"Nicky, my boy!" Peter yelled from the kitchen and came out to greet him. "Watch out for this one, tonight." He rolled his eyes her way. "She's sensitive. I've told you, you need to take her outside from time to time. They need to walk around a bit to use up a little bit of that energy, these creatures."
Aurelie glanced from Peter to Nick, wide-eyed and on the verge of explosion. "These creatures?"
"Women," Peter said simply.
Nic laughed out loud and put a hand over his mouth to hide it as soon as he noticed the look Aurelie was giving him. "Now, Peter. We best settle down before the lady sets you on fire."
Peter patted Nick's shoulder. "Ag, she's harmless. I've seen an angry women first hand, boy, and she doesn't come close." Peter held a hand over his heart and gave Nick a knowing stare, which he returned.
Ha! If only he knew how harmless she was. Aurelie leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Harmless!
"Come, Aurelie," he strafed past her, "we need to finish setting the table."
Aurelie ignored him and walked over to Nick. "What did that mean?"
"You'd have to askâ
Aurelie rolled her eyes. "Hey, Peter," she shouted, keeping her eyes on Nick. "What's with the hand on the heart?"
Peter came out with a pot of carved, roasted lamb. "Do you not know your history at all? You're in love with one after all."
"Well, I guess not. I don't know what gave that away, though. Perhaps it was the fact that I asked?" The two of them exchanged a long, narrowed eyed look. "Are you going to tell me? Or shall I force it out of Nick?"
"Not with that attitude." He placed the lamb on the table and ran back into the kitchen to fetch more food.
"Nick, please just tell me." She caught Nick staring at her as if she was some kind of painting. For a moment, it seemed like he didn't notice her, and then he shook himself awake.
"You're in love with him?" he asked so quietly that it almost came out as a whisper.
Aurelie opened her mouth. Her heart dropped somewhat. This is exactly what he had been avoiding. Deep down, she knew that feelings had developed but she chose to ignore it as long as she could. It felt as if she was falling. Guilt, shame, and concern swept over her all at once.
"I've never kept that a secret," she said, watching his expression falter even more. Had she kept it a secret? By now she assumed the whole world knew that Kirin was everything and that her heart was linked to his breath.
"Yes, but you've also never mentioned it."
"Haven't I?" Aurelie attempted to remember their every encounter as if that would change a single thing. Her cheeks grew hot.
"No."
"Well, if you must know." Peter came back in with a bowl of carrots in one hand, and beans in the other. "I was the first shadow walker ever made."
Aurelie was so startled by Nick's reaction that she let Peter's statement pass as if it had been the most common thing in the world. "Really?" she asked unconcernedly.
"Yes, all because Peter liked the ladies? Well, all but one, his wife." Nick said with a smile on his face. Everything about his demeanor changed within a second. It was as if their previous conversation was all a part of her imagination. He sat down and looked at the food.
"I loved my wife. Very much." He looked up at the ceiling as if he was waiting for a bolt to come down and strike him. "One more thing and we can begin. If Aurelie had helpedâ
Aurelie stopped listening and sat down on the opposite side of him. "Nick..."
He held out his hand to stop her. "Please do not treat me like a wounded bird. I'm perfectly fine, the clarification was quite refreshing."
Peter came in with three glasses and sat at the head of the table. "There we go." He handed a glass to everyone and opened the bottle that Nick had brought. "Now, where were we?"
Nick held out his glass, and Peter filled it halfway. "You were telling us about the creation of shadow walkers." He gulped the drink down and held his glass out again.
"Ah, yes!" Peter filled Aurelie's glass, and then his own. He wearily looked at Nick's empty glass and filled it reluctantly. "Please, serve yourselves."
Aurelie waited for Nick to take a piece of roast, which he did without a single glance in her direction, and then scooped some for herself.
When their plates were ready, Peter started, "Well, let's see. We were married for four years when it happened. Rather Seibra happened. She wasn't quite the prettiest girl in the village, butâhow can I put this more delicately in front of the ladyâmore willing than others." He lowered his eyes to his plate and poked around in it without gathering anything on his fork.
Aurelie looked over at Nick every few seconds, trying to gather whether he had been upset, but he seemed to be more unscathed by what had happened than she was.
"We had a difficult time conceiving and her sister had just had a baby. It was all too much for her, so she took it out on me. We had a rough couple of months. I loved her fiercelyâI did . . . I do," he looked up as he often did when he awaited a reaction from her that never came, "but she was also fiercely exhausting. Too smart, too stubborn, too beautiful and too battle hungry." He looked at Aurelie. "Like you but with more rage inside her, if you can imagine that."
He swallowed hard and stayed quiet long enough to make Aurelie feel sorry for him. "There wasn't a man in this damn place that wasn't waiting for me to screw up so that they could have her. I don't know." He waved whatever thought came next away violently and shook his head. "I didn't have it in me to give her what she wanted. After our last fight, Seibra, the vegetable girl came over with her delivery. She was the exact opposite and I had been so exhausted, I was dying for something simple. The girl was pretty, perky and dumb as a rock. Exactly what I thought I needed."
"You cheated on a goddess with a vegetable girl?" Aurelie asked, looking toward Nick to see if she could raise some reaction. He remained still as a stone.
"She wasn't a goddess back then, she was a witch," he scolded her, frowning. "I told you this. Do you ever listen?"
"Sorry." Aurelie cut a small piece of lamb and took a bite before anyone asked her another question. Nick would have been more comfortable if she just disappeared, and she oddly wanted to grant him that comfort.
"It would've been fineâ"
A bolt of lightning shot through the roof and cut into the middle of the table. Aurelie kicked back in her chair and hit the wall behind her. Nick swore. The tableâsomehow still standingâhad a large hole right in the center of it. The wood on the inside of the whole glowed with fading fire. Pieces of carrot
"God, Lysie, I was just going to say that you wouldn't have been mad if she hadn't gotten pregnant. I'm sorry, love. You know I am." Peter dragged a hand through his hair, looking down at the mess. "And you've ruined your mother's table."
The room flashed white. Aurelie didn't see the bolts hit, but she felt their heat on her face and heard the crack in the wood. When her eyes adjusted, the only thing left of the table was its frame and even that was being burned. Aurelie held her hand over one of the flames to extinguish it but caught Peter's panicked gaze before she started. He shook his head and she retracted her hand.
Nick sat petrified. His shoulders were raised up to his ears and his hands lifted as if to show Alysia that he surrendered.
"I'm sorry, love," Peter said. "I'll always be sorry."
"What did she do when she found out?" Aurelie asked, surprised by how quiet her voice was.
Peter cocked his head, surprised no doubt that she still wanted to hear the rest of the story knowing the danger that loomed after every word. "Let's go sit outside."
Peter was the first to leave the room. Nick only stood once Aurelie did.
"You alright?" she asked him.
He nodded. "I just . . . always thought he was mad."
"Oh, he is," she smiled, "mad. Barking!"
Nick laughed and relaxed his posture. "I suppose everyone has to be right at least once."
Aurelie laughed. "Exactly."
"Found it!" Peter said just as the two of them entered the kitchen. He was on his hands and knees with his head inside one of the kitchen cabinets. He backed up and put a dusty bottle of wine on top of the cabinet, then stood with some difficulty.
They followed him out into a small garden and sat at a round table that was made of thick wire and scabbing white paint. The grass was green and fluffy but only because Redayrah had a lot of rain all year round, and some wild, pink flowers grew into a large bush and filled the entire right corner.
Peter filled their glasses again. As if premeditated, both Nick and Aurelie picked their glasses up and set them down on their laps to avoid whatever else Alysia might send Peter's way.
"Right then, I guess you want the rest of the story." He gulped down his wine, raised the glass into the air and sighed as he put it down on the table, next to the bottle. "When she found out, she wanted to kill me. It hailed that day, and I still think it was her mood that caused it if I'm honest. She got me with a paralyzing potion, slipped it into my food and when I came to, I was tied up in the barn. She smiled and held her hands over my chest. 'Now, you'll truly have no heart, you bastard,' she said. She didn't tell me who told her or what happened, and I took one look at her and didn't try to deny it. You've never known true fear until you've driven a woman to her wit's end." He shook his head, staring into space. "I knew she wasn't going to kill me. We loved each other too much. Even then. Even after what I did, I knew she loved me."
He laughed. "It's been six hundred years, and all the torture is welcome because I know she's watching me."
"What did she do in the barn?" Aurelie sipped her wine.
"Well, it turns out that she had known for a while, about the child, that is and spent her time creating a spell that would rid a man of his heart. I would be a man, but I would never feel or have any human tendencies again. It wasn't for me, it was for her. She wanted to stop feeling betrayed and hurt and," he sighed, "everything else I made her feel. My punishment was testing the damn spell and knowing that after it was completed that neither of us would care. That terrified me more than anything. Oh, how I begged her not to." He shook his head as he remembered.
"When she started casting the spell, her hand on my bloody beating heart," he looked at Aurelie wide-eyed and held a tight fist to his heart, "a portal opened up below us. I don't know what or how but we were sent into the middle of the ocean. I searched for her in the water, but it was dark, and the waves were high. I thought I was going to drown myself but I woke up in the barn the next morning. I never found her corpse, and that's how I know she's up there. God took her. He saw how strong she was. What she could do and he took her as his own." Peter took a deep breath and let his head hang backward on the chair. "She didn't know it then, but she'd cursed me in the worst way possible. Six hundred years without her. Six hundred years of spending my time with women who always had something missing. I know what I sound like saying that," he came up for a second to look at her and then lowered his head back again, "but after you love someone the way I loved her, no one else is enough."
"He figured out that he could teleport after that and play with the shadows of other people," Nick said. "Shadow Walkers are his direct descendants, though, no one believes him of course."
"I don't need anyone to believe me," Peter said bitterly and got up. "I need to finish my painting. Excuse me." He left swiftly, muttering something to himself . . . or to her.
Aurelie kept her eyes on her glass. "I guess he must have really loved her." She tried to imagine having to live that long without Kirin and couldn't bear the thought. It almost brought her to tears.
Nick tapped his nail against his cup. "Is there a chance?" he asked quietly.
"For what?"
"Something between us."
Aurelie froze and closed her eyes. What was it that the idiot saw in her? She was a mess and a darn big one at that. He was making things so hard. All she wantedâneeded was a friend. "I'm sorry, Nick." She heard him stand, but she did not dare to look up. "There's only him."
Nick stopped at the door and stood there for a good minute before he opened it. She heard him take a breath and swore that she heard his lips part to the start of a word, and then the door opened and closed.