by E. M. Knight
“All the easier to keep them meek.” Her hand stops in my hair and she makes a fist, forcing me to look up. “You know how much trouble they can cause if they are not. And they are truly only here for one purpose. To supply our banks with blood. To give sacrifice for The Hunt.”
I jerk away from her. “When Eleira rules…” I begin.
Mother laughs. “That is a long time coming. I assure you of that. You think, after six-hundred years, I would relinquish control so easily? So quickly? Eleira will be groomed for the throne, and shaped into a ruler of my liking. The succession will not happen overnight. Transforming her before her eighteenth birthday was important. Finding her, making her a vampire, exposing her to us and ensuring she was the right one… all of those were objectives with a deadline. Now that she’s here? We have years. We have decades.”
“Is that why you were so reckless when you attacked the demon?” I scowl. “The blast could have killed Eleira.”
“No,” Mother says. “It could not have. I aimed straight for the Narwhark. How was I to know the fool girl would leap in the way?”
My lips form a thin line of displeasure. I have to concede that Mother is right.
It still doesn’t make me feel better about any of this.
“So how did she come to be possessed? Was it the book, the contra’ torrial that took over?”
“No. The contra’ torrial is merely a device. To take possession of another’s mind requires conscious will. It was done by someone who thinks herself extraordinarily clever. Someone who, in reality, is not.”
I look at Mother. “You sound like you have a suspect.”
“Yes,” she says. “The woman you brought with you from The Crypts.
“Victoria.”
Chapter Forty
JAMES
I come to with a horrible pounding between my ears.
Groggy, I push myself up. As soon as I do, I gasp—pain envelops my body.
I groan and roll over to stare up at the sky. The stars are mocking me in their serenity. I’ve never hated the night as much as I do now.
I think back to everything that brought me here… and all that went wrong.
As soon as Father said I’d be made prisoner, a dozen of his guards ran out and apprehended me. I was dragged through the many twisting hallways of The Crypts and brought through the mess hall, where Dagan and the others were taking in their victory feast.
The scent of blood was strong all around me. All the vampires had enormous goblets of the stuff. It smelled fresh, vital, and impossibly enticing. My body ached for just one drop, after all that I’d been through.
But—such a mercy was not in the cards.
I was chained to a massive spit. A fire was started beneath me. The heat it gave off was terrible. Then, I had to endure hour after agonizing hour as the vampires of my former company came up to operate the mechanism. They spun me over the flames and laughed and laughed as my skin burned and I screamed.
Again, the chains were silver. Obviously. They were silver so that I couldn’t get out.
When the first round of torture was done, I was cut free and dropped straight into the fire. The agony that took me then was indescribable. My skin, already blistering, charred and burned in the flames. I leapt out as fast as my weakened muscles would let me.
I was doused by a bucket of… not water, but piss.
I still shudder at the memory.
With that ordeal over, the guards grabbed my arms again and hauled me away. I had not the energy to fight. Even though I was unchained, I was exhausted, so my feet dragged against the floor all the way up to the open-roofed tower cell.
That’s where I lie now. Stinking of piss and trapped on a little island jutting out from the earth.
I have to admit, in my depravity, that this type of torture cell is brilliant. It’s a single round pillar poking out from the ground. It’s surrounded by a moat—a moat filled with molten silver.
The heat that keeps the metal liquefied is immense. I feel it even now. It combines with the waves given off by the silver and coalesces into a double-whammy of agony. Above me, high above me, a long, long vertical slit is cut into the ceiling. When the sun rises in the day…
The rays will shine straight down upon me.
The anticipation of that happening? It’s the worst. Worse than the molten silver, worse than the heat, worse than being doused with that foul, despicable, stinking yellow excreta.
I curl up into myself in the middle of the tiny space I have been allocated. I try not to shake.
James, I think. How far you have fallen.
Chapter Forty-One
RAUL
Mother and I stop outside of the room Victoria is being held in.
She looks at me. “Hold your tongue,” she warns. “I know you’re angry. But you have to let me take care of this.”
Oh, you have no idea how angry I am, I think.
The only reason I left Eleira is because Phillip agreed to watch over her while I joined Mother in this confrontation.
The Queen opens the door. Victoria—short, tanned, blonde—raises her head and blinks at us, almost lazily.
Hatred such as I have never known it rages inside me.
“You.” I snarl. “You nearly killed—”
“Hush.” Mother cuts me off. She places a hand on my arm. “I said I would deal with this. Remember?”
I grunt and grudgingly step back.
“Trouble in the Soren family?” Victoria offers sweetly. “I wonder what ever could be the cause?”
She gives a little smile.
“All right, witch,” Mother says. “Time to test your true loyalty.”
“Oh, how boring,” Victoria sighs. “Is that what you’re here for? I would have thought after all these days of keeping me locked up you would have come with something more… interesting.”
“Close the door,” Mother tells me. I move to comply.
“Now,” she says, seating herself across from Victoria. “I’m going to ask you a question. You’ll give me an answer. If I think you’re lying…” casually, Mother lets a silver whip drop from her sleeve, “…well, we’ll find out just how resilient you are to the effects of the metal once your powers have been stripped away, hmm?”
That’s my cue. I fly across the room and jab a syringe into Victoria’s neck. I press down and deliver the serum before she screams and throws me off.
I push myself upright. Victoria hasn’t moved. Her mouth works, but no words come out. She presses a hand to her neck, takes it away, looks at it, and cries out in shock. “You’ve poisoned me!”
“No, no, no,” Morgan says. I join her across from Victoria. “The effects of the serum are temporary. They will wear off in a matter of hours. But, as I’ve warned you before… I know ways of making them permanent.”
Victoria scowls at us with undisguised hatred. I feel her vampire strength ebb away. Bit by bit, it drains out of her like water from a leaky hose.
Mother adjusts her skirts. “Now we wait,” she informs Victoria, “for you to lose the power you’ve stolen from The Ancient.”
“They were given to me by right!” Victoria hisses. She bares her fangs and suddenly extends her claws.
“Nuh-uh,” Mother warns, all too casually. “Fight us now, and you would not like the outcome. That, I promise you.”
Victoria glares at me, then at the Queen. I feel her sizing us up in her mind.
I also feel her growing weaker and weaker as the serum spreads.
Her body sags with resignation. “Fine,” she says. “Ask me what you want to know.”
“You have a connection with Eleira,” Mother says. “I felt it before, so don’t deny it.”
Victoria shrugs. “What of it?”
“You used it to take control of her and open the Book of the Dead,” I snarl, unable to keep myself composed any longer. “You possessed her!”
Victoria looks at me… and laughs.
“The ‘Book of the Dead?’” she as
ks. “What, like the parchment from ancient Egypt? What on earth would I have to do with—”
Mother snaps the whip forward. It catches Victoria just beneath the eye. A line of blood forms on her face.
“Lie again,” Mother says, “and the next lash will take out one of those pretty blue eyes of yours.”
Victoria scowls at the Queen.
I step forward, and demand, “Well?”
“Fine, so I know of the book,” Victoria spits. “Anyone who’s studied magic does.”
“But who would give you the education for that?” Mother wonders. “The Spark you possess is miniscule. It’s barely discernible. Who would waste her time teaching you magic?”
Victoria dabs at her bleeding face. Her strength has been suppressed so much by the poison that I doubt she would even be a threat to Phillip—before he broke his human blood fast.
“That’s the question I asked myself the entire time,” she answers sourly. “My ‘education’ was a farce. The one tutoring me knew I could never amount to anything. But she made me try, anyway. I can’t tell you how many days I spent bashing my head against the wall, trying to understand what was wrong with me, why my spells never amounted to anything more than a pathetic fizzle, nothing more than a dull blue glow.”
She raises a hand in front of her face and cups her fingers. Her eyebrows knot together. She starts to focus. Her eyes concentrate on her fingertips. She focuses, and focuses, and focuses…
A tiny blue flame leaps from her forefinger. It disappears before I can even blink.
Victoria slumps back, clearly drained.
“There,” she tells us. “That’s all I can do.”
“Oh, child,” Mother smiles at her sadly. “How difficult it must have been for you.”
“Don’t mock me!” She fires backs. “It was my twin they wanted, my twin who died. My twin who would have made a great witch. But my teacher was too frightened to tell your husband, the King of The Crypts, that he had the wrong girl. After it all ended, I learned that was the true reason she persisted in my education. That was why I was made to suffer constant humiliation at her hand.”
“And your teacher,” Mother says. “Would I know her? What is her name?”
“She’s dead now, so not much use to you.” Victoria sighs. “She was a human caught by the vampires. Her Spark wasn’t very strong, either. It was much too weak for her to be useful to the King in any capacity other than as my tutor. She belonged to one of those off-shore witch clans, the ones who cowered before the might of the original Five Families.”
Mother considers this. “I know how difficult the training can be.”
I stare at her. Is that actual sympathy in her voice?
“But I also know you are not easily broken, or dissuaded from what you want. As you’ve so aptly demonstrated in your time here. So the next thing I want to know…” she stands up and walks toward Victoria, “…is exactly how one so weak as you took possession of Eleira’s mind. You have the connection with her. You can’t hide that.”
“From you, there’s not much I can hide,” she grumbles. “But if you’re looking for someone to blame, you can look elsewhere. Eleira closed her mind to me the moment she discovered the link. I have not been able to communicate with her since. And that—” Victoria shoots a defiant look at Mother, then at me, “—is the absolute truth. Do with it what you will.”
She draws her shoulders back and exposes her body. “Whip me, hurt me, I don’t care. There’s nothing more you will find.”
An icy silence falls upon the room as Mother considers this. Then, in a flurry of skirts she spins around and storms out the room.
“And you?” Victoria asks, turning to face me. “What will you do now that you have me alone, and your precious Eleira is injured?” She fills the other girl’s name with so much hate and spite and jealousy that it’s a wonder she managed to keep her features so calm.
“Less than you deserve,” I say. “But more than I should be capable of.” I toss her a tiny vial of blood. “Drink that. It’ll heal the cut on your face, lest it become permanent while your powers are subdued.”
She catches the vial… and with a dismissive sneer, chucks it against the far wall.
It cracks and splatters.
“This is a battle mark,” she tells me, chin raised. “And I’ll wear the scar proudly forever.”
“Suit yourself,” I say, and follow Mother out the room.
Chapter Forty-Two
JAMES
I’m pulled out of an uneasy slumber by a force bidding me to rise.
I blink, half in a daze. I look up at the opening above me. The evening sunset filters in. It’s nearly dusk.
I’ve survived the worst.
All my skin feels brittle. One wrong move, and I’m afraid it’ll crack like the sides of an encrusted sand castle. It’s dry, so horribly dry, that I half-expect it to flake off when I try to stand.
“RISE, JAMES.” The Voice of The Ancient echoes in my head. In a flash I’m upright, my muscles moving before my mind can even issue the command.
The blood rushes from my head from getting up so fast. I stagger forward, woozy. I only catch myself at the last possible moment to stop from throttling down into the lake of silver below.
“Over here, son,” Father calls. “Behind you.”
I turn around and face the man responsible for my pitiful state.
He smiles at me. It’s the sickening, crude smile of one completely in control. He’s changed into yet another one of his garish robes, replete with all the rings and jewels and bracelets that speak of his enormous wealth.
Beside him stands The Ancient.
My hands form into fists as hatred boils inside of me. Hatred, directed at both of them for subjecting me to this, for making me so wretched, so pathetic, so damn weak.
For torturing me, when I should be the one standing beside Father at the throne.
I force back a smile, however, that is as false as false can be. “Finally took an interest in your son’s condition, have you?” I ask. “The chamber is comfortable enough. You’ll have to do something about the gaping hole in the ceiling, though. Any lesser vampires might assume it’s been placed there for a reason. I doubt you’ll have many guests willing to return.”
“Already the comedian,” Father mutters. He kicks the drawbridge across. It crashes down beside me. He beckons me to come.
I cast one look at the roiling silver below me, suppress a shudder, and walk to him with as much grace as I can muster.
As soon as I’m with them The Ancient grabs my arms. I know better than to resist as he forces them behind my back.
“You’ve gained yourself a private audience with your King,” Father informs me.
“How fortunate,” I deadpan.
We walk through the myriad of twisting hallways to arrive in the throne room. Once we’re through the doors The Ancient lets go and positions himself by the only exit. Father sits on the throne.
There is a small, round table with a golden pitcher on it. Beside it is an empty cup.
The moment I enter the room I smell the fresh blood inside. I salivate. It’s been so very long since I’ve fed.
Farther motions to it. “Drink,” he tells me. “I want you at full capacity before I ask my questions of you.”
And what questions are those? I wonder.
I pick up the pitcher and pour myself a cup. I bring the blood to my lips and take a deep breath.
“This hasn’t been poisoned, has it?” I quip.
Father regards me dryly. “Don’t push it.”
I look back at The Ancient. “A drop of your blood in here would make all the difference in the world, you know.”
The older vampire stares at me and makes no move to respond.
“I guess not,” I mutter, and down the cup in a single gulp.
As soon as the blood passes my throat I feel the strength returning to my body. My skin begins to heal. My thoughts sharpen. The awful pounding in my
head goes away.
“Better?” Father asks.
“Much,” I respond. I tilt the cup at him in cheers. “Thank you.”
“So you can be grateful, after all,” he says. “When you think it will help you.”
“Honestly?” I put the cup down. I debate pouring myself another—I desperately want more—but I need to show Father that I possess restraint. “The way I see it, I’m entirely at your mercy. So why bother fighting? It’s only you I need to convince that we’re both on the same side.”
“Yes,” Father murmurs. “We’ll see about that. Beatrice considers you a most valuable asset. She’s convinced me to give you another chance.”
That must be the woman. “Smart of her to recognize my merits,” I say. “Does that mean no more torture?”
“For now,” Father concedes. “If you cooperate. My friend has a question for you.”
“I CANNOT ENTER THE HAVEN,” The Ancient roars in my head. His voice is full of rage even though not a flicker of expression shows on his face. “WHY?”
I look at him and then back at Father. I hang on my heel as I consider.
“Do you…” I point in a flowery gesture at the King, “… can you hear him in your head, also? Because I think this would all be much easier if we simply use our tongues.”
“Don’t deflect the question,” Father grows. “Tell him what you know.”
“What I know? Why, I think it obvious. You,” I look at The Ancient, “cannot enter The Haven because you’re all the way over here…” I make a grand, sweeping gesture with my hand, as if over an atlas, “…and my former coven is far, far away, on the other side of the world. In North America.”
An invisible force lashes out from The Ancient and strikes me in the chest. I go flying back and crash into a pillar. The room shakes from impact.
“Not,” Father warns, “a good time to make jokes.”
“I’m not bloody joking,” I growl. “He asked me why he can’t enter The Haven. I answered. Because he’s too far away!”
“That’s not the type of entry he means,” Father says.
