Brother Remembered - Black Dagger Brotherhood FanFic - Sumter Colony 2

Chapter 3

"Aye."

Night sat back. "Then, we didst perform our duties as best we could."

The two warriors fell silent, each spiraling into their private thoughts until there came a knock at the cottage door.

Roused from his swirling memories, Tohrture called out. "Enter!"

Both Brothers stood when Fleur entered the cottage. While she herself had no tracking skills, she had insisted on riding with the Brothers and attending to their needs as the search expanded. "I bring a repast for thee both," she explained as she worked her way into the cottage backward, so she did not overturn the tray she carried.

Night jumped from his chair to hold the door for her and she rewarded him with a wan smile. She, too, was weary and downtrodden due to the events of the passing years; she had no deeper happiness or solace to offer.

Tohrture came forward and claimed the tray, lifting it from her quickly and placing it on the table. Fleur nodded, the two males removing the plates from the tray as she poured the three of them wine from the skin she had tucked under her arm.

She glanced from Tohrture to Night and passed them their drink in silence. They ate in the quiet, only the sounds of the meal to be heard until she could hold it no longer. "I dost sense a shift, Brothers. What developments might thee share?"

Tohrture paused, wine poised at his lips, before gulping it down. He set the goblet heavily on the table and sighed. "Mine blooded brother feels it is yet time to abandon our search."

Fleur raised an eyebrow as she sipped. "Oh? And dost thou agree?"

Night stabbed a cut of meat with his knife but remained silent, waiting to hear Tohrture's response.

Tohrture pushed away his plate as Fleur poured him more wine. "Reluctantly, I cannot, mine own self, deny the logic of his argument. We must face facts: Wrath the Younger has slipped from our fingers and vanished."

"Oh." Fleur's voice was small. "So, we three are all finished, then?"

"Three finished?" Night inquired, his tone quiet and tender. "Dost thou also bring the search for thine daughter, Rhoze, to its completion?"

Fleur's hand smoothed her red hair, tucking a loose curl up into the stylish twist by habit. She blinked against the tears that threatened to flow and knew that Night and Tohrture would misunderstand them. They would assume she was upset at ending the search for her daughter Hatrhed, so renamed by the Scribe Virgin in secret, but they were, in truth, tears of relief.

The search for "Rhoze," on the surface, began swiftly and had been conducted with the utmost care and thoroughness by the Brother Aghony, Rhoze's adopted sire. This was a ruse; Fleur and Aghony had helped Hatrhed flee from the Brotherhood when she exhibited her skill of movement. If the Brothers gained knowledge of her incredible, yet price-laden, skill, the "search" for her would have turned into an out-and-out hunt. Fleur and Aghony, at the behest of their deity, the Scribe Virgin, could not allow that to happen. As a result, they had spent the better part of the last year creating false trails or repeating untrue rumors about "Rhoze" and her whereabouts. The Brothers, distracted, and rightly so, by their desperate search for Wrath, the heir of the vampire race, were clueless about Hatrhed's skill and were satisfied by whatever deceptions the two of them conjured.

Fleur cleared her throat and sipped her wine again before answering. "Yes. We concluded just yesternight that our dear Rhoze will ne'er be found. Aghony is yet unsettled; he dost blame himself and his unyielding insistence that she be forbidden to fight as the reason for her flight." Fleur was no longer surprised at how well the lie rolled from her tongue.