Did she dare?
And why did his blood taste so familiar, as if—
She stiffened. Not the first time. His blood had healed her critical wounds after her battle with Canya.
Tera ran her fingers along the side of her neck and over her abdomen. She could barely feel the scars. Even now, her body was healing, the burned skin flaking off in scabs to reveal new skin.
Not the first time.
She frowned as another memory nudged her. His slow, purposeful stare at the darkened alcove—her escape from a cavern filled with daevas. It had not been an accident either.
He had saved her. Yet, time and time again, he had attacked her. What was she supposed to make of it?
A tight knot in her chest loosened. Does it matter?
A sigh whispered out of Erich. The tension eased from his shoulders, and for a moment, he appeared at ease—a man at peace with himself and the world. His eyelashes fluttered open. “Your hair.” He reached out, not quite touching her. “It’s dark now.”
She glanced down at her braid, blackened by the sun. Perhaps in time it would lighten, perhaps not—
The earth rumbled beneath them. Tremors vibrated the steel floor.
Either way, vanity was a luxury she could not afford. “Are they ready to evacuate?”
“Where?” Erich shot to his feet, his outrage marred only by his unsteady reeling as the ground shook again. “Out there? You almost died, and you’re immortal. We have to go underground.”
“They will die underground. Their only hope is in Aeternae Noctis.”
Erich’s snarl bared elongated fangs. “Not Aeternae Noctis. Never Aeternae Noctis. I will not let you enslave them.”
“Would you prefer they die?” she asked pointedly.
“They have lived here for hundreds of years.”
“A thousand years, but any skill in maintaining the vault died out generations ago. I don’t even think Siri can save it now. The earth will reclaim it, as it has reclaimed so many other human structures. Tell the people to gather here. Take nothing; they will need all their speed.”
“You are mad. The faith you have in your icrathari sisters will doom them all. The people will never follow you into the dome.”
Tera stared at him. He was right. “But they will follow you. You speak with authority here as you do with the daevas. Tell them. Persuade them.”
He spat. “I am not persuaded. There is no life worth living in Aeternae Noctis. Five-year-old children slaughtered. The best and most worthy among you taken. The worthless—” He glanced down at his hands. “—discarded like trash outside the dome. No, that is not life. That is slavery.”
A sharp, cracking sound shot through the building, as loud as an explosion. The dark, jagged fissure on the ground branched and grew if it were alive. Steel floor panels bent and twisted as if they were as malleable as hot plastic. Metal rivets in the wall popped out, and the walls yawned apart to reveal the granite heart of the mountain.
Erich stared at Tera, his expression twisting with anguish. He shouted a command, and the people fled away from the entrance and into the seed vaults.
“No!” Her wings flared. She slammed him against the wall; it trembled from the impact. “Why would you damn them all to death just because you’re damned?”
His lips twisted into a smirk. Laughter danced in his eyes. “Isn’t that why you damned me? I was content worshipping you from afar. You could have ignored me for the rest of my pathetic mortal life. But I drew you. I dared capture the likeness of my muse, my goddess, on paper. Was it not good enough for you? Did it reveal a side of you that you did not want to show the world?”
Thoughtful, almost wistful, eyes. Enigmatic expression. A warlord at peace.
He had seen her as no one else had. But— “That is not why—”
“Did you rip out my humanity and cast me out as a punishment for my sins? Was it a game to you? See how much you could make me endure before my mind and body collapsed?” Erich snarled. “I was nobody. A worthless artist. An even worse poet. But all I needed to be happy was to see you soaring over Aeternae Noctis on the night of the full moon. It was so little to ask for.” His voice cracked. “And even that, you took it away. Out of what…spite? How much hate roils in you to make me suffer forever for daring to put charcoal to paper? That was my only crime, Tera; I didn’t deserve what you did to me.” Tears broke his voice as surely as water was tearing apart the human sanctuary of Haven. “Art—loving beauty—was my only crime.”
No, it wasn’t. Tera swallowed hard against the suffocating tightness in her throat. Causing me to fall in love with you was your only crime.
Footsteps pounded into the cocoon of silent pain wrapped around Tera and Erich. The humans rushed into the corridor, their arms laden with bundles of cloth. They were back? But—
The earth wobbled. Cries of alarm filled the narrow space as the people pressed up against the steel doors—doors that would open to death.
The cracks in the earth widened. Steel fractured beneath the power of the land tearing apart.
Erich wrapped his hands around the door’s sun-heated handles and slowly pulled it back.
Light shafted into darkness. As paranoid as vampires, the people jumped out of its reach. Anders retreated from the sun and shrieked as he lost his balance. He toppled headfirst into the chasm that split the corridor.
The crevasse was scarcely wide enough for flight, but it provided more than sufficient space for the child to fall into the depths of the Earth. Tera dove into the narrow opening, her wings pressed tight against her back. She accelerated past the child and twisted into a sharp turn.
Her wings beat down, scrapping against the granite rocks, as she shot up, catching Anders in her arms and carrying him back to the surface. She handed the boy over to his tearful parents. Her wings lifted her over the crowd as they huddled between the door and the chasm—between death and death.
The earth snapped. Tera could have sworn it sounded like a scream. The chasm yawned apart, as if hell itself had arrived to swallow people whole. Erich shouted, and the people ran toward the door, toward daylight, toward certain death.
Darkness suddenly curved over the light. The deep, rumbling sound intruding on Tera’s awareness was persistent, strong, and familiar.
The people dashed out of Haven and into the massive shadow cast by a domed city carried aloft by powerful engines. The humans stared, mouths agape, as a large hatch beneath the city opened and vampires leaped out. They grabbed the people, two at a time, and jumped up into Aeternae Noctis, before making another trip down for others.
The crack inside of Haven pushed outward, determined to consume the humans escaping its grasp. The eventual collapse would take out not only the seed vault, but also the area around it and the caves beneath.
The vampires hurried through the evacuation, seizing the remaining humans and carrying them up into Aeternae Noctis.
Only Tera and Erich remained on the surface.
She was halfway up when she realized he had not followed.
Erich stood alone at the entrance of the now-abandoned Haven. Cracks widened all around him, but he did not seem to notice. He stared at her, as if he could not take his eyes off her. A smile touched his lips. Not despairing. Not resigned. Not sad. Not bittersweet.
It was the smile of an artist, loving beauty again.
“Erich!” She shouted to be heard above the roar of the engines and the groaning of the earth. “Come on.”
He shook his head. His lips moved; she could not hear him but she could almost make out the words. She heard him in her heart. “I can’t go back.”
The ground split beneath his feet. He could have leapt away—his reflexes as an immortali would have permitted even greater feats—but he let it consume him.
Incoherent curses tangled in Tera’s mind and stuck in her throat. She swooped down. He did not struggle against her when she seized him around the waist. She was stronger; they both knew it.
He shook his head. “Let me go. The people are safe. Treat them kindly. Please,” he added, almost as an afterthought, the unfamiliar word trembling on his lips. “Let me die.”
And die he would—out here, beneath the blazing sun, the underground caves cut off, and no refuge in sight.
“Please,” Erich breathed a single word. He reached out, his hand so close to her cheek that she could almost feel his touch. If he extended his claws, he could have torn through her neck, but his nails remained sheathed.
He wanted to die.
She could not let him.
Tera soared into Aeternae Noctis, carrying Erich with her. His gaze remained locked on the ground as it crumpled beneath them, folding in like cloth. For a moment—a single precious moment—there was water on Earth again. The now-revealed underground rivers glistened bright blue before evaporating with a loud hiss. Steam rose into the sky, the moisture soft and welcomed against Tera’s skin.
Then it was gone; the all-too-brief glimpse of life and hope was sucked up by the all-consuming sun.
She looked at Erich. There was no terror or panic in his eyes; he was too jaded for it, but the bleak despair would have broken her heart if she had not steeled herself against it.
He was in the hands of enemies he had fought, defeated, and tortured. Death was the only mercy, but she had denied it to him. What else was left but eternal hell…not on Earth, but in Aeternae Noctis?
Chapter 9
Tera washed off the gore of battle and re-braided her hair before striding into the chamber where Ashra, Siri, Jaden, and Rafael were already gathered, together with three people Tera had not expected—Jorgen, his wife, and his child, the boy, Anders.
Siri was speaking to them almost as fluently as Erich had, the conversation occasionally assisted by pictures on a screen.
Tera chuckled to Ashra. “I should have known that our resident genius would have found a way to communicate with them.”
“Apparently, it’s Norwegian, somewhat changed over their years in isolation, but not enough so as to make communication impossible.”
Siri laughed, the sound surprisingly lighthearted. “Their story matches what Erich said. Megun and her companions were apparently responsible for saving and sustaining this little colony of humans.”
Tera’s eyes narrowed. “At least it explains Canya’s outraged litany over how much they sacrificed while we fled into the safety of Aeternae Noctis.”
“If not for the humans, it’s likely that the seed vault would have collapsed sooner. They’ve been maintaining and repairing it, but the power of the elements eventually caught up with them.” Siri shook her head. “Water is possibly the most destructive force on Earth. The annual freezing and melting of the water in the rocks of the mountain around the seed vault eventually crushed it. If we had arrived sooner, we might have organized a much more thorough evacuation, but still, the people are alive, and we have a bounty to go through.”
Tera followed the wave of Siri’s hand to the huge pile of bundled cloths stacked in a corner of the chamber. “What are those?”
“The packets of seeds Erich told them to carry from the vault.”
“He did?”
Siri’s frowned. “You didn’t know?”
Tera shook her head. Erich had been clear-headed enough to marshal the humans to save what they could of the precious stash within the seed vault. How could she have thought that he was, in his madness and hatred, ordering the people away from the safety of Aeternae Noctis?
Because I didn’t expect him to be anything except insane and driven by hate.
Tera drew a deep breath. “How much is in there?”
Siri spoke to Jorgen before translating his reply. “A large percentage of what was in the vault. They had known for a long time that the vault was on the verge of collapse. Years earlier, Erich had instructed them to take one packet from each of the seed stores and bundle them in cloths. We won’t know if the seed packets are viable without planting them, but there’s no faulting the logic of their decision.” Siri’s wings flared as she swirled up in a dance of joy. “Do you know what this means? We could possibly bring back most of the plant species that existed on Earth before the apocalypse.”
“And put them where? Within Aeternae Noctis? Within the four domed cities out in the Colorado Valley basin?”
“Where else?” Siri asked. “There isn’t water anywhere else.”
“There is. Underground. There are vast rivers and oceans underground.”
Siri shrugged. “Plants need sunlight, too. The only place water and sunlight coexist are within the domes.”
“The domes are limited. They’ll run out of space for plants and for people. Then what? Do we start culling again?” Tera folded her arms across her chest. “And what about the humans we rescued? Do they stay in Aeternae Noctis?”
“They’ll stay only for so long as it takes us to get to Colorado and resettle them in one of the cities there.” Siri frowned as she paced the room. “I’ll have to keep a close eye on things. The population at Svalbard was inbred for a long time, and genetic weaknesses have emerged.”
Ashra’s wings rippled. “Should we not mix the populations, then?”
“No, no. Mixing the population is exactly what we need,” Siri said. “Isolation kills; in many cases, literally.” The icrathari drew a deep breath as she glanced at Tera. “How is Erich?”
“I’ve secured him in a cell in the basement.”
“He didn’t want to come, did he?”
“Would you?” Tera turned her back on Siri and Ashra and walked to the window. The familiar view steadied her. The little town sprawled at the foot of Malum Turris now housed the humans she and Erich had saved from Svalbard. “He thinks he’s among enemies.”
“Isn’t he?” Jaden spoke up for the first time. “He’s terrorized our scouting parties and killed more vampires that I can remember. He tortured Rafael for three years.”
Rafael’s quiet voice held no apparent resentment, but his matter-of-fact words were more powerful for that reason. “Erich Dale is an immortali. Is there any returning from that?”
Turmoil churned through Tera. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Is there?” Is he an immortali? Is he even insane?
“Tell us what happened,” Ashra said. “How did you and he land up in Svalbard?”
Tera squared her shoulders and offered her terse report, leaving nothing out.
“Erich’s actions do not follow a logical and consistent decision-making process,” Siri surmised. “He’s almost certainly insane, although there are other possibilities.”
Ashra waved them away. “So, Daryun is dead and possibly many daevas, too. What about Canya?”
“I don’t know,” Tera said. “Erich might.”
The icrathari queen frowned. “And you don’t know why the daevas want Aeternae Noctis so badly?”
“No, but once again, Erich might.”
Ashra frowned. “It appears that Erich, insane or not, holds the answers we need.” She turned to Jaden and Rafael. “Get them from him.”
Tera waited until the two elder vampires departed, taking Jorgen’s family with them. “I could have gotten the information from him,” she said.
“Could you have?” Ashra asked pointedly. “You feel it, don’t you, the soul bond?”
Tera’s shoulders slumped on the whisper of a sigh. “I feel…something. Confusion, mostly. We can’t seem to decide whether to kill each other or save each other, but one thing I do know. No one else knows the underground places like he does. He has more influence over the daevas than any of us could hope to wield. If there is one key to peace, it is Erich.”
Siri scowled. “If he’s insane, he’s not a useable key.”
Tera glanced over her shoulder. “You said something about other possibilities.”
The other icrathari shrugged. “Maybe he’s just angry. Hurt. Humans aren’t highly rational to begin with, and emotions can tip them over the edge.”
“For
how long?”
“A moment. Sometimes, a moment lasts a lifetime.”
Tera glared at Siri. “You’re not reassuring.”
Siri shrugged, her wings rippling with the movement. “Providing assurance is beyond my job scope.” She glanced at her monitors. “Sometimes, you live for the moments—like when the earth collapsed beneath the seed vault, revealing the underground lake. For an instant, I saw the seemingly infinite spread of water I never thought I would ever see again.” A dreamy smile curved her lips. “It was beautiful…stunning.”
“And gone in an instant,” Tera said, and was almost instantly sorry for having burst Siri’s moment of joy.
Siri nodded. “If the heat were less brutal, if the sun was just rising, the water might have evaporated, risen up, and cooled into cloud cover.”
Ashra tilted her head. “We’ve not had that since the apocalypse. The clouds would provide shade from the sun, allowing people to live outside of the domes.”
“In theory, yes. The rising water molecules would also carry with them the nitrogen and oxygen molecules—abundant here on the surface—back up into the upper reaches to restore the atmosphere. In reality, however, cloud covers aren’t even on the wish list. Conditions aren’t optimal for creating them. We’d need a large body of water to start the process—”
“There is a great deal of water under the Earth,” Tera said. “We need to find a way to bring it to the surface.”
“A challenge, in itself,” Siri added. “And then we’d need just enough heat to evaporate the water and just enough cold in the upper atmosphere to condense them into clouds.” Siri shrugged. “There’s a window of a minute, maybe less, when conditions are utterly perfect. It’s not enough for a miracle.”
Wasn’t it? Tera stared down at the town at the base of Malum Turris. It bustled once again with life as people settled into homes and wandered through cobblestone streets, fields, and forests. Excited conversations babbled through the dome. People who had known only a barren Earth beyond the steel walls of their Haven caught their first glimpse of life’s amazing potential.
“All miracles need is a moment,” Tera murmured. “Sometimes, a moment lasts forever, and sometimes, less than a minute.” She looked at Siri. “If anyone can find a way to make this miracle happen, it’s you.”
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