by E. M. Knight
“The truth is, of course, that many of The Haven’s members are simply ignorant of that fact,” Felix continues. “They do not think of making fledglings because the Queen forbade it. I doubt many even know that they cannot.”
“So how does all that work?” I wonder. “How much power does a vampire pass on? I thought we gain strength when we feed—”
“Yes, of course, feeding properly opens up the avenue of reaching one’s full potential,” Felix says. “But the power of the vampire—your own vampire strength—is set at your creation. It is cemented by the first feeding. From that point on, every time you feed, you simply embrace more of your vampiric self.”
“But that makes no sense,” I say. “It means that I would be drawing strength from…”
James, I want to say, but the sudden eager gleam from Felix’s eyes makes me change my wording mid-phrase.
“…someone else.”
Felix motions to the goblet. “Except, in your case, your maker was spared. Because you drank blood that was held in one of sixteen.”
“But if the vampiric essence is a finite source,” I say, “then how does the goblet spare—”
I cut off with a gasp. Suddenly, all the dots connect in my head.
The connection between magic and the vampire’s gift. My blood, staining the pages of The Book of the Dead. Felix referring to the goblet as an object of power, a torrial…
“This is a contra-torrial,” I whisper, fear taking hold of me. “Activated by blood, drawing on dark magic. Isn’t it?”
Felix’s eyes positively shine. “In that, my dear,” he says, “you are absolutely correct.”
Chapter Seventeen
Cassandra
The Stronghold
I listen to the exchange between Felix and Eleira feeling like a fly on the wall. Either they have both forgotten I exist, or—more likely—I am so far beneath them that they don’t deem me worthy of notice.
With a forceful grunt I cut off that line of thought. I hate the vampire hierarchy with a blazing passion. I hate feeling constantly oppressed, no matter what I do, no matter how I act, in the presence of others stronger than me.
Above all, I hate the timidity that it instills in me. I was never afraid of speaking my mind to a vampire before. As a human, I could direct my hatred toward my masters without feeling internally conflicted about it.
But now all that has changed. I should feel freer as a vampire. Yet I feel like a prisoner of my own mind. Even something as simple as walking into the same room as Eleira makes me pause. Her strength is astounding, and the meekness it forces out of me is absolutely staggering—even if neither one of us wants it to exist.
But such is the hierarchy, and we are helpless to affect it.
It’s like a tightness wrapped itself around me, the moment I stepped into the room. And now, I’m forced to defer to her in all respects. Even something as simple as making proper eye contact is impossible, with me bound by these chains.
“No,” Eleira says, shaking her head. “No, it can’t be. A contra-torrial? No, no, no…”
She trails off. She looks truly frightened. And then, in a small voice, she adds, “But it is. Isn’t it?”
Felix nods. “Vampires and witches cooperated once, in my time… but that was a relationship struck with witches of the dissenting ordeals.”
“I can’t believe it.” Eleira says, her voice hoarse.
“Believe it you must. For I was there. I was one of those vampires entrusted with a goblet. It is how our Queen has it in her possession. It is what she intends to use with you, tonight.”
The jolt of those words makes Eleira sit straight up.
Good for you! I want to say. But the damnable hierarchy prevents me from so much as uttering a single syllable.
“That’s why she’s so certain of succession plans,” Eleira says. “You saw her, Felix. You saw what she did to the vampire who proclaimed her irrelevant.”
“I did,” he agrees.
“She struck him down and then rose him up again,” Eleira continues. “It wasn’t through the sort of magic that I know.” She gulps, and looks at the cup. “It was through the other half.”
Fighting with all my will against the deference, I manage to look up and squeeze out a forced, “Can I say something?”
Both Felix and Eleira give a stare, almost as if they’d forgotten I was there. Felix gives an obliging smile. “Of course. Go ahead.”
The hierarchy compels me to look to Eleira for permission, too. She gives a quick nod, followed by a tight smile.
“I don’t know the difference between a torrial and a contra-torrial,” I begin. “And I know even less about the types of magic you are talking about. But I can offer a unique perspective of the humans who’ve lived here.” Stringing so many concurrent words together feels like paddling upstream in a stretch of angry whitewater rapids. “The Queen is the absolute monarch, and while the humans feel like we live under vast oppression, yes, we also have her protection. In our—” I cough, changing my words, “—in their eyes, she is the only reason and semblance of order governing The Haven’s village. She is the one to set the rules. With all this… turmoil? That’s been ripped out and turned over on its head.
“I know that Eleira is meant to inherit rule. But few of the humans do. They’ve been left in the dark. Whether that’s purposeful or by mere omission…? I don’t know. But I do know that if they wake up tomorrow and find Eleira newly crowned and Morgan out of her position of power… well, they’re not going to revolt exactly, they don’t have the numbers to do so, but they will not be easily persuaded to accept the change.”
Felix smiles in a reassuring way. “I understand your concern for your friends,” he says. “But frankly they are of little importance now.”
“No,” Eleira cuts him off. “No, they are not. Whatever capacity I find myself in tomorrow, I’ll be in a better position to improve their lives.” She looks at me. “I promise, Cassandra, I will do all that I can to make it happen.”
I shy back, without willing it, because of the awful mismatch of power.
Eleira winces. “You don’t need to be frightened of me,” she says gently.
Felix reaches out and places a hand on her arm. “She can’t exactly help it,” he says. “Weaker vampires can go against the hierarchy for short bursts, at times, but only once they have full control of their powers. Only after they’ve been in the blood for many, many years.”
“It’s going to take years?” I whisper, cowed back again. The tiny little speech I gave seems to have sapped whatever reserve of defiance I had left.
“Under ordinary circumstances, yes,” Felix says. “But I did not send you for the goblet without reason.”
My eyes narrow in forced suspicion even as a tiny ray of hope blooms inside. “What do you mean?”
“As I was telling Eleira, a fledgling draws on her maker’s strength. The infusion of human blood only gives you the substance needed to realize your powers. And you were made by a very powerful vampire, indeed. So you will rise in status quickly.”
“She’s going to draw on Raul’s powers?” Eleira asks.
“She would, yes… if left to her own development. We are blessed, however, in that we have the cup.”
“You want to activate it and offer it to her, don’t you?” Eleira asks. “You want to spare Raul his strength.”
Felix looks right at me, then at Eleira. “Unless you’re opposed.”
“I don’t feel like I have enough influence to offer a true opinion.”
Eleira considers for a moment… and shakes her head. “You know exactly how the contra-torrial works?” she asks him. “You know that it draws on blood magic?”
“Of course,” Felix answers. “I was the one to present it to our Queen.”
“And it’s not… it’s not going to damage her?” Eleira asks. “It won’t harm Cassandra, will it, in any way?”
“Not if the proper ritual is observed.”
El
eira considers it some more. She looks at me. “The Queen wanted you to be with us,” she says. “I don’t know why, and I don’t know anything of your past. But I owe you so much for saving Raul’s life. Blood magic—I will admit, it frightens me. It makes me uneasy. But I will not stand in the way if this is what you want.”
“Cassandra?” Felix asks. “What do you think?”
I shake my head, not truly following along. “Raul will be the one to derive benefit,” I say. “Won’t he? Eleira, it should be your call, then. Or his.”
Felix shakes his head. “By doing things this way, you will bypass many of the wasted years that take place when you first come to grips with your powers. This goblet is powerful. It infuses you with the inanimate force that sustains all of us. It changes the source of it, redirects the flow, so that your strength does not come from the vampire who made you but form the Elemental Forces themselves.”
“No.” Eleira shakes her head. “That’s not right. Blood magic does not draw on the Elemental Forces. It takes its powers from somewhere else.”
Felix’s eyebrows go up. “Of this you’re certain?”
Eleira shoots him a wry look. “I am the resident witch here.”
He spreads his hands. “Fair enough. I was never privy to the inner-workings of such things before. All I know is what the witches who refused to close the portal to the other world—the ones who made the contra-torrials in the first place—told me. I do wonder, though…” he taps his lips, and looks at the goblet, “…how we’ve managed to use it all this time without knowing how it really works.”
“It serves its purpose, I’m assuming,” I offer. I surprise myself by speaking out loud.
Felix chuckles. “Yes. We can’t deny that.” He looks to me once more. “So. What say you?”
I hesitate, and look to Eleira. “What do you think?”
I know what I think, and what I want, but in the presence of two such powerful vampires I need both their consent. And permission.
“It’s up to you,” she tells me. “I can’t put myself in your shoes.”
“And it will spare Raul?” I ask again. For how he helped me, I have a soft spot for the vampire prince.
“It will allow him to carry on as he is, yes,” Felix says.
“Okay,” I nod. “Okay, then I want it. Okay, let’s do it.”
“Splendid,” Felix tells us. “Just in time, as well, to have the cup primed for the succession.”
Chapter Eighteen
Riyu
Beatrice’s torture cell
It takes hours for me to get the strength needed to push myself up.
My whole body is shaking. At first it was from rage, and anger—how dare Beatrice betray me! But that lasted only as long as it took for her to turn that horrid light on.
With a shudder, I look up. I see the lamp, high above the silver bars. Much too far to reach. Too far to affect things, too far for me to save myself…
Is this what she’s been doing to her so-called children down here all this time?
I shudder, and then I curl up into a little ball. I huddle into myself, feeling the worst kind of misery—the worst kind of hopelessness.
I had thought the lashes I’d received on Dagan’s orders were bad. But they were nothing, nothing compared to the torture here.
My mind goes back, to many years ago, and all those awful nights I spent in the Red Keep.
Back then I was still a human. Now, as a vampire, I should be better equipped to handle such pain…
But I am not.
No, right now, I feel none of my gifts at all. My sense of the Elemental Forces is cut off by the obsidian in the silver bars. My vampire strengths are all useless to me because of the silver. I do not have the physical strength to simply bend the bars out of shape and escape—but even if I did, I could not do it, because they are silver.
A more wretched, miserable position I could not imagine for myself.
And to think. To think! I walked straight into this trap. If I had even a modicum of my usual common sense I would have seen it coming from a mile away. But I was reeling with anger at Dagon, maybe even with anger at myself.
Of course, the other vampire would not return my affections! I’d seen him with our women multiple times. And it was a slimy, desperate, disrespectful thing for me to do, trying to see if I could coax him into intimacy with me.
Maybe that disgust was what resulted in the cognitive dissonance that allowed me to fall so far.
And Beatrice. Beatrice! That conniving, scheming, lying, manipulative hussy! All this time she’d played me like a fool. I should have known better than to trust her. Alarm bells should have gone off in my head as soon as she told me how she approached my request for help with Dagan…
But no. I can’t go too far down the rabbit hole and succumb to absolute despair. Not yet. Not so soon.
I owe it to myself and, at the very least, to my Father’s legacy, to prove I am worth more than merely being someone else’s pawn.
My resolve starts to build again. My mind, so long consumed by pain, begins to work again, to chip away, trying to find some means of getting me out of this mess.
Once more, I look round the cage. This time I look at it not through the eye of a prisoner, but of one who’d built it.
There has to be a weakness here somewhere.
Pulling on my entire reserve of strength, I push myself up to my feet. I wobble as I rise, but then I catch my balance.
A minor victory, but at least it’s a start, I think.
Again I look up. The source of that awful light is ten, maybe fifteen feet away from the ceiling bars. I can see through the glass shielding, into the actual cone that holds the lamp.
I purse my lips for a minute, thinking. The rays that fell on me were not ordinary UV. Even one hundred percent pure UV light would not have caused that much agony. And my recovery from the blast was unusual in that it took a surprisingly long time… but did not call upon my vampire healing abilities in any way.
That is, the light felt like it burned… it actuated all the pain sensors in my skin… but it did not actually physically harm me.
Not, at least, insofar as I can see.
I examine my hands again and start that soothing habit of running my fingers over my knuckles. Soft, delicate, feminine bones. Smooth, untarnished skin.
No, the light definitely did not do harm to me physically. Knowing Beatrice, she means it solely as an instrument of torture.
But torture for the mind.
I take a cautious step toward the closest set of bars. I reach out and hold my hand a scant inch away from them. I can feel the silver’s effect running up my arm. It’s almost like a magnetic force, pushing me away…
But there is not enough silver here to addle my senses. Once I’d gotten over the initial exposure, my mind was fine.
Also interesting, that.
As for the obsidian? Nothing gives any indication of its presence—aside from the complete absence of the Elemental Forces in the air. In a way, the emptiness is almost peaceful. Under different circumstances it would be, given the raging, tumultuous nature of the flows that had marked the Elements before.
Such comforts are of small use to me now.
I do a hasty but thorough search of the little cell but come up with nothing unexpected. So far, it is exactly what it purports to be.
A vampire’s prison.
Yet one of the main gifts I’ve acquired over my life is the ability to extricate myself from even the most inauspicious situations.
The key, as it always is, lies in my mind.
Practicing magic has let my mental muscles flourish even when my body lagged behind. I made sure not to expose too much of that to anybody else. The less they know about the true degree of my intellect, the better.
It’s always advantageous to be underestimated by folk.
So even this little recovery time that Beatrice has granted me? It works in my favor. Now that I’ve had a taste of the worst
of the light… I can steel myself and prepare for the second onslaught, when it comes.
I can lock away the part of my mind that feels most pain and distance myself from it while still acting as if the rays affect me as much as the first time.
It’s not much to go on, admittedly… but right now, it’s a start.
I go to the exact epicenter of the room, sit down, cross my legs, and assume a meditative pose.
Some minutes later, I hear the sounds of someone approaching.
At first I think it is Beatrice. Who else? But as the footsteps get louder, I realize that their rhythm is not hers.
My heart almost stops in my chest when I realize that the cadence is one that I am intimately familiar with. In an instant, I leap up, heart pounding with excitement…
Dagan’s form appears from out of the darkness.
He blinks in surprise when he finds me on the other side of the black veil. “Riyu?” he grunts. “What the hell?”
Without a second’s pause he leans down, grabs the bottom of the cell door, and hauls it up. His face twists in pain as he fights against the silver.
I don’t need more than the thinnest space to break out. As soon as there’s a big enough gap I surge forward, and roll out of that horrible, awful cage.
The Elemental Forces slam back into me so hard I nearly waver.
They are more frenzied than before. I can feel them battling each other for position in the air. Fire fights Water, Earth struggles against Air. They surge and flare like lightning in the heat of a thunderstorm.
I’ve never felt anything of the like. Usually they are tranquil, calm, and in complete harmony with each other. Now, it’s like they’re screaming for an escape.
Before they can overwhelm me I shut off the part of my mind receptive to them. Now their dissonance softens to a dull roar. Anybody less skilled in magic than I would doubtlessly struggle with that much cacophony in their head.
But, as my one-time teacher in the Red Keep said… what I lack in raw magical strength I make up with in intellectual ability.
