Chapter 13: Sofia
We’d been so tied up in the crisis of Mona leaving us completely defenseless against the black witches, it wasn’t until Kiev had left the island that Derek and I realized that Ben wasn’t in his room. Panic gripped both of us. We thought that perhaps he’d escaped to the human area and was wreaking havoc there. But a thorough search for him there soon assured us that he had not. My father helped us scour the whole island for him for the rest of the day, but he was nowhere to be found. Nobody seemed to have seen him.
It wasn’t until we returned to the apartment late that evening and Derek noticed the note left on the desk in his study that we realized what had happened.
I took the note from Derek, desperate to read it for myself—as if Derek had somehow misinterpreted it. But the message was clear. Our son had left The Shade.
Derek gripped the edges of his desk so hard the wood groaned beneath his hands. I stared at him, my mouth agape. I wondered if Ben had somehow gotten wind of the suspicion some humans held that he’d been responsible for the murders.
“He must have taken one of the subs,” I whispered, the full horror of the situation sinking in. “How will he even survive?”
“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Derek said.
I read the note once again, focusing on the last few words of his letter:
“Don’t come looking for me.”
Of course, my first reaction was to want to leave the island and scour the seven seas for him, if that was what it took to find him.
“We need to look for him,” I gasped.
I turned my gaze on my husband again. A stoic expression had set in on his face and he was looking at me steadily. He shook his head slowly.
“When Ben left,” he said, his voice deep, “he was self-aware enough to leave us this letter. He was aware enough to know what he was doing. He made a decision.”
Derek’s words were the last thing I wanted to hear, and yet I couldn’t help but find truth in them. When I remained standing there, my mouth open, Derek stood up and clutched my hands. “Our son is no longer a child, Sofia.”
“I know, but… he could die out there,” I choked.
Derek furrowed his brows, taking a deep breath. I could see that it was just as difficult for him to speak the words as it was for me to hear them. “Do you remember what you said to me, just before I turned him?”
My mind was too alight with worry. I couldn’t think of anything right now other than Ben adrift in the middle of the ocean, starving to death. I shook my head, avoiding Derek’s gaze. He reached for my face and forced me to look at him.
“You said that there’s one thing even vampirism can never take away from a person… Choice.” When I still didn’t respond, he drew me closer to him, cradling the back of my head as he whispered into my ear. “As Prince of The Shade, Benjamin chose to take this risk to protect his people. That’s a choice that we shouldn’t take away from him.”
My hands tightened around Derek’s waist as his words burned me. How could I argue with him when ever since Derek’s and my first meeting, I’d been the one preaching the very thing he was repeating to me now?
Lowering his mouth to mine, he kissed me slowly and tenderly. I wasn’t sure that I’d ever loved my husband more when he brushed my cheeks with his thumbs and whispered:
“We need to have more faith in both of our twins. Remember, they’re Novaks… They’ll survive.”
Chapter 14: Rhys
The burden of my failure to recapture the Novak girl weighed heavily on my shoulders.
Had my sisters not been alert to the rings glowing on their fingers that day I’d lain injured and trapped beneath the deck of that ship, with all those circus animals running about, I might have perished there.
Despite the agony bursting from my palms and wreaking havoc on my nervous system, I’d managed to climb atop one of the containers to stay clear of the stampede. There, I’d rubbed the copper ring around my index finger until it glowed orange. After that, all I could do was wait. My sisters, Julisse and Arielle, had appeared beside me a few hours later and brought me back to the island Caleb Achilles used to manage—now managed temporarily by my aunt, Isolde.
After my sisters had returned me to safety, they’d left immediately to complete the task I’d failed at. Then, when they’d also returned unsuccessful, it was all I could do to keep myself from screaming.
The days that followed were agony—not so much from the physical pain of recovery, but from the shame and the absence of my powers. It felt like I’d been stripped of my identity, rendered some pathetic shadow of my former self. Worst of all, it had been a puny human girl I’d allowed to do this to me. The situation couldn’t have been more humiliating.
I remained at the top of the castle—Annora’s old quarters—and kept myself locked there as Isolde and my sisters assisted me in my recovery. We witches didn’t have many vulnerabilities, but our palms were one of them. They were both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness.
Somehow, Caleb and the girl had figured that out. My blood boiled as I suspected that it might have been the wolf who’d told them.
What I’ll do to that dog if I ever meet him again…
I’d promised Lilith that I would bring the girl back to her within a few days. A few days had long passed. Now, as I lay in the bed still recovering, I felt too ashamed to go before Lilith and admit to our failure. But I couldn’t delay it any longer, or she would start stressing. And stress made her weaker. She was clinging to life by a thread as it was, and she needed to be stronger than ever before for what lay ahead of us.
No, I had to visit her now, even if my recovery wasn’t complete.
Throwing aside my sheets, I got out of bed and pulled on my cloak, careful to not knock my fragile palms against anything in the process.
Leaving my quarters, I sought out my aunt. She was down in the kitchens, stirring a pot of blood. As soon as she saw me, she reached for a goblet and offered me some. I shook my head, brushing her away.
“I need to leave now,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed on my palms. I thought she might protest and try to convince me to wait at least a couple of days longer, but she seemed to realize why I ought not delay the visit further.
“I’ll escort you there,” she said.
“Yes, but I will deliver the news. There’s no need for you to enter the cave. This task was my responsibility.”
“Of course.” Covering the pot with a lid, she laid down the spoon and removed her apron. Picking up her cloak from the coat hanger in the corner and wrapping it around herself, she walked back over to me. Placing a hand on my shoulder, she asked, “Are you ready?”
“Let’s go.”
She vanished us first to the dungeon of the castle where the gate led to our island in the supernatural realm, and then once we’d travelled through the gate, she vanished us once again to the small island Lilith resided on.
Isolde waited outside the cave as I made my way toward the Ancient’s inner sanctum.
To my surprise, Lilith’s head was above the surface of her liquid resting place as I entered. That worried me. I wondered how long she had been positioned in that way. The liquid was what helped to preserve her.
Keeping my hands hidden deep within the pockets of my cloak, I walked over to the edge of the pond and knelt down. Her shining black eyes shot open and fixed on me.
“Why are you so late?” she hissed in ancient tongue.
“I apologize,” I replied in her language. Deep lines crisscrossed every part of her shrunken face. Her skin looked much drier than usual. “How long have you been waiting like this?” I dared ask.
Her lips pursed, eyes narrowing, to form a scowl. “Too long.”
“Please, duck down for a moment,” I urged. “You need moisture.”
She hacked and spat. “The girl is what I need. Where is she?”
I bowed my head. “I lost her.”
A deathly silenc
e filled the chamber. I hardly dared even look at her. I expected her to start throwing a fit of rage, but what she did terrified me far more than if she’d become violent and cursed me.
She winced and closed her eyes. She appeared too weak to even chastise me. “You know what this means,” she wheezed.
I nodded, my gaze still downcast.
“Without the girl’s blood,” she continued, “I stand less of a chance of surviving the final ritual. And if I fade away before it is complete, everything we have been working toward will be in vain.”
I clenched my jaw. “I know.”
“Yet you still managed to let her slip between your fingers.” She clucked her tongue softly. “Sometimes I wonder if you want what you say you want.”
I glared at her, wanting to throw back a retort, and yet in that moment of shame, I could think of none.
“So, for now,” Lilith continued after a pause, “we will forget about finding the girl. We’ve wasted enough time on her already.”
“I agree,” I managed. “But all is not lost. I suggest that we continue with our original plan—take control of The Shade and its inhabitants. There are many different types of blood there—human, vampire, wolf, ogre, and don’t forget Anna, the immune. Her blood alone should provide you with much sustenance, even if it won’t match what the Novak girl’s could have brought you. Claim The Shade, and we claim a sea of blood in one fell swoop.”
She raised a hand in the air and clicked her bony fingers.
“So do it immediately. We can’t afford to wait longer.”
I grimaced before finally pulling out my hands from my pockets and revealing to her my injured palms.
Fury sparked in her eyes as she looked from one palm to the other. Hissing a curse, she sent me flying back until my back thudded against the stone wall with force that shook the whole room.
Taking that as my cue to leave, I picked myself up from the floor and walked to the door. Before exiting, I called back. “Isolde is working hard to heal my palms. My powers will return in a matter of days. And then I will see to it that your order is done, your grace. That I swear.”
As I left the chamber, I should have been wincing from the pain. But I wasn’t. I was smiling. She’d just shown me that she still had some sting in her. Enough, I hoped, for our final blood ritual to be successful.
Because if it was, we would no longer need to depend on her as we did now.
She would no longer be the only one of her kind.
We’d have many more—enough to make up for our lack of numbers. Enough to reclaim The Sanctuary and our dominion over all lesser creatures. Enough to return to the way of our Ancients and reinstate our kind’s true glory.
Yes, we’d have enough power to do all this. We’d have entire graveyards of it.
Chapter 15: Kiev
I barely paid attention to the gate Patricia chose to take us through. I just trusted her to make the right decision as she vanished us from The Shade and we reappeared on top of a snowy mountain peak. It didn’t take her long to locate a crater in the ground and a few seconds later, we were all leaping through it.
On the other end, we found ourselves in a humid jungle with broad leaves and tree trunks five times the size of any on Earth. The atmosphere was so heavy it was a struggle to breathe. Shrieks and growls of wild animals surrounded us.
I didn’t need to look around for more than a few seconds to know where this was: Aviary. Dark memories of the time I’d spent here came rushing back.
“Let’s keep moving,” I said, gripping Patricia’s shoulder perhaps harder than necessary.
She did as I’d requested and a few moments later, the jungle disappeared in a blur of colors. When my vision came into focus again, we were standing on a cluster of rocks beneath the shelter of an overhanging rock. To our right was a beach covered with pristine white sand.
“Well,” Patricia said, “I tried to vanish us within The Sanctuary, but this is as far as I could get… the boundary.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“I’ve been out of the place too long. I’m an outcast now, not much different from you.”
I climbed down from the rocks and, ignoring the sun’s rays as I left the shelter of the cliff, I began to run full speed toward a line of trees that marked the beginning of the mainland. I might as well have just run up against a brick wall. Just before I reached the trees, I smashed into an invisible barrier and bounced back.
I climbed back up to where the others were still standing on the rocks for shelter.
“So what do you suggest we do?” I panted.
Patricia sank down on the rock and furrowed her brows.
“I think the only way in is to wait for a witch to come out, and then hijack them.”
“Hijack?” Abby asked, frowning.
“Yes, hijack. If you can hold onto a witch and enter with them at the same time, you should be able to gain entrance. At least, that used to be the case.”
“How often do you think witches stray outside the boundary?” Erik asked.
“They don’t have much reason to. When they want to travel outside, they’d mostly vanish themselves from within The Sanctuary itself. Most witches actually never leave the place.”
“So how are we going to do this?”
“I’m not sure that we have any choice but to wait and hope someone will come.”
Wait and hope. Those were the last two words I needed to hear right now.
Chapter 16: Mona
I’d hoped to be able to escape the nightmare I was living in by falling asleep, but I was only met with more. If anything, the nightmares were worse and more vivid when I shut my eyes. I woke up shivering in the early-morning hours, and didn’t bother trying to fall asleep again after that.
As breakfast time approached, there was a knock on my bedroom door. I’d expected to see my maid, but instead it was Brisalia herself carrying a silver tray of food.
She walked inside and set the tray down on my bedside table, then reached for my hand and squeezed it. She gave me a smile and there was warmth in her eyes as she said, “I’m sorry.”
I nodded, averting my eyes to the ground and swallowing hard.
“I know you want to be alone right now, but there are some things Thalia and our council want to discuss with you.”
I raised my gaze to her. I wasn’t sure what they might be, though I could take a good guess. They knew I’d spent years living with the black witches. I guessed they wanted to pick my brain for information. They’d be sorely disappointed, of course. I’d betrayed Rhys too many times in the past to be trusted with much high-level information. I was usually only told the basics in order to do my tasks.
Although it was the last thing I wanted, I nodded. I couldn’t refuse this request after all their hospitality.
“When?” I croaked.
“After breakfast.”
I nodded.
“Do you remember where the meeting hall is?” she asked.
I nodded again, dark memories washing over me. How could I forget that place? It was the room where I’d been sentenced to banishment from The Sanctuary. The place where all these familiar people who looked on me now with warmth had once glared daggers and hurled insults at me.
“Very well. I’ll meet you there in half an hour.”
With that, she stood up and vanished from the spot.
I cast my eyes toward the breakfast tray. I couldn’t even think about eating. I headed straight for the bathroom to shower and get dressed. Once I was ready, I vanished myself downstairs to the meeting hall. Thalia sat at the head of a long table, with Hermia and Brisalia on either side, while the rest of the chairs were taken by over a dozen other witches and warlocks. All members of The Sanctuary’s council.
Shivers ran along my spine as I felt their gaze on me. It was unsettling the way they were looking at me now, as if the past had never happened.
“Take a seat, Mona.” Thalia’s smooth voice echoed around the hal
l. She gestured to an empty chair next to Brisalia.
I walked up to the table, curtsied and sat down.
“To begin with, I just want to repeat how happy we are that you have returned home.”
I clasped my hands together on the table and fixed my eyes on them, avoiding her eyes. Of course, as if there weren’t already enough uncomfortable things about this situation, all of them were still unaware that I’d murdered Odelia in her sleep.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“You might have already guessed why I’ve called this meeting. As I’m sure you’re aware, the black witches are gaining power by the day. We have managed to gain inside information on some of their intentions, but much of their plans we are still unaware of. You spent many years with them. I would like to start this meeting by having you explain what you learnt about them while staying there, and what you believe their plans are.”
My mind felt so distracted, it was a herculean effort just to focus on her words. I cleared my throat and ran my tongue over my lower lip.
“I… What do you know already?”
Thalia exchanged glances with her sisters. It was Brisalia who answered me. “Do you know Efren Hansard?” she asked.
Efren. Of course I knew Efren. His sister had made my life a living hell when I’d been under Rhys’ wing.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Well, we managed to catch him. He’s now a prisoner here. Most of the information we’ve gained is from him, though it seems that he wasn’t high enough in rank to know everything. What he has told us is that there is an Ancient still living. And she is the key to their power. We don’t know where she is—even our spells couldn’t force this information from Efren. Right now, we are still large enough in number to overpower them, but their strength is growing each day. Once they are strong enough, they will take over The Sanctuary.” Brisalia paused, looking at me expectantly.
“I’m afraid there’s really not much more that I know,” I said. “Rhys and his aunt didn’t trust me as much as you might have thought…” My voice trailed off. I did know one thing, of course: I knew where Lilith was. I knew the link she had with The Sanctuary. But if I revealed that, I was just one step closer to them finding out that I had slit Odelia’s throat. I ought to admit this to them, but right now, I was drowning enough as it was. I didn’t think I could handle it. So I fell silent.
A Shade of Vampire 13: A Turn of Tides Page 8
