The Garnet Dagger
Andrea R. Cooper
Avon, Massachusetts
This edition published by Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
www.crimsonromance.com
Copyright © 2013 by Andrea R. Cooper ISBN 10: 1-4405-6559-7
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6559-5
eISBN 10: 1-4405-6560-0
eISBN 13: 978-1-44056560-1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © 123rf.com; istockphoto.com/Nicolas McComber, Mark Hilverda, iconogenic
To my husband who not only showed me that love is real, but opened up a world of magic and fantasy. Who encouraged me to indulge in my love of reading, and never told me to give up my dream of becoming a writer. And who wrestled with little ones so I had time to write. Thank you for your support. I love you.
To my children, Troy, Levi, and Chloe, may you always follow your dreams, and hold onto them until they come true. Never accept defeat even if everyone doubts you.
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
About the Author
A Sneak Peek from Crimson Romance
Also Available
Acknowledgments
A special thank you goes to Jennifer Lawler for giving me and this story a chance. The Crimson Romance editors for polishing my story and inspiring me to make my writing better. Crimson Romance staff for helping my story reach others.
Thank you to my writing group, friends, family, and strangers who supported me by listening to my ramblings about this book or reading it and offering insights.
Chapter One
I’ve known death. For over half a millennia, I escorted many to death at the end of my sword. In the eyes of the dying, I watched it shroud them. Foolishly, I thought many more eras would pass before death came for me. It came so swiftly that I could not run; I could not escape.
At a village, dressed in human clothes, I took in everything. By observing for eons, I understood and spoke their language. The world of mankind fascinated me. Their hobbled homes burrowed into the ground. Rocks crunched on top one another with thatched roofs woven from straw. Never had I seen a home or inn that was higher than three levels, as if they were afraid of the sky.
I delayed my return to my people as I watched human jugglers bounce torches and knifes. It was autumn equinox and the festivities would continue well into the night. Children laughed as they chased each other. A trail of leaves from their costumes twirled after them. It was dark when I reached the forest. Since I was already late, I hiked uphill to a shortcut rather than take the long path back home. I didn’t need to alert any of my kind near the barrier at this hour. Liana would wonder why I was late. Tonight was the two month anniversary of our hand twining ceremony. One more month as was custom, and then we’d be wed.
A gasp rustled through the trees. The roots shot a warning through to me with stifled caution. Adjusting my pack, I continued on instead of changing back into my Elvin clothes. After I passed the border which kept humans from entering our land, then I’d change.
In the distance, I heard a groan. Curious, I spun in the direction of the sound. The autumn wind breezed through my worn human clothes, chilling me. But someone needed help. I turned in the direction of the sounds.
Whatever made the noise should be a few yards ahead. I hiked slower than my normal speed, so as not to startle whatever human called out. My leather boots crunched upon dried, diseased leaves and bark. Horrified, I glanced up.
Branches twisted around each other to suffocating. Lifeless limbs cracked in the wind. Flesh of the trees sloughed off in layers, exposing its bones. Gashes hollowed out chunks of warmth. Fragments of leaves clung to finger tips, marking sepulchers of the dying trees.
Trees mourned with wails like splitting wood, and I brought my hands over my ears. I must flee before I became infected, they told me.
Flee before the stain of this defilement creeps into you, they warned. Trees spoke to my kind, always had. Yet these trees were in such agony of death that I could not breathe. Felt as though my lungs had folded in on themselves, like a moth unable to break loose from its cocoon.
Nothing I could do for them, and if I lingered too long, whatever disease gnawed upon them may choke me. Where would I go if I carried something so foul as to devour trees from the inside out? I’d never return to Tamlon if I brought this infection with me.
I drew away, but a movement at the base of a decaying tree to my right caught me. My night vision picked up the sight of a human. His sallow face seemed to glow in the moonlight. Poking out from rags lay his arms and legs, which resembled skin stretched over sticks.
So cadaverous was his face, I’d have thought him dead if he hadn’t moved.
“Please,” he said and his voice sounded like cicada’s vibrations, “help me.”
“What ails you in this troubled place?” I wondered if my voice, foreign to my ears in speaking the human’s language, revealed my nature.
“I am lost.” His dark eyes crinkled around the corners. “Without strength to rise. If you would but assist me up, I’ll be on my way.”
I’d never touched a human on purpose before. Was it that that gave me pause, or dread that stilled my heart? My feet itched to flee. As soon as I helped him, then I’d leave. I gritted my teeth and reached a hand down.
His gnarled fingers snapped on my arm, making me wince. Jerking me forward, his face contorted. Surprised by his strength, I fell beside him. Blackness curled around me.
Teeth, fangs, broke through the skin on my neck. Then I knew him for what he was, a vampyre. I struggled in protest. My words trapped in my mind. This shouldn’t happen. I was not human. But I felt my essence slip from me with each sucking sound he made.
I tried in vain to push him off me. I was paralyzed. My joints and muscles locked in place. I couldn’t move. Release. Get away. I screamed again and again in my mind, but my body refused to obey. If I could reach my sword then I’d behead the monster. But my hands, even my fingers, refused to move.
Felt as though my bones were replaced with steel rods, which now in place, were tempered closed. Embracing death. Wind roared in my ears, bringing the laments of the trees aro
und me, piercing into my soul. Here, I was to die.
• • •
He twitched.
And I felt a tugging at my wound. But apparently neither of us could disentangle. He was locked with me, and I with him.
Pain churned behind my eyes like scorching fire. It seeped through my skull and down my spine. His essence mingled with mine and filled me.
And I knew him.
I knew his thoughts, his name, and his victims through the centuries. Inside my head he was yelling. “Not human. Not human. What are you? Draining me, my power.” His words shattered through my mind.
I didn’t know what was happening. The ground beneath me sighed. Bugs crawled along the leaves, their mouths crunching through the bark. In sleep birds ruffled their feathers.
Stench of blood and death lingered. A feeling of falling coursed through me. Everywhere my skin tingled like pine needles pricked me. I sensed each groove of my knuckles.
Strength returned to me, and yet something more. A thickness settled over the beating of my heart. Just beneath my skin, an itch, a tingling.
My muscles and bones relinquished their rigidness. I shoved him away and he gasped.
“What have you done?” Black blood ran from his eyes.
“Nothing.” I saw his life force shimmering like the dew in morning. Fragile and waiting for the day to melt it away.
His eyes rolled back into his head, and he was dead.
But I was alive, no vampyre. I shrugged it off that my kind must have immunity to his. Doubt tickled behind the veil of my conscious mind. Fleeting stories of prophecy and a dark monster read to me as a child.
My fingers brushed across the wound from my attack. Before I stumbled upon any other visitors, I decided to change my clothes. These human clothes had nearly killed me.
I removed my old human clothes and left them beside the rotting body. Thrust my legs into my trousers. Then I yanked my silk tunic over my head.
Images of wolves swam through my mind. They’d be upon me in two hundred paces. Why I felt they come for me, I could not explain. Never before could I sense animals so far away, or their intent. I stomped on my boots and slipped on my cloak. Leaving the discarded clothes behind, I ran.
Heard howls echo behind me. I dared not stop, but flew over the rocks to my home. I’d search the scrolls. Warning steeled my breath when I thought of approaching my parents with what happened this night. No, I must find out for myself before I spoke about this to another.
Chapter Two
My breath eased out of me when my boot hit the marble floor of the city. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized I held it. Below, the wolves bayed at the moon. Everyone rushed to watch them. Wolves roamed the lands, but these did not move to leave.
Catching the uneasiness in the air, I refused to let myself run to the library vault. Instead I advanced at a set pace. Doubt clutched me. Perhaps something changed my countenance. But everyone I saw greeted me the same as before.
The prophecies would assist me. I’d review them before discussing them with my parents or Liana. The wolves’ howls echoed through the chambers and I felt as if they vibrated through me.
Inside the library, I rushed forward, unable to slow my steps. I careened around the shelves of histories and laws, then ducked behind the velvet curtains to the vaults. As I was growing up, I and my father visited these vaults often. I had tagged along behind, as privileged few were allowed access.
As an adult, I did understand the reason for my father’s admittance. We were the key to the prophecies. Somehow. Our family through generations commissioned to read the prophecies to their first born sons. I don’t remember much about the words, except they intrigued me about the human world. My father stopped taking me over a century ago.
I pushed open the marble door. The coolness faded into my palms and the door swung open. After stepping through the doorway, the door slammed shut behind me. At a table carved from the marble wall, Nivel scoured through tattered parchments.
Nivel’s silver hair contrasted with his smooth face. Although he was the oldest of us, he bore no signs of his age, except his hair. Once, when dared by my friends to ask his age, he answered in riddle.
“I am the age I’m meant to be,” he said. “Continue my course, until all is set before the dark one who will come.”
Remembering this ran shivers down my spine. The sound of my boot scuffing the floor brought his face around. I was surprised he didn’t hear the door slam.
His green eyes widened as though in shock. “Brock? You’ve come to read the prophecies?”
I nodded wondering if this was a good idea.
“Your father must have wanted you to review them before your wedding, eh?” He rose and his robes flowed with him as he searched the shelves for the information I sought. “Strange, though, I’d have thought his worries gone with the approach of your marriage.”
His babblings made my mind race. What was he speaking of? And why would my father not need to tell me now?
Rising on his tiptoes, he grasped a parchment shining among the others.
He set the scroll down on the table. Etched in gold ink, glimmered words called to me. Then he gestured for me to take a seat. “Everything should be clear to you, since your father explained things with your betrothal.
My throat closed, denying my voice the opportunity to say that my father told me nothing.
“I’ve another patron in the library. I’ll leave you for the moment.” He swept from the vault.
Swallowing, I turned back to the gold scroll, and sunk into the chair.
What I read made me feel as if ice water had been poured over me and seeped into my marrow. There was some mistake. This couldn’t be about what happened in the woods. The words blared at me even though their full meaning abandoned my reasoning.
With the autumn leaves the dark one, Vaer, will come. Wolves voice his return. Judgment for any who harbor him.
A mixing of blood long ago shall return to birth this dark monster. Death comes with him. He brings the end of our time. Only the spilling of the witch’s blood will atone.
I reached to push the words from me, but my hands still trembled. Anytime now Nivel would return. He’d see the astonishment in my face. The chair grated over the marble floor as I leapt up. Without waiting I rushed from the chambers. I must find out the truth from my father. Demand he confess to me what had happened — what was happening.
Outside the library, Liana waited for me. I almost ran her over in my haste.
“Brock, come with me.” Her honey hair curled around her hips.
Perhaps I’d confide in her. She humored my curiosity of humans. Maybe she’d make sense of the words of the prophecy shouting in repetition in my mind.
“The council has been called on the account of the wolves.” She led me into her parent’s chambers. “I believe we have some time before they adjourn.”
Despite the time, the wolves still had not moved on or stopped their howling that seemed to get louder. Silk draped the walls in white. Mimicking colors of the rainbow, colored pillows were tossed in piles on the floor. She reclined against a stack and held her hand out to me.
When my hand brushed hers, I felt a sense of relief. There was no need to worry. I did not bring death with me like the prophecy said. I settled down beside her and our fingers laced together. I ached to touch her. Kiss her lips and taste them. My free hand cupped her face.
Her smile widened. Drawn to her, I brushed my lips across hers. A prickling pulsed through my lips. She sighed, as if with pleasure, and I took her lips with my own. My heart pounded in my ears. Our breath mingled together as one. Time froze. A tugging within, behind a thickness that settled over me.
My heart vibrated louder, faster with each beat. Shafts of light pressed behind my closed eyes. The restlessness of the wolves and their yips brought me to pause. But still, the sweetness of Liana’s lips upon mine, I could not stop. I felt the ripple of the earth beneath our tree home. Water nourished
the veins of the leaves.
Then a wrenching ache crashed into me. In that moment, I knew Liana. Heart pounding in my ears, was hers. Her pain reached into me, but still I could not stop. Her light made me turn to her like a flower seeking the sun. Part of me shouted to free her. Her thoughts and memories flooded into me. Her wishing to soar like a hawk, stolen kisses with other boys, and her reluctance to entertain me every time I mentioned humans.
Consuming her was a hunger I could not fathom. I drank her in.
Until my hands and lips brushed coldness. I opened my eyes and then threw myself from her. Her body slumped. Blood crested in streams from her eyes. Her lips bluish-white. I feared to touch her again. But yet hoped she lived. For endless ages, it seemed, I watched her for sign of her heart beating, of even the shallowest breath.
Nothing. My guilt rose up and choked me. I was the dark one — Vaer. The monster. I was Death. For Death now lived inside me.
Chapter Three
Shouts and footsteps drew closer. We had safeguards within Tamlon. The tree would send a warning to the elders if anyone was killed. The elders would dispatch guards immediately.
But I did not run or hide. I welcomed execution for taking her life. Although I still did not understand how it had happened. At first, my touch brought no harm. Perhaps I could return what I’d taken?
In vain, I kissed her mouth again. Numbness itched on my lips. Arms seized me, yanking me backward.
I lay sprawled among booted legs. One kicked me in my side. Gloved hands grasped my tunic and lugged me up until I was on my feet. The room bobbed. I was pushed forward with spear points.
Whispers tensed as we marched to the council room. The crowd parted with indrawn breaths.
A mother drew her son to her side. His black hair waved almost down to his hips. Reminded me of how I looked as a child. Thin, and pointed ears stuck out from underneath dark hair. Green eyes like my own stared up at me. Until I reached my height now of over six feet, I had had to grow into my ears, just as my father always told me. Wondered if this boy was as self-conscious as I was at his age.
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