Free Web NovelChapter 278: Chapter 278: Vessa Left
He nodded.
He’d known. Not because she’d said anything. Just.....the way she had been quite since yesterday evening. She had looked like someone who had completed a mission and ready to move on.
"Where will you go," he said.
"I don’t know yet," she said. "Somewhere small. Somewhere quiet." She wrapped both hands around her cup. "I’ve been hiding for forty one years. I think I’d like to try not hiding for a while and see what that feels like."
He looked at her.
"You could stay," he said.
She looked at him.
"The estate is large," he said. "We have room."
She held his gaze for a moment.
Something moved through her face.
"Thank you," she said. Quietly. "Truly." She paused. "But I think I need to find out who I am when I’m not in service of something." She paused. "Lilith’s promise kept me going for forty one years. I don’t know what keeps me going now." She looked at her tea. "I’d like to find out."
Silas nodded.
That was right.
He understood it completely.
"You’ll stay in contact," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"Eve will want..."
"I know," she said. "I’m not disappearing." She looked at him. "I’m just....going to stop hiding." She paused. "Those are different things."
"Yes," he said. "They are."
They drank their tea in the quiet kitchen.
The estate starting to stir around them. Distant sounds. The bonds shifting as people woke.
"There’s something I haven’t told you," Vessa said.
He went still.
Kept his face exactly where it was.
He had known this was coming. Had known since Aldenmere that she was holding something back about his father. Had been waiting, not pushing, just waiting....for her to decide when. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
"About your father," he said.
She looked at him.
"Yes," she said.
He set down his cup.
"Tell me," he said.
She looked at her hands.
"Aldric knew more than the letter said," she said. "About Eve. About the bloodline. About what Malachai had done." She paused. "He knew for longer than the letter suggests." She held Silas’s gaze. "He knew before I wrote to him. He came to me because he’d already pieced it together and needed someone who had been there to confirm it."
Silas was quiet.
"He knew," he said.
"Yes."
"For how long."
Vessa was quiet for a moment.
"From the beginning," she said. "From the night it happened." She paused. "He was there Silas. Not in the building. But close. He was at the Court that night on pack business and he heard what happened and he..." She stopped.
"He made a choice. To stay quiet. To keep it close. To protect the information rather than act on it."
Silas went quiet, the thought of his father, being at the court the night Eve’s parents died.
Knowing and choosing to stay quiet.
"Why," Silas said.
"Because he was afraid," Vessa said. "Not for himself. For you. For Damian and Damon." She held his gaze. "He had three sons and Malachai had just demonstrated what he was capable of and Aldric made the calculation that the safest thing was to know and to watch and to be ready but to never....to never let it surface until the right moment."
Silas looked at the table.
"He was protecting us," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"All this time."
"Yes."
"He should have told us," he said.
"Yes," Vessa said. "He should have." She paused. "He was afraid. Even good men are afraid sometimes." She held his gaze. "It doesn’t make what he built with you less real. What he was to you less real." She paused. "It makes him human. Fully human. With everything that means."
Silas looked at his hands and went silent for a long time.
"Thank you," he said finally. "For telling me."
"I should have told you sooner," Vessa said.
"You told me when you were ready," he said. "That’s enough."
She looked at him.
The recognition again.
"You’re very like him," she said. "In the ways that matter."
He held her gaze and then nodded.
***
She left at ten the next day.
Eve stood at the door with her.
They held each other for a long moment, the old witch and the young woman who had found each other across a twenty five year promise and had built something real in the space of a few weeks that would last considerably longer.
"I’ll call," Vessa said.
"You better," Eve said.
Vessa touched the pendant briefly.
Then she walked to the car.
Looked back once.
Eve lifted her hand.
Vessa lifted hers.
And then she was gone.
Raphael and Elena left at noon. Back to the Court, there was work still, the formal proceedings, the practical machinery of what came after a finding like yesterday’s. Raphael had a role in that. He’d always had a role in the things that needed doing.
He held Eve for a long time before he left.
Said something in her ear that Silas couldn’t hear.
She nodded.
He stepped back.
Looked at the three brothers.
"Take care of her," he said.
"We know," Damian said.
***
Long after everyone had left, Silas stood at the library window.
Watching the grounds.
Felt Eve come in behind him without turning around.
She came inside and stood beside him.
They looked out at the estate together.
"Vessa told you," she said.
"This morning," he said.
She nodded. She’d known, he could tell. Vessa had told her too, probably. Or she’d read it in his face at breakfast.
"Your father was protecting you," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"How are you handling it," she said.
He thought about it honestly.
"I don’t know yet," he said. "I will be." He paused. "It’s complicated."
"I understand," she said.
"He should have told us."
"Yes," she said.
"And he was afraid, he loved us so much that he held it alone for years and that’s...." He stopped. "just his own way of protecting us"
"Yes," she said.
He looked at the grounds.
At the treeline.
At the estate his family had built that had passed down from generations.
"I think he would have liked you," he said.
Eve looked at him.
"My father," he said. "Aldric." He held her gaze. "He would have liked who you are." He paused. "What you did. How you did it." He paused again. "He would have been glad it was you."
Eve looked at him for a long moment.
Her hand came up.
Touched the pendant.
"Thank you," she said. Quietly.
He nodded.
They stood at the window together.
The estate going about its ordinary afternoon around them.
By evening, the four of them sat in the sitting room again.
Damian reading correspondence he’d been neglecting for days. Eve with her legs across Damon’s lap. Damon’s hand resting on her ankle because he seems to like that position.
Silas sat in his chair.
Looking at the room.
He thought drifted back to his father and the sacrifices he made to keep them safe.
He figured he’ll never be able to fully understand why his father did what he did.
