by E. M. Knight
“She gave it to me sealed,” I say.
“So? It’s not like the humans will know it was opened, one way or the other.”
“And what do you expect to find inside?” I ask. “It’ll just be some sentimental garbage written by a seventeen-year-old girl.”
He smiles. “Of course it will.”
His eyes shine.
“You want to alter it!” I accuse. “You want me to give them the letter you’d have them read.”
“I wonder,” he says languidly, “what gave it away.”
“I don’t understand why you’d want that. We’re not talking about her real parents here. These are just the two people who raised her.”
“Which makes them all the more valuable to have in our back pocket,” he says. “Eleira does not have many weaknesses. But her tie to her family is one. I want to make sure that vulnerability is secured, so as not to be exploited by her enemies.”
“As opposed to being exploited by her friends,” I say under my breath.
Felix chuckles. “You really do assume the worst in people, don’t you? You weren’t always like this.”
“I wasn’t ever truly myself before,” I mutter.
“So. Do you have the letter, or not? Can you do as I ask?”
“Let me think about it,” I tell him.
He looks at me, grave disappointment in his eyes. “I’ll take that as a no. Very well.”
“I didn’t say that!” I hiss. “I said, I’d think about it. I’m not seeing your angle in all this, that’s all. And don’t feed me that trash about our past being water under the bridge. Nobody forgives that easily.”
“Seems to me you’ve been hanging around people with too much suspicion in their hearts.”
I scoff.
“Tell you what,” Felix suggests. “I’ll give you one week. I think I can persuade Eleira to hold off her decision on your exile until then. Maybe the extra time in our midst will grant you some perspective to see how little influence you hold around here after all you’ve done.”
He steps closer and touches my shoulder. “You think the guard’s treatment of you was a one-off thing? I’d say it’s the best of what you can expect from our vampires from this point forward.”
“Prove your worth first,” I challenge. “Eleira stripped me of my post and put you in charge of the guards. Show me that you’re true to your word, that you actually have some influence, and command them never to disrespect me that way again.”
He considers my request in contemplative silence.
“For if they do,” I add, almost as an afterthought, “their blood will most definitely be shed.”
Felix smiles. “It’s interesting that you think you’re in any position to bargain with me.”
“Stop pretending. You’re trying to paint yourself as someone who has much more influence in the Queen’s decision-making than you actually do. And my position is not nearly as precarious as you think. Need I remind you I am still the second-strongest vampire in this coven, second only to the Queen?”
“Small good that strength will do you if your wings are clipped,” Felix mutters.
That’s the final straw. I won’t take another veiled insult.
I reach out and grab hold of the Elemental Forces, wrestling them to me. The fight takes only a splinter of a second, but it makes me feel so gloriously alive!
I point my palms out at the nearest tree. “Watch.”
A stream of white flame shoots out. It envelopes the trunk, and immediately, the rest of the bark catches fire as if it’s dry tinder.
I feel the vampires around us, high in the treetops, shift their attention to the sudden conflagration. But before they or Felix can do so much as blink, I use the flows of Water to extract the moisture from the air and funnel it all toward the fire.
The violent flames are doused in seconds, leaving no permanent damage, only a singed trunk.
I direct my gaze at Felix. My eyes meet his.
I know the miasma is running across my whites stronger than it ever has before. I can almost feel it consuming my soul.
“Next time you provoke me,” I say, very, very softly. “The flames will be aimed at you.”
Felix’s mask of composure breaks. He snarls, takes a looming step toward me…
Then seems to change his mind, almost on a whim.
He spins away and stalks off into the depths of the forest.
I keep my eyes on him until he’s out of sight. Then, still feeling just as angry as before, and needing one hell of an outlet, I turn back—
And come face-to-face with Eleira, who’s glaring at me, as if she’s ready to kill.
Chapter Five
Eleira
The Haven
“You have one chance to explain what you just did,” I hiss, staring down the youngest Soren brother, “or I will sentence you to spend the rest of your miserable existence a prisoner in the silver cells.”
Phillip’s eyes are almost entirely black as he looks at me. I have the weaves ready that will bind him and render him incapacitated if he so much as breathes the wrong way.
“Your new Captain Commander,” he begins, saying the words very slowly, “tried to blackmail me into helping him. I do not think you’d like to know what he asked.”
I take a step forward, the magic filling my body to the very brim.
“Try me,” I say. “And before you begin, know that if anything you tell me is a lie, I will find out, and there will be consequences.”
“Far be it for me to question the rights of the Queen,” he says. His voice is flat, emotionless. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was mocking me.
But I’d hope he’s too smart for a tactic like that.
“Do you remember that letter, the one you asked me to deliver to the family who raised you?”
I manage to suppress a gasp, but only just. I haven’t thought of that for so long. There are all types of tangled emotions mixed up in memories of my past life.
“Yes,” I say coldly. “What of it?”
“Felix wanted me to give it to him. He wanted to see it, to read it, so he could alter the words before it got delivered.”
I narrow my eyes. “You expect me to believe that?”
Phillip shrugs, too casually. “You asked for the truth. Don’t expect me to put lipstick on a platypus if it’s not what you’d like to hear.”
I cross my arms. “The implication being, in this case, that you still intended to deliver that letter for me.”
Phillip puts a hand over his heart. “You wound me by calling my loyalty into question.”
I sneer. But at the same time, I let up on my grip on magic.
Only just.
“And what was this all about?” I ask, gesturing to the tree.
“I was proving a point.”
My eyebrows go up. “And that was?”
“That despite the limitation put on me with those horrible, nasty oaths,” he says. “I am still the second strongest vampire in The Haven. After you.”
I look at him for a long moment, considering.
“Of course that’s true,” I say finally. “But I don’t understand why you felt the need to display it. Felix would know.”
“Obviously he knows,” Phillip snarls. “But he thinks me cowered, by what was done by you. I had to show him I am not.”
I look up the length of the tree, to the base of the apartments at the very top.
“You’re lucky no one was hurt,” I tell him. “And that nothing significant was damaged. After the fire that ravaged the village and the attack on the castle, I take destruction of Haven property very seriously.”
“As you should,” he says, and bends at the waist in a formal bow. “I apologize if my… indiscretion… summoned you here and took you away from more pressing business. I know how much there is that you must do.”
I eye him for a moment. The miasma in his eyes has calmed down as we spoke. He almost sounds like the Phillip I first met.
But, of
course, wishing for him to return to that is wishing for the impossible.
“I’ll let this slide,” I say, making my decision. “For now. Know that you’re on a very short leash, Phillip. I can cast another spell over you that limits your use of magic completely. All it takes is one last oath.”
He begins to protest, but I continue to speak over him.
“But that would be cruel and uncalled for, so I’m not going to do it.”
“Thank you, at least, for sparing me that fate,” he says.
I tap my lips. “You know,” I say. “I could almost believe you are being genuine.”
He bristles. “Of course I’m genuine, Eleira. What I hope for most is that whatever bad blood exists in our past is quickly turned to…” he makes a peculiar expression, “…to water under the bridge. To use our mutual friend’s terminology.”
I shake my head quickly. “What mutual friend?” I wonder. Then, I add, “Never mind. Don’t cast magic again to prove a point, and we can resume the trust-building process.”
“And what if I’m attacked?” he asks me. “Would you have me lie prostrate on the floor and take it all without lifting a finger in return?”
“That would make things a lot easier for me,” I say.
He glares.
“You are still a vampire, Phillip,” I say. “You can defend yourself with those gifts. Although I don’t see any reason for you to fear attack by our vampires. Unless you provoke them.”
“I provoke them just by showing my face,” he informs me.
“Then I suggest sticking to the shadows. Another thing vampires are good at.”
His lips turn downward in a snarl, but he quickly neutralizes his expression. “Are we done?” he asks.
“Yes. Where are you so anxious to go?”
“Nowhere. But by the lack of response from you when I told you about Felix’s treasonous suggestion, I figure the farther away I am from everyone else, the better.”
I sigh. “You really expect me to believe Felix wanted to alter the letter?” I shake my head. “No. Don’t answer. Just go retrieve it for me and bring it back. I’ll take care of it after that.”
“As my Queen commands,” he says, bowing stiffly one more time.
Chapter Six
Riyu
The Haven
Once I am sufficiently satisfied with how far away Phillip is, I step out from the trees and approach my Queen.
Her eyes flicker over me as I come close.
“So?” she asks. “Was it true?”
“Every word,” I affirm.
“Hmm,” she responds. She stands there, looking out into the distance.
“I should take my leave,” I tell her. “If you want, we can discuss the implications somewhere more private. I don’t presume to know the relationship between you and Felix, or the undercurrent of politics going one way or the other.”
“That’s a good idea,” she says, but she’s still distracted. “I’m going to go up to the atrium. It’s the place in which I first found myself when I awoke in The Haven. I haven’t been back since I was introduced to the royal brothers.”
She starts to walk away, pauses, then adds, “You can see the sky from in there. I’d rather we have our conversation sooner than later, Riyu. I know you’d like to see how the wards block the sun. You can do it from there.”
“Very well,” I bow my head. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll find my way up.”
“You know where it is?”
I risk an impish grin. “We have blueprints of the entire Haven in The Crypts. I’ve long ago committed them to memory.”
“Interesting,” she says. “I wonder who got them to your coven.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
She fixes that penetrating stare at me. “Are you sure?”
“As certain as—“
“Don’t answer,” she interrupts. “Take your time to consider the possibilities. Maybe something will come to mind.”
And with that, she leaves me.
Only after she’s gone, and I conduct a slow, steady count to three hundred, do I sag against the nearest evergreen and exhale.
I look at the tree that Phillip burned.
So much strength, decimated so easily, so forcefully, in a fraction of a second…
Well, it’s no stretch of the imagination to say that I never thought I would see anything like that.
The most interesting thing is that I did not feel the weaves as he cast them. Because of my relative lack of magical strength, I had to train myself to be aware of the most minute changes in the Elemental Forces.
But when Phillip cast his spells, there was nothing…
Nothing aside from the slightest dip in the currents swelling through the air, as if there was a sudden cavity on the other side that had to be filled up.
Yet the currents themselves remain untouched. How? Phillip must have called upon some portion of them to cast his sorcery. It was not blood magic, either, because the aftermath of that leaves a very detectable sense of corruption in the air.
The only explanation I can come up with is that he pulled on some other reserve. Maybe he had a torrial on him that stored magic and inverts the pull on the Elemental Forces within so as to be invisible to everybody else?
But that is mere fantasy. I stood in the greatest repository of torrials collected on this earth. Not one of them could so much as come close to doing something like that.
Then again… then again, all torrials are different. His could be unique.
Yet intuition tells me that there was no torrial anywhere on Phillip’s body when he cast the spell.
I grunt and push off. I don’t want to be in the presence of his magic more than I have to. The black trunk is a stark reminder of what that vampire is capable of.
I spot the elevator, now operational, that goes up to the apartments. It’s too early to meet Eleira up there. If we’re going to be smart about this, we have to take absolutely every precaution possible.
So, I stroll by and instead make my way to the heart of the village.
The Haven vampires know I am a stranger. But they also know of my initial conversation with the Queen. That I spoke to her and am still free to go where I want, on my own, is enough for them to mind their own business.
At least, most of them.
As I pass a small house that is almost completely rebuilt, a vampire steps in my path.
“Excuse me,” I mutter, keeping my eyes down and trying to sidestep him.
He dances with me the same way. I try going left, and he steps in my way. Right—the same thing.
I stop, exhale, and plant my feet. I raise my gaze, not quite meeting his eyes, and ask, “Can I help you?”
“You sure can,” he sneers. He grabs me by the shoulder and jerks me closer. “Look at me! Where do you come from?”
I have no choice. I raise my gaze to his.
He’s a plain-faced vampire without any particular distinction. Aside from the strange hatred I see on his face for me, that is.
“My past doesn’t matter in this coven,” I say. “We forsake all ties to our history when we join The Haven.”
He laughs. “You think it’s that easy, do you? No, no. Over here, we have our own way of doing things.”
He grabs my other shoulder and pins me to the wall.
I don’t dare fight back.
“My name is Tudor,” the vampire hisses in my face. “And some of my friends say you come from an enemy coven.”
“If they believe that,” I respond, “maybe they’re not as trustworthy as you think.”
He shoves me back. I grunt.
“My friends never lie,” he hisses. “We know who you are, Riyu. We know you came from The Crypts.”
I look into his eyes without saying a word.
“They’re right, aren’t they? I didn’t believe them at first. I said, there ain’t no way our Queen would let some sniveling vampire from an enemy coven penetrate our ranks. But it seems I was wrong
on that account.”
He pulls me to him, then shoves me to the ground. I make a show of falling, as if I’m totally helpless.
The trick works. “So weak,” Tudor sneers. “You’re pathetic. Maybe that’s why the Queen took you in. So you could shovel up all the shit of the Incolam.”
He laughs.
I stay in the dirt.
He kicks me in the side. “Come on. Get up! Prove you have a little fight in you.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I mutter.
“Oh?” He crosses his arms. “And why not?”
“Because if we fight, I would kill you.”
Tudor hoots. “There’s a joke! You hear that, fellas? One of the weakest vampires we’ve ever seen considers himself fearsome.”
A group of four, who were watching from the side, laugh at me in derision.
Very, very slowly, I pick myself up. “There are other things that define if a vampire can kill or not,” I say.
Then, on a whim, I flick a tiny strand of air at his heels, making him topple over.
“What the hell?” he curses. He surges up. “How did you—“
I hold my arms up in complete innocence. “If you’re accusing me of using the Mind Gift,” I say, “then I should remind you of how strong a vampire has to be for those powers to come about.”
The taller vampire scowls.
“You’re on very thin ice,” he warns. “Even if you were welcomed by the Queen, all of us remember what happened last time a delegation of vampires from an opposing coven was welcomed in.”
“One vampire is no delegation, I assure you,” I say. I take a step toward him—not too large, so as not to be disrespectful.
But not so small as to make me look intimidated, either.
“If you have a problem with my being here, however, you should take it up with your monarch. She is the one who granted me sanctuary.”
“Sanctuary? What are you, on the run?”
“You could say that,” I answer. “And you could also say, if you consider yourself smart, that you would not want to get too far into my business. I leave you alone, you leave me alone. I think that’s fair.”
I turn away.
“Just you wait,” Tudor grunts. He grabs me once more by the arm…