Bodyguards (6 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Between Dreams and Memories

Vivien’s laugh bounced through the
hallway, echoed by two more far behind her. Her feet thumped on the carpet. She
wouldn’t let them catch her, not this time. She ran down the steps. She wasn’t
supposed to run in the staircase, but Merel wasn’t there to scold her. When she
reached the bottom step, she slowed down. She could already hear her mommy
speaking. She had the prettiest voice, but she sounded sad.

Vivien stopped right outside the
library, peeking in. Her mommy was in front of the fireplace, her back to
Vivien, her head down as she looked into the flames. Merel and Lasdan were
standing together on one side of the room. Stefen was in a chair on the other
side, away from the window, where the room was darkest. He noticed Vivien right
away like he always did; no one could sneak up on him. But he only flashed her
a smile and a wink before looking at Vivien’s mommy again. On the other side,
Lasdan glanced at her for just a second.

“She’ll be safer there,” Vivien’s
mommy was saying.

“You both would be,” Stefen said.
“But you know you can’t leave, dearest love. She would have to go without you.”

He looked at Merel then, and
Vivien didn’t like how unhappy her nanny suddenly looked.

“I can’t go to the Otherworld,”
Merel said, looking from Vivien’s mommy to Lasdan. “Our boys...”

“I know.” Vivien’s mommy started
to turn away from the fireplace. “I am not asking you to. But—”

Right then, the boys ran down the
hallway, still laughing as they reached Vivien. Everyone in the room looked
toward the entrance, and Vivien—

—opened her eyes.

She blinked several times, staring
at the ceiling without truly seeing it. She had blown the candles out before
getting into bed, but the fire still burned in the fireplace, casting light
throughout the room. She tried to cling to the dream, tried to remember
details, but already it was fading.

Had it been an actual memory, or a
construction from her tired mind, tidbits woven together from everything Brad
had told her? She had been going to her mother in the dream, but she hadn’t
seen her face. She’d never been able to remember what her mother looked like,
or her father, something that had troubled her all throughout her childhood.
Anabel had had no picture to show her.

Was the memory gone for good, or
was it only waiting to be triggered? Would she remember more if she entered
that room from her dream?

There was only one way to find
out, and no better time than the present.

She sat up and slipped out of bed.
Brad had said he and Aedan weren’t far, she reminded herself as she crept
toward the door. She’d have to be very quiet.

She cracked the door open, barely
enough to peek out; when she didn’t see anyone—in truth, she’d almost expected
one of them to stand guard by her door—she stepped into the hallway, still as
quiet as possible.

The stone floors felt icy under
Vivien’s bare feet, and she found herself tiptoeing down the hallway. Her mind
supplied the image of a carpet running down the corridor, browns and reds woven
in intricate, spiral-like patterns, the fibers soft and plush when she wiggled
her toes; for the life of her, she couldn’t have said if it was wishful thinking
brought on by the cold stones or a memory coming back to the surface.

She paused at the end of the
hallway, looking both left and right as she oriented herself, and finally went
left as she followed the path her dream-self had taken toward the staircase.
She kept one hand on the wooden railing as she descended the steps, soon
reaching the landing. She could almost hear children’s laughter in her mind
again. She held her breath when she reached the archway in front of which she
had stood. In the dream, a fire had been roaring in a large fireplace,
illuminating the room; now the hearth was dark, like the rest of the room, so
that Vivien could only barely make out the shapes of the furniture strewn
about.

She turned back to the hallway and
went past the corner again before she found one of the few long candles
attached to the wall that provided light in the hallway. She tugged it free of
its holder and took it into the sitting room. With the candle raised in front
of her and her steps more cautious now, she went to the fireplace. Crouching
down, she touched the candle to the pile of straw, small wood and logs that
only seemed to be waiting for a flame. The straw caught fire at once and burned
fast. Thin, pale flames leapt up toward the wood, dry and already crackling.
Vivien blew on the flames, and soon the wood itself was burning, flames dancing
around the logs as they licked the wood.

Vivien nodded to herself,
satisfied. She might be a child of the electric age, but she wasn’t completely
inept because of it, either. Now if she could only find more candles...

She turned from the fireplace, and
her gaze swept the room. On the low table next to the wall, a tall, thin shape
looked like it might be a candle. As she took one step forward, the flames
leaped behind her, casting a flare of brighter light through the room and
illuminating the figure standing immobile past the entrance. Startled, Vivien
gasped and dropped the candle. It rolled onto the stone floor, breaking in two,
the flame dying off.

“You scared me!”

She hated that she couldn’t tell
whether it was Aedan or Brad standing there. When he answered, however,
inclining his head in a small bow, Aedan gave himself away.

“My apologies, Dame Vivien. It was
not my intention to frighten you.”

“Then don’t lurk in the dark,” she
muttered, starting toward the table again and the tall candle in its center.

Before she reached the table,
Aedan was already there, bowing once more as he picked up the candle.

“My apologies,” he said again.
“But please understand that by definition my role is to be there without being
noticed.”

She bit her lip rather than tell
him she didn’t want his protection. As much as she hated to admit it, she
couldn’t deny that she needed it. She just didn’t need him to shadow her now.

She watched him walk over to the
fireplace. He touched the candle to the flames to light it, like she had meant
to do. Without a word, his steps completely silent, he went from candle to
candle until the room was lit almost as brightly as it had been by the sunlight
in Vivien’s dream. He then returned to where she was standing, setting the
candle back on the table.

“I was about to do that,” she
said, annoyed that yet again she had to be grateful to him when she hadn’t
asked anything. “You didn’t have to.”

Another of those small bows; Aedan
would have to get rid of that habit. It was already getting old.

“When you learn to control the
Quickening, lighting candles will require no more than a thought.”

“So why did you do it by hand?”
she asked, all but biting out the words. “Don’t you have magic like your
brother does?”

Aedan’s eyes, already so pale,
flashed to a dull, metallic gray.

“Bradan told me about what the
Otherworlders call magic.” His words carried the razor-sharp precision of
hammered steel. “The Quickening is no illusion, no trick to amuse children. It
sings with the very life of Foh’Ran.” He leaned in closer to Vivien, and his
gaze bore straight to the core of her. “Do
not
diminish it by calling it
‘magic.’”

The force of his words took Vivien
by surprise, and it was all she could do not to take a step back and away from
him. She wouldn’t let him intimidate her. Before either of them could move or
look away, one sharp word filled the room.

“Aedan!”

At the same time, Vivien and Aedan
both turned to see Brad walk in. His shirt was untucked over his pants, his
feet bare, and hair in disarray as though he had dressed in a hurry. A part of
Vivien, the same part that had nursed a crush on him for such a long time,
approved of this fresh-out-of-bed look, and she couldn’t help but stare at him.
She didn’t need to worry he’d notice: his entire attention was focused on
Aedan, the same frown furrowing their brows like a mirror image.

They had acted together so far,
sometimes without needing to say a word, but maybe she was about to see them
clash. The thought was not entirely unpleasant. Someone needed to take Aedan
down a notch.

* * * *

Bradan had had a long day, made
even longer by his extended use of the Quickening in the Otherworld. It was
always a strain to channel there, as though the world itself knew the
Quickening didn’t belong and tried to deny its existence. He had been grateful
to rest for a few hours and entrust Vivien’s safety to Aedan. Waking up with a
jump when he felt Aedan’s anger flash to life, however, was not a pleasant end
to his sleep.

Over the years they had spent
apart, their link had dulled, and Bradan couldn’t pinpoint the reason for his
brother’s anger, when once he would have known immediately what had caused it.
He dressed in a hurry, with images of the shields being breached—of Vivien
being taken—swirling through his mind. When he rushed toward Aedan, however, he
soon discovered that, if anyone was confronting her, it was Aedan himself.

Aedan was looking into her face
and berating her about something—about what didn’t matter to Bradan, not when
his brother was forgetting his place.

“Aedan!”

They both looked at him as he
stepped into the room. Bradan wished he had been alone with his brother; Vivien
hardly needed to hear him argue with Aedan. She didn’t look like she wanted to
go anywhere, however, and instead stood there, her arms crossed, an expectant
look on her features.

“You forget who you’re talking
to,” Bradan said, trying to keep his tone mild.

“How could I forget who she is,”
Aedan shot back, “when she doesn’t know it herself?”

Bradan came closer, troubled by
the doubts he could hear in his brother’s voice. They had both taken their vow
when they were still little more than children, but a lot more time had passed
for Aedan in Foh’Ran. Had he grown tired of waiting for Vivien’s return? Was he
disappointed in her, somehow? Had they been alone, Bradan would have asked—and
he would ask later without fail.

“She’ll remember,” he said, as
much for Aedan as for Vivien. “Give her time.”

“Do we have time?” Aedan asked,
but it was a rhetorical question. He stepped away from Vivien, retreating to
stand with his back to the wall.

Bradan could feel his brother’s
anger fade into weariness. They definitely needed to talk. He turned to Vivien
again and tried not to let his eyes drift downward. Her oversized t-shirt
covered her down to her thighs, but her bare legs had never seemed as long as
they did at that moment.

“It’s late,” he said quietly.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

Vivien’s expression was mutinous.
“I had a dream,” she said, almost sounding wary. “Well, I wasn’t sure if it was
a dream or a memory. But I saw this place in my dream, and people in here, and
I was a kid so I’m thinking, memory. I wanted to check it out.”

Bradan had to keep a tight rein on
himself not to turn to Aedan and say, “See? She does remember.” Instead, he
smiled at Vivien. “You can explore the rest of the house in the morning. Maybe
you’ll remember more.”

She crossed her arms under her
breasts, and heat flashed through Bradan. Was she wearing anything under her
nightshirt? It looked awfully thin. Distracted, he missed what she was saying
entirely, and could only guess she had asked a question when she gave him a
hopeful look.

“I’m sorry, what...”

“Look behind you,” Aedan said.
“Above the fireplace.”

Vivien threw a quick frown at
Aedan before turning around and looking up. From her portrait, Dame Eleoren
looked down at them all, stern and regal. Vivien took a step forward, then
another. A long moment passed before she asked, “That’s...that’s my mother?”

The longing in her words was
palpable.

“It was Dame Eleoren, yes.” Bradan
almost asked whether Vivien remembered her at all, but caught himself in time.
Clearly she didn’t, and there was no need to prod that wound.

“She was standing right here in my
dream.” She had reached the fireplace and rested both hands on the mantel, her
head still tilted back toward the portrait on the wall. After a few more
seconds, she turned around and looked over the room, her eyebrows knitted as
though she were trying to remember.

“What about my father?” she asked.
“Is there a portrait of him somewhere?”

Bradan winced. This was not a
topic he had looked forward to exploring, at least not quite yet.

“I...I don’t know who your father
is.” At her confused expression, he added, “Only Dame Eleoren knew, and if she
told anyone, I never heard of it.”

She looked again toward the corner
of the room and the empty armchair there. “But... He called her...”

She stopped abruptly and
approached the armchair. She stood in front of it for a little while before
sitting down.

“There was a man,” she started
again, her gaze back on Bradan. “In my dream, I mean. I was playing, and I ran
to this room, and my m...mother was there, and a man was in this chair, and the
way he talked to her, they sounded close. Really close.”

Bradan came closer to her,
crouching down at her feet so he wouldn’t tower over her.

“This was the queen’s private
library,” he said, indicating the side walls and its shelves, overflowing with
books. “Only people the queen trusted were allowed here. If this man was in
here, in her chair, it had to be her husband. Lord Stefen.”

He knew what she would ask before
she even opened her mouth, but he waited until she had voiced the question.