Page 65 of Outside the Veil
“You know when you are in danger and when you are safe,” Finn answered as simply as he could. “While you have not been aware that you acted to save yourself, your instincts have held.”
Again the shuttered, solitary thinking.This would be much easier, m’boy, if you simply let the battlements down.
“I heard that. I can’t help if my thoughts aren’t all out in the open.Cariño, if I’m seizing now, why can’t I see the lightning?”
“State of mind, my hero. Everything here is thought, not the sight you have with your eyes.”
“Wait. All I have to do is think about the lightning?”
“Something like that, yes.”
A thunder-roll of irritation rippled from Diego. “I thought you said you would help me figure it out.”
“Perhaps it is like when we sat at the table and you tried to explain art to me. I could not find anything to hold on to in the explanation until I had seen it for myself.”
“Nice analogy. Not helping.”
Finn pointed up. “You asked about the stars. Reach for one. Take it down.”
“What? I can’t—”
“You must put aside your stubborn disbelief, my love. It’s become rather tiresome.”
“Fine, fine,” Diego grumbled, and reached up. At first, he snatched at emptiness and Finn despaired that he would be unable to let go of himself enough. As he stared at the stars, though, he became entranced and his light grew from golden to white-hot. He reached up and closed his thoughts around—
“Diego, no! Not that one!”
Too late.
“Moira, tell them! You know him! He’s not evil!” The man’s features contorted in anguish and frustration, his flame-red hair sparking in the last fingers of sunset.
“But he is. He took you from me and he’s bewitched you. For you I do this,” she answered, tone cold and flat. She refused to look at him.
Agony, unbearable agony—the iron spike through his chest, the iron shackling him to the cage, cold, so cold, the pain so sharp it robbed him of speech and breath…
“Holy shit! What the hell was that?”
“A memory, my love,” Finn answered softly. “One I didn’t wish for you to see.”
“God. Warn a person next time.” Diego’s light shivered and wavered from the shock. He faded behind his walls again, thinking. “That’s what happened, wasn’t it? What drove you into the Dreaming for so many centuries. You loved him, she loved him, she was jealous so she went to the authorities screaming witchcraft.”
“Yes. But I loved her as well. It was a terrible thing she did. One I still can’t fathom. They…caged him. Tortured him. They burned him when he would not confess to things he had not done. As his ‘demon familiar’ I was made to watch. Too weak to protect him, too wounded to save him, I could not stop them. Then they dismembered me and tossed me in the river.”
“Cariño, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Hush, my love. Done is done. Of course your mind would be drawn to the memories you share with me.”
Diego faded to gray, and for a moment, Finn thought he might be shocked back to the waking world. He whispered, “The man with the red hair…was me?”
“Yes, love. Yes. We had a short few months together that time.”
“Finn—”
“Wsht. Console me later. We have work to do.” Finn pointed again, this time to a specific spot. “Try there. You may find that one to be more helpful. And less upsetting.”
With a quicksilver shimmer, Diego recovered enough to reach out again.
The man’s fingers caressed his harp strings. It was as if he called the wind into his music, the rustle of the leaves and rush of water.
