Bard: Chapter 26

We’re family, Laura had said.

There was a part of Trista that was so happy she could sing, and another that felt she had participated in some horrible deception.

They wanted to stay with her, even if she had to leave, even if it meant uprooting themselves from a place they both clearly liked.

And they were following her. Trista sighed, but there was little to do about it. At least she could make sure no more harm fell on them.

Despite the early hour, the woman was at her desk outside the grandmaster’s quarters. She gave Trista a strange, tight-lipped look before nodding sharply towards the door.

“Go right in,” she said.

“Thank you,” Trista said softly. She stepped into the grandmaster’s office yet again, and closed the doors behind her.

The grandmaster was seated at his desk, glaring daggers at her from across the room. She released the lock on his voice.

“Well,” he hissed, swallowing and rubbing at his throat. “I hope you’re very happy.”

“What?” Trista snapped, all thoughts of meekness or courtesy flying right out of her. “Happy? About you tangling up Laura’s memories and attacking Liam?”

“It was a simple memory probe,” the grandmaster said dismissively. Trista fumed. She was standing right where Liam had been the night before, held immobile while the mage had forced more and more of himself into Liam’s body, forcing his soul away. He’d been holding on by a thread, his body ready to break, his mind ready to break.

“You could have killed him!” Trista roared. “Were you entirely unaware of how far you’d pushed him? How much strain you’d put on his body? Is it common for a person to lose the ability to walk after you perform a simple memory probe?”

The grandmaster looked taken aback, but only for a moment, before his haughty demeanor returned in force.

“You cannot die from a memory probe,” he said dismissively.

“You can,” she replied, her voice ice and stone. “It is very easy to kill someone like that, and it is an agonizing way to die.”

That gave him pause. The mage considered her for a moment, his eyes narrowed.

“I suppose you would know,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” she replied, swallowing to keep her voice from shaking. “I do.”

The grandmaster steepled his fingers, watching her.

“And what are your intentions here and now?” he asked.

Trista sighed, her shoulders drooping. She trudged up to his desk and sat heavily in the chair opposite him. Fear flared in the grandmaster, but after last night it felt earned at least.

“I came to ask what you would require to leave Liam and Laura alone,” she said softly, looking at her hands. “I will do whatever you ask, but I would prefer to stay, and continue learning music.”

The grandmaster did not reply, but the sense of dissonance she got from him was strong enough to make her skin prickle. She rubbed at her arms uncomfortably, waiting for him to speak. There was no point in rushing him. Not when she wanted a decision he wouldn’t regret and go back on in a few days time.

The fire crackled. The candles sputtered, and Trista waited with her hands on her lap and her eyes downcast.

“How many people have you killed?” he asked finally.

Trista grimaced. It was a question she had been expecting, and one she had dreaded.

“I…I don’t know,” Trista said, her voice cracking. The grandmaster snorted and she bristled, forcing herself to keep her voice level. “I didn’t count them!”

The grandmaster gave her a skeptical look, and she felt his disgust plain as day. She had to remember how the other houses, especially Bloodcrest, crowed over their kills. Her own siblings often enjoyed the process far more than it required, Phelaia and Bryseis especially.

“They weren’t trophies. It’s not something I did for fun. They were–” they were food, she thought. Meals for her mother, and for herself, since she was there while they suffered. Humans didn’t count their meals, and neither did demons. She had never thought of the humans her siblings brought home as anything other than a source of nourishment, the way humans looked at their cows and pigs. They were nothing more, until the man with the violin, and then she had run.

“Why should I allow a mass-murderer in my school?” he asked cooly.

She squeezed her eyes shut, drawing a steadying breath before responding.

“All I can say for myself, is that I didn’t know any better,” she said quietly, knowing exactly how feeble of an excuse it was. “I did what I was made for, until the day I realized it was wrong. Then I ran.”

“Your friends don’t know any of this,” the grandmaster said. “At least, the boy didn’t.”

Trista nodded, gripping the edges of her chair to keep herself from shaking.

“Would they be your friends, if they knew?”

“I don’t know,” she replied quietly. Her nose stung and her eyes watered. She swallowed hard against her tears.

The last trace of fear within the grandmaster died out. Only the dissonance remained, ringing and powerful. She confused him, but his confusion was one that too easily turned to anger and violence.

“Perhaps I’ll tell them,” the grandmaster said softly. It was more of a prod than a threat, but the very thought made her want to be sick.

“No,” Trista said quickly. She could hear the desperate fear in her own voice and cringed. The grandmaster arched an eyebrow, and she looked away.

It would be much easier to simply erase all his memories of her, or plant the idea that he liked her. She could compel the grandmaster to let them be, to stay away and tell no one her secret. It would be easy, and solve nothing. There was no future using her mother’s power. She would have what she wanted, but it would be empty and false. If she wanted a real life, away from House Infernal, she had to leave those kinds of solutions behind.

If she wanted to stop being a monster, she couldn’t use her powers to get what she wanted.

“Would it offer you assurance if I did it?” she asked quietly. “If I told them everything, would that be enough for you to leave them alone? Could I stay?”

Even if he wouldn’t let her stay. After hearing it all Laura and Liam would hate her and want nothing more to do with her. She would leave, and they would stay. They could keep their lives in Everly, without interference from a demon. No one would bother them or hurt them just because they knew her, and they could be happy.

“Forcing that would not offer me much assurance, no,” the grandmaster replied blithely. He rapped his fingers on the desk, and let out a sharp breath. Standing, he crossed to a small cabinet along the back wall and rummaged through the drawers, returning with a glass vial and a sharp awl.

“I want your blood,” he said, taking his seat and holding out the items, “and your name.”

“You know my name.”

“Your first name,” he amended. “The one you are known by in your house.”

Trista nodded. She picked up the vial and the awl, piercing the heel of her hand and letting her blood flow into the vial until it was full. The wound didn’t show through the illusion, which resulted in the unnerving look of blood flowing from her unbroken skin. When it was full, Trista stoppered the vial and passed it back to the grandmaster, pressing the wound closed with her fingers.

“I am of House Infernal,” she told him. There was bile in her throat. “My mother named me Sananthe.”

“Where did ‘Trista’ come from?”

“Someone I met after I left my house,” Trista replied with a shrug. She had been a kind woman, and offered her shelter from a killing storm. She still didn’t know if that Trista had understood what she was, but she hoped that no one else from House Infernal would ever happen upon her little house.

Trista released the pressure on her hand to see if the bleeding had stopped, but it was difficult with the illusion in the way.

“For now,” the grandmaster said, his voice biting, “I believe it is best to forgo any…lessons.”

“Yes,” Trista agreed, barely masking the anger behind it. She didn’t want to learn from someone who so readily tied up people’s memories and so carelessly forced their way into other’s heads. She already knew how to do all of that, and would much rather leave it behind.

“You may remain, and study,” he said. “I will not approach you or your friends again.”

Trista could have wept, but swallowed the feelings down.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“You are dismissed.”

Trista left the office, and the building, walking straight to where she knew Laura and Liam were waiting. They were unsurprised as she approached, but she could feel the question hanging in the air around them.

“We don’t have to run,” she told them. “He’s going to leave us alone.”

Liam and Laura gave each other a glance, then turned back to her. Trista was shaking, but couldn’t stop. Regardless of how the grandmaster felt, or how long his clemency might last, she owed them her past. They’d stayed with her, been ready to run with her, but if they knew–if they really knew, she wasn’t sure it would be so.

Clouds were heavy overhead, and the wind was picking up. It would rain soon. They needed to get home.

She wanted to be part of their family. She didn’t want to lose them, but she was about to.

“Trista?” Liam asked.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she said.