“SO LET ME GET this straight,” Veris said, leaning forward on his elbows. “You brokered peace, put on England’s first Olympic Games, let a girl beat you in the arena, were enslaved and saved the life of the King of Powys. Rafe outed one of the blood and also knocked him into the next century. Sydney became the Queen of Mercia’s favorite warrior, saved her daughter from dying and was the reason this whole games-for-honor thing worked at all.”
They were sitting in the big, casual living room at the back of the house, where the tall French windows were propped open to let in the early morning breeze and the heavenly smell of cut grass. The air was scented with roses, for the rose bushes were just outside the windows.
Heavy traffic on the Santa Monica could be heard in the distance and overhead, a plane was circling into LAX. The sights, the sounds, the scents were heavenly, all except Veris’ scowling visage.
Sydney was sipping her third cup of coffee. She had bolted down the first two as if she was drinking water. Marit was sitting on the arm of the sofa next to her.
Brody was standing by the door to the living room, as if he really didn’t want to be there.
Taylor was much closer to Veris, where he sat in the upright chair almost as if he was the judge in the room.
Veris looked at them all. “What part of ‘don’t change history’ did you not understand?” he demanded.
Rafe was fidgeting in the armchair. He had not agreed with Alex about finding a peaceful solution, yet he had gone along with it because Alex had asked him to trust him. Now, he leaned over and picked up the folder letter sitting on the coffee table between them. “You mean ‘don’t change history’ the way you didn’t change history?” He let the letter drop back down. “You deliberately changed things because you were peeved about the council. We at least had a better excuse.”
Veris sat back and crossed his arms. “So you say.” Disbelief tinged his voice.
Sydney got to her feet. “Of course you don’t believe us. You were here. You don’t remember the way it was.”
Veris rose, too. “If we really were living in an alternative stub of time, then when you changed things, none of us should have been able to remember the Council burning down the house with you three in it, yet the letter is here. We remember it.”
“Because you were already living in this timeline when it happened,” Sydney told him. “The changes we made took days to put into place. Every time we changed even the smallest thing, it rippled down to here.”
“A butterfly lands in Beijing, it rains in Chicago,” Brody said from over by the door.
“I know the principle,” Veris growled. “If the changes had already been made, then the house should still be gone, yet here we are.”
“More changes,” Sydney told him. “Changes that happened after the house was gone. You don’t remember them as changes, because your memories say you lived through a time when the house wasn’t burned down. Review your memories. Can you really remember seeing the house burn down?”
Brody moved closer to the sofa. “I can’t,” he said softly. “I only remember Veris telling me the Council had come after us, because of what is in that letter.” He nodded to the letter on the table.
Alex moved over to Sydney’s side. “Successive waves of change came through and you changed a short period of time in the middle of those changes.”
Veris scowled at him. “And you of everyone should have known better! You’ve been listening to us for years talk about how little changes can create massive ones at this end!”
“If you had seen the timescape as I saw it, you would have known that peace was the only alternative,” Alex told him.
“Back off, Veris,” Sydney said quietly. “You’re being a hypocrite.”
Veris’ arms loosened and his eyes widened as he looked at her. Then he sighed and sank back down onto the chair he had been sitting on. “True,” he said. “We did exactly what you did and our reasons were just as solid.” He glared at Rafe. “Unless you preferred to jump back to no bodies and instant, permanent death?”
Brody snorted. “Way to apologize, big guy.”
Veris pushed his hand through his hair. “Ah…this is such a fucking mess,” he groused. “Are the Council still pissed at us, or not? Do we have to pull up the drawbridge?”
“Why don’t you ask them?” Sydney suggested. She hadn’t returned to her seat. She was still standing over Veris, not backing down an inch.
“As if I know anyone on the Council,” Veris growled. Then he looked at Rafe. “You do, though.”
Rafe frowned and his gaze focused inward as he reviewed his memories. “I do,” he said at last. “And it’s not the person I remember from before.”
“Who is it?” Taylor asked curiously.
Rafe smiled as he glanced at Alex. “You won’t believe this.”
* * * * *
The limousine wasn’t a stretch limo, although it had the blackened windows and anonymous look that most limousines in Los Angeles tended to have. Because there were so many of them in the city it would pass by unremarked, especially here in Beverly Hills.
Everyone, including Mia and the twins and Marit, stood on the wide steps up to the front doors of the house, watching the limousine as it rolled around the curved driveway and halted under the portico, out of the sun that was playing on the roses just beyond the big columns holding up the portico roof.
The driver did not get out of the car. Instead, the back door was opened from the inside and a long pair of legs emerged, encased in high quality worsted wool suiting. The passenger unfolded themselves and stood up, looking at the ten people ranged on the steps.
“Siorus!” Alex breathed.
The thin, tall man gave him a tight smile. “Cyrus, the man you call Siorus, was my brother. My name is Herakleides.”
“Was your brother?” Sydney echoed.
“For various transgressions and sins, my brother was excommunicated by the Council, some years ago.” Herakleides said it with a degree of defensiveness, as if he was apologizing for the family’s black sheep.
“Excommunicated?” Taylor repeated. “He was on the Council itself?”
“He means kicked out of the brotherhood of the Blood,” Veris said. “Not even to be provided the minimal protection that one of the Blood can give to another, with no hope of appeal.”
“Is he even alive?” Brody asked.
“I don’t know,” Herakleides replied, still sounding apologetic. “Perhaps this story you have offered to tell me will shed some light on that, as you clearly have met my brother somewhere in the past.”
* * * * *
Because this was a formal occasion, they used the front room, which featured all the wood paneling and pleated leather furniture, chandeliers and carvings a Supreme Court judge would naturally be expected to have. Mia took the twins down to the playroom in the basement, while Marit stayed by Sydney’s side.
Herakleides paid no attention to the room. It was likely, Alex thought, that he had seen far too many grand rooms like this to be even slightly impressed. Instead, the councilor sat in the big wing chair and listened while Alex and Sydney between them, with asides from Rafe, told the story of their call back to the tenth century and what happened there.
Veris was even more frank about the role he and Brody and Taylor had played in saving the three of them and Alex realized he was exaggerating just slightly the drama of the event. It wasn’t enough to make the adventure sound impossible. It did showcase the Council’s peremptory judgment.
Herakleides listened to it all without comment. Then he looked from one to the other of them, weighing them all up. He folded his hands together on his crossed knee. “The reason that Rafael remembers another contact on the Council is because that is a latent memory from the alternative timeline. That Council is the one that reacted to the news that you were attempting to change time.” He gave them a stiff smile. “I do not know if I was a part of that alternative Council or not, as I only remember the Council in this timeline and we were not informed of your activities.”
“Why not?” Veris asked.
“I imagine,” Herakleides said dryly, “that my brother reached out to Thorsby and told him what you were trying to do. They were…close, the pair of them.” He grimaced. “Two peas in a pod, actually. Thorsby is not a part of the Council as I know it, which is why we were not informed in this timeline.”
“Everything keeps coming back to Cyrus,” Sydney pointed out.
“That’s because he’s the one that started all this in the first place,” Rafe said.
Everyone looked at him.
Rafe was wearing one of his expensive business suits and sitting in the chair that was the twin of the one Herakleides had chosen for himself. He lifted his hands up, offering his explanation with a gracious gesture. “He revealed that he was a time traveler, back in the tenth century. He told me that he had made a deal with the Vikings to get even with someone in the future by changing history and their world as they knew it. He didn’t say who.”
“That would be me, I imagine,” Herakleides said. “Even when we were human, he resented anything I achieved or acquired that he could not have.” He sighed. “The changes he put in place, they really threatened the entire world?”
“The country of Gronoya, that we know as Wales, had already taken out Iraq with nuclear warheads. Everyone was just waiting for the Middle East to strike back,” Veris said with a growl. “I don’t remember that at all, but I believe Alexander and Rafael and Sydney when they say they do remember it.”
“It’s quite true, Far,” Marit said suddenly. “I’ve seen it, too. A black place, where time ends. We were heading there. Now we’re not.”
Herakleides studied Marit thoughtfully. “We are no longer heading there because of this peace that Alexander arranged?” he asked her. He didn’t seem to find it odd that a twelve year old understood time travel paradoxes. Most of the long-lived vampires were able to encompass such oddities with ease and Herakleides was very old.
Marit nodded.
“The way I remember it,” Sydney said, “is that Powys, the strongest kingdom in Wales, pulled every able soldier over to Mercia to battle the Lady’s army at Chirbury. That emptied Powys and without Powys, the rest of the Welsh kingdoms were vulnerable to an attack. Siorus—I mean, Cyrus—was a favorite of Llewelyn’s and used that influence to convince Llewelyn that the only honorable reaction to Mercia taking the Queen of Brycheiniog hostage was war. He kept up his propaganda, until the entire Powys army was frothing at the mouth, determined to wipe Mercia from the earth in order to restore their good name and reputation and prove the strength of Powys. He also whispered in Llewelyn’s ear that this would be a good time to take stock of Mercia’s strength and deplete it at the same time. He kept whispering and convincing, until Llewelyn was unable to look away from Mercia and notice how his rear was unguarded.”
“Then he negotiated with the Vikings to raid Powys,” Rafe added. “I imagine he had some sort of deal worked out where he got to live like a prince among them, or perhaps he was simply happy with the idea that the Vikings would control Wales into the future and ruin whatever life you might have had.”
“A pointless exercise,” Herakleides said, “as I don’t remember the life I had in that alternative time. I’m sure Cyrus overlooked that point. He always was very good at self-denial.”
“It is historical fact,” Taylor said, “that after repressing the Vikings, Llewelyn and his brother presented themselves to Edward, the high king of England, Aethelfreda’s brother. An alliance was formed. Thirty years later, when the Vikings attacked again, Wales and Mercia and most of the English forces were able to hold them at bay. So instead of Gronoya, England and New Denmark, we have the United Kingdom, made up of Scotland, Wales and England. And we have peace. No one is firing nuclear weapons.”
Sydney held out her hand. “Wait,” she said softly. “Maybe Cyrus didn’t overlook that you wouldn’t know about the life you once had before he changed things. Maybe he didn’t care that you wouldn’t know, because he would know.”
Herakleides raise his brows. “Then he is still alive,” he concluded. “Somewhere in the world, he remembers what he nearly managed to do. That is not a good thing for any of you in this room, who have defeated his plans.” He got to his feet. “My brother is very good at holding a grudge. It is perhaps fortunate that your other enemies can no longer be found in this time.”
“There’s a comfort,” Brody muttered.
Herakleides smiled for the first time. “You are a particularly resourceful group. I am sure you will weather whatever storms you have brought upon yourselves. I will bid you good day. The Council has no further concerns related to your affairs.”
He nodded at them all and Sydney led him out of the room.
Veris blew out his breath. “’Whatever storms we have brought upon ourselves,’” he quoted. “They’re washing their hands of the whole affair.”
“That’s typical,” Rafe said gravely. “They have always had a hands-off policy regarding time jumpers, because most of them kill themselves off, usually during their first jump.”
Taylor pulled her feet up onto the sofa and settled on the broad leather cushion. She let her hair out of the French pleat and shook it back around her shoulders. “There’s still one question I can’t answer. How did Cyrus know about time jumping…and who took him back to Wales? He didn’t jump by himself. Not even Alex really jumped by himself. He had help from Marit. So who helped Cyrus?”
Sydney came back into the room. “I heard that. And I heard what Herakleides said about Tira. Does that mean he thinks they have something in common?”
Veris looked at her, startled.
“Well, Cyrus needed someone to take him back into time,” Sydney pointed out. “Tira is a good candidate. They’re both as nasty as each other.”
“Then why didn’t she show up and cause her usual mischief while we were there?” Rafe asked.
“Because Tira has been alive for a very long time,” Sydney said. “Babylon, you said, Veris.”
“I only think that’s when. No one really knows for sure.”
“She was definitely alive in the tenth century, somewhere in the world. If she jumped Cyrus back to the tenth century, he would have arrived in Powys and she would have found herself…somewhere.” Sydney shrugged.
“Hopefully, somewhere near far Outer Mongolia,” Brody said shortly. “It would take her over a year to get to England from there, if not longer. I hope she left Cyrus scrambling for his life for fucking years until she got there and could jump him back.”
“If it was Tira,” Sydney added. “We’re speculating. She has never been able to properly time jump before now.”
“She’s been determined to learn how ever since I met her,” Taylor added. “Maybe she finally did.”
“Or maybe she will learn how,” Veris added. “Herakleides said she wasn’t anywhere in this time.”
“You’re talking about the future,” Alex said. “You think that’s where Cyrus and Tira jumped from? Somewhere in our future?”
“It’s a good bet, yeah,” Brody said.
“Only,” Veris added, “how far into our future?”