Whispers of Yesterday - Chapter Sixteen
a/n: This is WAY overdue. I apologize.
Title: Whispers of Yesterday
Series: Infinity's End, Book Two
Warnings: smut, het smut, hints to slashy goodness, violence, language
Description: Now firmly entrenched in the Theravada -- and firmly involved with Gale as well -- Ione discovers the hidden sides of both Grayshire and Theravada. She questions her own decisions -- and her feelings -- as the war takes on a more murderous, personal turn for the worst.
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Chapter Sixteen
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Ione woke slowly, feeling strangely off and bleary. She sat up, rubbing at her eyes, the intense warmth of Orion gone from her back. Instead, she felt only Fenris’ familiar aether, the wolf still sleeping peacefully. Of the tiger, she could see nothing. Apparently, he’d left at some point. As had Aponi, the usual buzz of her light magic missing from Ione’s senses.
The sun had risen, rays of light peering through the open wall and raining on the mural, highlighting some of the details Ione had missed the night before. The people and animals depicted sharpened, becoming more distinct, life-like. Ione fought back a yawn and rose to her feet, stretching, as she approached the mural.
She still felt oddly disconnected, and struggled to make her foggy brain focus. The spirit heading the feast, the one in a place of honor, the monarch, was even more beautiful in the morning light. The delicate butterfly with her gold and black wings seemed to emit an almost ethereal radiance.
Ione swore that the monarch resembled Aponi.
“That’s because she is Aponi,” Quetz said sleepily, stirring from where she’d been coiled in a loop on the fine rug.
Ione startled, blinking in surprise. “Come again?”
Quetz slithered toward her, scales a dry rasp against the polished stone floor. “The butterfly in the mural. She’s Aponi,” Quetz clarified, and nudged at Ione’s foot, as though demanding to be picked up.
“…How?”
Ione was at a loss for words. Aponi, conveniently missing, had always seemed so young to Ione. Young and naïve, completely innocent to the evils of the world. It was hard for Ione to believe that she was thousands of years old, that she had once been the queen of an entire city, a city whose size rivaled and passed Meropis’.
She knelt, letting Quetz climb up her arm and settle around her neck like a heavy piece of jewelry. Quetz was a lot heavier than Ione had expected, her body eerily cool against Ione’s heated skin.
“What do you mean how?” Quetz asked, sounding a little offended.
Ione couldn’t quite put her disbelief into words. At least, not without offending Quetz further. Aponi had been the queen?
She peered at the mural, wondering if any of the faces on the wall were also familiar to her. What other secrets were her familiars hiding? Would she look up and find Fenris staring back at her as well.
Ione frowned, determined to solve this mystery. But something rose on the edge of her senses, making the hair on the back of her neck rise, making her skin tingle. There was a pressure on her body, subtle, but definitely noticeable. Someone’s magic was sliding out of their control, or perhaps it was intentional. Ione couldn’t tell. She was too far away to accurately identify the user, but he - or she - had to be powerful for Ione to even feel the disturbance.
Her head whipped toward the door. “What in four hells…?”
“It’s Azriel!” Quetz identified, her rasp voice suddenly completely alert, her head turning toward the door as well. “Something’s wrong. Gale’s upset, too.” She twisted in the door’s direction, as though trying to encourage Ione to head that way. “We have to go.”
“Quetz is right,” Fenris said, suddenly padding up to Ione’s side, restless worry stirring in his aether. “Something’s not right.”
Concern growing inside of her, Ione agreed to their assessment of the situation. She slid into her boots and left the mural room, stepping into the main hallway. There, the feeling of rising aether was stronger. Vibrating almost. A tangible tension that Ione could feel in her gut, twisting and turning in knots. Tied into that aether was Gale’s, and he was, like Quetz had said, agitated. Worried. Anxious.
“Where are they?” Ione asked, anxiety infecting her as well. Her feet unconsciously took her downward, though she had no immediate clues.
Quetz was all but vibrating, shifting restlessly around Ione’s neck, as though trying to urge Ione into a run or something much quicker than her fast walk. “The barracks. Azriel’s room.”
Ione blinked stupidly. “Azriel has a room?” Though in all rationality, that much was obvious. Even if Azriel could only stay in Paragon two out of seven nights. He couldn’t afford too much suspicious behavior.
Fenris looked up at her. “Of course he does,” the wolf said with a strange note in his voice. As though he, too, was wondering just how dumb Ione could be.
Quetz again tugged at Ione, her scales a rasp against Ione’s bare skin. “Hurry, Ione. Something’s really wrong.”
Ione didn’t need Quetz to tell her that. She could feel it in the air. The sense of wrongness that tugged at her insides, made her heart beat faster, her stomach churn into knots. Ione broke into a light jog, dodging around patrons of Paragon, many of which seemed immune to the rising aethereal pressure. Some of them, Ione knew were beginning to get a taste of it. Their faces were scrunched with confusion, fingers pressed to their temples as though a headache were forming.
They would be the first to know if something went from sour to shitstorm.
Fear and confusion spiked through Gale’s aether, and riding on the wings of it, Ione could sense her uncle as well. He was hurt, bothered, angry. Azriel’s aether fell more thickly in the air, trying to press down on Ione’s shoulders, made her gasp.
What the hell had happened? What had she missed?
Running replaced jogging until Ione was throwing herself down the hall, pell-mell, her mother’s voice in the back of her mind reminding her not to run in the house. Not that it mattered. Not with the urgency knocking at her heart, with Quetz practically frantic and even unflappable Fenrir looking worried. As though he wanted to grasp hold of Ione’s pant leg and drag her in the opposite, safer direction.
She heard the voices before she saw them, getting closer and closer to the source of magic that was so strong Ione felt like she were swimming through it. Ione slowed to a walk, heart hammering in her chest, a great sense of unease building within her. She almost didn’t want to know, but curiosity - and Quetz - insisted upon it.
In fact, the snake slithered down her body the moment Ione slowed down and raced up the hall ahead of the human. Concern for Gale radiated through Quetz’s entire body, barely a blip in the pressure of magic, Azriel’s own and Kieran’s and Gale’s joining the impressive force.
“--hardly call that a success,” Kieran was saying, his voice low and forced, thick as though on the verge of shedding tears. Far, far from the cheerful chirp Ione was used to hearing.
“The objective was accomplished,” Ione heard Azriel retort, his voice lacking the usual calm and closer to a hiss. “We’ve confirmed the presence of a traitor.”
Ione found herself in the open doorway, staring, for the first time into the room that she knew to belong to her uncle. Who was obviously sharing with Azriel. Whatever was going on, the three men before her had been so distracted they hadn’t even closed the door, letting their conversation spill into the hall behind them.
She saw Gale first. His back was to her, hands dangling at his sides loosely, despite the tension that vibrated through his tall, thin frame.
He took a step forward, shaking his head. “And we leave behind an uproar sure to attract attention,” Gale said, and Ione noticed that his clothes were streaked with ash and blood, tattered in some places, and mud coated his boots. “How long do you think it will be before Grayshire connects his death to us?”
Whose death? Confusion swelled within Ione and desperate to know more, she inched softly into the room, wondering if they’d even notice her presence. Tension was sitting so thickly in the air, Ione almost felt she could reach out and touch it. The pressure of aether was unbearable and Ione breathed shallowly, trying not to wince or let her legs turn to jelly.
Azriel was in the middle of the open floor, pacing back and forth across a rug that was eerily similar to the one in the mural room. He wasn’t dressed as usual, however, but in the garb of a member of the Brigade. Loose pants and a tunic, overlain with a sleeveless robe and belted at the middle. Soft, sturdy boots made whispers of noise across the rug and like Gale, Azriel’s clothes were streaked with soot, splashed with blood. He was favoring one leg, obviously an injury of some kind.
His brown eyes were flashing a myriad of emotions that Ione couldn’t read as he paced back and forth, like a caged tiger. “The alternative is not better,” Azriel retorted in a blank tone, one that inflected too much like nobility, that made Ione’s own blood run cold.
She didn’t know Azriel could sound like that. Just like she didn’t know her uncle could have that look on his face - helplessness tossed with anger mixed with regret and fear. Just like Ione didn’t know Gale could so easily accept the death of an unarmed enemy. There was so much she didn’t know, hadn’t seen, hadn’t guessed. It was all happening behind her back, over her head, making her feel like the naïve kid everyone was protecting from the truth.
“We had a plan, Azriel,” Gale said, his own tone barely hiding his frustration, his concern. “Asher Celestine was to be left alone.”
Ione’s eyes widened by a fraction. Asher Celestine? As in Commander Celestine? As in Azriel’s father? That’s what this was about?
“Yes, and now he’s dead,” Azriel hissed, face bright with anger, and bright with something else, something Ione couldn’t name. His eyes glimmered, as though with tears, but Ione sensed something deeper, something nameless. “We can’t change that!”
“I’m not denying that,” Kieran said, and Ione shifted so that she could see her uncle better, frowning as he leaned against a tall dresser, arms crossed over his chest. “What’s done is done. There is no going back. You took that choice from us.”
Azriel’s head whipped toward Kieran with a look so vile that even Ione was taken aback, though Kieran didn’t seem bothered. “No one asked you to come.”
“And yet, how like me to do it anyway,” Kieran retorted, but there was a softness in his voice.
Ione wondered if Azriel was looking for a fight. As if the pent up emotions inside of him were desperate to be unleashed and he had no other alternative but to do something, anything to ease the tension inside of himself. Ione understood that feeling very well. She frequently whipped Grayson in sparring to take care of it. But to Azriel, always composed, always polite, always smiling… how did he let go? Did he let go?
“Did you honestly think that you could waltz in there alone and not put Theravada at risk?” Gale asked, his voice cutting through their staring contest, thick with his own restrained emotions. “That Celestine wouldn’t put two and two together - your anger and his actions? You would have revealed your own part in this, Azriel!”
Azriel glared, for once, looking every inch his father’s son. “Once I had the information, whatever he may have guessed wouldn’t have mattered.”
“You would have killed him,” Gale said, quietly realized, quietly disturbed.
Ione felt her skin crawl at the dead look in Azriel’s eyes.
“To protect Paragon, yes.”
“Bullshit,” Kieran snapped, a sneer twisting his lips as his hands dropped and he strode forward, nearly nose to nose with Azriel. “That wasn’t why you did it. You can claim that all you want, but you didn’t sneak off in the middle of the night because you thought it was the best for us.” One hand slashed through the air. “You did it for yourself!”.
Azriel, straightening, was taller than Kieran, but somehow, Ione’s uncle held his ground. “If I had gone alone, he would still be alive.”
Kieran twitched. “So now this is my fault?”
“I had it handled,” Azriel retorted, face flushed, breathing heavy. Hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“No offense, boss, but you don’t exactly think straight when it comes to your father,” Gale said.
A glare full of vitriol lashed at Gale, strong enough that Ione half expected a physical burn from it. “I have no father,” Azriel spat.
Ione could barely breathe, both from the sight of the argument and Azriel’s lashing aether. She backpedaled a step, hitting a chair with her legs and grabbing the back of it to keep herself upright. She didn’t know how Gale and Kieran were taking this without blinking. The chair creaked as she squeezed the back, the noise quiet but attracting attention nonetheless.
Gale’s head whipped around, eyes widening at sight of her. He took a step toward her, and then glanced over his shoulder at the argument between Azriel and Kieran, as though trapped and uncertain what to do.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said to her in a low voice, more worried than angry, chewing on his bottom lip. For the first time, she could see the blood smeared on his face, spattering the front of his clothes, the aura of death that hung around him like a dank cloud.
Ione shook her head, running a hand over her loose hair and realizing, to her embarrassment, that she was shaking. There was too much raw power, raw emotion in this room.
“I felt it. I couldn’t ignore it. What’s going on?” she demanded lowly, trying not to attract attention but desperate for answers
Gale shook his head as though he couldn’t even put it into words, mouth open to speak, but cut off when Kieran’s voice rose behind him.
“No, it isn’t!” the scientist had yelled, Ione obviously missing a part of their conversation. Around Gale, she could see Kieran jabbing a finger toward Azriel. “Because you went off alone! You confronted him alone! Like you always do, taking all the burden and leaving nothing for me or Gale.”
Gale turned. “Kieran…”
“No! This needs to be said,” Kieran hissed, and focused on Azriel again, his own body trembling as though holding back a violent response. “You're not mad he's dead. You're mad that you couldn't do it yourself. You hated him. You never said as much, but I know that you did. For what he did to you, but most of all, for what he did to your mother.”
Azriel paled, as though every secret had been dragged into the open, every emotion laid bare. “Yes I hated him,” he hissed, his voice cold and dead. “Is that what you want to hear? That I wished the apocalypse on my own father?”
Kieran, surprisingly, didn’t flinch at the coldness in Azriel’s tone. “I didn’t need to hear it to know it was the truth. But you’re not mad at me because I forced you to say it. You’re angry because I knew and did it anyway. Because I did what you’ve wanted to do for years.”
“That bastard’s death was mine and you stole it from me!” Azriel shouted, hand whipping through the air, aether lashing so strongly that Ione gasped.
Ione sunk down, legs trembling, and suddenly felt Gale’s hand on her arm, squeezing tightly. Something to ground herself with. His palms felt clammy and sweaty, and when she looked, Ione could see the strain in his face. Sweat gathering on his brow, trickling down the sides of his face. He was bearing this little better than her.
For the first time, Ione was getting a taste of the power contained within Azriel. Considering his father and his mother, it was no wonder.
Kieran looked at him, sympathy in his expression, the pain in his eyes as though he were the one breaking. “I prevented a son from killing his own father, yes. Because I couldn’t bear to see a good woman cry.”
Azriel stared for a long moment, aether lashing before his legs seemed to wobble and he sunk toward the floor, body trembling. “Everything I hate about myself, belongs to him,” he admitted, in a choked voice. “I thought…”
“You thought that if you killed him, it would free you. Destroy what you hate,” Kieran said softly, and suddenly Ione felt like an intruder. As though she was witnessing something that she shouldn’t. “But it won’t, Azriel. It only leaves a bigger hole.”
Azriel clutched his head, fingers tangling in his hair, arms concealing his face from then. “Kieran…” His voice was broken, more plea than anger.
Ione’s uncle understood all too well. The tension vanished from his shoulders, and he glanced once at Gale, eyes slipping briefly past to acknowledge Ione before returning to Gale. Silent communication passed between them, but even Ione got the picture. Now was the time to make themselves scarce. She doubted Azriel had even realized she was there, but this was personal, private, something she didn’t need to be witness to.
Gale grabbed Ione’s hand, tangling their fingers together as he pulled her quietly to the door. The last Ione saw of Kieran and Azriel, the former had approached the latter, lowering himself to the ground in front of Azriel. He was speaking softly, too quietly for Ione to hear, as he gently set his hands on the trembling Azriel.
And then Gale closed the door behind them with a quiet click, Fenris slipping out to rejoin Ione at her side. Gale took in a deep breath, and dragged his free hand over his head and hair, wiping sweat from his forehead.
“What happened?” Ione asked, piecing together some of it but still certain she didn’t know the big picture.
Shaking his head, Gale squeezed her fingers and pulled her toward their shared quarters. “It’s a long story,” he said, as she followed him. “I’m not even sure where to begin.”
“I take it this happened last night?”
“Yes.” Gale worked his jaw as he opened the door and ushered them all inside. The insane press of aether was beginning to fade from the atmosphere, finally giving Ione reign to draw a clear, unhindered breath. “Azriel went to Grayshire. To confront his father.”
Ione already knew this was a story destined to not end well. “He didn’t agree with Paragon’s decision to leave Commander Celestine alone.”
“It’s complicated,” Gale said, in a frustrated tone, and released her hand in order to start stripping out of his soiled garments, dropping them down carelessly. “But yes, he didn’t agree and decided to do it by himself. Kieran knows Azriel better than any of us. He suspected something like this might happen. So we followed him. Things… got ugly.”
Gale stood there, clad in only his knickers, and his shoulders slumped. “There was an… altercation. Kieran killed Asher.” He paused, gripping his elbow and staring blankly at the far wall. “We had to fight our way out, through Celestine’s guard. If Azriel hadn’t been wearing his mask, he would have been recognized. As it is, I know they identified Kieran and myself.”
Ione didn’t like the look in Gale’s eyes - mixed helplessness and anger and regret. As if he blamed himself for Azriel’s pain and the corner Azriel had been driven into.
She crossed the floor, moving in front of Gale so that he had to look at her and not the emptiness of the wall. One hand lifted, cupping Gale’s cheek. He felt abnormally chilled.
“Were you hurt?”
Gale shook his head. “No.” A perfunctory answer that was uncharacteristic for him.
Ione pushed away a frown; she didn’t want Gale to get the wrong impression. “I don’t think anything you could have swayed would have stopped Azriel. I get the feeling this sort of confrontation was a long time coming.”
“The consequences of this are not going to be good,” Gale said with a sigh.
“That’s inevitable.” Ione’s fingers pressed against his cheek, tilting his head toward her. “Theravada may have started this war, but Grayshire is choosing to attack those who have nothing to do with it. In many ways, this might have been for the best.”
Gale snorted. “Somehow, I don’t think the villagers will agree with you.”
Ione decided it was in her best interest not to press the issue. Gale was going to carry guilt for this no matter what she believed. Instead, she chose to chase away that look on his face the only way she knew how.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” Ione said, shifting the focus of their conversation. “Quetz was so frantic and all I could feel was Azriel’s aether. I didn’t know what to think.”
“For a minute there, I didn’t either,” Gale admitted. “I was half-afraid he was going to attack me or Kieran. You shouldn’t have had to see that.”
“I’m a part of this now, remember? I’d rather not be kept in the dark if you don’t mind.”
Gale huffed. “Some things are better left buried.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Ione slid her hand to his neck, smoothing her thumb gently over his throat where she could feel his heartbeat against her palm.
She closed the distance between them, sealing their mouths together with a kiss. It had only been less than a day since their argument, but it felt like longer. A feeling compounded by the worry that had nearly paralyzed Ione. She had gotten a mere taste of what Gale must have felt when she had been poisoned. It was something she hoped to never experience again.
Gale returned the slow, languid kiss. Ione was relieved he wasn’t rejecting her embrace.
“I’m still mad at you,” Gale mumbled, a puff of breath across her lips.
Ione smiled lightly. “I know,” she said, and kissed him again, letting the taste of him roll through her senses, the feel of his aether sliding gently against hers. Her arms slid around him, their bodies pressing together in all the right places. “Come to bed?”
“Now’s not exactly the best time…”
She rolled her eyes, tapping her fingers against the base of his spine. “Do you think I only ever have sex on the brain?” Ione retorted with a small laugh. “You’ve been up all night and I slept on a rug and a tiger. Which was comfortable all things considered, but nothing like my own bed, sheets, and a pillow.”
Gale blinked. “A tiger?”
Nudging out of the embrace, Ione grabbed Gale’s arm and pulled him to the bed, all but shoving him atop it. “Orion was kind enough to share some body heat,” Ione clarified as Gale moved around on the mattress to make himself comfortable. Ione tugged off her own garments, until she was dressed in only her underclothes, never one to sleep fully dressed. She preferred nude, but at the moment, it might send the wrong message.
“He also told me stories,” Ione added as she crawled into bed next to Gale, not surprised when he reached out and dragged her closer. He was a cuddler of epic proportions. “About Varos and the old days.”
“He never tells me those stories,” Gale murmured sleepily, warm puffs of air against her skin as his hair tickled under her chin.
Gale still smelled strongly of smoke, with a bitter addition of blood and death, but it was a scent Ione had grown all too familiar with. It didn’t even bother her anymore. And especially not when he had pressed his face into her throat, arm thrown over her midsection as though trying to merge their bodies together.
Azriel was like a father to him. Seeing Azriel like that tonight had to have thrown Gale off his world’s axis. Ione understood that. Which was why she would lay here and be his human pillow, even if she preferred a little distance in her sleep and would only get embarrassingly hot during the night - Gale blazed like a hearth in his sleep.
“You don’t have my charm,” Ione teased, but Gale didn’t respond.
She glanced down and found his eyes closed, his body laxing in the pull of sleep. Tension drained from his body and Ione gave a little huff of amusement. He really was tired. She could see the lines in his face, the worry wrinkles and such, as they eased out.
Ione stroked fingers over his hair, smoothing it out of his face, remarking at how much he looked like a child. Just a kid really. Even if he was older than her and more experienced in some things. Even if he could stand head to head against the most vicious of political opponents. Sometimes, Ione marveled at how young he could seem and look.
No wonder Malcolm had teased her mercilessly after she told him about her relationship with Gale, who was such the opposite of what usually interested Ione. Even now, she couldn’t really explain it, except to say that she liked Gale. He made her laugh; he kept her guessing. He was strong, and yet strangely vulnerable on occasion.
The mattress shifted as Fenris leapt on to the end of it, curling at her and Gale’s feet like some kind of cat or small dog. Thank goodness she and Gale had long switched out Gale’s bed for something large enough to accommodate the two of them and their occasional visitors.
“Lonely?” Ione asked softly.
Fenris looked at her, yellow eyes gleaming in the soft light of the morning. By the gods, it was still only morning!
“Take care of him, Ione,” Fenris said, a strange note in his voice. As though he knew something she didn’t. “He needs it.”
She closed her eyes, letting her head rest back on the pillow. “Che. Anyone with eyes can see that,” she responded, and released a slow breath. She wasn’t really tired but quiet moments like this were rare; Ione was going to soak up the rest as long as she could.
An odd feeling danced at her spine, an unusual stirring in the air, as though something was coming. Something she’d have no choice but to face.
Ione didn’t look forward to that at all.
* * *
a/n: Browsing back through this, I'm keenly aware of both how old the writing and how desperately it needs to be redrafted. *winces*
Well, nothing to it. I'll just get this first draft out, hope you guys enjoy it a bit, and then spit and polish it up later. With that in mind, feel free to comment on anything and everything you feel needs work. I won't mind one bit. It will help me a great deal.
This entry was originally posted at http://dracoqueen22.dreamwidth.org/190113.html. Feel free to comment wherever you find most convenient.
Title: Whispers of Yesterday
Series: Infinity's End, Book Two
Warnings: smut, het smut, hints to slashy goodness, violence, language
Description: Now firmly entrenched in the Theravada -- and firmly involved with Gale as well -- Ione discovers the hidden sides of both Grayshire and Theravada. She questions her own decisions -- and her feelings -- as the war takes on a more murderous, personal turn for the worst.
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Chapter Sixteen
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Ione woke slowly, feeling strangely off and bleary. She sat up, rubbing at her eyes, the intense warmth of Orion gone from her back. Instead, she felt only Fenris’ familiar aether, the wolf still sleeping peacefully. Of the tiger, she could see nothing. Apparently, he’d left at some point. As had Aponi, the usual buzz of her light magic missing from Ione’s senses.
The sun had risen, rays of light peering through the open wall and raining on the mural, highlighting some of the details Ione had missed the night before. The people and animals depicted sharpened, becoming more distinct, life-like. Ione fought back a yawn and rose to her feet, stretching, as she approached the mural.
She still felt oddly disconnected, and struggled to make her foggy brain focus. The spirit heading the feast, the one in a place of honor, the monarch, was even more beautiful in the morning light. The delicate butterfly with her gold and black wings seemed to emit an almost ethereal radiance.
Ione swore that the monarch resembled Aponi.
“That’s because she is Aponi,” Quetz said sleepily, stirring from where she’d been coiled in a loop on the fine rug.
Ione startled, blinking in surprise. “Come again?”
Quetz slithered toward her, scales a dry rasp against the polished stone floor. “The butterfly in the mural. She’s Aponi,” Quetz clarified, and nudged at Ione’s foot, as though demanding to be picked up.
“…How?”
Ione was at a loss for words. Aponi, conveniently missing, had always seemed so young to Ione. Young and naïve, completely innocent to the evils of the world. It was hard for Ione to believe that she was thousands of years old, that she had once been the queen of an entire city, a city whose size rivaled and passed Meropis’.
She knelt, letting Quetz climb up her arm and settle around her neck like a heavy piece of jewelry. Quetz was a lot heavier than Ione had expected, her body eerily cool against Ione’s heated skin.
“What do you mean how?” Quetz asked, sounding a little offended.
Ione couldn’t quite put her disbelief into words. At least, not without offending Quetz further. Aponi had been the queen?
She peered at the mural, wondering if any of the faces on the wall were also familiar to her. What other secrets were her familiars hiding? Would she look up and find Fenris staring back at her as well.
Ione frowned, determined to solve this mystery. But something rose on the edge of her senses, making the hair on the back of her neck rise, making her skin tingle. There was a pressure on her body, subtle, but definitely noticeable. Someone’s magic was sliding out of their control, or perhaps it was intentional. Ione couldn’t tell. She was too far away to accurately identify the user, but he - or she - had to be powerful for Ione to even feel the disturbance.
Her head whipped toward the door. “What in four hells…?”
“It’s Azriel!” Quetz identified, her rasp voice suddenly completely alert, her head turning toward the door as well. “Something’s wrong. Gale’s upset, too.” She twisted in the door’s direction, as though trying to encourage Ione to head that way. “We have to go.”
“Quetz is right,” Fenris said, suddenly padding up to Ione’s side, restless worry stirring in his aether. “Something’s not right.”
Concern growing inside of her, Ione agreed to their assessment of the situation. She slid into her boots and left the mural room, stepping into the main hallway. There, the feeling of rising aether was stronger. Vibrating almost. A tangible tension that Ione could feel in her gut, twisting and turning in knots. Tied into that aether was Gale’s, and he was, like Quetz had said, agitated. Worried. Anxious.
“Where are they?” Ione asked, anxiety infecting her as well. Her feet unconsciously took her downward, though she had no immediate clues.
Quetz was all but vibrating, shifting restlessly around Ione’s neck, as though trying to urge Ione into a run or something much quicker than her fast walk. “The barracks. Azriel’s room.”
Ione blinked stupidly. “Azriel has a room?” Though in all rationality, that much was obvious. Even if Azriel could only stay in Paragon two out of seven nights. He couldn’t afford too much suspicious behavior.
Fenris looked up at her. “Of course he does,” the wolf said with a strange note in his voice. As though he, too, was wondering just how dumb Ione could be.
Quetz again tugged at Ione, her scales a rasp against Ione’s bare skin. “Hurry, Ione. Something’s really wrong.”
Ione didn’t need Quetz to tell her that. She could feel it in the air. The sense of wrongness that tugged at her insides, made her heart beat faster, her stomach churn into knots. Ione broke into a light jog, dodging around patrons of Paragon, many of which seemed immune to the rising aethereal pressure. Some of them, Ione knew were beginning to get a taste of it. Their faces were scrunched with confusion, fingers pressed to their temples as though a headache were forming.
They would be the first to know if something went from sour to shitstorm.
Fear and confusion spiked through Gale’s aether, and riding on the wings of it, Ione could sense her uncle as well. He was hurt, bothered, angry. Azriel’s aether fell more thickly in the air, trying to press down on Ione’s shoulders, made her gasp.
What the hell had happened? What had she missed?
Running replaced jogging until Ione was throwing herself down the hall, pell-mell, her mother’s voice in the back of her mind reminding her not to run in the house. Not that it mattered. Not with the urgency knocking at her heart, with Quetz practically frantic and even unflappable Fenrir looking worried. As though he wanted to grasp hold of Ione’s pant leg and drag her in the opposite, safer direction.
She heard the voices before she saw them, getting closer and closer to the source of magic that was so strong Ione felt like she were swimming through it. Ione slowed to a walk, heart hammering in her chest, a great sense of unease building within her. She almost didn’t want to know, but curiosity - and Quetz - insisted upon it.
In fact, the snake slithered down her body the moment Ione slowed down and raced up the hall ahead of the human. Concern for Gale radiated through Quetz’s entire body, barely a blip in the pressure of magic, Azriel’s own and Kieran’s and Gale’s joining the impressive force.
“--hardly call that a success,” Kieran was saying, his voice low and forced, thick as though on the verge of shedding tears. Far, far from the cheerful chirp Ione was used to hearing.
“The objective was accomplished,” Ione heard Azriel retort, his voice lacking the usual calm and closer to a hiss. “We’ve confirmed the presence of a traitor.”
Ione found herself in the open doorway, staring, for the first time into the room that she knew to belong to her uncle. Who was obviously sharing with Azriel. Whatever was going on, the three men before her had been so distracted they hadn’t even closed the door, letting their conversation spill into the hall behind them.
She saw Gale first. His back was to her, hands dangling at his sides loosely, despite the tension that vibrated through his tall, thin frame.
He took a step forward, shaking his head. “And we leave behind an uproar sure to attract attention,” Gale said, and Ione noticed that his clothes were streaked with ash and blood, tattered in some places, and mud coated his boots. “How long do you think it will be before Grayshire connects his death to us?”
Whose death? Confusion swelled within Ione and desperate to know more, she inched softly into the room, wondering if they’d even notice her presence. Tension was sitting so thickly in the air, Ione almost felt she could reach out and touch it. The pressure of aether was unbearable and Ione breathed shallowly, trying not to wince or let her legs turn to jelly.
Azriel was in the middle of the open floor, pacing back and forth across a rug that was eerily similar to the one in the mural room. He wasn’t dressed as usual, however, but in the garb of a member of the Brigade. Loose pants and a tunic, overlain with a sleeveless robe and belted at the middle. Soft, sturdy boots made whispers of noise across the rug and like Gale, Azriel’s clothes were streaked with soot, splashed with blood. He was favoring one leg, obviously an injury of some kind.
His brown eyes were flashing a myriad of emotions that Ione couldn’t read as he paced back and forth, like a caged tiger. “The alternative is not better,” Azriel retorted in a blank tone, one that inflected too much like nobility, that made Ione’s own blood run cold.
She didn’t know Azriel could sound like that. Just like she didn’t know her uncle could have that look on his face - helplessness tossed with anger mixed with regret and fear. Just like Ione didn’t know Gale could so easily accept the death of an unarmed enemy. There was so much she didn’t know, hadn’t seen, hadn’t guessed. It was all happening behind her back, over her head, making her feel like the naïve kid everyone was protecting from the truth.
“We had a plan, Azriel,” Gale said, his own tone barely hiding his frustration, his concern. “Asher Celestine was to be left alone.”
Ione’s eyes widened by a fraction. Asher Celestine? As in Commander Celestine? As in Azriel’s father? That’s what this was about?
“Yes, and now he’s dead,” Azriel hissed, face bright with anger, and bright with something else, something Ione couldn’t name. His eyes glimmered, as though with tears, but Ione sensed something deeper, something nameless. “We can’t change that!”
“I’m not denying that,” Kieran said, and Ione shifted so that she could see her uncle better, frowning as he leaned against a tall dresser, arms crossed over his chest. “What’s done is done. There is no going back. You took that choice from us.”
Azriel’s head whipped toward Kieran with a look so vile that even Ione was taken aback, though Kieran didn’t seem bothered. “No one asked you to come.”
“And yet, how like me to do it anyway,” Kieran retorted, but there was a softness in his voice.
Ione wondered if Azriel was looking for a fight. As if the pent up emotions inside of him were desperate to be unleashed and he had no other alternative but to do something, anything to ease the tension inside of himself. Ione understood that feeling very well. She frequently whipped Grayson in sparring to take care of it. But to Azriel, always composed, always polite, always smiling… how did he let go? Did he let go?
“Did you honestly think that you could waltz in there alone and not put Theravada at risk?” Gale asked, his voice cutting through their staring contest, thick with his own restrained emotions. “That Celestine wouldn’t put two and two together - your anger and his actions? You would have revealed your own part in this, Azriel!”
Azriel glared, for once, looking every inch his father’s son. “Once I had the information, whatever he may have guessed wouldn’t have mattered.”
“You would have killed him,” Gale said, quietly realized, quietly disturbed.
Ione felt her skin crawl at the dead look in Azriel’s eyes.
“To protect Paragon, yes.”
“Bullshit,” Kieran snapped, a sneer twisting his lips as his hands dropped and he strode forward, nearly nose to nose with Azriel. “That wasn’t why you did it. You can claim that all you want, but you didn’t sneak off in the middle of the night because you thought it was the best for us.” One hand slashed through the air. “You did it for yourself!”.
Azriel, straightening, was taller than Kieran, but somehow, Ione’s uncle held his ground. “If I had gone alone, he would still be alive.”
Kieran twitched. “So now this is my fault?”
“I had it handled,” Azriel retorted, face flushed, breathing heavy. Hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“No offense, boss, but you don’t exactly think straight when it comes to your father,” Gale said.
A glare full of vitriol lashed at Gale, strong enough that Ione half expected a physical burn from it. “I have no father,” Azriel spat.
Ione could barely breathe, both from the sight of the argument and Azriel’s lashing aether. She backpedaled a step, hitting a chair with her legs and grabbing the back of it to keep herself upright. She didn’t know how Gale and Kieran were taking this without blinking. The chair creaked as she squeezed the back, the noise quiet but attracting attention nonetheless.
Gale’s head whipped around, eyes widening at sight of her. He took a step toward her, and then glanced over his shoulder at the argument between Azriel and Kieran, as though trapped and uncertain what to do.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said to her in a low voice, more worried than angry, chewing on his bottom lip. For the first time, she could see the blood smeared on his face, spattering the front of his clothes, the aura of death that hung around him like a dank cloud.
Ione shook her head, running a hand over her loose hair and realizing, to her embarrassment, that she was shaking. There was too much raw power, raw emotion in this room.
“I felt it. I couldn’t ignore it. What’s going on?” she demanded lowly, trying not to attract attention but desperate for answers
Gale shook his head as though he couldn’t even put it into words, mouth open to speak, but cut off when Kieran’s voice rose behind him.
“No, it isn’t!” the scientist had yelled, Ione obviously missing a part of their conversation. Around Gale, she could see Kieran jabbing a finger toward Azriel. “Because you went off alone! You confronted him alone! Like you always do, taking all the burden and leaving nothing for me or Gale.”
Gale turned. “Kieran…”
“No! This needs to be said,” Kieran hissed, and focused on Azriel again, his own body trembling as though holding back a violent response. “You're not mad he's dead. You're mad that you couldn't do it yourself. You hated him. You never said as much, but I know that you did. For what he did to you, but most of all, for what he did to your mother.”
Azriel paled, as though every secret had been dragged into the open, every emotion laid bare. “Yes I hated him,” he hissed, his voice cold and dead. “Is that what you want to hear? That I wished the apocalypse on my own father?”
Kieran, surprisingly, didn’t flinch at the coldness in Azriel’s tone. “I didn’t need to hear it to know it was the truth. But you’re not mad at me because I forced you to say it. You’re angry because I knew and did it anyway. Because I did what you’ve wanted to do for years.”
“That bastard’s death was mine and you stole it from me!” Azriel shouted, hand whipping through the air, aether lashing so strongly that Ione gasped.
Ione sunk down, legs trembling, and suddenly felt Gale’s hand on her arm, squeezing tightly. Something to ground herself with. His palms felt clammy and sweaty, and when she looked, Ione could see the strain in his face. Sweat gathering on his brow, trickling down the sides of his face. He was bearing this little better than her.
For the first time, Ione was getting a taste of the power contained within Azriel. Considering his father and his mother, it was no wonder.
Kieran looked at him, sympathy in his expression, the pain in his eyes as though he were the one breaking. “I prevented a son from killing his own father, yes. Because I couldn’t bear to see a good woman cry.”
Azriel stared for a long moment, aether lashing before his legs seemed to wobble and he sunk toward the floor, body trembling. “Everything I hate about myself, belongs to him,” he admitted, in a choked voice. “I thought…”
“You thought that if you killed him, it would free you. Destroy what you hate,” Kieran said softly, and suddenly Ione felt like an intruder. As though she was witnessing something that she shouldn’t. “But it won’t, Azriel. It only leaves a bigger hole.”
Azriel clutched his head, fingers tangling in his hair, arms concealing his face from then. “Kieran…” His voice was broken, more plea than anger.
Ione’s uncle understood all too well. The tension vanished from his shoulders, and he glanced once at Gale, eyes slipping briefly past to acknowledge Ione before returning to Gale. Silent communication passed between them, but even Ione got the picture. Now was the time to make themselves scarce. She doubted Azriel had even realized she was there, but this was personal, private, something she didn’t need to be witness to.
Gale grabbed Ione’s hand, tangling their fingers together as he pulled her quietly to the door. The last Ione saw of Kieran and Azriel, the former had approached the latter, lowering himself to the ground in front of Azriel. He was speaking softly, too quietly for Ione to hear, as he gently set his hands on the trembling Azriel.
And then Gale closed the door behind them with a quiet click, Fenris slipping out to rejoin Ione at her side. Gale took in a deep breath, and dragged his free hand over his head and hair, wiping sweat from his forehead.
“What happened?” Ione asked, piecing together some of it but still certain she didn’t know the big picture.
Shaking his head, Gale squeezed her fingers and pulled her toward their shared quarters. “It’s a long story,” he said, as she followed him. “I’m not even sure where to begin.”
“I take it this happened last night?”
“Yes.” Gale worked his jaw as he opened the door and ushered them all inside. The insane press of aether was beginning to fade from the atmosphere, finally giving Ione reign to draw a clear, unhindered breath. “Azriel went to Grayshire. To confront his father.”
Ione already knew this was a story destined to not end well. “He didn’t agree with Paragon’s decision to leave Commander Celestine alone.”
“It’s complicated,” Gale said, in a frustrated tone, and released her hand in order to start stripping out of his soiled garments, dropping them down carelessly. “But yes, he didn’t agree and decided to do it by himself. Kieran knows Azriel better than any of us. He suspected something like this might happen. So we followed him. Things… got ugly.”
Gale stood there, clad in only his knickers, and his shoulders slumped. “There was an… altercation. Kieran killed Asher.” He paused, gripping his elbow and staring blankly at the far wall. “We had to fight our way out, through Celestine’s guard. If Azriel hadn’t been wearing his mask, he would have been recognized. As it is, I know they identified Kieran and myself.”
Ione didn’t like the look in Gale’s eyes - mixed helplessness and anger and regret. As if he blamed himself for Azriel’s pain and the corner Azriel had been driven into.
She crossed the floor, moving in front of Gale so that he had to look at her and not the emptiness of the wall. One hand lifted, cupping Gale’s cheek. He felt abnormally chilled.
“Were you hurt?”
Gale shook his head. “No.” A perfunctory answer that was uncharacteristic for him.
Ione pushed away a frown; she didn’t want Gale to get the wrong impression. “I don’t think anything you could have swayed would have stopped Azriel. I get the feeling this sort of confrontation was a long time coming.”
“The consequences of this are not going to be good,” Gale said with a sigh.
“That’s inevitable.” Ione’s fingers pressed against his cheek, tilting his head toward her. “Theravada may have started this war, but Grayshire is choosing to attack those who have nothing to do with it. In many ways, this might have been for the best.”
Gale snorted. “Somehow, I don’t think the villagers will agree with you.”
Ione decided it was in her best interest not to press the issue. Gale was going to carry guilt for this no matter what she believed. Instead, she chose to chase away that look on his face the only way she knew how.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” Ione said, shifting the focus of their conversation. “Quetz was so frantic and all I could feel was Azriel’s aether. I didn’t know what to think.”
“For a minute there, I didn’t either,” Gale admitted. “I was half-afraid he was going to attack me or Kieran. You shouldn’t have had to see that.”
“I’m a part of this now, remember? I’d rather not be kept in the dark if you don’t mind.”
Gale huffed. “Some things are better left buried.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Ione slid her hand to his neck, smoothing her thumb gently over his throat where she could feel his heartbeat against her palm.
She closed the distance between them, sealing their mouths together with a kiss. It had only been less than a day since their argument, but it felt like longer. A feeling compounded by the worry that had nearly paralyzed Ione. She had gotten a mere taste of what Gale must have felt when she had been poisoned. It was something she hoped to never experience again.
Gale returned the slow, languid kiss. Ione was relieved he wasn’t rejecting her embrace.
“I’m still mad at you,” Gale mumbled, a puff of breath across her lips.
Ione smiled lightly. “I know,” she said, and kissed him again, letting the taste of him roll through her senses, the feel of his aether sliding gently against hers. Her arms slid around him, their bodies pressing together in all the right places. “Come to bed?”
“Now’s not exactly the best time…”
She rolled her eyes, tapping her fingers against the base of his spine. “Do you think I only ever have sex on the brain?” Ione retorted with a small laugh. “You’ve been up all night and I slept on a rug and a tiger. Which was comfortable all things considered, but nothing like my own bed, sheets, and a pillow.”
Gale blinked. “A tiger?”
Nudging out of the embrace, Ione grabbed Gale’s arm and pulled him to the bed, all but shoving him atop it. “Orion was kind enough to share some body heat,” Ione clarified as Gale moved around on the mattress to make himself comfortable. Ione tugged off her own garments, until she was dressed in only her underclothes, never one to sleep fully dressed. She preferred nude, but at the moment, it might send the wrong message.
“He also told me stories,” Ione added as she crawled into bed next to Gale, not surprised when he reached out and dragged her closer. He was a cuddler of epic proportions. “About Varos and the old days.”
“He never tells me those stories,” Gale murmured sleepily, warm puffs of air against her skin as his hair tickled under her chin.
Gale still smelled strongly of smoke, with a bitter addition of blood and death, but it was a scent Ione had grown all too familiar with. It didn’t even bother her anymore. And especially not when he had pressed his face into her throat, arm thrown over her midsection as though trying to merge their bodies together.
Azriel was like a father to him. Seeing Azriel like that tonight had to have thrown Gale off his world’s axis. Ione understood that. Which was why she would lay here and be his human pillow, even if she preferred a little distance in her sleep and would only get embarrassingly hot during the night - Gale blazed like a hearth in his sleep.
“You don’t have my charm,” Ione teased, but Gale didn’t respond.
She glanced down and found his eyes closed, his body laxing in the pull of sleep. Tension drained from his body and Ione gave a little huff of amusement. He really was tired. She could see the lines in his face, the worry wrinkles and such, as they eased out.
Ione stroked fingers over his hair, smoothing it out of his face, remarking at how much he looked like a child. Just a kid really. Even if he was older than her and more experienced in some things. Even if he could stand head to head against the most vicious of political opponents. Sometimes, Ione marveled at how young he could seem and look.
No wonder Malcolm had teased her mercilessly after she told him about her relationship with Gale, who was such the opposite of what usually interested Ione. Even now, she couldn’t really explain it, except to say that she liked Gale. He made her laugh; he kept her guessing. He was strong, and yet strangely vulnerable on occasion.
The mattress shifted as Fenris leapt on to the end of it, curling at her and Gale’s feet like some kind of cat or small dog. Thank goodness she and Gale had long switched out Gale’s bed for something large enough to accommodate the two of them and their occasional visitors.
“Lonely?” Ione asked softly.
Fenris looked at her, yellow eyes gleaming in the soft light of the morning. By the gods, it was still only morning!
“Take care of him, Ione,” Fenris said, a strange note in his voice. As though he knew something she didn’t. “He needs it.”
She closed her eyes, letting her head rest back on the pillow. “Che. Anyone with eyes can see that,” she responded, and released a slow breath. She wasn’t really tired but quiet moments like this were rare; Ione was going to soak up the rest as long as she could.
An odd feeling danced at her spine, an unusual stirring in the air, as though something was coming. Something she’d have no choice but to face.
Ione didn’t look forward to that at all.
* * *
a/n: Browsing back through this, I'm keenly aware of both how old the writing and how desperately it needs to be redrafted. *winces*
Well, nothing to it. I'll just get this first draft out, hope you guys enjoy it a bit, and then spit and polish it up later. With that in mind, feel free to comment on anything and everything you feel needs work. I won't mind one bit. It will help me a great deal.
This entry was originally posted at http://dracoqueen22.dreamwidth.org/190113.html. Feel free to comment wherever you find most convenient.