Chapter 4
Savil glanced out the garden door at her nephew. The boy was curled against his Companion's shoulder, wrapped in quilts against the autumn chill, one arm wrapped against Yfandes neck. The boy still looked terrible, but this was a good sign that the Herald-Companion bond was taking root. She turned her head and took in the sight of her favorite protégé. Tylendel sat on his bed knees drawn up to his chest, rocking back and forth as he muttered to himself. She closed her eyes against the pain.
Strange that it was the one in more danger of dying ere the sun dawn who was improving while the one in better physical health deteriorated. Vanyel's progress was slow and she still feared for his life, but at least he was improving. Still she didn't know what to think about the earthquakes that shook the palace every night. They couldn't figure out what was triggering them. To make matters worse he kept throwing Tylendel around.
She was not sure what to make of that. According to Lendel, he'd tried to sooth Vanyel out of a nightmare and Van had lashed out at him. Somehow she didn't believe him. She wanted to, wanted to believe he was softening towards his former lover. However, his behavior when the sun was high contrasted with the image he was trying to project. Even now Tylendel was muttering obscenities directed at both Vanyel and the Lesharas. Seeing Lendel like this, broke her heart.
She turned her attention back to her nephew she didn't knows what to think, she worried for Vanyel yet she also resented the boy for the sheer amount of trouble he was causing her, and the attention he was taking away from Tylendel. She knew it wasn't Vanyel's fault and that the boy had actually prevented an even worse catastrophe, but it didn't change the fact that she wanted no needed to help Tylendel and Vanyel was currently in the way. Still both boys were here problem and she couldn't just hand Vanyel over to another Herald. At the moment the thing she found most stressful was the boy's habit of shaking the palace in his sleep. It was disrupting the already limited sleep she'd been getting for the past week in addition to disturbing everyone else. The Circle was pressuring her to figure out the problem and put an end to it. Hence the current arrangement that had Vanyel outside with his Companion despite the cold. She had come up with this idea along with Jaysen and Andrel after a few hours of debate, just last night after being awoken yet again by the boy magically tossing the palace around in his sleep. It was their hope that allowing Vanyel and Yfandes this time to strengthen the bond would result in the end of the nighttime excitement.
A knock on the door drew her attention away from her nephew. In the other room she heard Donni pad over to answer it.
"Please, I'm Van's sister, just let me talk to my aunt."
Savil sighed, just what she needed more family obligations complicating her life. Still there was only one member of Vanyel's family likely to visit him after the rumors that had been coming out of the court since Sovvan night. She turned and strowed out of the room that had once been Vanyel's sanctuary and headed for the common room, and paused with the door half closed behind her at the sight of the girl before her. She could have been herself at seventeen or eighteen. If this is Lissa then it's no wonder she went for the guard, She's got the damn Ashkevron nose.
"I'm Lissa," the girl informed her in a mild tone. "You must me my Aunt Savil, you have the nose. How is Van? Can I help?"
Savil smiled, deciding that she liked this blunt girl. "I don't know," She replied motioning towards the sofa, "first tell me what you've heard."
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Savil groaned, and leaned into Jaysen's shoulder as Andrel got Vanyel to drink yet another potion. She was exhausted and confused. Vanyel had not reacted to his father with anything approaching what she had anticipated. He'd seemed genuinely happy to see the man at first and Withen, to his credit, had kept up a passable facsimile of genuine concern. Then, all at once Vanyel had reared back as though struck by a real physical blow, and sent his father sprawling. He'd staggered to his feet and let his father have it, both verbally and magically. Thankfully he hadn't done anything to hurt Withen, dented his pride and given him a verbal thrashing about his "hidebound, provincial, back water prejudices."
At first Lissa had been alarmed, but she, Medrik and Donni had assured her that since Yfandes was unalarmed there was no reason to fear for concern. However one of the things Vanyel had yelled at his father had raised the hair on the back of her neck. It had the feel of an old argument, a long healed wound ripped cruelly open. It had been odd, given what she knew of her nephew and how recent a discovery his sexuality was for everyone himself included. However, that oddity could be excused given the situation and the events of the last week. What could not be explained away, was Vanyel's exact wording. "My sexuality does not make me a perverted little catamite father! The fact that I am Shay'a'chern does not make me a rapist! Just because I am lifebound to another person who happens to have been born into the same sex body as I was does not mean I am going to proposition every impressionable young man I come across. So you can just stop thinking those horrible things you perverted, derelict, old curmudgeon!"
It would have been amusing had she not possessed a keen awareness of the fact that, Vanyel had no plausible excuse for having anything resembling an inkling of the term "shay'a'chern." Still after this afternoon's excitement and the convulsing fit that had been the indirect result Andrel had decided to heavily sedate Vanyel for the night. Still having the boy down Argonel, a dangerous muscle relaxant and sedative was one thing, the fact that Andrel had decided to compliment it with a lesser known, new drug that blocked off a person's access to their gifts was alarming.
She just hoped they weren't making a mistake.
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Tylendel rocked back and forth on the foot of the bed he'd once shared with Vanyel. Thoughts swirled in his mind until they broke like wind harried waves against the rocky outcroppings of a jagged shore. They came and they went whispering into his mind, until he could no longer keep a grasp on anything more substantial than the fact that there was an all-consuming void where Straven had once been. A void that cried out in Staven's voice, cried out for blood, begged him to protect what little was left of their clan. A clan the Leshara had sundered, His mother, his father, his twin, they cried out in one harmonized voice begging him to seek vengeance. To honor the family by washing the world clean of the Leshara and any who would help them, regardless of the consequences.
: Chosen you are ill: Gala said softly into his mind, as if she to feared to wake the vengeful dragon from its fitful slumber beneath the surface of his thoughts. : When you are well again you will thank your lover for staying your hand:
He slammed his shields up, and tried to force her out of his mind. She was just one more voice in the cacophony. One more voice, beyond his own, filling his mind. One more voice telling him what to do. One more voice trying to influence his decisions. He couldn't, couldn't figure out which voice to listen to. Couldn't figure out which voice was his own and which voices were not.
You know her voice, something whispered, she is not you. Don't listen to her she just wants to keep you from your rightful vengeance.
He closed his eyes and rocked faster as another voice took up the litteny. Who is she to tell you what to do?
Who is she to make dicisions for your family? It is a matter of honor. Let their blood stain the ground. Blood for blood, it is the honorable thing to do. Nothing but a horse, would you chose a horse over your family? A horse, over vengeance for your slain kin. She knows nothing, nothing at all. They are not infallible, they are horses. Pretty and white, nothing more, nothing less. Nothing special, that traitor has one. He blinds it the way he blinded you. You must free her from him, take vengeance for your family. Let blood flow, avenge your family.
Van oh van, what is wrong with me?
Staven, they killed Staven.
Vanyel, the Leshara probably sent him.
Planted him here to lead you astray
Nothing more than a clever way to fool you into giving them information.
He's one of them.
He's one of them.
Foolish horse
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:Savil, the boy!: Kellen's shout jerked her awake seconds before Yfandes' terrified scream woke the entire palace. The ground palace shook, and the floor rolled, magic hung heavily in the air. Magic that felt like Vanyel. She was on her feet and running before she'd even made the conscious decision to do so. She hit her bedroom door with enough force that it banged against the common room wall, and it was a good thing she'd left the door cracked or it would have been one more door requiring repair in her suite.
An unprecedented sight brought her up short in the common room and she froze for a moment in shock. Yfandes, barred the way into Vanyel's room, trumpeting in furry and doing her level best to trample the threat to her Chosen. That alone was not surprising, that she needed to protect him in his own quarters, however was a different kettle of fish entirely. That she had been moved to attack another Companion's chosen was staggering in its implications.
The door into the common room struck the wall with a loud crash as Mardic stormed in, Donni on his heels. The pair likewise froze in shock a second trumpeting neigh tore the silence asunder and Gala arrived in a clatter of hooves upon stove. A sharp mental prod from her own Companion got her moving again, as Donni, once a bright little apprentice thief, dove beneath the flailing hooves of the two enraged Companions.
Savil flung herself into Vanyel's room and froze at the sight of Donni, hands clasped around Vanyel's bleeding wrists in a grip that left her knuckles white. The whole room trembled. Blood pooled on already saturated blankets and a bloody knife lay on the floor, mute evidence of what had transpired. Her first thought was attempted suicide, but that answer made no sense when paired with the fact that Andrel had left the child to drugged to move just scant hours prior. Nor did it explain the furious Companion. She swallowed a whimper at the obvious conclusions her mind was drawing, and flung herself at her nephew, grasping the exposed flesh below Donni's blood soaked hands, she flung out lines of power trying desperately to stem the blood flow long enough for help to arrive.
: Mardic, get a Healer, any Healer. : She shrilled, mindvoice laced with panic, as the trembling faltered, slowed and then faded away altogether.
The only answer she got was the slamming of the door into the hall, the angry screams of the battling Companions, and a strangely muffled thwump followed by the distinctive crack of shattering wood. A brief moment of despair for the furnishing filled her, and was shoved aside as she gazed down at the pale face of her nephew. The trumpeting neigh of an enraged stallion rent the air and the common room fell silent. Then like a blessing form the Lady herself Andrel scrambled into the room, Mardic breathing down his neck and threw himself into the battle for Vanyel's life.
She felt his energies coursing out to join her frantic spells, and she redirected her own efforts, lending him her strength so that he wouldn't falter and in a minute felt Donni and then Mardic join her, lastly she felt Jaysen's power join them though she had no idea when the young Seneschal's Herald had even arrived.
In that moment she could not have cared less, all that mattered was the meshing of their auras, and the steady stream of energy coursing between them and into Andy as he worked to save Vanyel. At last the healer sighed and took his hands away, leaving behind a matched pair of angry red scars which ran along the inside of Van's arms from wrist to elbows. Given time they would fade to thin white lines, an ugly reminder of the events that had just occurred.
Jaysen scooped Vanyel up out of his bed, while she and Donni hastily stripped the blood soaked bed and Mardic ran for clean bedding. Once the bed was made up fresh Jaysen shewed them all out and set about gently stripping Vanyel and tucking him into bed. Sighing, Savil glanced over her shoulder one final time and went to see how much of the common room had survived the commotion. She winced at the utter destruction that had once been a well-organized and fairly clean room. Yfandes stood braced in front of Vanyel's door, ears pinned, and eyes white rimmed with rage. Every line of her body radiated anger and defiance. Tylendel sat on the floor in the opposite corner, his pose almost casual, in the middle of an exuberant rant about the Leshara, Vanyel, and several other things that made no sense. Gala stood between him and the very real threat of Yfandes, her head hung low in exhaustion, but she held one hind hoof cocked in a stance Savil recognized from her days at Forest Reach. Try me that hoof said, try me and see what happens.
Savil shuddered, it felt like the calm before the storm and she knew that one wrong move and violence would erupt between the two mares again. Fortunately, Taver seemed to have drawn the same conclusion. He stood half in the common room, using the physical barrier of his own body to separate the two smaller mares.
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N
Hope you enjoyed. For those of you following my other fics. I am back. My Heralds of Valdemar xover shall be picking up again as soon as my editor/ co-author have given it a once over. The Harry Potter x overs should be up and running in the next two weeks. As for Kyou Kara Maou, those should be up and running soon as well. Also Check out my AO3 account, I am reposting things there as well.