Mrs. Moorer took the spot directly beside Duncan and began to speak. “Let me begin by saying that regardless of what I’ve alleged in the past, there is only proof of one vampire having ever been within our haven’s borders—London’s vampire, the very same vampire later found dead, killed by the very girl you hold accountable for his being here. Why, if there was some great collusion between Ms. Adams and the vampire, would her friends have been injured in what was so obviously a fight? But even if that logic wasn’t so terribly insulting, there is the fact every schoolmate—every single one—swears that London and Anastasia hated one another. The guardians outside the house said the two were arguing after the “infamous” community service trip. Does trying to revive a dead schoolmate make you an accomplice in their concealing a vampire? Locking Helena Bohnam in a cellar for two days as you badger her into saying something you can use—is that evidence? None of these charges would stand up in a traditional trial. Open your eyes people! There is only one reason that we are here tonight, and that’s because Ms. Adams has been confirmed a conjurer. Duncan, like so many before him, has used one fact and a cloud of “maybes” to play upon the fears of the many. It seems no one has mentioned that a haven sans an heir and Chief Advisor falls to the Chief Guardian to inherit. So please, let us address these fears.”
“I, like many here, was taught to fear and loathe conjurers, and my deceased grandparents are among the most loving people I’ve known. “Conjurers are evil,” they told me, “worse than any three vampires.” Strong opinions given the fact that neither of them had ever come across a conjurer in their lifetimes. I suspect that this history is very similar to that of most of the people gathered here tonight. And yet, something happened to me the night London McArthur died. I watched a conjurer with everything to lose, risk it all to save another. I sat there, watching her try again and again and I found myself thinking, how can something evil perform an act so selfless? So I tried to compare what I was seeing with what else I knew about conjurers, discovering that when I really thought about it, there was nothing to compare it with—nothing I knew for certain—the sum of my knowledge being what I’d heard from others. I teach both math and history at Heathwood, and I’m always pointing out to my students that throughout man’s history, the simple act of prejudice has led to terrible injustices and unspeakable atrocities—never realizing until that night that I had fallen into the very same trap. Ms. Adams’s being here is not a curse, but rather a gift, a chance to put to rest all of the myths surrounding our conceptions of what conjurer’s actually are. What we do here will affect what our children do in the future. And haven’t we already seen what can become of a child that is taught to hate blindly? Isn’t one senseless death too many?”
I’d like to say that the skill with which Mrs. Moorer had penetrated Duncan’s wildly bogus accusations (London’s idea to play enemies, though equally dishonest, had helped) or that the passion with which she spoke about giving me a real chance had really made a difference. That people had really considered her words and thought them over carefully. But they didn’t. Not one person changed sides. Not one. This was real life, I reminded myself, and as close as my life had come to resemble a fairytale in the past, it most assuredly wasn’t.
“The people have spoken,” Duncan announced triumphantly. “Tie her to the post.”
Several members of the smaller crowd surged forward then but were headed off by the fifty or so guardians present. I saw three of them take Darren down forcibly and I called out to him to stop resisting so the men would stop hitting him. But he wouldn’t stop, none of them did, and the guardians met their unyielding spirit with brutal force, despite Duncan’s calls to use caution.
I closed my eyes to shut it all out, to block out the thoughts of being literally set on fire, but when I felt two sets of hands lift me up, I reacted. I fought against them, manically, twisting and kicking my feet as much as I could. If those few supporters could fight for me, then I could at least fight for my own life. Even if it was a losing battle.
I felt the stiff wood slam into my back, and the pain ended my personal revolt. Ropes wrapped around me and I saw Duncan taking the torch from Chris’s dad a few feet away. I was shaking, even through the ropes, and the sounds of people’s voices filled my head. I was hearing their thoughts but it was all muddled together and sounded like static. This couldn’t be the end…it just couldn’t. Not like this.
Duncan thrust the flaming torch into the air and all efforts to resist slowly came to a stop. This was it. They’d failed. I was about to die. I watched him toss the torch into the air and followed it with my eyes until it hit the stacks of wood beneath my feet. The fire shot up in front of me and I shut my eyes.
Only, the pain never came. I opened my eyelids to find Tristan’s depthless green eyes staring back at me, and for a moment I thought I might be dead already, that Tristan had never made it out of that closet, and impossibly, he was waiting for me… in heaven—until I heard the pain in his voice.
“I’m going… to get you free,” he whispered into my face. That snapped me back into reality.
Tristan’s arms were wrapped tightly around me, his body the only thing keeping the fire from reaching mine. The flames hadn’t spread beyond the area being shielded off by Tristan and I could feel his hands working at the ropes behind me. Every second that passed, the flames lashed away at his back. I begged him to hurry, before we both met our ends on this stake.
Finally, I felt the ropes around me begin to give way, and I wiggled myself free enough to help him. Once the ropes fell away, he grabbed hold of me and leapt backwards, away from the fire that suddenly swallowed up the stake.
Tristan was too injured to land cleanly. We ended up sprawled out on the grass. He’d landed on his stomach and I crawled over to him. His back and legs were black and raw and smoke lifted off of him.
I had just reached him when the first streaks of fire lit up the field. Even now they tried to kill us and something in me snapped. I’d had enough. I jumped to my feet and with a wave of my hand the streaks vanished in midflight. I wasn’t sure how I knew that I could make them go away, but I did. I also realized that I had been the one to keep the fire from lighting the stake up completely.
One or two of the guardians prepared for another volley when a woman’s voice rang out across the field. “Enough.”
A hooded figure had appeared in front of me, addressing the wall of guardians and scattered witchfolk beyond them. “It has come to Daemon’s attention that the witches in this haven have decided to revolt. I am here to advise you to do otherwise. If by chance you do not heed this warning, this haven will be destroyed, as the treaty entitles us to do.”
Duncan stepped forward. “Who do you think you are?”
“I am the seventh, Surya. Acting commander of the second army.”
“Army?” Duncan scoffed. “What army?”
The cloaked figure put up her hand, holding something to the moonlight that shimmered. In groups of ten and twenty they began to appear beyond the scattered witchfolk, and they kept coming until the entire field was blanketed by cloaked figures. There had to be a thousand of them.
With the cloaked woman’s help, Tristan struggled up to his feet and the cloaked figures all dropped to their knees. “It’s time you all knew the truth,” he announced. “The witches lost the war. I am the one who keeps the vampires out of Brighton, not some silly spell. Your leaders have only done as the leaders before them agreed to do when the treaty that ended the war was written. So go home to your children. You have my personal assurance that you will not be harmed. But here this, never attempt to hurt this girl again or I swear there will be hell to pay.”
Stunned, the crowd began to disperse, many casting nervous glances at the sea of vampires behind them. Some came over to me instead, the majority being the supporters whose loyalty towards me had never wavered. Others offered their apologies, insisting they’d been pressured into siding with Duncan.
Tristan
kept them all at an arm’s distance before finally giving up. He swept me up into his arms and leapt to my balcony. Again, the landing was anything but smooth; he was still hurt, and winced noticeably. He took me into my room, and let me down onto my own feet. I stared into those green eyes and knew everything he wanted to say, I could feel the words. Written into the relief in his eyes and the parting of lips was a reminder, telling me once again that I was the most precious thing in his world. But I wasn’t sure if he knew…
“Tristan…I killed him.”
“I know, Ana.” He was working hard to keep the sorrow from his face now, but his eyes weren’t capable of lying. Not to me.
“I’m sorry, so sorry—“
“I know you, Ana. You don’t have to explain anything—you did what you had to. What matters is that you’re alright. As long as you’re safe, then I have a reason to go on.”
We had a connection, him and me, and even if my part in it wasn’t truly my own, we were both hurting inside, and being together helped immensely. It was as though our souls could actually reach out and heal the other’s. I put my arms around him and we shared a private moment of quiet, safety, and more than anything, relief. If he truly wished me dead then I would be. But being that I wasn’t, I couldn’t help but feel like I should have known that already.
It wasn’t until I’d released him that I noticed the cloaked figure on my balcony. Tristan’s face saddened once he’d turned to see what had drawn my attention.
“I have to go now, but I’ll be back soon.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He started towards the door but stopped short of it, a faint smile on his face now. “Maybe the next time you discover that you can control fire, you can keep me from getting burned too.”
My emotions were swirling around inside me. Just because Tristan wasn’t angry with me didn’t mean I wasn’t angry with myself. “Thank you,” I said. It felt like so little given the fact that he’d just risked his life to save me. Me, the girl he loved more than anything. Even after I’d killed his oldest friend in the world.
He nodded and then stepped out onto the balcony, where he exchanged a few words with the cloaked figure. In the next instant, both had vanished.
Adrenaline still coursed through my arteries and I didn’t know what to do with myself now that I was alone. After pacing around my room for a few minutes, I gave up on calming down and decided to search out my family and friends.
My mother met me just inside my door. I was swallowed up into another hug, and felt others latch on: my grandmother, poor Helena (who I could never blame for her admissions), and Taylor (who, I reminded myself, I needed to have a long talk with). Someone tripped, and with each of us so tangled up, everyone but my grandmother ended up on the floor, laughing. My grandmother found it particularly funny, as she was the only one to manage staying upright. I felt myself finally begin to relax with the people I cared about so near and safe. Somehow, everyone had made it through this second nightmare. But where was Darren?
Right on cue, he stepped into room my next. There were bruises along the sides of his face and neck, and his shirt was ripped. When I met his eyes, everything slowed down. There was only he and I in that fraction of a second, and he stepped into the room and threw his arms around me. I wasn’t sure who had been the one to suggest giving us some privacy but I was grateful. He began to kiss me the way that I’d only seen in movies—that kiss you give to that special someone after beating impossible odds. Only, once our lips finally parted, I discovered that we weren’t entirely alone.
Darren’s body had tensed, and I knew even before I turned my head, who I’d find there. Tristan.
Chapter 31
Goodbye
“T-Tristan…I…” I stammered, desperately searching for the right words for what I was trying to convey. He wasn’t aware of the decision I’d made, and I couldn’t bring myself to say the words immediately after he’d just saved my life. It had been hard enough to tell him that I’d killed Aiden. Still, I owed him my honesty, and that meant telling him that Aiden’s forcing me to choose had made me aware of something—if given the choice, I wanted to spend whatever time I had left with Darren. Tristan was right; I didn’t know why it was that I loved him, just that I did. With Darren it was different—different because there were no doubts or mysteries surrounding my feelings for him. I remembered every moment. But how to say it? How to make him understand?
He stared at me for a moment, with saddened eyes that seemed to be reading me like an open book. “It’s okay, Ana. It’s better this way, I suppose. Could we have a quick word?”
I didn’t catch his meaning at first, probably because his meaning was the last thing I expected him to want. He was asking for a moment alone with Darren, not me. Confused, I nodded and started toward my door, looking back over my shoulder the entire time, lest some kind of confrontation start up. Once outside, I pressed my ear right up to the door, but the only thing I heard was Tristan asking Darren to step outside onto the balcony because “she’s definitely got her ear up to the door right now.”
Busted, I let myself slide down onto the floor. Was Darren the right choice? Would I regret this decision later? Despite everything, I knew in my heart that the first answer was “yes.” We hadn’t known each other long enough to say we were in love or anything, but we had a spark, a spark that was mine, and I had to protect it—even when the feelings I had for Tristan raged inside of me like a runaway fire. I found myself smiling, thinking back to me and Darren splashing one another in the pond out back. He was my soft place to fall. He made me laugh and did what he could to protect me. I was happy when I was with him. And that was the biggest difference; where Tristan was concerned, I only had stories and dreams of he and I being happy. That wasn’t enough. I cared for Tristan—I loved him— but it wasn’t me who fell in love with him, no matter how strong the feelings were. Still, the best answer I could give to my second question was a “maybe.” And honestly, that frightened me a little.
Darren appeared to be in a daze when the door to my room finally opened up.
I jumped to my feet. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
It took a moment for him to meet my eyes. “He told me about you two, the whole reincarnation thing—how we’re on the same side as far as keeping you safe. He also told me that…” He dropped his eyes and let his voice trail off.
“I’m going to die soon,” I finished. I felt both guilty and relieved that he’d had to hear it from someone else.
“What? No. He said that you made the right choice. That now you can have a full and happy life—that he would take care of everything. Why do you think you’re gonna die?”
He must have taken my words to be a complete statement rather than a continuation of what he was saying. There was real concern in Darren’s eyes as he spoke to me, but I was too confused to answer him. Was choosing Tristan really the reason I kept dying so young? But why? And how?
“If you’re worried that they’ll come after you again, don’t be. A number of us are gonna stay here until things settle down. Nothing like this’ll ever happen again, I promise you.
I just nodded. Telling him what I’d actually meant probably wasn’t a good idea right now, especially if there was a chance it didn’t apply anymore.
“He acts so…so human,” Darren followed. He shook his head. “It’s completely insane, but it’s all true, isn’t it?”
I gave him another nod.
He blew out some air and his eyes dropped again. “And you still chose me?”
“You’re the boy I’m falling for,” I said meekly, realizing that this was the first time I’d shared the extent of my feelings with him.
Darren spread out his arms, and I fell into them. He put his lips beside my ear. “I promised him I’d take good care of you and that I’d tell you goodbye on his behalf.”
Goodbye? I felt the finality of it tighten in my chest and I had to take a deep breath. I pulled away. “But I have to explain th
ings. I mean, in a way that he’ll understand. I don’t want to hurt him, Darren.”
“I kinda got the feeling that this was how he wanted it,” Darren said uneasily. “That he didn’t want to see you again.”
********************
I couldn’t get to sleep at all that night. Emotionally, I was a wreck. The horror of almost being burned alive was still fresh in my mind, as was breaking Tristan’s heart. Thoughts of Aiden and London were never far behind my thoughts of Tristan, and together they overwhelmed me.
I had to do something, anything. My only option was Tristan. The other torments were irreversible. If I could just speak to him, then maybe we could come to some kind of closure. Maybe he’d even agree to stay in my life somehow—as selfish as that was for me to ask.
The answer came to me, though I wasn’t entirely sure I could pull it off. London died before I could ask her how. I closed my eyes, concentrated, and reached out to him. “Tristan?”
No reply. But I wasn’t giving up that easily. This had to work. It just had to. “Tristan!”
“Ana?” he asked, his voice sounding in my head.
My heart sped up. “Tristan I need to talk to you, please come back.”
“Ana, coming back won’t change anything…”
“Please, Tristan.”
I felt whatever mental connection I’d established with him cut out. I sighed and laid back onto my pillow. At least I knew that I could contact him whenever I wanted to. That was something, right?
“Ana,” spoke Tristan’s voice.
I turned to find him and the cloaked girl standing in front of my balcony doorway. My heart skipped a beat. I could barely look him in the eye I felt so guilty, and his presence seemed to strip me of the ability to think. I was totally at a loss as to how to explain why it was I was choosing someone else, especially when the whole reason I’d been reincarnated was to be with him. It had all been so clear to me a minute ago.
Grey Eyes Page 24
