Tempered by the Will

7 - Private

 "So is it safe now?"

The man looked up at Vica's sharp tone, and she held his surprised gaze from across the small space between them in the gondola's interior. He was sitting with Constantine in the front and facing the rear, where she and Bren sat facing forward as the boat bore them down the wide canal toward their destination.

"Reasonably," he replied. "We're in what we call the West Estates, it's more private than -"

"Then we can start with introductions. I'm Vica, the person you hired him to abduct," she said, and she jerked her chin in Constantine's direction although she didn't take her eyes off the unknown mage's face. "If you're trying to make nice with me after everything he and you put me through, you can start with a name. And then other things."

She didn't care how hostile she sounded. She had every right to be. She would have done the same to Constantine when they had first "met" if she hadn't been so afraid that he would m**m her in return. In fact, now she had to wonder why she had let herself forgive him for all that so quickly. In her right mind, if she hadn't been seduced by good looks and a criminally smooth demeanor, and if it weren't for his anti-magic, she would have launched him into the sky and let him leave a crater in the earth when he landed.

Clearly, they weren't a match for each other after all, and she wouldn't bow to his authority the way she'd done when he'd first captured her. They were supposed to be, at bare minimum, friends and allies now. But him and his games, she wouldn't and didn't have time to entertain them. If he wanted to toy with her feelings by provoking her and playing the part of the enemy all over again as if nothing had happened between them, then she was closing them off to him from now on.

She shot him a glare at the thought, simmering with anger. No, she wouldn't close off every feeling. She'd leave the ones he deserved, like anger. And resentment.

He stared back at her with one leg pulled up on the bench. He said nothing, yellow eyes staring out at her from under the hood that he hadn't removed. But strangely enough, instead of the smirk that she had been expecting him to respond with, his face looked tight. Almost unhappy, even, but that wasn't possible. He'd made it clear all this past week that nothing she said would get through to him.

But he was a master manipulator, so maybe that was just a facade, too. Nonetheless, the swell of her abrupt anger dissipated and ended in a twisting, uncomfortable knot in her gut.

"...I'm Felix of House Aventine, " the man said after a moment, his green eyes still darting between the two of them. His words were slow and measured as if he were trying to soothe a spooked horse. "I'm aware you have reservations about me, and that's more than fair. So while I know my promise that you are safe with me carries little weight right now, I hope you give me the chance to make good on it and prove my integrity in time."

Wow. This man spoke with far more eloquence than she would ever be able to muster up in her life. But of course. In a place like this, he would have learned his letters and numbers the way all the other fancy fobs did. She couldn't let that cow her.

"In time," she repeated. "Well, I hope it's sooner rather than later. I'm looking forward to finding out what you intend to do with me. Right now would be nice."

"Maybe some context first so that -"

"No context," she said swiftly. "Tell me first. Then give me your stories and explanations. I'm tired of having my mind changed over and over again. Let me make up my own."

A twinge of guilt tickled at her when she saw Felix's shoulders drop in a disappointed motion. But she had to remind herself that this was not a good man. Maybe a nice one, a good looking one, with those soft brown locks and lovely green eyes, but he was someone who abducted strangers for his own ends. Remember, she told herself in a stern command. She had to stay on her guard no matter how alluring his excuses might be.

"We need you," he said with a sigh. "I'm one of the heads of the Resistance, the faction that's within the walls, at least. We're rising against the Capital before the Order begins its Holy March, which could be as soon as a year from now. We need - help. Lots of it."

"And you came to me?"

"I was led to you."

Vica stared. Blinked. What?

"What do you mean, led to me? By what?"

"By my grandfather. He used the last spark of his Charter to send a message, but it was so weak that all I could glean from it was a vision. Not whole visions, just pieces, really. But they led me to you eventually, and I had to find a way to chase you down once I guessed that the rogue mage making waves in the countryside might be you. It was no guarantee, but I have no doubt about it after I heard what you did not two weeks ago." Felix smiled at her, and for the first time, she saw something like a relieved, pained weariness in his young face. It didn't suit him. "No doubt about it," he said again. "Almost three years of searching -"

Grandfather, he had said. Three years. That was about the time that she had left home. Three years...since...

"Philio," she said in a quiet voice, and despite everything that had happened to her since then - everything that she had happened to, all the ways that she had changed and grown and discovered about herself - even speaking the name aloud sent a pang of sharp, bitter pain through her chest. She couldn't breathe for a moment.

...I will cull the evil out of you, no matter if it kills both of us...

"Yes, he was my grandfather. I'm surprised he used his real name. He did his best to hide for decades and succeeded, but maybe he felt safe enough to use it again when he settled down far away enough from the Capital."

"He never mentioned family. Or anything, actually." She was surprised that her voice was coming out as steady and calm as it did. Her throat felt like it was quivering with every word. Next to Felix, she saw Constantine tilt his head at her as if he'd noticed, but she ignored him and kept her eyes fixed on their host instead. He'd better not say anything, she thought in a fierce rush. He'd better not -

"He wouldn't have," the man said with a wry chuckle. "He probably died still ashamed of everything I was. I'm still surprised he reached out to me, but then again, there aren't many he thought he could trust. I'm sure he only thought to reach out to me with the greatest regret and the small hope that I would want to redeem myself in his eyes, even after his death."

She let his words distract him from her growing discomfort. Focus. She was here to learn.

"You said you're of the House Aventine. So, are you nobility then? Does that mean Philio..."

"Yes. He was the Head of the House before his timely escape from here. When they came to collect his head and found that he had already gone, they changed his sentence from execution to exile to save face. And then the Duchy was passed down to me."

"You're a duke!" she exclaimed. "Wait - Philio was a duke -?"

"Yes, though the title doesn't mean much anymore. We're all slaves to the Order's whims regardless of the strain of royal blood we carry."

She was confused, almost dizzy with the stream of revelations unraveling in her mind. Philio, the wandering old mage who had taken her under his sharp, unkind, yet unforgettable wing, a duke from the Capital. An exile, no less. And this man was his grandson...?

"I've never seen any Mark on him," she objected. For some reason, she found herself desperate to disprove it all. It was a mistake, it had to be. "I never even knew what a Charter was until someone told me about it just weeks ago. We lived in the same house for years -"

"It takes a particular training to see their brand on the flesh, if the Mark isn't summoned and made visible to unmagicked eyes. And...I doubt he would have taught you how to use the Sight. I sensed a particular apprehension concerning you when he passed the vision to me."

Apprehension. What a nice way to put it. The corner of her mouth twitched, but she couldn't make herself give him a dry smile the way she wanted to; no degree of self-deprecating humor felt possible right now. She hadn't been prepared for a conversation like this about the one man who would haunt her to the end of her days, whose doomsday promises had shaped her mind for years and years into little more than a walking mass of guilt and shame.

And yet she'd loved him. She had craved his approval more than she'd wanted it even from her own parents, and she had never gotten it.

"Yeah," she muttered after a moment. "I'm familiar."

"His original intent was to find someone who could control you."

Her gaze, which had fallen to the bottom of the gondola, darted back up to meet the dark green gaze that looked at her with - sympathy? She wanted to recoil from it and go on the defensive, hackles raised, but...he'd mentioned something about redeeming himself in Philio's eyes. Sounded like he had suffered the blunt end of the old man's disappointment too. Maybe he understood it far better than she wanted anyone to, and...maybe it was a little comfort, even if she didn't want it to be.

"Control me," she repeated. "Is that why you sent Constantine?"

"No. No, he wanted me to come to you instead. I think his intention was to convince me that I needed to follow in his footsteps, abandon the Capital, and come to continue his work concerning you."

"When did he send this...message, or vision, or whatever it was?" She still didn't know how the mysterious Charter spells worked, but now wasn't the time to ask about them. She wanted to get the real answers first. "Why didn't he ever mention it to me? He could have told me to stay in the village, and I would never have left if that's what he wanted."

Right. There had to be something he wasn't telling her. She would have waited to the bitter end if that was what his dying wish was.

"It came in the spring. I can't be sure why he didn't tell you, but perhaps a part of him knew that I was never going to leave. I have duties here, responsibilities that I can't abandon."

"He thought I was going to destroy the world," she told him. "You weren't going to do as he asked even to save it?"

He smiled again. "I don't put much stock in myths and legends. That was what got him exiled in the first place, and the Resistance suffered for it. Set us back decades. It's been over twenty years, and we still have yet to recover fully from his loss."

"So you sent Constantine to bring me to you instead."

"Once I heard about the rogue mage and all the incredible things they were doing, I had to hope that it was you, yes. But whereas my grandfather thought you needed to be caged and leashed, I knew that I had to ask you for your help. You're not like the others. The rest - most bush mages dream of striking it rich in the Capital, but you were out there helping the people instead. You're more interested in what you can do for others than the other way around. I've been looking for that. We all have."

"So...you're Chartered, but you're not part of the Order? You're with the Resistance? How does that work? I thought there were pact spells involved to ensure loyalty."

"Ah. That's something I can do due to my...individual nature. I think it might only complicate things to explain it now, but when I've familiarized you with the essential information, I'd be happy to give you those answers."

She knew a polite dismissal when she heard one. Bush mage, he'd called her. She wondered if that was some sort of disparaging term in a place like this, a name for all the ignorant and unlearned magic users here who stared wide-eyed at the splendors of peak civilization around them. Bush mage, that was what she was. A bush mage whose little head would explode if she tried to understand too many awful, complex things.

"...Fine. But I didn't come here to help your Resistance. If you are who you say you are, then I think that's admirable, but I came here to see what I can do first. Alone."

"The Order is dangerous. I know you're powerful, but this is the seat of the nation, and tandem magic can overpower any single mage. If you expose yourself -"

"Then help me," she said. "You know, 'familiarize' me with your system and the city and how things work. You have time, don't you? You said the Capital won't march on the land for another year."

He shook his head, frown deepening with every word she said. "Please, time is of the essence even if you think that's still a long way off. We're unprepared and we don't have the numbers -"

"If I can do something to fix the problem without bloodshed - which, I've met others in the Resistance, and they're not the peacekeeping type - then I'm going to try it my way first. I heard that power's everything here. That if you rise to the top, you control everything else. Maybe..."

"You won't be able to do that," he objected. "You're unblooded."

"What's that?"

"A mage with no discernible pedigree. There are a few open-minded ones who -"

"Listen. I don't care about pedigrees. Not to boast, but I overpowered dozens of the Capital's battle mages that were sent out with the army just over a week ago. I'm not afraid of old men who think their grandfathers shat gold."

At her coarse, blunt words, a stunned silence fell over the gondola, broken only by the lapping of gentle waves against the boat. It lasted for a long moment.

"So how far are we from...wherever we're going?" asked Vica. She crossed one leg over the other and waited for a response. Next to Felix, she saw Constantine turn his head away with a small, almost inaudible snort.

Amused? Was he laughing at her or was he laughing at what she'd said? She hated that she found herself wondering a little too hard about the answer.

"My estate," Felix answered in a resigned tone. "We'll be passing through the wards of my Duchy soon, and then we'll truly be safe. My domain is secure."

"Great." She turned to glance at Bren, who had remained so silent all this time that she had nearly forgotten he was sitting right beside her. "Are you alright?"

The half-elf nodded, but - there was something unhappy on his face, an expression she had never seen before. Sadness? Nervousness? He almost looked like he was afraid - what was it that he was afraid of?

"I'm fine," he said. "Thank you."

Without another word, he turned his head to stare blankly off at the sloping, verdant hills as if he were looking into another time.