“I should go check on how Serai is doing,” Kaleo muttered, rising to his feet. “She could probably use a break.”
Navid maintained his peace, waiting until Kaleo left before looking to the side door where the woman named Serai stood, watching in silence. She’d been there the whole time. She smiled benignly at Navid, playing with a weed between her slender fingers. Her eyes were mesmerizing, making Navid clear his throat and look away.
“Everyone keeps too many secrets,” she said, moving into the large open dining area where Navid sat. The twins sat nearby, their heads together as they made their own observations of things. Everyone else found other rooms or corners to hide in, to recover, to simply rest.
“It is the nature of things, I suppose, milady,” Navid answered. She smiled at him.
“Serai,” she corrected in a soft-spoken voice. “My teacher, when I was very small, was like you. Masozi. You make me think of him.”
She glided to a squat beside him, her pale legs bare beneath the thin linen gown she wore.
“You are important to Kaleo,” she said. It was not a question. “He speaks of you to Reven. You are a good teacher too.”
“There is nothing to be done for Gannon?” Navid asked instead of replying to her comment. She grinned, looking at a point far off before making the weed in her hand dance across the floor.
“Everyone asks this,” she said. “He is not broken. He is reborn. He must walk his own path even if it is not the same path that you walk.”
Navid had nothing to say to that. It was, honestly, not something he’d truly thought of. He thought of the memory lapse as some sort of malaise, something to be fixed or cured. Yet he looked at the large room in which he sat, the manse and the life that the man he’d sworn to protect now lived. He was loved, admired, Powerful, talented - free.
“Perhaps now that we are together, our paths will merge once more,” Navid said again. Serai smiled at him, rose to her feet and moved away with nothing more said.
***
Serai stared at the creature that was gagged and bound in the larder of the manse. He stared back with a challenge in his red eyes. He was tywyll, or had been once. Kaleo knew him; a guard of Gannon Oenel. What was done to him was a crime against nature. It should not be. He was not the only one, either. The boy with the clawed hands suffered the same fate. What was worse for him, was the damage done to his Node.
Serai pursed her lips, set her jaw firmly, and then reached across to touch the center of demon-olve’s brow. He jerked away from her touch, but she persisted until he went limp where he sat. She searched his mind, studied him from the inside to See what had been done.
She saw more than one person hanging in what looked to be a dungeon. Rough walls with chains buried deep into the rock held each person from a high enough purchase that their feet did not touch the ground. She counted nine with five other empty shackles. The screams she heard on his behalf hurt her heart, made her stomach churn and tears sting her eyes. When Xandrix was taken, he fought them. She saw the face of the one that tormented him, placid, handsome all things considered though clearly not human or olven, and studious. What he did was not done out of malice; but if not malice, then what? She did not know, her study derailed by the pain that Xandrix remembered. It was agonizing, making her gasp and sit back away from him, rubbing her hand.
“You smell like him,” the creature said to her. Serai looked up at him, unaware that his gag had come free. She frowned, but remained where she was, letting him speak.
“Like who?” she inquired curiously. Their voices echoed inside the larder. The ceiling was high and the space still empty. It would be filled eventually, she knew, but things of that nature took time.
“Him,” Xandric repeated. “The prince. Does his wife know about you?”
The way Xandrix smiled made Serai uncomfortable, made her feel ashamed of herself and what she had with Reven. He could see it in her because the smile broadened, forcing her to straighten her back and frown at him for how he made her feel.
“They call you Xandrix,” she continued, ignoring his question. “Is that your given name or one they placed on you?”
“Does it matter?” he answered. He stirred within his bounds, moving his shoulders back and forth slowly so that the chains moved down centimeter by centimeter. Serai ignored him. The chains were magically bound and currently pegged to the wall. He could not harm her.
He continued to wriggle, growing more frustrated with each movement. He stared straight at her with defiance and barely controlled rage but something else as well. She watched him, focusing on his eyes until she understood what he needed - help. There was a plea in his eyes to end his misery.
“We will make this right, Xandrix,” she said to him. “You will be free again. Sleep now.”
She rose to her feet and touched his brow again as she spoke. He meant to argue but only managed to open his mouth before sleep took him. He slumped over allowing her to replace the gag at her leisure. She walked back up to the main level and up to where Reven slept. His wounds were terrible and difficult to Heal. The
