by Emma Glass
“But our lifespans…” She looked away. “Elliott, neither of us are idiots. Even if we find a path to tomorrow you’ll outlive me half a dozen times over.”
Is now the time? I toyed with the thought. Should I…?
“Elliott? What are you thinking?”
It’s as good a time as ever, I suppose. I mean, will there even be another opportunity to tell her? What if this really is the last night we’ll have together? Isn’t it better that she meets our fate with hope in her heart?
“…Elliott?”
I blinked, turning to her.
Her eyes looked so sorrowful in that moment. But even as her retinas twinkled, and the corners of her lips lifted in a quiet, pensive smile…
And I knew right then that tonight was the night. How many times have I considered telling her what Sebastian helped me find in the libraries and holds of this world? I held a great knowledge that was long forgotten—knowledge, in itself, that was far too ancient to have ever been forbidden. Knowledge that, perhaps, could turn my allies against us.
Yes. The time is now.
“You’re so beautiful.” I realized I had whispered it.
“I…” she blinked, her eyes brightening. “I don’t hold a candle to you, though. You’re so incredibly handsome. I’m fortunate to even have you.”
“You mean that?” I asked, wistfully.
She nodded, blinking away happy tears.
I savoured this opportunity to deepen them still.
“From the bottom of my heart, Clara Blackwell, I doubt that there is a luckier man alive—in your world or in mine. The love I bear for you only grows deeper by the day. Will you be in marriage to me?”
She nearly snorted, wiping her eyes. “What?”
“In marriage. What’s the term? Is there a verb?”
“Marry. You’re looking for marry. Used in a senten—“
Oh. We have that word. Not in this context, however…
“Will you marry me, Clara Blackwell?”
The love of my life looked as though her heart skipped a beat. For all I knew, it probably did.
“Elliott… we can’t… I mean, you know I would, if—“
“There is a way,” I told her.
“A way for…?”
Perhaps it was instinct, or perhaps I’d seen something of this custom during my time exploring her world. Either way, I didn’t want to stand over her, staring down into her eyes. I took a kneel, taking her hand in my own, watching her trembling gaze.
Her eyes widened.
“I need your answer first. Tell me, my love—when the dust settles and the chaos of this world recedes, as our obligations to these uncertain times draws to its end… will you marry me, Clara Blackwell? Will you be mine forever? Will you live in this castle, stand at my side, and help me to rule over Stonehold as its sovereign until my time in this world has passed?”
Time drew to a standstill.
Even the descent of the snowflakes dropped to a crawl. Surrounding us all around, the trailing dust of wintery air wanted to hear her answer just as badly as I did.
My Clara swallowed. Then she nodded. “Yes.”
“Yes?” I had to hear her repeat the words.
“Yes, my Elliott Craven. I’ll marry you. Happily.”
I rose up and threw my arms around her. The occasion called for it. It called for a feast, for a celebration, for, well, whatever this kind of thing needed. I was the happiest that I had been in my entire life. I felt propelled by instinct, and I was unable to control myself.
So enraptured was I that I nearly forgot why I had even asked her this question—or the driving force behind it.
“My husband, Elliott Craven…” She shook her head. “I didn’t think, even in my wildest dreams, that we’d ever be able to do it. I thought the worst might happen.”
“Before the worst does…” I held her hands in mine.
Clara’s joy held onto her face as she met my gaze. Part of me wanted to freeze this moment forever—everything about this instance was perfect. Even the never-ending snow from this infernal winter seemed somehow right for the occasion.
“There’s something that you need to know,” I told her, measuring my words carefully. “Something I have known, I admit, for a long time now. Something you should know before we face tomorrow together.”
Her eyes darkened. “…What is it, my love?”
I let my smile widen, resisting the urge to dangle this.
“I’ve found a way for us to be together, a lot longer…”
Chapter 5
Clara
As the snowflakes danced, he told me everything.
I listened intently as he revealed how busy the Sage of Stonehold had been while I was studying; the way Elliott told the story, Sebastian worked with sages in all of the rival castles, digging into ancient text for a secret that could unite Elliott and I together… forever.
Well, not quite forever.
But I could settle for just a little less.
When Elliott told me exactly what was needed to make the spell work, his face darkened considerably. I waited for him to finish his speech before I gave him any response.
“It’s dangerous,” he finally noted, turning to watch the falling snow. “You should be aware. You might not survive the ritual. It could take your life.”
Our breath was visible against the crisp, chilly air.
“It could,” I nodded sadly. “It’s a risk.”
Elliott took both my hands in his and caressed the soft, inner flesh in my palms. I relaxed, enjoying his touch; the vampire lord lifted his burning gaze to face me. His fierce eyes were always indomitable to behold, his piercing gaze forever curious. It captivated the senses.
“It is,” he replied calmly. “And a risk we do not have to take. You are free to continue to live your life here, as long as you’d like—“
“You know that’s not true,” I smiled faintly.
He almost snorted. “I suppose I do, yes.”
The coming threat forced us to dance around the issue, but we both knew that our worlds drew ever close to their end. Frankly, it was ridiculous to worry about a hypothetical future decades from now when the Calamity was here to contend with.
And now, I gazed up at the sky, it hangs at our doorstep…
Unwilling to release his hands, I held onto them tightly. I toyed with the thought in my mind like a favourite gift. It wasn’t that I was opposed to it—if anything, it might have even been the answer to all my fears of what would come next. Assuming, I guess, that we survive…
“Let me see into that head of yours, Clara,” he pleaded.
Releasing my grip on his hands, I couldn’t help a smile. I leaned into his body with a sigh, lifting a hand to flick at his beautifully dark hair. Intently, his peering gaze studied my face, hunting my expression for recognizable traces of an answer. He needed to know this—I could see it, plainly written across his eyes. You are easily the most handsome man that I’ve ever encountered. A few centuries alone with you, here? How could I possibly say ‘no?’
“Clara.” His typically imposing voice ached.
I realized I was begin cruel with his heart. I finally said:
“If you change me into a vampire, we both know what that means: I’ll have to stay in this world with you. I could never safely return home again…” My fingertips trailed against his jawline; I let them dance along his chiseled flesh as his eyes widened. “Something for us to consider, my darling dearest…”
“This is… true.” He restrained disappointment.
“But what do I really have to go back to? Yes, I have my friend, Peter… but everything else?” Distractedly, my fingertips slid from his chin. “Horrible memories, and little of value.” I matched his gaze. “Things that I could be very willing to give up.”
His despondency faded a tick; he remained silent.
“It means a lot to me that you’ve found a way for us to stay together, Elliott…” I whispered in his ear with a
smile, nuzzling it against my lips. “It gives me hope. Something I think we all need right now…”
“Couldn’t agree more.” He pulled me into his kiss.
Electrical energy crackled down my body as I tasted of his lips, then his tongue. My body trembled, and my lungs filled with something so much more powerful than air.
It was impossible to get enough of him.
My beautiful, incredible Elliott Craven was something ripped out from my deepest fantasies. In fact, that could be taken literally: I repeatedly dreamt of his shadow in the weeks before I finally met him.
All it took was an abandoned lake and a magical trip…
* * *
When Elliott brought me back inside, my Knightly Trio stood at the edge of the balcony.
“Wilhelm! Viktor!” I threw my arms around them both, but I didn’t neglect the stalwart female guard of the group. Asarra patiently waited nearby, clearly trying to look stoic and bored. I pulled free from them and hugged her too, for good measure. “Asarra! I’ve missed you all so much!”
“Welcome back, Clara,” she smiled into my hair.
Wilhelm chuckled. “You know, I feel the least that you could do next time is warn us before you go traipse off to another world. It’s not like any of us worry about you or anything. Nah. That’d be silly.”
Elliott feigned a glare at my guardian. “Wilhelm, that is literally your job—and your only job. Your entire livelihood rests on your ability to sufficiently worry about her. Wait a minute: is this why you’re such rubbish at it? Do I need to find you another role again? Preferably somewhere very far away?”
“Oh, Lord Elliott!” He nervously chuckled. “You silly bugger! No need to start in on the threats… So, Clara. Did you at least bring us back something good?”
“Sort of! I brought human blood.”
“Really?” Viktor blinked. “That’s… generous.”
“Not for you,” Elliott quickly insisted. “Nor would you honestly want to drink it, I imagine. It seems to come with a few unwelcome side-effects—allegedly, the consumption of regular human blood interferes with our magic.”
“Always a price tag, isn’t there?” Wilhelm sighed. “Why can’t we just have nice things? Is that really so much to ask for? I feel like it’s really not...”
I listened to their banter, but something drew my eye.
“Where’s everyone else?”
Elliott folded his arms. “After we returned to the castle, Griswold took his copy of your spellbook back to study it at Seven Portals. He asked for an assistant; Hargonne and Kierra volunteered to go. I saw little reason to deny them the opportunity.”
“Did Master Griswold tell you why he was leaving?”
He suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I believe he made some sort of breakthrough in interpreting your book. I couldn’t get anything more specific out of him. He made it clear that he didn’t want to get my hopes up. Not a very satisfactory answer, I will admit—but I didn’t wish to stand in his way if he truly found something that might help us.”
I couldn’t dispel my disappointment. My teacher and I had finally grown to bond over studying that bizarre book of magical history and spells. The relic from my world seemed to hold secrets far beyond anything known here, even at Seven Portals.
“It’s probably for the best.”
Try as I might, I couldn’t shake a nagging feeling. We were living on borrowed time with the Calamity poised to rain down over us. My return to this world seemed to have been the trigger that set the wheel in motion.
I just hoped we could stop it.
As my Knightly Trio surrounded me, eager to get some food into my stomach, I kept repeating the same phrase in my head, over and over. It felt like it grew from inside my mind. A mantra. A warning.
The Calamity falls…
* * *
Griswold and the Duelists weren’t the only ones missing as I moved through the castle.
Nikki Craven was nowhere to be found.
Arch-Magister Vayne, with the blessing of the vampire lords, had bravely ventured back to Seven Portals to learn of what was happening there. Everyone expected her to return quickly with news. That left Kinsey—my lover’s vassal and guardian. I found her absence strangest of all, but it clearly wasn’t the time for questions.
As the five of us gathered left the chrysm node—Elliott, the Knightly Trio, and myself—we stepped from one of the many hidden nooks and hallways in the castle. We sought out a particular chamber, a private study usually reserved for vampire lord business.
“The night she first returned, Nikki and I met in here,” Elliott explained to me. “I’ve asked one of the others to stay. But I wanted to speak to you in private first.”
“If you had official business, I would have—“
“Sharing Sebastian’s discovery was official business.”
I couldn’t help but smile, even as my friends curiously glanced between us. But they didn’t dare earn their liege’s wrath by prodding about it. “Do the other lords know?”
“Not yet. Concerns for another time, I think.”
“You need to stop alienating them.”
He paused, casting me a glance. “Keeping you near me was a balancing act from the very start. More than once, we have very nearly lost one another forever. The council might not allow my plans to move forward.”
“I understand,” I assured him. “Just… be careful.”
Elliott flickered a smile. “I will try.”
When we approached the study, Kinsey stood dutifully just outside the door. I briefly wondered why Elliott had left her here. Snapping alert, his vassal shook off the daze and straightened her spine. I was never certain what she thought of me; from the beginning, it was clear she blamed me for Elliott’s brief slide into his darker side as a ruler. Ever since, she had become hard to read.
She barely acknowledged me as we crossed the gap.
“Status report,” Elliott requested of her.
“General panic,” she replied apathetically.
He sighed. “Could you be… a bit more specific?”
“The tradesmen anticipate an evacuation, though none can offer any sort of explanation on where you might order them to go. Their leaders act brashly. The village is on the verge of hysteria and the barracks are prepared for an onslaught. The servants I’ve spoken to in the castle are all terrified. The kitchen staff is either taking this incredibly well or they’ve all gone mad. They are strangely committed to preparing for breakfast.”
He raised a brow. “Are they really?”
“Yes. They even baked me a cake.”
“Status report on the cake,” Wilhelm interjected.
Kinsey didn’t skip a beat. “It was delicious.”
Wilhelm nodded. “Excellent. Did you save us any?”
“Silence,” Elliott cast him a glare.
Kinsey replied bluntly: “No.”
“Wait, what?” He turned.
“No, Lord Elliott. You were busy.”
“So were you!”
“Taking stock of a whole castle is hungry work.”
“Well… how quickly did you eat that thing?”
“Fifteen minutes, tops.”
His shock was apparent.“But… how?”
“Like I said,” Kinsey shrugged. “It was delicious.”
Elliott shook his head, clearly eager to move past an act of such culinary betrayal. “Okay, rest of you, stay out here. Stand guard. I can’t have any interruptions. Clara, Kinsey, both of you are in here with me.”
The Knightly Trio switched places with Kinsey, pulling the same zoning-out trick that she had. After all, all four of them were former castle guards. Thanks to the tampering with their brains, a matter that still bothered me, they were all excessively equipped to deal with—
Wilhelm quickly reverted. “But an entire cake?
Elliott cast him a furious stare, and he shut up. But as I followed him into the study, I couldn’t help but notice that Kinsey nodded her he
ad to the corner, just beyond sight of her master. The Knightly Trio glanced up into the beams.
There—just as the door shut behind me—I thought that I spotted the slight notice of a mostly-eaten chocolate cake on a platter, tucked barely out of sight…
* * *
Sitting in a reading chair, Svetlana Lovrić glanced up from a lapful of ‘light’ study material.
I knew it was over twelve-hundred highly organized, printed pages of technical ebooks, manuals, and Wikipedia. Those binders covered everything that a bright mind like hers, one that had never even heard of a battery, needed to know how to build—and improve—upon one. Lord Lovrić could use the knowledge in those binders to rebuild an entire civilization.
Without so much as an Industrial Revolution.
The meeting was much shorter than I expected—which was great, because I was exhausted. I collapsed into a chair, trying not to fall asleep as they discussed what little they knew about the danger that had befallen us all.
At some point, I realized they were staring at me.
“What?”
Elliott smiled softly. “…We’d better get you to sleep.”
“Oh? No, I’m…” I yawned. “I’m fine. Trust me.”
“You’re leaning on my vassal.”
I sat up straight, suddenly rustled awake. Kinsey stood by the side of my chair, lazily staring off into the distance. “Sorry about that,” I hastily apologized. “I didn’t mean to use you as a—“
“A pillow? It’s fine.”
“I’m really sorry—“
“It doesn’t matter, but you did miss all the parts where Lord Lovrić showered you in compliments over, what was it? Dawning a new era of scientific revolution? Kinda stopped paying attention after that…”
“Feisty one, isn’t she?” Svetlana grinned.
Elliott nodded. “Certainly not lacking in opinion.”
Standing beside me, his redheaded vassal nodded her head my way. “Clara does need rest. You should consider wrapping this up—or at least having me escort her back to the keep.”
“Go on, Elliott,” Svetlana waved him off. “I believe that you and I understand the path ahead. We must focus on survival as our outcome. But if we can stop this Calamity, Clara has brought us a glimpse of the future.”
