Chapter Fifty

  After Ayduin and Cydan had returned empty-handed some hours ago, Rhydian had decided it best to give Vesryn his space. He and the man had not seen eye to eye of late, but the sage was still a member of his flight. Treating him differently over a matter of opinion was not only unprofessional, but unfair. Vesryn may have a skewed view of Inerys and the circumstances surrounding her, as far as Rhydian was concerned, but he still deserved a certain level of respect. And he would give it to him, even if he still didn’t understand the man’s rationale.

  The sage hadn’t exactly been forthcoming when it came to the why of his beliefs, but in all fairness, Rhydian had never pursued the issue the way he now felt he should have. He should have put more effort into bringing what remained of his flight together, yet he hadn't. He’d set boundaries, made threats and forced oaths, but never once had he tried to understand Vesryn’s perspective. He’d allowed their animosity to fester out of sight and out of mind outside of a handful of occasions. In distancing himself from everyone, Vesryn had made the issue easy to ignore. Easier to overlook.

  Even so, it wasn’t an excuse and Rhydian refused to hide behind it. He’d take responsibility for the enmity between himself and the sage because it was, in large part, his fault. He should have paid more attention, made more of an effort to communicate, and simply done better. In prioritizing Inerys and Ephaxus, he’d lost sight of everyone else along the way. That had been a mistake and one he swore he’d do his utmost never to repeat. It was hardly a wonder why Vesryn had come to form the opinion he had.

  The time for reconciliation had likely passed, but Rhydian owed it to the older sage to at least try. If he chose to curse his name further afterward, then so be it. He would hear the man out regardless. Largely because he wanted to understand why he was so adamantly opposed to their rehabilitation of Inerys.

  After his reaction to her latest change, Rhydian had realized it was not hate he’d seen in the man’s apprehension, but fear. Had Ayduin or Cydan reacted to the alteration the way Vesryn had, he would have understood. After all, they had suffered through this whole ordeal together from the very start. They had been the ones to face that woman in the woods, they had been the ones to witness Kieshara’s death. Not the sage. So why did he act as though their roles had been reversed?

  Rhydian knew people often reacted to situations and stress in different ways, some of which appeared irrational to an outside perspective. It did not make them any less valid. There were those who worked well under duress and those who did not. It was not a fault, but a simple fact. However, as long as he had known the sage, he’d always assumed he belonged to the former camp. He would not have held the position he had, were it not the case. Somewhere along the line, though, something had changed. He wasn’t sure how or why, but it had.

  Had Rhydian missed something? To his knowledge, Inerys had never once gone after him or anyone else outside the night of her ascension and even then, he had needed to lure her into biting him. Which begged the question– what had she done to Vesryn to shake him to his core? If something had truly transpired between them, surely he would know? And if not him, someone else would have noticed. Ever since their departure from Mistwatch, privacy had been more an illusion than a reality.

  Which meant there had been more than a few open secrets. Such as the man’s lapses. Sorisanna had been keeping an eye on the man and while his episodes were often brief, they had grown in frequency. At his fifth ascension, the sage had advanced beyond what most people were able to achieve, but only just. Which made him subject to many of the same ailments, including those that resulted from age. Had the stress of all that had happened been a trigger? Or had the onset of his deterioration been an unfortunate matter of timing? Whatever the case, Rhydian would likely have to find a way to work around the issue until they departed.

  He would have to find someone more qualified to assess the man when they reached the capitol. Given the Wardeness’ area of expertise, he imagined she would have a whole host of resources at her disposal. Until then, he would have to manage things as best he could and resolve issues as they arose. Which he had the feeling was easier said than done.

  He’d resolved his fair share of disputes over the years, but none quite like this one. He wasn’t even sure how he planned on approaching the man. According to Ayduin, he’d refused to speak to her or Cydan after they’d followed him to the lake. Would time be enough to remedy the situation or would Rhydian be wasting his breath?

  Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out.

  As he trekked along the path to the shore, he mentally revisited he and the man’s prior conversations in hopes of remembering something he may have overlooked. That first night Vesryn had come to him, he had been shaken, disturbed even, but considering the monster Rhydian had brought for him to examine, it was all perfectly understandable. Had the oddities started so early? If they had, had he overlooked them or inadvertently explained them away? For all his effort, he couldn’t pinpoint any one thing until–

  Rhydian halted in his tracks.

  Those rumors he’d heard among the Talhavar as a boy had led him to believe the woman was one of those cannibals from the north. He'd even referred to her as such while they were discussing the possibilities of what she might be in the morgue, but Vesryn had corrected him.

  Vampire, he’d called her.

  How had he known what she was?

  The Wardeness herself had been unfamiliar with the term, by her own admission. It wasn’t until she’d spoken with this mysterious emissary from across the sea that she'd learned the truth of the woman’s species. An emissary who, like Inerys, was also a vampire.

  One by one, the subtle peculiarities of Vesryn’s knowledge and behavior began to align. Rhydian may not have been able to piece it together, were it not for the Wardness, vague as the details of their conversations often were. All the same, understanding settled over him like cold oil.

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  His rysk kindled and he hastened down the wooded hillside, all but sprinting until he reached the point where the treeline gave way to an open breadth of grassy shoreline. Vesryn was pacing along the water’s edge, one hand held near his lips with the other gripping the wilted stem of some sort of flower he’d uprooted. Its tiny, white petals shook loose with every step, only to be trampled under foot. What it was and why he held it, Rhydian didn’t know. Rather, he didn’t care.

  Not in those moments.

  He stepped out from the woods with a singular determination. Not to apologize or sue for peace, but to uncover a truth he was slowly beginning to fear. If his assumptions were correct, he wasn’t sure he could fully admonish the man’s behavior, nor fault him for his apprehension toward Inerys. It wouldn’t excuse everything, but . . .

  The man was muttering incoherently to himself, though he spun to face Rhydian when he finally noticed his approach.

  “That night in the morgue,” Rhydian said, “How did you know that woman was a vampire?”

  The sage stared at him for several long moments as if trying to determine whether or not the firstrider was real or some sort of illusion his mind had conjured up to torment him. His eyes were glazed in a manner Rhydian had never seen. There was a wildness, a confusion, as if something behind them had become disjointed and the man was doing his best to function despite it. Perhaps Rhydian should have felt pity, or concern, but at present, those feelings simply didn’t exist.

  “Answer me!”

  Vesryn flinched and surrendered a step back, shaking his head, “You don’t understand,” he rasped, “you weren’t there.”

  Rhydian forced himself to stop a few feet shy of the man and keep his hands at his sides.

  “What I don’t understand is how you could have possibly known what that thing was. Weren’t where, Vesryn?”

  The man searched Rhydian’s face as he visibly struggled to process what he’d said. But then the shift happened and while that strange, broken edge remained, some of the fear receded and sharpened into something else. He stabbed an accusatory finger at Rhydian, timidity forgotten as he took several steps forward and leaned in.

  “That thing is still with us. It has been all this time, you just can’t see it. None of you can. You’re charmed! Blinded, just like the crew,” he seethed, “You saw its eyes, same as I did, and yet you continue to deny it.”

  Rhydian’s temper rose, “Inerys isn’t–”

  Vesryn tore his sage’s cravat from his throat in one swift, brutal motion. However, it wasn’t the savagery of the action that had spurred Rhydian’s mounting dread, but what lay beneath. There was no denying the familiarity of the scarring. It left his skin a patchwork of varying depth and color, having been stretched in places while torn in others. The arrangement of the puncture wounds were not unlike those branding Rhydian’s own arm, the vertical alignment suggesting Vesryn had been held down or otherwise subdued at the time of infliction as if his throat had been no more than a toy in the jaws of a hound.

  “This is how I knew, boy. Now I may not remember all of what transpired when we crossed the stormwall, but I’ll never forget those damned eyes. He had them too. He may have looked like a man, but he was no different from that monster you brought into the morgue that night.”

  Rhydian could scarcely breathe.

  Vesryn’s lapses weren’t the result of some age-related ailment at all, were they? All this time, he had been the man who’d been bitten on that cursed ship all those years ago.

  Sky’s mercy.

  Tears began to run down the man’s face, “Mistwatch was supposed to be safe, was supposed to be my sanctuary and you took it away.”

  “Vesryn, why didn’t you say something before?”

  “Because– because I couldn’t remember. Not everything. There were bits and pieces, but never a full picture,” he said through his teeth, frustration mounting as he tugged at his hair with his free hand, “That monster did something to me. He stole things. Stole memories. Once, I may have forgotten everything, but then you brought me another one of those things and the memories– they started coming back. Fragments at first, but then more followed. They pop into my head when I least expect and every time I think I’m on the verge of remembering what he took, it all slips away again.”

  His knuckles had turned white and after a moment of pause, his unintelligible mutterings returned in full. His eyes grew distant, hazy and every so often, he’d flinch or his ear would twitch in the direction of some imaginary sound. Truthfully, Rhydian had never seen anything like it. He could only imagine what tampering with the mind might do to a person. Worse, there was nothing he himself could do to fix it.

  “I’m sorry,” he found himself saying, “Had I known about any of this, I would have gone about things far differently. I may not be able to restore what was taken, but perhaps the Wardeness can?”

  Vesryn rocked back on his heels, but if he’d heard him, he gave no outward indication.

  Sighing, Rhydian stepped closer and placed a hand upon his shoulder, “Come back to camp with me. We can figure this out together.”

  “We need to kill it. It's the only way to keep everyone safe, you have to know that,” the man whispered.

  “I can only imagine what was done to you, Vesryn, but I promise you Inerys is not the enemy. She’s a victim herself, bitten just as you were. Would you truly condemn her?” Rhydian asked.

  “Whatever innocence she had is gone,” he said, taking Rhydian by the upper arm, “She’s infected. Corrupted. The best thing you can do for her now is put her out of her misery before more people end up dead. You have to, for all our sakes.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Then let me,” Vesryn insisted, “I had my doubts before, but now, I know my fears were justified.”

  “Justified?” He asked, taking a step back as he shrugged off his touch, “All over what, a change in eye color? She’s done nothing wrong.”

  “You weren’t there,” he said, grip tightening along the limp collection of stems he held at his side.

  Rhydian saw it then. The plant he’d uprooted, with its lacy white flowers, was not a medicinal, but rather, a poison. Its bitter aroma was vaguely familiar, as were the leaves Sorisanna had so adamantly warned him about while foraging in the area. Water hemlock.

  “Vesryn,” he said lowly, “What is it you intend on doing?”

  He let the wilted plant slip from his fingers.

  “What I have to,” he said.

  The dull pressure in Rhydian's side didn't fully register until he noticed the sage’s sudden proximity. One of his hands was on his shoulder and for a moment, he thought the man might have been embracing him, but no, that wasn't it. The hand in which he'd been holding the hemlock was now near flush with Rhydian's side. The sage had moved so fast, he hadn’t even seen the glint of steel.