Chapter Forty-six
“So…” hedged Mimi, who was clearly sick and tired of being cooped up in someone else’s realm, because she hadn’t stopped grinning since Cal and Eva had brought her back to the Dragon Realm and to Cal’s castle. She leaned in toward Evangeline and smiled wickedly. “Did he show you his purple dragon?” she asked with a smirk. “And… was it legendary?”
Eva gave her a playful, indignant look and shook her head. Then she picked up the throw pillow beside her on the couch and smacked the young dragon across the face with it.
Mimi went down laughing riotously and fell off the couch. “I’ll take that as a yes!”
Eva rolled her eyes. “No wonder Cal has to homeschool you.”
Mimi sat up on the floor and put her elbow on the coffee table, leaning on her hand. “Speaking of Cal,” she said, the mirth fading from her tone to be replaced with genuine curiosity. “He said you pulled some amazing shiznit in Seattle with your healing. What happened, exactly?”
Eva chewed on her cheek for a moment and then looked down. “I just… It was nothing. I just did what I had to do.” It had been a long time coming.
“Really? ‘Cuz that’s not what I heard. I heard you practically brought your mom back from the dead, or close to it. And that when she came back, she had red hair. And that you did it inside a shield that Calidum and the other sovereigns couldn’t get through no matter how hard they – ”
“Good grief, child, is there anything you didn’t hear?”
“Yeah, actually,” she said tentatively. “What finally happened with Arach?”
Now Eva straightened on the couch and cleared her throat. It was tightening a little. “You want the truth, or one of those sugar-coated lies adults tell kids to protect them?”
“What do you think?” Mimi dead-panned.
Eva took a deep breath. “Okay, the truth is, he was a genuine asshole. So Calidum ripped his head off.”
Mimi’s eyes widened – and kept widening.
Oh crap, thought Eva. Too much.
“Freaking – awesome!” Mimi suddenly cried, jumping to her feet. “That S.O.B. so had that coming!”
“Christ,” Eva said, shaking her head. “You watch too much Tokyo Ghoul.”
“But he really did!” Mimi insisted. “You know, ‘cuz I heard that he kidnapped you and tortured you and stuff and that he was turned into a vampire but also a Nomad but that you then became a badass mo-fo black dragon and wounded the asshole but couldn’t kill him ‘cuz you’re half Nomad so then – ”
“Oh for the love of…. ” Eva pushed off the couch with a huff. “You’re unbelievable.” She tried not to smile as she left the study of the castle and made a bee line for the kitchens. Of course, Mimi wasn’t fooled by her fake annoyance. She was very hard to get anything past.
The teenage dragon followed Eva down the hall and through the double doors to the castle’s kitchens. They were empty; the dragons who had served Arach as king had been freed from their indentured servitude. Eva opened the fridge to find it well stocked with all manner of fruits and pastries. “Hungry?”
“Yeah, but I want these,” said Mimi. Eva turned in time to see Mimi nearly fall from where she’d climbed to grab a box from the top shelf of the walk-in pantry. She landed on both feet, spun, and proudly displayed her prize, holding it up with a grin. “Pop-tart?”
“Hell yeah I want a Pop-tart,” Eva said, slamming the fridge shut. “What kind is that?”
Mimi looked down at the box. “S’mores. You okay with that?”
But when she looked up, Eva was gone. “Eva?”
There was no response. Aside from Mimi, the kitchen was completely empty.
*****
Katrielle called the waitress over as Roman ran his hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. She ordered a serving of tea for two, and once she and Roman were alone again, she continued.
“Yes,” she said. “Death.” She folded her hands on the table as Roman had done. “Now as I said, William Balthazar Solan fell in love with Helena on sight. As she was for everyone, she was everything he had ever desired. But for him it was different. It was stronger.” She slowly shook her head, her expression distant and a little sad. “William has an air about him of danger, and even of cruelty,” she told him. “I can understand why you suspected him of being the Traitor all that time. But William is actually the loneliest man I’ve ever known.”
The tea came, and again she waited until they were alone before continuing. Then she began to prepare her cup. “Imagine something for me. Imagine never having found Evellyne. Imagine being alone for another thousand years, Roman. And another after that. And another. Now go back to before your birth and add on several more millennia. Now take all of those years and multiply them by another thousand. And then another. And imagine that in all that time, there was no one for you. You ruled utterly and completely alone.”
Roman stared at Katrielle. He was frankly stunned by the imagery. So he said nothing.
She filled the silence herself. “That was William. Until approximately the seventh century, BC, when he met Helena.”
“Was she really – ”
“Oh believe me Roman, it’s so much more complicated than the tales of Aristophanes, Euripides, and Homer would have us believe. And so much more simple, as well. It’s also unimportant. Suffice it to say, she fell in love right back. The two were meant to be, as it were. But then, they also weren’t.”
Roman wanted to slap himself. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means she is Fate, remember? But she’s only half of it. The other half very much did not want Helena to end up with William. The other half very much wanted Helena for himself.”
Roman lifted his brow. “I see.”
“You’re starting to. Amunet’s son – we’ll call him Victor since that was the name he was using the last time I saw him – is hell bent on claiming that woman. It’s all he can think about. After all, she is everything he desires. The problem is, if he ever manages to win her over, she will wind up completing him. Two halves of a whole. You get the picture.”
“Unfortunately.”
“And when that happens….” Her voice trailed off.
“You’re talking apocalyptic type death, aren’t you?”
“If you have to choose a word,” she said with a sigh, “that one’s as good as any.”
But Roman was confused about something. “If she is so precious to both men, why did she have to be reborn? Why isn’t she still alive?” Men that obsessed with winning a woman’s love didn’t allow her to die. He would know. He lifted his teacup to his lips and took a sip.
“She hasn’t just been reborn once, Roman. But many, many – many – times. And each time, it was William himself who killed her.”
Roman spat out his tea and nearly dropped the cup. The few other patrons in the café glanced in his direction, but with a flicker of his magic, he turned their attentions away and looked back at Katrielle. “Come again?” he choked.
“You heard me,” she said softly. Sadly. “William knows about her, Roman. He knows that she is Victor’s other half. And to keep him from ever unleashing his own special Armageddon or Ragnarok or whatever you want to call it upon the planet, Will has taken her out of the picture a thousand times.”
Roman closed his eyes. He could not. Even. Imagine.
“Finally, just before he met you and joined the Table of the Thirteen in fact, he broke down. Frankly, I’m surprised it took him so long. He begged Time to take Helena away from him, to take her away from reality, and never allow her to be reborn again. He created a contract – the Contract – and he forced Time to sign it.”
“You speak of time as if it’s a living being.”
“To William it is. Remember Roman, he is different from the other Kings. He’s so very old, and so very powerful. The Contract stipulated that he would sacrifice his abilities – those Time had given him – so that Time could use them to control Fate instead. And keep Helena from being reborn.”
“That… explains a lot,” said Roman, because it did. “But it doesn’t explain why the contract was broken or why she’s returned once again.”
“That was her doing, Roman. She is that strong. She broke free. Such is Fate.”
“She wants to die? By his hand?”
“Don’t be absurd. She has no idea who she is. In each life she is born into, she arrives without a clue as to her own real identity, much less William’s or Victor’s. She simply comes into being, happy and kind, filled with all of the things that people love most about life. And none of the things people don’t.”
Roman swore softly, and rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t tired. He simply had no other way of expressing the dread he felt. “So she’s back. And so is Victor. And William’s powers have been returned to him whether he wants them or not.”
“Yep,” said Katrielle. “That pretty much sums it up, except you forgot to add that William’s emotions toward her have been amplified by thousands of years of murdering the woman he loves and having her die in his arms.”
“Why doesn’t he just bloody well make her his queen?”
“Roman, he’s never met her while he was one of the Thirteen Kings. Remember, she’s been out of commission since before he took his seat at your Table. Until now, he didn’t even know it was possible to take a queen. No doubt, being one of the Thirteen has given him a kind of hope he never had before.”
“So now he’ll try to win her over?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, considering her words. “I think… William will do what he feels he has to do. In the end, he has always been stronger than anyone I know.”