Page 21 of Tell No Tales
Klaus answered the question he was asked. "Every winter in the orphanage, I needed some kind of aid when the healer stopped. After that, they called the healers when we needed them at the pleasure houses. There was the time I was stabbed by a client. The time I was choked out so hard I couldn't swallow. The time I got blazing fever. Rosy was sure I was going to die on her that time." He glanced up at Vadim. "That's when I started to feel sick all the time. I thought I never recovered from the blazing fever."
Vadim cradled him to his chest and kissed the top of his head again. "We'll return to Landale one day, and I'll make every healer there answer for their crimes against the mundane."
Klaus appreciated the gesture, but at the same time, he knew the truth. He and Vadim never would have crossed paths, if he'd been born with a better constitution.
"What if I told you I've been able to see auras for as long as I can remember?" he asked.
Vadim's throat clicked when he swallowed, so loud that Klaus could hear it. "You don't remember Aquarion."
Klaus shook his head, and Vadim kissed his hair again. "That proves Beatrice's theory, that Martiz tried to give you more than healing." Vadim squeezed Klaus's shoulder, but the hug felt more like it was for Vadim's comfort than his own. "I'm glad you're still here to tell the tale."
"I don't remember it," Klaus admitted.
"Gulde remembered you at the trial." Vadim kissed his hair again. "That's all we needed. He's killed countless children since."
That thought made Klaus shiver despite Vadim's warmth.
Chapter 5
Vadim
Vadim held Klaus and rubbed his shoulders until his soft snores distracted too much from the journal. He carefully gathered the slight man in his arms and laid him out on the mattress, brushing a few strands of unruly red hair off his sweaty forehead and kissing him there. It was harmless to show him a bit of kindness, especially when he was asleep. Klaus had come to him, first for light, and then for comfort. It wouldn't last, so Vadim planned to make the most of it while he could.
Vadim still felt too cold, especially with his back to the ocean and only the thin planks of tarred wood between them. He piled the sail bed with blankets and resumed reading once his leg stopped complaining about the lack of blood flow. He spent at least a minute rubbing at it and cursing under his breath. By the time the tingling had stopped, and he could feel his toes again, he laughed at himself for forgetting. He was a powerful healer now. He could have dulled the pain or quickened the blood in his veins without any fuss. All he'd needed to do was consent for his body to fix itself.
Healing had never come easy for him. He wanted to live, so his body repaired grievous damage without a second thought. There were certain things he wouldn't consent to, no matter what. Cosmetic wounds, for example. He never healed his scars. Hesse had loved his scars, especially the one over his eye. If Vadim blinked, he could still feel Hesse's kiss there, teasing his oversensitive skin.
Why had he been thinking of Hesse so often of late? It had been months since he'd given the man any thought, and before that, it had only been to wonder what Hesse would want for Hugo. For the twelve years he'd sailed with Efren, he'd barely thought of him at all.
Vadim's earlier behavior with Klaus had been more like Hesse's than his own. He'd shoved Klaus up against the wall and plundered his mouth like a prince who knew what he wanted and took it.
Vadim had known better than to give Hesse what he wanted, but at least then he'd been the pursued, not the pursuer. Hesse was an unstoppable force, and Vadim had tried so hard to be an immovable object. He'd hardened his heart, but it hadn't worked. It never worked.
Vadim was unlovable. He always forgot that. In the end, his partners remembered, and they left. Or he left them, giving them every opportunity to glare at him with that look of irreparable damage. Even after five years, Efren still looked at him like that. When he'd coaxed a grin from the captain earlier, he'd felt like the worst kind of thief.
Vadim wished he could heal painful emotions the way he could heal the flesh. If he could, Efren would be second in line for his services.
First, he would take away Klaus's horrible memories. Klaus had experienced so much in his short life. Orphan. Pleasure worker. Seeker. Any one of those titles brought painful baggage, but to be all three? Vadim couldn't imagine.
"We're not so different, you and I,"Klaus had said when he awoke with Vadim's life link.
He wasn't wrong. Vadim recognized his own past hurts in each line he'd written in his journal. He'd worked through some of his grief after Empress Delilah's death, but he still carried so much of it with him.
As he continued through the journal, he began to lose hope he would find anything linking Delilah to the academy. On the day of the empress's death,Starlight Specterhad been in Rodan, dropping off four water and lightning weavers who dreaded a life on the sea. Vadim didn't understand their fear, having lived by the ocean all his life, but any time he could keep another weaver away from Coryn, he was happy to do so.
He wondered where they were now. If he concentrated, he could tell if they were living, dying, or dead. He tried not to think of people from his past for that reason. Better to assume they were alive and well, same as people without his element did.
The news of the empress's death hadn't reached Rodan before they had returned to sea. Vadim kept reading to the date when he and the crew learned of the empress's death. They'd pulled into port in Hearthstone and saw the black banners everywhere on the high castle walls visible from the docks. Vadim had searched for Hugo, and he'd been relieved to find him alive and well in his palace rooms. Delilah had only been gone a week by then, but Vadim could no longer sense her spirit. Sometimes, he could speak to the newly dead. He'd never tried to force them back into their bodies, unlike Niall. He wondered if he could do so now.
The following entry was the one he needed, dated the following day.
"I had a letter waiting for me at the Slippery Swine today. I shivered like the empress had crossed over my own grave when I recognized her handwriting. It was disguised with a lesser seal, and it took me a moment to remember where I'd seen it before. I compared it to the letter she sent me after Hesse passed, and the handwriting matches, at least, to my untrained eye. I don't dare have an expert compare, for fear I will be hauled before Coryn and executed. The letter … I will tuck it away in the secret compartment onStarlight Specter,but I won't keep it with my things. I won't remember any of this after tomorrow. I'm going to a healer who specializes in memories to have this day erased."
Vadim blinked. He'd asked a healer to erase his memory? The practice was banned in Embertide, with good reason. It didn't work. If he had erased his memory of Empress Delilah's death, they would have come back to him the moment he learned of it again. He still had the memory of sailing into port and seeing the black banners.
Yet, he had a second memory of Stan telling him she was gone. They'd been standing at the docks in Hearthstone. That itch in the back of his mind returned at full force.
Fuck. Everything in the journal was true. He'd asked a healer to suppress his memory. That could mean only one thing. Whatever he'd learned had threatened not only his life, but that of Emperor Hugo and the future of Embertide itself.
