Dark Heart Rising

by Lee Monroe

  I shrugged. ‘Nothing that you should concern yourself with,’ I told him. ‘Really. It is none of your business, Lowe.’

  He sat back. ‘You’ve developed a bit of a backbone, haven’t you? Or perhaps you have just exposed your true character?’ He grimaced. ‘You’re still trouble. And you will harm our family … And that boy being held downstairs – he is trouble too.’

  ‘So what do you want?’

  Lowe frowned. ‘I want him thrown out of Nissilum. But mostly I want you gone. We don’t want the likes of you on Nissilum.’

  ‘We?’ I said boldly. ‘Perhaps it is just you?’

  ‘We don’t accept mortals infecting our society with their loose morality,’ he replied coldly.

  ‘We have a word for people like you in my world,’ I told him, shaking my head.

  ‘I’m assuming it isn’t complimentary … ’ He eyed me. ‘Have it your way, then. But one way or another you will not get what you want. You’re a miserable, doomed mortal. One day you will die, and you will deserve to … All of you do. You have no proper society. No real authority. You all do exactly as you wish, and damn the consequences.’ He slammed his palm down on the table, jolting me, and making everyone else in the room look over in our direction. Ignoring them, Lowe got up, pushing back his shoulders arrogantly.

  ‘You’re wrong about that,’ I whispered.

  ‘They’ll be asking for you soon,’ he told me. ‘If I were you, I’d get my story straight. The Celestials don’t look kindly on subterfuge.’

  With a last look around the room, Lowe walked out of it, leaving me the subject, yet again, of unearthly intrigue.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Though the expression on his face was one of fierce authority, appropriate to his status, Raphael felt curiously excited. He had lain awake all night, eyes wide open, running through the bizarre events of the night before.

  But were they bizarre?

  For as soon as Luca had come in and told them all of Soren’s revelation, an important part of the puzzle had fitted into place. If Soren was to be believed, then he could indeed be Saul, the renegade cub who had committed that infamous crime, documented by the palace, all those years ago. Soren’s connection with the vampires was the one jarring fact; given the bad blood that lay between the vampires and the werewolves – throughout entire mythology – how had Vanya and her lot come to be his family?

  Raphael was wired as he walked the cellar corridors, impatient to get to the prisoner. He had got very little out of Jane Jonas, who had been protective of Soren when he’d talked to her last night – refusing to deny or confirm anything. The girl had got tougher, Raphael had observed. No longer the fresh-faced, trusting creature she had been when he first knew her.

  The guard outside Soren’s cell was slumped on his chair half asleep. As Raphael approached, he cleared his throat to announce his arrival.

  The guard jerked awake, fumbling, embarrassed, with his hat, and getting to his feet.

  ‘Sir?’ He nodded, the keys at his waist jangling. ‘Good morning, Your Celestial Highness.’

  Raphael nodded back curtly, his eyes on the grid on the door.

  ‘One moment …’ The guard shuffled to the grid, opening it to take a view of the prisoner inside.

  ‘Wake up, boy,’ he said gruffly. ‘Make yourself ready for your visitor.’ There was the sound of shuffling and coughing, and the guard motioned to Raphael to go in.

  As he entered the cell he saw the large dark shadows underneath the boys eyes which, like his hair, glistened black. Soren was gazing at him, but without emotion. Raphael took a chair from its place against a wall and drew it up in front of the boy.

  They exchanged a look of hostility then, but of some understanding too.

  ‘Who are you?’ Raphael said without preamble.

  ‘Interesting question.’ Soren had the beginnings of a small smile on his face. ‘Interesting that you should ask it.’

  ‘What does that mean? Are we going to be talking in riddles? Is this another part of the game?’

  ‘It’s not a game,’ said Soren. ‘I assure you of that.’

  ‘So … answer my question. Tell me the truth. What was that display all about yesterday?’

  ‘The truth needed to be heard.’ Soren sat forward and bent his head over clasped hands. ‘This whole place – is like a perfect rosy apple, but deep inside there is a rotten core. You are all delusional.’

  Not all of us, thought Raphael, but he said nothing, waiting for Soren to continue.

  ‘I spent a long time hiding the truth from myself – growing cold-hearted, but then something happened. I came back here to see Vanya Borgia—’

  ‘Vanya is a friend of yours?’

  ‘An old friend.’ Soren gave him a wry smile. ‘It was Vanya who showed me true friendship many years ago. After’ – Soren hesitated – ‘after I did what I did.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Raphael said calmly, ‘what … exactly … did you do?’

  ‘If I tell you, then that’s it.’ Soren sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘You would be hard pressed to find a punishment severe enough to fit my crime. It is simply unacceptable. Why do you think I ran away, hid myself from everyone for so many years?’

  There was a tense silence. Outside the cell, the two of them heard the guard snoring lightly. It would have been a comical moment, if either boy felt in the least bit humorous.

  ‘What if I told you there would be no punishment?’ Raphael looked hard at Soren. ‘That in return for your help, this whole thing would be forgotten?’

  The other boy frowned. ‘I don’t want it forgotten,’ he said. ‘And in what way would I “help”? I don’t understand.’

  ‘I believe you share my opinion of Nissilum – the rules, the rigidity of its traditions. And now that the cracks are beginning to show, I realise it is all an utter sham. Even my own family—’

  ‘Are corrupt?’ Soren’s expression was at once lit up by a wry smile.

  ‘You find it funny?’

  ‘No – no, not funny … just terribly predictable. Of course they are corrupt.’ He shook his head. ‘My family were certainly corrupt – or at least my parents were. My mother committed a sin – and then she covered it up. When I found out, I—’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She was unfaithful to my father … became pregnant. With me.’

  Raphael’s eyes widened. ‘Indeed, that is unusual. You wolves are such sticklers for fidelity. You pride yourselves on it.’

  Soren answered with a wan smile.

  ‘How old were you when you discovered this?’ Raphael asked.

  ‘Ten. And I never would have … had a stranger not told me.’ Soren sat up, looking more animated. ‘Just walked into my life, and then out again, leaving me to deal with it. My real father—’

  ‘So you have come back here to find the family you have left – and that is all?’

  ‘Is that so hard to believe?’ Soren stared at him. ‘That I should want to find the sister I grew up with. My closest companion.’

  Raphael shrugged. ‘I suppose not. But you realise that what you did has not been made public. Deliberately. Why would Henora believe you? Why would Lila?’ He hesitated. ‘I wonder why you were simply sent away …’

  ‘Because the Celestials have no idea how to deal with the kind of crime I committed,’ Soren said. ‘It is not in their remit.’

  ‘Indeed not.’ Raphael sighed. ‘I need to think about this. Perhaps there is a way we can be of help to each other.’

  Soren raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean to leave me here.’

  ‘I need to look as though I am dealing with you … There are certain troublesome factions who bay for blood, as it were. I need to attend to a few things,’ Raphael told him. ‘But you are safer here, for the time being.’

  Soren shrugged. ‘I have to trust you. I have no choice.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ Raphael got to his feet. ‘But I appreciate your honesty.’


  He left the cell, turning things over in his mind. He didn’t know what to make of Soren, but something told him, there was more to the boy’s story than he was letting on.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I had changed back into my own clothes, but in every other way I didn’t feel myself.

  I sat on the bed in Vanya’s room, wondering how, if, I would get home. Soren was still at the palace, and the only other person who could help me was holed up with his parents. Not that he would help me. I was mixed up with Soren now – the enemy – as far as Luca was concerned.

  I also didn’t want to leave until I knew what would happen to Soren. Vanya had gone back to the palace this morning, but Soren had sent her home again.

  ‘Apparently I am surplus to requirements,’ she’d told me as I sat waiting for her in her dark kitchen basement. ‘Raphael tells me that Soren doesn’t need anyone’s help, that he won’t be punished. I can’t say I find that terribly reassuring. Raphael is not exactly known for his consistency …’ For the first time I saw Vanya looking something less than coolly beautiful. She looked wiped out.

  I fell back on the bed, and as my head hit the pillow I felt tiredness overwhelming me and my eyelids closing. Faces, voices flashed inside my head. Lila, confused and child-like; Soren’s pain and unexpected vulnerability; and Luca. Still standing his ground. His was the last face I saw, those green eyes, that look of softness when he realised my intentions were good. And then his face faded and sleep came.

  ‘Jane, wake up.’ Vanya was shaking the bedclothes, her face a picture of anxiety. ‘There is something going on out there …’

  I sat up blearily, the sound of shouting ending my peace. Vanya was at the window, craning her head to see what was happening.

  ‘So, who is it?’ I rubbed at my eyes, putting my legs out and on to the ground.

  ‘What a ghastly noise!’ she muttered, then turned to me. ‘There seems to be some kind of protest going on … I am sure that’s the wolf-boy’s brother out there. I forget his name …’ She wrinkled her nose, thinking.

  ‘Lowe?’ Suddenly I was alert, jumping up and joining her where she stood. Down below, Lowe and a couple of his werewolf friends I vaguely recognised appeared to be rousing the gathering crowds.

  ‘We need to cleanse Nissilum of this creature … and of the mortal girl in our midst,’ he spat out nastily. ‘She has wrangled her way into this world to seduce my brother, despite the fact that he is about to be married!’ She is the real poison.’ He cast a glance up at Vanya’s house, and she and I ducked away from the window and out of his view.

  There was shocked murmuring from the observers gathered around him, faces frowning. Lowe was garnering support.

  ‘Idiot boy.’ Vanya sighed. ‘It’s always the young who are destructive … So full of misguided vitriol. Such a pity. Youth is indeed wasted on them.’

  ‘The Celestial monarchy are too soft on criminals. Let’s hope that the heir to the Celestial kingdom will come down harder on these renegades in our society!’ Lowe shouted. ‘If justice were done, Soren Balzac would have been banished from Nissilum by now. The mortal girl needs to be taught a lesson she will never forget.’

  The crowd muttered and cheered, carried away by Lowe’s oratory.

  ‘The devil save us from the likes of Lowe,’ whispered Vanya. ‘Little ignoramus. Blindly unaware that he is the real liability on Nissilum.’

  I nodded. Lowe’s answer to everything was aggression. He was threatened by anything he didn’t understand. As young and stupid as he appeared, though, his venom scared me. I had no idea he hated me that much.

  ‘How tedious! We now have to stay holed up inside until that wretched boy gets bored and shuffles home for his dinner,’ Vanya said, in a bored tone. She turned to me. ‘On reflection, my dear, aren’t you glad you no longer have to face being part of the wolf-boy’s family? I mean, it’s not just the brother, is it? It’s that carping mother of his too.’ She shuddered. ‘Unbearable.’

  ‘Luca and Dalya are different,’ I said firmly. ‘Lowe is a nasty piece of work.’

  ‘You can say that again. What annoys me is that we, the vampires, are always branded as the evil, untrustworthy ones. When we are simply direct.’

  I smiled at her. ‘You certainly are.’

  ‘It’s a virtue, darling, not a vice.’

  The sound of the crowd was growing faint and, peeping out, I saw it had drifted away from Lowe – who was still standing, an impassioned look on his face, hands on his hips.

  ‘Nobody wants to join his revolution after all,’ I said, relieved. ‘But I have a feeling Lowe won’t give up easily.’ I looked at Vanya. ‘What will happen to Soren?’

  Vanya barely hid her concern. ‘I’ll make sure nothing does,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t care who I have to fight to get him released.’

  I looked at her curiously. ‘How do you know Soren?’ I asked. ‘I mean, it’s all a bit vague.’

  A flicker of something passed over her face. ‘Oh, we just ran in the same circles for a while,’ she said – which was even more vague as far as I was concerned.

  ‘How?’ I frowned. ‘I mean, he ran away … I don’t—’

  ‘Don’t pry,’ she said abruptly and a little severely. ‘You might regret it if you do.’

  ‘OK.’ I carried on looking at her profile. ‘But I won’t judge. I don’t live on Nissilum. I’m used to mortal frailty.’

  She turned slowly to face me, and relaxed a little.

  ‘I can’t go into it … I am not willing to open that particular “can of worms”.’ She annunciated the phrase almost comically – a way of distracting me, I knew.

  ‘So … how did Raphael seem? Was he angry?’ I said after a pause, changing the subject.

  ‘See, that’s the rather odd thing.’ Vanya sat down on my bed. ‘Raphael seemed to be almost enjoying the whole thing. I do hope that doesn’t mean he is having another breakdown – that doesn’t bode well for anyone.’

  I shuddered. My memory of Raphael in his mortal form – as Evan – was of someone capable of chilling twists of mood. Volatile.

  ‘He allowed me to see him last night,’ she went on. ‘He was almost charming. It was all very odd. I asked him if I could be allowed to defend Soren – in the spirit of fair justice – and he laughed. He said that there was no such thing on Nissilum, but that Soren could be in a position to redeem himself.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘No idea. Some kind of trade-off perhaps.’ Her face paled a little, but regained its colour almost instantaneously.

  ‘If Luca brings charges against him, then there has to be some kind of trial.’ I thought of how the justice system worked in the mortal world. But this wasn’t my world. Things worked in a very different way.

  ‘If Luca was going to do that, he would have done it by now. I wonder if Henora is so embarrassed by the whole thing that she has silenced him.’

  ‘I doubt that. She thinks Soren and I are co-conspirators. She’ll want us out.’

  ‘Well. maybe now what Henora wants won’t count for much. She has shown herself to be somewhat unhinged.’ Vanya looked unusually anxious though.

  ‘Perhaps things are going to change at last.’ I looked at her. ‘Lowe is a hot-headed fool – but in a weird kind of way he is kicking up the dust. Forcing people to notice what is going on.’

  ‘Pah – he is barking up the wrong tree altogether. That boy has the “constitution” so ingrained in him, he would die defending it. This twisted sense of superior morality!’

  ‘But something is going on now, isn’t it?’ I looked at her. ‘Raphael is ascending as ruler of Nissilum. The establishment is changing.’

  But what would this mean for Luca? Would it bring us together at last? Or would it wrench us finally apart?

  After Vanya had left me alone, I sat staring out through the window at the perfect blue sky, and in the distance – treetops, harking back to another time and place for me and for Luca. Nothing stays the
some. But sometimes change is a good thing. It was time to move on.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Night was coming again. Raphael lay in his darkened bedroom, where he had been for many hours, unable to do anything but stare at the shapes caused by the dim light in the room. Down below, deep underneath the palace, Soren was still incarcerated and Raphael was not ready to speak to him again, or let him go.

  He was still going over the words, trying to focus on what it was about him that seemed familiar.

  Soren had risked severe punishment to speak out to Luca. He didn’t want sympathy … But he did want something. He was searching for something.

  Noises were coming from downstairs, the servants going about their business. Celeste had not come to him – not even to find out what he had done with Soren. Perhaps she sensed that the net was closing in on her and she was ashamed of her own dishonesty – she couldn’t face him.

  At this last thought Raphael sat up abruptly. The mirror opposite the bed showed him to be unkempt – his curls in disarray, his clothes creased and dirty from the night before. He stood quickly, removing his shirt and trousers. He would bathe and then start preparations. What had been a seed of a revolution in his head was now about to become a reality. But he needed to create some fervour, even if it meant lying about his intent.

  It was late, but the palace horses were always ready for a bit of exercise. Approaching the stables, he heard them moving about restlessly inside. Saddling up his own, he rode as quietly as he could, past the bemused-looking guards and then more quickly across the fields, heading for Henora and Ulfred’s home on the outskirts of the Celestial Quarter.

  Lila and Dalya were together in Dalya’s bedroom. Luca was not one for eavesdropping, but he couldn’t help himself from lingering at the sound of their voices; Lila’s high and still a little hysterical, Dalya’s calm, but serious.

  ‘I’m frightened,’ said Lila, ‘and confused … I do remember my brother, but Henora says I don’t … She said that what Saul— what Soren did was try and confuse me. Maybe she’s right? Maybe I just wanted to …’