The Heart's Ashes

by A. M. Hudson

“No. I think you need to explain now.”

  “Please. I am a man of my word, Morgaine, if nothing else—you know that.”

  “Yes,” she whispered humbly.

  “I must speak to the princess alone. If you gift me that, I will return your kindness with any information you require. I can help you catch Drake and remove him from power.”

  “Why would you do that,” Mike asked.

  Everything went quite, then, in a low voice Arthur said; “Freedom.”

  All I could hear was breathing.

  “Fine,” Mike said. “Tomorrow afternoon. Across the road—that’s as alone as it’s going to get, and only if she approves.”

  “Very well,” Arthur said. “I shall be there at precisely fourteen-hundred hours.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Mike said, and the front door slammed shut.

  “Damn,” Morgaine said. “Did not expect him to drop by.”

  Mike sighed heavily, probably dropped his head into hands, too. “He’s convincing, I’ll give ‘im that. I almost believed his story about that depraved prick.”

  “I know,” Morgaine said, “me too. He’s definitely up to something.”

  “But what? I just don’t get it. What could he hope to achieve by making himself and Jason look like the good guys?”

  “Mike?” I called out.

  The door popped open and Mike smiled at me, so warmly; I loved that smile—the one that made me glad to be on his side. “Hey, baby, how you doin’?”

  “I don’t get it either?” I sat up, continuing the conversation as if I’d been a part of it all along. “Why would he want to help? He watched Jason hurt me.”

  “I don’t know. But I want you to find out.”

  I shook my head. “No way. Uh-uh, I am not meeting with him—he drank from me, he sat there while Jason—” my lip quivered, “while he—”

  “While he what, Ara? What did he do to you?” Mike landed on the bed in front of me; Morgaine walked away.

  “I…I never thought I’d get out of that dungeon. I thought I was going to die in there and be hoisted onto the wall with the other skeletons.”

  “Oh, baby, that was never going to happen.” He grabbed my face and pressed his nose to mine. “Morgaine and David were planning your rescue from the start—before they even knew you were a pure blood, before Emily and I even knew you’d been kidnapped. They were never going to leave you there.”

  I nodded and ran my finger over his arm; his veins were still blue and his heart beat just as strongly as before. I could feel the way the beat would pulse under my tongue; see the appeal humans have to vampires. “You’re still so warm,” I said, “I can’t believe I turned you. I mean, I’m really sorry, you know, if you didn’t want to be a vampire-murdering kind of Lilithian.”

  “Are you kidding? Ara, this is the best kind of vampire to be. Morgaine’s completely pissed—wishes she could swap.”

  “Why? I mean, she’s totally cool.”

  “Yeah,” he scoffed, “But she can’t kill vamps, and—” he bristled with arrogant pride, “—I’m stronger than her, which she hates.”

  “I bet.” I smiled a little. “How does Emily feel about it?”

  “She’s—” He shook his head, smiling. “She’s over the moon, Ara. Well, she was once the shock wore off.”

  “How did you figure it out—what you were?”

  “We didn’t. Morgaine knew.”

  “How?”

  Mike laughed. “When I met with her to go over the rescue plans, she shook my hand and the first thing she said to me was So you let her bite you?.”

  “What, she knew just from a handshake?”

  “Yeah, apparently I nearly broke her hand.”

  “But you have a strong handshake, you always have.”

  “Not strong enough to hurt a vampire’s hand.”

  “You hurt Jason’s—at the wedding. I saw you.”

  Mike nodded, grinning. “Ara, I was immortal then.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I don’t think hurt is the right word.” He grinned. “I heard crunching. I mean, it wouldn’t have actually been broken, but I think he knew—if he knew what you were, he would have known at that moment, what I was.”

  “Why didn’t he take you in as well, then?”

  Mike stared ahead, his smile trailing away with thought. “I…don’t know.”

  “Do you think maybe there’s some truth to what Arthur said?”

  “No way, Ara. We can’t trust him. He’s up to something. I don’t know what, but what ever it is, don’t trust him.”

  I nodded. “I’ll meet with him. I want to know what he has to say.” Some small part of me needed to know how Jason could possibly have loved me so deeply in my dreams, then hurt me so viciously, only to help me again in the end. Whether what Arthur said is the truth, or not, I could handle a lie better than the fact that Jason just hated me so badly.

  “Okay, that’s fine, baby, but don’t talk to him about David.”

  “David?” My lips fell apart. “Why would I talk about David?”

  “It’s just—”

  “Mike?” Emily popped her head in the door.

  “Yeah, gorgeous?”

  “Um, I need to talk to you for a sec.” She ushered him with her hand.

  “Sure, uh—” He looked back at me as he stood up. “You be okay for a minute?”

  “I’ll stay with her.” Morgaine came gliding in. “She looks like she could use a good girl-to-girl chat, anyway.”

  “Okay, I’ll be back in a few.” Mike closed the door behind him.

  Morgaine reached across to flick on my bedside lamp. “How are you healing?”

  I shrugged. “I can still feel the pain, but the cuts are closed up.”

  “The bruising on your face has gone down.” She smiled sympathetically.

  “Yeah, like magic, huh?” I ran my hand over my smooth lip—the gash closed.

  “Not magic, princess. Vampirism.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know how to feel about all this, Morgaine. I don’t like it—any of it.”

  “You’re scared,” she stated in a factual yet kind voice.

  I nodded. “And Arthur really scares me, too. He was watching, you know. Through all of it—he just sat there.”

  “I know, and…you should be scared of him, but, do you know how powerful Drake is?”

  My shoulders responded for me.

  “Put it this way; I once heard he ripped a human in half, straight down the middle, with his bare hands, then made her human family eat the—”

  “Oh, God. Stop,” I said, covering my ears.

  “Sorry.” She bit her lip. “But, you have to understand—even if Arthur were on our side, which I doubt, he wouldn’t have been able to help you. Drake says walk—you walk, Drake says rip the arms off child, you do it.”

  “Is that why Eric helped Jason?”

  “No, Eric went back to help Jason so he could report your position to the knights. He sent a text as soon as he found you.”

  “Did he tell you what he did?”

  “What Jason did?”

  “No. Did Eric tell you what he did to me when Jason—” I swallowed, unwilling to re-experience the scene.

  Morgaine touched my shoulder. “I know he had to suffocate you. Is that all Eric did to you?”

  My heart pumped faster. “I…I don’t actually know.”

  She sat back. “For the most part, neither do we. Mike wants me to talk to you—find out what happened.”

  My stomach turned to bubbling lava.

  “But we don’t have to, Amara. Okay? We don’t have to talk about this yet.”

  I felt so fragile, made of glass or rice paper. Even mentioning what happened made it too real to bear.

  She sighed. “Okay, subject change?”

  I forced a smile.

  “Do you like gossip?” she said, flipping her hair. “Always makes me feel better after I’ve been tortured.”

  “You’ve b
een tortured?” I almost jumped off the bed.

  “Of course. Most Lilithians have.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s a means of control,” she said simply, reliving every ache within her gaze. “Why do you think we’ve prayed for your existence—would fight to the death to save you? We lost half our knights tonight, Amara. That’s no small loss.”

  Words could not carry my gratitude; I simply shook my head, my mouth open to all the things I wanted to say.

  “It’s okay.” She touched my hand. “I know. I really do know how you feel.”

  “Yeah, I know you do—everyone knows how I feel. They always have.”

  “Yeah, but, I’m different.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  “No, I really am. I have—” She rolled her shoulder back and flicked her cherry hair again. “I mean, I have this special ability—empathy. I meet a person, and I can sort of know where they’re coming from. I kind of ‘get them’.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, it’s a useless tool, really. But I get this—” She motioned around my room, and especially at me. “I get this complex relationship you guys have got going on.”

  “Who?”

  “You, Emily, Mike—the whole flaming love triangle thing.”

  I looked away. “Not even I get that, Morgaine.”

  “But I do. And Emily does. It’s just you and Mike lost out there in the dark.”

  “What do you mean—what are we not ‘getting’?”

  “Love. You don’t know what you feel.”

  “Hm. True.”

  “And that’s okay, you know. It is okay to be confused.”

  “I’m not confused. It’s all very clear to me now—how I feel about Mike.” The news about being partly spirit bound to him highlighted that.

  “He’s confused,” Morgaine said.

  “No, he’s not. He loves Emily.”

  “Yes, but he hasn’t had time to think about that.”

  “And that’s my fault?”

  “No one said that.” She sighed heavily. “Look, Amara, when Eric came and told us what he saw on Jason’s list, Mike literally punched a wall. Then…” her voice slowed and she twiddled her fingers in her lap. “Then he just sat against it with his head in his knees, and cried. I’ve never heard a man cry such deep agony.” She shook her head softly. “Emily was beside herself—not just because of what you were going through, but because at that moment, she realised he’s never going to let go. He’s incapable of not loving you. Confused doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “Oh, no. I’m sorry, that’s one of my other talents—gift of the gab.” She slapped her forehead. “I always say too much. I’m—please, Amara. Don’t listen to me. I’m a horrible person. I—” She reached for me.

  “No.” I placed my hand on hers. “No, it’s okay. Really. I think—I think it’s better if I know what’s going on.” I forced a smile. “Maybe it’s good you say too much. At least I can rely on someone to tell me the truth about what’s going on around here.”

  “Well, then, we’ll make good friends,” she beamed. “If you can always handle the cold, hard truth, and I can rely on you not to hate me for it, I think we’ll get along great.”

  Her smile stretched out, pulling me into the kinship I’d seen between her and Emily earlier. I studied her soft skin and thin, heart-shaped face. “I can see why he loved you.”

  “Who?”

  “David.” I nearly choked on the word.

  Morgaine dropped her chin to her chest. “Did he—did David ever tell you why he left me?”

  “No. Apparently he never told me anything—never even told me about Pepper, or the Set, or what he did to Jason’s girlfriend.”

  “Don’t hate him for it, Amara. He just wanted to protect you from the truth about himself. He was so worried you’d hate him for it.”

  “I can’t hate him. I—” I can’t even think about him. “Why didn’t you marry him? He did tell me once that you were the only one he ever considered marrying.”

  “Really?” Morgaine flipped her head to one side and grinned. “David and I, we were in love, but…we were too different. He needed someone to care for—to protect—while I’m really more the sort to be the protector.”

  “So that’s it?” I asked. “That’s the only reason?”

  “We just weren’t right for each other, but he’ll always have a special place in my heart.”

  “So, why did they bring you in to torture him?”

  Morgaine pressed her lips together, her nose crinkling across the bridge. “I’m kind of like David in that sense. He was the best punisher in the Vampire Set, and I was the best in the Lilithian Order. They wanted his punishment to be grave.”

  “But you didn’t hurt him?”

  She shook her head. “We had to starve him and smack him around a little to make it look like I had, but—” She stared forward, her eyes glassing over. “I never thought—when the vampires came to take him, I just never thought they’d—” Her delicate fingertips covered her lips. “Oh, God, poor David.”

  I nodded, digging my thumbnail into my fingertip.

  “I know what Jason’s done to your life, Amara.” She turned to me quickly, grabbed both my hands. “I saw it in his soul. He suffered for what he did to you. Not enough, but I saw the suffering.”

  “He bound me to him.” I looked down.

  “What? A spirit bind?

  “Mm-hm.”

  She brushed my hair from my neck. “But Lilithians can’t be bound.”

  “I was still human then.”

  “You have no Mark.”

  “It wasn’t physical. He bound me in a dream.”

  “A dream?”

  “Yes.”

  Morgaine smiled. “But, a spirit bind is only physical? How can he—”

  “He made me believe my hair was blonde once, even when I woke.”

  “Really? Well, he kept his powers to himself, then. He never so much as even hinted he might have that kind of power.”

  “Why would he keep it secret?”

  Her knowing smile displayed thoughts behind her eyes that I would never be let in on. “In the vampire world?” she said. “He’d have many reasons.”

  “Well, thanks to him wearing Mike’s face when he did it, half my mind believes it’s bound to Mike.”

  “No, you have feelings for Mike because you love him. The spirit bind breaks when the vampire who placed it dies.” Her face went white as her lips slowly parted. “Oh, no, only if you kill him.”

  “What?” My eyes stung. “So, I’ll never be free?”

  “Free?” She studied me, confusion in her frown. “Oh. Oh. Amara.” She covered her mouth. “Of course. The bind makes you believe you have feelings for Jason, too.”

  “No,” I said, disgusted. “No, I just…I keep finding myself trying to understand why he did what he did—trying to find a reason, something I did, maybe, that set him off.”

  “Oh, princess.” She touched my face. “You won’t find a reason. And you never did anything to deserve what happened to you.”

  “Except be born,” I said.

  “Yes—born into an age-old feud. I am sorry, but I’m also not sorry. Your existence alone is enough to give strength to our people. After centuries of darkness and slavery, you’re our light—our hope.”

  “But I’m just a girl, Morgaine.”

  “I know.” She nodded. “But I’m not asking you to swear an oath to us, I’m just asking you to realise, for now, that you have descended from royal blood, and you do have a duty to your people. If you don’t save us…”

  “No one will?” I rolled my eyes.

  “I know it sounds cliché, Amara, but it’s the truth. We need you.”

  “I don’t care. I’m sorry. I know that’s harsh, but I just want to be dead.”

  “Well, I know it matters to you that Mike needs you. He cannot live without you. I’ve seen it in
his soul. He loves you.”

  “No, he’s caught up in how I feel for him, because of the spirit bind. He—”

  “Does Mike know, yet—about the bind?”

  “No.” I looked down. Poor Mike.

  “It’ll break his heart.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s a good guy. I really like him. I’m glad he’s Lilithian and not vampire.”

  “So you picked it? When you met him, you knew?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled warmly at the memory. “But…straight after I told him, all the sudden joy of the proof of your existence slipped away; Mike grabbed my arms, looked deep into my eyes and said, ‘Show me how to save her.’” She even put on his deep, husky tone; I smiled.

  “He’s always been my knight, you know.”

  “I know. I felt that, too; felt the love, felt his desperation to be with you—to protect you.”

  “If only I hadn’t let myself love Jason in that dream, maybe everything would’ve turned out different.”

  “That was just so evil of him—of Jason. If he wanted to hurt David, that was the—”

  “Morgaine. Please?” I shook my head. “Don’t say things like that. What happened to David was horrible—and that’s without adding the weight of his emotional torture to it.”

  Morgaine frowned, pressing her lip between her teeth. “Amara? What happened in that room—with David?”

  “He—” My throat constricted, blocking the air from gasping down with my sobs. “I—Jason made me bite him, and I did, and I thought only of the blood—nothing of David.” I looked down at my hands. “I had to watch him burn. I had to watch him melt under those flames with no way to save him. Jason just…he just picked him up and…he was just gone. Like that.” I clicked my fingers.

  Morgaine held me close and stroked my hair.

  “I just don’t know how to go on. I don’t want to be alive, I don’t want to be a royal, I don’t care about your people, Morgaine. Everything I cared about died in that fire.”

  “Oh.” She sat up and looked at me. “Oh. Oh, my God. I—” She stood up.

  “What? What is it?” I looked around, feeling the crawl of fear over my spine.

  “Stay here.” She pointed at me, backing over to the door. “Mike,” she called as she opened it. “Mike!” she yelled again, desperation shaking her voice.

  “What?” He sprung up, going a little too fast, and smacked into the wall with his forearm.