The Sigh Of Things (22)   …if your eye could meet mine without fear for the future I might give a damn about what you want… Stefan leapt from his chair before the screaming stopped. As he bolted from the morning room he cursed himself for failing to follow his brother up those stairs; to monitor his methods; to thwart his intent. Who knew better of his penchant for mischief? The cruelties he found so mordantly amusing? To leave her unprotected as he had was unconscionable. And for what? The perverse pleasure of playing voyeur? It was a tasteless choice, and the shame of it only intensified his need to get to her as quickly as possible. Yet even as he sprinted down the hallway to the stair, he knew his motives were mixed. Had she finally returned to a full awareness? Had Stavros somehow provoked her past the one remaining wall that held her at bay? Had Laura come back to him at last? As he took the corner to the entry hall he found his brother bouncing down the last few steps. Stefan moved to get past him and Stavros moved to block; both engaging in a dance of compensating intent. The older brother grew amused, the younger incensed, until Stefan raised a sweeping arm to bat his obstacle back. This offensive motion was met by the clamp of a hand that twisted the arm and brought him around to face his obstructer. Their eyes met. "Surely you've seen enough to know she hasn't been damaged," his brother offered equitably. "Yet you've distressed her all the same. What fails as a weapon for you, Stavros?" he inquired, losing at his first attempt to pull his arm free. "Bodily injury is often the lesser of your endlessly odious inflictions." "You give me too much credit, brother," Stavros responded patiently. "So much of what people bring upon themselves is tossed to writhe at my feet. I could hope for a better benediction than this never-ending bounty of blame. Ease, Stefan. There," he said, loosening his hold on the arm. "You will face Regret? Have at it then. But be warned, she is not of a mood to let you pass. Like the Sphinx, she will put you to question. Do you have your answers at the tip of your tongue? Are you prepared to inflict them?" Stefan tugged sharply at his coat sleeve and hid beneath a moment of composing himself. How to get past Regret was one challenge. How to be alone with Laura yet another. And what of the rest, this game proceeding as it would on the ground floor without him? "What are your plans?" he asked of his brother, grudging the knowledge that he cared. Stavros smiled. "Pick your battle and meet your fate." Left at the stair to make his choice, Stefan's eye lifted to the road his heart demanded he follow before he made the familiar turn, shadowing his brother back down the hall to the morning room. The servants slipped silently past with what remained of the dinner service. Helena's imperious nod brought forth coffee, brandy and a selection of fine dessert wines. As they moved to their seats, Stavros startled the steward with a tap to an empty crystal snifter balanced on his tray. The small, circular motion of his finger ordered brandy be served all around. Stefan thought it a presumptuous act, laced as it was with the inappropriate flavor of a celebration. He had yet to mark a single moment of this evening that merited even the most ceremonial toast, much less a convivial salute. This snifter, now carefully set before him, would remain untouched. Helena leaned back in her chair with a regal satisfaction, pleased no doubt that her sons had returned to their proper places at her side. "I cannot tell you how it warms my heart to hear the familiar sound of family beneath my roof again." She cast a loving gaze to her prince and seemed to revel in the way she drew his glance on this remark. "Sentiment comes as we grow older, they say." "Then Mother," Stavros offered, tipping the rim of his crystal in tribute, "you can rest assured you haven't aged a single day." He awaited no response before he lifted the liquid to his lips, pouring more than was required for the savoring into his mouth. A swift swallow ensued as his hand turned to twirl what remained in the glass. "You've banded them," he murmured softly to the golden splash he spun in his palm. "Endangered though they may be, I can't believe this is a species you wish to track." While Stefan followed this exchange closely, couched as he was in the blind of his familial anonymity, he had to admit he was not prepared for it - the rising of his brother's eye, not to the woman he addressed, but to his own. This solemn stare fixed itself upon him and refused to part, even at the sound of their mother's voice. "A simple precaution, my darling. They cannot leave and no one may take them. Down either path they die." Stefan broke the connection himself, turning to address her pronouncement. "How?" he inquired, stripping what significance he could from his tone. "Out of curiosity, what method did you choose?" "Do you ever tire of being so transparent?" His attention returned to his brother, who spoke through a contemptuous smile. "Out of curiosity," Stavros added, bringing the glass once more to his lips. He could feel the muscles of his face relax into a comfortable mask of disdain. "No less than you pale at being so predictable. Best get your business done now, Mother. Stavros is charging toward his cups." Their prince snorted and rolled his jaw, setting his snifter to the table. "Business it is," he agreed, leaning solidly back in his chair. Helena noted the opening they yielded and, without a moment's hesitation, seized the opportunity to lay her plan flat. Her regard fell first to her second son. "Stefan, you will work beneath this treason. Gather up every frayed financial thread and bind them tight against that Roman's shear. Drop the lid on his treasure chest. Bar the door to his bank. Deny him access to each and every Cassadine coffer. Not a dime is to pass from our purse to his pocket from this moment forward. You have…," she faltered, tossing her hand dismissively through the air, "…experience in this area." Then at the crest of a deep - one might say luxuriant - sigh, his mother turned to bestow her grace on the only child who mattered to her. "Stavros, my bright fire, you and I must plan the perfect time, the perfect place and the quintessentially perfect manner in which to reveal you once again to the world. Prince Stavros Cassadine," she recited in reverence, the sibilance of the syllables tripping over her tongue. "The kin will fall to their knees before you. The formal Vow of Fealty will be invoked and all will yield as destiny demands. With luck, this will stand as our true beginning. The start of The Cassadine Millennium. We have waited long enough. The time has come to take our rightful place on the throne above all we were born to command." Her eyes closed on this indulgent thought, pleased with the limitless scope of its ambition. And as she came slowly to herself once more, she smiled. "Your family will present you. We will stand behind you as Prince of the Cassadine Empire. We will be your strength, your power, your bond of blood. Once Nikolas arrives…" "No!" the brothers snapped in unison from opposite ends of the table. The doubled effect of this rejection startled her enough to stop the thought from fully forming into words. Her head turned carefully from one son to the other as she sank back into her chair, confused and not a small bit aggrieved with them both. Stefan, for his part, barely noticed the echo of his brother's voice aside his own. The thought of Nikolas witnessing such an extravagant display of dynastic ascension was, in and of itself, enough to give him pause. This was a boy who had never understood the ancient customs of the Cassadine nobility; the many arcane ancestral rites and long-honored traditions - some of which dated back to antiquity. The spectacle alone would confound him. How could he hope not only to grasp but to sustain his role in the observance of rituals he had always failed to comprehend - and never once made the effort to embrace? The Cassadine Way had been an old, out-moded practice to his eye; filled with ceremonies he mistook for pedigreed pomp and precepts he'd insisted bore less a resemblance to imperial code than a host of hedgewitch superstitions. Try as Stefan might, year after year, his nephew would accept no part of it. And his uncle had surrendered at the last to this one simple truth: While Nikolas owned the Cassadine lineage, its legacy lay beyond him. "There is no reason to bring Nikolas forward," Stefan stated defensively. "In fact, Stavros himself need not bother to appear. Had you brought the matter to me alone, it might have been resolved by now. Argos is nothing more than a latter-day Jasper Jacks. He seeks his power through economic manipulation, the art of strategic alliance and the strength of his own insatiable greed. As you've so graciously pointed out, Mother, I have experience in these areas. The battlefield he's chosen is mine by both right and tradition. I stand as steward of the Cassadine holdings. This enemy belongs to me." "Correct me if I'm wrong, Stefan," his mother chided, looking down her nose at his stoic resolve. "Did you not hand the reins of stewardship over to my grandson some two years ago? Did you not relinquish that position in favor of your modest little European escapade? Was Milan not the graveyard we had all so sincerely hoped it would be?" Stefan's eye narrowed, the edge of his temper cutting through his tone. "Who better against him, Mother? Let's not forget why I, who could so easily have died by your hand these last few months, have instead been brought to dine at your table. You've made your choice. I applaud your reasoning. Give him to me and he is done." "No. It would not be enough. We must make a statement. An example must be set." "In this she is correct," Stavros remarked, emerging from his silence to address the point. "The kin have been awakened to their hunger. Four years he's had to dress this bird and roast it to their taste. Four years they've waited on the promise of a feast fit for a king. You may kill the cook, they will not now lose their appetite for the meal he's made." "Then I would make that meal unpalatable for them," Stefan announced dispassionately. "And I would remove it from the table!" snapped Stavros, his anger flaring. "You are blind to the truth of this, both of you. Argos challenges a prince. Not a dowager princess. Not a count. Not a steward of holdings. A prince. Should a prince fail to step forward and meet that challenge, he wins. It is not a matter of how much you can grab back. The fact that these fortunes fell from your grasp in the first place is proof of your weakness against him. The preliminary battles have been lost. One by one the kin are falling into line behind the standard of Argos Antonovich Cassadine. How will you turn that tide, Stefan? Or is Nikolas some masterful magician capable of holding an empire without a single man left to call him liege lord?" Stefan, his own temper reaching its peak, drew one of his sharper blades. "It is completely understandable for you to have forgotten this, Stavros - incapacitated as you were in that cushioned coffin lo these many, many years - but it bears remembering that we are currently living in the twenty-first century. The time of jousts and tourneys and quests for cups has come and gone. The battle is in the boardroom now, where the coups are bloodless and the victors are, more often than not, all but invisible. There is a transition to be made here, brother. I would suggest you make it." Much to his consternation, Stavros ignored the cut completely. "Have you raised a Cassadine or not, Stefan? This is the only question of consequence in regard to the future of my son." Those last two words held no special emphasis, yet his brother felt their prick nonetheless. "Did you never consider this day? Did you think you could simply wish it away or in some manner overrule it? Did you imagine by removing him to America, by amassing him a fortune, by creating for him the illusion of an evolving Cassadine dynasty, that you could somehow spare him the cold craft required to hold this empire in his fist? Have you made the grave mistake of gifting him with the limitation of your own civilized sensibilities?" A moment passed and he nodded sagely. "Yes, I suspected as much." Stefan felt his expression sour with derision. "Perhaps we have become a civilized people in your absence, brother. Did you consider that?" "Another proof to present as evidence of his illegitimacy. It is a weakness. It will be perceived as such by the kin. Must I remind everyone yet again that Argos strives to be Prince? Have you forgotten what this means?" His eyes blazed with a prideful fury, his voice cresting to a roar. "He comes to contest the order of succession! Were it up to him he would erase our father's line completely. I might as well have never been Prince and Nikolas never been born - our father, in the end, as sterile as a mule for all the eminence he's left us. What is disputed here is not our position of power but our right to bear it! This is the meal Argos has set himself to serve to the ravening Cassadine kin. And as bitter as you might make that dish, you will not keep them from eating it." "But Stavros," his mother inserted soothingly, "you are yourself the proof that refutes his claim. Your direct descent is incontrovertible. Step once more into the light and his argument shatters, his covenant cracks and all the broken bits of this conspiracy fall back into shadow. Advance and they will retreat. Stand and no one will stand against us." "For as long as I live," his brother pronounced mercilessly. Six words to rest a world upon, so strong was the truth that lay beneath them. And as Stavros stilled, his eyes hardening on the point, Stefan understood at last what his brother was laying on the table before them. Here sat the unresolved challenge to his son's paternity, a challenge that would once again raise its head upon this father's death. Stavros, in his way, would preserve this boy; his title, his fortune, his future. What lay just beneath the arrogance of this enraged Cassadine Prince was a keen, abiding concern for the one who would one day come to take that mantle from him, to close those open eyes, to lay his lifeless body to its rest. Stavros, much to his surprise, was not thinking of the here and now but of those children as yet unborn; the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of his heir apparent, Nikolas, and their progeny and their progeny on and on down through the years, the decades, the centuries replete with those countless Cassadines to come. As the man upon whom the fortunes of The Empire had relied for a score of years or more, Stefan felt the duty of this moment slam into him with the fearsome force of a freight train. "Then we will kill them," his mother said quickly, her voice chilled by an apprehension she devoutly desired to dispel. "We will take them down one by one, each death more horrific than the last. We will scour the earth of every Cassadine who opposes us. I will wield the dagger myself. Leave this to me, Stavros. Please." And this one word, spoken in a tone of unabashed entreaty, revealed the true depth of her dismay. She knew. If Stefan could read nothing else in her, he could read this. It was all too plain. She knew. Stavros stood and called for the steward to bring him drink. "No! No. I will not allow this." Helena rose from her chair and attempted to wave the servant off. The man froze in mid-stride, just far enough away to force Stavros to reach for the bottle of brandy on his tray. "Stavros, no!" she ordered as the servant spun on his heel and swiftly retreated from the room. The rich golden liquor fell in a steady stream from the decanter to his glass. Stefan found his brother's aim remarkable given the circumstance. Their mother was not quite so serenely self-contained. He watched her take a half-step toward her eldest son, then fall back. Her arm reached out for him, then pulled in. Her eyes were a madness of motion, flitting from the snifter to his face, to the table and finally to her lesser son for an assistance she could not possibly imagine he would provide. In the end she took the only recourse left to her and placed the palm of her hand tightly over her own brandy glass, her chin raised in an effort at defiance. Stavros paid no heed but lifted his glass high in the air, cocking his head in invitation to his brother. Stefan stood, his fingers coming to embrace his own, long-abandoned snifter and drawing it high in counterpoint to the toast. Both turned then to Helena who was still stubbornly resisting what was now a fait accompli. "Mother," Stavros encouraged with a clear hint of warning in his tone. "No, this will not…this cannot…" "You either rise with me, Helena Cassadine, or you will never rise again." With these incontestably compelling words her palm slipped away from the rim, her fingers sliding down to grasp the stem and join these sons in what, for her, was a brutally terrifying salute. And in that instant, on the brace of a single, full-bodied breath, he began. "I, Stavros Nikolai Mikkosovich Cassadine, Prince and Protector of the Cassadine Empire, do on this night, before my blood, demand as my right a Deciding. Let it be known I hold no man's claim above my Honor, my Kingdom, my God. Ad usum. Ad extremum. Ad finem." Every glass met its lip, every liquid its tongue, until all were drained and drawn down once again to the surface of the table. Then, in unison, each Cassadine tipped their snifter forward to fall mouth first to the center of the cloth as proof not a drop remained. Stavros broke the silence that followed, his voice cold with a stony strength. "It is done." Some would argue later that she fainted, but Helena would always maintain she had simply fallen back into her chair Ad usum. Ad extremum. Ad finem. From the Latin: "As is custom. To the last. To the end."   The Sigh Of Things (23)   What can be guaranteed a noose is a neck and a sweet possibility… "But does he agree with his brother in this?" "With Stefan it is never a matter of agreeing. Only contending. He wrestles with it. He's been wrestling with it since you saw him last. I don't believe he's taken more than an hour or two to rest, and when he does fall his sleep is fitful at best." As if she cared the number of naps he took or the dubious value of their restorative effect! "I am not encouraged by the fact that you watch him sleep, Sancia. Perhaps your sentiments in this are…counterproductive?" Her confederate backed into silence then; a retreat so filled with purpose that Helena found her irritation mounting. Not good. Not good at all. From the moment her eye had opened to this day - her sight coming clean to the light of its inevitable challenge, her vision sharp to the pattern of every predicament their prince had given it to contain - she'd felt her temper simmering. She was a roux already at the boil, and it took all of her carefully measured resolve to keep from scorching black with rage. Bad enough to have him make that infernally obscene declaration of intent, must he as well refuse her offer of a room, a refuge, a base of operation? With Stavros in residence she might at least have managed to insinuate herself into the role of advisor, confidant or even counselor of war. How could he fail to see the need of her now, perched as he was at the brink of this bold and dangerous enterprise? Yet when she'd extended her hospitality, and the many, many boons it afforded, her son had flatly declined. Instead he'd chosen the yacht. (How he'd known it lay at anchor just beyond the cove was anyone's guess.) And there he would sit, in isolation, at bay in every way that mattered; leaving her to pursue this business through a series of second and third parties when she knew, and he knew, she deserved so much more. Helena cast her displeasure across the room to the maddening mute at the library door. She had no patience today for the coaxing and the crooning; the soft encouragements or the gentle proffer of a list of questions designed to elicit the maximum amount of information in the minimum amount of time. At this stage in their relationship she had every right to expect that the girl would meet her halfway, volunteering little bits and pieces to color up the picture of her report; to provide context; to fix her findings in their proper milieu. Yet Sancia resisted. Why? The answer to that could be as simple as the old bromide of brains versus brawn. Many of her prized minion-lovers had given their proof to that particular cliché. And so, as she studied this amazon accomplice, she did gift a latitude she might not normally have granted to, say, a prettier or more fragile flower of her gender. "Very well," she allowed in a more conciliatory tone. "You say he wrestles with this. What, precisely, is his focus?" "Nikolas," replied Sancia without a moment's hesitation. "I'd venture to say it was Nikolas who drove him home last night and set him to the pace he currently employs." No doubt, thought Helena, recalling quite clearly his swift exit from the mansion following that loathsome toast, with nary a backward glance for the women she held on the second floor. Only Nikolas could have turned him away from Laura. Or herself, she added ruefully, remembering the weakness she'd shown at the fall of her snifter to the cloth. Only the thought of Nikolas could have denied Stefan his moment to savor the delicious satisfaction of his mother's distress. How many cutting retorts had he abandoned to rush to the aid of his cherished charge? Even one could be judged a significant sacrifice from a son so caustically adept. "Then he has spoken with my grandson," she concluded, placing this fact with the rest. "No. He operates around the boy - instituting additional security measures, examining his latest financial dealings, determining the degree of his contact with the Cassadine factions in Europe. I'm certain he would prefer none of this business touch his nephew in a discernable way." "And that is why Nikolas comes ill-equipped to his role as head of the Cassadine family! My buffering buffoon of a son! One would think this prince still struggles with the art of tying a shoelace! He's a man now. Almost as old as Stavros was when he took the reins of The Empire. When will he step into the breach? Or must he wait for Stefan to give him permission?" Sancia had sense enough to ride the wave of this tangential tirade before attempting to address the question Helena was actually asking. "Nikolas remains unaware of the fact that his father is alive or that Stavros drugged and, for all intents and purposes, successfully abducted his mother. You, yourself, have given him the body of a stranger to visit in that hospital bed; to grieve over, to suffer with. Stefan's part in this is equally difficult to justify. That you would ask him to spin on this disconcerting dime and come to the aid of his family is…well," she continued carefully, "…it is an expectation unlikely to be met." The bull had backbone, Helena decided, though she doubted it knew it had just wandered into the china shop. Best to let it idle for a moment in silence and give it the chance to apprehend its peril. Several minutes passed. When the stillness had grown to an adequately fearsome level, Helena broke in with a casually innocuous remark. "That bandage will not fool him forever, you know." Sancia stiffened, but resisted the urge to look to her arm. "It is possible I will need a cast." "I'd be mindful of that, if I were you. Block my signal and we both lose - you your life and I my favorite chess piece." Helena relished her creature's almost imperceptible frown and sighed with satisfaction. "Bring her to me then," she ordered. "It's time we gave you company on that board." It was the scent that singed her heart and set fire to the delicate scar that had begun to form over the wound of his loss. The fragrance of them filled the air. Books. Hundreds of them lining the walls, the burnished husks of their bindings surrounding her like a warm, literary cocoon. The musked aroma of old leather soaked into her senses like a vintage wine, numbing her mind to the present and setting her adrift on a gentle current of memory. Here, the day he plucked the Shakespeare from his shelf to prove he'd quoted Lear correctly. And here, the lazy afternoon he'd argued the merits of Dante read in its original tongue. She'd made a guess at Latin and he'd laughed. Italian, he'd corrected, but it was the laugh she would always recall. Almost light in texture. Almost self-aware. How much of their time together had been spent in his libraries? Too much now, it seemed. Too much now to bear sitting in another, without him there. "My son had an interesting reaction to you." That she hadn't chosen the seat behind the desk was telling. Helena Cassadine appeared to have moved beyond the need to select the position of power in a room. Instead the lure of the informal friend; the tête-à-tête of a close familiarity; two women in two companion chairs evoking a non-existent feminine bond. Regret pondered the weaponry of this - how the placement served, what the pretense afforded. Only two matters were clear. Her captor wanted something from her. This was the most obvious truth. Second, and perhaps known only to the captive, was that this woman had misjudged her. "Really?" remarked Regret in mild astonishment. "I found it rather predictable of him to remain downstairs, where the true sport was taking place." With a flicker of surprise in her eye, Helena promptly raised the conversational bar. "Oh, my dear, I would never presume to address the subject of your recent losses. I was referring to Stavros. My eldest." "You found that reaction interesting?" Regret pretended to fiddle with the thought; to retrieve the incident in her mind and re-examine its content. Her lips pressed together and she gave a tiny shake of her head. "No. I'm afraid I found his response predictable as well." "Then you have a history," Helena noted with what could be read as genuine pleasure. Regret marked the revealing and correctly concluded that Stavros was the piece in play. "Written history. Oral history. He's quite an historical figure in the Cassadine chronicle." "He has had his moments," his mother agreed, the gilt of pride edging her tone. "And if I'm not mistaken, he's had a moment or two with you. Oh, Regret, you must tell me everything!" Here she leaned forward in her chair, her expression alive with bright curiosity. Regret smiled disingenuously. "I'm afraid I've given the wrong impression. I met him only once. But surely you can understand his - oh, how shall I put this - his transfixion with the woman for whom his brother once held a modest regard? Now that this regard is gone…," She let the words hang in the air and the inference fall to rest between them. "You underestimate yourself, my dear," Helena remarked shrewdly. "Your power. Your effect. Why, he spoke to you for several minutes while his glorious Laura lay waiting just a single room away! Stavros is, in some way, attracted to you. Say what you will to dismiss this fact, you cannot argue its veracity." "Nor would I attempt to. You are his mother. You know him best." And with these three brief statements, Regret put a solid end to her opponent's preliminary foray. The last, complimentary note would make it all the more difficult to mount an offense against her. The line between prey and packmate had been deliberately smudged, and Regret would leave it so. The older woman resettled herself in her chair, her elbow to its arm, two fingers and an elegant thumb coming to the base of her chin. A careful judgment began. Was she choosing words or tactics? Perhaps they were one and the same in the end. Perhaps it was simply style she was crafting in this oddly-singular silence. Whatever the motive behind the pause, Regret felt certain the substance of this meeting was about to be revealed. A true strategist would wait no longer. "You may remember my mention of the fall of the Cassadine Empire." Regret drew her head down in quiet consent, giving this articulation the respect it deserved. When her gaze lifted she found she could detect a brittleness in Helena's expression; a tightness to the brow; a tenseness in the muscles around her mouth as it opened once again - this time to speak in sentences it seemed in some way to want to resist. "Stavros has come up with a…traditional solution to the problem." Her vision appeared to cloud for a moment, but only just. "I disagree with this approach. It has been tried before. While we did emerge triumphant, the method brought with it many adverse effects. Stavros was irrevocably altered by the experience. This caused much pain for his family, and we spent many years working toward a recovery of balance." Helena caught her eye with a look charged by the ache of that revenant memory. "Are you following me, Regret?" "Yes." In fact, Regret held every carefully-spoken word in her mind; examining the emphasis, the meaning and the reason behind each particular choice. Here lay the answer to the only blank page bound into the book of the Cassadine family history. Stefan would never discuss those days, except to cite them as the starting point of his relationship with Laura. Stavros, he'd suggested, was little more than a madman at the time. Drunk, brutally cruel and prone to violent rampage. Why was a question he refused to address, no matter the mood he was in or the many clever ways she'd come up with to ask. Nothing…nothing…could have astonished her more than to find on this hour, in this palatial prison, hidden within the words of this formidable adversary, the tantalizing echo of an explanation. "Excellent," Helena remarked, closing the door on any further revelation. "Then I'm sure you understand that, as a mother who loves her son, I will do everything I must to force his foot from this unpleasant path. I will use every resource at my disposal and you, dear Regret, will be one of them." "No." Simple. Flat. An unassailable response. Helena's lilting laugh, while unsettling, was not a surprise to her. "Why, you act as if you have a choice in the matter! If I've left you with that encouraging impression, please accept my apology. This was certainly not my intent. No, no. You will assist me, if for no other reason than that I hold your life in the palm of my hand." "Unfold your fingers, Helena, and take another look at what lies in that hand." Regret smiled sadly, releasing a sigh. "I cannot be moved to action by the thought of saving a thing that has lost all value to me. There are moments I would genuinely prefer you take this life and end it. And then there are others in which I find the wherewithal to wait. It will come." The wrist that wore the silver band turned in her lap. "One way or another, it will come." The older woman frowned, piqued by the startling impotence of her favorite threat. "How terribly morose," she retorted. "Why, that position is almost Stefanesque in its myopia. You've been too long in the company of my lesser son, Regret. If this is his effect, you are well rid of him." "Be that as it may, I cannot be buckled into anyone's harness. You have nothing to hold against me; nothing that would serve as even the most negligible inducement to force me to operate on your behalf." "Really?" Helena shifted her weight to lean against the opposite arm of the chair, her face imbued with an expression of speculative amusement. Her tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth as she mocked a moment of honest thought. "There are, of course, several ways in which I might make Stefan's life more challenging. Nikolas comes to mind, yet my grandson has always been such a complicated equation. Now his mother, on the other hand, is a far less troublesome tool at the moment. Her proximity alone would make the matter effortless. I might suggest…oh, only in the most hypothetical sense, mind you…a return to, say, catatonia? I hear it's such a peaceful state, and one she has enjoyed in the past." And suddenly a dearth became a multitude. Whether it was the investment she'd made in bringing Laura to this level of consciousness, her abhorrence of the idea of betraying Stefan any further, or her own pure humanity, Regret found herself in that one moment equipped with more reasons than she thought possible to accede to her captor's demand. Her resistance crumbled. Her defenses fell. The white flag fluttered and she left the field of battle. Yet as the terms of her surrender poured out into the open air, Regret took heart. Helena would get what she wanted. In theory. The Sigh Of Things (24)   Look not to what I consume but to that which consumes me. I am chained to a poverty of Time… The curse of mortality. It never failed to aggrieve him that he had been born a human being; that he had been forced into the softest pocket of existence; that he'd been sentenced to a lifetime bound in so fragile and temporal a thing as a body. Better some coldly uncorruptable encasement designed to be impervious to the ravages of Time, impenetrable to the elements and, God help him, insensate to the relentless demands for food and rest. What was a man supposed to accomplish given the fact that a third of his life would be spent flat on his back, completely oblivious to the world and all the conflict it contained? By the age of five he was already operating at a loss, and ever since - for as long as he could remember - he'd spent every morning straining to recapture the edge he'd forsaken the night before…all due to this body's appallingly high susceptibility to fatigue. A harsh penalty for a life. An unforgiving and unforgivable weakness he'd been unjustly consigned to bear. Well, those six hours would not be given back to him, and all the bitterness he might muster for falling into a useless sleep would not help to make him any more effective in the hours still to come. So he did what he always did. He shook off the curse of his mortality. And the curse did what it always did. It bounced to the side of the room he was in and waited, with all of its accursed patience, for the next soft moment to strike. These were the thoughts he was abandoning when his brother walked through the door. "Water." Stefan nodded his head toward the bar and watched the man cross the room. The toll taken by his recent exertions came clear through the dust on his shorts, the great rings of sweat bleeding through his tank, the sheen of perspiration at his brow. And as he bent to retrieve his bottle from the small refrigerator beneath the shelf, Stefan wondered yet again what it was with the Cassadine family and the color black. Even shorts and a shirt. Black as bane, dark as deeds. Yet he supposed if there were anyone who belonged in the pitch of this particular shade, it was this prince, this purveyor of pain, this part-time fiend. "How many?" "Just the one." Stavros tipped the bottle to the ceiling and quaffed the whole in a steady stream. He tossed the container into the trash and bent for a second. "He's not dead," he said as he screwed off the cap. "But he will burn if someone doesn't move him to the shade." Stefan picked up the phone and rang for security to let them know a man was down. "You could have called," he admonished as he held for news of the recovery. "She hasn't arranged the ship-to-shore." He smiled as he tossed the second empty into the trash. "But she's working on it now, I assure you." Stavros, his thirst quenched, began to stroll through his brother's living quarters, pushing back a pillow here, plucking up a book there and making it increasingly difficult for Stefan to keep him in sight. The return of the voice of his chief of security to his ear, announcing the fallen man's retrieval, made that shadowing impossible and he abandoned the effort entirely. Let him investigate. There was nothing to find. By the time he returned the phone to its cradle, Stavros had thrown himself into a chair, his leg swung casually over its arm. He had something in his hand, something he was fingering, and when he saw Stefan's small curiosity he raised it in the air between them. Ah. Her barrette. Nothing. His brother rolled the clip over his knuckles with a practiced dexterity. "Have you spoken with Nikolas?" "No." "Good." "I don't want him involved in this." Stavros nodded sagely. "He has no place in it," he conceded. "Yet someday, Stefan. Someday. You do realize that, don't you?" But not today. Not this time. "I plan to move The Empire beyond this savage practice. Once we are done here…" "We will never be done here." Stavros had unhooked the clasp of the ornament and was examining it so closely that his brother came to realize he wasn't really examining it at all. "As long as men are men…and, for that matter, as long as there are women born in the mold of our mother…these savage practices will sit, flat as the sandy bed beneath the turbulent sea of every Cassadine dispute. We will always sink to this level at the last. Even I cannot alter the custom of this family, were I to make it my life's work." Stavros looked up from the barrette and smiled. Stefan took the joke, though it was imbued with a sickness he found distasteful. That the life's work of his brother might come to its finish in a mere handful of weeks did not amuse him. This death - as he'd held the image of it over the years - had evoked a variety of feelings in him. Mirth was not among them. "You've come for a reason, I assume?" "Yes," replied Stavros, pulling his leg to the floor and discarding his pensive air as if it were some piece of clothing that had suddenly lost its appeal. "When I opened my eyes this morning I found there was one face I earnestly desired to see. Where is she? Where is that little pitbull of yours?" When his brother failed to provide him an answer, he huffed impatiently. "Come, come, Stefan. Sancia. Where is she?" "At work," was the response he gave as he turned to take the seat behind his desk. "A foreign concept to you, I know. Yet there it is." Stefan drew his reading glasses from where they lay beside the phone and unfolded their stems purposefully, giving his brother an indifferent glance as he balanced them on his nose. "I, myself, have more than a few reports to read. Argos has been a very, very busy man." "Well, we wouldn't want to hold you up now, brother, would we?" Stavros lifted himself from the chair and made his way across the room. "I'm sure I can find her on my own. Left or right?" he inquired, pointing at the door. "Ah, that's right, it's straight across, isn't it? I keep forgetting the courtyard. I saw it so rarely the last time I was here." Stefan felt his jaw set, his teeth grinding in ire as his hand was forced. A finger stabbed the intercom button at the base of the telephone. "Please tell Sancia my brother has arrived and would like to see her. Have her meet us in my quarters at her earliest opportunity." The finger lifted and he threw Stavros a look of mild insufferance. Satisfied? His brother ignored him, turning his back to watch the door and await the girl's arrival. The smallest of fortunes could be found within hard moments like this - the files he had before him to pretend to peruse, the ignorant expanse of his brother's back and the shadow it cast to hide behind, the brief window of time it would take for Sancia to reach that door. All of these serendipitous circumstances flowed together to provide him an instant of sanctuary; a quick clutch of minutes in which to calculate the danger of the trap about to be sprung. What brought Stavros to Sancia and pulled so keenly he had made a morning to pursue her? Whose creature did he deem her to be? Helena's or his? Would he reveal her supposed duplicity? And which duplicity? Whom did he believe she was deceiving? There were so many subtle threads woven into this traitorous tapestry. Stavros had sighted one, perhaps two. Had he seen them all he would not be here. This brother came with questions. And try as he might in these small seconds he had been afforded, Stefan could not determine exactly what those questions might be. A sharp rap to the wood brought both brothers to attention. "Come," called Stefan, refusing to rise and make this seem any more than the inconvenient courtesy he would suffer to extend to a demanding guest. And as the girl stepped through the door he offered the completely unnecessary, yet eminently proper, introduction. "Sancia, you remember my brother, Stavros. Stavros, Sancia." Stavros nodded stiffly, in mime of the perfect gentleman. "Sancia," he said with what appeared to be a genuine enthusiasm. "Why it's been days since I saw you last! What have you been up to?" Sancia disregarded this flippancy and moved to skirt around him on her way to his brother. She'd almost made it past when Stavros' arm shot out, his hand taking a cruel grip tight around her bandaged wrist. In a startling flow of motion, Sancia spun in a smooth circle and brought her leg to his knee, buckling the joint to steal his balance and send him down to the floor. Stavros surrendered his grip in an attempt to break his fall and she took this freedom to step apart from the man now dropping to the carpet at her feet. Once he'd caught his breath, Stavros began to laugh. "Ah, darling, I've missed you too." Stefan glanced down at his brother and, with a politic disinterest, pointedly cleared his throat. "Might we move past these pleasantries? She does have work to do." "I'm sure she does," Stavros allowed, rising up from the floor and brushing the dirt from his clothes. "May I offer you a ride? I'm sure Stefan wouldn't mind, although my mother might find it a bit perplexing that her spy comes driven by her prince. Oh, I'm sorry," he exclaimed, feigning a moment of confusion. "Did I say her spy? It's so hard to tell the players without a program." Stefan cast a significant glance at Sancia and sat solidly back in his chair. "What do you want?" Stavros heaved an intemperate sigh. "I want you to remember that your brother is not a fool, Stefan. You forget I've seen the bands on both Laura and Regret. Mother's devices. That you expect me to observe a bandage wrapped around a similar wrist at a similar time and believe this mere coincidence is, quite frankly, insulting." Stefan leveled a stern gaze over the rim of his reading glasses. "I fail to see how this has anything to do with you." His brother weighed the statement carefully. "It's all of a piece now, Stefan. Your game is mine and mine yours. I would put my hand to this. Do not deny me. You know how I get when I want to play." His eye grew dark in the silence that followed, his tone lowering ominously. "You have the chance to pick my team, brother. Choose or lose." He didn't need the moment Stavros gave to make the decision. He knew the offer was an empty formality in any case. His brother was now involved. Best to have this force at least partially contained and working toward a purpose than flailing about on its own destructive impulse. His finger rolled a circle in the air and Sancia began to unwind the gauze.