She extended her hand. “It’s nice to meet the two of you,” she said and they each shook.
“I trust you will enjoy the exhibit, professor,” Darien said, his tone and matching demeanor having a stiff politeness. “Miss Selene and I have lingered for quite some time and the rest of our party must be wondering what has become of us.”
“I will indeed, Mr. Shepherd,” Dr. Rogers replied. “I will indeed.” The professor slipped his arm around his wife’s back. “I will see the two of you in class on Tuesday; enjoy yourselves.”
Diana and Darien bid their professor and his wife farewell and then quickly made their return upstairs in awkward silence. When they arrived in the central garden area, they found that many people had left the gala already. Diana hadn’t realized that they had been in the exhibit so long.
After saying polite goodbyes to a few attendees, Andrew and Miri met Diana and Darien under a canopy of hanging ferns.
Though she had a playful smirk, Miri seemed a bit relieved to see the two of them. “You’ve been gone quite a while. We were about to come looking for you.”
“I was showing Miss Selene a few of the more interesting pieces. It’s surprising how little attention our guests gave to the exhibit, being the reason for the gala and all,” Darien said with a hint of scorn.
“Not surprising really,” Andrew replied with a shrug. “These things always have their fair share of cake-eaters and cellar-smellers that just come to get zozzled and find someone to go home with.” The dated vocabulary didn’t escape Diana’s notice. “That’s human nature for you.”
Darien sighed. “A simple truth,” he said. “Well, are we ready to return home?”
“I know I am,” Andrew replied. “Maurice should be here by now.”
Diana wasn’t ready for the evening to be over. She needed some answers and was bound and determined to get them.
“Darien,” she spoke up. “It’s a lovely night and the campus is only a few blocks away, can we walk back?”
Darien looked genuinely surprised by the request, but also pleased.
“Of course,” he said with a smile and turned to the twins. “I will see the two of you at home.”
Andrew shot Darien a mischievous smirk, but Miri’s expression had a warning attached to it that Diana found curious. Why would Miri be worried about the two of them walking home alone?
Hopefully, she’d soon have the answer.
Diana quickly grabbed Darien by the arm, allowing him to escort her down the white marble stairs of the museum entrance and out into the moonlight.
Chapter 8
Your mask has fallen, the truth I now see.
Thou art another Draconian Knight
Seeking to corrupt Grail’s holy power.
Lo, not just a knight, but the Dragon King!
Walking under the soft lights of the city street, escorted by a handsome gentleman in the cool September night, was terribly romantic; however, Diana’s mind was a little too preoccupied to dwell on matters that would normally make a girl’s eyelids bat and her heart go aflutter. Instead, she was attempting to gather scant pieces of information into a weapon that would allow her to breach Darien’s sturdy defenses.
The Shepherds appeared to be rich and sophisticated young people, the family having a great amount of influence in various circles—notably art and antiquities. Terra and Darien could both speak a melodious ancient language that researchers had been trying to figure out for decades—a language on a monument that was somehow connected to Atlantis. As for their English, Diana found the slight differences in the way they spoke rather curious. When they seemed comfortable or off their guard, Miri and Andrew occasionally let old-fashioned vocabulary slip. Darien and Terra, on the other hand, seemed to speak with very proper English. Just a short time ago, when Darien had been very tense and nervous, he had spoken to Dr. Rogers with all the airs of nineteenth-century polite society. If they really were siblings, and only a year or so apart in age, why did they speak so differently? It’s like they learned English in different decades. But that can’t be right, can it? They’re not—
Immortal.
Could that really be possible? Perhaps the ancient Atlanteans discovered the mystery of immortality and are still living in the world, millennia after their kingdom sank beneath the Sea. The notion of vampires seems just as plausible. Perhaps Andrew and Miri were turned sometime in the 1920’s with Darien and Terra few decades prior—it was as good a guess as any.
She shook her head at the ridiculous train of thought.
Atlanteans and vampires? What the hell’s wrong with me? She’d been reading too many fantasy novels. They were probably just rich upper class people—they all lived in a fanciful reality separated from the peons. It’s only natural for a normal person like Diana to think them strange and otherworldly. Maybe Darien was telling the truth and Terra really was from Shelvalia. Perhaps the languages just sounded similar. What did she know about eastern European languages? Nothing at all.
“…Miss Selene?” Darien was looking at her. He had apparently been talking to her, and Diana was too lost in her delusions to register it.
“Forgive me,” she said, apologizing for her rudeness. “I zoned out a moment.” After she said it, she realized how horrible it sounded. “Not that I mean you were boring me or anything.” Diana winced at her epic fail. Her delusions were going to end up causing her to offend her date.
“It is quite alright,” he said. “I was just saying you may want to keep a tight hold on your purse.”
The warning prompted Diana to assess their surroundings. Many of the nearby homes had iron bars on the windows while others had the boarded up, condemned, look typical of crack-houses. The area between the museum and Flinders’ campus had turned out to be a pretty sketchy part of town and here they were—Diana in a fancy dress and Darien in black-tie. They might as well have been wearing signs that said “please rob us.”
Diana began to feel not so safe.
Darien must have sensed her state of mind, because he quickly took her hand and gently pulled her close to his side, slipping an arm around her middle. A strange sense calm surround Diana as his hand rested lightly on the side of her hip. Being this close to Darien felt so—natural. Even though it was the first time he had ever put his arm around her, it could have been the thousandth. Her heart should be racing at the sudden intimacy, but instead, she felt completely relaxed.
Though he seemed slightly tense, Darien felt calm and collected as well. She couldn’t sense any fear of immediate danger, or any of his earlier nervousness, and the two of them continued walking in mutual, tranquil, silence for some time.
When the stone bell-tower of the library finally came into view Diana sighed in relief. They’d made it back safely. Though she didn’t doubt Darien would have done his best to protect her in the event of a mugging, bravery was no match for a gun and she didn’t want to see him shot.
The blaring sound of a police siren reverberated off of the buildings behind them and Diana instinctively turned around, and with the shrill warning echoing in her ears, inspected the area for trouble.
To her relief, they were completely alone on the deserted street corner. In moments, an old and rusted out green sedan swerved at high speed around the far street corner, followed closely by the police car to which the flashing siren belonged. As the car being pursued whizzed past Diana on the other side of the street, it suddenly swerved to the left; the unmistakable sound of screeching tires left Diana frozen in fear—the car swerved into oncoming traffic, causing another to break and swerve to avoid collision, its headlights shining directing into Diana’s eyes.
It happened so fast that she couldn’t even scream.
In an instant, Diana’s heart turned to ice as Darien wrapped her middle with one arm. The ground beneath their feet trembled and the flash of the headlights suddenly disappeared as the force of impact sent their entwined bodies spiraling.
Diana’s world went dark.
&n
bsp; Moments later she felt the cold, hard, concrete of the sidewalk against her cheek and realized she wasn’t dead. She’d been thrown to the ground, but her bones had not been crushed by the force of the car. Apart from the ringing in her ears, and a slight feeling of whiplash in her neck, she was perfectly fine.
Quite shocked to still be among the living, Diana opened her eyes and lifted her head. Darien was still holding her close to his chest with one arm, the majority of her body lying atop him. He must have taken the brunt of the fall when they were thrown. She was thankful, but it still didn’t explain why they hadn’t been killed.
Looking behind, Diana gasped.
Dark, smoky, steam rose from the car’s smashed and mangled front end from having collided with a wall—a newly formed wall made from earth, stone, and a good portion of the concrete of sidewalk directly behind Diana and Darien.
Darien’s other arm was stretched out, palm open and commanding, as if willing the composite barrier to obey.
Diana immediately forgot about the car—Darien had just used some type of magic to save their lives.
“We must hurry from here,” he said in a panic before scrambling to his feet, pulling Diana up with him. With a quick calming gesture of his hand, the wall broke apart until it was nothing more than a normal unassuming pile of rubble and debris. “Luckily the driver was knocked unconscious, but others will arrive at any moment.”
In no state to argue, Diana simply let herself be dragged along in a haze of near-death adrenaline and logic-crippling wonder.
Finally entering into the familiarity of the campus and the grassy quad, Diana regained a portion of her mental faculties and stopped letting Darien drag her by the hand. She pulled away from him with force and then breathed deeply to find her composure.
“Okay,” she said, her tone demanding, before taking a final deep breath. “You will now tell me exactly what’s going on.”
“Elberon’s beard…” Darien said as he brought his hand to the side of his head and rubbed his temple to calm himself. “Why do I even leave the house?”
She crossed her arms, staring him down. “I’m not an idiot, Darien. I saw what happened—you used magic!”
He winced at her loud declaration and finally gave Diana the attention she demanded.
“I will tell you,” he said in an anxious attempt to quiet her down while nervously looking around their immediate area. “But not here—come.” He took Diana’s hand and led her across the quad and into the library.
Being Saturday evening, the building was quite devoid of people save for a few employees manning the front desk until close. Making their way to a side stairwell, they hastily descended the steps and Darien ushered Diana into one of the empty basement classrooms—one with no windows. Once inside, he switched on the lights and shut the door.
Diana quickly realized the danger she was in. She was trapped in a secluded room with a strange guy she barely knew anything about, who probably had some hidden agenda for asking her to the museum gala, and who also just happened to be able to use magic.
I’m so dead.
Darien appeared to be debating something inside of his head and Diana felt twisted into knots by his extremely mixed and tense emotions. She felt the nervousness and fear, but also a strange happiness and delight for the situation in which he found himself. Following in the shadow of that happiness, however, she felt the self-inflicted filth of shame. Through his tumult of anxiety, though, she knew he had no intentions of harming her.
Diana wished she could read his mind rather than sense his feelings—it’d be much more practical in her present situation. Her own thoughts were reeling at what could possibly be the meaning of it all.
In spite of everything, the greatest mystery coursing through Diana’s mind was not how Darien used magic, but rather, why the notion felt absolutely and utterly normal to her. Shouldn’t she be having trouble reconciling what she saw with what she knew about what was—and wasn’t—possible in this world? Instead, she felt ready to believe whatever it was Darien was about to tell her.
Please God, just don’t let it be vampires.
Looking her deep in the eyes, Darien simply cleared his throat and then took off his silver ring.
In an instant the air around Darien seemed to change its substance, rippling like the waves on a pond. The effect lasted only a second and then was over, leaving his image clean and clear.
Diana gasped, simply not ready for what she beheld.
Darien’s ears had changed—they were now double the length of a normal human’s and sharply pointed upwards.
“You’re an elf?!” For reasons beyond her understanding, Diana began to laugh hysterically.
Darien, by very sharp contrast, looked incredibly irritated.
“I’m glad you find my true nature so laughable, human,” he said with exacerbated sarcasm.
“I—I’m sorry,” Diana apologized through the fit of laughter. “I just—it’s not what I was expecting, is all.”
“Regardless of your expectations, Miss Selene, I fail to see the humor and I find it rather insulting.”
His anger, emotional pain, and profound disappointment echoed within Diana and her hysterics came to an abrupt halt. She’d really hurt his feelings.
She felt like an extremely horrible person.
“I’m sorry,” she said with downturned eyes looking up with shame. “Forgive me?”
“I suppose; only if you promise never to look at me the way you are now, ever again.”
Diana grinned. “I can’t make that promise.”
Her eyes continued to take in Darien’s new appearance and she lightly shook her head at the insanity of it as she took a seat atop a nearby table.
“Elves…” she muttered softly to herself. “And here I thought you’d be vampires.”
Darien grumbled lightly in disgust. “What you people think of as vampires are apostates and abominations—their very existence is an affront to all that is good in this world.”
“I’m sorry?” Diana apologized through her confusion. “I didn’t think vampires really existed—or elves for that matter.” She continued to stare at Darien—whatever he was—and her mind was losing focus. She felt dazed and unsure about anything and everything in life all at once.
She must to be dreaming. The entire evening had simply been one of her elaborate and realistic nightmares. She would just have to let the whole thing play out and wake up.
“So am I right?” Diana asked. “Are you an elf?”
Darien crossed his arms over his chest. “I suppose the current conception of an ‘elf’ is an accurate description of my people.”
“What do you mean?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head sardonically. “A century ago, humans thought elves were imps with pointy hats that fashioned toys and shoes—it was rather offensive.”
“I should say so,” Diana said through a chuckle. “You guys must love Tolkien then.”
“Indeed,” Darien replied with a smile. “Your modern fantasy literature reclaimed what the name truly meant to the ancient Germanic peoples that gave it to us.”
Diana could not stop shaking her head in wonder.
“What do you prefer to be called?”
“We don’t mind Elves, but the closest human term is Fae,” he replied. “Though corrupted, the word is borrowed from our language. In our tongue we are the Naphalei—the Children of the Fallen.” As he said it, Darien swelled with a sense of pride.
“Children of the Fallen,” Diana repeated softly. “That word—Naphalei—it sounds familiar, like I’ve heard it in a movie or read it in a book.”
“You are most likely thinking of Nephilim,” Darien said with a tone very reminiscent of Dr. Rodgers. “Our legendary portrayal in biblical literature.”
With his mouth twisting into a grin, Darien put one arm behind his back and raised the other like a Shakespearean actor.
“When man began to multiply on the face of the Earth and daughte
rs were born unto them, the Sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the Sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children unto them. These were the heroes of old, the men of renown.”
His grin remaining, Darien dropped his arm. “Genesis chapter six, give or take a verse. Surprisingly accurate, for a human religious text.” His smug smile reflected the irony.
“It’s true?” Diana asked, eyes wide with wonder. “Elves are the offspring of angels and mortal women?”
“More or less,” he replied, crossing his arms. “Angels, Gods, Aeons—whatever you want to call powerful spiritual beings from another realm.”
“Does that mean you’re immortal?” she asked. “You’ve never really seemed like the typical twenty-year-old.”
From his slight smirk and playful sigh, Darien looked to be settling in for a long series of questions.
“We aren’t immortal or ageless, but our life-spans are substantially longer than yours. We naturally live around a thousand years.”
“How old are you and your siblings?”
“Actually, Andrew and Miriam—as you know them—are not my brother and sister.”
“I figured as much,” Diana replied. “What are their real names?”
Darien was debating whether or not to tell her. He had obviously never planned on being in this situation and his usual duplicity was likely hard to overcome.
“Their true names are Anderon and Miraena of clan Swiftriver. Terraiyah, who found the idea of using a human name degrading, is of the Dawnbringer—one of the ancient clans of the East. ”
Diana smirked. “Andrew and Miri sure picked clever human names,” she said with sarcasm. “What’s your real name—Darius?”
Though she’d meant the question as a lighthearted joke, he seemed troubled by it nonetheless. With all of his masks finally falling away, she could sense how very vulnerable he was feeling and how alarmed he was by it.
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