A Nightingale's Tale

Chapter Eight

The sun was barely coming up over the walls, causing the sky to be a deep purple with scratches of orange across the sky. Lydia didn’t stop running even when she stepped on a rock and split open her foot. Her lungs were searching for breath when she got to Rex’s house. Guardians stood at the gate, as they always did at Elder Brother’s homes. They wouldn’t let her pass.

“I need to speak with Kyle, now,” she said as calmly as she could manage. She could feel the blood begin to pool under her foot. She kept her face stern, as not to show pain.

“He’s not seeing anyone today,” the Guardian to her right said. She remembered him from a school as children, Noel. Noel was a few years ahead of her. She contemplated her strategy to get them out of her way. She rubbed her fingers against her palm ready to pull out her praecant at any moment. She would fight her way to answers if she had to.

“Let her through,” Marcus said as he was walking down the path to the gate. His shirt was unbuttoned, inappropriate to be outside in. She hadn’t seen his bare chest since they were children. He looked like he hadn’t slept. His hair was a tangled mess, scratches reached up his arms, and his hands still had dirt on them.

She wasted no time, once she was through the gate her, disbelief flowed out of her swiftly, “Tell me what’s happened?”

“Please, don’t make a scene. Let’s go inside and talk.” He reached a hand to her as if that would calm her down. She pushed him off her.

“Was she taken?”

“Lydia.” His face told it all. That was enough of an answer for her. Arabella had been taken to reformation and it was Marcus’ doing.

“Did you do this? Did you have her taken to be reformed?” she persisted.

“Let’s go inside.”

“What have you done?”

Tears streamed from her eyes. She thought of Emily being drug out the gate her first night as a Guardian but instead, she saw Arabella’s face. She imagined Lou running behind trying to save her daughter from an unknown, terrible fate. How could he have betrayed them so easily? However, she didn’t blame him as much as she blamed herself. She should have been here instead of off the island maybe she could have prevented it. She should have never even mentioned what had happened between them to Marcus.

“Lydia, please, let’s talk.”

Anger pulsed through her as if she had been electrocuted. She wanted to pull out her praecant and shove it down his spine. Her foot trembled with the loss of blood and exposed nerves. She steadied herself just as she would have with a wound in the arena. Her skirt was ripped up the side, she extended her leg and planted her feet. She pressed her praecant. It shot out in with a loud pulse, it reflected her anger through it’s heartbeat.

Marcus stopped at the sound, but didn’t turn around to face her, “Lydia, put that away, now!”

She watched his hand, waiting for him to make the next move. She could hear the Guardians at the gate begin to shuffle toward her as they realized what she had done.

“Where is she?” she yelled.

Marcus turned toward her. She could hear the Guardians coming for her from behind.

“STOP,” Marcus yelled to them. He held out on arm indicating to them to cease. Their foot-steps slowed and stopped.

“WHERE IS SHE?” she yelled again.

“Lydia, put that away,” he said as he took a few steps forward.

“I won’t ask you again.”

“Put that away before I hurt you.”

She ran at him. Stupid, she said to herself. She couldn’t fight in the state she was in, she knew that and so did he. He didn’t even take out his praecant. She had hers held in both hands going for his head. He kicked her rapidly and hard in the stomach before she even got close. She fell to her knees, her left hand cradling her stomach.

He turned his back on her and continued heading up to the massive house. She caught her breath and begrudgingly followed him to the house. She had to hear him say it. She had to see his face as he admits he betrayed her best friend, one of his friends. Her bare feet were cold against the stone floors inside the house, blood trailed behind her. His footsteps echoed ahead of her, throughout the massive entryway. The house was cold and dark, servants were supposed to be up preparing for the day, someone had told them to stay away. Large portraits of Marcus’ father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and so on, were evenly spaced down the hallway. Even in the dark, she could tell the damage that had been done to most of the portraits from the move to this realm. The wives never had their portraits done, they weren’t important enough. Currently, Rex had four wives but as the girls Lydia’s age became old enough, he would probably add a fifth. Only his first son, Marcus, was important to him. Marcus’ youngest sibling was born a few months past and she probably wasn’t even in the house. She spat on the floor as she coughed for air.

Marcus was sitting in a brown, fur chair in front of a dwindling fire. A woman came up behind Lydia and cleaned her foot as another woman set down an ice bucket on the tray next to Marcus. Lydia tried to keep her balance as the woman, roughly, scrubbed her foot. The women scurried back and began to kill the trail of blood Lydia had left behind her. Marcus waited a moment before he spoke.

“My father’s ill, Lydia,” he said picking up a new glass the woman had set down for him. Lydia recognized her, Marie. She was Lydia and Marcus’ age, they had grown up together. She had given Lydia a terrible look as she passed her to the hallway.

“I don’t see how that affects Arabella in any way.”

“I’m the next Rex. You know this, I’ve known this.”

“Again, what does that have to do with Ara?”

“Some of the Elder Brothers doubted my ability to uphold the law. They think I haven't always made the best decisions, like supporting you.”

Lydia let out a long breath she had been holding in. She knew why he had done what he had done but she wouldn’t believe it until she heard it from him and he had just said it. He was having his own friend tortured to prove he can be the next Rex and he’s not “soft” towards women. She felt the tone heat up in her palm again. She could do it, she could send out her praecant and cut his head clean off. His back was to her, he would never see it coming. Her stomach pain reminded her to calm down.

“Lydia, I had to,” he said as if she was disease he had eradicated, “What she did was wrong. You know it was, that’s why you told me. I had always suspected her to be… but… for her to do that to you. I mean she was your friend.” He turned and faced her now. She released her middle finger from her stone.

“Marcus, she was your friend too.”

“She saw you as more than a friend.”

His hands were shaking as he set the cup down.

“You don’t know that. I don’t know that and, honestly, I don’t care.”

“You should!” He was furious but so was she. Arabella didn’t need to be his show-of-force.

“Why her? Why did you have to do it to her?”

“I know how much she means to you. I want her back in your life but fixed.”

“She’s not broken.”

“I knew you would be upset, at first.”

“At first, you think I won’t hate you forever for doing this to her?”

“There will come a time when she can be a friend to you again when things have been taken care of.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My father is going to announce his removal as Rex soon. I’ll have to have my first wife before then. A man that’s never been married can’t be Rex.”

“You thought Arabella and I were together?”

“I understand how close you two have been all your lives and…”

“What makes you think I would marry you even if you didn’t think I was with her?”

“I’ve always been in love with you. We’ve been close since school. I know that you felt the same at some point, with all those late-night practices in the training yard. We spent every day together for years then you started being so distant and running off evenings. At first, I thought you had met someone then I saw how much time you were spending with Ara instead of me. Look, I think she’s just confused you. This is a way for you to find yourself again.”

Hate and disgust bubbled in her stomach like a poison. She had never hated someone asmuch as she hated him at that moment. He moved to stand near her. He reached a hand out, as if to console her. The arrogance that radiated from him was suffocating. She jumped back so he wasn’t close enough for her to hit him. She tried to remember, one last time, the sweet boy she had once stolen a vegetable cart and wrecked into the side of the water tower with. But, she couldn’t. His blonde hair didn’t sweep in front of his eyes anymore, instead, it was pushed back, clean like his father’s. She couldn’t see Marcus anymore but instead a younger version of his father. She had lost not one friend, but two friends, her only friends, in the time it normally takes her to eat breakfast. She turned away from him before she did something that got her killed.

“Lydia,” He yelled after her.

She didn’t stop.

“Don’t walk away from me,” he yelled.

Her hands were cold, it was the first time she had felt anything other than pain that morning. She rubbed them against her arms, but it didn’t help. He ran up behind her and pulled her back toward him. Lydia pulled away from Marcus as violently as he had pulled her to him. Her heel slid on the floor as she resisted him. She jerked her arm out his hand as he grasped the air to get a hold of her again. She ran down the path back to the gate. He yelled after her but didn’t follow her, that was the smartest thing he had done in a while.

Her neck was slick with tears as she confirmed what she had feared to Lou and Roland. Roland, who never seemed to be bothered with what the Guardians did, seemed utterly struck with abhorrence. Lydia had few words to console Lou who wept in the same spot for hours. Roland brought out a cask of something much stronger than his usual wine and poured himself and Lou a glass. Roland didn’t offer Lydia one. Lou took Lydia’s hand in hers and Lydia felt her place something in it.

“Find her,” she said.

Lydia opened her palm and there was Arabella’s silver fairy necklace her mother had given to her. She had never seen Arabella take it off. Lydia put the necklace on and headed to her tower.