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He came back in and slammed the door, in another uncharacteristic gesture. And then just stood there for a moment, breathing hard. He didn’t need the air, but there were times when emotion took over, making demands that the body didn’t require, but that the mind did. His power was also flinging about all over the place, a tendril knocking a vase off a mantle, another sending papers scattering in the office across the hall, like doves taking flight.
Finally, he looked at me.
“You are going to take care of her.”
“Yes.”
“It is your life, too. If she dies—”
“She won’t. All will be well.”
“Nothing will be well after today! But she will live. Swear it to me!”
He was suddenly in front of me, gripping my upper arms hard enough that Dory would have bruises the next day. I would need to come up with a story for those, I thought. Something for the men to tell her—
Mircea shook me.
I looked up at him solemnly. “I swear it.”
He let me go.
The men outside were beginning to shift slightly around the fleet of gondolas bobbing at the quay, there to take us out to the large galley in the harbor. I was already dressed in the plain blue dress and brown cloak I was to use for traveling. By the door, a crossbody bag in sturdy woolen cloth, waxed to keep out the weather, waited with a change of clothing and some money.
Upstairs, the great trunks packed with the finest of linens, with silks and velvets and costly brocades, were closed, unneeded, unused. They would only serve to mark us for attention in our new life. They and the jewel casks and the artists supplies, a whole room full of the latter, with scattered easels and half-finished works, would remain behind.
Horatiu told me, much later, that Mircea burnt it all. That he couldn’t bear to look at it. That he had retreated into his chamber afterwards and had not come out for weeks, not feeding, not speaking to anyone. Not even Radu, who Mircea had sent away on an errand yesterday, not wanting anyone around who might interfere, who might talk him out of this.
I had not known that, then, but it is what I would have expected, looking into his face as his hands settled on either side of my temples.
It was time.
I stayed very still; this was a difficult task he had set for himself. Not only to erase a lifetime’s worth of memories, but to rebuild new ones in their place. There would be gaps, even large ones. There was no way to avoid that. But dhampirs were said to be mad, and it was hoped that she would blame it on that.
But it would be hard and she would be alone, which was probably why Mircea’s hands shook at first against my skin. But then his eyes flashed gold, and the Basarab strength boiled to the surface. It had allowed him to claw his way out of his own grave one; had spurred him to flee his homeland, his wife, and everyone he knew, lest he hurt them; had let him start over in a dangerous new world that he had already started to conquer.
Yet I saw the thought in his mind before he could hide it: what did it matter anymore, when he had done it all for her?
And then there was silence, and a blinding whiteness, and the sensation of falling.
And it was done.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dorina, Faerie
“I’m gonna need another drink,” Ray said, and took back the canteen.
I let him have it. I had the impression that I had had enough in any case. My tongue felt numb and the rock underneath me had started to feel oddly floaty, as if it was rising and falling along with the waves.
Yet I felt good, too, and strangely lighter for having finally told someone my story. I had never given Dory most of the details that Ray now knew. I wasn’t sure why; perhaps because it seemed like a burden that she shouldn’t have to bear. Ray blamed Mircea; Dory had a tendency to blame herself. In reality, it wasn’t anyone’s fault.
It simply was.
Mircea could have let the dhampir nature rip our minds apart, and we would both be dead now. Or, he could have done what he did, and saved us. It was all he knew how to do; I could not fault him for that. I did fault him for not releasing me later, once Dory and I were both adults and the reason for the fits had passed. But if he really believed me to be a malevolent spirit . . .
Would I have taken that chance, in his place?
I honestly did not know.
