by Keary Taylor
“What?” I gasp, my eyes flying back to his face. His eyes have hardened. “Samuel, you know what that is, but I do not know where it came from.”
“Alivia, it was in your room,” he hisses as he takes a step forward. I take an equal one back. “I grabbed it before anyone could find it, but…” He sounds desperate, searching for some logical explanation.
“Cyrus!” a voice suddenly bellows from the direction of the library. “You should see this!”
A bucket of ice is dropped into my chest.
I hear the bodies flock toward the library. Hear the gasps of horror. The yells of uproar.
When I break through the crowd, eyes turn on me, cold and questioning.
Serge stands in the middle of the library, Cyrus at his side. Resting in his hands is a branding iron just like the one Samuel holds.
“What is the meaning of this, Alivia?” Cyrus asks. I try to read his expression. To see if he believes that I truly have anything to do with this. Or if he wants to believe my innocence. But his expression is impassive. Blank.
I shake my head as I step forward. Bodies press in more tightly around me. I hear weapons drawn. Curse words mingled with my name. “I don’t know,” I say, but it comes out quiet and strangled. “I swear. I don’t know what is happening. Someone got in the House while we slept and-”
“Stop lying!” a shout leaps into the crowd.
“She’s a Conrath!” another cry cuts through the crowd. “Henry hated the monarchy. She’s carrying it on and trying to kill us!”
“No!” I cry, turning in a circle, trying desperately to convince them. “I would never!”
“Why is this in your home, Alivia?” Cyrus asks, stepping toward me, the iron resting across his hands. “What explanation can you offer?”
I swallow once. And I know. Talking my out of this one is not going to be easy. They’re putting bloody pieces together. They want answers. And the easy solution is right before their eyes.
“Someone is trying to frame me,” I say quietly. I know it’s not going to convince them.
“Ah,” Cyrus says as he walks closer. “A good old conspiracy and set-up. How dramatic.”
I nod. “It’s the truth.”
Cyrus opens his mouth to say something, but I am suddenly shoved aside as someone forces their way forward.
I swear the world slows, and I watch in one frame at a time as a man I do not recognize bursts between the two of us. His arm rises. A stake clasped in his hand.
It swings downward.
And embeds itself in Cyrus’ chest. Right into his heart.
The space explodes into action. A blade instantly buries itself in the attacker’s back. He collapses to the ground, the life draining out of him. I’m grabbed from behind, bound tightly.
But I watch as Cyrus’ eyes grow wide. Watch as he falls backward, as others try to catch his falling body. The crowd swarms around him and he disappears from my sight.
The King. The King is dead.
And the cries and swarming bodies, they tell me they all think I ordered this.
That I’ve been behind everything.
I’m being dragged away, headed for my death. People swarm around me, swarm to the fallen King. My feet drag over the marble floor.
When something utterly impossible happens.
A body rises from the swarm of people. Brilliantly glowing eyes, black veins spread over his entire body. A feral, demonic howl rips from his chest and every eye turns to him.
King Cyrus stands—alive—among the shocked crowd.
Blood leaks out from the stake that is still embedded in his heart. Cyrus wraps a hand around it, and yanks it from his chest. Blood pours from the wound. But we all watch in horror and fascination as the gaping hole in his chest knits itself back together. As the blood stops flowing.
Cyrus breathes hard and deep, that inhuman rattle flowing in and out of his chest. His eyes are wide, chaotic as he scans the crowd. Before they land on me.
Cyrus is alive.
He was staked. In the heart.
But here he is, alive. Standing.
King Cyrus, King and ruler of the vampires, is a true immortal.
A ruler who cannot be killed.
“YES, IT IS TRUE,” CYRUS says. The crowd has stilled, holding baited breath. Every one of us unable to believe what we have just witnessed. “I cannot be killed.”
And the House erupts. Gasps. Cries of disbelief. Fear. Confusion.
For just the briefest of moments, the attention has turned away from me.
The implications of what this truly means is terrifying. Cyrus is demented. Cruel. Cold and blood obsessed. For thousands of years, he’s ruled his kind. He’s kept us secret. He’s taken care of us. But what if the tables flip? What about that time when society falls, and he rises, like he said, and the only way to protect the world is to kill him? And he can’t be killed?
The cacophony is deafening.
“So, the King cannot be killed!” Godrick bellows over the crowd. “Is it really so surprising? The problem at hand is that this woman ordered his execution!”
My heart drops out from the bottom of my feet. “No!” I scream. “I swear, I didn’t!”
Shouts. Screams. Demands for answers. Calls for my immediate death. Words like beheading and burned at the stake.
I will not survive the night if something does not change right now.
But I’m being dragged through the crowd, which shifts to the ballroom. Feet pound everywhere. I’m stepped on, pushed, shoved. A stampede threatens to break out, but even in my mansion, there is only so much room.
“Give her a chance to explain!” a commanding voice cuts through the chaos. Markov.
“Calm down!” Lillian yells. “Let’s talk this through!”
I drop from the grasp of whoever is dragging me, and I’m nearly trampled underfoot. Someone spits in my face, hitting me just below the eye.
Suddenly, glass shatters and one of the chandeliers above us goes shattering to the marble floor, causing the crowd around me to scatter. Little shards of crystal embed themselves into my left arm.
Standing at my side, gently pulling me to my feet, is Raheem.
“You all will cease acting like savages,” he hisses through clenched teeth. His eyes glow, black veins stretching across his face. He’s pulled his single-edged sword from its sheath and stands before me, ready to kill. “You will hear her out and she will be given your ear!”
The silent crowd parts, letting Cyrus walk forward. Most of his veins have retreated, now only being centered around his eyes. The risen King still bears shredded clothing, blood saturating his front.
An entirely new reverence fills the ballroom as all eyes turn to him. Fear, awe, uncertainty fill the faces of all. More than one immortal Born drops to their knees, their heads bowed. The weight in the air is suffocating. It’s obvious that most of the Court, if not all, had no idea that he was truly immortal.
“Death and destruction and chaos rule in your town, Alivia Conrath,” Cyrus says. He stops three feet from Raheem, who stares the King down with death in his eyes. “I should kill you now. I should rip your heart from your chest this very moment. But my loyal spy, one I have had the chance of working with for nearly a millennium with has asked that we let you speak. So speak.”
My insides quiver for the first time since my Resurrection. My hands sweat. My bottom lip threatens to quiver.
I am terrified.
I am no ruler.
I am a girl.
A girl about to be put to death for something I did not do.
“Something has been happening since before I arrived in Silent Bend,” I begin, stepping forward, around Raheem. He stands close behind me, his blade at the ready. “Since before I knew anything about our world. People were attacked, Bitten created. I was attacked by one myself the very first night I left this house.”
“Staging!” someone yells from the crowd. “You knew you couldn’t be killed!”
“All for show!”
“No!” I yell, shaking my head. “I thought I was going to die. I didn’t know the explanation for why a seemingly human person had bitten me!”
Desperation crawls up my throat. I had to make them understand.
“Before I claimed leadership of this House, Jasmine’s House was attacked,” I continue explaining. “Multiple times. Ask them. It was before they came to me.” I search the crowd desperately for their faces.
My eyes find Lillian, who was attacked. But the expression on her face is leery. Unsure.
“It’s true,” Samuel says, his brows furrowed. “Nearly all of us were attacked by this Shadow Army. But it was before we joined your House.”
“When we were your enemies.” It’s Anna. And I can see the gears turning in her head—putting pieces together and realizing the timeline of things.
And my stomach drops out.
“Were any of you attacked after you joined her House?” X asks loudly.
I look at them all. Markov stares at me darkly, a look of betrayal and confusion on his face. Lillian shakes her head in answer. Cameron looks confused, looking from me, to the branding rod in Cyrus’ hands, and back.
But Samuel looks at me as if he is certain I orchestrated everything.
He came to me because to him, the attack on Jasmine’s House was the last straw. He left her because she didn’t know what she was doing. His words.
And now, it looks like I ordered the attacks to secure his allegiance.
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “I swear! I had nothing to do with this!”
“And what about your shamed father?” a woman demands. “It is no secret that Henry Conrath wanted nothing to do with the monarchy! That he despised us and everything we stood for!”
“Then why would I accept my birthright?” I cry out. “Why would I ever build my own House then?”
“To get close to high-ranking officials,” another throws out there. “To get close enough to kill the King!”
“No!” I scream. “I would never!”
“She had nearly a dozen Royals killed!” someone yells. “The House of Allaway was slaughtered! Yet, none of her House has suffered death. Look at the damage she’s inflicted in just a few months!”
“Kill her!”
“Take her head!”
My heart will surely beat out of my chest any moment now. Surely, it will hammer so quick and hard, it will explode out of my chest and I will collapse to the ground, dead. I can barely see straight. My mind begins to gloss over.
“Give her a trial!” Raheem suddenly bellows. He steps forward again as the crowd surges forward. “If you believe her so guilty of plotting to end our kind, give her a trial!”
And this quiets the crowd. The expression on the King’s face is thoughtful.
“Take her to Roter Himmel you say?” he whispers.
All the blood in my body drops to my feet.
A visit to the palace, unless you are a member of the Court, always ends in death, Raheem once told me.
“Yes,” Raheem says. “She’s a Royal. A House leader. It’s her right to be given a trial.”
Every eye turns to Cyrus, waiting his decision. And he takes his time in answering.
One second.
Two weeks.
Three years.
In a vampire’s enhanced mind, so enhanced it has the ability to consider so many scenarios, that’s what his three seconds of hesitation feel like.
“Than a trial she will be given,” Cyrus says. “Go gather your things, my dear. We depart for Roter Himmel in twenty minutes.”
Two hands roughly grab me around the upper arm, shoving me toward the crowd. Raheem’s sword is instantly at the ready, trying to force the guards away from me.
“Unless you wish to die, right now,” Cyrus growls at him, “you will let them do their job. She will not be harmed before the trial.”
The breath rips in and out of Raheem’s chest, harsh and ready for a fight.
And I see it on his face now. Damn being cautious. Damn hiding his feelings. It’s all out there on the line. All exposed for everyone to see.
And I pray it doesn’t get him killed.
He takes a step back, allowing my captors to shove me forward.
“Lillian,” I beg as we walk past her. “I swear, I swear I had nothing to do with any of this. You have to believe me!”
But her eyes fall away from me as we move past her.
“Anna?” I call as I spot her across the crowd.
She only looks at me with confusion and uncertainty.
I do not get the chance to speak to any other House members, because my captors shove me toward the foyer, stepping over the dead Bitten, and up the stairs.
One of the men opens the door to my bedroom and roughly shoves me inside. “You’ve got five minutes,” he says as I easily regain my balance. “And don’t think of escaping out a window. He’ll be watching the outside.” He points a thumb at his partner.
I swallow hard and nod.
I can’t seem to breathe as I turn to my bedroom.
Just twelve hours ago, I was on top. I had control. I knew what I was doing.
Look how quickly things fall apart. Just twelve hours later, and everyone I thought I trusted has turned on me, and I am probably going to die.
I walk into my closet and grab a bag. I shove whatever my hands find into it. Dump random bathroom things into it. My hands still in the drawer with the false bottom.
Elle came to me not long ago, begging for her family’s safety and anonymity. And before she left, she gave me a gift.
Glancing over my shoulder at the man who stands guard at the door, I find he’s looking away from me.
Quickly, I slide the false bottom out, grab the vials of vampire toxin, and slip them into my bag. Casually, I walk out of the bathroom. My heart rate picks up as I study the man’s back.
I take one step to my right. And another.
Holding my breath the whole time.
But my guard doesn’t turn.
I take another step to the right. And, my eyes on him the entire time, I reach a hand out. My fingers brush the edge of the painting. Still, he does not turn.
My fingers curl around the edge of the painting, and I pull.
Soundlessly, it swings out toward me.
My heart races. Surely, the guard will hear it, find out I am doing something I should not be doing. Surely, he will turn and kill me right now.
But he doesn’t.
So I open the painting door wider, take a step toward it.
And then I’m gone.
I carefully close the painting behind me once again. I’m immediately engulfed in darkness, and it takes my eyes just a moment to adjust. But instantly, I’m on the move. My cat-like feet race down the stone stairs. Through the darkness. Down further and further. In just a few seconds, I’m out on level ground and I speed over ice that once sat as puddles of stagnant ground water. On and on, until finally, I make it to a wooden door. Carved into the surface is my father’s handwriting: Elijah Conrath. March 3, 1651—October 13, 1875. Finally, rest in peace, my brother.
Over a hundred and forty years ago, my father fled his attackers through this tunnel. Then it was the townspeople trying to burn him alive in his own home. Now, it’s the Royals trying to frame me in the very same house.
We both found our escape here.
History does have a way of repeating itself.
I shove my shoulder against the door, and it instantly pops open and I tumble out into the darkness and into the thorns and frozen vines. Snow spills into my shirt, down my boots. I’m buried in it momentarily before I right myself.
Fields stretch out before me, and I turn back to see the fence of the Conrath property. Off, far, far down the sprawling landscape, sits my House. The House I now have to run from if I’m going to survive.
I stall for a moment, staring at it. I’ve resented everything that House has brought into my life. How it’s twisted it, twisted m
y perception on reality and how dark the world really is and the secrets that it holds.
But in these six months since I’ve come to reside in it, I’ve come to love that House. It’s secrets. It’s history. It’s power.
And now I have to leave it.
I have to run.
I have to leave Lillian, and Anna, and Nial, and Cameron.
And Raheem.
I have to run.
A Royal rogue.
It’s much harder than I ever would have thought to walk away from this life I’ve gained.
I sling my bag over my shoulder, my mind rolling through the next steps of what needs to happen.
First, I need transportation. I have to get out of here.
The deepening snow slows my race toward town. My legs can move fast, they’re strong, but the snow that comes up to my thighs is difficult to move through. It takes me almost five minutes to reach town.
I search the vehicles that still line Main Street and fill the parking lots. I need something big—something that can move.
The few vehicles left are covered in snow, buried and unrecognizable. I get halfway down the road before I see a truck in the parking lot of the grocery store with a high lift and monster tires.
Perfect.
I pull my cell phone out as I walk up to it, my packed bag in hand. I’ve got just enough of a signal to pull up a video browser. I type in how to hotwire a car just as I reach it.
I bust in the back window to get inside and crawl through. I then lay across the front bench to get access to the fuse box.
I’ve just about got it when a sound outside the truck sends my heart into my throat. I’ve been caught. This is it. Cyrus has already found me.
But when I sit up, and look out the back, broken window, the last person I expect is there.
Elle Ward stares at me with wide, surprised eyes. “Alivia?” she asks in disbelief.
“Elle?” I ask as I climb over the seat and out into the bed. She holds a plastic shopping basket, filled with non-perishable food. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean?” she asks, her voice picking up a little quiver. “I was just getting some food to take back to Lula. We were running low.”
My mind flips back a few weeks, to what everyone at the House was telling me. “I thought you left,” I breathe as I hop down to the ground, and sink straight into the snow. “Why didn’t Ian take you with him?”