by E. M. Knight
Morgan and I have never discussed anything about this. What she just told the Court is an outright lie.
And, suddenly, I feel very much the seventeen-year-old girl that I am. Doubts and uncertainty start to crowd my mind. Who am I to pretend any sort of influence over creatures who’ve been alive ten, twenty, thirty times longer than I have? I might be one of them, yes, and I might be most powerful … but all of that fades to insignificance in light of what they are tasking me with.
They wait for me to speak. The silence stretches. Somebody coughs.
“Eleira,” the Queen’s voice is terse. “Tell the Royal Court that you can feel the power contained within the throne. We will begin with that.”
I give a jerky nod. The back of my neck starts to break out in a cold sweat. What on earth is happening to me? Why am I so nervous? This is completely unlike who I am!
I take a deep breath. Just like improv at Stanford, I think. I clear my throat. “I—”
But just then, a strange, black mist starts to collect in the corners of the room and steals my attention. It pools into a thick, swirling liquid.
None of the other vampires seem to see it. Their eyes are all on me.
But I cannot look away from the growing darkness.
From out the corner of my vision I see a small, dark shape dart into the room. My breath catches.
The Narwhark!
I feel a shift in the air, and suddenly, everything slows.
Time stretches out before me in an endless sea of discontinuity. A vampire on the other side of the table opens his mouth to speak, but his lips are moving at a snail’s pace. It’s like watching a video recording playing at one one-hundredth of its usual speed.
The darkness grows. It becomes thicker. The sweat on my back turns into a whole-body chill. I try to find the Narwhark again, but it has disappeared. It moves so fast, faster than I’ve seen it move before.
I wait for the alarm call to go up. But no vampires have noticed the demon. It wouldn’t even matter if they had, because they are still frozen in time. The black in the corners now extends to cover the whole of the ceiling. It seeps down the walls, like an oily paint, and pools onto the floor. It swirls and collects beneath each standing vampire, all of whom are absolutely oblivious to it.
Has time truly slowed, or is my mind operating at hyper-speed?
Carter’s lips are still moving, caught in the first syllable of his first word. But no sound reaches me.
Yet the chill from the blackness extends to envelop me. The cold washes through me in angry waves, lashing through my muscles and bone. I want to groan. I want to cry out. But there’s nothing I can do, because I, like the rest of the vampires, am caught in some type of time warp. My mind works, but my body is dismally slow in comparison.
The black continues to come, to flow out onto the floor. It’s thick like oil but non-reflective. In fact—if anything—it catches and absorbs the light. When I look at it, it’s like I’m looking at a space that isn’t there. Like I’m looking at an absence of reality. It’s like the black is not part of this world, but something come to erase it, like a hole punctured through a fine, colored painting.
And then, the demon leaps up from nowhere and lands at the back of Morgan’s seat. She is oblivious to it, just like all the vampires are oblivious to everything else. It wags its malformed tail in front of the Queen’s eyes and then looks at me, almost in mocking, almost in triumph.
Its small, beady eyes meet mine, and I see a spark of intelligence in them.
It knows I’m the only one who can see it, I think. It’s a frantic thought.
And then it dips its tail straight down and pricks Morgan’s shoulder.
The touch is soft, even delicate, and when it pulls away, only the smallest bead of blood comes out. If it wasn’t for my superior vampire vision, I wouldn’t even be able to tell the Narwhark drew blood from this distance.
That’s all it takes, one tiny jab, and then the demon springs off. It lands in the midst of one of those growing dark pits. It casts one more look at me, wily as a thief, and lets the darkness rise up and wash over its body.
And then it melts into the floor, as the darkness scatters away like water on a hot pan.
As soon as it’s gone, time speeds back up to normal.
“—frightened,” Carter says. “Look at her, she is not fit to lead, she is frightened of us all!”
Morgan swats at her neck, right where the Narwhark pierced her. She brings her hand away and looks at her open palm. Finding nothing there, she frowns. She turns to address me, when, all of a sudden, Raul surges up.
“SILENCE!” he screams, even though only Carter was talking.
All the attention turns to him. I want to speak, to give the Queen warning of what I saw, but my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth.
“SILENCE!” Raul rages on. “I DEMAND COMPLETE SILENCE!”
Fear quickly takes me. The voice coming from his lips is not his. The speech pattern is not his.
What’s worse, even though everybody has returned back to normal, I find that I cannot move. I cannot speak. I cannot affect anything at all.
Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.
Raul’s head jerks up in a spasmodic motion. His whole body twitches as words, not of his own volition, stream from his mouth.
“THIS IS MY MESSAGE TO YOU ALL. YOU HAVE SEEN OUR MIGHT. YOU HAVE SEEN OUR POWER. SUBMIT, JOIN US, AND YOU WILL BE SPARED IN THE WAR TO COME. BUT RESIST…” Raul’s arms fly out, and he points directly at his mother, “…AND YOU WILL END UP LIKE HER!”
Two things happen at once.
Morgan falters. Her knees give out, and she falls halfway to the floor. She catches herself on the table at the last possible moment.
At the same time, Raul collapses. He goes convulsing to the ground. Red froth spills from his lips as his body twitches, twitches, twitches, in horrible, jerking movements, like a marionette controlled by a demented child.
A great commotion breaks out. “You will not… have my son,” the Queen gasps. A flash of light bursts from her body. I see the tell-tale blue glow, but I also see the fine, individual strands of the spell, the kaleidoscope of colors that can only be glimpsed by those with The Spark. I see them rush like thousands of tiny fireflies toward Raul. They descend upon him and flow into his body. He becomes surrounded by a protective aura.
The convulsion stops. He goes still.
And then the Queen takes her final breath, closes her eyes, and drops to the floor.
Chapter Twenty-Four
PHILLIP
DEEP BENEATH THE HAVEN
It all happened so fast.
I knew something was wrong the moment Eleira stood up. When she took so long to speak, it’s like my mind started to splinter. I felt a menacing force enter the room.
But I could not pinpoint its source. Before I knew it, that splintering became a hammering at my temples. It would not let up. I seemed to be caught in a vortex, unable to tell exactly what was off but keenly aware that there was something.
And then Raul uttered that horrible scream and called for silence and delivered his speech…
I have no doubt in my mind who it came from. The vampires of Father’s coven. The vampires of The Crypts.
After Mother uttered that life-giving spell to spare Raul, absolute mayhem broke out. By then, I’d snapped to my senses and took command of the situation as Captain Commander should.
I tell the guards to run and lock down the stronghold. Nobody is to come in or out. I double the sentries on duty before telling all the gathered vampires to return to their rooms.
Carter, as expected, protests loudly. But I think his bravado more ceremonial than real.
Even he was shaken when he saw the Queen fall.
Finally, the hall is empty save for Eleira, Raul, Mother, and me. I give voice to the fear plaguing all of us.
“We’ve been compromised.”
Raul is awake, thank the heavens. He claim
s not to remember anything of what happened, though. My concern, as is Eleira’s, lies now with Mother.
“I saw the Narwhark,” Eleira says. “I saw it, and it looked at me. And I felt like it had… become different. Like it had grown. Like it knows what it’s doing, that it’s more than a creature of base instinct.”
I nod solemnly. “I suspect as much.” I go on to explain exactly what I felt when I watched the Narwhark feeding on Smithson’s two guards.
Eleira looks truly frightened by the time I’m done. “Morgan said she was the only one who could destroy it,” she says. “Because she is a witch. But she never told me what to do. I haven’t any idea of how to fight it!”
“Maybe you can’t,” Raul says darkly.
My head whips to him. “What?”
“If the Narwhark’s attack was unprovoked, that would be one thing,” my brother says. “But it happened at exactly the same time as the…” he shudders, “…message.”
He then proceeds to tell us exactly what the vampire who gave him the flesh wound said. About receiving a message from the King, about the link that he claimed would be formed between the master of the blade and the one it touched.
“But why didn’t you say anything before?” Eleira exclaims. She gestures wildly at the body of the queen. “That’s exactly the sort of information that could have helped her find a cure!”
“You speak as if she’s dead!” Raul snarls.
“Easy,” I stand between them. It doesn’t take much for me to assume my natural role as peace keeper. After all, I’ve been doing it for my two brothers for hundreds of years. “We don’t need to fight.”
“Eleira, you said you could probe me, look into the cause of my injury,” Raul says. “Do the same for the Queen. Tell us what her condition is.”
Eleira shakes her head. “I… cannot,” she admits. “I could do it to you because your mind is unguarded. But Morgan is a witch. Hers is closed off to all but the most skillful. And even then…”
“Even then what?” Raul asks.
“Even then, what do you think we would find?” Eleira says. “She’s breathing. She’s still alive.”
“But in a coma,” I say.
We’d tried waking her multiple times already, with no success.
“Yes, yes exactly!” Eleira says. “And the spell she cast just before she fainted—she did it to protect you! The only thing I know for sure is that if I try anything, on you, or on her, I risk disrupting it. There’s a balance here, a delicate balance, and I will not be the one who throws it off!” I see angry tears form in her eyes. “She gave you yet another chance, Raul. Do not waste it!”
It shocks me how stoic my brother remains. Here is the woman he claims to love, showing so much passion—and he is all-but-blind to it?
“Is it true?” Raul, ignoring all she said, asks. “What Mother told the assembly about the throne?” The looming crystal structure stands in the background like an enormous elephant in the room. “How it is the object that allowed her to maintain the wards? How it can only be linked to one witch at a time?”
Eleira slumps down. “I don’t know,” she admits. “This was the first I’d ever heard of it.”
“It’s like her staff, isn’t it?” I ask. “It allows the user to wield greater power?”
“I can sense the magic in it,” Eleira replies. “So yes. It is a torrial. But I think it’s unlike any other in existence.”
“What makes you say that?”
“From everything your Mother taught me—which, admittedly, hasn’t been much—torrials are greatly prized and very rare. The amount of magic needed to maintain consistent wards around all of The Haven is enormous. I appreciate that now. I think the throne might be one of the strongest ever created.”
I nod. “That makes sense.”
“We will need to send a delegation to The Crypts,” Raul says under his breath.
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“Somebody needs to talk to Father,” Raul says. He looks at me, and then over at Eleira. “We need peace between our covens. If we do not do something now, how many more lives will be lost? How much further uncertainty will we face?” He pauses for a moment and then says, “I will go.”
“What!” Eleira and I exclaim at the same time.
“It has to be me,” Raul continues. “I understand that, too. The message the vampire gave me in the fight—and the one that was passed through me today—they all point to that being the only choice. Phillip, you are responsible for the entirety of the guard. You cannot go. And Logan won’t entertain any but his sons. There is nobody else.”
“What about your leg?” I demand. “You’re in absolutely no state to go!”
“If I remain, it will only get worse. The Crypts are the one place where maybe—maybe—a cure can be found.”
I shake my head. “I don’t like it,” I say. “Not at all. But…”
“What?” Eleira demands. Her tears are very visible now. “What? Are you siding with him, too?”
I spread my arm. “Raul is right. What choice do we have?”
My brother gives a grim nod. “I’ll have to leave immediately. Before the Royal Court hears of the plan. They will bicker for days without taking action. We cannot afford to wait that long. Not just for me—but for Mother, too. She needs a strong, capable witch to heal her. I know of no other place where one can be found. Father demonstrated what his coven is capable of with the most recent attack. We survived, but he speaks of war as if it’s inevitable.” His hand tightens into a fist. “We must do all that we can to prevent it.”
He turns to Eleira. “You say you saw the demon stab Mother with its tail. But I cannot believe the Narwhark is being controlled in any way by vampires from Father’s coven. Can you?”
Eleira shakes her head. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Then it was just coincidence, the timing of it all?” I don’t bother hiding the skepticism that fills my voice. “The demon attack, the message from The Crypts? All of it just happened to occur concurrently?”
“We have two enemies right now. Both of whom are known to us,” Raul says. “Father’s coven and the demon. We cannot lump them together and pretend they are one.”
“But I do think that something—or someone—was telling the Narwhark what to do,” Eleira says.
Both Raul and I turn to her. “What makes you say that?”
“The way it looked at me.” Eleira shivers. “It was like it knew what was in my mind.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Raul continues.
“No, but the demon is made to kill. It is a predator, more so than any of us. For it to simply stab the Queen and leave… it had a purpose acting the way it did. The only way I can see that being possible is if it’s being manipulated by another entity.” Eleira looks uncertain for a moment. “That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
“Sometimes,” I say slowly, “you have to trust your intuition. You are becoming more attuned to it with every passing day. The vampire inside of you is growing stronger. I know,” I add, “because I am experiencing exactly the same thing.”
“We need to get Mother somewhere safe where she can be looked after,” Raul says.
“I’ll have her brought to her rooms. A double guard will be posted at her doors.”
“No,” Raul says. “Make it triple, at least.”
I nod grimly. Leave it up to my brother to take up rightful command.
Chapter Twenty-Five
RIYU
THE CRYPTS
“The message has been delivered, my King,” Dagan, the leader of my company, reports to Logan. “The Haven has been given its choice.”
My Father—no, the King. I have to stop thinking of him as family!—gives a curt nod. “How will they respond?”
Dagan is thrown off by the question. “I… cannot say, my Lord.” From my vantage point at the far wall of the room, I see the way his huge muscles tighten.
“You were there, weren’t you? You were the one wh
o last saw my son? You—” the King steps away from his throne, “—were the one who slashed him with that gruesome weapon.”
I am very attuned to the King’s moods, and I can feel the bridling anger barely contained beneath his words.
“As you gave me permission to,” Dagan counters.
“No,” Logan says softly. “I did not once give permission to use such a disgusting thing against my own kin!”
Dagan goes absolutely still. “When Beatrice gave it to me, I assumed—”
“I know what you assumed. It doesn’t take a brilliant strategist to figure that out! But Beatrice is not me, she does not speak for me, she does not act for me, and she certainly…” the King spits right into Dagan’s face, “…does not issue commands to the lieutenant of my First Guard that can be obeyed without first being confirmed with me!”
His anger is rising quickly.
“Where is the blasted woman?” Logan roars. “Who has seen her last? You, there, Riyu. I know she confides in you. Come forth.”
Surprise whips through me at being addressed directly. Most of my interactions with the King come from instructions passed down through the chain of command.
I step from my spot and approach. I bow my head in respect. I do not speak.
I learned long ago that it is best, for one as weak as I, to simply observe. Observe, stay quiet, stay in the shadows, remain hidden… remain unseen.
Until the proper opportunity presents itself to pounce without hesitation.
“She gave you the weapon and told you to do your…” the King’s upper lip twists in disgust, “…magic upon it. Is that right?”
I nod. Father—the King, dammit, I need to get my thoughts in order!—has never hidden his disdain for a male wielding magic.
Even though he understands the advantage magic can bring, he is of the old school, which believes that magic was only entrusted to women because they are the weaker sex. For a man to be born with The Spark… well, in the King’s eyes, it is a sign of that man’s inherent weakness.
“And then you gave the weapon to Dagan, who did not hesitate to make use of it. Is that so?”
