With a quickened pulse, Terra realized that must mean she was walking in the footsteps of her mother. She followed the necklace's directions to another three dead ends before she got frustrated. “You get one more chance,” she whispered to it. Her feet were starting to ache, as was her head.
Onto the main street of the city, she walked for nearly an hour, until the sun was setting and the warmth of the day was fading. Finally, there was a tug, harder than the sensations leading her around before. Her shirt nearly pulled away from her body, like the fabric wanted to tear away.
Terra was pulled into a cemetery, and her heart sank. Did her mother really die? She weaved in and out of the stones, alone save for one other man, about her age. She glanced at him, but otherwise ignored him.
The necklace fell silent, no more tugs or movements. She looked around, checking the names on the tombstones. Was the previous owner of the necklace dead? Could her own mother be buried somewhere in these graves?
She looked to the man again, whose aura is one of great sorrow. It swirled with blacks, grays and purples, like a deep bruise. Something deep within her pulled her towards him, though she didn't know why.
Terra was still three rows of graves back when the man stood. His eyes, hazel, were shining with tears. Ashamed of herself for staring, Terra looked at the ground as he passed. “Sorry, excuse me, but...” she started, turning towards him. He glanced back at her.
“Yes?” His voice was deep, sexy, but full of sorrow and a weary apathy. For some reason, she longed to pull him, a perfect stranger, into a hug.
“I'm in the middle of a spell, looking for someone. Have you seen this necklace before?”
Pulling it out, there was an immediate reaction from the man. His handsome face contorted into surprise, and then anguish. A tear fell down his face, but he wiped it away quickly, trying to hide it. “Yes, I have. My mother used to have a necklace like that.”
“What is your name?”
“Lance. Fleaas.”
“Mine is Terra Neithercutt, and I'm-”
The man, irritated now, immediately bowed. His arm swung low, one knee touching the ground. She flushed red, waving her arms to get him to stop. “No! No, I shunned the royalty, you don't need to bow. And please don't call me by my titles. Just Terra will do.”
He stood, and she held out her hand to shake. After a brief hesitation, he took it, his grip firm. Terra's whole body was hot from his touch by the time he took his hand away.
“Do you want to see photos?” He asked. “My house, what's left of it, is only a short walk away.”
“Yes, please!”
Lance's home was a middle class home. The two on either side of it were perfectly manicured, with rosebushes and small herb gardens hanging from all of the windowsills. In the backyard of one, a child was swimming in a magically heated swimming pool. A small dog barked in the other, while an orange cat sitting in the window looked down on the two of them.
His home might have looked that way, once, too. Perhaps before his mother died. Now, however? One window was covered in egg yolk, and the rosebushes had been pulled up at some point recently. All of the windows were covered with a thick black fabric, and there were layers of protection magic that suggested he had to renew the spells often. Sabotage?
Terra said nothing as she stepped into Lance's home. The inside was bare, with only a couch in the living room. There were framed photos on the island in the kitchen, presumably as a makeshift shrine for his mother. Out of respect for the dead, she kept her distance. Witches don't mess with ancestral worship. Angering someone's ancestor was worse than angering someone still alive.
She wondered if his mother did something to shame their family. She wondered if he did, instead. Witches were incredibly spiritual, and often when one member of a family stepped out of line, all had to suffer. Terra considered asking if he needed money, but thought better of it. It was clear his pride was wounded. She wouldn't chip away at it even more.
“Sorry for the mess. I won't have the house much longer.” His eyes glistened, and she reached out to touch his elbow. He looked at her, then walked down the hallway, where she stood and waited for him as he opened a door to a bedroom.
He rummaged through a closet in the bedroom. It had a small bed, and the protection spells there were the strongest. This must be where he sleeps. How intimate. She blushed and looked away from the room.
“Here we go,” he grunts, pulling out a huge photo album. It was covered in blue lace to keep the dust off of it. “Let's go sit down, I'll show you.”
On the couch, he carefully pulled the lace off of the album and opened it. Lance flicked past a few pages, while Terra felt the closeness between them. Their hips were touching. She wanted to touch his hand.
“See?” He asked. “This is my mother, with yours. Mine is wearing that blue diamond.”
The photo was old and worn, but she could see clearly the features of her mother, reflected only in paintings in almost every upper class home. Photos were too worldly for the upper class, they preferred paintings imbued with magic.
Lance's mother, with straight black hair and a crooked smile, looked at the camera. Anai looked only at Lance's mother. The blue diamond hanged from Lance's mother's neck, somehow shining even through the photo.
“She's in fatigues,” Terra said, looking up at Lance. His eyebrows stitched together, his face turned away from hers. “Lance, she's wearing a Medal of Honor.” What did she do? She screamed in her head, her heart pounding. What did she do?!
“Yes, she was in the army. She was well respected.” His voice wavered, sunk with despair.
Terra shook her head, looking at the photo. She didn't want to be disrespectful, but she had to know the truth. “Lance, the Medal of Honor comes with conditional immortality. How did your mother die?”
Silence.
“The only way she could be dead is if she betrayed the crown. If she betrayed my mother.”
“She would never do that!” His hands were balled into fists. He stood, full of fury and rage and anguish. Terra sunk back into the couch, watching him. “She wouldn't! She loved your mother, she spoke fondly of her almost every day! I was there that night, Terra. I heard a man shouting at her! It couldn't have been her, he must have stolen her medal!”
She didn't want to tell him it would take incredibly strong magic to steal a medal from the owner. She didn't want to make things worse for him, and he probably already knew. He probably already knew that somehow, there was no way of getting around it, his mother committed treason. Terra wondered if he knew of her past as a spy, and if that played a role in her becoming a traitor. Did Lance's mother double cross Queen Anai?
He was the son of a traitor. Everything about his home was suddenly explained. Everything made sense. Terra thought about getting up and leaving, right then, but something stopped her. Something deep inside, the same thing that made her want to hold him, to comfort him. Maybe it was her intuition. Maybe it was something else. But she stayed.
The strangest thing, to her, was that she detected no lies in his speech.
“I believe you.” She did. She should be suspicious. She should be running out of his house, but everything within her told her to trust him, even if his mother was a traitor. That didn't mean that he was.
He stared at her, his eyes wide. And then he turned to face the wall, his arms crossed, and pressed his forehead against it. Just for a moment. Just for a few breaths, to calm down. “You're looking for your mom?” He asked, refusing to look at her. He sniffed away more tears.
She nodded. “Yes. To stop the coming war.”
“I'm going to help.” He held up a hand, stopping her from protesting. “I'm going to help, because I must. Because only your mother can clear my mother's name. Queen Anai will remove the curse that was put on my family, and I will finally know peace.”
Terra wanted to tell him to just drop it. There was too much at stake for her, and she knew that her trust in him was flimsy and based on nothing at all. But if he was telling the truth, and she believed he was, then there was a chilling fact that she couldn't overlook: there was someone with magic strong enough to destroy the bond of a Medal of Honor.
That sort of power was worse than anything the vampires could do. It could tear apart nations, perhaps even destroy or control the whole world.
The world suddenly felt more dangerous than ever before, and an ally might be good to have. She couldn't count on her sister or anyone else. Maybe a stranger was the only option.
“It could be dangerous,” she said, her final attempt to caution him. “Hell, I know for a fact it will be dangerous. I'm not exactly following the wishes of The Crown, and you have some enemies too. The world is not on our side.”
Lance nodded. “Look at me,” he said, gesturing at his dirty clothes, and then at his bare and falling apart home. “Look at all of this. I have nothing left. There is no life for me, unless I take this chance. Let me clear my name.”
She put her hand on his shoulder, staring into his eyes to try and understand what he might be feeling. His emotions seemed so vast, so strange to her. She grew up in a world devoid of depth. She found herself wanting to swim in him, in his essence.
Pulling her hand away, she broke the tie between them. He slumped back against the couch, sighing. She took a deep breath.