Forsaken (Fated Saga Fantasy Series Book 8) (15 page)

“I’d like to think I taught you such a level of patience, but I cannot take credit for anything you’ve
accomplished
in your prolonged life.” Inwardly, she delighted in this day. A day she had waited for a very long time herself. Even imprisoned in the stained glass for hundreds of years, with no real sense of time, it seemed that this day would never arrive.

Fazendiin moved to leave her and retire to his room.

“Goodnight, Son. Pleasant
scheming.
”

“Come now, Mother. What I do, is for the good of all our people. Your people too, or have you forgotten that?”

“I wish I were not. Even imprisoned in this form, I wish I were not. I’m ashamed of what you’ve allowed yourself to become.”

“Yes, well… goodnight to you to, Mother.”

He left her there and locked himself in his private chambers. He had a bed, but required little sleep. A few hours here and there. But this was his own private quarters, which no one but himself had ever entered. Here in this room he planned everything. Here in this room is where he kept all his secrets.

CHAPTER TEN

After breakfast the next morning, Fazendiin told Juliska to follow him out of the house. She did. He took her down a long pathway that led to a vegetable garden. He handed her a pair of gloves and put on a set himself.

“We’ll be working in the garden this morning.”

She let out a breath that said,
yeah, right…

“It’s too nice to be stuck inside all day.”

“I’ve never
worked
in a garden.”

“Then I’ll teach you. That is in essence why I brought you here.”

“To teach me how to grow plants and weed a garden?”

“Learning to grow things isn’t a wasted lesson. But it’s not actually our topic of the day.” He pointed with his head. “I’ll take this row. You take the next. There should be a bucket to put the weeds into.”

“Um. Okay…” she exhaled indignantly.

“And to help pass the time, I’ll tell you a little bit more about your past.”

“Oh. So it’s a weed the garden show and tell?”

“Call it what you like. Fresh air and exercise keep the mind sharp and the body fit.”

“We could just walk, and talk.”

“I don’t believe in laziness. If there’s work to be done, then I get it done. One way or another.”

She had a hard time arguing with that one. It was a mantra she often told herself. She was all about her job. There wasn’t time for lazy. Well, not until she’d met Eddy.

They started in with the weeding and Fazendiin started to tell her more about her past. Or at least, told her many stories supposedly from her past. She still refused to believe him.

“Your parents reached out to me when you were just nine years old. They felt
the change
coming, realized they would not live long enough to see you into adulthood.”

“The change?” she questioned.

“When a vampyre’s abilities stop working. When sucking the life from the living no longer offers sustenance or maintains youth. When this happens, death follows quickly. Usually a year or two. Sometimes more or less.”

“So what? We age fast… or something?”

“Essentially, yes. Age catches up, very quickly. Aging years at a time, in just months.”

“Okay. So my parents felt this happening to them and came to you for help? Not that I believe any of this still… I’m just playing along.”

He chuckled, picked weeds and continued.

“Your parents approached me seeking out protection for you. I was pleased to learn of their existence. Although saddened at the same time. With their age and condition, there was nothing I could do to prolong their lives. If they’d come to me sooner…”

“You what? Could have made them like you? Immortal?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She wanted to ask more about how that worked, but figured Fazendiin would only tell her when he was ready to, or only if he wanted her to know this.

“The best I could offer them, was protection for you.”

She stood up and stared at him. He spoke of these things with such certainty. He believed what he spoke, even if it was not true.

“By stealing my memories?” she asked hotly.

“Yes. So they could not be used against you.”

“How could my memories be used against me?”

“The Svoda and the Shogharne Vampyres are enemies. If they found you, and found out what you were… you’d be their prisoner, at best. Dead, most likely. Not Seer to the Banon. Not accepted as one of them.”

“Why not just raise me yourself then? If my bloodline is so precious to you.”

“Your parents did not want that for you. I took no offense. They wanted you to have the most normal life possible. To be around others as like you, as possible. Those with magic in their blood. They hoped if the Svoda took you in, that you’d grow up surrounded by a new family.”

“Even if that new family were ancient enemies of my actual family?” Juliska scoffed. “Your story has holes.”

“Holes I’ll fill in later. For now, all you need to know is that your family wanted you to be happy. Even if that meant growing up and living with the enemy. As long as the Svoda took you in as one of their own, they knew you’d be protected and live a good life.”

“So why not leave that good life alone? I was happy… just like they wanted.”

“Because of a second promise I made them.”

“Which was?”

“When you were old enough to understand, and before your vampyre side awakened, I would tell you everything. They wanted you to know who you really are.”

“Couldn’t that still be held against me?” she asked him. “Knowing who I am.”

“No. Not now. You’re smart enough to keep that secret.”

She was. But she still didn’t believe what he was telling her. She needed proof.

“So my parents had you steal my memories, and then what? They delivered me to the Svoda?”

“No. Your father died first. Once he was gone, your mother put their plan into action. It was then that I actually stripped away your memories, and your mother placed you in an orphanage. She left your given name and birthday, and that is all. Stripping your memories took away anything the Svoda could have used to track your family. Even with a name, there was little they could go by, seeing as your family had been in hiding for a very long time. It was only a month after you were placed in the orphanage that your mother’s life ended. And only a week after she placed you there, did the Svoda track your magic and take you home with them.”

“Why the Svoda though? They could have left me with the treasure hunters, the Stripers.”

Fazendiin laughed. Loudly. “The hunters would have sold you out for the highest bid.”

She could not argue that. They were not known as a value based people, unless it lined their pockets or secured their future.

They kept weeding, but in silence.

Juliska pulled weeds, not really paying close attention to what she was doing. If what he told her was true, she had parents who loved her. Who’d done what they thought was best for her future.

She wasn’t sure what to think of it all.

Nothing was as it seemed.

This place. This man. The Grosvenor.

Growing up in the arms of the enemy… not that anyone alive today was anything like their ancestors, or responsible for what happened to her clan… she caught herself.
Her clan…
yeah, that was not happening. She needed way more proof than stories told by someone she did not trust.

Regardless of that, she’d never really fit in with the Cobb family. She’d always thought it was because she was the middle child of four siblings, all older and younger than her by a few years. But she never had friends in school either. Not close friends at least. No one she trusted or confided in.

As she thought about it, fitting in was one thing she was terrible at doing. Always the outcast. Always the different one. Not just because she was a Firemancer and taken on as apprentice to PanSofia. But she always preferred work, over play. Study, over fun. Did this come from her parents? Or from being a vampyre?

Before she knew it they’d come to the end of the garden row. More time had passed than she thought and it was already afternoon. They took a break for lunch and then set in to weeding another section of the garden. Juliska found she didn’t mind. That the repetition of weeding settled her thoughts, helped clear her mind.

She stopped at one point and sat on her knees, sinking a bit into the fertile dirt. Unshed tears threatened to fall and she bit her lip to stop them. She would not give Fazendiin the satisfaction that he was getting to her.

She wanted to believe him. To believe she had loving parents that only gave her up because they had no alternative.

But the part where she was from an enemy clan… the original enemies of the Svoda… this was a much harder reality to swallow.

#

The days that followed were much the same. Juliska and Fazendiin working together during the day, and him telling her stories about her parents, or the clan in which she was from. The history he told, and the history she had learned, did not align. From her experience, no one group ever had the story quite right, and she guessed in this case, it had to meet somewhere in the middle.

Just what was truth or not, still had yet to be proven to her.

At the end of her first week with Fazendiin, she plunked down onto her bed, exhausted. Her mind a heap of thought. She closed her eyes, ready for sleep. Which had been intermittently good and bad all week. A moment later she started laughing. She wasn’t sure why, but something was funny.

She had the strangest feeling come over her. Déjà vu maybe?

There was a scene playing over and over in her mind, of a woman with long dark hair and a beautiful pale face and wide smile, tucking her into bed while telling her a story. The story was funny and had made her laugh.

Juliska sat up, her breath caught.

Was this a memory?

It didn’t disappear, it stayed with her. And more came with it.

A tall, thin man… he came in and kissed her goodnight. Her father? She didn’t recognize their faces, and yet she could see bits of herself in each of them.

What was happening?

Where was this coming from?

Was she getting her memories back? Or was this some sort of trick?

It stopped after this. Nothing new or more. Just this one long scene replaying over and over in her mind. How would she even know if this was a real memory? She had no idea what her parents looked like.

Deep sleep avoided her all that night.

At breakfast the next morning, Fazendiin noticed she was flustered. He set down his fork and looked at her.

“You’re starting to remember, aren’t you?”

Her head shot up and she stared back at him.

“It’s about time. I had hoped having you work in the gardens this week would help your mind relax enough to let the memories surface.”

“You’re responsible for what I saw last night,” it was a statement not a question.

“No. They are your memories. The moment you arrived here I lifted the spell. I want you to have your memories back. But I had to make sure the return would be paced. To have them return all at once would be too much for one brain, even as intelligent as yours, to handle. It’s the reason you slept the first few days you were here. It was the only way.”

“How do I know what I’m seeing is even real? That it’s not just a trick?”

“You trust no one, do you?”

“No. I learned that lesson a long time ago.”

“Excuse me for a moment. I’ll be right back.” He got up and left the table.

Did she mean what she’d just said, that she trusted no one? Her mother, she trusted her mother. And Eddy… she’d trusted him enough to give him her heart. That had to stand for something.

Fazendiin returned with a box in his hands and handed it to her.

“What is this?”

“Gifts, from your parents. Left in my care until the time was right for you to see them. It will give you the proof you need.” He reached in and pulled out a photo album, turning the pages until he’d found the one he wanted. He handed it to her.

Juliska lost her ability to breathe for a moment. It was them. The two faces from her memory last night. With a little girl standing between them… it was her, there was no doubt. She was maybe seven or so.

“Whatever you remembered last night, it is real, Juliska. Trust what you remember, it’s more real than anything else you’ve lived since your memories were taken.”

She wanted to trust they were real. And they had to be, right? These pictures, they were of the people in her mind.

But the Grosvenor are cunning… do not trust this man in front of you.

But this seems too real.

I don’t think magic can fake this.

But that doesn’t make it safe. They may be true memories. And what he’s telling you may be true… just don’t believe for a moment there is
zero
price to be paid for all this.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, Juliska, but I imagine you’re feeling overwhelmed. Take a few days to look through the box. Let the memories come back to you. Once you see it all for yourself, then you’ll know all I’ve told you is true.”

“And then what? Say all you’ve told me is true, and I believe you. Then what?”

He just grinned widely as if she already did.

Juliska had no idea how to feel about that.

#

The following weeks were filled with memories returning. Many new ones each day. Fazendiin did not make her work in the gardens or anywhere else. He wanted her to take her time and remember all she’d lost. Even at the pace of a few here and few there, it was overwhelming. Her brain was overloaded and a bit lacking of space for all the new memories that needed to fit somewhere.