by Tanith Frost
Every word is true. I don’t know what I want anymore—promises I made a week ago seem vague and hazy, while the vision Lachlan offers of me as a pure, dark, vampire queen feels like the fulfillment of everything I’m meant to be but have been afraid to embrace.
“You’re right,” he says. “There’s so much more I wish to show you, but it won’t do you any good until your old self—not just your human self, but your Maelstrom self—is truly dead.”
I want to urge him onward, but this has to be his idea.
“Why were you in that graveyard when my vampires found you?”
Thank you. “I guess I was looking for some kind of closure.”
Lachlan sits up and rests his elbows on his knees. “Maybe that was a good idea. Not only because it brought you to us, but…” He’s thinking, weighing the risks and benefits. “I want you to bury your past. Tell me, would you try to run from me if I gave you a chance to go back to the graveyard?”
“No.” Pure truth no matter which way I fall. I won’t run. Not now. I just need space to decide. “Though I feel ashamed of needing this.”
He nods, and the implied disapproval stings. “The goal is what matters, not how you get there. If this is what it takes to allow you to become what this clan needs, so be it.” Lachlan rises from the bed and collects my clothes, setting each item on the bed next to me. “I consider you an investment. One I hope will pay off for everyone’s sake. Meet me here tomorrow evening, and we’ll get this finished.”
I guess that means I’m dismissed. I dress quickly and hurry back to my room, ignoring the knowing glance of the vampire I pass on my way up the stairs.
Every cell of my body is still oozing with physical satisfaction in spite of the heavy conversation. I’ve just been promised everything I ever wanted back in Maelstrom—acceptance, influence, a chance to prove myself and be recognized for all I have to offer. Power and pleasure. A monster’s version of heaven.
The void hums through me, so potent that I can’t feel the fire that lies somewhere in its depths even when I search for it. This feels right, and it’s what Lachlan wants for the world. All I have to do is stop fighting my destiny.
Still, as the night’s pleasure fades and I return alone to my room, I feel empty again. Cold.
Dirty.
Because the past still does cling to me, and the person I once was has nothing good to say about the one I feel myself becoming.
One way or another, I need to put an end to this struggle. We’ll see what tomorrow night brings.
18
Lachlan wasn’t kidding about not trusting me. I’m blindfolded again and riding in the back seat.
The tension in the car clings to me like a second skin, and it’s not just my heightened perceptions that are picking up on it. It’s the silence from the three lower vampires who have been assigned to escort me—guard me, really—on this little field trip.
When it’s been a while since our last turn and it seems safe to assume we’re on the highway, I speak. “Can I take the blindfold off?”
“I guess.” The voice, gruff and nasal at the same time, comes from the seat next to me. It belongs to a vampire who’s older than me and on the short side but intimidatingly fit—the kind of guy who probably has to turn sideways to get through a doorway. The other two, a male and a female, are smaller but similar to him—intimidating on a physical level but without the overwhelming void presence that would grant them access to the upper echelons of their clan.
They seem to do okay, though. They’re certainly not starving, and they were laughing and talking together until the moment Lachlan and I interrupted.
They’ve remained clammed up ever since he left me with them.
We’re cruising down the highway at a good clip, heading toward what used to be home for me. With every exit we pass, my tension grows. The only thing keeping me from losing my shit entirely is the knowledge that it ends tonight. One clear-headed, irrevocable decision is all I need, and then I’ll be at peace.
I feel like puking.
No one speaks again for the rest of the drive. Everything we pass is familiar, but I’m disconnected from it. The buildings, the cars, and the people are all part of a world I don’t belong to anymore. Humanity lives in the light whether they know it or not. I am a creature of the shadows with no desire to return to what I lost.
What I’m about to be freed from. Even if Daniel and I have lost everything else we once shared, I still owe him for giving me the chance to become this.
We park a few blocks from the cemetery, and the lower vampires check their weapons. Each carries a gun, presumably loaded with silver to slow me down if I run, but the female who drove also wears a half-dozen knives on a belt slung low over her hips.
“Problem?” she asks when she catches me eyeing them.
“Not at all. They’re beautiful. I was thinking that I’ve been lacking in weapons training.”
“I’m sure Bethany will find time to train you.” She pulls one free and lets the light play off of the blade. “Don’t try anything tonight if you don’t want a very personal experience with these.”
The two male vampires leave us at the gate, splitting up and disappearing into the darkness outside the walls.
“You go ahead,” the female says. “Lachlan said you’d want privacy, but don’t think for a second that means we’re not aware of every move you make.”
“I’m not going to run. And I don’t expect this will take long.” I pull my new coat tighter around me and head down the path alone. When I look back, she’s gone.
I don’t know any of their names. It doesn’t matter. They’re here to do a job, not to make friends. And I don’t care whether they like me. For now, their fear of Lachlan is enough to keep them in line, but one day they’ll respect me on my own merit.
Even out here, far from Lachlan’s influence and with the freedom to think my own thoughts, that future feels like a perfect fit.
Almost perfect, anyway. I just need to let go.
The evening’s light snowfall covers the gravestones and the gaudy fake flowers that decorate them. A few families have seen fit to place poinsettias in honour of the season. Still fake. I remember being pissed about that rule when I wanted to honour my parents with something fresher. That anger is gone, replaced by mild distaste for the fact that humans need these memorials at all.
I remember needing such things, but Lachlan’s right. My past has made me what I am, but that doesn’t mean I have to let it anchor me.
There are corpses beneath my feet. I cross their final properties without concern that I’m disrespecting them. They don’t mind if I step on the dirt where their mortal remains are slowly decomposing. They’re dead, but they’re not like me. If I play my cards right, I could see generations of them come and go. Such temporary creatures.
My steps slow as I approach the graves of the humans who were once my parents, as I finally read the name on the newer grave.
Aviva Siobhan Walker. Beloved daughter and sister.
And the dates. Birth. Death. The bookends of a human life.
They must have buried an empty coffin, maybe hoping that my remains would turn up some day and make their way here. Who decided that, I wonder? Surely not Gracie. She was only fourteen when I died. Our grandmother, then. I wonder how much they charged her for the empty box.
Humans can be predators, too.
The dead grass is thicker on my parents’ graves. Names. Dates. Beloved.
“This is all it comes to.” My voice catches me by surprise.
Is this what I remained attached to after my death? I have so much more now, and the thought of returning to what I was—weak, unaware, wrapped up in pain and struggle that, in the end, mattered so little—seems like a nightmare. Yet I did want to go back to it. I fought against becoming what I am now. Foolishness, but there’s no point regretting it. There’s only the future, the path I choose tonight.
I sit and rest my back against my own headstone—or
rather, Aviva’s. Siobhan’s, as she was known in life. We’re connected, but I feel no ownership. The ground beneath my ass is frozen solid.
The space next to me is empty. That’ll be my grandmother’s, and probably soon. She seemed young and vital before my father died. Then she had to take on the burden of raising her granddaughters, dealing with their pain on top of her own. She looked old even before my untimely death. I can’t imagine the toll that took on her.
Pain. God, but life was pain. Losing my mother, then years later my father. Even smaller things—the insecurity of relying on other people, trying to fit in, making friends and losing them. Even things I thought of as the best parts of life like faith, family, and love ended up breaking my heart. But it wasn’t the losses themselves that hurt, really. It was my own attachment that caused pain.
Humans are weak. Weakness causes pain. Love causes pain. And maybe in the end it’s a delusion, an emotion that evolved because they needed a sense of security in a world they weren’t strong enough to be alone in, or because they needed to ensure the survival of their species. It certainly proved to be false in the wretched human Lachlan and I fed on last night.
In Daniel, if he truly hates me now. And in me, if I can choose to turn my back on him simply because he’s done it to me.
That’s what I came to Tempest wanting to fight for—my right to cling to weakness, to preserve other powers that directly oppose the void, to save a clan that took advantage of my inexperience. Reasonable goals when I didn’t understand how things could be better for me.
As I turn my attention inward, as I drink in the purity of the void and feel its strength coursing through me, I can imagine what it would be like to let go. This is how vampires should be, why I’ve been told from the start that there’s no room for love and selfless compassion. The world is cold and hard. As Aviva, I’ve used affection and blind loyalty as crutches because I didn’t believe I was cold and hard enough to survive on my own.
What might Ava be capable of? I can feel the answer in my bones. I could be a monster and a queen. I could fulfill every desire without guilt. If I leapt from this tightrope, I could have everything Lachlan has promised.
Yet something is holding me back. Something I’m having trouble remembering even now that I’m alone and free to think whatever thoughts I wish.
The void whispers through me, nearly audibly encouraging me to cease my struggle and sink into its depths. To drown. To die and become a new creature again.
The wind blows cold and hard, setting the maple’s skeletal branches dancing behind me, their shadows drawing my eye to a statue that stands guard over a grave not far from this one. The marble angel stands with wings folded and arms spread, doomed to witness with blank white eyes as time and weather soften the corners of his robes and wear away the names of those he watches over.
I sit up straighter. Angel. Demon. Both. Neither. Void and light in one creature. If anyone can help me with this, it’s him. I call to mind a name I’m supposed to be trying to forget and whisper it aloud.
“Elihienecht.”
I wait. The wind subsides. I press my hands against the frozen earth, digging my fingers in.
But time doesn’t stop, and no familiar form emerges from the shadows.
He said he wouldn’t come if I called him, but it still hurts. I thought he felt something for me in the end. But this is for the best. It’s further proof that I have to rely on myself, solve my own problems, decide what’s best for me. And in that, I guess the answer is clear. Pure void. Pure power. Control. Not letting others use my strength for their own purposes anymore, not propping up the weak. A vampire’s heaven on Earth—one that’s claimed through power, not given by grace.
The words sound right. They still fit badly, but that will get better with time. As Bethany said, there’s no shame in struggle as long as I don’t let it weaken me.
I stand and brush the dirt from my hands. “Goodbye, Aviva,” I whisper. It hurts, but it’s pain that will allow me to survive. “Thank you for everything you taught me. You were who you had to be, overcame what you had to so I could be something…”
My voice trails off. I can’t make my lips form the word better.
Maybe it’s the fire in me that’s holding me back from becoming a pure being of the void. If only—
Voices approach, speaking in hushed tones, heading straight for me. Humans. I walk away from them but pause and crouch behind the marble angel. Not because I want to make sure they’re safe from the other vampires, who wouldn’t dare attack them so boldly without permission, but because the woman’s voice is crawling up my spine, tugging at my heart.
I should leave. Now. I’ve made my decision. I’m so close to not being torn apart anymore. To being valued, protected, respected.
My stomach churns as the humans step into view, illuminated by the light of the moon and the electric lantern the young man carries.
I don’t have any attention to spare for him. It’s all on her.
On Gracie.
My baby sister has grown a little in the years since I died, but she’s still small. Her blond hair is cut in a short bob, framing her pink cheeks where they’re visible at all under her toque. She’s dressed in black from head to toe, with heavy eye makeup to match.
Her friend looks nervously over his shoulder. “You sure this is okay?”
She pats his arm reassuringly. “The gates were open. There’s nothing wrong with coming in. It’s actually better that we’re late—I need to do this when no one’s around. Give me a minute alone here, and then we can go. Just don’t let the ghosties and ghoulies get you.”
He scowls at her, unaware of how seriously he should take her warning. He’s cute, maybe a few years older than her. The kind of clean-cut guy I once went for—the kind that so often ends up being more trouble than he’s worth, but even in his irritation, his affection for her is clear. “Fine, then. I’m taking the lantern.”
Gracie watches as he continues down the path, then unzips her coat and pulls a single long-stemmed rose from beneath it.
Run, my rational mind whispers. This has nothing to do with you. She’d be horrified if she knew what you’ve become.
But my body won’t move.
“I know it’s been a while. In my defence, though, you’re not actually here to listen to me.” Gracie’s voice is thick, as if she’s going to cry. “But um… it’s almost Christmas, right? Henry and I are leaving tonight to visit his parents. I wanted to come by with your present sooner, but…” She sets the rose on my grave and wipes her eyes on one mitten. “Anyway, I’m here now. I know you think fake flowers are bullshit, so I always talk Grandma out of bringing them. I remember you liked real ones, but I have no idea what your favourite was.”
My throat tightens. My eyes burn.
This is not happening.
Gracie sits beside my grave and puts her hands over her mouth, but she does a poor job of holding back the sob that follows. “I wish I knew you better. I wish you were still here. Doctor Carson tells me I shouldn’t feel guilty, that you wouldn’t have wanted me to… but even aside from all of that, I just miss you.”
I can’t leave without drawing attention to myself, so I try to shut her out. Her grief should remind me of the pain I’m leaving behind. The flower should be laughable—an empty gesture that will do nothing to bring me back and will only be an annoyance to the cemetery’s caretaker. This human is tied to regrets and grief when she should be out enjoying what little time she has in this world. A case study in the pain and futility of love.
But tears are freezing to my cheeks, and it’s only by not breathing that I’m able to avoid the kind of heaving sobs that come from her as she leans forward and rests her head on her arms beneath my headstone.
“I’m sorry, Shivva,” she sighs, using the name she called me when she was little, when Siobhan was too much of a mouthful. She dropped it around the time she developed her rebellious attitude. I’d forgotten about it.
; Something in me snaps, releasing an unwanted surge of memory and emotion that burns through me like cleansing fire as I cling to the hem of the angel’s stone robes. I’m not transported back in time, and not for one second am I the human I once was. But I remember the love that held me and Gracie together even when we swore we hated each other. Love that got us through our father’s passing even if it was never enough to make the pain go away.
Love that led to my own death. I was fiercely protective of her even when she pushed me away. I want to see that as a mistake, but I can’t. I’m proud of my living self, whose last action was to instinctively protect her family.
Words I’ve been trying to suppress rise in my memory: The pack doesn’t give a shit about keeping score. What matters is that we’re there for each other, that we help each other when we’re strong and accept help when we’re not.
Words of fire. Not void. Not mine.
So why do they cut so deep and ring so damned true?
Gracie’s friend Henry returns and hurries closer when he sees her crying. He drops to his knees, mindless of the dirt that’s going to stain the knees of his pants, and pulls her into his arms. She rests her face against the front of his coat and cries.
He doesn’t ask why. Maybe this is a regular thing for her, or maybe it just doesn’t matter. She’s in pain. He can’t take it away, but he can let her know she doesn’t have to bear it alone.
She cries herself out quickly and wipes her eyes again as she stands, smearing her makeup. “I’ll be fine,” she says. “It’s just a hard time of year.” She kisses the tips of her fingers and brushes them over our father’s gravestone, then our mother’s.
“You’ll see them all again someday,” Henry assures her, and my heart threatens to split up the middle.
They walk away hand in hand, and I let them go. I have no business intruding on their lives, shaking the foundations of everything they believe to be true about the world, putting them in danger. Not even if my arms ache to hold my little sister close one more time and tell her I’m okay.
