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“Of course, I’m rolling my eyes!” I yell at him.
He nods but I can tell he’s still holding to his story. “Didn’t you believe it was him the first time you saw him?”
That is true. I don’t say anything though.
“The two of us look alike enough to make the error, but I was there that day, as well,” Balor continues. “I wanted to stop him, but I arrived too late. By the time I did, only you were left. I did what I could.”
He leaves the statement hanging and I complete it. “Yousaved me?”
Balor shrugs. “Maybe. Derith had already bitten you by the time I arrived.” He glances down to my hand which now hangs by my side. “I see the scar still on your wrist.” Then he looks up at me again. “Whether or not he would have gone any further… I do not know.”
“Why wouldn’t he have killed me?” I ask, not believing his story although… it’s not impossible, I suppose. The truth is that I don’t really know Derith well—not well enough to insist that he’s innocent. I find myself taking Balor’s words more seriously than I thought I would and all the while, the question of how he knows I’m the same child from all those years ago plays through my head. He must have spies among his monster hordes who patrol the forests and they’ve simply informed him of Derith’s and my hunt.
“By biting you, he may have hoped to exercise some control over you,” Balor continues. “This is a gift of our kind. I’m certain you saw the servants whom Derith ‘employs’?”
“Yes.”
He nods. “He would like you to believe they have free will, but they are all in his sway.”
“Like your monsters?” I suggest.
“Perhaps I deserve that,” nods Balor. “I have brought forth creatures that can only be called monsters, and I must confess that they have done harm in the area. I thought I could control them better than I have been able to.”
“Then why summon them at all?!”
Balor slumps. “Perhaps because I am a coward.” I scoff at that. He looks at me and gives me a sad smile. “My brother is trying to kill me. You know this; he enlisted you to help. I cannot harm him—no mortal can… except for you.”
“How do you know that?” I insist.
“I have been watching the forest surrounding Castle Baravia for a very long time. There isn’t much of anything that goes on there that I do not know.” Then he clears his throat and returns to his previous line of conversation. “As to my monsters… what other way did I have to defend myself from my brother’s attacks? I shrank down here into the lowest, most feared place in the land in an attempt to hide from him, but still he comes for me. Only my monsters stand between me and him. I regret those whom they have harmed, but I shall ask you again: what choice did I have?”
He might make a pretty compelling case, but I well remember the witch’s vision.
“Your story is all very nice and well, but I can’t seem to forget the part where you were the one who killed him, and the one who drove Suisse to her death.”
Balor actually appears shocked then, even pained. “That’s what he told you, is it?” he asks on a sigh and then turns to face the opposite direction, as though he’s lost in his own thoughts. After another second or so, he turns back to me. “Well… I suppose there’s just enough truth in that story to pass muster, but it ignores a few very important facts.”
“Does it?”
He nods. “You know who you are, I assume?”
“I am Jo Delevigne,” I say, sharply and proudly.
“Of course, forgive me,” he continues on a little smile. “What I meant was that you are aware of theotherside of your nature.”
“Apparently I am the reincarnation of Suisse.”
Balor shrugs. “I suppose Derith had no reason to lie to you about that. And you have learned some of that history? Untainted by Derith’s lies?”
I nod. What the witch had shown me had come from my own mind, from the memories of Suisse that lay dormant within me. And who would know what had happened better than she did?
Balor goes on. “Unimpeachable testimony, so of course you do not question it. But Derith’s influence is in you, Jo. He may not be able to alter your memories—Suisse’smemories—but he can limit your perception.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that Ididfind my wife and my brother together, but it was certainly not a ‘love affair’ as you might have been led to believe.”
“Then?”
