by CK Dawn
My airway constricted and my breathing became heavy. I’d forgotten what it was like to be a human. The few measly steps had made me tired already. This was going to be fantastic when the entire student and staff population of Hunter Academy was chasing me.
I slowed down to catch my breath. I couldn’t let anyone know who I was until I got out of Hunter Academy. If Rune became suspicious of me, I couldn’t let him go back and tell everyone else.
Evergreens surrounded me as I tore through the forest. It was mostly darker than outside, but sunlight broke through in between the trees. Rune came to a dead stop at the edge of the forest, and I remembered that this area was forbidden to the students of the academy.
Good. Go away and leave me be. If he didn’t blabber about me to the rest of Hunter Academy, I wouldn’t have to deal with him.
I had my hopes too high, or perhaps I shouldn’t have turned around and allowed him to see my face, because the next second, he seemed to forget the forbidden aspect of the forest and chased after me.
I had no option but to lead him deeper into the forest, so deep that the people outside wouldn’t have a clue what would happen.
At a clearing, I spun around to face him.
“Take off your sunglasses.” Rune frowned, a heavy line etched between his brows.
I removed the dark glasses and swung my hair from it. My eyes never once left my target.
“Izella.” He breathed out. There was some shock, some bewilderment, and some other emotions I couldn’t identify in the way he spoke my name.
All of a sudden, I remembered the night he had me under him, his knee digging into my stomach and the way my body seemed to melt at his touch.
“How did you get in?” he asked.
I tossed the sunglasses aside. “Your gate is not as impenetrable as you think, especially not to descendants.”
The surprise in his eyes hardened into resolution. “I told you the next time I saw you, you wouldn’t be able to escape.”
Despite the seriousness in his expression, I couldn’t resist laughing out loud. This twenty-odd-years-old hunter was telling me, Izella Pristin, I wouldn’t be able to escape from him. He got something wrong. It was he who needed to worry who would come out of this forest alive. His chocolate and coffee eyes might melt me on the spot, and I might find his seriousness a turn-on, but I wasn’t the girl two hundred years ago who had foolish dreams involving a particularly handsome hunter.
“Rune, if you would stay here for the next three days and not tell anyone you saw me, I could let you go,” I said, even as my body craved his blood.
“Save your breath.”
“Such pity.” I dove after him with the knife I kept strapped to my thigh. I didn’t want to harm him, but I had no choice.
He shoved my arm away just before the edge of the knife grazed his skin. His leg hooked mine, throwing me off balance. In a smooth motion, he flung me to the ground. Before I got a chance to suck in a breath, he yanked his stake out from a compartment near his belt and jumped at me.
I rolled onto the ground to escape and leaped up at the first opportunity. A good five meters away from him, I brushed the leaves and grass off my skirt. “I admit you have potential,” I said. My tone was detached and unimpressed, but only I knew how close he was to injuring me. Overpowering him might not be as easy as I thought. I’d either underestimated him or overestimated myself in this almost-human form.
The crease between his eyebrows deepened. He looked from me to his hands and back again. “Stop playing games, Izella.”
Even he noticed the difference in my strength and speed.
The ache in my ankle where he knocked me over didn’t stop. There must be several scratches on my body, and none of them healed like they were supposed to. This was going to be a pain.
I pounced at him without warning, my knife slashing so fast that the metal blurred in my vision, but the speed was not nearly as fast as it could be. He dodged every one and returned the favor with his stake. When the knife and the stake connected, tendrils of blue light twirled around the stake. A strong force threw me back. Instead of the knife chipping into the wooden stake, the light snapped my knife in two.
I held the knife’s bladeless handle for a moment in mute silence. It had been a long time since one of my weapons was damaged in combat, and I had the feeling I couldn’t blame that entirely on reversification.
“I am impressed, Rune.” I tossed the handle.
He studied me for a while. “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?” I tilted my head.
“You seem weaker.”
“Because I missed out on my sleep this morning.” I gave him a nonchalant smile. “I do have to get going. Another time.”
I dashed deeper into the forest. Rune stood there, stunned for only a minute before he chased me.
This was pathetic. I, Izella Pristin, hadn’t needed to run away from anyone for two hundred years. Who would have thought that a young vampire hunter was all it took? I swore this was the first and last time I would use reversification. Not until this moment did I realize how fragile my eternal life was without descendants’ abilities and powers.
My lungs were squeezed out of oxygen and my heart must have been in fibrillation. The excruciating discomfort was making me lightheaded. I had no idea where I was going and where my destination was. All trees looked alike. If not for my overexerted legs, I would think I didn’t move an inch because the evergreens before me looked exactly the same as the ones in the last clearing where I confronted Rune.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I stopped, panting, my hand on the trunk of a giant evergreen. Rune circled me until he faced me. He seemed only slightly out of breath.
Curse the young hunters. They never learned to respect the elderly.
“You’ve lost your power,” he said with incredulous tone.
I sucked in the scent of the forest again and again. It took me a while to get my breathing under control. Once I did, I threw a fistful of dirt into his eyes, knocked him off his feet, and continued my marathon.
Who knew there was this gigantic forest behind Hunter Academy? This amount of ground couldn’t possibly be enclosed within the fences. Lucky for me, while I lost my destination, Rune lost me.
There it was again. The evergreen I had leaned on before. The forest either was full of the same-looking evergreens or I’d been going around in circles.
There was only one way to find out.
I tore off a strip of my skirt and tied it around a branch. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw the black flag fifteen minutes later.
The forest was enchanted. I shouldn’t be surprised.
Light waned around me. It was getting dark soon. At any other time, I welcomed the darkness, but now a sense of foreboding prickled my skin.
I was trapped in this enchanted forest in an almost human form. The night had never felt as cold as it did now. Something growled in the eerie quietness, and it took me a moment to discern it was my stomach. For the first time in two centuries, I was hungry for food.
The embarrassing sound continued into the night. It became so dark that I could barely see my own fingers. I sat against the evergreen and waited for the day to arrive.
Perhaps I could have come better prepared. Who knew reversification also made my body dependent on food?
The crackling of dead leaves signaled someone’s approach. Since Rune was the only other person here, it had to be him, not to mention the telltale blue light of his weapon. I shrank into the shadows and hoped he couldn’t see me.
He was either too tired or the light from his stake was not enough to betray my whereabouts. He passed me without fuss.
When the first rays of daylight illuminated the forest the next morning, I got up to continue my quest. My time was limited. I had to find that stake and leave Hunter Academy before I turned back into a vampire. Otherwise, I might not pass the gate alive.
For the entire second day, I went hunting for
the secret to break the spell of the enchanted forest. I tried making all right turns, then all left turns, then alternating left and right. None worked. They all took me back through the same loop.
At the end of the day when I saw the black flag tied to the evergreen again, I couldn’t hold it up any longer. My body collapsed to the ground, too exhausted, thirsty, and hungry to care about the dirt and worms I was lying on. I didn’t even try to hide when I heard Rune’s approach.
“Izella Pristin.” He kicked my legs.
His kick was not as strong as the previous day. It was a relief to know I wasn’t the only one affected by the enchanted forest.
“Get up!” he said.
“Why? Isn’t it easier for you to plunge your stake into my chest in this position?” I didn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t have mustered the strength even if I wanted to.
“I can’t fight you like this.”
I laughed. Such idiotic chivalry. “So if I didn’t fight back, you wouldn’t kill me? You could die many times over if you don’t break this habit.” Most vampires weren’t so honorable.
I expected him to rebut. He never did. Laughter burst out of my chest louder than before. At the same time, something heavy weighted down my heart. Two hundred years ago, Jayson had shown a similar type of chivalry. He didn’t finish me off at my weakest moment because he said he hadn’t detected blood on me and I’d never killed an innocent.
I opened my eyes. Light forced me to squint. After I adjusted to it, Rune’s form filled my vision. He looked exhausted and dirty, but the brightness in his eyes never wavered. He chased me because I was a threat to humans and his academy. He fought me, expecting me to fight back.
Childish! This was probably the only real chance he had of defeating me, and he was giving it up so easily.
“Rune, how about we make a deal?”
“I don’t make deals with vampires.” His words came out fast, as if he had no intention of considering my proposition.
I pushed myself from the ground and leaned onto a nearby tree. “We have been going around in circles. If you don’t do as I say, we will both die of hunger and thirst. There are absolutely no edible fruits in sight. I checked.”
How long could a human survive without food and water? I didn’t want to find out.
“I understand your need to defend the human race against vampires,” I continued when he didn’t say anything. “Don’t forget I was a human once. But you do want to walk out of this forest alive, don’t you?”
“That is my problem.” His voice was still cold and unrelenting.
“That is our problem. Think about your friends and family. Your parents will be devastated.”
“I don’t have parents.”
Everyone had parents. He must have meant that his weren’t alive. “Then think about Brydon.”
“He’s more than capable of taking care of himself,” he said.
It might have been my imagination, but I thought the resolution in his voice softened a little.
“Would he want you to die hunting a vampire?”
“That is what hunters do.” He scowled.
“You didn’t answer my question. Would he want you to die trying to kill me?”
He didn’t reply. I kept my eyes locked on his. Even if command didn’t work as it was supposed to, I wasn’t known as the best descendant in command for nothing.
“In a day or two, you’ll die of thirst,” I said with a firm voice. “The same won’t happen to me. As a descendant of an Original, I could survive a year without feeding. Your death would accomplish nothing.” I lied. I might die of thirst due to reversification. But then, I might also turn back into a vampire before it happened. Even so, I would more likely get hunted down or burned to death at the academy gate than anything else. None of those options appealed to me.
“How is working together going to make a difference?”
The corner of my lips curled into a smile. “I know of a spell that will get us out of here.”
He cocked his head.
“Vampires are not magical creatures. Few could use magic the same way you can,” I answered his unspoken question.
“Vampire hunters also don’t use magic.”
“Most don’t, but you do.” I pointed at his stake. Even now, there were tendrils of blue light twirling around and around the wood.
He stared at his stake for a moment. I held my breath, waiting for his decision. After a moment that seemed like hours, his fist tightened around the stake and he looked up at me. “This doesn’t mean anything. After we get out of the forest, we’re still enemies.”
Fourteen
Rune
A smile broke out on Izella’s face, so radiant that it seemed to brighten the entire forest. She looked different. Before, she was out of this world beautiful and perfect. Her skin ivory white with no imperfection whatsoever, her hair so black and shiny that it appeared silver, and her eyes a shocking shade of grayish green. Now, she was a tad shorter. Faint freckles sprinkled across her nose. Her hair and eyes were a common shade of black and green. She seemed more ... normal, like an attractive woman I could pass by in a grocery store, not a descendant and a vampire. Somehow, that made it harder to look at her.
Normal and approachable was not Izella Pristin. All the years of vampire history lessons had taught me not to let my guard down on a descendant.
Even now she might be influencing me, but she was nothing if not convincing. Her logic made sense. I hoped I wouldn’t regret my decision later.
“A century ago, I came upon an interesting spell book. The first page in that book was a spell for seeing the truth under enchantment,” she said.
“You brought the book here?” I glanced at her. She wore a black blouse and a torn skirt that revealed too much of her creamy thigh. Nowhere on her body could she hide a book.
“No, I memorized it.”
I was impressed. I had a hard time remembering the vampire history I’d read a semester before. Apparently, she didn’t have any problem recalling a spell she read a century ago. Is that also a special ability of descendants?
She looked at me like she could read my mind. “I tried to use the spell a hundred times and failed a hundred times. Ever since, that particular spell never left my head.”
“And you think I would succeed?” Hunter Academy was not a mage academy. Although I had potential, everything I knew about spells came from trial and error, including the light that strengthened my weapon.
“Do we look like we have a choice?” She arched an eyebrow. “Listen, the book said to concentrate magic in your eyes, flicker your staff at the area you want to see, and chant veritatem revelare.”
I frowned. First, I didn’t have a staff. Second, magic ran rampant in my body without order or control. Concentrate magic in my eyes? That was easier said than done.
I didn’t bother to tell her. She didn’t seem like she knew anything about how magic worked except for the spell. There was no staff, so I used my stake. I didn’t know how to concentrate magic, so I stared at the forest with an intense glare.
“Veritatem revelare!” I cried, pointing my stake directly at the part of the forest in front of me.
Nothing happened.
“Veritatem revelare!” I cried again.
Still nothing.
I chanted again and again until my throat parched and my voice turned hoarse.
This was ridiculous. The mere notion of a hunter working with a vampire was inconceivable. It was Izella Pristin. She had influenced me to show her Hunter Academy, she injured Brydon, and she infiltrated the academy.
What was I doing? Instead of protecting the academy and killing the person who’d attacked us, I was trying to perform a spell for her.
What was wrong with me?
I dropped the hand holding onto the stake. Just as I was about to turn around and confront her, something flickered at the edge of my vision. I looked in that direction, but it was gone.
“Veritatem revelare!”
I pointed my stake in the direction.
The scenery rippled. The effect only lasted a second before everything shifted back into place.
“I saw it,” I said.
“What?”
I didn’t realize she’d come so close to me. Her large eyes gazed at me behind her lush lashes. She tilted her head to look up at me, her lips parted in excitement. At this angle, I could see the perfect arch of her neck and the way her throat moved when she stared at my carotid. The tip of her tongue flickered across her lips, and she swallowed.
I stumbled back a step, my heart several beats too fast. I’d hunted many vampires, and I knew the physical signals of their hunger all too well. Somehow, this time the feeling was different than before.
“This way.” I tore my eyes from her and walked in the direction of the path. Right now, there was a cluster of trees, so close together that a person couldn’t possibly squeeze through. I’d passed this location many times in the previous two days. If not for the spell, I would never thought to walk straight at the overgrowth.
Izella stared at me as I strolled into a tree, but even as her eyes widened, she didn’t say anything to stop me. If it were the other female hunters I know, they would ask a hundred questions before I could proceed.
Izella was right next to me, walking into the tree like it wasn’t there. A strange feeling radiated from my chest. She didn’t wait for me to test the route out. She didn’t even hesitate to stride alongside me, face first into the bark. She had absolutely no reason to trust me, yet she did.
The trees disappeared the moment our noses slammed into them.
I saw the path again. This time, without having to chant the spell Izella taught me.
The scenery before us was like fairy tale. There was a small cottage with a roof made of straw and body of wood. The amber paint on the wood were faded and peeled, but it only added to the antique look of the place. A bow hung against the wall behind the porch, and weeds had grown tall enough to reach the windows of the cottage.
