It is true. It is starting to come back to me. This is familiar to me. I remember standing here with my father. It is the first time I have remembered him.
He shared the image with her. His father tall, just like Sandu, light hair, long and wild, held back with a leather cord tied at the nape of his neck. The two stood straight, side by side, looking at the exact same boulders she was looking at. The growth on the rock was a bit different, but she could still recognize the boulders. She knew why Sandu didn’t cut his hair. He might wear modern clothes, but he was never going to change his hair, not when he looked so much like his father.
Your father looks like an amazing warrior, just like you, Sandu.
The boulders are not a trap, just have a warning system, Benedek reported.
Sandu answered Adalasia by brushing a caress along the walls of her mind, an intimate gesture between only the two of them. She held on to that as she did her own inspection of the boulders, trying to see what Domizio had when he first realized something was terribly wrong and the threat wasn’t coming from the undead.
Her skin continued to prickle with that odd awareness, a white-hot intense heat that refused to allow her hair to stop crackling or settle. Her feet seemed to find a path of their own, gliding just above the ground rather than touching it, skimming the tufts of grass, moving around the boulders and then stopping between them.
She felt the curious pulsing of light from the keys in her palm. The strange and horrible growling notes emitting from the boulders changed slightly, just enough that the difference registered. This was even deeper, pounding now in her pulse, trying to align with her heartbeat. She automatically protected herself, matching her heartbeat with Sandu’s.
Do you all hear that change in the beat? Definitely a trap now.
The keys were growing warmer in her hand. She looked down at them. The lights were growing brighter. One, a soft pastel purple, was the brightest. She chose that one, lifting it out in front of her and turning directly toward one of the boulders. The purple light spilled over the boulder, but nothing happened. She tried the other boulder. Same thing. She let her breath out, took a step back until she was directly between the two and the light illuminated both. The keyhole was not on either boulder but in the exact center between them.
Adalasia stepped forward to insert the key into the lock, but Sandu put a warning hand on her arm. “Wait. I remember this as well. This was not my father’s safeguard, but he left it because it was so clever. Only he had the keys. How is it that you came by them?”
“These keys have been handed down mother to daughter for centuries,” Adalasia said.
“Liona must have given them to your Tessina Ravasio long ago,” Sandu said. “This is another memory that I recall. It is hazy and barely there, I warn all of you. Tiberiu, I am sharing on the path of the brotherhood. You have been to the monastery. You did not stay long, but you carry the oath on your back. You will be able to see,” Sandu assured.
The vignette Sandu provided for them was shadowy and even grainy, like an older movie that hadn’t been cleaned up, nearly impossible for the others to see. He couldn’t quite get the imagery to unfold for them.
You are trying too hard to remember, my love, Adalasia whispered on their own path. Let it come to you. It’s almost there. Just breathe. It will come.
He had to have faith in himself. His father had sent him away from his family without an anchor for a reason. He had to have faith that now that they had found their way, it would come back to him and would make sense.
Sandu kept the connection between them not only mental but physical, his fingers loosely shackling her wrist. She felt him take a deep breath and exhale. The images in his mind cleared.
There was Domizio standing beside Sandu just outside the boulders, both of them looking at another man who stood between them. The man was definitely Carpathian. His back was to them, but his shoulders were wide, his back strong, and his hair was unmistakable. He had very blond hair, streaked with silver, long, to his waist.
The stranger turned and Adalasia tried not to react. None of the Carpathian males reacted. Not a single one. He was the most daunting, scary-looking man she’d ever seen. His facial features were cut from pure stone. Pure beauty, hard lines. At the same time, there was something cunning, like a beast, in every one of those lines carved deep. His mouth held an edge of cruelty, but it was his eyes that seemed to pierce right through time, through centuries, to see them. He had strange blue eyes, but so light they appeared silvery. When he turned his head just slightly, the color deepened so it appeared as if hot blue flames burned in his eyes, just the way the red flames burned in Sandu’s.