by Cege Smith
Angeline heard the heaviness in his voice. Had the fact that they had kissed filled him with regret? She hated the little voice that was now babbling in her head that she wasn’t even worthy of a vampire’s affections in her current state.
Then the door opened again and Caspian all but fell down the stairs in his rush to get in. Angeline could see the first rays of dawn just as the door closed behind him. Caspian slid down the rest of the stairs and landed on the bottom step with a heavy thud. In his arms were several brown plants that looked like they had already been sickly even before he pulled them out by their roots.
“Oh good, you are all here,” Caspian said as he looked at each of them. With Caspian’s arrival, the cellar walls felt like they were closing in. “When the sun falls we are going to have to make a run for it. The spirits have left the forest in search of the princess.”
Angeline hadn’t thought it was possible for things to get any worse.
“What do you propose we do?” Connor said. Angeline wasn’t sure if he was aware of it or not, but he had taken a few small steps closer to her. As Searon and Caspian came further into the cellar, he had maneuvered it so it seemed natural for him to be next to her facing them.
Caspian started pulling the leaves off of the plants in his arms and handing them to Searon. “First things first. Searon and I need to tend to these scratches. I think they would be fatal if left unattended.”
“Think?” Searon said shrilly.
Angeline wanted to cover her ears as his words bounced off the walls.
Caspian glared at him. “You are lucky that you are alive at all. Those spirits had every intention of annihilating everything in that clearing.”
“How did you escape?” Connor asked.
“Simple distraction,” Searon said, gesturing at Caspian to look at his arms. “I gave them my men.”
Connor arched an eyebrow but said nothing else.
Caspian pulled off a few leaves and squeezed fluid out of the bottom where the leaves had been attached to the stalk. Then he rubbed the liquid over the gashes on his arms. Angeline could see rips in his pants and matching slashes on his legs. Searon quickly followed suit, but winced as the liquid met his skin.
“That burns!” he said through clenched teeth.
“Better than the alternative,” Caspian replied coolly.
As the men continued to bicker, Angeline felt a light touch against her hand. She didn’t look down, but knew Connor’s fingers had brushed her skin as her hand rested on the wall.
“Are there any other supplies here, Caspian?” Connor asked.
Caspian shook his head. “This was nothing but an occasional way station for my travels. We are less than a night’s travel from the bogs. If we can make it there, I don’t think the spirits will follow.”
“The Mangalore bogs?” Angeline whispered. It was like every bad dream from her childhood fairytales was coming true.
Caspian sniffed. “It is the quickest way to cut across the mountains. The bogs go right through them. If we had been able to leave the Amaron, it would have taken us several days to go around the mountains on the Altera side to reach the Master’s compound. This way, we can be there in two days.”
“So besides spirits, we have to worry about the wolves?” Angeline said. She had no idea where the words came from, but suddenly all three of the vampires in the room were staring at her.
“What do you know of wolves, Cousin?” Searon finally said. “I can assure you my father has a treaty with the wolf pack leader just as he does with the humans.”
“The wolves are the protectors of the Clan,” Connor said quietly. “If we do happen to encounter them, then it is certain the Clan is nearby. But as Searon said, they do keep to themselves.”
“As in, the Clan that made Mamette the first blood-drinking vampire so that she would kill her brother? The same Clan that made the Gods give them control of Altera, and created humans to go to war with vampires? The Clan that forced my great-great-great-grandfather to hand over his daughter to form a blood truce with the vampires? For what? What is this great Clan doing now? Hiding away like thieves in the night?” Angeline hadn’t realized how loud her voice had gotten until she felt Connor’s touch on her arm.
“The Clan holds all of Altera’s secrets,” Connor said. “But it would be best to try not to catch their attention. We will pass through the bogs as quickly as we can.”
Connor was scared of the Clan, even though those people held the secret he had been trying to find. Angeline wondered how his wish would have been granted if he had been able to deliver her to his Master unharmed. If there was a cure for being a vampire, surely there was a cure for being a wraith.
Caspian’s nose was buried in his notebook again. He stepped closer to Searon and started taking notes as he had Searon turn his arms over to display the gashes, which were now little more than shallow scratches. He nodded in approval. “We also don’t want the Clan thinking that our dear princess may be the One they have been searching for given the recent turn of events.”
“The One?” Angeline vaguely remembered Caspian saying something similar right after she awoke from the hybridization process as well as during his story about Mamette and Arduro. “The One that what?”
“That isn’t possible,” Connor said. “There is no such thing. That is an old legend.”
Angeline felt her stomach clenching. Too many legends were coming true, and too many things that weren’t supposed to even exist had crossed her path in the last several days. “The One that what?” she shouted.
Caspian sighed and set his pen back inside his notebook. “The One. The One that Mamette was supposed to be. Her ceremony only got them part of the way there. Control over Altera was one thing, but complete freedom from the Gods entirely is what they desire, to become Gods themselves. The One will give that to them.”
It was all too much. Angeline put her head in her hands and fell down on her knees as she felt the onslaught that she never saw coming. She thought that she had the demon under control, but she had been a fool. It had just been lying in wait and gathering strength. The next images came to her in flashes.
Caspian’s wide eyes and alarmed expression.
Searon scrambling behind Caspian with a yell.
Connor trying to grab her but then being catapulted across the room.
The sun.
The sun.
The glorious sun.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The air was cool and Angeline felt her skin prickle and twitch as the dampness closed in around her. She thought for a moment that something had happened to her eyes, but then she realized that the air around her swarmed with heavy tendrils of fog.
She didn’t want to remember. Legends come to life. Her life, interrupted. The violent mad escape from the confines of the secret cellar into the light. She whirled around looking all about her, but she was alone. Of course she was alone. The vampires wouldn’t have been able to follow her into the sun. She moaned and covered her face as she remembered throwing Connor across the room to escape. She hoped that she hadn’t hurt him.
Then as she pulled her hands away, she saw that they were covered in red. She gasped and looked down. The entire front of her gown was streaked in red as well. Instantly, she knew what it was from the aromatic smell that filled her nostrils; it was blood.
“No, no, no,” she started to chant. What had she done? There was nothing but a gaping black hole in her memory from the moment she had torn free of the cellar until now. The demon had been wholly in control.
Angeline reached out and tried to bat the fog away as she cautiously took a few steps forward. She had no idea where she was going, but she knew exactly where she was: the Mangalore bogs. Everything in her body screamed that she was in danger, but she was at the point where didn’t know from whom; something out there or the demon in her head.
She ransacked her memory to see what she could find there cataloged under the Mangalore bogs. Of course, in her sh
ort time with Caspian she was starting to wonder if anything was accurate or true in her paltry human histories.
It was said that Mangalore used to be the most beautiful place in Altera. It was nestled inside the vast mountain range that marked the boundaries of the inhabited world. In its prime, Mangalore was a favorite place of the Robart kings. There had even been talk of moving the capital city from Brebackerin to the Mangalore plain. That’s what it had been called then.
Because of its plentiful wildlife and mild climate, Mangalore became home to many Alterans. It was also the quickest way to pass from the southernmost tip of Altera to the northern cities; Angeline could only guess that the vampire master had made his home in one of those abandoned northern settlements. It made sense.
Sometime shortly before the great war that she had always believe marked the end of the vampires in Altera, when Alair Robart was just a baby, Mangalore began to change. It started slowly, and by the time that the people knew what was happening, it was too late. The once beautiful plains were being poisoned by the very waters flowing down from the mountains that had given Mangalore its rich and fertile ground. The noxious water overflowed the banks and soon turned the flat land into marshy, dreary, wetlands. The people who lived there evacuated to the other side of the Solera Valley and stayed there. No one had ever been able to explain why the river turned poisonous, and now Angeline wondered if it was the Clan who had tampered with the water in another attempt to meddle in the lives of the human race.
Without warning the ground in front of her disappeared, and Angeline sank deep into a pool filled with rank weeds. The water washed over her head and she surged up, gasping for air. She flailed behind her trying to grab onto anything solid and then sank again. The water was so heavy, and it felt like it was pulling her in. She pushed up again and sucked at the air that now burned her lungs.
Again she tried desperately to find a handhold but her hands met nothing but empty air. She tried to kick but her legs were tangled in her dress. Just when she thought she would sink beneath the foul water and succumb to an unfair and early death, she felt a strong hand grasp hers and drag her up. Seconds later she was lying on the soft ground choking out water and trying to breathe properly again. She felt like all the strength had gone out of her limbs. She rolled over onto her back and looked up at her savior.
Two violet eyes stared back at her.
Angeline sat up and shimmied back as far as she could. The girl who had saved her sat on her haunches and watched Angeline warily. Her black hair was pulled back in a long ponytail, and she wore a leather shirt and breeches. Angeline couldn’t help but see the resemblance to her own features.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
The girl said nothing. Then she stood and gestured to Angeline to get up. Angeline had no idea if the girl was a threat or not. She wished that she had learned more about harnessing the power of the thing inside her. She knew that it would have been able to sniff out the girl’s intentions.
The girl was still watching her and then she jerked her head in the opposite direction and turned. Two steps later the fog was already closing around her. She stopped but didn’t turn. “Unless you want to end up dead, you probably should follow me,” she said. Her voice was light but bold.
Angeline felt the thing inside bubbling up, but it wasn’t fighting her. She took it as a good sign. She quickly got to her feet and caught up to the girl, who began to walk again.
“Where are we going?”
“You ask a lot of questions for someone like you. That’s different,” the girl said. She didn’t look at Angeline. “Step only where I step.”
Angeline was forced to step behind the girl. It rankled her. A Robart didn’t follow anyone. “What do you mean someone like me?”
The girl sighed. “Another question.”
“If you’d answer at least one of them perhaps I wouldn’t have to ask them,” Angeline snapped. She was having trouble keeping up. “Most people don’t just save you and then expect you to follow them without at least telling you their name.”
“Becca,” was the reply.
When the girl offered nothing else, Angeline decided to play along, at least for a while. The girl moved confidently through the fog and didn’t seem concerned about falling into any sinkholes. If she got more than three or four paces in front of Angeline, the fog started to close in. She was desperately afraid that the girl would leave her there if she failed to keep up.
After what seemed like an eternity, Angeline looked up and realized that they were standing in the courtyard of a massive stone structure. Here the fog fell away. She could see three tall turrets jutting out into the sky, and above them, the peaks of the mountains.
“What is this place?”
“Welcome to Craven, Princess. We’ve been expecting you.”
Angeline looked questioningly at the girl, and then heard the howls. She looked back at the walls of the castle, and saw wolves prowling the walkways.
“Oh no,” she groaned. I guess the Clan found me after all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Connor felt like an eternity passed from the moment that Angeline flew out of the cellar and into the sun and the moments before he was able to follow. The time in between had been spent in long pauses of silence and intense debate about Angeline’s future.
Of the three of them, Searon was the least concerned about anything other than how the perception of Angeline and what had happened with her would affect him. “If my father doesn’t think she has control he’ll kill her himself, Robart or not,” he kept saying, as if that was an effective way to end the discussion.
Caspian, for his part, was digging through the few books that he had managed to squirrel away in his flight from his home. “We grew complacent. She exhibits tremendous control, but she is still newly transformed. I need more time with her.”
“Time is the one thing we do not have,” Connor snapped. “That’s even assuming she’s alive if and when we find her. She’s going to have almost a whole day’s lead on us. The question is, where is she going to go?”
“If you are asking will she try to return home, I think the answer would be no. At least not yet,” Caspian said, chewing on the end of his pencil.
“Why?” Connor demanded. “She’s been trying to think of a way to escape ever since I kidnapped her. Why wouldn’t she want to go home?”
“Well, Angeline wasn’t the one in control when she left,” Caspian said. “I think we can assume that the first thing that demon is going to want to do is feed. And feed. And feed some more.”
Connor felt sick. Angeline wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if she harmed a human.
“Good thing that the Forgotten Lands aren’t known to be populated, isn’t it?” Caspian said cheerfully. “Last thing we need is another wraith infestation. No, out here the most she’s going to find is wildlife.”
“You said that the Clan inhabits the bog,” Connor said, starting to pace the room. Searon had settled onto the floor and looked like he was dozing in the corner. Connor had no idea how the man was so calm, other than the fact that he was a lunatic.
“I said that the Clan has been known to inhabit the bog,” Caspian clarified. “The Grand Counsel is at least somewhat aware of their movements. They usually keep a wide berth from vampire covens, at least, when there had been more of them, to ensure there isn’t anyone who took it upon themselves to challenge the truce. They are not completely invincible, at least not yet.”
“What if they decided that Angeline is the One?” Connor said. He wanted to claw at the doors and run after her and catch her, but he knew that he couldn’t. He felt smothered in the small space with the madman and his flunky.
“Then that was her destiny, Connor.”
Connor stopped and turned at the change in the old man’s voice. Searon was still asleep, but Caspian was looking at him with the strangest look on his face. His eyes had gone blank, and Connor felt a tendril of fear sweep across his chest.
“You will leave her be, Connor,” the old man said. But Connor knew that the voice wasn’t Caspian’s. It was someone far older. And for whomever it was to have gained control over Caspian that easily meant that the being was someone very powerful. “If you wish to get your heart’s desire, you will forget you ever met the princess. You will return to the coven and when the time comes, I will summon you and you will come. If you do as I ask, you will be set free.”
The words washed over Connor and his mind felt fuzzy.
“Free,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
As Becca escorted Angeline through the gateway and into the inner courtyard, Angeline felt the weight of many hostile eyes. She didn’t look up, but knew that the wolves were glaring down at her.
“They aren’t happy with you. It is only my Master’s wish for you to live that is keeping you alive,” the girl said.
“Why?”
“You killed three of their pack.”
Angeline looked down at the blood on her dress and felt faint. “I didn’t mean to.”
The girl looked at her evenly. “You did. It doesn’t matter to them which side of you did the damage. It is done. That is a weight you will bear forever and a debt you owe to them that will never be able to be repaid.”
Suddenly Angeline wanted to be away from this place and this girl and the angry eyes of the wolf pack. She wanted to be back in her favorite seat in the abandoned turret with her favorite book. In that place in her mind, the figure that approached her flickered. One moment it was Malin, the next moment it was Connor. Back and forth. Her life was never going to be the same again.
They crossed the courtyard, past a stone fountain with a sculpture that at one time had been two young children at play. But the years had worn their features away, and water no longer spouted from the long horn in the one’s mouth. There was only decay here. Once inside, the girl pointed to a small door off to the right.
