Page 66 of The Ballad of a Bard

D amien and Thalias remained with Cobalt as he recovered, leaving Connor and West to follow her throughout the corridors as she searched for Altivar. It was a three-way tie between them all on who wanted to kill the Prince the most, and for some reason, she felt as though she held the lesser claim. Even West, she placed behind Connor after much deliberation on the topic.

Crimson was tired of the blood that coated her hands, of the numberless kills she’d made over the last few years. And when she surveyed both of the males features, she found that her reasoning for wanting to take down Altivar wasn’t enough to take another life.

Her gait paused as they reached the last floor, turning towards her father. He waited, patiently allowing her to come to her own conclusion. West caressed her arm, nearing the top of the staircase as if he already knew what she was going to say. She wouldn’t put it past him since he’d seen aeons go by, understanding the way of people even without having to say a single word. And more than that, he’d always understood her before she’d even had the chance to understand herself.

One of the very reasons she loved him.

“I think you should be the one to kill him.” Crimson elucidated and withdrew her dagger. It twirled around until the ruby hilt faced Connor, the hearts towards his own. Since Altivar wasn’t a full Saint, it wouldn’t matter what blade did him in.

But it was the gesture that was important.

The blades he’d left behind in order to save her brother, leaving them in her care. He hesitantly took it, admiring the smoked steel, the simple handle, the intricate carving at the ends. He flipped it around, testing the weight before glancing up at her.

“I never thought these would be your talismans, but I’m glad that they were something so dear to you.” Connor carefully added it to his belt, making sure not to rip his garnet shirt, which already carried enough wear and tear from his days spent in the cells. He’d told her that he’d dropped everything to come home, and his appearance was only further proof of that.

Black pants that met with leather boots, age apparent in the cracks they bore. A red shirt with laces that had a few threads loose, and his coat that had seen better days. Even his cerise hair was ruffled, as if he tried to fix it over and over but to no avail. His belt was peeling and the buckle was tarnished gold, with flecks that provided that time hadn’t been kind to it- or him.

Her tongue ran over the bottom row of her teeth as she thought back to the years she’d spent without him. How she’d found the daggers, cursed him for leaving and then took them up in order to protect them both. How they were the things that helped her provide for them over the time.

In a way, he’d been there all along.

“I am too.” She responded and reassuringly squeezed his hand before finding herself at the last floor. Crimson wasn’t sure if that had been more for her, or for him.

West joined her and Connor came to her right as they contemplated where Altivar would have run off to.

There were two pathways that branched off, with golden railings that held lotus designs all along a square overhang. The floor painting of all the Saints stared up at them as Crimson found herself leaning more towards the right hallway. Her eyes closed, her palm pressed against her heart and she drowned every other sound out as she listened to one heartbeat in particular. It wasn’t hard to wash the others away, the fast and steady paces as she searched through the life forms and cast her powers out to one in particular.

A slower, drawn out beat that proved her instincts correct. Her lashes opened and she pointed to the second corridor.

“He’s down there.”

Her father grinned, “I knew you’d have magic, but I love watching it in action.”

Crimson flexed her fingers as she followed the breadcrumb trail of Altivar’s thrum, the flow of his semi-immortal blood. The closer she got, the louder it became. If she turned down the wrong hallway, it softened to a barely-there beat that she instantly corrected her path from.

It was a twinge of golden with green, a hint of ruby-red that signalled her attention. As if everyone’s heartbeat were different, leaving behind a familiar trace for her to follow.

West and Connor were on her heels, and she could sense the additional magic from her father as he listened too. It was the faint tendril of something else beside her as she searched with her own, the way another followed like an obedient hound dog. If her powers took on the shade of her namesake, then his were a slightly darker vermillion that differentiated them from the other.

It wasn’t because he didn’t trust her, she knew that much, but because he also couldn’t set his gifts aside. She wasn’t sure what the differences between them were since their powers were similar. Which led her onto the thinking track of if Cobalt would receive any powers similar to Muse’s, as his grandmother, or Altivar’s shapeshifting abilities.

Personally she hoped that he didn’t get any.

He’d already lived his life away from the standard of normal with his illness and all she wanted for him was to experience what his life should have been like. Powers would only make him stand out even more, regardless of if he were a full or lesser Saint. Her brother on the other hand, would definitely want them.

Which meant that his stubborn will- that she also had, if she had to admit it, something that came from their mother- would most likely grant him some of his own.

The heartbeat flared and she stumbled back, a warm grasp catching her as West’s chest became a wall of muscle. There were things to do there as well, but those would come later. She was well aware that he wouldn’t fight it either, considering the amount of times his eyes darkened and his scent changed. How more people hadn’t discovered what he was, would always be a surprise to her since she found it to be as obvious as the silvery moon in its circular form.

But the beat led her to Altivar’s room, the one place he truly shouldn’t have been if he didn’t want anyone looking for him. Granted, he may not have bothered to hide in the first place, since he was still considered to be the sovereign of Tazali. His actions however, made it seem like he wanted to hide.

Crimson stalked for it, the door left ajar as shuffling sounds followed. She pushed it open, carefully peeking inside to find that he wasn’t in the main section. The snakes writhed in their tank by the entrance, wrapping over each other like twisting vines around a thick tree. She avoided them as much as she could, hating the hissing slithers that found her ears as if they had something to say to her. Even West grimaced and stepped towards her left, Connor behind her.

“He’s in here.” Her father confirmed, searching the area for a sign of the ochre skin, the dark brown braid and the citrine eyes. “I’ll check the bathing room.”

She heard the swoosh of metal as he pulled her knife free.

West said, “I’ll take the balcony.”

A silver shape appeared from nothing but air in his grip, curving through his fingers. Crimson blinked, thinking she must have imagined it before when he faced War with her.

But no, her sight was correct.

He was holding a weaponized moon.

West caught her investigative leer and smirked as he held it up, rotating it so she could get a better look. “One of my more preferred powers.” The blade’s tips looked as sharp and vicious as a needle.

“Impressive.” She stated and thumbed her remaining blade free.

He snuck around the pulled back curtains, angling his head to avoid an unexpected attack and disappeared when he found it to be all clear. Connor vanished from her view as well, leaving her alone in the middle of the room. She’d only ever been in here once before and just like then, her father’s blood sat in a tiny vial off to the side.

Crimson picked it up, finding the liquid to be a little less than last time, and confirming that he had indeed slipped it into her wine at the ball. He wasn’t going to need it anymore, so she tucked it into her trousers and continued her search for the arrogant heir. The noises had stopped and there were signs that he’d begun to pack for departure, but she spotted nothing from him.

A chest remained on the neat bed, sheets unruffled and pillows in place. Clothes were strewn about, ones that resembled travel ramients, not the fancy garb that the heir usually enjoyed swathing himself in. A few books had been tossed alongside the opened trunk, a satchel of spiced fruit and a skein of what she presumed was water as well.

West returned, no Prince in his grip. “He’s not there. And there aren’t many places he could hide on the balcony, nor could he jump down from that height.”

Connor appeared around the corner, also empty. “Nor is he in the back portion. He must have shifted when he heard us coming and flew off to Saints knows where.”

“If we could find his talisman, then we could summon him back here and make him pay for his crimes against the Empire. But the only reason I knew where to find yours,” Crimson motioned to her father, “Is because I was the one that put it there.”

She intentionally left out the part about selling it and then buying it back with a few flirtatious glances and sweet caresses that led absolutely nowhere. He didn’t need to know the nitty gritty details. There was already enough guilt that pestered him for his previous choices, she didn’t want to add to them.

West let out an exasperated groan that she felt rattling in her core. “I know where it is, and more importantly, what it is.”

Crimson raised a thin brow. “You do?”

Vexation was clear in the stiff way he held himself. His chin dipped and he jerked it towards the glass chamber that held the three huge snakes. “It’s in there. ”

She gulped, sluggishly turning to see where it might be in the cage. “It’s a bone, right?” She recalled the book that Rapscallion Voss had written, the descriptions of all the Saints artefacts.

“Yes.” He confirmed and it didn’t help.

Because within the pile of scaled bodies, water tray and fur patches littered about, was a massive pile of bones. Animal carcasses left over from meals, tall ivory ones picked clean and there was no way that they’d be able to tell which one belonged to him. Or even what to do with it in order to correctly summon him in the first place.

“Even if I created the item, I have no way of telling which it could be.” Connor bent down until he was level with the tank, visibly searching throughout them all. Some were tiny, impossible to be Altivar’s talisman, and others were broken into cruel looking shards. But even if that ruled a good portion of them out, a handful remained. And none of them particularly wanted to reach in and find out, with the risk of being bitten.

“I’ll do it. It won’t kill me at least, but it’ll hurt like a bitch.” West began to shuck his grey sleeves up, rolling them past his elbows in preparation for the unwelcomed task.

Her heart stuttered as she saw the constellation tattoo on his right arm, how beautifully detailed it was with connecting spots of gold that shimmered like real stars. He moved closer and she could see his handsome features contort as he mustered up his courage. Connor stood, backing up and allowing him the room required as he hovered over it with an opened hand.

A fourth, slower beat summoned her attention.

“I can do it if you can’t.” Cobalt quietly called from the doorway and the three of them spun to him. “I know which one it is.”

He was barefoot, in the long shirt that West lent him after his sweat-ridden episode that left him rasping for the rest of the evening. His hair was a mess but there was no illness to be found. No sickness in the sheen of his glowing eyes, nothing to see in his healthy-looking skin. Even the redness that always crept around his edges had faded and she felt as though she could fly with the lightness that poured into her.

“How in the Saints name do you know that?” Connor interrogated, rubbing at the lower portion of his face.

“They told me.” He pointed towards the tank, the oversized shirt drifting above his knees as he walked towards it. “The snakes. Can’t you hear what they’re saying?”

The room fell silent.

Crimson’s mouth dropped as she understood.

“You received powers.” And much to her dismay, they’d replicated his true father’s.

“I heard them from my room. They were talking about something I couldn’t quite hear but I knew they weren’t from any of the guards.” He stood on his bare toes, leaning forward and she had the motherly instinct to pull him back by the linen collar before he fell in.

Connor appeared to be having the same struggle.

Crimson was curious enough to want to be privy to the battle inside his brain. If he wasn’t sure which role to fill since even if he claimed Cobalt as his son in all the ways that mattered, he hadn’t been the one to raise him. And yet, she was his daughter in every way, but had taken on the role of parent in his absence.

Cobalt gestured to the black one with diamonds along its body that was nearly two feet long. “This one likes to be called Ranjiet. Altivar named him something else but that’s what he prefers so that’s what I’m going to call them. And that one there is Safia.” He motioned to the striped one with a yellow underbelly that wrapped in on itself. “Then the last one is Giru.” He pointed to the blue one so dark it was almost onyx.

She was flabbergasted as her brother explained, enough so that she didn’t question how he’d gotten up here without either Thalias or Damien hot on his heels. She’d grown up with him enough to know that he could be as slippery as an eel and as tricky as a devil when he wanted something. If he didn’t use it to get out of things like this, she might have been impressed with it as a skill.

“And they talk to you?” West asked, kneeling beside him on one knee as the other sat flush with the floor. “They told you which one was his talisman?”

Her brother nodded quickly. “They told me which it was and how to use it. They said that no one had ever talked to them before and that they were glad of the conversation. I heard you talking about the bones and so did they, so they told me because I responded to them.” Cobalt bent down, peering inward until he found what he was looking for.

And before anyone could stop him, before they could even process what he was doing, he bravely craned his arm over the glass wall and stuck his hand into the pile of serpents.