Alicja
He's out on the balcony when I wake. It's still early. I can smell 5:00 AM out there through the open door. It's a glass door. It slides.
It's so odd.
Wrapping a sheet around me, I go out and sit next to him on the garden wall, which of course is made of stone. The whole hill, from the bottom to the top is paved in stone of various height and size. It is just a massive dome now with varying roof levels. Gardens are entombed in stone.
Electric lights glow out there among the oil lamps and more common gas lamps down in the river district with its manufacturing and shipping traffic.
He told me the Sidhe cities are much larger. They are spread out across great forests, making use of trees and lumber and suspension engineering. Uncle Max was quite informative about the engineering they have been able to achieve. Which bored poor Victor to tears, so I vowed to stop asking questions after an hour.
"With this new material they are using, their innovation has exploded in the last seven years," Uncle Max told me.
"Do you know what the material is?" I asked, my interest piqued.
"I asked, but they gave me such a silly answer, I'm not sure they weren't just joking me off, if you know what I mean. It would serve me right, asking in such a direct manner. A bit rude, they might feel."
"Well, what did they say?" I asked.
He took a drink of his wine and then described how they made this new stuff out of one layer of graphite molecules. This made a two-dimensional sheet of these molecules, and I recognized the substance from my studies. We called it Graphene. It was the strongest substance in the world. Perhaps two worlds.
"Graphene, you say?" Uncle Max asked, blinking at me. "That's really the way you make it? That's astounding. I honestly believed they were having a joke of me. I feel like I owe a few apologies. But let me tell you this part as well. They've learned how to mesh this ...graphene... into spider webs. And they are making their clothing from this weave."
My hands were covering my lips. The idea was pure genius. If they were able to make a decent combination, that clothing could be bulletproof. The bullet would still break your bones, because of its speed, but it wouldn't go through that material. That material could hold tons of weight in a single hammock.
"Spider silk?" I wondered... it was perfect... but ... "How are they able to harvest enough spider silk? Spiders are very territorial and they eat each other on sight."
He shrugged, "Who knows? Elves?..." If it wasn't engineering with the world's bones: stone, clay, iron and steel, he wasn't interested. I sighed.
He gave me a smile, and then he laughed.
Was he playing with me?
Then his laugh became a barking. He stood up, and backed away from the table, pulling his chair over. His barking became louder, and slower, and lower. Flames shown around his eyes and nostrils when they flared.
"Oh, no," I whimpered, getting up from the table, spilling my red wine across the white linen. "Is it? Is it the Madness?"
Uncle Max's wings unfurled, shredding his jacket and shirt, and swiping our table and several other furniture items, away.
The scent of cured leather and sandalwood waifs past me, when his wings buffet the air in the room. The wind pushes me backward.
He locks eyes with me, "I can smell your fear!" he roars.
He's not the only dragon in the room. In fact, I believed that I was the only non-dragon in the room. Guards and servers ripped away their clothing and shifted â all around me. They rippled with muscle and flame, and armor.
The dragons roared and clashed. Max's wings retracted as he hammered on the men trying to pull him down. The guards and servers working together, optimizing their strengths, brought Uncle Max to the ground, and were struggling to get a set of manacles on his arms. They were made of bright steel.
"Alicja?!" Victor's commanding voice cut through my shock.
"Yes?" I said, looking to him.
"Go to your room, please? Please."
"My room? OK." I said, and ran from the great hall for my room.
"No!" Max roared after me. "The bargain! The bargain! The bargain!
I covered my ears and ran. I wasn't going to kill him! No! I'm not a Morrigan!
...
"Hey," I said, sitting down, the dark of morning unmarred yet by the rising dawn â still beautiful and chill. "Can't sleep?"
Victor glances over to me, and puts his hand on my thigh as I settle.
"He's going to be alright," I said, putting my hands on his.
"Is he though?" Victor asked, his voice tired and heavy. "Is that what's going to happen, Alicja?"
I bit my lip. Uncle Max may be starting into the madness. The effect he described to me at our first dinner â when he wanted to ask me to kill him if I had the power. If I became a Morrigan.
Meeting Victor's eyes now, I feel a chill that had nothing to do with being outside. He rolls his large round shoulders, and flexes his back, then rolls his neck. "What was that he kept yelling at you about? When we were fighting him into the cell?"
Shit. I don't want to talk about this. Not now. Not ever, really. I can't think of a day I might want to talk about this. Not with anyone, but especially not with him. If there is a day, it's not today.
"You don't want to talk about it," he said, and looked away. "Then don't."
I sigh. My shoulders slump. His damn nose. He could smell me preparing to lie or evade â they smell the same he says.
I rake my lip with my teeth, "I'm sorry that's going to take a lot to get accustomed to. It's a social upbringing thing. I don't want you to misunderstand or ... accuse me of anything ... or ..." I lifted my hands and then clapped them back on my thighs. I looked out across the river â A thousand miles away would be good right now. I mean, if I wouldn't explode or anything.
"...to not like me," I finished with a sigh.
His head falls back and he stares up at their extra moon, far away, so peaceful it must be way out there... if he wouldn't explode or something.
He nods his head, and sits forward. "I understand. Knowing and being bonded is one thing. Trust is another. And so fragile. After Ocean, I'm not all that trusting either. Except... fuck... I don't know... What is there to do? Hate him? I'm not sure I can."
The change in topic gives me whiplash. Am I off the hook? By some miracle did we just jump out of Uncle Max and into Ocean? Because I know what I feel about Ocean.
"You don't need to hate him. Just don't forget him," I said. "Forgiveness is not forgetting that someone is willing to betray you given the right reason."
Did I just quote pseudo-psychology at him? Where did I get that from?
"It amounted to treason â not to bring us back," he said, and I can't smell him, but he's looking defeated.
I took a breath. "I mean, I don't know what you two really mean to each other," I said. "But he really seems like a bright, intelligent person. Someone with serious problem solving skills."
"Sure," he said, sitting up and looking at me. "He is. It's his job."
"And with all of that he couldn't figure out a way to appease both his loyalty to the city, and to you? Nothing? Not even the attempt?" I asked.
Frustration hit me, and I shook my head and lifted my hands.
"Look," I said, putting my hand on his thigh. "Your call. You make the call on this. Forgive him or don't. Rebuild or don't. I will trust your call on this. OK? I'm committed to you, not him."
He examined me and my resolve for a long moment, his brows near touching. "Committed?" he asked.
"Don't make it more than it is," I sneered, sitting back and adjusting my sheet. "It's what they use to call locking someone in an insane asylum."
His eyebrows peaked, "That's remarkably apt right now."
"You talk funny. I'm going back to bed," I said, and kissed him.