“Well, now there will be two holes,” Deven corrected. And even through his anger, she could hear it: Emotion was seeping back in through his defenses. She could feel him fighting it. He was trying not to break down, and failing; Miranda’s heart broke for him. She wanted more than anything to put her arms around him.
There were centuries of loss, a dozen lifetimes of wandering alone in the dark, in his words as he told Nico, “I don’t care what you have planned. I don’t want you . . . and I don’t want to live. I won’t take another life with me . . . I’ve already taken too many. But now I’m free, and I can set this right. Please . . . just go inside. This is what I want.” He turned pleading eyes on David. “Just let me go . . . David, it’s time for you to let me go.”
Miranda looked over at David, expecting him to respond, but before he could say anything, he drew an astonished breath, his eyes widening, staring at Deven. Miranda followed his gaze and her heart froze in her chest.
“Nico . . .” She spoke quietly. “I thought you didn’t have time to make the new bond.”
Nico, too, was staring in obvious disbelief. “I did not.”
Deven seemed to finally notice their expressions and followed their eyes. He let out a strangled cry of denial.
His Signet was flashing.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no . . . no . . .” What strength he had left failed him. Slowly, shaking, he went to his knees in front of them, shaking his head.
Nico stepped closer to him, reaching into his robe for something. He lifted an object from his pocket, reverently, and held it flat in both hands so that they could all see it.
Jonathan’s Signet.
Its stone was healed . . . and it had come back to life, its emerald light rekindled, pulsing in exact rhythm with its mate.
Miranda couldn’t speak—neither could anyone else. But she turned her eyes to Deven, and saw his face . . . saw him lose all his fight, lose everything.
His eyes closed and his head bowed as he realized what it meant.
That one moment of freedom had been taken from him. He had lost his only chance. It had come down to the same decision as always: let the rising sun reduce him to ash and murder the one bound to him, or go on living . . . unable to shed the weight of centuries that it seemed would never end.
And in spite of everything, even in the face of the hollow, deathless years to come, there was still only one choice.
He stood, nearly falling over several times but ignoring their offers of help. Deven wavered on his feet, then steeled himself and took the half-dozen steps to the Elf. Without saying anything or looking Nico in the face, he took Jonathan’s Signet and fastened it with shaking hands around Nico’s neck.
The two stones began to pulse faster, and then to shine steadily. Miranda could feel it—both of them opening up fully, that circuit Nico had so carefully created in Deven splitting and joining seamlessly, on its own, the way Primes and Consorts had come together for hundreds of years.
Miranda understood, though understanding didn’t make it any less heartrending. Dea ex machina: In the end, Persephone had taken the burden of forcing a bond on Deven out of Nico’s hands. It was her will, not theirs, that made two into one . . . and thus the matter was settled.
Pairing was supposed to be a joyous thing; often born out of what seemed from the outside like love at first sight, the realization of having found one’s chosen, perfect partner always inspired at least a moment of bewildered, incandescent happiness. Even the vilest Prime could know that feeling if he ever found his Consort.
Nico felt it. She could see it in his eyes. But he wisely held back his reaction, for an emotional outburst might be enough to shatter what little was left of his new Prime into a thousand jagged shards . . . shards that Nico would have to somehow put back together again if he wanted them both to live. One impossible task at a time was quite enough.
Deven didn’t meet Nico’s eyes. He just crossed his arms protectively over his middle, where the wound from David’s sword was still closing, and walked away, back to the door and out of the rising ghost of morning.
Twenty
“All right,” David said, “here’s the deal. I refuse to let three quarters of the country descend into anarchy. I understand your concern, but your opinions are inconsequential to me. If I decide I want the entire Shadow World, I’ll have it, and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop me.”
The rest of the Council were stunned into silence, except for Tanaka—there was a particular breathing pattern the Japanese Prime had that meant he was secretly laughing. Tanaka had been the one to broker this phone call, a last chance for the Council to coax David back into their fold, but David was fairly sure Tanaka had mostly done it to amuse himself. It was a well-established fact that once David Solomon made up his mind there was no swaying him.
“But Lord Prime, please try to see it our way,” said Central America. “This consolidation of power appears rather threatening from the outside. The U.S. is vast—no one Signet can control that large a population.”
“Hide and watch,” David responded. “Prime Olivia is firmly in command of the East. As soon as Prime Deven has recovered and is ready to reassume power in the West, I will gladly surrender it. Right at this moment, however, the South, West, Midwest, and Mideast are all under my control. And if you should grow careless, Alvarez, Downing—I’ll cheerfully take Mexico and Canada, too. If any of you had listened to me when Morningstar first appeared, you might not be hiding in your Havens watching those of us with balls and brains save the world. Now, if you’ll excuse me, that’s enough of this nonsense for one night.”
David ran his finger along the screen, dumping Prime after Prime off the call until only he, Olivia, and Jacob were left.
“Do you think they’ll try to depose you?” Olivia asked.
“They’ll have their own problems soon enough,” David replied. “Even by my lowest estimate Morningstar has to number over a thousand by now. Besides, if they try anything, we can just have Cora use her Fireball Power on them.”
Jacob snorted. “Good thing she’s not in the room right now,” he said with a bit of chagrin. “She’s still trying to come to grips with it—she’d never killed anyone before. At the same time, though, she really wants to learn how to use it. I’ve been putting out feelers for a pyrokinetic to come train her. Believe it or not, they’re rare.”
“Are you sure she’ll be all right?” Olivia wanted to know, concern in her voice.
“She’s . . . determined,” Jacob said. “Ever since that night . . . something’s changed. It’s a good change—like all of a sudden she realized she has a right to defend what’s hers, and the tools to do it with. Cora likes structure, guidelines—once she has a set of defined steps to start from, she’ll work her way through it.”
There was a pause in conversation, as no one wanted to ask the obvious. Finally, David took pity on them.
“There’s nothing new to report here,” he said. “We have to be patient . . . it’s only been six weeks. Right now everything is still too new, too raw—you don’t get over losing a soul mate quickly, if ever. We just have to give it time and have hope.”
David watched the others hang up, thinking: They had to have hope. Most of the time that was all they had.
Deven had retreated so far into himself he hardly ever looked anyone in the eye. Most nights no one knew where he went, and he had shielded himself against Nico so strongly the Elf had a hard time sensing him at all. As David had said, too much had happened in too little time, and now that killing himself was no longer an option Deven had to learn to live again, in a world without his first soul mate, his husband, who had gone to his death knowingly and left Deven behind.
Nico had rebuilt the matrix around Deven’s mind, and that tiny bit of energy it took to keep it stable was one of the only forms of contact Deven allowed his Consort. Nico, for his part, was still trying to adjust to his new life in this strange new place, and though he was learnin
g quickly—his English was even starting to pick up contractions and slang—David often saw him out in the gardens, touching the plants, sadness in his eyes, looking so lost. David remembered that handful of days that Miranda had blocked her Prime out and slept in the mistress suite, and the misery it had caused them both . . . and that hadn’t been nearly as strong as the shields Deven had slammed down between himself and Nico.
Deven’s recovery was up to Deven now, and Nico was the one who needed help. David, Miranda, and Stella had silently agreed to do whatever they could to keep him going.
In fact, one of the Prime’s intentions in coming to the workroom was to fetch the Codex. The pages of symbols still eluded them, and even a translation program based on one used by Army intelligence couldn’t crack it. Stella had mentioned that Nico knew something about runic alphabets from his magical studies. He might have some idea what the runes in the Codex meant, or at least what language they were in, and having a project would be good for him.
David logged out of the system and picked up the book, headed for the one place he knew he was almost certain to find the Elf.
It was an unseasonably warm night, cloudy, with the promise of a cold front the next afternoon. Outside the Haven the crickets and frogs held noisy court punctuated by the occasional objections of an owl. The paths were lit softly, and his eyes easily picked out the dark shape resting quietly on a cushioned chaise back among a bower of moonflowers.
David paused, stricken by the beauty of the tableau. Nico’s fine, silken hair fell all around and over the seat, one ear poking up through it; he had taken to wearing darker colors and tonight was in forest green, every inch an Elf down to his bare feet. But Elf though he was, he was something else, too, and it was written in the line of his body, the way his fingers curled on the cushion, even in the way he breathed. He didn’t seem so much like a deer now as a young wolf curled up in its den.
Strange . . . they had known the Elf for only a month and a half, and David had not wanted to like him when they met. By the time Nico had the Signet around his neck, though, they had all taken him into their fold without question . . . above and beyond any other urges the Elf might inspire—and there were plenty of those—there was just something about him that cried out to be loved. David wasn’t the only one who felt that way, either—in fact, the only person who didn’t was the person the Elf was bound to.
“Nico?” David spoke softly and sat down beside him, touching his shoulder. “Are you awake?”
One violet eye opened, then the other. “Yes, my Lord?”
“I brought you this—I heard you might be able to help us translate the rest of it.”
Nico sat up, recognizing the book in his hands, interest sparking in his eyes. David handed it to him and watched as he turned the pages. Nico lamented, “I know a few lines of human Greek from the epic poetry kept in the Avilon library, but this dialect of the Order’s is strange to me.”
“That’s fine—we’ve got translations from Deven for most of that part. What we need help with are the runic symbols, mostly in the second half of the book.”
Nico paged through gingerly, admiring the illuminated text: the intricate border illustrations of pomegranates, ravens, serpents, and dogs shaped remarkably like Cora’s Nighthound, all bound up in what looked like knotwork but, on closer inspection, revealed itself to be interlocking threads of a web that radiated out from the top inside corner of each page.
When he came to the first page covered in the runic symbols, Nico stopped, eyebrows shooting up. He gave a delighted laugh that startled the Prime. “This is what you couldn’t read?”
“Yes. We compared them to a number of runic alphabets from several Norse . . . what’s so funny?”
Nico grinned. “There is nothing Norse about these symbols, my Lord.” He tilted the book toward David. “This is Elvish.”
“What the hell is Elvish doing in a vampire Codex?” David asked.
“Perhaps I’ll find out when I read it.”
David watched him for another moment before asking, “How are you?”
A weary smile. “About the same.” The Elf closed the Codex and held it in his lap. “Thank you for asking.”
Unable to hold back any longer, David reached over and took his hand, squeezing it as he spoke. “I know you feel alone here, Nico . . . but you’re not. We may not be Elves, but we care about you. I care about you.”
Nico looked down at their joined hands, then up at David, searching his eyes. “What . . . what do you mean?”
David chuckled. “Nothing like that. But I would like to know you better, and to help take care of you while you’re here.”
“You do not have to take care of me,” Nico told him, but there was gratitude in the words. “I am not a child.”
“Yes, we do. We all take care of each other. You’re not an exception—you’re one of us now. You’re hurting, and none of us can fix it . . . but we can give you what you need, so that you can give Deven what he needs . . . time. And one day soon, one way or another, you’ll crack that wall he’s got between you.”
Nico lowered his eyes, which were shining with tears. “I wish I could believe that. I wish I had hope.”
“That’s all right,” David told him, drawing the Elf gently into his arms. Nico buried his face in David’s shoulder and wept softly, hands clinging to the lapels of David’s coat, pressing into the Prime as hard as he could, as if wishing he could dissolve into David and leave the world behind. David kept hold of him, kissing him on the forehead and, once or twice, on the lips, giving him something strong to cling to in the storm. “It’s all right,” the Prime repeated, stroking Nico’s hair. “I can hope enough for both of us.”
• • •
Almond-scented steam rose from the bubble-laden surface of the water, thickening the air and making everything sleepy and sweet. Her head rested back on a waterproof cushion, her hair held up on top of her head and out of the suds, though a few tendrils insisted on having a soak with the rest of her. She lay back with her eyes closed, smiling slightly, more relaxed than she’d been in weeks.
Earlier that evening she’d finally wrapped her last recording session. In a couple of months she would lead her new album by the hand to the national playground and watch it run off to swing with the other children. For once, her precognitive gift told her something good: Musician Miranda was about to become very busy, and this time Queen Miranda was just going to have to work around it.
Maybe she could even avoid getting shot.
She felt David arrive at the suite. Strange . . . since that night they had been re-bound together, their connection was doing some odd things. She felt hyper-aware of David now at much greater distances and with much greater detail than ever before. She’d always sensed him, felt him in her mind, but now she could feel him inside her, just under her skin, and while it was definitely weird . . . she loved it. It was like he was always holding her, always caressing her from the inside out, so that when they actually touched it felt like they’d been struck by lightning. That was another thing to ask the Elf: whether anything had changed during his work, or if it was just another step in their journey together as a Pair. She didn’t want to lose it, but she was curious why it had appeared.
And one more thing . . . a few nights ago, in the city, she’d been leaving a show and heard something pitiful in the alley . . . it turned out to be a kitten, or at least most of one. The poor creature had one leg mangled, her ears chewed off, her tail broken . . . but she had come to Miranda without hesitation. Miranda carefully got her into the car, though she knew it was futile . . . but then . . . something in the Queen, something hovering deep in her belly, raised its head and demanded a chance to help. Shaking her head with disbelief at her own temerity, Miranda held her hands over the kitten . . .
. . . and healed her.
Deven had claimed that his healing talent was not a vampire one, so it couldn’t spread throughout the Circle . . . but now she had a gray and black
meowing refutation of that claim. Miranda had pushed energy inelegantly into the cat’s body, but that had done the trick, and her leg was sound, her ears were healed, her tail straightened.
Now that kitten had happily claimed a corner of the royal bed, kneading the sheets with her little pine-needle claws and emitting a purr way louder than a body her size should have been capable of. David wasn’t all that keen on the idea at first, but he didn’t have any real objections either, so the Queen now had a cat. Some nights when Miranda took long soaking baths, the cat would perch on the side of the tub watching her human do such a bizarre and senseless ritual. Tonight, however, Miranda’s bath was feline free.
That brief, nightmarish time bound as a Trinity had mutated their powers even further. She wasn’t even sure what to call half of it. She wanted to know if Deven felt the changes as well, but there wasn’t much point to asking, even if she could find him. He’d just vanish without speaking to her.
She missed her friend. She wanted him back . . . she wanted both of them back, but only one could ever return. And though her empathy and her instincts begged her to do something, anything, she knew the only medicine for Deven was time.
After another hour, when she was nice and pruny, she pulled the drain stopper with her toes and stretched languidly, enjoying how the heat had made her muscles let go of the tension that had become habitual over the last few months.
Pulling on her robe without tying it, she returned to the bedroom. Esther had been there; the fire was roaring against the winter cold that had already made its way into the Haven days ago despite the single night of temporary warmth outside, and the bed had been turned down to reveal the thicker comforter and extra blanket Esther knew they would want.
She smiled. A pair of socked feet were sticking off the arm of the couch. There were black boots on the floor beneath.
A welcome, and reassuring sight: her husband sprawled on the couch asleep, laptop still open on the coffee table, an empty wineglass that still smelled faintly of blood next to that. Three and a half centuries old, a rebel Prime who had broken with the Council and now ruled all but one territory in the United States, one of only two of his kind and sired by the Goddess of Death . . . napping in a vintage-style college T-shirt that said University of Gallifrey.
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