The Sigh Of Things (34)   Whatever we imagined was imagined into motion… The entry hall had been transformed. What once echoed with a spare, hard-polished emptiness - its austerity falling cold to the eye, its cavernous proportion humbling to the spirit - had, overnight it seemed, metamorphosized into a receiving hall of grand imperial distinction. Ornate antique tables now lined the passage, draped in fine ivory batiste and laid with a heavy host of sterling from the treasure chests of heirloom Cassadine silver. Candelabras, footed bowls, scrollwork boxes and gadroon-bordered trays lay gleaming across the cloth, their sumptuous array cleverly enhanced by a scattering of intricately-cut crystal vases awaiting their arrangements from the garden. Darkly upholstered chairs, which might in a former day have passed for thrones, had been carefully positioned against the walls - walls which were now adorned with magnificent masterwork portraiture depicting what one could only assume were a legion of Cassadine lords. Great gilded frames surrounded these men, gods in their day; each stern, forbidding countenance gripped with the fierce conviction of entitlement and the bold brilliance of command. Not so hard to see in those hawkish, hellion eyes that spark of Cassadine confidence - the insolent assurance that no matter how wide, how wild, how willful the world might be, they could still grab it by the throat and take it to its knee. She had been studied by those self-same eyes, had been assessed by their catastrophic wisdoms, had even been given leave to kiss the lips that lay beneath them. Yet still she saw these lords, all of them - including the ones alive enough to walk these halls - as a long line of restless warriors constrained by familial tradition; chained to the ritualistic battlefield of an ancient ancestral ambition. Theirs was a cause fought less for gain than glory; less for power than the burdened boon of a title. And tomorrow they would come, amidst all this blood-bought ostentation, to once again raise their flag and claim their right to what was, at best, a kingdom in absentia; a coldly majestic utopia long gone lost to the mists of Time. Her shoe had barely touched the crimson runner spilling from the top of the stair when she pulled it back at the sound of voices. Two men had emerged from the living room, guided through the vestibule by Helena and Stefan. Regret retreated to the wall, falling into shadow as the group made their way through the chamber and vanished down an adjacent hall. She thought she'd escaped detection and returned to the head of the stair only to find Stefan at its foot, his hands clasped behind his back, waiting with a measured patience on her swift and silent descent. Instinct insisted she offer an apology or some sort of excuse, which she might have done had he not turned so abruptly on his heel to lead her back through the chamber, across the vast expanse of the great room and into a small salon located at its opposite end. He did not speak until he'd closed the door behind them. "Do you have all you require to prepare for La Selezione?" "La Selezione?" she echoed, moving to the chair he'd angled in front of a long rosewood writing table. "La Selezione. The Deciding," he corrected dismissively. "The Romans use the former." She watched him take his seat behind the desk and several seconds passed before she realized there was a question left to be answered. "I'm sorry, yes. I have everything I need. Beyond, of course, what you are about to provide." He nodded, his gaze speculative; his eye catching hers and holding it a moment before he bent to retrieve the case. "I fail to see your reasoning here. Are you attempting to prove yourself to us? If so, I can assure you it makes no difference to anyone whether you attend this event or not." "Perhaps it makes a difference to me, Stefan. I realize that counts for little to your mind, yet to mine it holds some weight." He balked at this, his neck stiffening, his lips pressing a bit more firmly into their narrow line. "Are those my choices?" she inquired, the tilt of her head spurring him back into action. He laid the case flat to the table, unhitching the lock with a hearty snap. The lid lifted and he spun the contents to face her. The box had been fitted with a burgundy velvet insert customized to hold four select jewelry pieces. Pinned to the left was a platinum pendant fashioned to depict a copious cluster of laurel leaves. Next to this was affixed a golden sunburst brooch. Sunk into a sleeve at its side was a delicately-enameled cloisonné ring styled in the shape of a heart. To the far right lay an additional ring sleeve, this one empty of its prize. The tips of her fingers stretched to touch that barren space. "And this?" "The Scavenger's Daughter. Laura's ring. She will be wearing it." Regret refrained from asking how Laura, in her current condition, could possibly be expected to use the device and instead chose to make an observation. "They have names?" "They do," he replied, adopting a tutorial tone as he leaned forward to offer the legend of each piece in its turn. His hand fell first to the pendant. "Apollo's Lament. Evoking the myth of Daphne who, while fleeing from him through the forest, cried out to the river god Peneus for rescue. Even as the plea spilled from her mouth, her foot began to take root. By the time he arrived on the scene, Apollo had only the bark of the laurel tree to wrap his arms around." His thumb came to tap the end of a stem. "Slide this point to the right and the powder releases from the bottom leaf." Assuring himself she had the trick, he moved on to the sunburst brooch. "Dido's Curse. After a line from Vergil's Aeneid. His hero washes up on the shores of Carthage where its queen takes him in. She tends to his needs, heals his spirit and all too quickly falls in love. Jupiter intercedes, causing Aeneas to steal away under the cover of darkness. Dido's grief at finding him gone leads her to commit suicide. The queen's last words were a curse upon him which began, O Sun, you who traverse all earth's works with your flames… This curse is cited as the mythological justification for the wars between Carthage and Rome." His finger pushed against the top-most ray of the burst and she could see its tip bend down on a hinge. "Pressure here will release the powder from the base of the orb." Regret motioned for the pin. "May I?" "Of course." Stefan removed the brooch from its mount and laid it in her palm. "A heavy piece," she observed in surprise, testing its heft in her hand. "Hard to imagine it could sit at the breast, and then to have to bend so far over the glass…" "No," he amended, gesturing to a place further down on her body. "The pin rides at the hip." "Oh." She rose from her chair to test it there, at both the right and left sides of her skirt, then reversed it in her hand. Her face betrayed her confusion as she struggled with the clasp. "I can't…" she murmured vexedly, casting him a troubled glance. Stefan stood and circled the desk; accepting the brooch to deftly slip the tine from its catch. He motioned for her to turn around and wound his arms about her waist. "Where would you place it?" Regret adjusted her arms to allow him access. "Left, I think. The right seems entirely too obvious." His chin fell over her shoulder, his short beard brushing the side of her neck. The subtle scent of his cologne provoked a memory she could not afford. She pushed it back and bent to watch him pierce the fabric of her skirt with the pin. His aim faltered, failing to find an exit from the cloth. He removed the prong to try again. This would soon prove uncomfortable for reasons she preferred not to dwell upon. "Do the men wear jewelry as well?" she asked, her tone a shade too bright. She softened it quickly. "And are theirs equipped with a legend? Stavros, for example. Which is his?" "Stavros wears Nergal," he responded. "His is the prince's piece; an heirloom handed down from father to son for several generations." The skirt defeated him a second time and he drew his arms tighter to gain a better vantage. "Nergal?" she prompted, resisting the urge to hold her breath. "The Mesopotamian god of war and death. His visage is halved to a pair of cufflinks wrought in onyx and gold. Only when both are brought together and the face made whole can the powder be released. It requires a certain amount of dexterity. Stavros, as one might expect, makes this all the more difficult by choosing to deliver his poisons behind his back." She watched the pin thread true through the skirt with a profound sense of relief. All that was left was to close the clasp. "And you, Stefan? What is the name of the piece you wear?" "Astaroth." Their heads turned as one at the sound of his voice in the doorway. How long had he been standing there? And what was the spark she saw dancing in his eye? Her first impression was rage, her second amusement, her third a startling mixture of both. Regret flushed quite against her will and dropped her hand to the brooch just as Stefan's slipped away. Stavros smiled wickedly. "Astaroth is one of the dukes of Hell who manifests as an angel. A remarkably indicative choice. And you did choose him, didn't you Stefan?" His brother ushered him into the room and quickly closed the door. "You know they are here. This was an unnecessary risk." "Ah, but the temptation alone can prove ridiculously intoxicating," he remarked, his gaze never leaving the girl. "Isn't that so, Regret?" She ignored his implication, attempting instead to remove the pin from her skirt. As hard as it had been to attach, the piece now seemed determined to stay. She pushed and prodded to no avail. Her fingers grew flustered, furiously fumbling with the catch until one lost its purchase to prick itself on the sharp point of the prong. Her hand pulled away and she stared at the drop of blood pooling on her skin. "Allow me." His lips were at her ear, his teeth grazing its curve as his arm came around her waist. His thumb sank behind the sun and, with a skill too quick to follow, he detached the piece from the cloth and sent it sailing back into the case with a careless flick of his wrist. "Dido you are not," he whispered confidentially. "I thought we'd established that." "Better a curse than a lamentation," she asserted in a quiet voice. "I believe that was the lesson." "Still lingering at the door of death?" he teased, inhaling the fragrance of her hair. Regret wrestled against his effect and offered an enigmatic smile. "Aren't we all?" "Stavros," called his brother, breaking the moment. "If you have business to discuss, I'm certain Regret wouldn't mind if we postponed her selection until later this evening?" She knew this as her cue. "Of course," she responded, inclining her head and beginning her turn toward the door. Stavros caught her by the wrist and drew her back, producing a handkerchief from his coat with a characteristic flourish. He twisted the hand he held and swabbed the blood from its finger. The stain soaked starkly red at the center of the cloth. "Nonsense, Stefan," he remarked, tucking the soiled square back into his pocket. "Our business can wait. Let's find Regret her trinket, shall we?" He strode over to the desk to mark off her options. "No and no," he announced, rejecting both the pendant and the pin. "I see Laura's taken The Daughter." His fingers closed around the cloisonné ring and lifted it from its sleeve. "But Olga, beautiful Olga might actually do the trick." Stefan crossed to the opposite side of the rosewood table and peremptorily plucked the sunburst brooch from where his brother had seen fit to throw it. "Have a care, Stavros. That ring holds some history." "Said the curator of all Cassadine antiquities," mocked the prince, tossing the ring into the air and catching it rebelliously. He laughed out loud and turned around, his hands falling to her waist to lift her up and plant her on the desk. "Has he told you the story of Great Uncle Vasily? No? Now there's a tale for a tender heart! "Our grandfather's brother, Vasily Cassadine, was a member of the Hussar Regiment stationed in the Crimea in the fall of 1911. As luck would have it, Tsar Nicholas had transported his family to Yalta for their annual autumn holiday, ensconcing them in his cherished palace, Livadia. It was here his eldest daughter, the Grand Duchess Olga, had the great good fortune to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. In honor of this milestone event, the Hussars presented her an appointment as their colonel-in-chief, and afterward held a ball in her honor. It's said she appeared at the door as a nubile Russian goddess swathed in a long pink gown, her blonde hair luxuriously curled, her blue eyes outsparkling the many, many diamonds she wore. Every officer lost his heart that night, but none more completely than our poor Uncle Vasily. "A year he pined for the lovely tsarevna, his soul knowing no rest. He went so far as to apply for a transfer to old St. Petersburg, solely to close the distance between himself and her primary residence which was, at that time, the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. Here, at least, he could catch his glimpse on the odd afternoon she traveled through the town and, of course, he could hear every snippet of news the royal gossips might deign to release. You can imagine his devastation at the rumored match between Olga and her father's cousin, Dmitry. And afterward his great relief to hear the engagement had been broken off. It was then he made this ring." "Faberge," inserted Stefan, unimpressed with the flair of his brother's dissertation and the factual fault that lay within it. "Peter Carl Faberge made the ring. A wise choice. He held the position of court jeweler at the time." "A man of many eggs, as I recall," Stavros responded disdainfully. Turning his attention back to the ring, he shifted an ornamental wire wrapped around its band and the point of the heart sprang apart, revealing a hollow interior. "Inside this space, on a very small scrap of paper, Vasily vowed his eternal love. While she never returned that sentiment, it was said she wore the ring frequently and with much satisfaction." Regret watched him slip the point back into place. "But how did the Cassadines come to re-acquire it?" Stavros turned to his brother who provided the denouement. "It was confiscated in Ekaterinburg, as she made her way into exile. Upon news of the Romanov family's assassination, Vasily made a point to retrieve it and, upon his death, it became a part of the Cassadine Estate." "So this token of love becomes a tool for poison," Regret remarked thoughtfully. Stavros gestured for her hand and pressed the band down her finger. "A Cassadine end, if there ever was one." His brother sighed impatiently. "Those are the choices available to you. Which will it be?" "Oh, the ring," she announced. "I choose the ring." Stefan's arm extended and she removed the piece reluctantly to drop it in his palm. "Olga's Heart it is. We will have the ring cleaned and brought to you this evening with a packet of baking powder. I advise you to practice until you've acquired a technique you're comfortable with." The true use she'd make of this exquisite heirloom sent the enchantment of the moment crashing down to earth. In little more than twenty-four hours she could honestly be labeled a poisoner. She would have a "technique." A technique that had been practiced to the point she could deliver her measure of death with her victim none the wiser. But what had she expected, really? That all these cunning Cassadines would cast their votes in the open? That they would scoop their powders with a spoon and stir their doses like sugar in a cup of tea? She tried to find comfort in the company she'd have, in the knowledge that every guest would be forced to commit the same crime; that every participant would be possessed of a share in this same mortal sin. Yet there was no solace there. No comfort whatsoever. Stavros, sensing her dismay, offered his hand to help her off the desk and kept hers clasped in his own as she came to stand at his side. His strength. If she could just borrow his strength for this. He had so much and she, hardly any at all. Still, she made a brave face and gave voice to one of her many questions. "Laura and I will be wearing rings. What about Helena? Which is her piece?" "Helena wears Kali-ma," replied Stefan, who had closed his case and was tucking it back beneath the desk. "The Black Mother," Stavros added sardonically. "An aspect of the Hindu goddess Kali, representing sorrow and death. Don't ask us what it is, though, or how it delivers. She's kept that secret to herself. I don't believe there's a Cassadine left who could tell you what it looks like. Or would want to know. What do they say, Stefan? If you've seen Kali-ma…" "…you're already dead," his brother provided dispassionately. "Now, Regret, if you would excuse us?" Stavros found this dismissal irksome and cast a disapproving look in the direction of his brother. Stefan stared blandly back, immovable on the point. "It seems my bondsman requires my complete and undivided attention," he allowed, his eye coming slowly away from Stefan. "Will I see you later?" Regret offered him a small smile. "If you like," she conceded, drawing her hand from his grasp and retreating from the room, leaving these men to put the final touches to the canvas of their Cassadine design. Once beyond the door, she made her way through the great room and back into the hall, pausing for a moment at the bottom of the stair. She had no desire to return to the suite; to those same sad rooms with the same sad routines and the same sad service to a woman she found it increasingly difficult to abide. Laura had grown restless in the last two weeks, her temper on display more often than not. The only times she would deign to exhibit the smallest amount of restraint were, oddly enough, those spent beneath the fussing fingers of her dressmaker. If he'd wanted an arm up, it would go up. A shoulder straight and it would be straightened. A simple gesture for a turn would bring her around to the precise degree requested. Yet put Regret to the pedestal for measure and out came the mischief. Seams were ripped, sashes torn, fabric thrown to the floor and ground beneath Laura's angry foot. So destructive were her tantrums that the fittings themselves were deferred to a later evening hour, when the agitator was sure to be abed. Then, of course, had come the petulance; the sour sulk; the childish rage. If Laura were sane it might be imagined she was purposely fomenting trouble to force her hosts to remove her name from the guest list, convinced she couldn't be trusted to behave. A clever woman would sabotage the process in just this way, ruining the dress of another on the off-chance her scheme would fail and she would be required to attend the event after all. But Laura wasn't sane; she wasn't possessed of a rational mind or the faculties to fabricate such a ruse. Laura was simply…Laura. And at this moment Regret found she had less than the patience required to once again contend with her tempestuous charge. Giving her desire its leave, she headed toward the rear of the house, winding through the corridors until she reached the sliding glass doors that opened onto the patio. One step down to the slate, to the feel of the breeze ruffling through her hair, to the echo of the ocean waves crashing in the distance, and her tensions began to ease. The sea had that effect - the smell of it, the sound of it, the truth of it existing long before there were people on this earth. Its very presence came as a kind of eternal reassurance that life and death, love and hate, peace and war were, in reality, minor matters in a grander scheme. The ocean reminded her the challenges she faced, regardless of their substance, were all of them exceedingly small, genuinely momentary, and would at the end of a hundred years prove less than consequential. Lost to these thoughts, it was no surprise she didn't see the stranger until he turned. Too late now to back away without a word of apology. "Forgive me. I didn't mean to intrude." His tranquil expression changed to one of astonishment - his hooded eyes growing wide, his lips parting in wonder. "A beautiful woman appears at the very moment I make my wish! The universe is an amazement to me. Come. Come join the poor fool who, it seems, has stumbled for an instant into favor with a god." Regret smiled in spite of herself and took a few steps forward. His hand extended in welcome. "I give you the name of your servant. Your slave. The man whose heart you have so swiftly taken into bondage. I am Argos," he announced, bowing before her. "Argos Antonovich Cassadine." The Sigh Of Things (35)   Then comes a kinsman across that sand… "I am Argos," he announced, bowing before her. "Argos Antonovich Cassadine." Though his head descended to its gallantry, his eyes never strayed from her face; their courteous warmth masking a discernment so sharp it could not fail to miss the shock she displayed at the mere mention of his name. Not a Cassadine then, but close. Close enough to recognize the importance of his presence here; to have been told of his acquisitions, his deliberate design, his eventual intent. He suspected she was also well aware of the surprising response his ambition had provoked. No one had anticipated the infamously noble Nikolas Cassadine would actually decree a Deciding. No one had foreseen he would acknowledge the custom's existence, much less invoke the forms required to put the ritual into motion. The Summoning alone had been a shock to every member of the kin. This was the uncle's influence, he was sure. The uncle who had attended the last selezione and would remember it well, having almost lost his lunatic brother to the challenge of Cyrus. Lost him in any case, as fate would have it. Twice, if the rumors were true. This the same uncle who was currently attempting to pass his very own bastard off as Prince. The scheme had a certain Machiavellian quality he could genuinely appreciate, yet only in the abstract. In the same way he could appreciate this woman's attractions without knowing precisely which square she occupied on the board. "You have heard of me, I think," he observed, gracing his gaze with amusement as he took her hand and brought it to his lips. "I am the more unfortunate between us. Were I to bend a knee, would you deliver the honor?" "No need, Signore Cassadine," she responded, her fingers slipping from his grasp. "My name is Regret Derniere. I am the consort of your cousin, Stefan." His head pulled back in surprise, not all of it feigned. "Not Contessa Derniere? Nostra Angelo dell'infanzia Milano?" "I do not use the title, Signore. Regret will do." "But I have heard of you!" he remarked, astonished by the truth of this. "Your work with the children of Milan is well-known. You are there two years only, no? Even so, your dedication to the welfare of these orphans is spoken of frequently in Rome. Yes," he added, rolling his wrist dismissively, "it is just from the mouths of priests, but still." She offered him a quiet smile. "I can assure you, Signore, a single word from a man of such distinction is far more than I deserve." "Argos," he insisted, discharging all formality with a favorable frown. "You will forgive me my reaction, I hope? Your presence here, in this home, on this terrace, is quite unexpected." "No more unexpected than your own, Signore…Argos," she allowed, noting the disapproving lift of his brow. "Tomorrow, yes. Today?" She shook her head and he watched a spill of tawny curls bounce across her shoulder. He gestured over the courtyard wall, toward the waves crashing beyond it. "Like you, signorina, I come for the sea." As each turned to the ocean and a moment of private thought, Argos fell to his list of concerns immediately. First and foremost, he questioned whether the Contessa had a purpose in appearing at this particular time. Did she act as someone's agent? If so, who stood behind this design? The mother, the son or the grandson? Her manner, beyond that one moment of surprise, seemed temperate enough and failed to present an ounce of calculation. Her mood, as he could read it, was as relaxed as one might expect to find upon the first meeting with a stranger. He thought he could sense some vigilance in the texture of her silence, but perhaps she was simply presenting him the occasion to take the conversational lead? If she was, in fact, a spy of some sort, she was either very bad at this game or entirely too brilliant. The way she waited - simply waited - those three small steps apart from him, was enough to unsettle his mind and beg a cautious approach. The second of his concerns, and a good deal farther down the list, involved his furious plans for the imbeciles who had failed to inform him of the true identity of Stefan Cassadine's mistress. A Milanese socialite, indeed! What else had he been misled about? And how much of that could he correct in the very few hours that lay before him? Less than a little, he imagined. He could feel the ground grow just a bit softer beneath his feet. "Will you be joining us tomorrow, then?" he inquired smoothly, his head turning on the question. "I have been honored with an invitation." Although it was to be expected, he could detect no sarcasm in her response. "You will pardon my curiosity, but this is quite unusual. You cannot have been formally summoned, yet you choose to attend as a guest." His gaze grew sharper, his eyes examining her face for the slightest sign of deception. "Do you look upon La Selezione as an evening's entertainment?" "No," she replied openly, without a moment's hesitation. "I find no death, however noble the cause, to be in any way diverting. A travesty is closer to the mark." She lifted her chin and offered him a look he found most bewitching. "I fear I lack the bloodlust of the Cassadines. Yet I will stand among them. You can be sure I will serve." "You will turn your skills to killing, despite the abhorrence you feel in your soul?" Argos clicked his tongue and shook his head in grave solemnity. "I think you will find a reluctant hand is not a steady one. Per il Suo bene…for your sake I pray…" "Save those prayers, Signore," she responded, cutting him off with the wave of a finger. "You are far more in need of them than I. Let us not begin with false assumptions. What morals demand, the dictates of battle will always outweigh. You understand my meaning, I am sure." Argos smiled in spite of himself. She was an intriguing woman. Such a shame to be wasted as consort to the second seed of Mikkos the Mad. Her fire alone made her worth the taking, if only for the night. "A man could wish to have you in his pocket, Regret. Your courage would meet his every need." "Not his every need," she disputed, returning his smile. "Although fidelity meets a good many of the rest." She paused for a moment to sink the point, then adroitly changed the subject. "Argos is such a unique name. A town in Greece, if I'm not mistaken?" It was all he could do not to laugh in delight at her clever verbal maneuverings. "Yes," he acknowledged gregariously, the humor in his voice informing her he would surrender his pursuit, but only for a time. "Argos is a town in Greece, but this is not the origin of my name. My mother called me after a dog." He could see he'd captured her attention, and enjoyed the way those green eyes quested to find the answer in his face. "You are familiar with the myth of Odysseus, yes? Gone to fight in the Trojan War and there cursed by the gods to spend twenty years striving to return to his home? Lost on the sea, island to island, danger to danger, desperate always for the shores of Greece and the warm bosom of his family. Finally Athena takes her pity and sees him to his native land. She transforms him into a beggar because she knows there is trouble for his wife and his son, and Odysseus must discern this trouble through the safety of such a disguise. Upon his arrival no one knows who he is, not even Telemachus, his son. In fact, the only being who can find our hero beneath the magics of Athena is his faithful dog, Argos. The dog is very old by now. Twenty years have passed with him sitting by the door, his heart yearning, his ears pricked for the sound of his master's step on the stone. And when this comes at last, the tail wags, the hound rises, he greets his master and then, as he must, the beast lays down to die." He took a breath at the break in his story and lightly crossed himself in tribute to the woman who bore him. Once he'd completed this memorial gesture, he advanced into the meaning of the tale. "You needed to know my mother. Even I did not know her. Her reasoning came by way of a friend. She was very much in love with my father, and he with her. They were young, foolish people. They married without thinking. When Mikkos discovered what his brother had done, he insisted upon an annulment - which was arranged through a bribe to the church. But my mother, she always believed her husband would come back. Even on her birthing bed. Even as the nurses told her she would die before the night was through. Even as she thrust me from her womb, she believed her Tony would return in the end if only to claim his first-born son. She wanted me to know him. She wanted me to wait for him, to see him, to recognize him the moment he walked through the door. It was the fancy of a woman in the throes of death. A peculiar choice, I grant you, but this is the meaning behind my name. The name of a dog." "The name of a sentinel." His gaze lifted quickly to her face, searching for the jest in her words. There was none. The seriousness of her expression, the resolute respect of her regard, the determined set of her mouth - all of these attributes combined to produce the mysterious effect of drawing a tear to his eye. He coughed and reined the emotion in, disturbed by his own sensitivity. How many times had he told that story? How many times had he brushed the matter off? Too many times to be reacting in such a dramatic fashion. Yet…a sentinel. A sentinel. God in heaven, he might actually be able to live with that. "Argos?" He tore himself away from this remarkable woman to turn toward the patio door. There stood Aldo in his fine silk suit and his stiffly professional pose, no doubt prepared to crack the exquisite shell of this moment with the hammer of business at hand. Anger flared inside him, but tempered itself quickly enough as he remembered where he was and what he had come to accomplish. "Contessa Regret Derniere, may I present my associate, Aldo Samaritano?" Argos' arm swept grandly through the air to usher the man forward. "Aldo, you have heard of the Contessa, I am sure. Cardinal Ferrante refers to her as The Angel of Milan." He watched his lieutenant arch a brow and saw his lips set in perturbation at the significance of this news. "Contessa, it is an honor to make your acquaintance," said the man as his heels clicked softly together in time with his formal bow. "Your reputation for good works is only surpassed by that of your many kindnesses to the children of my country. The whole of Italy holds you close to her heart." "You are generous with your praise, Signore Samaritano. I can assure you I deserve less than half of what you so graciously provide." The woman turned back to Argos and inclined her head. "Shall I leave you to your business, then?" His hand reached for hers without thinking, his fingers closing gently over the cool hollow of her palm. "If you would stay a moment only?" he inquired and, without awaiting a response, proceeded straight into conference with his man. "The changes have been made?" Aldo eyed the woman and pitched his voice to a softer tone. "Negotiations took place. We have what we needed, if not all of what we want. You must, of course, review the document. The mother and the son stand ready for this as we speak." "Very well. Please tell them I will join them shortly." Aldo asked a question with a glance that his employer refused to answer, then nodded curtly and returned to the house. "It is inconsiderate in the extreme, this refusal to meet with me," he observed, almost to himself. "Perhaps you know his reason? Is there some motive behind the Prince's absence from our conference tonight?" "I'm afraid I can be of no help to you, Signore. This is a Cassadine affair from start to finish." "Argos," he corrected insistently, directing his full attention to her steady and uniquely spectacular gaze. "It is simply that we have had word, as recently as this morning, that he has yet to leave New York. A plane has been chartered but…well, I thought to see him here. It is a disappointment." She smiled then, and he knew instantly that he had given offense. "No," she offered with a spark of genuine candor. "It is understandable for you to want a measure of the man. As I imagine he must want his measurement of you. I am merely the window-dressing and quite content to remain so, if you wish to know the truth." He lifted her hand to his lips and let his kiss linger, his breath warm against her skin. "I would never put you in the window, Regret. I am far too selfish for that. I would need to hide you from every man's eye but my own." She shook her head as if the whole of the sentiment were nonsense. "I cannot abide being courted by a Roman for just this reason," she scolded wryly, drawing her hand down from his mouth. "You know the words to unlock a woman's heart but the actions never fail to wound. Hide me, indeed! I cannot think of a more desolate existence!" His own laughter shocked him. Who would have thought to find such pleasure under the roof of Helena Cassadine? If this was her poison, he would drink it down in a single swallow, so intoxicating was its taste. "I look forward to seeing you tomorrow night, Contessa Derniere. Might you find it in your heart to save me a dance?" "If you promise not to waltz me into a closet, Signore Cassadine, I will take your request under advisement." So enchanted was this Cassadine challenger, so completely entranced by his own exuberance and buoyant good cheer, that he left the patio with little thought to what might remain behind him, undetected by his infamously sharp and all-discerning eye. For the evening was not, as he imagined, absent of consideration and the careful measurement of men. Had his vision ranged a single degree farther afield, his senses probed just a few feet further into shadow, there is no doubt he would have marked the burning fury of his enemy's glare. Those two pools of molten fire, crackling with cunning and silent rage, may indeed have been perceived by him as clearly as a panther's predatory gaze in a black swath of jungle darkness. How such hungering hostility may have harrowed him would now never be known, nor the sudden, striking shift in his carefully orchestrated strategy had he sighted what would certainly appear to his relatively rational mind to be the resurrection of a mythical beast, the incarnation of a demon, the embodiment of a nightmare - in short, the legendary form of the one and only Cassadine aside whose name in every family record was scrawled the word abomination. Had he seen the monster emerge from the cover of its shade to cross to the woman he'd found so intrinsically appealing, would the Roman have bothered to retrace his steps just far enough back to hear the dreadful demand it made? This may not have mattered. It was doubtful even he could comprehend the danger bound beneath the words of those two tormenting questions. "And will you dance with him, Regret? Will you be dancing as I die?" The Sigh Of Things (36)   I am leaving you, grumbles Nietzsche as if it were possible… "And will you dance with him, Regret? Will you be dancing as I die?" "Is that what you've been doing all this time? Preparing to die?" She would not turn. She would not take those cold notes he offered in the tenor of his voice and allow them to become the prelude to a symphony of vindictive rage. She would not sift through the remnants of her conversation with Argos for a justification to counter his mounting sense of betrayal. She would not pander to the fear he was, with a vengeful determination, attempting to coax from the quiet of her soul. Instead she would hold fixed to this position, facing the sea as the light grew grey and the evening fog fell like a veil to shroud the swell of each incoming wave. The tripping hammer of her heart, she tried to remind herself, was a pounding only she could hear. "What did you say to him?" he inquired softly, closer now to her ear. "Did I whisper?" "I was struck by your smile. You found him engaging." "I found him here. Where he should not have been. Not alive, anyway." "And it all comes back to death, doesn't it Regret?" Four chilled fingers came to rest at her throat, a thumb to press lightly to the back of her neck. "How long will it take you to forget me? A week? A year? A lifetime? Perhaps I should spare you the trouble of finding out." Her breath escaped in a long, dispirited sigh. "You may kill me if that is what you need to do. Were I you, though, I might remove this action from plain sight. The cove should provide sufficient concealment. I will wait for you there." With this she slipped her neck from his grasp and crossed the distance to the patio table to take the blanket left folded on a chair. Clutching the thin woolen weave to her chest, she stepped down from the slate and made her way across the lawn without once glancing back. As she reached the bottom of the weathered stair and her foot fell to the beach, dismal now in its many shades of grey, she thought with an epiphinal clarity, This is where he is. This is how the world must appear to the mind of a Cassadine prince on the eve of his Deciding. The cold certainty on which he stood, like this shallow stretch of sand, would feel as if it were shifting beneath his feet. The range of his vision, like hers in this instant, would seem fearfully obscured by an oppressive, all-encompassing mist. Life would lay beyond his view, skulking in a thick blanket of fog - he would hear it all around him, just as she could hear the sea crashing gently to the shore. But he would only know of its existence by the sound of its movement. Was the tide coming in or going out? Were his enemies advancing or retreating? By the time a hand extended from that ever-encroaching void, it would be far too late to tell if it meant to assist him or strike him dead. His senses would strain past their limits, his awareness heightened like her own to detect that one footstep falling, to capture the scent of an imminent danger, to apprehend the approach of every potential threat. It was a landscape of madness. It was a perception of existence no weak mind could endure. She shook out the blanket and draped it over her shoulders, wrapping it tight against the damp evening air. The lights of the mansion were lost to her now, as were those strung down the walk leading to the jetty. Only the single standing lamp at the base of the stair shone true through the fog, and even this offered little more than an opaque pool of illumination. She chose not to wander but to sit right there, at the bottom of the steps. She chose to be clearly visible. She chose, in this painfully sympathetic moment, to cast herself as one of those very few things he could find. "Do you still love him?" It wasn't that she'd failed to sense his weight on the stair, or that his voice came dull and disembodied from a swirling pocket of mist…or even that the question he'd chosen to ask was almost impossible to answer…that sent the fear skipping like a stone down the length of her spine. It was more the hunger of his need; his desperate thirst to have, to hear a response that might, in some consequential way, provide him the assurance he required to reinforce his resolve. How he must long for this. How it must torment him. And yet she knew anything apart from the pure, unvarnished truth would soundly defeat them both. "Your heart is still with Stefan," he stated bleakly, confirmed of the worst by her silence. "No. My heart is alone. It misses him. There's a difference." "You'd choose him if he'd have you back." "How could you know this when I don't know it myself?" Her voice sounded weary, even to her ear. "You traffic in fantasy. Leave that place. There is only pain in that place." "And go where, Regret? Where have you left me to stand?" he demanded, lost and looking for her grace. "Here. I would have you here at my side." Why did her voice crack with this admission? How could he inspire such anguish? "Stavros, you must know by now that when you are here there is room for no one else. You consume me. Must you make me suffer as well?" She drew an arm from beneath the blanket and raised it in the air above her head. It took a moment, but his hand came finally to fall inside her own. She brought it down and pressed it to her cheek. He did not pull away, but instead descended to sit at her back; his free arm encircling her shoulder, his brow bent to rest against the crown of her hair. She could have wept but wouldn't. After a time she spoke. "Argos finds it unusual for a guest to attend the Deciding." "Didn't used to be," he answered reflectively, moving to nestle at her neck. "People were braver then. It was a test. A challenge to your courage. Everyone would come. No one wants to play with fire anymore. Only the fools will bring a guest. The smarter Cassadines are cowards." "Because they stand alone?" "Because they take no risk." His hand dropped to her lap, its fingers toying with a stitch at the blanket's edge. "Stefan insists they've all become civilized, that their wars are fought through provisional clauses in the subsections of contracts. Civilization is a furious thing. I cannot believe it's fallen to a scribble on a page." "That's where he fights. It's what he knows." She drifted back to his chest and settled there, leaning into the rough beard at his chin. "Tell me about the last Deciding, the one in Greece. What was your strategy? How did you win?" "I don't' know," he admitted wryly. "Oh, I used to tell myself it was destined. That I'd been chosen by a force greater than any known to Man. Of late I think it was luck that took me over the line. Luck and the wanton wiles of my mother. I'm convinced she refills that device of hers. My father used to say she was worth ten soldiers in battle. Perhaps that's what he meant. That she took ten trips to the poisoned well. It was very close. I was on my knees when he fell." He laughed softly. "I'll never forget the look on Stefan's face. He was…befuddled. My brother hadn't quite decided whether he could lose me or not. I imagine he's made that decision by now." Regret imagined that he had. "And Laura?" "Laura," he sighed. "Beautiful. Brilliant. Vivacious. The room came to heel for her. In half a night she'd won half the battle. But she stumbled, as I did at the end. When you're young your immortality shines like gold. It never occurs to you…well, it simply never occurs to you…" She knew his eyes had closed, knew he was once again caught in the grip of his memory of that night. "She fled from me before it was over. As if I were the author of it all. As if, in escaping me, she could escape the shadow of death itself. We were unforgivably naïve. The both of us." "Yet you did escape that shadow. Once, twice…three times in the end." "There's no charm in the fourth, is there?" He sent his hand to burrow beneath the fold of the blanket and curl around her wrist, pulling it out into the light. His thumb traced the surface of his brother's fraudulent band. "It's fooled her then?" "It has." Regret bent her head to observe his regard of the bracelet. "Why did you do it? What made you decide to liberate me from your mother's dangerous little toy?" "I wanted you free," he announced matter-of-factly, lifting the bracelet, wrist and all, into the air before them. "When she bound you to this threat she equipped you with any number of agendas. What would you do to escape it? To escape us? Lie? Cheat? Steal? Once you were released and made the choice to stay, and it was your choice, the playing field leveled. If you came to me it would be for your own reasons and not those we'd forced upon you. I told you. I did this for myself." "That's not what I thought you meant," she admitted, watching as he brought her hand to his face and neatly uncurled its fingers to deposit a kiss in the well of her palm. "And I'm still not convinced." "The only way to convince you is to stop wanting you so completely, and I've gone too far for that. I'm afraid you'll just have to learn to live with your doubt." She could feel the breath of the word on her skin as his lips pressed gently to her wrist. Here they rested for an instant, then traveled up her arm to where the flesh was full and soft enough to take between his teeth. It was a gentle bite but the tongue lingered as his mouth swept further and further down its course. Each inch he'd journey brought its pause for a similar feast and what she felt beneath that dark head of his teased a wistful moan from the hollow of her throat. This was the sound he'd been waiting for. He spun her around with astonishing ease until she found herself suddenly kneeling before him, braced between his legs. His hands circled her neck, one curving to the back of her head to capture a fistful of curls while the other knocked a thumb to lift her chin and present her mouth for his kiss. Her eyes closed in expectation of a pleasure that did not come. After a puzzled moment's waiting, they fluttered open to find him staring down at her, a thousand questions caught in the expression on his face. What he sought from the viewing she couldn't tell, only that he was certain there was something to see, something he could find in the contour of her cheek, the plane of her brow, the craft of a look she gave in that split second of anticipation that could somehow soothe his soul and feed the faith he had in his own essential significance - as if meaning something to her meant meaning something to the world at large; to everything and everyone, perhaps even to himself. She relaxed into the service of his scrutiny and smiled, offering the word he'd given her no chance to say that day. "Hello." His gaze widened in surprise, his head cocking half a degree to the side as his mouth quirked into a broken grin. It was clear she'd caught whatever thread had been unraveling inside him and stopped that rending before he lost another vital stitch. He didn't know what she was doing and couldn't quite get a fix on the how, but seemed to realize, happily, that it made no difference to him at all. "Hello," he responded, seizing this single satisfying shift in perspective to sink, at last, into the kiss. It was a slow thing, soft and filled with a kind of eloquent splendor - the way his mouth met hers so carefully, so tenderly; the way his lips probed and plucked and pushed hers apart to introduce his tongue. So effortless an act, so singularly elegant, so terribly, viciously divine, that she felt as if she finally understood the Victorian principle of swooning. Her throat released any number of sounds, none of them intelligible, none of them a word possessed of a single shred of sense yet in some manner meaning more to them both than anything that might have been coherently expressed. Her hands lifted to his face to assure herself he was present, he was with her in this moment and not some figment of a fugitive fancy manufactured by her need. And yes was what her fingers whispered to her mind, yes as they drew themselves to either side of his contracting jaw, yes as they traveled to an ear to trace its curve and combed through his hair and dropped to his neck, his shoulder, his chest. Yes, he is here. She found it a truly magnificent and most extraordinary truth. Stavros pulled back in concern, touching his hand to her cheek and lifting away a tear to balance on the tip of his thumb. His brow furrowed, his eye narrowing to the proof of her distress. "Explain this," he insisted, his tone cautious and stiff with strain. "Have I done something wrong? Am I hurting you?" "No," she answered, shaking her head and wiping the track of the tear from her face. "I don't…" she began, then began again. "There are moments…" she continued, testing the words and finding them unacceptable. "Stavros," she disclosed finally, "you can be overwhelming." There. That was as clear a response as anyone could expect to receive. Of course anyone had never been a group that claimed Stavros Cassadine a member. "Then it's true," he announced, retreating from this embrace. "I've often heard it said, by those presumptuous enough to imagine it worth my knowing, that I am a man best suffered in small doses." She smiled and knew at once this was precisely the wrong action to take. He pulled away entirely, pushing himself up from the stair to slip around her and step out onto the sand. "Stavros, no. You don't…" "I can't blame you for this," he allowed, turning to face the sound of the waves crashing behind the fog. "I'm told over time my appeal has a tendency to fade and my temperament becomes quite intolerable. I imagine you were warned about this." Regret felt compelled to bandage this wound as quickly as possible. "You bear no resemblance…none…to the man so many claim you to be. I came to the conclusion very early on that no one knows who you are at all. I include myself in that company and yes, Stavros, there are days I include you in it too." She fretted whether to join him there on the sand, worried he might stride off through the mist with this misapprehension alive between them and working its damage through the night. Instinct told her to stay though, and with him instinct was often the better choice. "Will you tell me why you've purposely misunderstood my meaning? You can't still be bothered by Argos, or even Stefan. There's something beneath all of this. Something that needs sharing. Can you tell me? Would you try?" What could he hear now? What could make a difference to him? His broad back told her nothing, gave her not a single clue to his mood or his madness. Those hands clasped behind him, one inserted within the other, were at ease in the holding; neither tight with fury nor twisting in agitation. Whatever it was that lay coiled inside him had made a home in his soul and would only come forward at his request. Would he coax it into the light? Had it even registered to his mind that she waited on an answer? His stillness mocked her until she realized this was the look of Stavros Cassadine in the midst of making a decision. "It was the manifestation of a metaphor." Here the beginning of his thought, stated in a voice strong enough to carry to the stair; full enough with intent to reveal he'd committed to a path. He cast a glance over his shoulder, his face unreadably grave. "The infamous bottomless pit. The idea of falling without end. To never know a finish. This has been my life from the moment I awoke to find Cyrus was dead and I…I was not. It was a lie, of course. That I had survived. That when I opened my poisoned eye I remained the same man with the same aim, possessed of the same consciousness. I had fallen. I was falling still." He turned his head slowly back, returning his gaze to the invisible sea. "And then I died again. Falling. She kept me falling for seventeen years. And even then, I was not finished. You can understand, can't you, that when I loosened my fingers at the edge of that abyss, I was simply completing a design? Like an artist from inception to creation to expression. This is a destiny I might have realized had the hole been as bottomless as advertised." "I am glad it was not," she offered softly. "Then you are the only one. And I mean that, Regret. I have just one fear in my life. Just the one. Can you guess what it is?" The revelation was sharp and carved its way to the heart of her spirit, killing its vitality in a single stroke. And though she loathed to speak it aloud, she would force herself to say it. He had more than paid for that, if only through the act of exposing his pain. "You are afraid you will not die." She watched his head dip to his chest, his shoulders heave a heavy sigh. "Come," he said, and this time it was his hand that stretched behind to call for her. She left the stair and crossed to him quickly, taking her place beneath his arm. "You must promise me something," he insisted, refusing to shift his regard from the sea. "If I survive this Deciding, you must promise never to come near me again." "No." He had to realize this would be her answer. He had to know her at least this well. "Regret, this is not an issue for debate." "Nor will I debate you on it. You have my answer. If you live you must live with that." "I don't want to kill you!" he seethed, catching her eye with his anger. "And I don't want to die. But I will come for you, Stavros Cassadine. You may bet your eternal life on it." He turned away quickly, but not before she saw the grief crush his features and the misery confound his rage. Regret moved to hold him then, hardened though he was to her embrace. Her head came to rest on the unyielding stretch of muscle that covered his heart. Here she stilled, waiting for his mind to put away his pain. Several minutes passed before his arms wound around her and his voice came to whisper in her ear. "Never leave your wine unattended. Never risk a concentrated dose. Drink often but not too quickly. Beware of long conversation. Do not be distracted by humor or dispute. Gesture frequently, passing your stem from hand to hand. And never, never set your glass aside mine…"