by Amanda Churi
“Protective. Now can you—”
“How did he really get that sword, huh?” she hissed with a sick smirk. “The Lord wouldn’t want someone like him watching over us.”
“You need to leave me alone,” Daisy warned darkly, her free hand tightening into an angry fist.
“What am I doing?” she chuckled mischievously, advancing on Daisy and forcing the child back into the dark house. “I’m simply enjoying your company.”
“Well, I’m not enjoying yours!” Daisy snapped. “If you want to talk, talk to my daddy!”
“THAT’S NOT YOUR FATHER, AND YOU KNOW IT!” the woman screamed, shoving Daisy in the gut with such force that the child was sent flying back, squealing in distress until her back hit a wooden beam, causing a rain of timbers and soot to fall around her.
She looked up just in time as the woman grabbed her by the throat, pinning her against the beam. Daisy glared at the woman’s hand, her eyes narrowing and stomach burning as she felt her powers build up.
“What really happened?” the woman urged impatiently, giving Daisy’s head a strong shove as she slammed it backward. “How did he change you—make you so grown up? What levels has his dark magic rose to?!”
Play stupid! her conscience screamed. She’s just crazy is all!
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Daisy squeaked, closing her eyes and desperately trying to control her powers; she couldn’t let anyone see, especially now!
“Liar!” the woman snapped viciously as drool began to seep from her lip, her hand pushing down on Daisy’s throat. “Tell me what’s going on! What are you hiding? Why are you protecting him?!”
“Get away from the gal!”
Daisy’s heart shrieked with relief, though she refused to move or open her eyes, afraid of the light in her irises exposing her secret.
Surprisingly, the hold on her throat loosened. “Hello, Cecil,” the woman responded coolly. “Lovely night, isn’t it?”
“Beautiful. Now let her go.”
“Aw, come on,” she pouted. “I was just having some fun.”
“We’ll see how much fun ya have in the dungeons when word of this reaches the king. Release her! NOW!”
Huffing in disgust, her mysterious assailant did as she was told. Daisy gasped graciously, pressing her hands to her knees as her powers retreated. Cautiously, she opened her eyes, looking up in disdain at her attacker who no longer faced her, instead staring at Cecil in the doorway.
“Sure, come to their defense, just like you always do,” she grunted furiously. “One of these days, though, they’ll get you; I hope you know that.”
“Skedaddle before ya regret it,” he warned a final time.
The woman scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Fine,” she grumbled reluctantly, flashing a cold look Daisy’s way. “I’ll find out what’s going on…” She looked away from the sorceress, approaching Cecil and standing before him, giving him the same death glare. “I’ll find out just what your real plan is if it’s the last thing I do!”
Enraged, she shoved Cecil against the frame of the door, darting into the night before he could pursue her. That didn’t seem to be his intention at all; he only grunted as his back hit the charred timbers, his thin pupils following the woman to make sure she didn’t come back.
Daisy let out a shaky sigh, standing up and holding the stuffed bear close to her chest. She didn’t know how Cecil found her, but nonetheless, she couldn’t be more thankful.
Cecil did not move, remaining alert for a bit more before finally looking back in Daisy’s direction, exhaling in relief. “Thought ya were a goner there for a minute.”
“N-no, I’m fine,” Daisy stammered, walking over to her father’s most trusted man. “Thank you, Cecil.”
He scoffed, though he did not smile. “It’s nothin’,” he said. “But what is somethin’ is the fact that ya’re outta the castle, missy! What are ya doin’ out here?”
She hung her head in shame. “I went to get medicine for Koral…”
“Then why ya dancin’ on tombstones?”
She paused. “I got distracted…”
“Hmph. More like ya were lookin’ for adventure.”
“Cecil, I—”
He raised a hand for silence. “I don’t wanna hear it,” he reprimanded. “What matters is ya’re safe. Ya’ve gotta be careful, l’il one…”
Daisy looked back at him, her shoulders slumping forward. “I know…”
“No, ya clearly don’t,” he pressed. “Yar father loves ya; he keeps ya outta sight to keep ya safe. Anyone would pick up a child like ya if they done had the chance.”
He crouched down so that he was eye-level with the princess. “Ya bein’ the king’s daughter makes anyone who doesn’t agree with yar father want to pick a bone with ya instead,” he urged, grabbing Daisy’s open hand and forcing her to look him in the eye. “And some people… They ain’t blind, Daisy… They can see that ya ain’t mortal…”
Immediately, Daisy yanked her hand away, stepping back in shock. She thrust the bear out in front of her like a shield, her arms quaking and knees racking against each other. She did not just hear that! “What are you talking about?!”
“I ain’t stupid,” he said flatly. “I got plenty of experience with yar type.”
Daisy shook her head, hyperventilating at the thought of her exposed secret. How could she have been so stupid?! She didn’t know how he had found out, but she obviously had not been careful; even the strange woman seemed to know something about her! “What do you want from me?!”
“Nothin’!” he explained quickly, throwing his arms out beside him. “I don’t want nothin’! I just wanna protect ya!”
Even with her frantically beating heart, Daisy somehow found the strength to pause and speak clearly, despite the sheer, overpowering urge to run and hide while she still could. “Why…?”
“…Because,” he carefully replied. “It’s my job.”
“I don’t care if you are my daddy’s guard!” Daisy screamed heatedly. “You’re nothing to me! You’re just a servant! You don’t control me!”
“And what makes ya think yar father has any rule over me?” he retorted smugly. “Ya don’t know nothin’ about me!”
“And neither do you!”
His lips twisted into an injured grimace. “That just ain’t true, hun,” he whispered softly. “Don’t be so ignorant… I know more about ya than ya do. How do ya think I know yar secret?”
Both confused and fed up, Daisy decided she had enough. She had always looked at Cecil as a promising figure—someone who would help her father achieve glory. Now, however, she was looking at him through a new set of eyes, and she did not like what she saw. He may have protected her from one woman, who wanted her blood and craved the secrets buried in the walls of the castle, but he had some dirt on Daisy himself, and she could only guess what his intentions were; she certainly didn’t want to wait to find out.
“Get out,” she demanded with a hostile growl.
Cecil didn’t move, placidity overthrowing his face. Daisy’s stomach churned angrily. Refusing to hold herself back, she let the heat and pressure in her body build. Her blue eyes suddenly switched to pink, her awakened Eyla now a clear warning. “Leave before I show you what I can really do.”
Cecil huffed, shaking his head. “With powers that ya don’t even know how to control… Alright, fine. If that’s what ya want.”
He turned away from Daisy and headed toward the exit, Daisy’s distrustful eyes honed in on him. She couldn’t grasp just who she was looking at, but it melted her insides like ice. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to think. She just stood there like a statue, her eyes shining and her heart screaming, hoping that this was all nothing more than a dream.
Just as he was about to leave, Cecil halted at the entryway, looking back at the immobile child. “Just know one thin’,” he cautioned. “Ya’ll never get where ya’re supposed to be without me; they won’t let ya. If ya kn
ow what’s good for ya, say nothin’, because tonight never happened…”
And on those words, he was gone, the night taking him in its grasp before another word could be spoken as he left the child alone.
***
Hearts beating as one, blood racing through their veins, their shadows danced in the night. His body clad with sweat, he held her face in his hands, their bodies exchanging a million words with their passionate movements.
The woman sighed in pleasure, leaning her head against the pillow and closing her eyes. The black veins swirling through her back and creeping farther up the sides of her breasts throbbed intensely due to the mass exertion between the two lovers. Neither was thinking, only following the urge to claim more of their mate than they already had.
Her trembling hands tightened around his neck, her fingernails sinking into his skin. Her body suddenly tensed, the deepest, darkest desires in her heart coming forward as her body reached its limit.
“Let go,” he encouraged her in a succulent voice.
Lucy groaned, closing her eyes… She didn’t want to. Something… Something was strange. Something wasn’t right.
DO IT! a thirsty, devilish voice screamed in her head.
Her fingers surged with power as her stomach cramped, the nails holding onto his neck breaking his flesh and tearing it in two.
Kevin screamed in agony, ripping his body away from Lucy’s as her fingers shredded the back of his neck. She gasped, sitting up urgently as Kevin fell backward onto the sheets, groaning in misery. He grabbed his exposed flesh, closing his eyes and gasping for air as the pain within his body spiked, reaching incomprehensible levels. The blood from his terrible wound gushed forth, soaking into the white sheets and spreading like a web.
Lucy trembled, watching the blood of her love slowly creep closer to her. She looked down at her nails, frantically shaking her head. What happened?! What on earth did she do?!
“I-I’m sorry, Kevin!” she squealed, tears racing down her face as she placed her shaky feet on the floor. She was hardly able to stand at the sight of him, making her way to the edge of the bed on unsteady legs. She loomed above him, staring down as he continued to pant for air and cry in misery.
She could barely remain sane. Her bones cracking with dread, she forced her hands under Kevin’s shoulders, gently lifting his upper body to see just how much damage she had unintentionally caused.
His whimpers and cries drowned away to nothingness; everything ceased at once for the novice queen. The shock to her eyes was so powerful that her heart stopped beating; her lungs froze in mid-expansion, her blood paused its travels, and her brainwaves hit a flatline as she stared down—a blue gem was nestled in his spine with two contorted bands of obsidian attached, rising through a river of blood and setting itself level with his skin.
The symbol of the Returned.
Seventeen
Blood Right
After Pinion had taken her leave, our lives were placed into the hands of our appointed caretakers. Laelia and Sybil were whisked away before they could catch their breath; one group of medics took Sybil, while another took Laelia, hoping they could save what was left of her before it was too late.
For now, the remaining, fragmented pieces of the old Resistance was kept together: Griffin, Mabel, and me. Besides the queen, Flye was the only Encryptor missing. She took her task of keeping a watchful eye over Laelia very seriously, following the medics as they confiscated Laelia’s semi-unconscious body, remaining close at all times.
We stayed in the meeting room. For a long time, nothing was said; none of us knew what to say. Seek and Kaitlyn flanked both Mabel and me, and Griffin had been ordered by Justus to sit next to him on the other side since he was now his responsibility. Four stared down four, eyes scanning every inch of each stranger, searching for any piece of information that could be collected simply by sight.
“I think I will acquire the medication and give us all the blessing of life, hm?” Embry said nonchalantly, gracefully standing up and fluttering her silver eyebrows. “We all seem a bit tense; perhaps a distracted stomach and some settled shivers will ease our fervent emotions.” Like a ballerina, she pirouetted to turn her body around before elegantly gliding over to the iron door and exiting the room.
“So,” Virgil began smugly, lifting the skin above his teeth. “While the mediator is absent, have you all enjoyed your time in this alternate universe you created?”
“Prelude,” Seek began, her voice sizzling with hostility. “Knock it off. They didn’t know; they only wanted to get home.”
“Can you imagine that, though?” Virgil continued, scoffing in amazement, though his face was gnarled, and his eyes were hollow past the surface. “Actually wanting to go home?” He shifted his red eyes to me. “Tell me, please, what your definition of ‘home’ is.”
A shaky sigh parted from my lips as my eyes met Mabel’s. “Home is where your family is…” I forced myself to say, remembering what she had told me right before I dragged her away from Phantome. “And family is those who are always there for you… And who will love you no matter what.”
Virgil snickered, folding his buff arms and leaning back in his chair. “A commendable answer,” he replied, slightly satisfied. “But you see, home is not something that exists here.” He uncrossed his arms and motioned around the room with the snap of a wrist. “We have each other’s backs, sure, but really, attachment is something that should be outlawed here. You rarely ever become accustomed to one face before they’re killed off. The Encryption constantly cycles their fighters; we fall that fast.” A pained smile washed across his blood-red lips. “I doubt one person in the entire revolution still has connections to their blood-linked kin.”
Griffin’s focus settled on Virgil. “You guys are separated from your families too…?”
“We never used to be,” Virgil answered, his gaze cutting into Griffin’s soul. “Times have evolved, though… And the past one hundred years have gradually become the worst in recorded history—easily comparable to when this madness first began.”
“What do you mean?” Mabel spoke up, redirecting her interest to Virgil. “Are you telling me that babies are ripped from their mothers at birth?”
“Mothers?” Justus repeated, hardly able to refrain from laughing in disbelief. “Ey, there’s practically no such thing anymore! That term was discarded years ago when the Lord lost what little sanity he was born with. There are those who give birth, but they never get to stay with their children.
“Five years ago, the Lord enacted possibly the most bizarre law to have ever been made—the decree to end the natural birth of the common folk. Any child under the age of thirteen was torn from their home, and all pregnancies became an offense. If someone was unlucky enough to be pregnant when this law was enacted, they were killed without a second thought.”
My heart began fluctuating with disbelief. I didn’t think things could be more messed up, but they just kept smacking me over the head with more ridiculous facts. “Why?” I asked horrifically. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s because people will never change,” Seek whispered. She lowered her head, her eyes drifting across the table. “Power terrifies people, yes, but there will always be those born who will never sacrifice their birth-given right of freedom, no matter the situation.
“Since the dark days began, Lords have held a sword above our heads,” Seek went on to say, honing in on the mighty hologram of the Proxez Empire flickering in the center of the table. “Lords have been the dictators of the world since the beginning; when one dies, another simply rises, and things either stay the same or get worse—never better. All people were originally just subjects forced into submission by the Haxors and, when severe, the Elites. Smashing any sort of rebellion always contained the people for an extensive period of time afterward, but as things got worse, tolerance of the Lord and his ways continued to wane until it was practically non-existent.
“About one
hundred years ago, the subjects decided they had enough. In overwhelming numbers, the people decided to fight back. They slaughtered uncountable Proxez, and although many more commoners were lost, they kept fighting. They resisted to such extremes that they decided to break away once and for all. They left the mainland, crossed Devil’s Divide, and proceeded to build their own empire: Pikë.
“Although many fought and broke away, the larger percentage of the population did not take a side in fear of their lives. Two choices were given to those left—rebel and die, or join and survive. Most every subject sided with the Proxez, desperately trying to stay out of the line of fire altogether. Those in grave fear of being killed by the violent rebellion, however, requested to join the Proxez. This was unheard of until then—Proxez were born into power, not initiated. The Lord at the time saw this as the only way to squash the revolution. With the enemy’s numbers swelling to heights greater than ever before, the Proxez easily overtook Pikë, destroying everything and everyone there.”
Seek inhaled deeply, raising her eyes and looking at me, even though she had the undivided attention of everyone in the room. “The Lord thought that would be the end of it—the last rebellion to ever rise. Of course, he was wrong. He lived the rest of his life without fear of an uprising, but the moment his son, Gannon, rose to power upon his death and began shooting off commands faster than they could roll off his tongue, tension built once more, and this time, the Encryption was the product.
“After the terrible annihilation of Pikë, few wanted to fight, but Pinion took a stand and gathered all she could, and soon, we began to gain numbers. The Lord would not risk this; he wanted to stomp the Encryption before the revolution became too strong, and he had another civil war on his hands. It took him a long time to properly decide on the appropriate course of action, and in the meantime, the Encryption continued to grow and discreetly build their forces beneath the surface of the Earth. But then… He found his solution.