by E. M. Knight
I need a moment to compose myself.
I know—I feel—that I am running on some sort of super-strength adrenaline. Not only am I in the midst of an incredible high, I am also crackling with power. It rages through me with all the anger and fury of a tempest. It thrills me, it energizes me, but it also makes me vulnerable.
My position as Captain Commander will be forfeit if the other vampires see me incapable of control.
So I do my best to temper the new, destructive force my body can now access.
I straighten my jacket, flatten the front, take a steadying breath, and march out the doors with all the dignity I have ever been capable of.
I’d half-expected there to be commotion. Instead, the floor in front of me is absolutely empty.
I let my senses flare to identify any vampires nearby. A scattered few are in their rooms. But most are still congregated in the assembly hall where I’d called them earlier to gather.
Works for me, I think, then race for the prison cell where Carter had been held.
I arrive to find a group of guards crowding around the front. With a barked order I command them to get out of the way.
They do, and I am able to see for myself just what happened.
The cell is empty. Carter’s gone.
But there’s nothing to give evidence of a break out.
The silver bars are exactly in the same position as they were last I had been here. The locking mechanism is untouched.
On the inside, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, are all completely whole.
“When did this happen?” I ask.
The guard closest to me snaps to attention. “I was keeping watch, Commander. At the turn to the corridor, just as I was told. I didn’t see anyone approach or leave.”
“And yet our prisoner’s missing,” I say dryly. “Clearly, you failed.”
I throw a hand out, ready to incinerate him with a spell of fire—and then choke and stop.
What’s happening to you? a small voice asks.
I gasp and stagger back. The guards eye me with concern. But they say not a word.
I bring a hand to my head. A splintering pain shoots through my skull. For a moment my vision is clouded with a vile, poisonous black.
Then, it clears, and I come back to myself.
“Sir?” the vampire I’d been too-ready to kill asks.
I avoid looking at him for fear I’ll be tempted to make good on that impulse.
“Tell me what happened when you—when you found the cell empty,” I choke out.
What the hell is happening to me?
He clears his throat. “As soon as I saw I ran and got Marcus to summon you.”
“As he did,” I say.
“The rest came when I made the call,” he continues. “None of us have touched the cell. I swear, one minute Carter was there, the next, he was gone.” He shakes his head. “I felt, I saw, I heard nothing.”
“Could prove a dereliction of duty,” I suggest.
The guard stiffens. “I vowed my life to The Haven,” he says. “I do everything to uphold our laws. Not once have I been accused of negligence—”
“Relax,” I cut him off, “I’m not faulting you.”
He growls in displeasure but wisely does not say any more.
“I was posted at the end of the hall,” another guard speaks up. “Nobody came or went. The way you approached us is the only way in or out. We all know that.”
“So then, how did our captive escape?” I wonder.
I put my hand on the silver bars and flinch when they cause a sharp stab of pain.
“Open the cell,” I command.
The guards do as I say. The silver bars lift up and disappear into the ceiling.
I walk inside. The moment I’m over the threshold I feel a… ripple.
I wait for the other vampire to file in after me. I watch for their reaction.
They give none.
That means I’m the only one who felt it.
“Magic was done here,” I utter under my breath.
The lingering shadow of it caused the ripple I felt.
“Magic?” a guard asks. “How do you know?”
“Can you think of any other explanation?” I demand. “Look at the walls, look at the floor. All perfectly intact! How else could a vampire have gotten out?”
The guards around me make varying sounds of agreement.
I trace a hand over the rock. “The question is...” I say slowly. “Who did it? And how?”
“Eleira…” one of them begins.
“Is otherwise preoccupied,” I interject. My mind works at incredible speed. Could there be a dissenter amongst the guards? Could I not be the only male Mother exposed to his capacities?
I eye each of them one-by-one. I try to sense even a hint of magic in them.
My probing comes up null.
“So then it was Carter,” I say. “Him, or… some accomplice.”
Raul’s face flashes in my mind.
“My brother,” I demand. “Have any of you seen him? Heard of anything?”
“We took him away as you said,” is the answer I get. “He’s still where he is meant to be.”
“Somebody else, then,” I murmur.
On the spot, I make up my mind.
“The most important thing happening right now concerns the Queen and Eleira. I want assurance they won’t be interrupted.”
“We don’t even know where they are, Commander,” the first vampire guard says to me.
“Use your brain! They’re in the same place I was. In the secure passages beneath earth.”
I turn to address all of them. “I want all members of the Royal Guard stationed in front of the single entrance. Nobody is allowed in or out—except for me, the Queen, and Eleira.”
“So it’s happening?” one of the guards asks. “Eleira is becoming Queen?”
“The succession will occur as promised,” I assure him. “The Haven will be made strong again.”
“What about the guards keeping track of the humans?” another asks.
“What about them?” I growl.
“You want them relocated, too?”
“What part of all members did you not understand?” A craving for fresh blood flares in me. “The humans are not a priority. There will be a new ruling order soon. You’ll see. Our vampires will be made the strongest in the world.”
I snap back to them. “That is the Queen’s intention. The wards will be back, yes, but we will no longer need them. All of us—all of you—will be shown the path to your true potential. The Haven’s vampires will rise—and we will not cower before the laughable ‘threat’ posed by The Crypts. Our time is now! This I have been told. This I assure you!
“So go. Now. Protect the Queen’s hideout. She is doing what she needs to do. She cannot be interrupted.” Another pang of hunger. “I’ll deal with Carter’s escape. And all the rest. All you need to do is ensure neither the Queen nor Eleira are interrupted.”
My guards, showing the strength of their training, give a formal salute and stream down the hall to fulfill my orders.
Only when they’re gone do I allow my mind to completely open to the magical forces raging inside me.
As soon as I do my purpose becomes crystal clear. Again I see things entirely in black and white. There are no shades, only raw truths. No disguised falsehoods.
My beliefs are completely aligned with how the world has to be.
Power. Dominion. Control. All those things have been bred into us, all part of our basest nature.
And now, with the raging torrents of magic flowing through me, the truths of those things are absolutely certain in me.
No wavering. No questions. No second-guesses, no what-ifs.
Whatever I instinctually want to do is right. Magic gives me the absolute conviction in the veracity of the tides of power.
Again a near-madness takes hold. I’m in a bubble of euphoria. The raging currents sustain me, create me, make me who I am.
They give me life.
With supreme effort I force myself to push away the overwhelming feelings of ecstasy and focus on the here and now.
I open my eyes and look, truly look, and see the fabric of the world.
Magic has been done here. I see it for certain now. I see the material threads rearranging themselves to make up for being displaced by the Forces.
The most interesting thing about our physical reality is that it exists in a constant equilibrium. The universe, the galaxy, this small place on Earth, all has its established order.
No matter how chaotic it might look from the outside.
Given that, however, only one force is able to disrupt it.
Magic.
Because it’s not of this world.
So as the fine threads around me rearrange themselves to establish the order that has been disrupted, they give me a trail to investigate. They give me real evidence of what has been done.
I would never have been able to see it if I were a vampire weaker. I would never have been able to see it if Morgan did not push me over the edge and plunge me into the sea of darkness.
But I see it now, and I truly believe I am perhaps the only one on Earth capable of such a thing.
I walk over to the nearest wall and trace my finger over the remains of the spell.
A portal was created here. Where it led, I cannot say. Yet on some very instinctive level, I know it for what it was.
What else?
I turn around, examining the entrance of the cell. I sniff the air, tasting for another vestige of magic.
There are none. But I can tell enough from the little that’s left that the spell was cast from within.
And yet—and yet I’m certain Carter cannot do magic.
No, it wasn’t him. It couldn’t have been. A man casting spells leaves more… anarchy… on a place.
This spell was cast delicately.
It was done by a woman.
My mind works at breakneck speed. Could another witch have broken into The Haven? Any human intruder would have been instantly caught by my guards.
Who, then…?
Before I can come up with an answer a shockwave rips through the air. It hits me full-on from the back, and I go flying into the distant wall.
My forehead cracks against the rock. A grunt comes from my throat. I start to fall, start sliding down, but then reality… glitches.
For a fraction of a second I’m caught in midair, not moving, not falling, somehow stuck in place. My mind operates as normal but the flow of time is disturbed.
Then it’s gone, and I drop the rest of the way down.
A second shockwave follows, but this one is minor, much less forceful. I feel it as no more than a breeze.
I jump to my feet as soon as I’m able. But when I land, panic takes me.
My link to Mother is gone.
It was a link that I was barely even aware of. It sprouted into being when she pushed me over the edge. Through it, I gained my own instinctive understanding of magic, of the new forces I could control…
I was barely aware of it when it was there, but its absence I feel with full force.
Movement around me. I feel vampires rushing from the assembly hall. All of them must have felt the reverberation. None of them know what it means.
I do not either.
My sense of the Forces slips. They’re still inside me, I know they’re there, but something about them is… fading.
They’re like grains of sand falling through my fingers.
That scares me.
I duck through a side exit and run to catch up to the procession of vampires scrambling to figure out what happened. They’re all racing in the direction the shockwave came from. My panic is reflected in all of them, pulsating from the others like a living thing.
I have to get to the source. I have to know where the shockwave came from.
But already, I suspect I know.
Deep underground, where Mother is priming Eleira for the throne.
Chapter Six
Raul
The stronghold
A blast through the air knocks me off my feet. I spin and catch myself before I can slam into the wall.
But immediately, my heart starts pounding.
What the hell was that?
I run to the base of my prison. My hands wrap around the silver rods, causing me immeasurable pain, but right now, I’m too distraught to care.
All my worries are with Eleira.
How I hate myself for leading her into that trap! The way Mother and Phillip and the guards appeared was like an ambush. Dammit, but I had no way of knowing they would be there!
The fault lies with Felix. I’m sure of it. Him and that hare-brained plan he crafted with Eleira while I was away. Mother must have found out—she has eyes and ears all through the stronghold—and retaliated against them.
The awful burning against my palms gets to be too much. I curse and let go.
I turn my hands over and look at the skin. There are deep, red marks seared into the flesh.
I’m ready to scream in frustration. I hate how helpless I am. I hate how little I’ve done! Eleira deserves more than a simpering attendant, and that’s all I’ve been to her this entire time!
Anger, fury, rage, all of it boils over. All of it is directed at myself. After what happened with Liana all those years ago, I promised I would never love another woman.
Then Eleira came along and changed that.
I promised I would never let harm come to anyone so close to me.
My own rejection of that instinct makes the failure there laughable.
Eleira needs a man. I’ve been pretending, all this time, to be naught more than a boy.
Why?
To shield her from myself. Maybe to shield me from myself. For if she knew the truth, the real truth, about my past, and all the horrendous things I’ve done…
That little flirtation with darkness after being cut by that vile blade was only a taste of the things I am capable of, if I were to let go, if I were in any way to relax my hold on my deepest impulses.
Yet, look how far that restraint has gotten me! In a goddamn cage, in my own coven. As the Prince!
I do a circle of the room, absolutely seething. I’m stuck here, I can’t get out. I can’t help Eleira. I’m a prisoner, and worst of all, I’ve squandered every opportunity that I’ve had to change things.
And what the hell was that shockwave?
In a fit of anger I fling my shoulder against the bars.
They don’t give. As expected. They barely even tremble.
I am going to go crazy with frustration!
This is the part of the story where the hero makes a miraculous escape. Where something shifts, something changes, as the flow of fortune is redirected into his favor.
I bark a cruel laugh. I’m no hero. This is no story. This is real life, and it’s raw and gritty and dirty and unfair.
If I tried to shield Eleira from that, from reality, so much more my fault. How can I hide her from our vampire world when she’s the one set to inherit it?
A scraping sound on the other side of the bars catches my attention.
Instantly, I go on high alert. I look through the gaps, trying to peer farther down the hallway. Mother had so little regard for me she didn’t even post a guard—she knows it’ll be impossible for me to escape.
The sound comes again. I stiffen. I don’t see anybody moving, and yet…
My mouth nearly falls open when I see Carter materialize out of thin air.
No—that’s not quite right. I see Carter, casually strolling toward me, in a spot of the hall he wasn’t in before. His boots make that scraping sound against the earth. His appearance is more like him walking through a curtain and appearing on the other side.
But then, before I can even say a word, he disappears again.
I go absolutely still. Did I imagine that? Am I hallucinating? Silver addles the senses, and I am definitely susceptibl
e to falling victim to the effects…
But I’m certain my mind is not that far gone yet.
Just as I’m about to call out, Carter appears again. This time he appears just in front of the prison cell bars. He continues strolling forward, as easily as if he were taking a casual walk. There’s a smug smile on his face as he approaches the bars…
And walks right through them.
He grins from my side of the barrier. “Say something, Raul,” he suggests. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I don’t even have time to think. I just react. I leap forward, snarling, claws extended, aimed right for his heart…
My body passes through him as if he’s just a hologram.
He turns slowly and faces me. The evil smile on his face broadens.
“Surprised?” he asks. “Upset?”
I growl and launch myself at him once more. He opens his arms in mocking welcome.
I stagger through his non-material body.
“I can’t sense you,” I hiss. “You’re not really here.”
“Oh, I’m here all right,” he says with a hint of mockery. “The question is, why should you be?”
“What?” I demand.
“These accommodations—” he gestures around the cell, “are no place for royalty.”
“Screw you,” I say. “I put you in a prison cell. I know you’re there. This isn’t you, this is an apparition, some sort of trick—”
“No trick, I assure you.” He kicks at the stool between us. It topples over. “I’m really here.”
I try to grapple with what’s happening, try to reason it out and come to some sort of understanding.
“Magic,” Carter says softly, as he sees the conflict play out on my face. “What else?”
“You cannot do magic,” I accuse.
“Oh, but it doesn’t depend on me. It has to do with our Queen’s dear sister.”
My eyes narrow. Felix had said the same thing, and yet… I hadn’t really believed him, hadn’t truly believed Mother could have kept her secret, even from us, for all of these years. How was that even possible? And why would she bother? No. I was sure Felix had been mistaken. “Morgan does not have a sister.”
“So we all thought,” he murmurs. “But the skill for magic flows strong in the Soren blood. Would it be so much of a stretch to assume your Mother wanted to keep her little sister hidden?”