game. "It's one of my most cherished possession, Secretary. Hope the King appreciates the tradition and history it carries."
"The strength and power of a warrior race?" asked the daemon.
"It's mostly a work of love and beauty," Alia wore her most innocent face, "it is up to the holder to never have the need to use it and, if necessary, to use it wisely."
The secretary bowed and said, "The king appreciates fine artefacts and fine minds, lady Alia."
The glimpse of a smile appeared on her face. The daemon could be charming. At that moment the door in front of her opened and she almost smiled, pleased to note that her waiting had been the strictly necessary in diplomatic etiquette. Then she turned her gaze at the figure who had just stepped in and the time froze in her mind.
The secretary turned and announced, "Lady Alia Brigant meet the King of Great Louisiana. His Majesty, Lady Alia Brigant."
Eric Northman stilled and clenched his jaw.
Alia stared at the vampire. The time stretched and then nervously stood in the middle of the room as an uninvited presence.
Latsis, his face blank, betrayed a certain uneasiness in the way his hands could not find a place to rest.
Alia closed her eyes. A tightness in her belly told her something she had not been prepared for had just happened. Pain, one she thought to have left behind with her past, invaded her consciousness and prevented her to think of anything else. It was as if everything had happened yesterday. She opened her eyes again and he was still there.
Eric stepped forward staring at the fae. His face had lost its blankness and seemed overwhelmed by different emotions, some new and unaccounted for.
"Sookie…?" It was a whisper, carrying longing and guilt.
She blinked and a weird coldness muted her feelings.
"Leave us," said Eric waving a hand to his secretary.
Latsis slid away silently and closed the door behind him.
Eric's eyes had not moved. What one could possibly say after more than forty two years of silence, guilt and craving? What one could possibly do if the past roamed back in one's life with vicious heaviness? What one was supposed to feel if a chance presented itself wrapped in misunderstanding and regrets?
"Are you real?" he said finally.
Alia exhaled and whispered, "I don't know."
"I came back three years later, and you were gone…"
"Faery. I've been there all the time," said Alia. Her hand was over her belly, trying to contain the burning she felt building inside.
"Ah, sure. Niall finally claimed you," nodded Eric as if that explained everything, from her look to her fairyness. "You are fairy, now." It was more a statement than a question, but he waited for a confirmation.
"I've always been one, I just had to accept it consciously."
He smiled and said, "I've always known that." There was tenderness and satisfaction in his voice. "Why this name…?"
"I'm fae now," she said, "and Alia is the name I chose at the Awakening."
"Awakening?"
"The rite of passage to be accepted into the fae community. It's—" she stopped and realised what she had just said.
Eric smiled. "You should've not spoken about your traditions, I guess."
She shook her head. She had been instructed thoroughly about the danger to tell anything about her fairyness and the necessity to keep a lid on all things fae, even with family or friends.
Then he added, "It's all right. But I will never harm or hurt you. Nor willingly. Never."
She nodded, uncertain. His appearance was unchanged. He was always very tall, with a lean, muscular body, medium length blond hair styled in a high pony tail, a barely visible blond stubble and deep blue eyes. Yet he had changed. His eyes were veined with the unkindness of time and his warm, low voice carried the same burden. His large shoulders, though, stood straight and challenging, as a warrior should always be. Chadwick would have approved. No matter what happens in life, one should always face it head on with an impeccable intent.
Alia smiled inside, understanding in that moment the kind of fighter her demanding swordmaster had always tried to mould out of her: not only the skilled and resolute combatant, but one who rose again after every fall, stronger and more lethal, both in the battle field and in life. She had become a valiant fighter on the arena, but what about the life field? She had thought to have moved on, but now that her past stared at her she was not sure to be enough strong and determined to face it. Maybe she had just hidden her past down, below the clatter of everyday living. Now, though, she could not avoid it. He stood in his unwavering a hundred ninety-eight centimetres frame a few steps away and would not disappear at her request. He was a king with a queen in the world she had chosen to live in again. She should face it and live it.
The room seemed to absorb their feelings, smoothing their edges and exuding calmness through its solidity.
Eric was watching the fae in front of him. Her long and unsubstantial dress made of traditional gossamer fabric embraced her softly and enhanced her fairyness. Her body was more muscular than he remembered but retained its curves and generous breasts, completing lavishly her fae weaponry: a fairy warrior hid her dangerousness in beauty and kindness. He saw the strength and the confidence in her stance, along with a streak of frailty and innocence. She had reached her potential, retaining her human core, and the vampire could not help to be proud of her. Her smell, too, had changed: more fae, sweet and enticing. Dangerous.
But in all his whirlwind of feelings, only one question came unanswered. "Are you happy, Sookie?"
Alia startled and came back from her musings. "Alia," she murmured.
"Yes, Alia," he repeated louder, "are you happy?"
The fae faltered and tried to remember if Chadwick had ever said anything about happiness. When nothing came to help, she lifted an eyebrow and replied, "I never thought about it." Then locked eyes with his. "I live."
Eric's eyes did not move from hers and showed his sorrow.
"Are you happy, King?" she asked.
He swallowed and pursed his lips. "I live, too."