Page 105 of Only Cold Depths
I ended up in front of a door that featured the House Caldaren sigil of an arrow streaking upward through a cluster of stars. I’d forced my way through this door the night I’d saved Vesper from suffocating, but it was once again closed. It probably wouldn’t budge either, but I tried it anyway.
To my surprise, the knob turned easily, and the door swung open with a low, ominouscreak.
For a moment, darkness filled the space, but then a light flared, and a memory flickered to life. In the doorway, my mother sat on a bench in the Castle Caldaren garden, carefully pruning blue-moon peonies and then sliding the flowers into a crystal vase. Desdemona was pale and weak, and she had to stop every few minutes to rest, but she doggedly snipped one flower after another.
Shock rippled through me. This wasn’t one of Vesper’s memories—it was one ofmine.
I’d seen this same image of my mother when I’d been having breakfast with Lady Verona in the topiary garden yesterday, and then again when Vesper and I had been talking in our suite last night. But why would Vesper’s mindscape show me one of my own memories? Even though we were bonded, I had never been able to use her seer abilities with any success. Most of the time, Vesper’s power flared like a bright silver star before abruptly winking out. Perhaps the chemicals Esmina had dosed me with were impacting our bond.
The memory kept playing, and I watched my mother prune peonies until she had a beautiful bouquet. Footsteps crunched on the crushed-shell path, and a thirteen-year-old boy came into view—me.
I grimaced. This was the day I’d yelled at my mother for not fighting back against Holloway. At first, I’d stomped away, but I’d been so ashamed of my actions that I’d returned to apologize.
Sure enough, teenage Kyrion tiptoed over to the table. A wicked gleam of black appeared, and a scorpion scuttled out of some peonies that were lying on the table. Kyrion darted forward and used the wooden sword he was clutching to smash the scorpion.
“Bloody scorpions,” I muttered, my words perfectly in sync with those from my younger self.
“You should go inside. You might get stung again.” Teenage Kyrion looked at the flowers on the table, anger flaring in his eyes. “Or better yet, get rid of the peonies, and plant some flowers that don’t attract scorpions.”
A few days earlier, Holloway had siphoned off my mother’s magic, leaving Desdemona weak and shaking, but she’d still insisted on picking some fresh peonies, and she’d gotten a nasty sting. The scorpion’s venom had further weakened her, and I’d been terrified she was going to keel over and die in the garden.
“The scorpions love the peonies as much as I do,” Desdemona replied. “The scorpions will always be a danger, and they could always sting me.”
“But?” Once again, I spoke along with my younger self.
“But you can’t be afraid of the possibility,” Desdemona said in a serious voice. “You have to let go of your fear, Kyrion. I let go of mine about being stung. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to pick this wonderful bouquet. Doesn’t it smell divine?”
She nudged the crystal vase over to his side of the table. Even out here in Vesper’s mindscape, I could still smell the peonies’ spearmint scent. Bittersweet longing washed over me. I had spent so much of my life remembering how horribly my mother’s had ended that I had all but forgotten about moments like this. Even then, with the shadow of Crownpoint looming over her in the distance, my mother had still found joy and beauty.
“Besides,” Desdemona continued, “scorpions aren’t the only things attracted to blue-moon peonies.”
She tilted her head to the side. A mammoth butterfly was now flitting around the bouquet, its black-and-blue wings flickering and flashing with a beautiful iridescent light. But the strangest thing was that I felt like my mother was talking about something else entirely, something far more serious than getting stung by a scorpion. After a few seconds, Desdemona’s head turned to the side, and I could have sworn she was staring right at me, as though she could actuallyseeme standing in Vesper’s mindscape.
“You have to let go of your fear, Kyrion,” my mother said again, still staring at me. “Otherwise, you’ll drown in the darkness and never embrace the light.”
In the doorway, my younger self frowned and glanced in this direction, although I got the sense that he couldn’t see me and was only viewing the rest of the garden as it had been that day. “Who are you talking to?”
Desdemona turned back to him, a soft smile on her face. “You’ll see one day. Now, help me get these flowers inside. Your father will be home soon, and I want to brighten up the library for him . . .”
The memory flickered and faded away, and the door slowly swung shut. I stood there, rooted to the floor, staring at the House Caldaren sigil. One by one, the stars winked with light, then the arrow itself. I blinked, and the light vanished.
Why had Vesper’s mindscape shown me this memory? And why had my mother seemed to realize exactly what was going on? Had DesdemonaknownI would be standing in this very spot one day, thinking about her truebond with my father?
Something jabbed into my neck, and hot chemicals zipped through my veins. Vesper’s mindscape melted away, replaced by muttering voices.
Once again, my eyes snapped open, and Pollux’s face swam into view.
The former Hammer lightly slapped my cheek, reigniting the pain in my jaw from where he had punched me earlier. “Welcome back, Arrow.”
I growled and surged forward . . . but I couldn’t move.
My body was in an upright position, with my back against a rough rock wall and my arms down and slightly out to my sides. Plasticuffs anchored my neck and wrists to the wall, and gray bricks had been stacked over my chest and most of my legs, as though I was being entombed.
I surged forward again, but the solid bricks didn’t move. I reached for my psion power, intending to smash the stones to pieces with my telekinesis, but once again, I couldn’t quite get a grip on my abilities.
“It’s no use struggling,” Pollux said. “I walled you up myself. It’s an old Hammer trick. Interrogate your enemy and slowly brick him up in a wall if he doesn’t cooperate. Most folks scoff at first, but by the time you start covering their faces and cutting off their air, they are all too happy to cooperate.”
He grinned and slapped my cheek again. “Lucky for you, Esmina wants your pretty face out in the open. At least until your girlfriend shows up and gets a good look at you.”
