Gypsy Truths

I’m immediately transported to another image of Arion, as he moves through his own home, blood dripping from his lips, fury in his eyes, along with some sadistic satisfaction of some sort.

That’s not his blood, and Damien wasn’t bleeding either. Does that mean the ‘bleed’ part song is metaphorical?

I’m going to have a headache once I get back to my own body.

A vision of Emit is next, as he covers his face, downed to one knee, while a mutiny occurs. He doesn’t even fight back, as they slice through his neck at last.

I’m forced to cut my gaze away, a cry escaping me, when the sight hits me harder than I was expecting. The taste of bile assaults my mouth, but the next image rolls into focus, settling on Vance.

Even as tears burn my eyes from the short clip of Emit, Vance’s breaks my heart.

He’s shouting to the sky, rage carrying his voice louder than I’ve ever heard it, all while he’s on his knees with his own tears teeming in his eyes.

“Worst are the gypsies brought to their knees,” I whisper.

Instead of changing, the image stays the same. Briefly.

From one second to the next, the images begin fluttering past so rapidly that I barely see them.

In every frame, I witness one or more alphas on their knees. There’s only one I never see brought to theirs.

That’s Idun.

Obviously.

“Sing, gypsies, sing of your lies.”

My brow furrows when I see the original Portocales in the same room as all the guys and Idun, no one looking particularly stabby, as they all sign a book of some sort.

Idun smiles, and the guys smirk. The Portocales glare a little, but they nod as though something has been understood between them.

“Idun’s the perfect storm. The first-born was dead before the night of the sacrifice, leaving her to bear first-born obligations as the appointed head of the family’s future. That’s the reason there are two types of monsters under one name,” I murmur to myself, piecing things together from one frame to the next, after a lot of days on this journey.

Without a doubt, it’s been at least three days. I feel like shit for not being able to pull this off, but I’ve certainly learned more than I expected to learn.

“But Bobo was the strongest, until Idun learned she could feed on fear,” I guess, based on what each scene drops a wordless clue to. “He was just too gentle to do anything about her, because it goes against everything he stands for. He killed children, and he never forgave himself. He never could stand up to her.”

Bobo is hiding in a room, sad eyes cast downward, as the scene flashes to one of Idun shoving Caroline in that horrid torture chair, before readying her science-experiment tools.

My stomach roils, but I watch the familiar scene without blinking.

“She didn’t do this to learn her weaknesses, as she claimed to Arion,” I say to myself, since none of the memories can hear me.

The scene flips again, and this time, I recognize the eyes on the man. I should have noticed the eyes sooner, and I could have guessed which one was my mother.

This is Edmond’s eyes, and he’s on his knees before Idun, tears streaming from his face and blood dripping from numerous wounds. Behind her, I spot Caroline in the shadows, her body limp and nearly bludgeoned.

My stomach revolts, but I apparently can’t vomit when inside someone else’s memories.

“This was really all your jealous bitterness breaking the girl who wasn’t as pretty, wasn’t as smart, and wasn’t as spectacular as you. All because he truly loved her. He just made a mistake in thinking he loved you more, when you were pretending to be something he wanted.”

Cutting my gaze back, I decide I can’t take anymore.

“Never trust a gypsy with no gypsy pride!”

Before the image even settles, I prepare to sing the next line, considering I don’t want to see all the many betrayals that will surely accompany that bit.

However, I pause when I see Arion slinking through hallways, clearly looking suspicious as hell. My brow furrows when I see him, because he’s slipping into Caroline’s room.

She doesn’t startle when she sees him, but she does keep her face mostly hidden.

I watch as he pulls something out of his pocket—bread, I think—and hands it to her. Then he hands her what looks like a potion, and I watch as she hurriedly drinks it.

My heart sinks a little, because I have no idea what’s going on, but this is Arion while he was in love with Idun. Why is this image accompanying a line about not trusting a gypsy without any gypsy pride.

It can’t be good.

But I watch as her body relaxes, and some of the bruises on her begin to fade…

He gave her healing potions? From who? Why? I thought he was Idun’s monster—always on her side and at her beck and call.

There’s another scene where Vance is slipping in, bringing her something as well. It’s a salve of some sort, and he drops it and goes without looking back.

He stops at the end of the hallway, where Idun is on her way to Caroline, but distracts her, charms her, and guides her away…

Damien is in another scene when the world around me once again changes. He’s doing something similar. Twice his gaze flicks toward Caroline’s cell, and he lures Idun away after what seems to be an eternity of flattery.

I wish I knew more than one language.

Emit’s in several scenes after that, charming Idun away from Caroline, distracting her.

They tried to help her without making it obvious, in an effort to keep Idun from punishing the poor monster that much more.

“Why didn’t you run away when you learned of the altar, Caroline? Why did you let them turn you immortal?” I ask, watching as she peers around the corner.

Once she’s sure all is clear, she lifts a painting from under a stone in the floor, dusts it off, and smiles down at it. It’s one of the original Portocale men, which gives me my answer.

She loved a man enough to follow him into eternity, even after he coldly broke her heart.

I can only imagine how Idun must have sold it at first, during the time she was pitching immortality among women and men with humble morals and values.

Idun trusted them, and they betrayed her, in an effort to help Caroline as much as they reasonably could. They did have hearts. Even the soulless vampire.

The next several scenes result in some majorly eye-opening insight into all their paranoia, because I watch Idun mentally torture them with all her many faces.

So many times, Damien is so furious and disgusted that tears gather in his eyes, when she turns out to be the true woman he was feeding from. Idun laughs in every scene for having pulled another one over on him.

I finally understand why he was so cold to me, and why he immediately assumed me to be Idun.

She’s fucked with his head too many times for me to even count on this never-ending reel of memories.

Emit’s been just as tortured. Idun doesn’t pull punches.

All his reels result in the same disgust and fury.

Vance as well, given the never-ending strand of endless swaps. He seems less bothered by it. He was good about not allowing her to provoke him, even though I see the anger in his eyes when he turns around. His jaw subtly tics, and he walks out casually.

Time. And time. And time again.

For Arion, she only wears that one face that is so eerily similar to Shera. He doesn’t stare at her like he wants to rip her clothes off. He stares at her like she’s a comforting, rhythmic set of waves that lull you into peace.