"You will sit and listen to me," she said. My eyes widened at the thread of steel in her voice that I"d never heard. "I need to show you something."
I opened my mouth-I don"t even know what I was going to say-but in the next moment River put her hand on my face, her fingers outspread. She muttered something and drew some sigils on me with her free hand.
And in a few moments, I began to see... a scene. It wasn"t like before, where I felt I was actually there and could smell things and feel the air on my face. This was shallower-more like watching a movie. The edges were blurry, and if I looked at something too long, it faded.
Once again I saw River in her youth, black-haired and beautiful with a hard smile and eyes the color of a rock in an icy stream. I saw the two men I"d seen at the slave auction, her brothers, and there were two more men there. I say men, but they all looked very young, in their late teens or early twenties. The family resemblance told me these were her other two brothers. The guys had goofy haircuts and wore clothing styles that had been ancient by the time I was born.
I was aware of River next to me, now singing softly under her breath.
The younger River and her brothers were in a small, dark room with walls of blackened wood. They were on a boat. A single candle flickered on the table between them.
"So it"s decided, then?" one brother asked. I could understand his speech, though he must have been speaking Middle Italian.
"Yes," said Diavola. "When they"re on the road to Savona, in the woods, two hours" ride from here-there." Her long, slim finger pointed to a place on a parchment map. "We can ambush them."
"Who will actually do it?" one of the younger brothers asked.
The oldest-looking brother (a small distinction) said, "We must all do it. Diavola will set the flare and startle the horses. Mazzo, you will dispatch the driver and the two outriders. Outriders first, then driver. Michele, you take the two hind-riders. Then we"ll all converge on the carriage and-" He clasped his hands together and swung his arms in a fast arc, right to left, as though holding a sword.
I understood. They were planning to kill someone. A handful of people.
The youngest brother, Michele, nodded slowly. "It"s a good plan. Then the five of us will rule together, like the five fingers on one hand."
It hit me: Diavola and her brothers were plotting to kill their parents and seize their power. Their own parents.
I was speechless at this realization, and then I saw Diavola and the oldest brother, Benedetto, exchange a glance. In an instant, it was all clear to me: Diavola and Benedetto had another plan, a secret one. The two of them would then kill the three younger brothers. So that the family power would be divided by only two, instead of five.
This was so painful to me, seeing it. The five immortals of the Genoa house reminded me of the five of us from the Icelandic house. I"d wondered how my brothers and sisters and I would have grown up, if we would have turned on one another like vipers. Here it was already being played out.
So inherited darkness did consume a person, in the end. In the end, there was no escape, and the darkness would have consequences that you would never be able to live down. To live with. To forgive.
My breath was coming fast and shallow-I wanted to leave this scene. I didn"t want to see any more of River"s horrible fall.
River sensed my feelings and slowly drew us out of the half spell, the vision.
When our heads had cleared and we were firmly in reality again, I stared at River, trying to see a trace of cruelty in her sad and haunted expression.
I cleared my throat, the sound loud and startling in the quiet of my room. "You... killed your parents?" Please deny it.
My heart fell as River nodded, an ancient anguish on her face. "Yes." One side of her mouth rose in a bitter smile. "A thousand years of therapy isn"t enough."
"And you and Benedetto killed your other brothers?" Wait-I remembered her saying that she has four brothers. Still has. Not had.
"No, thank the G.o.ddess," said River. She drew in a deep breath and let it out, as if releasing pain and memory. "Amazingly, we didn"t. It didn"t happen that-same night. Like it was supposed to. And before we had another opportunity, I was... saved." Her eyes met mine, and a little of the pain had lessened, eased by the remembrance of who she was now, today. Not a thousand years ago.
"Saved? So... you accepted the Lord as your savior?"
"There"s more than one way of being saved." Her voice sounded more like herself. She straightened her shoulders and seemed familiar again, only the barest, faintest shadow of Diavola in her eyes. "A teacher came. And if you think you were resistant-well. I was much more so. But she broke through. At last. She saved me. Set me on the path toward light. Taught me all about... choices. And slowly, I convinced my brothers." She looked up. "And now I"m teaching you and others. Sometimes I think that maybe this helps with the karma of... killing our parents. And then, maybe someday you"ll be teaching someone else and sharing your own story."
I snorted reflexively, then winced with pain.
"And you"re friends with your brothers today?" I asked.
"More than friends. They"re my brothers. We share the same blood, the same history."
"And they"ve forgiven you, for wanting to kill them?" Or maybe they didn"t know.
River smiled wryly. "They still throw it in my face at holidays."
I didn"t see how she could be so... normal today. After all she had been.
"Most of us start in darkness," she said, echoing her earlier words. "Some of us raise darkness to an art. I"m trying to help people who don"t want to be dark. One person at a time. Right now, it"s your turn."
I didn"t know what to say.
River stood gracefully, as if she hadn"t just stunned me with her revelation. "Why don"t you rest some more? Then come down to dinner?"
I nodded slowly, and she left my room. I drew my knees to my chest again and carefully rested my bruised cheek on one knee. Too much to take in.
CHAPTER 15.
Have you ever been making something in a blender and you have just a little extra and you don"t want to waste it, so you go ahead and put it in, and then when you start the blender it totally spews out from beneath the lid?
That"s how my brain felt. For most of my life, I"d had maybe one or two new ideas or concepts introduced to me a year. Like electricity. That was a big year. In the last two months, there had been several huge, earth-shattering, sanity-testing revelations every day. Now it was all leaking out through my ears. Metaphorically.
The dinner bell rang. I sighed, tucked my scarf around my neck, and headed out my door.
Reyn was just coming out of his room two doors down. I started to force myself to smile, to not act like a paranoid loser, but my smile froze in place as Amy, laughing, came out of Reyn"s room also.
"And you just left him there?" she said to him.
Reyn nodded, looking younger and lighter than he usually did. "For a day and a half."
Amy laughed again, leaning against him.
Then they saw me.
Here"s an example of how I was rocketing toward maturity: I went ahead and forced the smile. It probably looked like a pained grimace, but it was the best I could do.
Amy immediately came up to me, genuine concern on her face. "I heard what happened," she said. "I"m so sorry! But Anne fixed you up, didn"t she?"
"Yes." I had peeled off the nose tape, slowly and painfully. But I still looked distinctly racc.o.o.nish.
Amy leaned her head toward mine conspiratorially. "Did she make you drink tea?" Her eyes were full of warmth and humor, and I couldn"t help liking her. It wasn"t her fault that Reyn and I had a horrible, confusing history and that I was a complete moron emotionally.
"Yes."
"I know," Amy said. "It"s, like, enough with the tea. Tea does not actually fix everything."
I really did smile this time.
"Are you feeling better?" Reyn asked politely. He"d already seen the big gorefest of my face, so it wasn"t a surprise.
Such a relative term, better. I shook my head. "I just don"t even know."
Reyn opened his mouth as if to say something else, but then we were at the top of the stairs and were joined by Charles and Jess. Jess made no comment on my appearance, but Charles nodded. "That"s a good look for you."
I punched him lightly on the arm, and he grinned. It struck me: These people were nice. Nicer than most people I had known. I was the one instrument that was out of key in this little orchestra.
In the dining room, Anne bustled through the kitchen door, her oven-mitted hands carrying a large enameled stew pot. She set it heavily on the table and turned to me, examining my face. "It already looks better." She stepped back and smiled. "d.a.m.n, I"m good."
"It was the tea," Amy said solemnly, and Reyn grinned. For a moment there was a glowy warmth in the room-his face was so transformed when he smiled, when his eyes lit up.
Soon we were all seated, pa.s.sing bowls of stew and baskets of bread and serving spoons. I felt self-conscious-everyone must have known about my accident-and when I caught sight of myself in the large gilded mirror on the wall, I recoiled, surprised at how ugly I looked, how unlike myself. I had felt out of place before all this. Now I felt like a neon sign blinking glaringly in a soft desert night.
I was taking a piece of bread when movement caught my eye. I dropped it quickly: There were maggots on it, in it. Live maggots, writhing through the bread.
Brynne shrieked and dropped her bread, too. "Look at the bread!" she cried.
"What in the world-" River began.
"I made that bread today!" Rachel said.
Charles had just eaten some stew, and now his eyes widened. He leaped back off his bench and ran to the kitchen. We could hear him spitting it out into the sink.
"Taste the stew," Asher said quietly to Solis. "Just a tiny bit."
Solis barely dipped his spoon in and then licked it cautiously. His face screwed up and he put the spoon down. "Um..."
Standing quickly, Anne stuck a finger into her bowl and tasted it. She spit it right back into her bowl-no niceties of running to the kitchen to spare us. She looked shocked. "That stew was perfect five minutes ago in the kitchen," she said.
"I tasted it," Rachel agreed. "It was delicious."
"Now it tastes like we used carrion. Toxic." Anne sat down limply.
"And the bread," River said. Her face was solemn. "When did you make it, Rachel?"
Reyn had gotten to his feet and was gathering up all the maggoty bread. When he had all of it, he pushed through the kitchen door, and then we heard the slam of the back door.
"I made it this afternoon," said Rachel. "Just a while ago. That"s why it"s still warm."
"And you didn"t use the maggot recipe," said Solis, making a weak joke without smiling.
"No," said Rachel. She and Anne looked stunned.
I was as freaked out as the rest of them, but then it finally hit me: my darkness. I had done this. The food had been perfect until I had come downstairs.
"Oh my G.o.d-it"s me," I muttered.
Next to me, Jess said, "What?"
I glanced around the table, already pushing off my bench. "It"s me. I did this. I made the accident happen. I made the library explode. I"m making all the bad stuff happen."
"What are you-" Asher started, but I interrupted.
"On New Year"s Eve, I tried to cast off my own darkness," I admitted, getting more and more upset. "But I just released it. Don"t you see? It"s me! I"m the cause of all this! It"s me!"
"Nastasya," said Solis, "I don"t think-"
"I can"t stay here!" I cried, and fled the dining room. I ran up the stairs as if the devil we didn"t believe in was chasing me. I was ashamed of my past, my stupidity, how much I had resisted knowing for so long. Horrified about my parents, whom I had loved so much, and my heritage. If I"d thought reflecting on my life was painful before, now it seemed like searing, burning pain, the raw agony of acid thrown on my brain.
When I"d left here before, I had needed to stay but hadn"t wanted to stay. Now I both needed and wanted to stay. But obviously I was bringing destruction down on everything and everyone here. After a lifetime of running, my past was catching up to me.
I burst through the door to my room, feeling like my head was going to split open in huge shards. Inside I looked around wildly, no idea what to do. Now that I knew about my own darkness, there was no way to unknow it-and this knowledge was going to make me crazy.
I turned at a sound and saw that River had followed me into my room. She took my arm.
"Nastasya, listen to me!" she said strongly. "You should-"
"I should-what?" I was aware of a hysterical unraveling happening in my psyche. I thought of everything River didn"t know about me. Including-"Oh G.o.d!" I put my hand to my mouth, then dropped to my knees and squirmed under my bed.
"What are you doing?" River said.
I pried open the molding and shoved my hand in, then wriggled it back out, holding the knotted scarf. I"d never, ever shown anyone else my mother"s amulet. I quickly untied the scarf, then practically threw the heavy gold object at River. "Here! You take it! It"s dark-evil! I can"t have it anymore." I was wild-eyed and breathing hard. Part of me felt like a bystander, watching this scene play out but unable to stop or affect it.
River caught it, then slowly uncurled her hands and looked at my amulet, broken and without a stone. Her eyes widened. Weirdly fast, she went over and shut my door, tracing her fingers along the doorjamb so no one could open it from the outside.
"What is this?" Her voice was hushed.
"You know what it is," I said shakily.
She stared at me, astonished, and then examined it again. Her long fingers slowly traced the ancient runes and other markings on it. "The tarak-sin of the House of lfur. I can"t-it"s... very beautiful," she said, sounding odd, then tried to hand it back to me.
"I don"t need it," I said bitterly. "I carry it with me always." I whipped my scarf away, turned, and held my hair off my neck. Another first: willingly showing my scar to someone else.
River actually gasped. "Oh, Nas," she breathed. "How-"
"It was burned on there. By accident," I bit out. "So you keep that one. Away from me."
"It"s broken," River said, turning it over in her hand. It seemed to glow with a golden warmth, as if coming alive in the presence of a strong immortal.
"There were two halves. And a moonstone." I swiped my hand across my eyes. "You have to destroy it-it"s evil. It"s brought evil here." I chocked. "It brought me here."