by Rebecca Main
I force myself to relax, though the moment calls for so much more. My hand gropes inside the coarse cavity, finding nothing but dirt and rock and… a box. In an instant, the treasure is captured in my dirty hand.
“Oh my God,” Nova utters. Her eyes dart between my slack jaw and the worn varnished box. After years of neglect, the detailed engraving along its rectangular lid is now warped and dull. But the striking V at its center is almost untouched by time’s hand. “This is really it, isn’t it?”
Dumbfounded, I nod. The wood creaks open on its worn hinges, and inside reveals a collection of rings. There are four in total, but with a spot intended for a fifth left bare in the middle.
“Do you have one of Jax’s glasses to check and see if they’re really ours?”
Nova replies in the negative. “I was a bit distracted by the whole ‘Sebastian dying’ thing and you being a pain in the ass.”
“Rude,” I announce half-heartedly. I pluck a ring from the silky insides and snap the lid shut. I offer it to Nova, but she only mirrors my previous look, mouth hung open and eyes frightfully wide. “Take it.”
“I shouldn’t.” But her eyes do not leave the ring in my hand.
“The whole purpose of finding the rings was so that all of you could have them,” I insist. “So that you can walk in the daylight again. Nova, don’t you understand? You can see your family again with this.”
“No,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t see them ever again.”
I swallow and thrust the ring into her personal space. “Of course you can,” I reason. “I’m sure Jakob can be reasoned with—”
“You don’t understand,” she interrupts, her glare cutting me short. “I’m dead to them. They know what happened to me. They know I’m this.” Nova snarls to emphasize her pointed canines. “I can’t go home. Ever. They’ll kill me, Irina. And that stupid ring doesn’t change any of that.”
My hand falls to my side. “Which is why you want the dagger so badly,” I say. Nova nods stiffly, but her gaze still holds fast to the ring in my hand. “I didn’t spend a terrible amount of time with your friend, Calliope,” I say, my voice walking the line between firm and gentle. “But I was never under the impression that she wished you harm, even in knowing what you are.”
“Callie is different,” she argues, some color daring to rinse her cheeks. “She’s loyal and has always fought for what she believes in—even when she probably shouldn’t. She’s constant and giving and….” Nova’s head twists side to side slowly. “She’s like nobody I’ve ever known.”
“It’s a good thing Ruby isn’t here to hear this,” I comment. “She might go into a jealous rage.”
More color floods Nova’s cheeks. “She would not,” she vehemently insists. I cock a brow, folding my arms across my chest, the signet box still clutched tightly in one hand, the amethyst ring in the other. “She’s—”
“Different?”
“Shut up,” she snaps and holds out a hand. “Just give me the stupid ring and let’s get out of here. We shouldn’t have stayed so long.”
She snatches it out of my hold and shoves it onto her ring finger, then onto her index for a better fit.
“Congratulations.”
“For what?” Nova asks, giving me a quizzical look. She climbs out of the shallow pit, offering me a hand up.
I shrug once I’m righted. “For officially becoming a Vrana? The ring makes it seem official, at least,” I explain.
Nova snorts. “You might as well take a ring too, then,” she says. “After that bite Jakob took out of you, I’m pretty sure you’ve made it into the club as well.”
I blush, and ready myself to retort, but Nova holds up a hand.
In the distance, a quiet shuffling sounds.
Footsteps. And not just one pair.
++
Jakob | Present
“I’ll kill you for this,” Iris promises.
She is tied to the cathedra against her will. Her head hangs forward to stare daggers at the polished floor.
“Shall I take her ear?” Ruby asks politely, standing curiously motionless behind the deranged vampyré. Her dress and arms are emblazoned with crimson, but her eyes are clear from any bloodlust.
Jakob gives a single, absolute shake of his head. Arms folded behind his back, he takes in his quarry. She holds on to her secrets well, so far, but Jakob’s patience is running thin. And his time is running short.
“Her hair.”
“What?” Iris jerks her head upright to stare aghast at Jakob. “No!” she howls. Iris’s hard-kept balance inches to a tipping point at the threat. Her night had not gone as planned, and though she could withstand their torture, something hurt her deep inside at the thought of losing her precious hair.
Jakob further studies the campaign they have inflicted across her body and calculates his next move. Her face is little more than bruises and cuts to frame her lips and cheeks. But her torso tells of a different battle where Ruby came to play with her knives. Her legs are spared for the most part, but are leashed painfully tight against the cathedra legs.
“As you might have guessed, we’ll be visiting your favorite sister after this. Briar has as much to atone for as you,” Jakob says as Iris’s head is yanked back by Ruby’s cruel fist. The first chunk of hair is taken by a crude sawing of Ruby's double-edged trench knife.
A whimper—her first—escapes Iris as the hair lands softly on the ground. “I will kill you—”
“I wouldn’t waste your breath on threats,” Jakob advises, stepping forward into the space between her broken legs. “We all know you won’t be alive to see them through. And poor Briar won’t be alive to see you avenged either.”
“Leave her be,” Iris commands, a strained note to her voice.
“I’m afraid we can’t do that. She was, after all, wearing one of my family’s rings.”
Another lot of hair is gripped and hacked away. The blade presses hard over the scalp to leave a bloody patch. Iris releases a feral scream, and the ravens above scold her. They swooped in close long ago to stand witness to the passing of events.
“Scream all you like,” Ruby says softly, continuing her work. “Nobody will hear you. Instructions were left to keep the hallway clear.”
By your order, is left unsaid.
“I don’t know what you're talking about,” Iris says, but the sullied edges of a lie ring about her panted words.
Jakob smiles and leans closer. “You do. As does your sister. She’s been so… cooperative with Sebastian.” She struggles momentarily, even though such an act leaves her worse off.
Ruby makes quick work with the rest of Iris’s hair, taking up sections of skin here and there while the Roux sister hollers and jostles about.
“She would never betray me,” Iris rages, but all former vestiges of fight bleed from her when Ruby drops the last handful of dark red hair into Iris’s lap. “She wouldn’t… She didn’t know,” she says, finally broken as she stares at her prized locks. “She’s never known what I’ve done to keep us safe.”
“Perhaps if she had, she wouldn’t be with Sebastian now.”
The chapel fills with uneasy silence. “She isn’t,” Iris said. “She wouldn’t.”
Jakob turns his back to the vampyré, his words barely above a whisper. “Ah, but their love is everlasting.”
++
Present
Hatred is a powerful emotion, a driving force with no satisfying end, neither for the hater or the hated. Hate knows only how to consume. Omar Mubark, for all his fulsome and bigoted ways, is not wholly within hatred’s putrid grasp.
His greed won’t allow it.
++
Irina | Present
Omar’s flock enters first—four men in identical dark gallabya. They wear carefully blank expressions, yet the intensity of their gaze draws up my slouched spine. When Omar enters with a well-placed pause between the last of his sheep, I cannot
help but turn my eyes heavenward.
An opportunity to make an entrance, to have a room wait with bated breath for his arrival, is not something he can pass up. Pathetic. Omar wears a similar long-sleeved tunic with no buttons, but his cloth is dyed a vibrant red.
“Well, well, well,” he says, his voice as slick as any well-rounded politician. “What a surprise.”
Nova attempts to stare them to death.
The attempt is noted by both parties.
“We were just leaving,” I reply cordially, teeth bared in a semblance of a smile.
Omar laughs gaily and with the whole of his body—hands clutching his sides, his head thrown back without care, knees shaking. The sight pinches my lips together in disapproval, but a stout wariness gathers in my veins. I know too well Omar’s reach.
And I know this arena has yet to see its final fight.
“Something funny, Mubark?” I ask.
His laughter dies, and as he turns his keen eyes back to us, they are like steely flint. “You have the wildest imagination.” Omar tsks and prowls forward. “Leaving? With the rings? I think not.”
The air grows thick with anticipation as a nasty smile worms its way upon his lips. Nova continues her staring contest, but I see the subtle reshaping she commences—squaring her feet and shoulders, the faint twitch of her fingers, and how her jaw works to settle the eager anticipation rioting through her.
There will be blood.
“Don’t tell me you think they belong to you, Mubark,” I say, batting my eyelashes for good measure. “Oh dear, you do, don’t you? I suppose your family’s motto is true to form, always seeking greater things... far beyond your reach. It’s really no surprise you seek what is rightfully ours. And make no mistake,” I say, losing the smile and keeping the teeth, “these belong to the Vrana Household.”
A crack splinters his cool veneer. It starts behind the eyes and snowballs from there. It wrinkles his nose and hunches the brows over his already dark eyes. The silver strands among the iris seem even more menacing like this, as he seethes like a comic book villain.
The humid air gathers around us, but it does not cool my heated skin.
“Those rings belong to me!” he erupts, his voice exceeding the limits of politeness. “After all I’ve done. The lives of my household, which I gladly offered up, they will not be in vain. Those rings were promised to me, and I will not have my loyalty or sacrifice undermined by the likes of you.”
“Whomever ‘promised’ these rings to you had no right—”
Omar’s barked laugh, executed as a single punctuation, stops my fevered reply. “Oh, but they had every right. For theirs is the only word or might which matter here.”
Eyes narrowing, I reply, “The Rouxs.”
Omar flashes forward, stopping an arm’s length away from me due to Nova’s counter presence. Strands of hair, loose from the hectic turn of the night, slip out of my updo. Omar likens himself to a feral dog in this prolonged moment, hunched at the shoulders and fangs flashing their pointed ends. I’m shocked there is no foamy lather to escape his mouth and dribble across his wealthy beard.
“You, bitch. You would dare place that vile family of harpy hybrids above the true master of this court?”
“What else am I to presume, Mubark?” I say coolly. My hand comes up to brush away my wayward strands, letting the movement rustle the dangling diamonds on my ears to mask my hummingbird heartbeat. “The Roux Household has already claimed one of our family rings. My dearest love, Sebastian, came back to us in quite the state… but he was not empty-handed. Don’t tell me you too believed those horrid rumors of him consorting with the Roux Household? It was all an act, after all, to retrieve our ring.”
By the violent tremor in his form, he did. I smile. It is as charming as it is menacing.
“Now whose imagination has run wild?” I coo.
Madness glimmers in his eyes. “You’re lying.” His gaze dips purposefully to Nova’s hand. I open the jewelry box.
“I’m sure you can do the math. Before encountering your sorcerer—whom I’m afraid to say has met a rather untimely end—Sebastian reclaimed the fifth ring from this shining collection from the Rouxs.” I snap the lid closed and place the box behind my back.
“No,” Omar says hoarsely.
“Yes,” Nova barks back, thrusting her face millimeters from Mubark’s. He takes several steps back, that fiendish look still burning brightly in his eyes—in his everything.
“Nevertheless,” he says lowly, signaling his men forward with a crook of his finger. “A promise is a promise.”
++
Jakob | Present
Expectation is arduous. It is a stifling hunger always present, nibbling at your heels.
Jakob feels it in his gut and in the air surrounding them. A raven ruffles its feathers.
“Why was your sister wearing the Vrana amethyst?”
Iris swallows. The tip of Ruby’s blade caresses the soft tissue behind her left ear. It makes Iris… nervous.
“We have always shared a ring,” Iris answered. “It was Briar’s turn.”
“How did you come to possess it?”
“It was a gift,” she says and then laughs. Jakob and Ruby pass a look between them. The sound of Iris’s growing laughter crawls up their skin and leaves a bitter taste at the back of their mouths. “From a tall, dark, and handsome man.”
The laughter turns to erratic giggles that coax both blood and spittle from her mouth. They dribbled down her chin and onto the makeshift stake in her stomach. The urge to question further is like a tightly coiled spring, but Jakob holds back at Iris’s noticeable decline into madness, a state that she has long since repressed.
A shift in the conversation is necessary to get the answers he seeks.
“Tell me, what is your obsession with my family? From your first night at court, you have held a hatred for me—for us. Why?”
A pregnant pause fills the air as they await her answer. Iris's laughter dies off with a hacking cough as she summons a glare.
“Ren,” she said, her voice undulated. Jakob keeps an unaffected air at the news, even though inside a primal beast inside him roars. His gaze flickers to Ruby, who arches a brow in her direction. She runs her knife down the back of Iris’s ear, urging her head to the side. Iris tilts her head with a hiss, her eyes remaining trained with hate on Jakob.
“All of this hate, for her sake?”
“She was mine—ours. Ren gave Briar and I eternal life. She was our sire, but instead of teaching us and caring for us as was her duty, she spent all her time devoted to you. We should have been ushered to the highest tier of our household without a thought, except she cared not for her children. She cared not for her family or household at all. Just you. We were left vulnerable because of you, ‘put in our place’ because of you.
“When I found out what was happening between the two of you… I almost told the whole of the court. I wanted to see you both suffer. But I refrained. I kept the secret for a long time until I came up with a plan that would see all of you finished… and raise my sister and myself up from the ashes that we had been left to.”
“You devised the plan?” Jakob questions doubtfully.
“Yes, you insolent swine. Me, it was all my doing. I am the eldest. I am the wisest. The smartest and—”
“Craziest?” Ruby offers, digging the point of the knife once more at the crease of her ear. Iris cries out, vibrating with restrained energy and impaling herself further.
“I am not crazy. I am beyond the pathetic grasping of your mind. I knew immediately Jakob was only using Ren to spy on my household. He wished to learn the secrets of the siren in our blood and what magic we possessed. It was all a grand game for him, but I figured it out. I pitted my pieces against him and won!”
“I loved her,” Jakob said, his voice clipped. “A concept that is beyond your reach.”
“Love is a weakness,” Iris barks back. “I
t’s a sickness.”
“Though you have clearly never known it, that does not mean it is a weakness or sickness.”
“I’ve known love,” she sobs angrily. “My sister—”
“Loves Sebastian, and your meddling in affairs once again will win you no affection from her. Everyone can see the way you latch on to her. How you always demand her time and attention. They think it's pathetic. They think you’re pathetic.”
Iris snarls, but it is without strength. Her eyelids grow heavy. Jakob turns away, unable to stomach the sight of her.
“What is pathetic is your fascination with those creatures beneath your station. The sorcerer? The wolf bitch? You’re a disgrace to this court, just as you were then. Nothing has changed, has it?” Iris rasps on with a weak laugh, but the sound is still full of malice. Jakob stiffens in response. “I cannot stop the affairs of my family, and you cannot stop your weak heart from loving those you should not.”
“Who gave you the ring?” Jakob growls.
Iris smiles and answers, her eyes going distant. “A tall, dark, and handsome man.”
++
Irina | Present
We are outmatched.
It’s clear from the start. While Nova proves to be an adequate advisory, I am the easier target. It’s better this way, I tell myself over and over. All I must do is stay alive long enough for Nova to finish off her opponents… and then she may help in disposing of mine. Somehow, within the first few seconds, it is decided only two vampyrés are necessary to take on me. The rest face off against Nova.
By the way they fall and gasp and shout, it is clear they should have allotted at least one more.
I wish they had.
Omar and the lackey I take on prove to be a challenge. I am no match for their speed nor their strength. But I know how vampyrés prefer to fight, thanks to my study of Nova in the Pits. They far prefer to draw out the battle and taunt their opponent.
