by Jamie Ott
Kris said passionately, "You can't arrest us! You say it's just nature that man should war, and you have a right to rest in peace. Well, it's just our nature that we should protect ourselves, because we have a right to exist! You may be done in this world, but we're not!"
"I don't care," said Stelar indifferently. He signaled that the men should apprehend them.
The men grabbed them and forced them back out, through the alleys, to the center castle, and then into a separate jail cell each.
Starr tried to wiggle herself from the grip of the one who held her, but he was too strong.
"How long are you gonna keep us here?" asked Starr, but the Primordials ignored them.
When the Primordials left the jail hall, Kris asked, "Shane?"
"Not long," she answered before he could ask. "In fact, I think this whole thing was a setup. They knew we'd break into Credenza's quarters."
"What do they want?" asked Kris.
"I'm not sure."
That night, Starr fell asleep on her own white furry pouf. Shane snored in the next cell over, while Kris, who never slept anymore, kept himself busy by reading an ancient Latin copy of the Aeneid.
Several hours later, yellow gold bled through her eyelids, bringing her out of slumber.
She stretched and stood.
"Starr?" Shane called.
"Yes?"
"They're coming."
She heard the door open and the sound of footsteps, followed by the door closing.
"Good morning," came Stelar's voice.
He walked up and down the cells, viewing them all. "I'm gonna cut to the chase. No doubt, Shane already knows what we want anyway."
"Which is?" asked Kris.
"We want you to join us."
They remained silent a moment.
"We don't have time for this," said Starr, feeling agitated.
"Too bad," he said uncaringly.
"But doesn't the blood make people crazy?" asked Shane.
"Sometimes," he said.
"I already have Primordial blood in me."
"Look it's either you take the rite, or pay the penalty for breaking our law."
"What's the penalty?" asked Shane.
"Fifteen years in these comfortable cells. Think about it, I'll be back."
"Is he serious?" asked Starr.
"From what I can sense, yes."
"I thought they accepted their fate, dying out and all."
"They have. They all," she stressed, "want to go to rest, but not before one last act."
"What?"
"I'm not sure. There's something they want to do before they die. He's got that part blocked in his mind. This initiation is part of that last act."
Later that day, Stelar came back with three large jewel encrusted goblets, which he set one inside each jail cell.
"You'll need this, so as not to vamp out during initiation. You've all agreed, have you not?"
"What's gonna happen to us, if we do?" asked Shane.
"You'll be fine. We've done this a million times. You'll take the Primordial blood, and then the serum I've prepared will bring you back to normal."
"Why are you forcing this upon us?" asked Kris.
"You'll find that out when the time is right."
He left.
"Well, what do you think?" asked Kris.
"We'll be fine. I've seen the initiation process before; Sestin showed me. Drink your blood, though, you're gonna need it," she sighed, lifting the cup to her lips and taking a deep swallow.
That night neither Starr, nor Kris or Shane, could sleep. Starr stared at the bright moon through the ancient solid gold bars. Briefly, curiously, she stood and pressed her face to the bars.
"What do you guys think I'd need to break one of these bars off?" she asked.
"Starr, don't you dare! Who knows what they'll do to us."
About midnight, she heard the door open and shut. The sounds of footsteps and keys unlocking the jail cells came. Then the guards unlocked Starr's gold door, and guided them to the same altar room she'd dreamed of.
Stelar was standing on the altar with several black velvet cloaks in his hand. He handed one to each of them, and told them to kneel.
He walked up and down the altar, speaking in, what she assumed, was an ancient Primordial language.
He carried a sword, which he tapped on their shoulders. Finally, after an hour he placed a goblet in each of their hands.
She looked to her left. Shane was scared.
It's fine, she said into her mind.
Shane still hesitated. Starr nodded her head at her, indicating she'd be there if anything went wrong.
Kris and Shane took down their glasses. Like she'd dreamt so many times that summer, they fell over.
"Drink it, now, before it loses life," said Stelar. "Don't worry, they'll be fine."
She emptied the cup and fell over.
Her stomach pained her, but not as badly as when she killed Sestin, the Primordial initiate. She heard moans coming from Shane and Kris, but Starr was drawn into another world.
~~~
She tried to open her eyes, but couldn't. Something cool, yet hard and jagged was pressing her lids down tightly. When she tried to move her arms, she panicked; it was almost like she was buried again.
Then there was the sound of something sifting, and she realized there was a moist and earthy smell to whatever it was that pinned her down.
Shaaane??? She psychically cried out.
As the weight that held her down got lighter, she smelled fresh air, and it made her realize that she had, in fact, been buried again.
Afraid to open her eyes, lest she get dirt in them, she said, "Hello? Who are you?"
"SHHHH!!!!" said the figure.
When the dirt got even lighter, she tried to move her arm, to brush away remaining bits of dirt from her eyes. Her hands didn't obey her mind. When she found her arm wouldn't respond, she panicked again. She wasn't frozen, she told herself, so why wasn't her arm working?
The answer to her question came a moment later, when the digger was done. Starr felt the thump of the person jumping into the grave. Whoever it was groaned, as they seemed to be working at something.
A moment later, the person sighed and tossed something out of the grave. Next came the short sound of something being dragged; she could hear the person struggling to climb back out of the grave.
Next moment, soft fingers brushed her face. Granules of dirt flew away.
She opened her eyes. Above, she saw the hand of a body hanging out of the side of a wheel barrel. Recognition that the hand was hers made her choke. Her eyes widened in panic that such a thing was happening to her again.
Then she saw who had dug her up: it was Gwynna.
"Noooo, not again!" she screamed. "Help me!"
"What do you think I'm trying to do? Now, shut it, or we'll both be staked and buried."
The woman grabbed her head and tossed it in the wheel barrel.
"In case we're stopped, play dead!" she whispered, and then covered her with a blanket.
Her body bumped and vibrated as the barrel rolled on.
Sometime later, the wheel barrel stopped. She heard voices.
"What have you got there?" asked a man with a smooth tenor.
"My friend," Gwynna replied. "She's been beheaded and staked."
"And you brought her for last rites?"
"No, look," she said.
Suddenly, the blanket was whisked away, revealing the stars and moon.
"Gwynna," Starr said.
"Don't worry, Lyssa. This is my mentor."
"My name's not Lyssa. Why did you call me that?"
But the woman didn't respond. She and the man picked her parts up and brought her inside the cave.
The next thing she saw was a cavalry of hundreds of men in full army dress. It was late at night, and every other man carried a torch. She looked down and saw that she was draped in a black cloak, and carried a torch in her righ
t hand, too, while her left held the reigns of a horse.
Her brother, Dracus, was there, covered in mesh, and holding a metal shield and torch, as he rode up and down the line of men. He spoke aloud to the crowd, telling them he was going to reward them all by making them a village and giving them land, and sharing the riches of the King.
Right behind Dracus was the palace that she'd spent her whole life in.
When he'd done speaking, he said, "Let's go."
And they made their way up the windy mountain road; Starr followed. Though she didn't know what she was doing, it was like her dream was guiding her.
Several men whom she remembered from her childhood, and who worked in the palace, didn't go up the road with them, but parted and went through the tunnel that she, herself, had escaped through.
Her mind, naggingly, contradicted her, telling her that she didn't know those men at all.
Yes, I do, she told herself. They taught me everything I know, alongside her brother, about sword fighting.
Dracus rode up to her.
"Oh, it's so good to be home. I feel exhilarated! And that stuff you gave me, the other night! What was it? All the sudden, I'm seeing things in a whole new way!"
She smiled.
"Tonight," she said. "We can't lose. Enjoy, brother!"
As they got closer to the palace gates, she felt more and more anxious. Her heart, though it didn't beat, panged her, like it did only when she was extremely nervous.
"This is it," her brother said breathlessly.
The Romans were already ready to charge them, but something caught her eye: someone who stood, staring down at them from atop the palace.
Without a seconds delay, she charged off.
"Lyssa!" she heard her brother call after her.
She ran into the armored men who lined the outside of the gate, slashing them with her sword as she went. To her exhilaration, she was unstoppable; they were no match for her, now that she'd taken Primordial blood.
As dexterous as a cat, she climbed the palace gates, and flung herself up and over the ledge. The men who stood on the other side of the gate looked up in surprise, as she landed on the cobble stone quarry.
A ray of moon flashed her side, softly blinding her. Something her brother taught her to take as warning of an impending action. And, like so, she easily stepped aside, just missing the sword that a man swung at her.
She turned around and blocked a hit.
She smiled because he moved his sword so slowly that she only needed to move side-to-side, to miss him.
This aggravated the man, for he growled loudly, and ran at her as fast as he could. Lyssa easily stood aside again, and slice his torso clean off.
A few of the others froze at the sight of the completely severed man.
No time to waste, she thought.
She pulled the twenty foot barricade out of the door, and tossed it like it was nothing more than a javelin. Lyssa opened the gate, and then ran across the quarry.
Several men came directly at her, but she kept flinging her sword in a figure eight, left to right, splitting their bodies with too much ease. It wasn't even close to a fair fight.
She approached the palace doors, which, even if it was barred, her father, King Decebalus, made sure it was so thick and heavy that it would take a battering ram.
Running, she leapt into a flying kick, and busted a large hole into the door. A crack ran straight up and down.
Someone put their hands around her neck and attempted to drag her back, but they might as well have be choking a statue. She whipped around and flung her sword right to left, breaking through his sword, and splitting his neck.
Quickly, Lyssa grabbed the man's severed head by its bloodied end, and used the jagged metal part of his helmet like a hatchet, in order to worsen the crack.
She ran up several flights of stairs, and went down the landing to the door to the roof.
King Decebalus was not there.
A man pulled his sword and ran at her.
She waited until he got really close, then stepped back. Although she meant to block his attack, she accidentally cut off his hand.
Another man lunged out at her, jabbing at her. First, he aimed for her kidney, when she pommeled him, he glided toward her, moving his sword continuously - a technique that took much work. If she were human, she would've been in trouble. Now, she merely walked backward side stepping, traversing.
Diligently, he glided closer and closer to her. Such movement required strength to keep up, and it didn't take long for him to slow down. At which point, she rammed her sword into his side.
From behind, the one whose hand she cut off moaned.
She walked up to him.
"I won't kill you, if you tell me where's Imperator Trajan?" she shouted.
"He's in the walls!" the man cried.
The entrance to the walls were back inside. Her father had it constructed, in case the castle was ever stormed.
She ran back inside the castle, but she couldn't reach the wall entrance because someone was shaking her.
She opened her eyes, and saw black horn rimmed glasses.
"Stelar?"
They were in her room in the Valhol castle. He sat beside her, as she lay in bed.
"How do you feel?"
She sat up.
"Like I've been drenched in dopamine, and I can't come down."
She rubbed her eyes.
"That's normal," he said.
He had a little flash light pen in his hands.
"I'm just gonna take a look," he said.
He reached over, and, pulling her eye lids back, pointed the light in her eyes.
"You seem to be taking it much more easily than Shane and Kris, likely because you've already Primordial blood; Primordial blood from a host that took my antidote."
"Uh, huh," she said. It was all she could say, before falling back to sleep again.
Later that afternoon, the same young girl entered her room. She laid a cloak on the end of her bed, and announced that a funeral pyre was to be lit at noon.
She got up, splashed water on her face and put on the cloak; then she went to Shane's room.
When she didn't answer, she walked in and found her out cold on the bed.
She sat beside her and shook her. "Shane," she said lightly.
After a few moments, she opened her eyes.
"I'm so groggy," she said.
"You gotta get up. They're gonna have rite for Lucenzo in a few minutes."
As she dragged herself out of bed, Starr went next door to Kris. His door was already open, and he stood at the window looking out.
"Hi, Starr. How do you feel?" he asked without turning to look at her.
"I had some pretty intense dreams, but, otherwise, I'm fine. You?"
"I feel sick, but it's so different, the blood. I thought I was psychotic, when I was turned into a vampire, but this being turned into a Primordial is different. I feel like a butterfly, in metamorphosis."
She walked to the window and stood beside him. Looking out, she saw the thick cloud of blanket they flew through stretch for miles.
Shane, cloaked, entered the room. Kris put on his cloak as well, and they went downstairs, and out to the city center where a huge pyre had been built, and layered in wood and straw.
Stelar was there in a red ceremonial robe. Behind them stood a few dozen Primordials Starr had never met before.
When the pyre was done, several men carried Lucenzo's body out. His normal clothes had been removed, and replaced with a simple linen tunic, much like Sestins; then Stelar gave a eulogy.
"For those who don't know him, Lucenzo was, truly, a great son and man. He was a lover of life and adventure. Born late to the Primordials, he gave our race new perspective. He went out into the world and brought back the ways of men, forged allies, and extended the dying out phase of our kind. Now he lies where all men will go eventually. There," he said, rising his hands to them all, and they joine
d in, chanting, "he sees his mother, there he sees his brothers and sisters, and there the line of our people go back to the beginning. They call to him; take him to his place in the hall of gods where the true and the brave live forever. May he find peace, and love in heaven."
Starr recalled the old prayer from somewhere in her memory.
They stopped for a moment and bowed their heads. Then he continued, "Let us remember that death is as great as life. We'll not mourn because we'll be together, all of us, witch, man, Primordial, together in the end."
He took a moment and whispered some blessings over the body, as they stood and watched. Then he stepped down from the pyre.
Vidar walked up to the front where the kindling was gathered. With the torch he held, he leant over and lit the pyre.
After Lucenzo's body had fully succumbed to the flames, Stelar invited them back to the altar room where he would administer his serum.
Starr, not needing antidote, was excused.
The early evening, she dined with several of the ancient ones. Though they invited her, they weren't much for conversation, and she could tell by their age that they didn't need to eat. They only did so out of tradition and respect for the dead.
Like statues, they sat, in matching white linen robes, and not bothering to lower their hoods; their faces hardly visible by the candle light.
Thankfully, Vidar came and sat beside her. "Don't worry," he said. "The ancients are weary. They speak no more than they have to."
"Why are they still here? I get the feeling they'd rather be moving on?"
But Vidar said nothing, and put a piece of bread in his mouth and chewed.
After dinner, he asked her to take a walk with him. He lead her through the city, down some alleys and over to the bridge from her vision.
"You know, I keep having visions of you. They're not mine, they're Lyssa's."
"I know," he said, looking her in the eyes. Then he did something unexpected: he pulled her hand into both of his, and kissed the back of it in a tenderly fashion. Looking at him, so hardened, old, and pale, he hardly seemed the type for romanticism anymore.
Starr didn't question it, rather she felt exhilarated by it. She squeezed his hand back.
"I feel so connected to her. She was in love with you, I think." she asked, "Do I remind you of her?"
"When she was young, she was much like you. Don't ask me to explain, as it's not important. Let's just say that things changed. For a long time, I wished that things were like they were before."
"Before what?" she asked, despite him.
