Shadowstorm (The Shadow World Book 6) (7 page)

Finally:

“
Sometimes, I think you want me to touch you

How can I, when you build the great wall around you…”

Relieved, David nodded to himself and headed for the workroom, where his three volunteers would be waiting and probably hoping fervently that their boss wasn’t about to electrocute their heads.

*****

About thirteen months ago, the Queen had been at her piano, finalizing the set list for a performance she was giving as a benefit for the Porphyria Foundation. It was the end of a blistering Texas summer, and the Haven air conditioning worked better if there was airflow, so she’d had her music room door open.

She’d felt someone watching her as she ran through one of her new songs.

“It’s rude to stare,” she said without looking over.

“My apologies.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be glued to your brother’s side, pretending we don’t exist?”

She was ready for the cold arrogance, the disdain, but instead, the reply held actual emotion: “He is asleep. I needed a moment to clear my mind from his suffering.”

“So you thought you’d come and make me suffer.”

A pause. Then: “You must understand…when he returned home to Avilon last time he was heartbroken. And now, I see the pain he is in, the unending grief—knowing he has been cast out by his own people, and denied by the one he loves yet again…is it truly surprising I would feel an aversion to this place and to those who, even for the most loving of reasons, brought him to such a pass?”

Miranda finally looked up at the Elf standing in the doorway, frowning. “Cast out?”

He was wearing dark purple, the exact color of his eyes, with a black cloak; his hair blended into the velvet so it looked like he was wearing a hood. He had the bearing of a king, and if Nico brought to mind a wild creature in the forest, Kai made her think of the trees themselves, regal, casting shadows over everything around them. She wondered if he was capable of slouching. “Yes. The ruling council of Avilon has decreed no vampire may set foot in our realm…not even one that is also Elven. He can never go home again.”

“Oh my God.” Nico already hated what he had become, and knowing his friends and family did too... “How could they do that? I thought he was loved by his people.”

“He is. That love is the reason they make no objection to my coming here—not that they could stop me, now that I have the Gatestone. But it is an old, old fear that drives them. Vampires were instrumental in the near-extinction of our race. They were paid by the human authorities to hunt us down, and because we are apparently quite a delicacy, they murdered us by the hundreds. The human world itself terrifies my kind.”

“Your kind, but not you.”

Kai smiled. It was the first time she’d ever seen him smile; it made the distant, untouchable neutrality of his face seem almost human…and it made her heart skitter through her chest in a way she didn’t like. “I fear very little.”

“You’re obviously not afraid of me,” she observed. “A lot of people are.”

Something she could only describe as a sparkle appeared in his eyes. “No, I am not. I confess I find you fascinating.”

Miranda had to look away from his steady gaze, and to her horror she realized she was blushing. “Oh?”

“Well, you, and this…whatever this is.”

She realized he was indicating the Bösendorfer. “Don’t Bards play instruments where you come from?”

“I play six,” he said. “Some are similar to those—” He gestured at her row of guitars. “But this enormous musical box is strange to me. Its sound drew me to you just now.”

Miranda recognized the look on his face. It was, in fact, fascination, but with the piano, not her. Thank God. She’d seen musicians get that same keen-eyed interest over new instruments at music stores, and seeing it in Kai made her opinion of him shift a bit. Dick he might be, but he was a musician, and she couldn’t resist sharing a little. “It’s simpler than it looks,” she said, standing up and lifting the piano’s lid. “It’s just hammered strings.”

Kai gazed down into the piano’s inner workings, eyes lighting up when she played a bit of the chorus of one of her songs. Then his eyes shifted to her hands, absorbing, analyzing, and cataloging everything about how the instrument was played. It reminded her very strongly of how David learned things in seconds that would take other people weeks.

She explained the pedals, and the black keys, and to her own surprise found herself scooting over. “Try it.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You would let me touch her?”

Miranda shrugged, trying to downplay the impulsive suggestion. His wonder at it made her face heat up again. “Sure, for a minute.”

He sat down. A familiar scent—trees and cookies, like Nico. She’d asked Nico once why he smelled like that, and he’d looked at her like she was crazy. Kai’s presence, however, was massive and ostentatious, where Nico tried to make himself seem as ordinary as possible. The twins had apparently taken what made them different from the other Elves and gone in totally opposite directions with it. She could imagine how their people would adore them both even as they feared their potential darkness.

Kai’s hands, which she could only describe as elegant, lightly pressed a few keys, the touch practically reverent. He looked up at the music stand and frowned at the pages she’d propped up there. “Your system of notation is very different from ours.”

“How so?”

“Well, it is horizontal, for one thing.” He stared at it for another moment, the analysis returning, then nodded once to himself…

…And started to play…

…Perfectly.

She knew she was gaping, but she couldn’t help it; she’d never seen anything like it. She had to stop herself from applauding when he was finished.

“That was amazing,” she said.

A fluid shrug. “The skill itself is only half of the work—the gift is the other. Only using the former is child’s play.”

“What kind of gift would a Bard have, if not playing like that?”

“Anyone willing to devote the time and work can play an instrument,” he said. “I have been doing so for four hundred years, remember. What makes a Bard a Bard is the ability to influence emotion through music; to create a mood, or a vision, and thread it through the sound.”

Again, she stared. “You’re an empath.”

He met her eyes and smiled. “And you are a Bard.”

Since then, every few weeks when Kai visited, he found her in the music room while Nico was asleep, and they talked about their art. She introduced him to the idea of recording songs and played one of her albums to show him the difference between studio-produced and live. He brought her Elven sheet music, which was an art in itself—they illuminated their music, and the staffs were, as he’d said, vertical rather than horizontal. Elven musical vocabulary was full of plant metaphors—the words for different tempos were related to the speed at which a particular flower opened.

She found him oddly refreshing after dealing with so many vampires and their secret agendas. He had nothing to hide and wouldn’t have bothered if he had. Unlike most people his self-confidence wasn’t hiding insecurity. When he spoke of being talented, attractive, or popular, it was a simple statement of fact, as if it would never have occurred to the rest of the world not to admire him. Perhaps it was arrogance, but Miranda didn’t think that really described it. Kai was just…Kai. He completely inhabited his own identity.

She also got to hear him sing. His voice nearly undid her. It wasn’t just that it was beautiful; she’d heard plenty of lovely voices from talented singers. There was a quality there that was just not of this Earth—literally. The song was in Elvish, which might be part of it. Every time he heard Nico speak Elvish David had to take a cold shower.

After the song ended, Kai looked at her and frowned. “Are you all right?”

She stammered for a minute. “…amazing,” she got out. “You should sing something in English next.”

He smiled, and something in the expression said he found her sudden awkwardness endearing. “If you like.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you—how did you learn English so fast? Yours is way better than Nico’s was when he first got here.”

Kai blinked. “I took it from his head,” he replied; to her mystified expression, he asked, “Do you not do that?”

“No, I think that’s probably a twin thing, or maybe an Elf thing. Although…David and I do share a lot of our abilities now. But we’ve never tried doing it on purpose.”

“Does he share your Bard’s gift?”

“Empathy? A little. Just enough to hurt—but he keeps it blocked unless he needs it for something. Since it’s fairly weak it’s easier to control.”

He looked thoughtful. “My gift has never hurt me,” he said. “Perhaps because the darkness and tragedy inherent to your world does not exist in Avilon.”

His tone surprised her. “And that’s not a good thing?”

Kai absently ran his fingers over the piano’s keys. “My kin would think me mad for saying so, but Nico and I have agreed that our lives there were good, and peaceful…but boring. There are only so many times one can play the same song. Our people cling to their peace so hard it has no space to grow, and so we stagnate. Long ago, we understood this, but after genocide and war we have willfully forgotten. Yet the truth of the universe remains: without darkness, light is meaningless.”

“Maybe so,” she replied, “But that darkness nearly destroyed me when I was still human. My gift ran wild and drove me mad, and I was already running out of time when…if David and I hadn’t met, and he hadn’t taught me to control it, I don’t think I would have survived.”

The Bard sighed, and said with mock irritation, “You must stop telling me things like that about your mate, or I will end up liking him in spite of myself.”

She laughed. “Oh, I think you already do, you just don’t want to admit it.”

A conspiratorial grin. “Of course I do. How could I not at least acknowledge a man who so obviously adores, admires, and respects both you and my brother? He is wise enough to know how blessed he is to call you his Queen; that, at the very least, I can appreciate.”

She knew, by how hot her face was, that she was blushing crimson, but thankfully he didn’t comment on it. He did, however, kiss her hand when he left, and she stood there unable to move for a minute, her skin tingling where his lips had touched.

Oh, hell.

That was two weeks ago; after that, Kai had gone home for the Harvest. She spent the next two weeks in a knot over her sudden and unwelcome attraction to the Elf until David called her on it the night Kai returned. When the Prime left for work, she stayed on her piano bench with her thoughts, trying to make sense out of them before she had to deal with the Bard.

She had, without really saying so, come to the understanding that one day David would have a lover. Whether it was Deven, or someone else, she had long felt a sense of inevitability about it—it was common in Pairs, though the romanticized legends about the Signets made it seem that they were exclusive for all eternity. Very few remained completely monogamous, but historically it was the result of adultery, not a polyamorous arrangement of equals. Over time, starting after that night with Deven and developing further after David’s crush on Olivia, Miranda had unconsciously come to accept the idea, but while that theoretically opened the door for her own pursuits, she hadn’t thought for a second that any such pursuits would ever exist. David, it seemed, saw right through her, just as she’d seen through him.

Thank God he’d brought it up, though, because she would have had no idea what to say.

Hey baby, you know that Elf you think is a stuck-up bastard? Well, turns out, not so much. In fact I kind of want to…

No.

Okay, so, you know how you get the hots for basically anything that moves these days? I guess you’re a bad influence, because…

No.

Hey, I was just thinking, you know what we’ve never done? Twins!

Oh lord.

She stuck her hands in her hair, trying not to pull it in aggravation. It was all so ridiculous. She had gone up against a dozen armed opponents at a time, recorded two platinum albums, learned how to operate not one but two psychic gifts, and overcome assault and murder—but give her a crush on a ridiculously attractive Elf, and she turned into a gibbering idiot. She’d been telling the truth when she told David she didn’t intend to shag the Bard, but Elves were sexually permissive — to put it mildly — so who knew what Kai was thinking?

There was a soft knock at the door, and she swallowed hard. “Come in!”

She knew who it was, of course—there was no mistaking the moonlit presence of an Elf in the room.

She turned, about to try out the Elvish greeting he’d taught her…and froze.

“Are you okay?”

Her gift, it turned out, was not necessary at the moment. Kai’s face was haunted, almost dazed with sadness; he sank down on the loveseat back against the wall, unspeaking.

She left the piano and sat down next to him, peering into his face with concern. “What happened…is it Nico?”

A vague nod.

“Tell me.”

He took a deep breath, grounding himself. “It was bad tonight,” he said softly. “The worst I have seen him. I could feel him losing heart…he fell into a shadow so deep I could barely sense his presence. Then he said…he said he wants to die. He has no more to give, and just wants rest. What am I to say to that?” He put his face in his hands for a moment before saying, “In all our years, I have never seen him like this. It was always my task to watch over him. Now all I can do is watch him die.”

“He is not going to die,” Miranda said firmly. “We’ll do whatever we have to—even if we have to bind him to us. We’ll find a way.”

“Can you do that?” he asked, frowning. “Wouldn’t that kill his Prime?”

“I don’t mean separate them…I just wonder if there’s a way to link someone else to Nico to give him energy, like a temporary one-way bond.” It was one of the few ideas she’d had that didn’t immediately sound ridiculous. Miranda nodded to herself. “I’ll talk to Stella—she’s better acquainted with that sort of magic and by now I bet she’s strong enough. It might work.”