Cara MIA - By Book One of the Immortyl Revolution - By Denise Verrico Page 0,63
the aurora one long night, I questioned Brovik about Kurt. He opened a drawer and showed me a picture from an old newspaper clipping, twelve year-old Kurt, whose impossibly large eyes looked even larger.
“Ethan and I had seen this brilliant, young musician’s concert, not imagining one day our paths would cross. Kurt struggled so valiantly to live… I couldn’t turn away.” Ethan scowled as Brovik looked on the clipping fondly. “Such beauty must be cherished and protected.”
“Why don’t you call him home?”
“Put that thought out of your head,” Ethan growled. “I won’t stay under the same roof.”
“He speaks.” Brovik took the clipping and replacing it in the drawer he had taken it from.
Ethan lay back with his eyes closed. “Filling her head with tales of your imaginary Viking exploits is one thing, but spinning romantic fancies about your paramour is another.”
“You always profess to be free of pointless standards of morality.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Has the boy usurped your place? Have I taken away anything of yours because of him?”
Ethan didn’t answer.
“Kurt works hard. He’s not a mere plaything. He’s sharp, loyal, and does what’s asked of him without complaint. And I don’t need to tell you what joy his music brings.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.”
“Get used to the idea, I rely on him absolutely.”
“She’s formed an unhealthy fancy for him.”
“This miserable life should have some consolation,” I muttered.
“Don’t even think of consoling yourself with him,” Ethan snapped.
“If I did, no power on earth could stop me.”
Brovik laughed. “Your Bird of Prey has proven no parrot.”
“You encourage her disobedience.”
“You want so much to be enlightened, but you don’t allow her to think for herself. If she fancies my beautiful boy, what harm is there?”
“I’d kill her first.”
“Your ideas are as archaic as Kalidasa’s. You chose her for her intelligence, but you can’t stand that she has her own ideas. Why are we doing this work if not to free them?”
“I ask myself that question constantly.”
“It is inevitable. The old ones will fall from power. Our children will walk in the sun.”
Rooting through the drawer, Brovik came up with a wide, elaborately decorated, gold bracelet. “Ah, here it is. I knew I still had it. Come Mia, a gift for you. A craftsman in Constantinople fashioned it for me, centuries ago.” He clasped it about my upper arm. The woman it had been made for was somewhat broader of limb and it hung loosely. “We’ll have it cut to fit you.”
Ethan took it. “Absolutely not, this is priceless, an artifact of an ancient age!”
Brovik pooh-poohed him, “It’s nothing, a bauble with one purpose, to compliment a woman’s beauty.”
Ethan examined the beautiful spiral design. “Don’t spoil it. We must preserve beauty by all means.”
Brovik took it and clasped it again on my upper arm. “I care nothing for the past, except of a form of entertainment for young listeners. The bloodthirsty berserker legend has its use.”
The bracelet slipped down my arm. I pushed it up. “Don’t disappoint me. You burn and pillage my imagination.”
“We were simply voyagers in search of new lands, not mindless killers that Christian monks and Arab traders painted us to be.”
Ethan sneered. “He’s left out the most interesting part of his legend. He killed his maker with his own hands. Staked her before dawn and cut her throat— but she cursed him that he’d die at a woman’s hand.”
I was flabbergasted. “Your maker was a woman?”
“Ethan, I’m surprised at you. You profess to be a man of science, surely you don’t believe in such folderol?”
“The question is, do you?”
All at once Brovik became still. He looked to Ethan, then to me. He started to laugh, softly at first, building to a crescendo. “Is this why you have made your Bird of Prey, to frighten me with the specter of Sanjavani?”
“You’ve taken no women, unless you count the boy.”
“I couldn’t leave such a heart to stop beating! Kurt’s the best I’ve ever made, and there were a dozen before you! He’s contributed more to this house in a decade, than you’ve done in a century.”
This remark wounded Ethan deeply. He rose from the bed. “Do without my contribution then!”
“Go then, maybe Gaius will take you in. See if you fare as well under him.”
Ethan turned slowly pale and trembling. “You just have to pound the stake in a little at a time, don’t you?”
“Don’t be foolish.” Brovik laid a gentle hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “There’s work for you, a chance to show your mettle. It will be