A Loom of Years

Twentythird Weaving
@Anne E. Fraser 2006

"Get down, sir, get down!" someone was shouting at Blaine, but he was already crouching at Olivia's side.

She'd fallen without a sound, bonelessly, and lay in a little unmoving heap on the hot tarmac. There wasn't much blood; well, there wouldn't be. No living heart to pump it. A deep and ugly furrow marred the side of her head.

Silver. Whoever was firing was using silver bullets. Not whoever. In that endless, horrible moment when Olivia had fallen, and before he'd dropped down beside her, Blaine had caught sight of the gunman. Vaguely, somewhere beyond the choking disbelief he felt at seeing Olivia down and not moving, Blaine heard more gunshots being fired. Then nothing.

"Olivia?" he reached for her.

No, no, God, no. She could not be... no, if she was true dead, he would know. Somehow. The impact of the bullet grazing her head had knocked her insensible... could vampires faint? He remembered. When he'd gone to her and proposed marriage, she had crumbled to the floor. Just like this. But then she had been acting. A feint at fainting.

Someone had touched his shoulders; he shrugged them off, but they were insistent.

"Are you hurt, signore?"

Uberto. Carmine's man. Carmine's... bear? He was a shapeshifter, wasn't he?

"No," Blaine managed to reply. "See to Olivia. She's... hurt." Hurt. Yes. Hurt implied she could be healed. That the silver poisoning would not even now be coursing through her veins, choking her from the inside.

Uberto brushed Blaine aside, scooped up Olivia effortlessly (and she lay in his arms like a sack of clothes... no resistance at all... Blaine's heart sank. His Olivia would have flattened Uberto for picking her up) and ran for the nearby waiting limos. Two vampires Blaine couldn't immediately identify took charge of him and hustled him into one of the limos.

Uberto was in the back with Blaine, cradling Olivia in his lap. He held out his wrist. "Give her what she needs," he said.

Hope, then... Olivia, even limp and unconscious, responded to the offer of fresh blood. Her fangs fastened into Uberto's wrist. The shifter grimaced, but made no sound as Olivia fed.

Blaine held Olivia and murmured into her ear–nonsense words, bits of poetry–as the limo raced. But he could feel his fangs descending. He had seen the gunman. He had identified him in that one glimpse.

Laurent Martin, the one Monique had put forward as the candidate for France. The get of Etienne Corbeau.

Carmine himself met them at the villa, opening the car door. He did not offer to take Olivia or assist Blaine, who held her as if she would float away. He merely showed the way to a room that had been made ready; a bed all waiting. Poor Uberto, who'd donated his blood in the cause of keeping Olivia from dying, was barked at to go to bed and shut out of the room.

"Allow me to offer my own physician," Carmine said, after assuring Blaine that the rest of his party from the jet (whom he'd entirely forgotten about) were safe. "Or would you prefer someone you trust?"

"I trust you, Carmine," said Blaine, too distraught to think. "Please. Just help her."

"Good," Carmine replied, and almost before he'd finished speaking, his own physician entered the room.

This doctor firmly shooed the princes away from the bedside, and hooked up an intravenous blood supply to Olivia, then examined the wound. "There's a fragment of the bullet still here," he said. "Do I have permission to operate?"

By all the gods, yes. Blaine nodded. He tried not to think about silver. About the poison. About losing her.. No.

They had danced on New Years Eve at the turn of the millennium and she had put his head on her shoulder and said she loved him.

"Come and clean up," Carmine said to Blaine.

He looked at himself. Olivia's blood stained his clothes. "No," he said. He could not leave her until he knew... whatever. "Go and see to your other guests, Carmine." For of course the other Princes would be arriving and would probably have heard that the English consort had been wounded.

Carmine nodded, put his hand briefly on Blaine's shoulder in solidarity, and left. Blaine watched the doctor work.

The doctor commented, as he worked, "Prince Carmine has acquired
a very helpful salve that I shall liberally use on this wound. Try not to worry, Prince Blaine. She was given blood very quickly and she is strong. It will be painful for awhile but I
have no doubt she will recover."

The doctor wrapped up something in a bloody towel... the bullet fragment, beyond a doubt. Then he opened a small jar and there was a wonderful smell... like spring and meadows and fresh mountain air... Blaine felt eased just for smelling it.

"What on earth is that?" he asked.

"The salve I told you about. It is... magical, I think." He applied it to the wound, and then set about bandaging Olivia's head until she resembled a partial mummy.

Just as the doctor finished taping Olivia up, her eyes opened.

"Blaine?" she asked.

He was at her side and taking her hand in a heartbeat. "Right here."

He told her what had happened, since she didn't remember anything after stepping off the plane. She closed her eyes.

"Carmine will be angry with me," she said.

That had been about the last thing Blaine had expected to hear. "Why? He was terrified for you."

"I disobeyed his orders. I risked all of us by getting off that plane."

He rubbed her hand, and they sat in silence for awhile, just happy to be together. Then they were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Come," said Blaine, expecting Carmine.

But a young boy came in. Blaine stared at him. He had seen this boy before... over two centuries before. But the boy had not changed. Not aged, not grown... he was still a thin seven year-old.

"Yes," said the boy cheerfully, seeing Blaine's expression. "It is I, Niccolo."

"But..." the last time Blaine had seen Niccolo, it had been 1790. "You haven't changed a bit."

The boy giggled. "Neither have you, Prince Blaine."

Blaine shrugged. Clearly, there was magic at work. He introduced Nicco to Olivia. The boy went over and touched the English consort.

"You will have a small scar," he said, very seriously. "But the pain will pass."

Olivia, who was trying to find something to think about besides how much pain she was in (and how angry Carmine was going to be) smiled at him and commented that she had never known a magician who did not achieve full growth to adulthood before he stopped aging. Nicco hadn't either and agreed that it was interesting. Then he asked if Blaine would demand Carmine's head in payment for what had happened to Olivia.

Blaine hadn't even thought about it, although it was within Council rules for him to do so. "Certainly not,"he replied. "The fault is ours."

"Mine," Olivia said, weakly.

"Stop that," Blaine told her. "Anyway, I will block any attempts to depose Carmine for this."

Olivia's eyes swept over her bloodstained husband. "Go and clean up, Blaine," she said. "Nicco will keep me company."

"Si, I will tell the signora a story."

"I can't leave you..." Blaine began.

"You can," she said, sounding like her old, dangerous self. "Go. I promise I'm not dying."

Defeated, Blaine left the room to go bathe and change his clothes.

She had promised she wasn't dying. He had to believe her. Marriage is all about trust.