Echoes & Silence Part 1

by Angela M Hudson

  “All set then?” Mike reached into our private conversation, slapping Falcon playfully on the shoulder.

  He turned and nodded, glancing back once at me before walking away. And the room filled with noise then as each of my council members settled into their seats, laughing and joking, but as I glided out from the shadows, Falcon laid his hand firmly to my shoulder and, with a coy wink, whispered, “But I forgive you anyway.”

  “Thanks.” I laughed and took my seat beside the king.

  * * *

  I began by stating clearly what I expected of my council—that I didn’t have time for emotional reactions to my coming confessional, and that I could trust they’d all take this new information like soldiers. Blank-faced soldiers.

  “What are you about to tell us?” Quaid asked rhetorically, worry fixing between his thick, dark brows.

  “A few weeks ago,” I said calmly, “on the day I fired Morgaine, actually, I had a meeting with Drake—”

  “What? Since when? Why didn’t we know about this? Did you go alone? Did David know?” was the gist of what I heard under a missile of questions.

  I put my hand up to defuse the bomb. “Yes, I went alone. Kind of.”

  “How can you kind of go alone?” Quaid asked.

  “Well, you were there. You just didn’t know what I was doing.”

  A distant look of confusion clouded his eyes. “I was?”

  “Yup. Remember the day I went to the Garden of Lilith to practice my sword techniques?”

  “I knew something was up.” He snapped his fingers then pointed to Falcon. “Didn’t I tell you something was up?”

  Falcon nodded coolly.

  “You were right,” I said. “I met Drake in there that day, and—”

  “How’d he get past our guards?” Blade screeched. “We’ve got guys that can sniff a vampire out a mile off!”

  “I have no idea how he got in here and, honestly, that’s not my concern right now, because the fact is, safety is an illusion, Blade. We’ve never been safe here.”

  “I beg to differ,” he said, and went to continue but I cut him off.

  “Drake has left us alone purely because we were influenced, you might say, into doing what he wanted us to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was never any real threat to me or my kind, nor was there a real war with Lilith back in fourteen hundred. Drake staged a feud between them, lied about his reasons for her death, and—”

  “I call having you arrested and brutalized a threat to your kind, Your Majesty,” Blade said, motioning to Jason, who shrunk a little.

  “No. His Warriors had me captured and tortured. The plan Drake put in place to find my kind just backfired in his face is all. It was he who set Morgaine up with an underground Lilithian Core that was eventually used to rescue me, and—”

  “Why’d he need you found in the first place then, if there was no war?” Em asked.

  “He needed my ancestor, who’d gone missing—kidnapped, actually. So he created a group of specialized hunters to seek out my kind, operating under the illusion that Drake wanted complete extinction of all Lilithians when, in truth, he just wanted someone to help him find… well, in the end, me.”

  Everyone stared at me, confused.

  “When I was arrested,” I continued, “Morgaine had been brought here from the Ninth Order in Paris to punish David for his involvement with a Lilithian. But she was truly here to raise her Core and rescue us both.”

  “Why?” Em asked.

  “Because, as I said, Drake never wanted me arrested and hurt in the first place. And,” I added when her mouth opened to speak, “I will get to the reason. Soon.”

  “How do you know all this?” Ryder asked. “Did he tell you this?”

  “Some of it, yes. And some I’ve deduced over time.”

  “So…?” Blade thought for a second. “I have about a hundred questions here.”

  “The floor is yours,” I offered.

  “Did Morg know? Did she know he was using her to—”

  “Morg knew more than she ever let on, Blade,” Mike said flatly.

  He looked over at Mike.

  “She’s the traitor we’ve had in our midst.” Mike stood up calmly, continuing his explanation above the gasps. “She’s not a Created Lilithian, guys, she’s better known by her birth name as Morgana Le Fay.”

  “What?” Emily was on her feet before her words even reached Mike. “No way! The Original?”

  Mike shrugged apologetically.

  “Did you know that, Mike?” Em asked. “All those times you had coffee and—”

  “No.” He put his hand up. “It was as much a shock to me.”

  “Then this is what you were yelling at her for half an hour ago?” Blade said to David.

  The king moved his head in a cool, kingly yes. “I was told this morning that her motive here is to see the demise of our queen.”

  “Bitch!” Emily sat down heavily. “I hate her!”

  A few people laughed.

  “Demise?” Ryder asked. “What could she possibly hope to achieve by killing you? I mean, she saved you from Jason, why—”

  “She saved me under Drake’s orders, but with a motive of her own. He believes, has always believed, that she’s helping him because of his promise to restore her mother when he gets what he wants from me but, in fact, she just wanted to get close to me so she could roam freely around the island.”

  Three people spoke then, one asking how Drake could restore her mother’s life, another asking what Drake wants, and the other asking why Morg wanted free rein on Loslilian. I went with question number two.

  “Drake just wants to fulfil an ancient, I guess, desire, of his.”

  “Which is?”

  “To be reunited with his beloved wife Anandene.”

  “And what’s that got to do with Drake saving you?”

  “Anandene was a witch—a born witch, not a practiced witch—and she also dabbled in Dark Magic. But, no matter what spells they cast, witches cannot be immortal,” I said, wishing I had a torch to shine at the base of my jaw so the scene would fit better with the captivated gazes of my “campfire” audience. “When witches attempt to prolong life, Nature steps in and takes action: they become heinous, their souls blackened, as if to allow them immortality is to deny them the beauty of life. But Anandene and Drake didn’t care. They were so in love that the prospect of her death was unbearable for him, worse than selling his soul. They made plans to get her an immortal body—one she could occupy while keeping the powers of her ancestors and all the memories attached to her soul.”

  “And this is why she cast that spell on the Stone of Truth?” Arthur said, half asking, half confirming.

  “Right. And that spell brought a curse on the lands,” I explained to the others. “To rid themselves of the curse, Lilith had to offer the blood of the guilty back to Nature. What she didn’t know was that this is exactly what Drake and Anandene wanted.”

  “Why?” Quaid asked.

  “Because they needed Lilith’s guilty conscience, and her ability to bear immortal beings. From what I’ve gathered based on what Drake told me, the only way to force her into submission was to wage war and threaten her people until she believed that, by giving Drake back the beloved wife she murdered, she was saving her people.” I reached down to grab my glass and took a sip, suddenly parched. “Anyway.” I put the glass down. “Lilith agreed that she would give birth to a child that would, with the help of witchcraft, bear Anandene’s soul. She thought she was merely replacing what was lost in order to restore peace, but she was, in fact, giving Anandene an immortal body.”

  “Damn,” Ryder said, sitting back in his chair. “Drake is pretty cunning.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And we’d be fools to underestimate him. This is why I warn you we are not safe here unless he decides it.”

  “So why has he left us in peace?” Emily asked.

  “Because he was waiting for my child
to be conceived.” I patted my belly. “I was never supposed to rise up and become Queen. That happened only because the Warriors found me, and Drake needed to make up some story as to why Morgaine was rescuing me. Had that event not occurred, David and I would have married, had this child when we saw fit to start a family, and Drake, still the king, would have moved in and taken her when the time was right. We’d never have been any the wiser. But, as fate would have it, plans were forced to change, and all of our worlds were intertwined in what was a giant and complete accident.” I sighed, smiling at the insanity of it all. “He would still be on his throne, the Damned in their cages, and David and I running from The Set if the Warriors hadn’t found me.”

  “So he’s just been waiting all this time for you to fall pregnant? Even when he threatened to attack us and—”

  “He was just playing ‘the game’, if you know what I mean.” I took another sip of water. “He couldn’t have his so-called lifelong enemy take power of the throne and not appear to be doing anything about it but truthfully, guys, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want the throne. All he wants is Anandene.”

  “And it had to be you that carried her?” Emily asked.

  “Yes. But I’m only half of the puzzle.”

  “There are conditions needed for the conception of a soul that has not crossed over and still carries all its memories and powers,” David said, and judging from Emily’s changed expression, just answered the question she was truly asking.

  “What conditions?” she said.

  David sat forward, taking a breath to explain. “The being was to be created from the blood and soul of that which took its original life, and the purest blood of noble men. Long story short, the first few attempts failed. They discovered they needed a pure womb as well; one that had not borne children before and, since Lilith had, she was forced to have a child that would, at the will of a powerful spell, be soulless so Lilith could transfer her own into it.”

  “Giving Drake the blood of the one who took Anandene’s life, and now also the soul in a body that had never had children,” I added.

  “Upon agreeing to this,” David continued brilliantly as if he’d known this all along, not just learned it all from me as I called it to mind in this room, “they drew up a contract stating that once the soul of Anandene was born into this new child’s care sixteen years later, Drake would put Lilith back together, her soul would leave the vessel that gave birth to Anandene, and all would be restored to what it once was.”

  A frown slowly consumed Arthur’s soft expression, the questions coming across his face before they presented on his lips.

  “But, if the child Anandene was born centuries ago, what does that have to do with you?” Em asked.

  “They failed that first time. And then repeatedly until, at last, the soulless vessel and Lilith’s soul with it went missing—for centuries,” I added, and everyone’s confusion dissipated for curiosity. “Which brings us to the reason Drake fought so hard to find any Pureblood Lilithians.”

  “Then, that makes you a direct descendant of Lilith,” Em said with sparkling eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “Hang on then.” Blade sat forward, wetting his lips. “If you’re one of her children’s children, then you’re—”

  “Soulless.”

  “But how?” Emily asked.

  “You might say I don’t own the soul I carry.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “It merely occupies my form, but it belongs to Lilith, as does the burden of her promise until the reincarnation of Anandene is safely delivered into the world.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then…” I looked at Jason. “Drake will reconstruct Lilith, and I’ll be dead.”

  Realization sunk into the room like fog.

  “For real?” Quaid said. “And you’re just gonna let this happen?”

  “No,” the king said.

  “Drake has offered peace,” I said, narrowing my eyes at David. “In return for my compliance, he will allow David to remain on the throne, and he will give me eighteen years to raise the child—”

  “And then you’ll be dead?” Blade asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Amara.” Arthur stood slowly, propping his hands flat on the table. “I’ve known Drake a great many centuries. I was there when he cried over the birth of his sister Lily. I watched him build this manor brick by brick as a gift for her. I do not believe for a second that he will leave her dead if there is a chance he can restore her.”

  “Well, he agreed to let me raise my daughter.”

  Arthur’s stone face made me panic a little. “You made this agreement with him in person?”

  I nodded.

  “You swore to it?”

  I nodded again.

  “Did you bind the promise in blood?”

  I frowned. “Um, no. Why?”

  He sat down again, and Jason and David sighed.

  “Why?” I repeated.

  “If you did not bind the agreement, Amara, he does not mean to uphold it,” Arthur said.

  “But he said, I mean… we agreed.”

  “Verbally,” David said.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But nothing,” Arthur grumbled.

  Jason put his hand up to stop his uncle. “Ara, I know you can’t possibly have known this, but Drake religiously draws up a contract for any agreement he makes. All but this one he made in secret,” he said gently.

  “He means to take your life when the child is born,” Arthur said in short.

  My heart broke and I folded ever-so-slightly forward to hold my insides in.

  “But how do we even know this baby will be the witch?” Blade asked. “Is it something that was foretold?”

  “No. Designed,” I said, forcing composure to take control and steady my voice, then went on to explain how Drake had also tailored the blood of the man that would father the child—cleansing the Knight bloodline then waiting many centuries until two boys were born to one mother. One pure of heart. One, all the undesirable traits of Man.

  “So, that pure first-born son was David?” Emily asked, her caramel eyes wide as they took in the king.

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  And to my sudden horror, everyone in the room folded over slightly, snorting and grumbling indignantly in the backs of their throats.

  “No way,” Blade said in that raw English accent. “I don’t believe that for a second. No offence, My King.”

  “Yeah, what witchcraft considerers pure and what nature does must be two very different things.” Quaid laughed.

  “Shut up, guys,” Ryder said, flicking Blade across the head. “I wanna hear the rest.”

  “Thank you.” I bowed toward him, and everyone sat back, faces still red with humor.

  David took it well, though, shaking his head as though it was a mild annoyance.

  “Anyway,” I continued. “Four years ago, Drake sent David to the school across from my dad’s house, ensuring he’d be in the right place at the right time to meet me. Then he saw to it that when I was old enough to bear a child, I ended up there too. David and I falling in love had been his only goal all along.”

  “So that explains why he put Jason in charge of your torture,” Blade said, looking at Jason. “That never did make sense to me.”

  “Or me,” Arthur said. “I took it as a blessing, but Jason was in no way experienced enough for that kind of mission. I did, however, have an inkling that Drake did not wish the girl to be harmed, though I had no idea then that his plans for her had spanned the course of time.”

  “Well, I don’t get it,” Em said. “Why has it taken so many centuries to get this child? David was born a hundred-and-something years ago. Couldn’t he have—”

  “The only living Lilithian at the time was still missing. Drake found her about forty years after David was born—”

  “And this is why he insisted I turn the boys when they came of age?” Arthur said, more to himself.

  “Yes. Exactly.�
� I looked back at Em. “The Warriors found the child named Amara, and Drake assigned David the task of killing her in the hopes they’d form their bond that day—a supernatural binding of Lilith’s soul to the Cleansed Bloodline. It worked, but David, in an attempt to save her, delivered her to an orphanage and we’re pretty sure Vampirie picked her up before Drake got there.”

  “Vampirie?” Quaid said.

  “Yes. And we now presume Vampirie didn’t just put her up for adoption elsewhere. We think he raised her himself.”

  “Why?” Em asked. “Isn’t he Drake’s father? Why would he ruin his own son’s plans like that?”

  “I knew Vampirie,” Arthur offered. “And he would not have approved of a black witch being made immortal by any means, especially not Anandene.”

  “Why?”

  “She would be too powerful.” Arthur motioned a hand to my belly. “A risk to our lifestyle and to the race of beings we hold sacred—a race protected by Vampirie since his first drop of blood.”

  “So, Ara’s baby is a threat to the human race?” Emily looked at Arthur as though he’d eaten her cat.

  “No matter what she becomes, that child will have great powers,” Arthur said. “She is the blood of two immortals and the dark soul of an ungodly witch. When she realizes the extent of her power…”

  “No one can know this,” I said, touching my belly. “Because no matter what she becomes, she is first my daughter and your future queen, and she must be protected.”

  “And she will be,” Blade swore. “With our last breath, My Queen.”

  “You have our word,” Quaid added, then laughed. “Besides, she can’t be any more trouble than her mother was.”

  I smiled.

  “Then… like, do we need to watch out for this Vampirie guy?” Em asked. “Will he come after her?”

  “No,” I said. “Drake doesn’t seem to think Vampirie’s a threat.”

  “If he… if something were to happen to this baby, what would Drake actually do?” Emily asked. “I mean, would he start a war?”

  “Yes,” I said simply. “He’d likely kidnap me, force me to have another child and then insert my soul into her so that when she’s of childbearing age she can mate with David to bear Anandene.”