“And finally, Language for the social aspects, and Wind to cover flight and the last element, wind itself.” Jaromir turned to Violet. “With enough practice, you can wield all of the elements as a Sorceress, just as Lucia does.”
She clutched the book close to her chest, chin lifting to face the challenge ahead. “Something tells me I’ll need it before the solstice comes.”
Chapter 27
Violet
VIOLET ONLY REALIZED there was something wrong when she and Alex retired to their stone room. He caught her hands before she could sit upon their bed of sleeping bags and pillows, leaning in earnestly. “We need to leave this place.”
She recoiled, fumbling to place the spell book aside before she dropped it. “What? Why?” she asked. Sure, he’d seemed uneasy as they learned more about the island and where vampire kind had come from, but she hadn’t expected this.
“Why?” he echoed, shaking his head. “If these people aren’t off their rockers, Gwendolyn clearly plans to use you.”
“Oh, to get the good fae here?” Her smile faded as his expression remained stern. “Look, she’s the only one who can train me—”
“She gave you a book of spells. Now we can leave,” he pressed.
“And how do you expect us to do that? She got us here!” She drew back from his grasp but forced herself to take a breath before she said anything she might regret. “I know it has been hard to learn all this stuff after so long. I only believe it all because, well…” She picked up the spell book. Its cover was completely blank, and she pointed to it as if to prove what she meant.
“All right. Say the magic and the fae are real,” he said. “If so, that doesn’t stop that we walked into a political situation I don’t trust.”
She bit her lip, thinking of the personalities they’d met on the island. “Adrius let Gwendolyn stay today. That’s a good thing, right?”
“Do you think he would if he knew she planned to put him to sleep again?” he murmured back, shaking his head.
“She didn’t…” Yet, she had. She’d only said she wasn’t planning to put Jaromir to sleep. But he was the only Ancient she’d met who seemed like he could rejoin the world and learn to adapt.
Pressing while she considered, Alex said, “Gwendolyn is a plotter. The other vampires here have a good reason not to trust her.”
“She did what she had to,” she argued. “Why are we even talking about this?”
“Because one old woman, no matter how Ancient, can take on Adrius and the five Blood Princes. But if she had a Sorceress?” He tipped his hand. “With everything you can do? Or that she can teach you to do?”
“I think you’ve lost sight of why we’re here. It has nothing to do with the politics. We’re all on the same side. They’re going to protect me from Lucia.” She shook her head slowly. “Not fight each other. Do you have another plan? Or someone Ancient enough to stand up to Lucia—”
“We can—”
“Stop interrupting me!” she shouted, pulling at her locks in frustration. “Stop being paranoid! This is where I need to be!”
His nostrils flared, the animal in him coming to the fore in his slit-pupiled eyes. “Very well. But we don’t talk to the others. Especially Adrius.”
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she thought of the man who’d smiled at her joke earlier. “Let me guess. Because he might try to use my power too.” She definitely didn’t appreciate the conjecture as to what these people may or may not do. They’d only met them yesterday.
“No. At least, I don’t think he cares.” He took her by the waist, pulling her stiff form into his for a tight, one-sided hug. “He’s dangerous. How can you look at him and not think that too?”
“Sure, but…” She turned her head from his lips to refuse the distraction of his gentle touch. She had the feeling his roaming hands were to divert her thoughts, and that only made her twitch with an angry flush. “Look, I don’t need you pushing me around. If you don’t want to be here, you don’t have to be.”
His hands stilled immediately. “What?”
“You don’t have to be here,” she repeated, lips pressing into a mulish line. “You want to leave so badly? Go. I trust these people. Just like I trusted you not too long ago.”
His eyes searched her face as she drew from him again and took her spell book to sit on a pillow and read. The room didn’t seem big enough for the two of them with him looming over her. She scanned the very first page of writing without really reading it, just scowling at the words as they reformed into English right before her eyes.
“Violet…”
“I’m not leaving Nyixa,” she told the book.
“Then I’m not either,” he said firmly. His clothes rustled, shirt falling to the stone by their makeshift bed. Pulling the book up over her face, she read like the most nearsighted person to avoid looking up at his muscled chest.
Be mad, damn it, she told herself. He knelt next to her, lips brushing her cheek. Be mad. Be mad!
Fur brushed her arm as he shapeshifted. She finally turned away, jumping at the crackle of bones as he shook off the rest of his clothes, taking the form of a fluffy black cat with his piercing green eyes. Her resistance melted away only after a few moments, and she set the book aside to cradle and pet him. “I’m still mad at you,” she told that smug cat face with its whiskers splayed forward from the simple pleasure of her touch.
“No one can be mad at a cat.” His voice was gruff and high like a cat’s meow. He closed his eyes and purred as she placed him in her lap for his companionship while she read. A pang of homesickness hit her, reminding her of many similar nights with her cat cuddled against her. She rested her fingers in Alex’s silky fur, feeling his breath even out as he fell asleep within minutes.
Careful not to disturb him, she flipped to the back of the book, starting chapter fourteen, which was on the five virtues. Jaromir hadn’t explained what those were, yet she’d seen the symbols both on the book’s cover and engraved around the base of the Eye of Worlds like the five points of a star.
She muffled a yawn and dove into it. After a few paragraphs, she was of a mind to wake Alex and read to him the detailed information on fae society she’d found. It turned out that there were five additional powers, and a person could only ever have one. They predominantly manifested in Sorcerers or Sorceresses, though occasionally, a “less gifted fae” would also be born with one of the virtues.
She bit her lip upon figuring out which of the virtues were hers. Something called true sight, or the ability to see beyond anyone’s glamor or mind tricks. It explained why she saw beyond the beautiful façades of the vampires she’d met past being changed.
“I told you, my dear. I made you strong.”
The voice! She nearly dropped the book in surprise. Her heart pattered against her chest like a caged bird seeking escape. “Lucia?” Upon asking, she desperately hoped the woman who kept creeping into her mind wasn’t the Ancient Sorceress.
No reply came for long enough that she assumed she hadn’t reached the other person, as always. But a reply crawled into her awareness as her eyes turned back to the spell book. “It is not time for us to meet yet. But soon.”
“Wait! Lucia?” she called, the mental equivalent of grabbing at the other person. She felt the barest edge of awareness, as if someone else were watching…and listening. “Why did you change me?”
“I saved you, girl. No longer will you be a victim to the world.”
“But…why?” she repeated desperately. Why her? Why use the Emperor’s blood upon her, a random victim? So many questions bubbled to the surface, but she only wanted to understand how someone so Ancient and storied had seen a kernel of potential in her.
Lucia’s chuckle was melodious, like one a lady of old would make while hiding her mirth behind a fan of silk and lace. “Possibilities. Pathways, dreams, hopes. A thousand thousand possibilities, but few are viable. Why you? You will see in time.”
That didn’t answer her q
uestion, but she could already feel Lucia fading from her mind. Her hands tightened with frustration. “Viable for what?”
“Soon, my dear, I will call you to my side. You will see lies for what they are and the truth Gwendolyn nor the others will tell you. I am the future, and you are key to my destiny.”
Violet’s heart remained a jumping rabbit, even though Lucia obviously left her on that mic drop. She cursed under her breath. So that was the plan, whatever sliver of it Lucia was willing to share. Hands shaking, she clutched the spell book in two hands and forced herself to read of the other virtues, and when she’d memorized the five of them, she delved into the front of the book and read as far as her adrenaline would carry her.
She eventually joined Alex in sleep, deciding to disturb him and the others with Lucia’s intrusion when they were fresh. Until then, she chanted the virtues like counting sheep.
True sight, future sight, empathy, druidism, mediumship.
Chapter 28
Alex
HE WAS DREAMING someone else’s dream, his inner beast tugging him further into the fog of rest. They weren’t with Violet anymore, and he wasn’t in control of where they were going.
Upon shifting, the inner beast had taken back its control of this new ability. Somehow, he thought it was showing him how it worked. He’d only experienced Violet’s dreams, which showed only a drop of his potential to infiltrate others’ minds. Together, he and the beast crossed to another’s dream. Expecting a pop of stimulus to all senses, he instead felt them mute further.
He couldn’t feel his body. Darkness as oppressive as the blanket over Nyixa surrounded him, punctuated by the slap of water against stone. His first thought was wondering if they were at the bottom of the ocean, drowning just as Gwendolyn had intended.
“Help! Someone help me!”
A woman’s voice, muffled and desperate. “Where are you?” he called. There was no sense of direction here, but he still bent low and quested with his fingers, brushing against cold stone and the edge of a rug worn soft by the tramp of many feet.
“Help!” It sounded like she hadn’t heard him. Her words had a hoarse edge. “Can anyone hear me?”
“I can. I can hear you,” he answered, bumping into the solid bulk of a table.
“Is anyone there?” Despair threaded through her question. He realized all at once who this must be. Purring within his awareness was his inner beast, assuring him that they’d come to the person who needed their presence most.
Open your eyes, it whispered.
“Hello? Hello?” she was screaming now. The dream rocked uncertainly, a sign that the woman herself was fighting to free herself of this nightmare.
His fingers found someone’s arm, and he shook it. “Open your eyes! You’re not alone,” he urged.
Light flared to life as sconces lit with fire around the room, bringing him nearly face-to-face with Neala, her freckles clear in a face bleached pale and coated in cold sweat. She shook him off and sat up, taking a look around. The room was one where he imagined many war councils took place, several half-finished maps pinned to the wall. A long table in the center of it all was still set with a bottle of wine and a few waiting glasses.
“You’re dreaming. None of this is real,” he assured the redheaded woman as she pressed fingertips to her face, brailing out the contours of a crooked nose and the long scar that marked the side of her mouth.
“Dream walker,” her voice grew hoarser still, as if she’d shouted it to its limits.
“So it would seem.” He inclined his head as she stood, towering over him by a head as awareness lit her red eyes like living, furious flame.
With a gesture from her, they were accompanied by the bodies of sleeping men plus a raven-haired woman sprawled out in a wedding dress like a discarded doll at the end of dress-up. “This is what this really looked like,” Neala murmured. He recognized all the sleeping faces, save for three. “I opened my eyes first, but I couldn’t move.”
“How long did you lay here?” His voice hushed respectfully down to her own as memories flickered at the edge of the dream.
“Years. I don’t know.” Her fingers balled into fists at her side. It was hard to imagine a worse hell than to be awake and aware, but trapped in a cold tomb for so long… “I would ask a boon of you, dream walker.” Gesturing for him to follow, she walked out of the scene and into the quiet of her unconscious mind. Where Violet’s mind, when not dreaming, was a calm, starry night, Neala’s was like walking into a windstorm. He was pushed and pulled by invisible forces, hair knotting above him as if it were caught in the top of a twister.
He understood what she wanted. His inner beast didn’t have to tell him, even though that bundle of instinct screamed it anyway. Calm!
“Long ago, I had a friend who walked in dreams,” Neala said, standing unaffected by the chaos filling this space. “She helped me erase the memories that held me back. We could remove exactly what was needed.”
“Like surgery.” He nodded. “Instead of erasing full days…you could take away specific scenes of memory.” He’d already done something similar with the hellscape he’d pulled from Violet’s mind.
But Neala was about to ask for more, he thought. She confirmed his musings a moment later. “I wish to forget I ever woke up before my friends.” Erasing bits and pieces of foreign memory was one thing, but she was talking the experience of years. “Restore me, and I will give you a boon in return.”
He closed his mouth on voicing any hesitations. He could at least give it a try for a boon from a Blood Prince, especially if it would soothe the fury that’d gripped her the couple of times he’d seen her in person. Win-win if it were possible.
It’s possible, his inner beast assured, stretching out its claws. This time, he let it take control, and together, they led Neala deeper into her memories, searching for the moment she woke a prisoner in her own body. They walked for hours, though it could’ve been minutes, fighting the raging wind that impeded progress while screaming of revenge and betrayal.
Neala herself grew less aware as they went deeper, blank eyed as if she were sleepwalking. He finally came to the moment he was looking for. Together, man and beast stretched out their mental influence, telling Neala to forget. She would still know of Gwendolyn’s betrayal, but the bottled volcano in her mind would be put to ease.
Neala’s mind calmed as the memories faded to nothing. Her sleeping self turned to him, a smile tugging the unscarred side of her lips. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. Really.” He hoped he could hone this side of his magic without needing his shapeshifting instincts leading the way. If it worked for her and Violet, many more could use a gentle hand to erase the most painful of memories.
“Is there anything I can do for you now in return?”
“Yes! Don’t wake up,” he said hastily. “I would like proof.”
She raised a brow silently, beckoning for him to continue. “I’ve heard two stories and some outlandish claims. Fae. Portals to other worlds. Show me proof in your own memories of such things.”
“Who told their tales to you?” she asked in her hoarse voice. In the silence of her mind, he could hear her, though he imagined it would be harder if she didn’t speak in the waking world.
He reluctantly shared Lucia and Gwendolyn’s names, watching her face crease with hatred. “Of course. I honor your request.”
The air warped until they stood together before the Eye of Worlds on a dark day not unlike any of the others he’d already spent on Nyixa. They flanked a woman wearing a moonstone crown, regal and proud as an army of men and women waited tensely around them. Her eyes and hair were golden, skin flushed with vitality under a simple gown of rose petal pink. A butterfly perched on her shoulder, its wings the only jewel that otherwise adorned her. “This is Nyah. My sister by choice and adoption,” Neala said. The memory of the woman didn’t twitch as they spoke of her. “She’s also Gwendolyn’s daughter and Adrius’s lifemate. We lost her long ago.”
He put a hand over her shoulder as her voice cracked. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to—” he cut himself off as Gwendolyn and the dark-haired woman from before worked together to make the Eye of Worlds spin its giant glass orb. He assumed the other woman was Lucia. Faster and faster the orb went until its spinning surface flattened out to a sphere-sized portal.
“Nyah thought we could reason with the Fell after their defeat,” Neala said. Words spoken long ago passed like murmured background noise. Forgotten to time, he thought, watching the body language instead. Neala and Sirius joined another woman with rich brown skin, a delicate sari wrapped around her form and eyes of Blood Prince red, to surround Nyah.
He and Neala followed the memory beyond the portal, their feet landing in a dune of ash. Ashy mounds stretched as far as the eye could see, a ruin where no one would be able to survive. The vampires spoke with a single Fell as it led them into what looked like a refugee camp not far from the portal. “I assume it didn’t go well?” Alex asked, watching hungry Fell peer out of their tents. The creatures were worse in person, hunched over and frog-like, with lips permanently stretched around prominent rows of fangs. Hunger lit many a face.
“Not because of the Fell,” she answered. Nyah and the Fell spoke while the other Blood Princes looked on with disapproval. She passed it a vial not unlike the one still sitting in his pocket, except this one was filled with a glimmering, golden liquid.
He meant to ask of the similarity but stopped when the Fell started to change upon gulping down the vial’s contents. Pale, paper-thin skin flushed with color. Bones popped and shifted to turn the creature into something with a humanoid frame, only a loincloth to cover his modesty. The only thing that left Alex’s mouth was a confused grunt.
It couldn’t be possible. But here was the proof he asked for. A living, breathing fae from her memory, transformed from a Fell by miracle. “This is Caladorn Nightweaver, son of the Fell Emperor. Back then, at least, he was the leader of this group of Fell,” Neala told him. “He’s an astral fae.”
Dream Walker: Blood Legacy Series Book 1 Page 17
