Into Eternity (The Eternals Book 3) Page 18

  “Perhaps. Did you see them?” I ventured.

  “No.”

  “So they had no part in your torture?”

  “Not directly.”

  “You see that's one bit of good news,” Merryweather offered.

  “Then, who?”

  “My dear sister.”

  “She really hates her,” Merryweather chirped.

  “I'll make my next killing of her a more permanent affair,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “You and I both.”

  “She's still your sister,” I said.

  Linka did not answer just looked to Walter who found something interesting to pick at in his palm.

  “So who was left guarding you in the Zeppelin?” I asked.

  The merest of glimpses flashed between Sunyin and Linka, then Sunyin and the alert again dandy. It was Walter who answered on her behalf.

  “Er… well… um… a lone Baltic guard.” Merryweather fidgeted about like a nervous mouse, then blurted some more. “Aurora soon put paid to him, though, rescued Linka, went back for Sunyin, entrusting his safety to me, for which I'm still waiting for my medal, I might add, then the darling girl saved you. She was very busy for an hour or two. Phew!” he said, his expounding finished, and mopped his brow.

  I tried to put the events in chronological order, but one thing stood out like a sore thumb.

  “If Sunyin couldn't walk, how the hell was he able to hunt so soon?”

  “I wouldn't call two weeks soon.”

  “Pardon!”

  “That's how long you were out for.”

  “Two weeks!” I jumped to my feet and stomped about like an irritable troll. “They'll be long gone!”

  “Sit down, Jean,” Linka snapped and tugged me back to the floor by my trousers.

  “So, what now?” I huffed.

  “Well, for starters, we allow Aurora time to mourn her sister,” Merryweather said.

  “Where is she?”

  “In the gardens. You should go to her, I think she'd appreciate it. Plus, it'd give us a break from your incessant interrogations. You're bringing on a headache.” He wafted at his head with the frill of his sleeve.

  “I shall, but what do we do about the Hierarchy?” I asked ignoring his antics.

  “What do you mean, what?” Merryweather replied.

  “Well, you don't think they'll leave it at that, do you? You don't honestly think Chantelle will forgive us for rescuing Linka and taking Sunyin away.”

  “Not one bit. I'm sure she's stewing in her own rather stale juices as we speak.”

  “Then, how will we find them?”

  “Jean, Jean, Jean, my old friend, so many unnecessary questions,” Merryweather cooed. “That is the easy part thanks to Sunyin and his offspring's offer of a lift.”

  Sunyin nodded.

  “I still don't see how we'll track them, they were airborne.”

  Merryweather shook the communication device and beamed a wide grin.

  “Ah,” I said. “And when we do?”

  “Why dear boy, there's only one thing we can do.”

  Merryweather's expression changed. His playful smile slipped away, his eyes narrowed to slits. Gone was the prankster the fool and the fop replaced by something altogether more menacing. When his lips parted, I knew he meant every word.

  “We'll butcher them all.”

  Chapter Twenty

  -

  Burials

  Something in Walter's eyes hinted at a revenge long overdue, a spark of imminent victory. It was as though some ancient mariner had dredged up a man he'd feared drowned, only for the corpse to awaken and drag him down to abyssal depths. An unpleasant flickering at the back of the iris, blue and torrid like the fast-flowing Rhine. One might have even said him unstable, but Walter was ever unpredictable.

  “Do you think you might excuse me, my love?”

  “But we have so much to discuss,” Linka implored. “We've barely had a moment together.”

  “We shall, I promise. But there is a girl that needs a friend and I think along with Walter here,” he nodded his appreciation, “I am one of only two.”

  “Is that compassion, I hear?”

  “Whatever it is, I must act on it.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Oh, don't give me those big, green eyes.”

  “But they are all that hold you.”

  “Your allure is more than your eye colour, my dear, it is all that is you.”

  “Damn, you're good.”

  “Always,” I chuckled and made to stand.

  “Don't be long.”

  Linka tugged the hem of my trousers as though the fabric held her universe together, desperation suffusing her eyes. I nodded a reassurance; she pouted and let go.

  “Do not fear, Jean, your old friend Merryweather will see she comes to no harm.”

  “Thank you, Walter,” I said.

  “You're welcome,” he beamed, sloshing a glass of blood around before downing it in one.

  And so it was I walked out of the fabled halls of Shangri-La, through a corridor of bowed, shaven heads and into the fog of a city somehow apart from the ruby hell I'd grown used to. A damp and cloying thickness, the intangible grey rolled perpetually across my vision unwilling to remain becalmed, an unstable element in an unstable world. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, so, instead, put my best foot forward, took an unnecessary breath and crunched off into the gravel.

  Shangri-La remained unchanged in a world that did so too often: Zen gardens; ponds of eager koi; serene calm personified. I would've thought it bland once, but not anymore. As the fog enveloped me, I recalled how the Marquis had moved his home under the power of four great Zeppelins. We'd soared above the clouds then, but now there were no clouds, no dismissal of the gloom, not even a night.

  I crunched my way in an approximate line for the city gates hoping that someone might be around to point me in Aurora's direction. However, Shangri-La stood deserted other than the sound of my footsteps and the tinkling of water features; I recalled no water features? I traced the disturbance through nature's shroud listening from side to side to narrow my focus. It was odd, but the louder the sound became the more its inherent nature changed from that of water to a glittering, starlit sky, to ice forming on a pond, to a Nordic Princess weeping.

  And there she was, Aurora, distraught, collapsed against something indistinct in the swirling fog like clothes swept from a washing line and snagged on a branch. A broken thing, she lay draped over a stone taller than herself hugging it for all she was worth. The single piece of granite polished to gleaming perfection even in the gloom was all that prevented the poor girl falling.

  I took a step closer to see the burnished brass on which the monks had written Narina's epitaph, Aurora's fingers caressing it like a living thing, as though it the only thing that had ever mattered to her. The plaque bore a simple message, one only Aurora could have chosen and have had meant so much: Here lies Narina, beloved sister.

  There was no mention of rank, no insightful wisdom, nor cherished memories just five little words. They were Aurora in a nutshell and Narina would have loved them.

  “Please don't cry, Aura.” I placed an arm around her shoulders. She nestled against me without even looking. “Shangri-La is a place for love, dear girl, not tears.”

  “I cannot help it.”

  “Such is grief,” I said and held her tighter.

  “Have you ever felt such as this?”

  “Once,” I replied.

  “When you thought Linka gone?”

  “No, that was different.”

  “Alba?”

  “No, that was pity or my own shame.”

  “Then, when?” she asked. “I need to know I may not always feel this way.”

  “It was when they told me my parents were dead.”

  “How did you cope?”

  “I'm not sure I ever did. I felt deserted, abandoned even. I still feel it now.”

  “Even thoug
h you know it untrue.”

  “More so.”

  “That offers no hope.”

  “It is not the same,” I said and lifted her chin so she looked me in the eye. I almost wished I hadn't, so forlorn did she seem. Aurora's big blue eyes overflowed with all the waters of the world. They cut through the enforced gloom like sapphires amongst coals, enhancing her porcelain perfection. She mesmerised in her utter dejection.

  “Was it love?” she asked.

  Abject, she yearned for some morsel of hope to aid her despair. I did what I could.

  “When young, I was kept isolated from the rest of society, protected, one might have said. My mother and father were everything: teachers; guardians; role models. I revelled in my segregation and wished for nothing more. Until I came of age, that was.”

  “Why?”

  I took Aurora's hand and led her to a stone bench that materialised out of the swirling gloom. We sat together, my arm still around her shoulders, and I continued as best I could.

  “I knew them wrong. I can say that now. They were evil in the way they groomed me for violence and violence alone.”

  “Yet, you loved them despite their misdeeds.”

  “Yes. They were all I had. One becomes blinkered, clinging to whatever one can when as alone as you and I have been.”

  “When I was a little girl, the others bullied me. I remember how Verstra and Serstra would pull my hair and call me a blue-eyed freak. Mother would watch them never saying a word. She could have said anything, Jean, anything, but chose silence. It got so bad that one time in the middle of a court banquet with the assembled bodies of our nation all present, my brothers tripped me whilst I carried a decanter of orca blood. I remember the liquid flying through the air like a crimson tsunami only to come crashing down on top of me. Everybody laughed, none more so than mother. I remember looking to the throne and seeing the venom in her eyes; how she despised me. Grella got up and walked away; the others did not. I thought at the time it was because I, his pathetic sibling, disgusted him. I now know it the opposite. Yet as we sit here, I remember as clear as day how Narina, already fully grown and ancient, stepped from her place beside our mother, removed her cape, placed it over my shoulders, and then led me to my room. I think that was the bravest thing anybody has ever done, Jean.”

  “Why?” I asked, intrigued.

  “Because she did it without permission; we didn't do anything without permission. I heard her screams in my nightmares for years. I would never forgive my mother for what she perceived as a revolt against her. She beat Narina half to death and then chained her to the ice by the edge of the sea. She hung there for a week just beyond the orcas' reach, yet close enough to smell their foul breaths. I can't imagine the terror she must have felt.”

  Aurora looked at me then, eyes wide and emblazoned. I saw the little girl, defiant and bold, and the woman she would become. In Aurora, I saw everything that I myself should have been.

  “I fed her, Jean, when the others dared not.”

  “How?”

  “My cloak, the one my father had left me. Nobody knew how it concealed my identity. I sneaked out with blood and helped Narina to drink.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Not a word.”

  “That must have hurt.”

  “The first time, yes. But I realised, when her eyes finally opened, that she did it for me.”

  “Why?” I asked, a desperate need to know upon me.

  “If she had, she would have revealed me.”

  “Then, she always knew of your gift.”

  “Always.”

  “And never said a word.”

  “Not once.”

  “Then, I tell you this in all sincerity, Aura, do not mourn your sister, for she would not want it. To possess a secret such as yours is a burden. To know a single slip could ruin what peace you have is a wicked torment to keep, but, at least, one you control. However, to keep a secret for as long as she, and know another's sanity depends upon you keeping it, is a gift she would not want wasted. Narina was more than your sister, she was your guardian angel. Wherever she is, I'm certain she watches you now, in fact, to my eyes, there can be no doubting it. So, I say again, do not weep, for Narina has bequeathed you the gift of choice and the ability to choose to stop your tears.”

  And just like that, her weeping ceased. Aurora gazed up through those azure pools and smiled as though all was well with the world. It was beautiful to behold. She was beautiful.

  “Jean,” she said.

  “What, Aura?”

  “I need to ask you something.”

  “Anything.”

  “You have heard and given reason for my defining moment in life. I thank you for that clarity, it is a gift I shall not waste. Yet, something still troubles me.”

  “I shall help if I can.”

  “You have said everything changed for you when you came of age and first met Alba. At least, I think that's what you said.”

  “It was.”

  “That Alba freed the shackles your parents had placed upon you and helped you to see the world for yourself. But there's more to it, and I wish to know what?”

  “You don't.”

  “Yes, I do. It defines you, and I need to understand it for my own peace of mind as much as yours.”

  “You see much, my wise friend.”

  “I'm not wise, I'm just me.”

  “And so was I, dear Aura, when I was with Alba. For the first time in my life, so was I.”

  “You're holding back. There's more.”

  I looked to the sky, then to my feet, but the answers Aurora sought lay elsewhere. So, I told her what I thought I'd tell no other, not even my reflection.

  “Some would call it unconditional love. Alba cared not for what I was, nor for what I'd done. She looked past the facade, my veneer of disdain, and loved me as if her heart might burst. When I looked into her eyes, as I now do yours, I knew for the first time in my life, I would have done anything for her. I'd have died for her, Aura. For the first time in my life, I'd have done something for someone other than my parents and what I mistakenly took for doing for myself. Even this, my parents stole, my one small freedom, when they faked their passing. They ruined me twice.”

  “Jean.”

  “Um,” I replied lost to another world.

  “Don't you think that might be why they did it.”

  “Why?”

  “To disturb you. To control you, mould you, shape the rest of your life without your knowing?”

  “Yes, I believe so now.”

  “Then at some point, you and I will have to have one final question answered. I believe it to be the key to all that plays out in both our lives.”

  “And that is?”

  “Why, Jean? Just, why?”

  “If I may.”

  A calm voice cut through the fog like an orca through Arctic waves, as devastating as it was serene.

  “Ah, Master Sunyin,” I said to the old monk who had crept up behind us with the stealth of a spider on a web.

  “I trust I am not disturbing you.”

  “Not at all,” Aurora said and bowed.

  “Please, Princess, you must not bow to such as I.”

  “I beg to differ. If there is anyone left on this planet I should bow to, I suspect it is you.”

  Sunyin smiled at that. For the first time since I'd met him and his brothers there was the hint of a something unknown behind his calm facade. He looked older than ever in that moment yet younger than the dawn.

  “We are having a spot of trouble with Sir Walter and wondered if you might aid us.”

  “Oh, God!” I exclaimed before I could stop myself. “What's he done now?”

  “It is hard to explain. It would be easier to show you.”

  We left Narina's memorial and followed Sunyin back through the gardens at an unhurried pace. The old monk had closed his eyes, which I found unusual, before remembering his prior blindness. He glided through the gardens with the
grace of one of Gorgon's butterflies, the fog of no hindrance to a man moving from memory.

  Like that moment when the sun first rose into my life, we entered the halls of Shangri-La to blazing lanterns lighting our way. All was quiet as the grave.

  Sunyin chose silence, when words may have helped, but I trusted him where others would have felt the backlash of my tongue. Two monks held the doors to the Marquis' old throne room ajar. The two bowed low and stepped aside. There he was.

  It was the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen. Merryweather stood bolt upright in the centre of the room, Linka at his side wide-eyed, head shaking in bemusement.

  “He's catatonic,” she said.

  I had no time for Walter's theatrics, so walked straight up to him and shouted, “Oi!” It garnered no response.

  “Told you,” Linka said without a hint of animosity. “He just shot bolt upright. I've tried everything.”

  “I wonder.”

  “Wonder what?”

  “If you've tried this. Boo!” I shouted at the top of my voice and waved my arms before his face.

  Walter did not flinch, his arms rigid at his sides. He didn't even blink just stood there like a statue.

  “I could hit him, it might help.”

  “Perhaps as a last resort,” Sunyin suggested.

  “You're probably right. Does anybody remember the words to rule Britannia?”

  “Why would that help?” Sunyin looked surprised.

  “Because he is Britannian,” I replied. “It might stir some ancient recollection of patriotism.”

  “Always a chance,” Linka agreed.

  “Possibly, if he was Britannian.” Sunyin bowed low and without looking back up said, “Princess Aurora may know how to help. Let us give her some room.”

  I was too busy trying to make sense of what Sunyin had said to move, so Linka dragged me away. That was the signal for all the assembled Sunyins to move too.

  Aurora materialised at Merryweather's side like a newborn snowflake. The old Sunyin lifted his head, smiled politely, and then led his children from the chamber.

  Aurora gave Merryweather one of her best sideways looks, and in a most delicate gesture, took his hand. There was something about the tenderness involved by one so powerful as she that made it all the gentler. She interlaced her fingers with Walter's own, pressed her lips to his ear and whispered something unheard. Whatever it was, it worked.