The Crow King's Wife (35 page)

“Mint.” Remedy replied without hesitation as
he moved back to the table and took a seat. It was difficult to
keep his eyes from straying to the mass of spiders on the ceiling
or back to the window, but he forced his attention to Azashy and
refused to wonder about the third nest of spiders by her bed. It
wouldn’t do to be distracted. He needed to listen to everything she
was willing to share and remember exactly what she said and how she
said it. “Can you take the form of spiders? I’ve heard that
Blackwolf can become a wolf.”

Azashy smiled faintly and shook her head
slowly as she opened a canister of tea. “There are varied degrees
of Shifters. The weakest can only communicate with their chosen
animal. The strongest can assume not only the animals shape, but a
hybrid form between animal and human as well. I am toward the
bottom of the ladder as far as strength goes. I can command them,
speak with them, and I’m immune to their venom, but no I cannot be
them.”

“I find that oddly reassuring considering we
are roommates at the present.” Remedy returned with what he hoped
was a charming smile.

“Are you scared of spiders Fionaveir?” Azashy
asked and her smile grew wider.

“Scared? I wouldn’t say that is the
appropriate word. I respect the dangerous ones, and I tend to
ignore the lesser ones. I can’t say they are something that I would
ever go out of my way to be around any of them though.” Remedy
answered as carefully as he could and tried not to think of the
countless spiders he had intentionally crushed or swatted in his
lifetime.

“Most people do ignore them, if they ever
notice them in the first place. Which is why I am useful enough to
lock away in a dungeon. The term
To be a fly on the wall
applies very well to my talents. I hear and see so many things that
are meant to be private.” Azashy sighed then pulled the boiling
water from the stove and joined him at the table with the cups.
Carefully she filled both mugs to the rim and the smell of mint
bloomed in the stale air.

“So you are the reason that the world is in
such chaos. Through your talents Myth has an idea of what we are
going to do before we begin to do it. Every time we plan something
he knows what it is.” Remedy observed with a frown.

“Partially.” Azashy agreed sadly. “I’ve told
Myth so much about certain individuals that I find myself wondering
how they are still alive for me to gather information on. I know
Myth knows enough about them to kill them, but he doesn’t move
against them. He is biding his time for something, but I don’t know
what it is. As far as your plans go, well I’ve told him just enough
to keep my skin intact, but I’ve tried to spare the details as much
as I could. Once I figured out what exactly he was up to my
relations with him became…” She paused and a bitter smile creased
her lips as she searched for the correct word. “Strained. We will
use that word for now, though I’m not sure it is quite descriptive
enough. Myth is a monster in every sense of the word. I’ve seen him
do things that would sicken Death herself.”

“Who holds the most interest for him?” Remedy
asked as he accepted the mug from her and nodded his thanks. He
wanted to ask what she had seen Myth do, but he needed to get as
much information as he could while he had time. If he managed to
ask all of the important questions before Myth’s daily visit to the
cell he could go back for details, but for now it was better to
have the bones of everything than the full picture on a few things.
Raising the cup to his lips he carefully blew on the contents and
took a cautious sip. The flavor of mint washed over him and he
allowed himself a small smile before nodding his thanks to her
again. There was something so soothing about mint that he found
himself relaxing despite the fact that he knew the tea wasn’t even
real.

Azashy watched him for a moment and took a
small sip from her own tea. “It’s amazing how our minds can fill in
all of the blanks so perfectly. I know this is not my house and I
know this is not really tea, yet I can somehow trick myself into
finding comfort in just the memories of it all.” She let out a long
slow breath and smiled. “That’s not what we need to be talking
about though, so I will get back to the answers you are seeking.”
She paused once more as she settled back in the smooth wooden chair
and cleared her throat as if she expected it to be a very lengthy
conversation. “At first it was the Fionaveir. Given the fact that
they were outlaws I assumed he was trying to bring them to justice.
I told him what I could of Caspian, Lutheron and Faramir. Vaze was
more difficult to gather information on, and you have a horrible
tendency to kill any spiders you see. So spying on you was touchy
as well.” She smirked at him and he felt himself blush in response
to her words. “Then he began asking me about a young girl at the
Academy. He even went so far as to have one of his servants deliver
spiders to the rooms she stayed in. As it happened she was staying
with his son, and it became increasingly obvious that what I told
Myth about his son upset him more than the knowledge I gave about
the girl. I never understood that.” She shook her head sadly and
ran a thumb absently around the rim of her steaming mug. Her eyes
rose and she met Remedy’s gaze fully. “Shade Morcaillo was a son
any man would have been proud of. He was honorable and
compassionate. He strove at his studies as well as his duties to
his family with a zealot’s devotion. Everything he did was in an
attempt to please his father, and yet all it seemed to do was anger
Myth more. Myth called him weak and simple minded, then Myth
stopped visiting me for a week or so and when he came again he was
different. I was confused at first until I figured that out. I
still watched the girl you see, and I had spent so long watching
her that I knew those around her fairly well. So I noticed quickly
when Oma started acting a bit strangely and it didn’t take much to
put the clues together. Myth had become Oma, and something less
than him was paying me visits in his guise.”

“So Lex led Myth straight to our stronghold.”
Remedy sighed heavily and rubbed his face. “I didn’t know the exact
details there. I knew Faramir was different, but I didn’t know if
she had always been Myth and was just now showing cards or if
Faramir had been replaced and I had truly lost a friend. No one
knew very much about Faramir beyond the fact that Caspian trusted
her with his life and secrets. No one really knows where she came
from or how Caspian found her, so it was possible she could have
been Myth all along.” Remedy explained and felt something tighten
inside his chest. He had kept himself from dwelling on Faramir, and
some part of his mind had decided she had been a traitor all along
and so he had pushed away any thoughts of mourning for her. Faramir
had been with the Fionaveir long before him, and she had been the
one to cleanse his cuts and read him stories as a child. She had
nearly been a second mother, and now she was gone. He couldn’t
decide which was a more painful thought, losing your mother or
knowing she was a traitor and deceiving you all along. He had
chosen the latter for the simple fact that it bred more anger than
agony, but Azashy’s revelations stole that small bit of solace.
Faramir had never been a traitor; she had been betrayed by her own
blood. Though Remedy sincerely doubted Lex had any idea what he had
done.

“Myth killed Faramir and took her form. It
wasn’t too difficult for everyone to believe that Oma had run off
and disappeared given how broken her mind was. The only one that
might have been confused by that story was Shade, and he
conveniently wasn’t there when it happened.” Azashy spoke gently.
The look in her eyes told him that she understood the pain he was
hiding, but there was no way to soften the truth.

“And with the trust everyone felt for Faramir
Myth had an easy time with corrupting our ranks.” Remedy concluded
sourly. He leaned forward in his seat and propped his elbows on the
table before shaking his head at Azashy. “I don’t understand
though. How did he turn Symphony so completely? Not even Lutheron
is acting the same and I don’t understand at all. None of them
would abide by what is going on if they were thinking clearly. Is
Myth a mind mage as well?”

“It’s called conditioning, and as far as I
know Myth is not a Mind mage. There are herbs that weaken a mind
though and over a long course of time if you are told the same
thing over and over you will believe it, especially if it’s
something that already concerned you. Symphony worried that she
wasn’t fit to rule over all, and with the use of herbs and soothing
words Myth convinced her that it was true. Now Symphony will not
make a single judgment without consulting Myth, and she doesn’t
bother to check on the after effects of her decisions. She trusts
every word she hears from Myth and believes the world to be exactly
that way without looking for herself. Lutheron was simple to
manipulate. He had to see a threat and once Myth showed him one
clearly he was distracted from her actions. Caspian…” Azashy
trailed off and stared down at the table.

“That is truly Caspian isn’t it?” Remedy
demanded as she fell silent. He spoke more sharply than he intended
to, but Caspian was more to him than Faramir had ever been. This
entire mess was painful, but the thought that Caspian was dead too
made it nearly unbearable.

“It’s Caspian.” Azashy replied softly. Her
dark eyes trailed back down to her tea and she shrugged one
shoulder. “He was an outlaw to most but to others he was a true
hero. Seeing him so far from his path breaks my heart. The
knowledge that I’m the one that brought about his fall is a guilt
that crushes me whenever I dwell on it too long.” She rubbed
absently at her temples and shifted in her seat before continuing.
“Caspian was conditioned with his own failure. Myth used his time
as High Commander of the Justicars against him and combined the
memory of Fiona Veirasha’s death to lead him down his current path.
Caspian is focused on cleansing the city of everything remotely
wrong and he is going to an extreme that is going to get him
killed. You cannot keep so many people imprisoned without
repercussions. It is coming and it will be bad.” She met his eyes
once more and smiled sadly. “And Sanctuary will lose another Hero
and only a few will even mourn his death. Myth has taken Caspian’s
shining honor and tarnished it beyond repair. No one will ever look
at him with respect again, not even his own people.” Her gaze
dropped once more and she slowly shook her head. “And it’s my
fault. So many things are my fault and it’s a lesson I should have
learned long before. What I did at Glis should have taught me to
keep my mouth closed, but Myth has such charm when he chooses to
use it. I didn’t even realize what I was doing, and now…” She fell
silent and raised her tea cup to her lips.

“I can fix it Azashy. I am a Mind Mage. I can
take the brainwashing and cleanse it from them and return them to
what they were.” Remedy spoke into the silence and tried to keep
the hesitation from his voice. What he suggested was risky and he
was sure even Azashy knew that. In order to repair their minds he
would have to guess what their true feelings on the matter had been
before Myth’s tampering. There was a very good chance that he
wouldn’t actually repair the damage but would simply change it to a
different kind of damage. It was nearly impossible to keep personal
sentiment from such work, and the odds that he would implant his
own beliefs into their heads were very good.

“I could shatter this cup and glue the pieces
back into place as I believe they should go, but the cup would
never be the same again. There would be some cracks and chips that
no matter how hard I tried I could not repair.” Azashy returned
gently. “What is broken will never be properly mended. You can
attempt to mend it, but there will be cracks that show and chips
that are missing. Too much has been done to repair it fully and we
both know that.”

“I won’t write them off.” Remedy said firmly.
“There may be cracks showing but that is better than leaving
something broken. They are my family.”

Azashy nodded her agreement and started to
open her mouth then closed it abruptly. “He is coming. Can you stay
here? Can you keep part of me back from him?” her voice was frantic
and he could see the fear growing in her eyes.

“I can, but I don’t understand why. You face
him daily Azashy and I’ve never seen you look this terrified of it
before.” Remedy reached across the table and took one of her hands.
He could see her trembling and the hand he held was icy to the
touch. Her dream self was a reflection of her form in reality and
he knew she was shivering beyond the dream. With a gentle nudge he
sent a wave of calmness toward her. It wouldn’t do to have Myth see
her trembling in cold sweats when he entered.

“When I betrayed Nicoli I destroyed a child’s
life. Because of me he was raised as an orphan and far from his
true home. I tried to redeem myself and I did everything I could to
make his life easier in an attempt to make amends for what I had
stolen from him. I told him secrets, I taught him magic, and I
showed him where to find things of value. He is on his way to
Rivana as we speak to avenge the death of his loved ones. If Myth
learns of my Godson’s existence or what he is about I will betray
the boy again. Myth thinks he is dead, Myth believes he died in
Amdany and I would rather die than betray him again. I would rather
die a thousand times in agony than cause him more pain, and I know
what Myth is capable of.” The words poured out of her with such
conviction that he couldn’t think of what to say in return. Her
hand clamped tightly around his and she no longer trembled. Dark
eyes locked on his and he could see the determination filling her.
“Keep the part of me that knows such things here with you Remedy.
Hold it tight and no matter what Myth does to try to steal my
secrets do not let go of them.”