Chapter XIII: Never To Return

Amaltheia Lascari navigated through the crowd, vaguely aware of the gravity-repulsing harness that covered her belly beneath the stiff fabric of her suit. She carried a diplomatic pouch and two identical glimmer-blades, their humming energy tickling her ribs. Following a picturesque maze of small streets, she strolled through the Cotroceni area where Despina Asenova resided. Amaltheia barely remembered Bucharest, but she knew she belonged there. Her family's humiliating exile only increased her stubborn desire to take back her home, deepening the old wound she had grown to despise. She was back. And she was there to stay, no matter what Leudora thought.

A square house with a steep tiled roof was drowned in reddish grapes and wild greenery. Twisted columns supported overwrought stonework of the freeze, concealing an elevated porch. Circling a white-leafed Setra tree, Amaltheia passed through the courtyard, climbed the steps and lifted her hand to knock. When Despina Asenova opened the door, Amaltheia gaped at her in surprise.

The greatest scholarly mind beneath the Veil barely reached Amaltheia's shoulder. Waves of black hair with tinges of red framed a narrow face with a thin beak-like nose. She was neither old, nor young, her ageless appearance typical for a time-master. Amaltheia studied her features, wondering if that miniature woman was indeed the last living heir to one of the greatest Offcast families in Eastern Europe.

"I have been expecting you, Lady Lascari." Despina Asenova addressed her in perfect Romanian, with only a barely noticeable hint of an accent. Amaltheia slightly bowed her head.

"Lady Asenova, I beg your pardon for the delay."

She stepped aside, allowing Amaltheia to pass into a spacious room decorated with oil paintings and old maps that betrayed her scholarly inclinations. Lady Asenova's house reminded Amaltheia of a museum. She could not imagine someone existing side-by-side with a collection of precious relics without the constant fear of damaging or losing them.

"Come forward." Despina invited her into the room, gesturing towards a velvet couch in the corner. "Stay away from the windows."

Amaltheia frowned. "Nobody followed me. I am certain of that."

Despina shook her head with a derisive scoff. "I thought Leudora has taught you not to underestimate your enemies."

For a moment Amaltheia remained silent, carefully considering her words and assessing their possible impact.

"I will deal with the Spies if they show up," Amaltheia said.

"It's never if. It's always when." Despina Asenova lifted a pair of old holo-glasses from a wooden coffee table and placed them on the tip of her nose, scrutinizing Amaltheia's unmoving face. Amaltheia did not look away.

"I have requested your presence for two reasons, Lady Lascari. I need you to transmit Leudora a personal message from me, and I need you to keep her safe. Discreetly." She paused and straightened her back. "I do not trust light projectors. I have seen the Spy Guild's work and its most disastrous consequences." She shook her head, making Amaltheia wonder if she was referring to her visions or personal experience. Perhaps both.

"Leudora told me you know how to change unfavorable outcomes, my lady." Amaltheia said, leaning forward on the couch. Despina nodded with a gracious smile.

"Yes. Potential outcomes." She touched the golden frame of her holo-glasses. "I have always known that our paths would cross, and I prefer to start this relationship on mutually beneficial terms. After all, we are both Psychics and we are facing a war we cannot win. That is why Leudora chose to act now. That is why she decided to send you away and have your ears and eyes at her disposal."

Despina Asenova slid a tiny light message stick towards her. Amaltheia nodded, concealing her suspicions: was this truly the woman who hated her grandmother and despised her family?

"Why do you need my assistance?" she asked. "You could relay the message yourself."

"The address Leudora requires is on this light stick." Lady Asenova left the stick and walked away. "I know where she can find the purple potion that poisons the Natives. I cannot talk to her via light projectors, even if she has the ability to meddle with their energy signatures. The Spy Guild is watching my every move, listening. I cannot act openly, Leudora can. She does not see the outcomes unfolding the way I do."

"You are a time-master." Amaltheia stated the obvious, but to her surprise, Lady Asenova only smiled, cocking her head like a tiny sparrow.

"I don't see everything, Amaltheia. I choose to trust Leudora's judgement. She made me believe that a unity of our kind in Eastern Europe is possible. She made a compelling argument, and I could not ignore her logic."

"But you doubt her choice of an intermediary. You don't know me." Amaltheia willed all emotion away from her face: compliance came easier than she thought.

"I do not," Lady Asenova said. "You are young, you are not even thirty. But you are more than a Lascari. You have Constandache blood in you."

"It did not prevent my grandfather from trying to slaughter my family," Amaltheia cut sharply. Lady Asenova nodded gravely, pacing around the room in circles. Her small stature seemed incongruous for someone carrying herself with such dignity.

"The assault on your family did not bring your opponents as many political points as they had hoped to achieve." When they locked gazes, Amaltheia saw a sparkle of fire in Despina's murky green eyes. "Tell me, Amaltheia Lascari, will our most prominent people rally behind a young and fearless Byzantine Blood supported by the last-living Asenov, or support a mediocre Councilor, who tried to slay his own granddaughter and sell his kin to the gravity-switchers?"

"I understand," she uttered slowly, feeling Lady Asenova's keen stare on her face.

"You don't. But you will."

Amaltheia's blood froze in her veins. Was she finally going to claim her rightful place among the Offcast elite? Lady Asenova pressed her lips tightly together, stopping in the corner of the room.

"There still remains the question of Leudora's safety."

"I am certain my aunt can take care of herself," Amaltheia said, straightening her back. Despina sighed.

"I saw Leudora lying breathless on the floor, surrounded by corpses. Her hand was squeezing an empty chalice."

Amaltheia's eyes narrowed. "Even your visions cannot always be accurate, my lady."

"I cannot ignore them," Despina said. "And I have reason to believe that you will not betray Leudora."

"I will not." Amaltheia replied without hesitation: she was a Lascari, and a Lascari would never turn against her own blood. But her grandmother Adeona was a Lascari, and she would have gutted Leudora given an opportunity.

"I'm not my grandmother." Amaltheia felt she needed to state her intentions clearly.

"No, you are not." Lady Asenova pulled her face into a sad smirk.

Long silence followed, allowing Amaltheia to examine her surroundings: paintings of dark-haired people with different shades of green and golden-brown eyes, sketches depicting Veliko Tarnovo, a rotund church in the center of Sofia, postcards with picturesque ruins, an old clock and a heavy wardrobe with exquisite wooden columns. Amaltheia did not conceal her curiosity. When she left the couch to study an antiquated canvas, Lady Asenova approached her. The picture, as Amaltheia thought, featured a younger Despina Asenova with longer hair, two smiling boys by her side, and a bold slender man with a well-groomed moustache, his hand resting on Despina's shoulder.

"Your husband and your sons…" Amaltheia's voice trailed off.

"Dead. All of them." Her small hand slid from her family's portrait to a picture of a tall woman, who reminded Amaltheia of Leudora, although she could not quite explain why. Despina's face went pale.

"Milica, my niece. The daughter I never had. Another rare time-master in the family. She died a long time ago. My brother Krum could never overcome the loss." She sighed. "All these tragedies that we couldn't stop."

"You've made sacrifices," Amaltheia said with gloom certainty.

"A sacrifice is an offering made sacred. There was nothing sacred about the deaths of my relatives. My own sacrifices? Hm?" She shook her head and closed her eyes. "I stabbed my own last-living son, because I could not forgive a murderer and a traitor. He killed his father and brother for your grandmother Adeona. For her whims."

"I have heard the story." Amaltheia nodded. "But I never knew the details."

"There is not much to know. Ivan chose Adeona over your grandmother's elder sister, destroying her in the process. Predictably, he became Adeona's political tool. His elder brother and father stood in her way, and he did not think twice before slaughtering them." Her voice sounded strangely calm, when she spoke. "It was painfully revealing to discover Rumen and Blagovest in a pool of blood, with Ivan hysterically laughing over their dead bodies."

Amaltheia could not help but admire the way Despina carried her pain. There was no misery in her, only a dignity so dark and overpowering that it felt almost unreal. She understood why Leudora revered the woman, but she did not know why Lady Asenova respected Leudora.

"You care about Leudora," Amaltheia said. Despina Asenova's gaze shifted from the picture of her niece back to her.

"I do." A slow, measured answer followed.

"So do I." Amaltheia stepped forward. She believed in her own words. Despina Asenova tilted her head to the side.

"Then you should be able to put your pride aside and leave this house as soon as possible. Transmit my message any way you can, keep her safe and hide."

Amaltheia bit her lip.

"Hide? I have spent enough time in hiding."

"Don't rush. Politics are a cage. Once you are in, you won't get out." Despina turned away from her.

Amaltheia's lower lip trembled when she felt someone approaching. Avoiding her stubborn look, Despina gestured to the window. "You sense people closing in, don't you? Constandache will send his cronies after you. It's not what you want. You don't want to be dragged to him. You need him to come to you. Be patient. Wait until Leudora gathers enough support."

"They are not here to talk. They've come for my blood." Amaltheia winced. "I can't run, I must stand up to them."

Lady Asenova shook her head. "Amaltheia. Don't."

"I am a Lascari. We don't bow." Amaltheia suppressed the tremor in her hands and lifted her chin: she was not going to allow her enemies to take advantage of her. Despina Asenova's arguments could not change her mind. Leudora's words rang in her ears: "Always act as if you are in control, even if you are not. Most people won't bother to test your limits. They will let you gamble."

There were three of them outside. Amaltheia recognized two faces from the projector news: Dan Constandache, a tall and pale nephew of the Councilor, and Vlad Crișan, a young, olive-skinned energy-twister who worked for the Spy Guild. An unknown woman with blond hair and round brown eyes flanked them. Amaltheia stopped in the middle of the street, where the Veil opened into a wide breach, making sure she could use the mist covering the cracks to her advantage. Dan Constandache spoke first.

"You'd be wise to follow us."

Amaltheia scoffed with disdain and glared at the man.

"I'm not wise."

"Dumb and stubborn. Like all Lascaris!" Crișan said, a braceter glistening on his wrist. Amaltheia snarled and sent him a smile one would share with a creature he most despised. She had been prepared for this confrontation, and those scoundrels had to know that much.

"One weak girl in a foreign city, and there's three of us. What will you do? Where will you go?" Constandache sneered. Amaltheia's lips twitched: she was going to make him pay for his insolence.

"I am Lady Lascari, and I am home." She stepped forward. Her loud voice stifled their murmurs and stirred their hatred. They shot at her, but not a single wave reached Amaltheia. She evaded, dancing around as quickly as she could, her corset-net reacting to her movements with sparks: why did Leudora think she would face gravity-switchers? The thing was useless against her own kin, against other Byzantine Bloods.

She kept flipping around as they persisted in their futile attempts to capture her. Amaltheia almost found the spectacle entertaining: it was when the woman shot at her head that her glimmer-blade failed to deflect the blow. The ray hit her ear. Her eyes widened when she realized how much a mere scratch could hurt. They were not toying with her, they were hunting her, a fellow Psychic.

"The Councilor needs her alive!" Crișan shouted, as if answering her unspoken question.

"Unless she resists," Dan Constandache corrected him.

They coordinated their strikes and swung punches that Amaltheia could not block. She tasted her own blood, landing on the pavement. Gritting her teeth, she sent a wave of electricity towards them, but Crișan ignored the energy and seized Amaltheia's wrist, forcing her to drop one of her two glimmer-blades. By some miracle, she managed to twist away.

Amaltheia blocked Constandache's blow and countered with a downward cut to his left arm, her remaining blade reflecting electricity. She was not strong enough to deal any significant damage, but she did not care. Fear died, suppressed by a strange feeling of overwhelming power. She leered, succumbing to all-consuming rage, almost losing herself to a predatory drive she had never experienced before. Thrilled and lightheaded, she smelled Constandache's blood and wanted more of it. Losing her focus, Amaltheia stepped aside and stumbled, taking a hit from Crișan and falling to the ground.

The world began to melt before her eyes, and she rolled to avoid braceter shots. Crișan's shot slashed her hand, cutting through the fabrics of her velvet vest. She ignored the pain, springing back to her feet. She bolted away, panting heavily.

They followed her swearing and shouting. Not a sound escaped her mouth when Crișan desperately threw a modified glimmer-blade at her. She turned around quickly, her braid flogging her back. They stopped in shock when Amaltheia caught the weapon between her palms. The blade's shimmering edges cut though her hand's soft skin, blood trickling down the white sleeves of her shirt. Crișan could not contain his terror, the woman gasped and Constandache gaped at her, clutching his injured elbow. The glimmer-blade hurt, but she smiled thinly like a villainous madman. Amaltheia recognized the pain but did not feel it.

"Nobody will mourn you if you die," Contandache hissed.

"I will not die." Without hesitation, Amaltheia stuck the blade into his throat. Her thin lips broke into a satisfied grin when a fountain of blood sprayed her face. She had never felt that true detachment in her life. The woman screamed and Crișan cursed under his breath, but Amaltheia barely heard them. Furious energy ran through her veins, suppressing all worries and all fears. She had never thought it would be so easy to kill a man. When she lifted her gaze from Dan Constandache's corpse, there was a sparkle in her light-blue eyes that held no mercy, no fear and no pity. Somewhere deep in her consciousness, she realized that she had broken all the constraints imposed on her enhancement by others. Her grandmother's words made sense for the first time in her life: "Survival excludes pity." She felt neither sadness nor guilt. Even that sparkle of satisfaction faded. She felt nothing at all.

"She's insane!" Crișan stuttered and backed off.

"A Lascari… they are all monsters…" The woman murmured, pressing her palm to her lips. When Amaltheia finally spoke, the street was empty and she did not recognize her own voice:

"I understand you now, Leudora. I finally do."