Xilanada - Descending Dark Of Past And Future/Part 10

A sibilant chiming tugged at Ava’s ear. She frowned and dog-eared the page of the text she was reading. It was a new edition so it would hardly matter that she had. The unusual noise was more important at the moment.

She crept from her chair and set the book down between several potted plants on a table as she passed by. Her quarters were spacious, owing to her long tenure here (only six years really) and her unquestionable authority in her chief subject area; dealing with the dead. One wouldn't know it to look at the place. She'd spent years bringing all sorts of exotic plants in here and the place looked more like a jungle than a room.

The chiming whistled between the leaves. Now that she thought about it, the noise might be a ward-response though it didn’t sound like any of the usual ward-sounds she built. Where was that coming from?

Ava moved to her door, tugged the belt that held her robe close tighter, and started as someone knocked. The irritating ringing sounded again, redoubled. What was doing that? Her reading break in the day had been interrupted, that someone was disturbing her in her own bedrooms and that stupid sound was still ringing on top of it!

Annoyed, Ava cleared her throat and smoothed her face. It wouldn't do to lose her temper. If there was one thing she prided herself on, it was her composure. Ava was a disciplined woman, even if she really wanted to toss an Elemental Bolt around to convince the offender she was better off left alone. She had little enough privacy here as it was.

Ava opened the door. Tepet Ajalat Sen was standing there, looking nervous.

That’s what that sound was! Ava almost grinned in relief. What was it, five years ago that she’d set it up? A ward to alert her, a ward to repel, a ward made for only one purpose and one person. Tepet Ajalat Sen.

"Oh, it’s you," she said with as much chilly indifference as she could muster.

"Hi," he offered. Then he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He was dressed up, Ava realized, but he looked rumpled despite it. Worried too. Something had happened, enough to have shaken that usually placid, endearing exterior.

She stood there and stared at him. He got the hint.

"I need to talk. I need your help."

"Sen," she sighed, exasperated already. "By the grave goods of Celea Victus, if you wanted help, why would you come to me?"

"Because I need it. Because you’re the only one who can give it." Sen’s face grew more determined. It only made her angry. She knew she was angry because the wind was blowing her hair across her face. She didn't let a crack of feeling past the mask of her face, though. She didn't dare to.

"In five years, you have never once come to my door. I expected as much, you always were cunning. I would have thought you had enough sense to continue keeping away too but here you are." A tendril of lightning rippled off her skin and sparked off a metal necklace he wore. To his credit, he didn’t jump.

"I respected you too much," Sen answered quietly.

That was the wrong thing to say.

"Respected me too much? When did you ever respect me at all?" Lightning lashed the floor and hissed off her teeth as she snarled at him. "I loved you, you know. I was going to marry you, remember? But you couldn’t control the one passion that was so important to me! You couldn’t be faithful. If you respected me at all, you would never have done what you did to me."

"I’m sorry for breaking your heart," Sen said. He wasn’t cowed, he wasn’t angry. He wasn’t indifferent and he wasn’t cruel. He simply stood there, accepting her temper and the winds that were probably making it hard to stand straight. He stood there and endured.

"Tell me how you have any respect for me at all, Sen. Tell me how you respect me."

"I knew I hurt you," he said. Still he stood, unmoving. He really wasn’t going to go away until he’d done what he came here to do, that was obvious. Ava found a rare relishing in forcing this conversation before they had any other. Nonetheless, she kept the rage inside from her face. "I cared for you too, Ava. Never think I didn’t. But the Realm does things a different way. I’m sorry that I didn’t understand the differences between us better back then. I never had a chance to say that because I knew your anger hadn’t gone away. So I’ve left you alone all these years, out of care and respect for one of the most wonderful women I’ve ever had the honor of knowing."

"You don’t owe me a compliment," Ava said. It took a great deal of effort but the old lessons of the Funerists, the stately ritual and elegant perfection necessary to many of the rites instilled a discipline like no other. Her mind returned to those patterns and the remembered calm coated her rage again. Slowly, the winds subsided.

"I cannot mend our past, Ava," Sen said, a hint of sadness in his voice. "But someone’s future is in trouble and I need your help to save it."

"So dramatic," she said, rolling her eyes and sighing. "Come in, have a seat and get on with it. I do have a few more classes today."

"Thank you, Ava," he said, settling into a well-woven wicker chair. "It’s about Xilanada. Some students tried to murder her today."

"Xilanada?" Ava blinked at him, too surprised to say anything else. "Xilanada?" she repeated before unsticking her tongue. "Why would any of our students want to kill her?"

"That’s what I need your help with. She survived the attempt, actually she managed to kill all six of her attackers. But she’s badly injured and there’s a Guild Factor here who seems to think she’s his slave and that we tried to kill her to offend him or something and...well, it’s complicated."

"Heavens." Ava thought hard a moment, sorting out the relevant details. "This isn’t about the Guild Factor, though. You wouldn’t have come to me for help with him. It’s not likely this is about healing Xilanada either. You know my skills, Sen, but you would have asked for them at once if I was needed for that. This is about the attackers."

"Exactly," Sen nodded. Respect flashed in his eyes and she felt annoyed with herself at the half-familiar swell of satisfaction that ran through her as a result. She was so over him, after all. "Seya can probably treat her wounds but maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you visited her, to heal her or whatever pretense you’d like. She fought them and might give you details I don’t have at the moment."

"I don’t need a pretense. We’re quite good friends."

Sen’s eyebrows shot up at that. All at once, he looked a great deal more nervous and Ava couldn’t help the giggle that escaped from her. He frowned, obviously confused, and that made it harder. Then again, why did she care about his feelings?

She laughed a few seconds and recovered herself. After that, she thought to use a peculiar Charm she’d mastered back in the North. ...Yes. The weight of guilt was not heavy on Sen at the moment but she looked forward to seeing how it might change over the course of this conversation.

"Xilanada and I usually play Gateway every other night, when we have the time. Didn’t you see us sitting next to each other every day for meals?"

"I’ve been gone until recently. Business." No guilt. She knew what that meant. Malias’ work. She was privy enough to their secrets to know it was best she not learn more. "No, I didn’t know you two were friends. I'm glad you still play, though. You learned the game quickly." He looked distinctly uncomfortable as the silence lingered between them and the weight of guilt in him grew. She gave him a pleasant smile that he wasn’t fooled by. "Have I come up in conversation?" he asked at last.

"Only from her," Ava said briskly. "I helped her with the dress and her makeup the night the Destroyer attacked the Council of Entities."

"I’m surprised you haven’t said anything," he said candidly. There was that much to be said for Sen. Nervous he might be, but he cut right to the point. Not many men had the courage for that.

"I haven’t needed to," she answered. "Xilanada’s even smarter than people think. I don’t think she buys your act and I know she’s not ready for a serious relationship. She won’t let you break her heart too. And so I’ve seen no reason to spoil her fun."

Ava didn’t know what she expected from her once-betrothed. Relief would have been genuine, at least. Glassy confidence would have been more likely. Perhaps a little smile, a little shrug, the expert poise of assuredness. Anything that would have fit with the man he’d always been.

Instead, she got anger. "I will not break her heart," he said, scowling at her. Ava stared at him incredulously.

"How can you of all people say that?" she insisted. "You’re a lech! You’ve always been a lech and you’re going to cheat on her, just like you did on me, just like you’ve done with the dozens of women I heard about. And that was despite my efforts to avoid hearing gossip!"

"I’d ask how it’s any business of yours now," Sen said coldly. "But you’d likely tell me that Xilanada is your friend and that gives you the right. What she chooses to tell you is her affair, Ava. But I will not let harm come to her from any source, especially from me."

The Dragon-Blooded Dynast was standing by the end of his little rant. Ava eyed him curiously and thought his behavior over. So Sen had a sore spot. How unlike him. Why was he sore on this? And she had never felt him feel so guilty before. It was extraordinary!

"You’re hardly here enough to watch out for her so pardon me if I don’t put any trust in your words," she guessed blindly.

Her wicker chair caught on fire.

There it was, Ava mused to herself, as she grabbed a thick blanket from her couch and threw it over the chair. The both of them patted it down but when she removed it she saw the chair was utterly ruined. Ava frowned in distress. She liked that chair!

"I’m sorry," Sen apologized swiftly. "That was...unbecoming."

"Are you really so worried about her?" Ava asked him, standing directly in his way so she could stare him in the eyes. The answering look on his face, quickly concealed, was tell-tale. "You are. You really think she’s in danger, enough that even a protector like you won’t be enough to save her. Do you think this is related to that assassination attempt on her a few months ago?"

Black rage overcome Ava as she felt a great weight of guilt lunge up inside him at that, a specific certain kind of guilt that could only come from the responsible. She felt the lightning raising across her skin with her anger. Sen grabbed her hands, which sent flows of electricity into his body that he steadfastly ignored.

"I have my duty, Ava. And above all else, I accomplish my duty. Always."

She marveled that Sen was still so readable, Charm or no. It’d been five years since she’d really looked at him but their year together had taught her much of the shifty Dynast. She knew of his charming exterior. She painfully knew about the unquenchable lust in his heart. But she also knew that beneath it all was an ice-cold core of steely resolve. His loyalty to his family was perhaps his most defining quality.

So why did he look so sad as he said that? Had he gotten rusty in his pretenses? Or was he under enough stress that his feelings were at last bleeding through? For that matter, why did he feel guilty at all, if it had been under orders?

"You love her," Ava said. The subtle shift that passed intangibly over him was proof enough. "You do, you really love her."

The revelation hit her hard enough that she suddenly found herself sitting on the couch. Sen turned his back to her, his head bowed. Neither of them could look at each other at the moment.

Ava felt the quick, sickly cruel slice of jealousy twist her stomach. She squeezed her eyes shut against it, held herself against it, and let it subside. Sen wasn’t hers and hadn’t been for a long time now. So what if he’d finally fallen in love again?

With Xilanada. By the Dual Monarchy, what would that mean? She had brushed off Xilanada’s strange ambivalence toward Sen as a sign of reserve, a way of keeping herself from coming to care for him. But maybe the small blonde already felt too much. She had the will to keep herself from it, at least. Not so for Sen, whose quietly trembling shoulders showed that his own resistance to his feelings had finally broken.

They were in love.

Much to her surprise, Ava realized a small spark of happiness beneath her own bitter envy. If there was one truth to the enigmatic Professor, it was that Xilanada had tasted a pain so total so as to leave a lasting mark to one who had the eye. Ava had been a Funerist. She knew what life-killing grief looked like. Xilanada struggled with it still and it was a testament to her quality that she hadn't killed herself from it.

Could she deny a friend that one feeling that could bear a person up against such sorrow?

"Sen, it’s fine," Ava said at last. She slowly stood and put her hand on his shoulder. It was as far as she could go but it was enough. His body stilled beneath her touch. "I can’t forgive you for what you’ve done to me. But I can wish you...happiness. For Xilanada’s sake, if not yours."

"I will never hurt her." Sen’s words were a hoarse whisper but his face was an iron-like mask when he turned back toward her. "My life first."

"For both your sakes, I hope it never comes to that," she said soberly. "Now, tell me what you know. Tell me how a ex-Funerist can help you."

"Xilanada’s attackers were six students. Here, at the School." Ava’s eyes widened at the revelation but there was more to come. "By her account, each of them were very deadly with the knife and what I could see of the battle’s aftermath is proof of that. Our Professor is much better with the blade than I could have believed or she would not be alive. They used high-quality steel and each of them marked their chest with a sigil to seal their soul to the Underworld upon their death."

"What?" she said dumbly. "Show me. Draw it."

Ava shoved a quill and parchment into Sen’s hand and waited impatiently as he drew it out for her. Stroke by stroke, a chill stole over her as the memory emerged from the recesses of memory. She waited, to be sure, but when he was finished there was no longer any doubt.

"What is it?" Sen asked quietly. "I know enough to guess at its design but this is your specialty."

"It’s more than a seal," Ava breathed. "It’s an expression of devotion. Those students didn’t just strive to become Ghosts. They pledged themselves, Sen, to a Deathlord north of here. To the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears."