ways,” Giorgia said, nodding thanks to a servant as the tea tray was brought in. She poured a cup and passed it over to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to drink. I just held the tea cradled in my hands,
drawing comfort from its warmth. “The first trial will assess your
mental abilities. You will be faced with questions and requests from the people of La Oscurità and asked to resolve them. Judgment will
be made based on how well you do.”
“Hang on,” I objected. “You’re going to have me make
decisions that will actually impact these people’s lives before I’ve passed the trials?” I wasn’t sure I was ready for something like that.
“What if I choose wrong?”
“Nothing to worry about,” Giorgia assured me. “The trials
are just tests, Rena. Just simulations. You’ll be making your choices in a virtual reality chamber, and we’ll be evaluating your responses, but there will be no impact on the real citizens of La Oscurità.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad,” Cecile said. “She just has
to pass the test.”
It sounded plenty stressful to me. If I made the wrong
choices, I would fail, and then what? But Cecile was right that it
didn’t sound as bad as anything I had been imagining. It wasn’t
going to be painful. It would just be anxiety-inducing, like every
other test I’d ever had in my life.
Still...Giorgia had mentioned three trials. “What’s the second
trial?” I asked.
“The second trial tests you physically,” Giorgia said.
I frowned. “I’m not an athlete. I never have been.”
“That isn’t a problem,” Giorgia said. “When your full
vampire abilities come in, you’ll be much stronger, faster, and more agile than you are now.”
Which was great, but I didn’t have those abilities yet. How
was I going to pass this trial while I was still part human?
Cecile seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “That’s
not fair,” she said. “You can’t ask Rena to pass a trial designed to test vampire skills before she’s finished her transition. There’s no way she’ll be able to do it.” She glanced at me. “Sorry, Rena.”
“Don’t apologize.” I was glad she’d spoken up. She’d saved
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me from having to say it.
“Not to worry,” Giorgia said smoothly. “We’ll inject you
with a serum that will temporarily grant you full vampire abilities.
You’ll be physically capable of completing the trial, but we’ll be
evaluating your reaction time and your ability to trust yourself. It will be difficult, since you’re not accustomed to having this extra
strength, but a royal must be able to rely on him- or herself.”
That sounded a little more intimidating than the first trial. In
the first one, I would just be using logic to make decisions. I’d been doing that all my life. But the second trial would require me to
utilize skills I’d never had before. “What’s the third trial?” I asked, already fearing the answer.
“The third trial tests your emotional ability,” Giorgia said.
She spoke softly now, and I could tell that for the first time since I’d arrived, she was truly being gentle with me. “You’ll come face to
face with the greatest trauma of your past, and your response will be evaluated. A ruler must have the ability to overcome great emotional strife.” The greatest trauma of my past.
I knew instantly what that would be. The death of my
parents. It was something I didn’t like to think about, because every time I did, I felt as though I was going to fall apart. But in the third trial, I wouldn’t be able to fall apart. I would have to face the horror of my parents’ death and be strong.
I don’t know if I can do this.
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Chapter Seven
Thank God for Cecile. She seemed to understand
immediately how freaked out I was by everything Giorgia was
saying. She had always been able to read me like a book, and I truly didn’t know how I would have been able to manage my new life
without her.
It’s hard to say you’re grateful that your best friend has been
turned into a vampire. The thought made me feel selfish and
uncaring. But I couldn’t deny that I was overwhelmingly glad to
have her with me, and I knew I always would be.
As Giorgia finished describing the trials, Cecile slid closer to
me on the couch, her shoulder pressing into mine, giving me
comfort. She might as well have been talking to me, whispering
words of encouragement, telling me that she knew I could get
through the trials. I felt immediately bolstered. She had always been able to do this when I’d felt anxious or upset. She really was as close and as wonderful as a sister to me.
The only thing that would have been better would have been
having Cryder there too. I was shocked by how much I had come to
depend on him in the short time we’d known each other. But he was
every bit as skilled as Cecile was at calming me down and making
me feel safe. I wished he were with us now.
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Why on Earth had this day’s activities been split up along
gender lines? Another vampire tradition, I supposed. Thanks to my
upbringing—the loss of my parents at a young age and my
incorporation into my best friend’s family—I’d never had a lot of
traditions that I clung to. I knew other people found them important and reassuring, but I didn’t really get what the fuss was about. I
would have felt better if my boyfriend—my fiancé—was here. It
sucked that he had to be apart from me because of some tradition.
Don’t dwell, I told myself firmly. Make the most of this time with the queen. It was an opportunity to learn more about what my future held, after all, and that was important. I should take advantage of it, not just moon around about Cryder.
Cecile seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “Why
does La Oscurità need a new king and queen anyway?” she asked.
“I’ve never really understood that. I mean, in the human world there has to be a line of succession in case the royals die, but you and
Samuele aren’t dying.”
Giorgia favored us with a chuckle. “No, we’re not,” she
agreed. “But ruling is hard work, and eventually every ruler wants to step aside. Samuele and I have decided that time has come for us.
We’re well over a hundred years old, you know.”
I’d actually had no idea how old she was. It hadn’t seemed
polite to ask. She looked as if she could be any age—twenty-three or forty-four or seventy. It was something about the clear skin and
youthful features combined with the wise expression and the
dignified way she carried herself. “I guess if I’d been doing
something for that long, I might want some downtime too,” I said.
“And eventually you will,” Giorgia agreed. “Eventually you
will have had enough of ruling, and you’ll be ready to pass the
crown to whomever comes next. Samuele and I are looking forward
to a long vacation together. A quiet retirement.”
Cecile burst out laughing. Even I had to smile. “I’m sorry,”
Cecile giggled. “It’s just that hearing you talk about retirement like that—you sound so normal.”
“So human, you mean?”
“Yes,” Cecile said. “But I mean normal too. I don’t just
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mean you sound mortal, and like you’re not a vampire. I mean you
sound like you’re not a queen. It’s hard to imagine a queen talking
about retirement.”
“I guess most of them probably don’t,” I pointed out.
“Human queens rule for life.”
“Exactly,” Cecile said.
“You can see why that sort of arrangement makes less sense
for us, though,” Giorgia said. “It isn’t just because our rulers tire of ruling after a while. The people of La Oscurità appreciate having
new rulers. New ideas. It’s the only way anything ever changes
around here.”
“I think I understand,” I said.
“Very good,” Giorgia said, smiling. “I’ve had a wonderful
time with you girls today. I want to thank you for spending your day with me. It’s been so long since I’ve met anyone who’s new to this
life, and it’s very refreshing to speak to young people.” She smiled at me and took my hand. “I think Cryder made a wonderful choice in
you, dear. The people of La Oscurità are going to get a splendid new queen. I know you’ll do a good job tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” A chill ran down my spine. She couldn’t
possibly mean what I thought she meant, could she?
“The trials will begin first thing tomorrow morning,” Giorgia
said. She sounded almost apologetic, as if she knew exactly how
hard those words would be for me to hear.
“That’s probably good, right?” Cecile asked, leaning her
shoulder into mine a little harder. “The sooner they start, the sooner they’ll be over, and you won’t have to worry about them.”
I knew she was right. It would be good to have the trials
behind me, and to move on to whatever came next. But at the same
time, it was hard to face the fact that the terrifying things Giorgia had told me about would be starting tomorrow. I wouldn’t have any time to study or to prepare myself. I was just going to be thrown in, and I would either have to handle it or not.
I supposed that was the point. If I couldn’t do it without a
bunch of preparation, I probably couldn’t do it at all.
“You’d better get some sleep,” Giorgia said. “You’ve got an
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early day tomorrow.
It was all I could do to nod and allow Cecile to lead me from
the room.
***
“Rena?” Cecile said quietly. “Are you up for a visitor?”
I had been lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling and willing
sleep to come for me, for the past half hour. Now I glanced over at
my friend. She was watching me apprehensively, as if she was afraid
I might completely freak out at any minute.
“It’s Cryder,” she said.
If anyone in the world could make me feel better about what
I was facing, I knew it was him. “Yes,” I said. “Yeah. I want to see Cryder.” I sat up and did my best to arrange my hair in something
resembling a style.
Cryder came in. He was dressed more casually than I’d ever
seen him in my life, in flannel pants and a white t-shirt, and he sat down on the bed beside me and pulled me into his arms. I was
immediately comforted. He was a reminder of the fact that not
everything about this new world was strange and frightening. Some
aspects of it had been wonderful.
“I missed you today,” he said quietly, smoothing my hair, his
skilled fingers having much more success at taming it than mine
had. “What did you do?” I asked, longing for a distraction.
“Not much,” he said. “Went around La Oscurità and saw the
people. It wasn’t a formal tour, like you and Cecile got. Drake and I grew up here, so we know the city just fine. But we saw some of the
old familiar sights, and that was nice. Did you have a good time with my mother?”
“She was very kind,” I said.
“You’re nervous.” He stroked my hair gently.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Your heart’s beating really fast.” He slid two fingers down
the line of my jaw and brought them to rest on my neck, feeling my
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pulse. “You need to try to relax, Rena, or you’ll never get any
sleep.” “There’s no way I’m going to be able to relax,” I said. “The trials are tomorrow. Did you know they were going to be
tomorrow?”
He hesitated. “I did,” he said finally.
I sat up. “You knew? And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t
prepare me at all?”
“Rena, there was nothing I could have done about it,” he
said. “There was nothing I could have done to help you feel better
prepared. You always would have been feeling like this. And I
didn’t want you to spend more time than necessary worrying about
it. I wanted you to be able to have fun on your first day in La
Oscurità. You don’t really wish you’d spent the whole day thinking
about the trials, do you?”
“I suppose not,” I admitted begrudgingly.
“Besides,” he said, “you’re going to be fine. I have faith in
you.” “Did your mother have to face trials?”
“Of course. Every potential ruler does.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, but I faced them before you knew me,” he said. “When
I was younger. Years ago.”
“You were a child?”
He laughed. A moment later I realized my mistake. “No. Of
course you weren’t.”
“I was the age I am now,” he said. “Physically speaking, at
least. Mentally speaking. I was old enough to take on the challenges of the trials.”
“And you passed.”
“And so did my mother,” he said. “And so did my father.”
“Has Drake done it?”
“No,” Cryder said. “Drake never considered challenging for
the throne. If he had wanted to stake a claim, he would have had to
face the trials.” He hesitated. “My aunt tried it. My mother’s sister.”
I knew without asking how that story was going to end, and I
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was sure I didn’t want to hear it, but I couldn’t hold back from
asking. “She didn’t pass, did she? That’s why she didn’t assume the
throne in your mother’s place?”
“That’s right,” Cryder said.
“Tell me about her.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t important, Rena. You don’t want
to hear this story right now You should be getting some rest
instead.”
“Cryder, there’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep tonight
and you know it. I’m much too nervous. If you tell me about your
aunt, at least I’ll be able to relax a little bit.”
“Okay,” he said. His voice held a note of reluctance. “But
you have to understand, Rena, what happened with her—it wasn’t
the norm. She was never supposed to undergo the trials. My mother
had been chosen for the throne, and my aunt sought it because she
was selfish and power hungry. She didn’t care about the people of
La Oscurità.”
“What happened?”
“Well, she couldn’t complete the third trial,” Cryder said.
“The emotional trial.”
“The one where she would have come face to face w
ith the
trauma of her past?” I asked, remembering Giorgia’s harrowing
description.
“That’s right. I don’t know what she saw—the trials are
conducted privately—but whatever it was, she was unable to
overcome it.”
“So, what happened to her?” A terrible thought suddenly
occurred to me. “It didn’t kill her, did it?”
“No, no, it didn’t kill her.” Cryder bit his lip. “It drove her
mad.” I felt a wash of horror pass through me. “What do you
mean?” “She was never the same again,” Cryder said quietly.
“Before the trials, she was vain and self-centered, but she was also exceedingly clever. Afterward, she was a shell of her former self. It was as if the woman she had been, was lost.”
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“Is she still here?” I asked. “Does she still live in La
Oscurità?”
“She does,” Cryder said. “But she doesn’t visit the palace
anymore. She’s been committed to a psychiatric ward.”
I felt as if I was floating upward, away from my bed, away
from my body. “Cryder,” I whispered.
His hand came to rest atop mine. “That won’t happen to
you,” he said. “You’re stronger than she ever was.”
“What if I’m not?”
He kissed me gently, but I couldn’t lose myself in the
pleasure of his lips. If I had had any other choice, I knew, I would have backed out right then. I would have refused to participate in the trials and gone back home to the States.
But dangerous vampires awaited me there. This was the only
place that was safe. This life was my only choice.
Provided I could survive.
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Chapter Eight
Dear Rena—
Please dress comfortably today and join us in the dining
room for breakfast. We look forward to your arrival. Do not
worry—everyone has great confidence in your ability to do well
today! Giorgia
I crumpled the note in my hand as I watched Cecile whirl
around the room, getting ready. Her note hadn’t said to dress
comfortably. She had been told to wear something semi-formal.
Even though I was happiest in my sweats, I wished today that I
could have traded places with her. I would much rather be putting
my hair up and picking out a dress than facing down the ordeal of
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