by E. M. Knight
“No, I didn’t mean to, no, I...”
“Burn her!” somebody calls out. “Burn her, she’s a dark witch!”
“No, no, please, no,” I continue to cry. “Mommy, please come back. Please...”
“Burn them both!”
“They did it together!”
“They must be bound!”
Suddenly, a mob forms around us. I’m hoisted up by dozens of angry hands. My mind ceases to function. People jostle to get to me, and the cries of treason sound louder and louder.
Madness is descending onto camp.
Out of nowhere, a great fatigue washes over me. I can no longer hold on.
I close my eyes and give way to black.
***
When I come to, I hope desperately that what I remember last was just a very bad dream.
But when I feel the rope tied snugly around my wrists, feel the awkward angle at which my shoulders are wrenched back…. When I feel the stake digging into me from behind…
I know that it was no dream.
I open my eyes. My sister is bound across from me, staring at me with undisguised loathing.
“They’re not going to burn us,” she announces. “They’re just going to leave us here, tied up, when they depart in the morning.”
I shake my head, still holding out hope that this is all some horrible mistake.
“I untied myself while you were out,” she continues. “But I’m not going to untie you. You deserve to starve for what you did.”
Desperate, I start to babble. “Please. I didn’t mean to do it, you saw, you know, you have to believe me!”
She tilts her chin up. “I am never speaking to you again,” she says. “I hope you burned yourself out and can never use magic again. Even that won’t be enough for what you did.”
“No, please...”
She turns away. “From now on, I have no sister,” she announces. “She was killed the same day as my mother.”
And with the last shred of light gone… with the only person who can vindicate me instead deciding to shut me out… I feel nothing but despair.
I start to cry.
***
The next morning I wake up and find my sister missing. It takes me a few hours, but eventually I manage to wiggle out of the ropes.
The camp outside has been abandoned. Not a crumb of food remains. My sister, the only person in the world I have ties to, has forsaken me. I’ve lost my mother and my home.
And I no longer feel any hint of The Spark.
I plod my way aimlessly from tent to tent, searching for supplies, searching for food, searching for… I don’t know what.
Searching for something that will erase from my mind the thing I’ve done.
But of course, there is nothing. I look about me and shiver. How am I to survive on my own? My sister, at least, has magic…
Finally, I reach the last remaining tent. The one I’ve avoided the whole time.
The one that belonged to me, my mother, and my younger sister.
On the table, I discover a note. Hope blooms in my chest when I recognize my sister’s handwriting.
It hasn’t been left there by accident.
Morgan,
Go east and search for the Soren clan. They are a small group of witches mother told me about. They might help you.
This is the last time you’ll ever hear from me. Don’t tell them what happened, or they will kill you.
It’s no less than you deserve.
She didn’t sign her name, but nonetheless I clutch the note to my chest.
“Thank you, Cierra,” I whisper, and head toward the sun.
Chapter One
Eleira
The caves of the stronghold
I watch, as if from within a dream, as the Queen makes her return known to all the vampires of The Haven.
She stands at the very tip of the ledge overlooking the dark cavern where the humans were being victimized by the circle of vampires hungry for their blood. The smell of it, fresh from open wounds, is an intoxicating mix of sweetness and filth that stirs the vampire inside of me.
While I am not at the mercy of its whims anymore, I cannot deny the appeal.
Especially after the amount of magic I’d done in the Paths.
A dark nimbus of malicious energy pulses around the Queen. I cannot see it as easily as I can see regular weaves. Nor can I necessarily identify it, and claim with certainty that I know it’s there.
It is more of a feeling I have, an instinctual sort of understanding. The way charisma sometimes radiates from a single person in a crowd? The same sort of thing is happening here…
But the dark orb is much, much more dangerous.
“You lose me for a few days and this is what you descend to?” Morgan demands of the vampires beneath us. Her voice echoes through the whole of the space. An edge that was never there before is now clear in her speech. “You are despicable. You make me sick.”
A vampire from the smallest circle steps forth. He is a Royal Court member. I do not know his name.
But the woman who stands beside him is Cassandra. I nearly gape when I see her. I have no idea how she got herself there.
“My Queen,” the unnamed vampire says. He bows formally, bending right at the waist in proper acknowledgment of her position. “This...” he opens his arms to take in the scene before him, “...is not as damning as it might look.”
Morgan shifts her stance. It is a subtle move, but it disrupts the air enough for me to zone in on what it is I feel when I conceive of the darkened aura surrounding her.
It’s the absence of the regular threads of magic.
The Elemental Forces are not visible unless woven into a spell by a witch. But as soon as my mind was opened up to magic, I developed an immediate, innate conception of them. Perhaps almost like a sixth sense.
They are always there, always in the air, those currents, always available for me to pull on.
But around Morgan? There’s simply a… void.
It’s like she repels the very forces she taught me to use. And when she shifted her stance, that’s when I felt the change cascade through the atmosphere.
“Tell me, then, the truth of how it looks,” Morgan says, sounding entirely unconvinced.
“There was a rebellion,” the vampire says. “Some of the Incolam disagreed about how things were being run. Deanna and Carter helped fuel their dissent. They were about to go against the orders you left behind and feed on our humans. They would have killed each one.
“I stepped in, along with my trusted friends on the Royal Court, and kept things from descending to madness. We’ve allowed the Incolam and Elite to feed on some—while keeping all of them alive.”
“So that’s what it boiled down to?” the Queen asks. “It was mere hunger that drove you to this?”
“With all due respect,” the vampire says. “Hunger is our greatest driving force.”
The Queen laughs. “Deanna is dead,” she announces. “And Carter will have a difficult time returning to us in one piece. Show me these rebels. Let us see if they will not cower before the new powers of their Queen.”
And with that, a lash of energy whips out from Morgan’s right hand. Again, it’s nothing I can feel or see directly, but the trace it leaves by slicing through the ever-present magical currents makes its path unmistakable.
The dark force hits the ruined body of the vampire previously struck down by Morgan. He convulses as if electrocuted. Then the energy flow stops, the vampire goes still… and after a moment, opens his eyes.
“I now hold the power of life and death,” Morgan announces. Her voice is soft, but it carries. “Only fools would oppose me now.”
And as the vampire we all thought was dead wobbles unsteadily back to his feet, an awed silence falls upon all the spectators.
From the corner of my eye, I see Raul scowling at the queen.
He is just as distraught with these revelations as I am.
Chapter Two
<
br /> James
The Order’s secret, mountaintop facility
I wave a hand in front of my face to clear the smoke. Vampires can see in the dark, but our eyes cannot pierce the tiny, physical molecules that make up such a cloud. Standing at the gaping entrance leading into the mountain, I have no idea what I might find inside.
Except for one thing. Smithson is there. I can feel his vampiric presence. There’s no mistaking that it’s him.
But the stench of ruined human blood, dirtied and burnt, is almost enough of a deterrent to make me turn away.
A scampering sound alerts me to Victoria’s arrival. I look back. She and April and Liana are pulling themselves up onto the ledge to join me at the entrance.
After telling me about Cierra, Victoria went back to retrieve the two girls.
The blood smell does not repel April or Liana. They are too young, too inexperienced, to appreciate the difference between fresh, vital blood, and blood that has been spoiled by virtue of being spilled from horrific wounds.
The fledglings’ eagerness to run inside and feed is so strong it’s like a palpable thing. I stop both of them from doing so by exerting a tiny bit of my influence over them. Not enough to make them feel it, but enough to keep them in check.
It’s a fine balancing act. Unfortunately, I cannot do the same for Victoria.
“Smithson is in there,” she says. “I can feel him.”
“I know,” I respond. “That means he can feel you, too.” I look back. “He knows we’ve arrived.”
“He knows someone is here,” she clarifies. “He cannot tell who.”
“I think he’d have been close enough to you to recognize your aura,” I say.
The words come out bitter despite my not meaning them to. So what if Victoria took Smithson as her lover? She’s on my side, now.
But for how long? I wonder.
As more of the smoke begins to lift, the agonizing groans and cries of those inside become more urgent. Without the buffer present they are significantly amplified.
“You’ll wait here,” I command, “while I go in. Whatever disaster occurred, it does not involve us. We are here for one purpose. And it’s so close...” my claws come out, “… that I can taste it.”
I’m about to run inside, heedless of any danger that might be lurking, when Victoria stops me with a firm grip on my arm.
“I’m not letting you go in there alone,” she says.
I bark a laugh. “If you come he’ll sense you, Victoria. I’m still shielded. Stay here. With Liana and April, you will serve as decoys. I will kill him fast and be done with it.”
“I don’t doubt that you can do it,” she says, “seeing as Smithson is currently so weak. But if you kill him now, who will tell us what happened?”
I stare at her in disbelief. “What does it matter what happened?”
“It matters a great deal,” she says. “Don’t be a fool. I warned you that the magical currents have been distorted. And if that really was Cierra…? We have much, much bigger problems to deal with than exacting revenge.”
“What do I care if it’s Cierra or not?” I scowl. “That doesn’t affect me.”
“Having the greatest dark witch who’s ever lived, who was long presumed to be dead, now back in our world doesn’t affect you?” Victoria sneers. “Even you cannot be so blinded by your desire for revenge as to not see the significance of that.”
“Magic is of no consequence to me,” I say rashly.
“Magic touches us all,” Victoria says. “What do you think the force is that animates us?”
“The vampiric essence,” I say.
“You fool, it is all one and the same! Magic, the essence, it all comes from the same source.”
“So what?” I notice Liana and April hanging on our every word but press on regardless. “Even if that’s true, I see no reason to let Smithson live. You want him dead as much as I do!”
“Yes,” she agrees. “But not before he can give us information. Look at this place! Look at where we are. It’s obviously a secret facility of the Order.”
“The Order?”
“The Vorcellian Order! Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of it.”
I give an indifferent shrug. “Such things do not concern me.”
“Unbelievable,” she mutters. “And here you are, with visions of raising your own coven. You expect the Nocturna Animalia to survive in this world?”
“They won’t just survive,” I cut in, irritated and impatient. “They will thrive. Now let go, Victoria, and let me finish what I came here to do.”
I snatch my arm out of her grip.
“Stay here,” I command. My eyes take in the other girls. “All three of you.”
“You are a complete fool if you think they will thrive with your head stuck under the sand,” Victoria mutters under her breath.
But I hear her. And that’s enough to make my anger flare. I spin back, ready to lash out…
The rock we’re standing on shifts.
It shifts, and then there’s a moment of silence, and then a massive roar comes as it shears away from the mountain.
“Run!” I scream. The rock jerks and starts to break away. I plant my feet and jump, flying through the air and grabbing onto the steady part of the mountainside for safety.
As the rocks fall, my three companions conduct the same move. They land on either side of me, gripping the steady rock and panting.
The sounds of the crashing ledge continue for seeming eternity. The splintered pieces hit the sides and break into ever-smaller fragments.
Finally silence comes. I breathe a sigh of relief. That was close.
Despite all of my bravado, I’ve developed something of a… distaste… for high places. It came after The Ancient freed me from Mother’s cell. The leap I had to make, so far from the cell into the churning river below has made a lasting impact on me.
“If that didn’t announce our coming…” Victoria begins.
“Don’t,” I tell her. “Just… don’t.”
I look into the hole that’s been blasted out the side of the mountain.
“Nothing’s changed,” I inform them. “You stay here. I’ll go inside and take care of Smithson. Once that’s finished—”
But then the faintest hint of a new vampire comes from inside. Her presence grows, becoming larger and more pronounced…
“He’s made someone else,” I breathe. I curse and then, not caring anymore if Victoria or April or Liana follow or not, rush inside.
Once I get past the barrier of smoke all I see is desolation. Complete and utter ruin.
There are burning fragments of computer equipment on the ground. Littered everywhere are the bodies of men and women. Most are dead. The remaining few lie dying.
It’s absolute carnage. It’s like a bomb has gone off, or we’ve been dropped in the middle of a warzone…
“Cierra,” Victoria says from behind me. “As you can see, she cares nothing for human life.”
Even Liana, being as young as she is, and as entrenched in her vampire nature, blanches at the sight before us.
Movement catches my attention from behind a high-up railing. I jump there without thinking.
And come face-to-face with the vampire who thought I was dead.
Smithson.
He is in terrible shape. His clothes are burned, his face covered in char. He can barely support himself as he clings to the wall at his back.
“You,” he gasps when he sees me.
I know I have him now. That other vampire—his fledgling—is nowhere to be seen. My awareness of her is becoming dimmer and dimmer. She’s retreating, somewhere, to some distant part of this hidden facility.
I put her firmly out of mind. Smithson is the vampire I’ve journeyed so far to find. He is the one responsible for so much of my pain. He is the one who tricked me, then left me for dead…
I take a gloriously triumphant step forward, satiating in the fear I see in his eyes.
&nbs
p; “Yes,” I say softly. “I’m still here.”
And with a savage roar I leap at him, crushing him against the wall like the worm that he is.
My hand closes around his windpipe. My fingers itch to dig into his chest and tear out his heart. The ultimate glory, the ultimate vindication, would then be mine.
Yet something stops me when Smithson doesn’t fight.
Why?
“Do it,” he sneers. “Kill me. That’s what you’re here to do, isn’t it? That’s why you’ve come.”
He coughs and then hawks a ball of blood up and spits it to the side. “End it, James. End my miserable life.”
Something is wrong. I can feel it. Smithson is cloaked, too, but even as such, he is significantly weaker than I remember.
Killing him now would bring no glory. It would be like stepping on a child’s sandcastle.
My eyes go to the red bite marks on his neck.
“Who is she?” I ask. “The vampire you made. Why, amongst all these people, was she chosen to live?”
“You think I’d tell you?” He laughs. “The Soren brothers’ arrogance knows no limits.”
I growl and tighten my grip on his throat. “I think,” I tell him in a whispered breath, “that you have no choice.”
“Every man can choose death,” he tells me. “And every vampire is the same. I’ve failed, and I have nothing left.”
I grunt and step back in disgust. “Talk,” I command. “Tell me what happened here.”
“So you want my secrets and my life.” He laughs. “James, oh, James, how I wish we could have met even a day ago. I see your rage, I would have been the equal to it. The battle between us…” his eyes take on a deranged glint, “…would have been glorious.”
“What is this place?” I ask. “Some hideout of The Vorcellian Order?”
Secretly, I hope I got the name right. I’d been so dismissive of Victoria when she told me that I barely remember.
Smithson gives no outward reaction. “It’s a place that is no more,” he tells me. “That is all.”