Black Blood

-B2- Chapter 73

'Of course,' I reply after looking at my little brother in surprise and slight nervousness.

Novak says nothing as he leaves the dining room behind me. I only feel his warmth leaving the space without any hint of surprise.

With my hands behind my back, I walk in slow steps toward my brother, who silently waits for me to sit across from him at the table.

I wait and gaze at the black eyes focused on the papers. A heavy feeling takes over the room—a sense of fear, pain, and questions.

'Did mother know? That you're a night rider,' is his first question after minutes of silence. The breathless tone reveals that this question has been lingering in his mind.

Elien and I have never talked about our mother. He was too young when she died to truly understand what it meant, and afterward, I couldn't bear to speak a word about her.

That he wants answers doesn't surprise me, but it doesn't make it any less of a heavy topic than it always has been.

'Yes, she knew,' I try to say without a tremor in my voice. He doesn't look up.

'What did she think?' A deep sigh escapes my nostrils as I recall the good old times when my mother helped me sneak out of the castle. Sometimes, that time seems much further away than it actually is.

'She was very pleased. When we found out, she brought me to the others and always helped me sneak out of the castle without father knowing.' That's when Elien looks up with a distant smile on his face. A smile that fades much faster than it appeared.

'Mother was poisoned, wasn't she?' I nod.

'By whom?'

'By Christiaan or by father or by both. I still don't know exactly.' Slowly, he nods his head before being silent for a long time. The black eyes focused back on the papers.

'About Christiaan, tell me everything, not the children's version, everything.' And that's exactly what I do.

I leave out no detail, no matter how gruesome. From the moment I walked out of my father's office with the news that I was getting married to the moment I saw Nora being shot. Every blow, every drop of blood, and every night, everything.

Elien looks me straight in the eyes throughout my entire story without showing any emotion. He listens, says nothing, and passes no judgment.

I always thought that telling this story to him would be harder than it actually is. Perhaps because, after all this time, it's farther away from me than I thought, or maybe Elien is very different from what I thought he would be at this age. The blind, helpless boy I thought would obediently follow every command for his entire life is anything but sitting across from me.

I finish my story with a deep sigh, and again, a silence falls.

'I'm sorry I didn't know or do anything,' he says softly yet with a voice full of emotion.

With a small smile, I place my hand on his, offering support. The black eyes shift back and forth from the hand to my face.

'You have nothing to be sorry for. You couldn't have known; you were blind and a child. You couldn't have done anything even if you wanted to.' I remain silent for a moment, searching for the words that I have felt over the years but have never spoken.

'I'm sorry I left or didn't take you with me. If I had stayed, those terrible things wouldn't have happened to you. I'm sorry I didn't come back in time to help you.' A small smile appears on his lips as a tear runs down his left eye.

I grip his hand harder in an attempt to provide him with the little comfort and support that I have always wanted to give him.

'I am no longer a helpless blind child, thanks to you leaving, so I would have no regrets,' he says, surprisingly with a smile. A small laugh escapes my lips, and then I shake my head.

'Sometimes you really remind me of mother,' I say, causing a surprised look but also a smile to appear on his lips.

'How was mother?' Elien was very young when our mother died. The chance that he caught much of her while she was busy and he is blind is small.

'Stubborn, very stubborn, respectful, observant, enterprising, loving, calm, caring, funny, a very good listener, quirky, someone who could put things in perspective well, and positive.'

I always thought I resembled our mother more than our father, or rather, I always refused to see the similarities with my father, but Elien is the one who resembles our mother more than I do.

A smile has appeared on his lips before it slowly disappears again as his gaze returns to the table.

'What's the name of your dragon?' He continues as his eyes fall on a drawing of Rave that I made months ago when I still wanted to visualize my nightmares. Rave was not a nightmare but one of the few positive things that returned in my dreams.

'Rave.' Elien nods, lets go of my hand, and picks up the drawing from the table. Observantly, his eyes glide over the charcoal strokes before placing it back down.

'Novak and Alisha have been trying to explain as much as possible to me lately about what you did and why. Novak about the list and why those people are important, the dagger, and your necklace. Alisha especially about your black veins. What I don't understand is what you're going to do tomorrow now that the list is ready. What does the spell entail? What do you have to do?'

I am grateful to Alisha and Novak for their help with Elien. I haven't had the time in the past few weeks to spend with him and help him navigate this world. It couldn't have been easy for Elien to get used not only to life outside the castle but also to being able to see, learning to process the trauma of the experiments, and dealing with me in an entirely new situation.

Before I start my story, I pick up the crumpled, torn, and stained piece of paper with Viko's handwriting on it.

The Narvik Spell is written in curly letters at the top.