by E. M. Knight
“No, Dagan. This is all very easy. And imagine, if I can so effortlessly hurt you, how easy would it be for me to kill?”
All of a sudden, the air thickens. I cannot breathe. With the growing pressure comes enormous heat, the heat of a fire, an inferno, the heat of the sun.
Enough heat that my claws start to melt. Enough heat that I can feel my blood on the verge of boiling.
With a flourish, she releases me. I crumble down, disoriented, helpless, unable to stand up for myself.
As I very slowly regain my strength on the ground, I see Cierra walk closer from the corner of my eye.
She kneels down so that she is on my level. She reaches for my chin and tilts my head up.
I tense my muscles, ready to spring on her at a moment’s notice, except, for whatever reason… I don’t.
“You fear me,” she tells me softly. “Imagine what a predicament that is for a vampire who’s been led to believe he is as strong as you think you are. And yet, against a simple human witch, you find yourself… helpless.”
Even from so close I cannot pierce the darkness shrouding her face. It galls me to be rendered so useless.
“How did you get here?” I ask. “What do you want?” The smallest, tiniest part of me feels an ounce of respect for this woman who broke into the strongest coven of all. “Why haven’t you killed me yet?”
“Because, poor Dagan,” she answers. “You are required for fulfillment of prophecy.”
My eyes narrow. No force holds my body in place. I could leap at her, crush her, sink my fangs into her neck before she can so much as react…
But instinct tells me that this is no ordinary foe. If she really feared I could do that, she would not come so close.
She is either goading me to attack or setting another sort of trap.
I’ve commanded enough battles, been in enough fights, not to fall for it.
“What prophecy?” I ask.
“The one that was uttered hundreds of years ago, by a witch who had the Sight. The one that all of your idiot brethren think you need that other girl for. The one who was born seventeen years ago.”
“Eleira,” I say.
“Is that her name? Pretty. But the fools don’t realize what the prophecy truly means. Only I do. And only I can fulfill it!”
She cackles in mad laughter. “But I do need you.”
“You need me for what?”
“You are the best battlefield commander of all vampires. Are you not? That is what I have been told by others.”
“By whom?”
“Never you worry. All that matters is if it’s true.” She pauses. “Well? Is it?”
“You want me to condemn myself,” I growl.
“No. I want you to show me who you are.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why do you think I didn’t kill you after destroying your village?”
“That had nothing to do with you. You left me to die. You wanted me to suffer.” An image flashes in my mind of all the slaughtered children, immobilized on the evil, twisting metal beams. “You thought I would die.”
“If you had, you wouldn’t have been the one I require now. But you persevered. That defined you. And now, so many years later, you are valuable to me once more.”
“What is the prophecy?” I repeat.
“I need you to build an army,” she tells me. “An army unrivaled in the history of the world.” She waves a hand around the room. “You’ve seen what I can do. You’ve experienced firsthand how small a hindrance the vampiric gifts are to me. You will pledge allegiance to me. In return, I will let you live. And I will make you the general who leads my entire force.”
“We have an army,” I say. “Right here, in The Crypts.”
She laughs. “And who commands it? Your King? The same one who has defenses so weak that I could break through, unhindered?”
“I’ll never side with you,” I hiss at her. “I would die first.”
“Really?” She sounds amused. “You would forsake your immortality on a matter of principle? Don’t you think, sweet Dagan, that if you refuse, I’ll find somebody else?”
I spit on the ground. “You will not get me to cross over, witch.”
“Such a shame,” she sighs. “You had so much potential. Oh, well.” She reaches down and touches my cheek. Her fingers make a chill pass through me. “You know, I would have really preferred it if you had cooperated of your own free will.”
“What—” I begin, but then a blinding flash explodes out from around her. Something sharp and very hot pierces my skin, just beneath the collar bone.
I jerk away. But the heat I feel from that spot starts to spread. In seconds, it envelops my whole body.
The warmth is accompanied by a sort of buzzing, disconcerted vibration moving through my bones.
I glare at her. “What did you do?” I demand.
Even though I cannot see her face I hear the smile in her voice. “I planted the seed I need to grow,” she murmurs. “You will remember nothing of this in a few moments.”
“Like hell I won’t—”
A beam of pure white light shoots out from her hand. It hits me straight in the chest. It burns through the cloth, but somehow opposes the heat implanted in me. It is an icy cold that spreads over my body, coats my skin, and concentrates in a swirling pool across my back.
My jaw clenches. Enormous pain takes me as I feel something ripping apart my flesh. But only the ruined skin is affected. Only the surface that was destroyed by the demon venom is under attack.
The icy cold continues, shooting into me through the beam.
In one go the pain stops. The ripping feeling evaporates, and the beam dies.
I collapse onto the floor, my body unable to withstand any more.
But then, very, very slowly, I feel the skin on my back starting to heal.
“I extracted the poison from you,” Cierra informs me. “So, not only did I not kill you, but I saved your life. Unfortunately, you won’t remember any of this, either. For when you wake up next...” she crouches down, “…our entire interaction will be wiped from your memory, until such time that I call upon you and make you do my bidding.”
The world starts to darken. I fight against the encroaching blackness, willing myself to hold on…
“Don’t resist,” she tells me. “Simply take it. I offered you a chance to join me. You refused. I will still have you, Dagan. And the most beautiful part…?
“You will think you are doing it all of your own volition.”
She straightens and turns away. I try to push myself up, but the muscles in my arms have turned to jelly.
“My, how I wish you could see yourself now.” She laughs. “You look as pathetic and miserable as when I left you with the dead of your village. Not to worry, though. When the time comes, and you are summoned, I promise you that you will be the strongest of my vampires. And, when you’ve fulfilled your duty?” She slices a finger slowly along her throat. “I will end you, like the parasitic scum you are.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Raul
Within the stronghold
I walk around the great throne torrial, mesmerized by the scale of it.
When Mother possessed it I never gave it proper attention. It was a sacred object linked only to her. In fact, she forbade any of her sons from coming too close to it when she wasn’t around.
Back then, I did not know the exact reason why. But I respected her wishes nonetheless.
Now, with no such rule binding me, I can look at it for as long as I please.
Eleira is on the other side. With her is Felix. They are conferring in hushed tones.
I don’t listen to their conversation. If I were needed, she would let me know.
Phillip has been detained in a room not far away. Eleira told me exactly what she did to him. Blocking his power, coupled with sealing him to his oath, makes him cease to be an immediate threat.
I hate thinking of my younger broth
er as an enemy. But until we figure out how to free his mind from the poison that Mother injected into it, I cannot trust him with anything.
I cannot even think of him as kin.
“Raul?” Eleira says. “Come here.”
I look over at her. She has a quizzical expression on her face. Her lips are quirked up, and she is peering at the top of the throne’s very high back.
I come to her side. “What is it?”
“Have you ever noticed anything… peculiar about the throne?” she asks.
“In what way?”
“Did it… seem different to you, maybe, when Morgan sat on it?”
I frown. “Not that I can remember.”
“Think,” she says. “Think hard.”
I shake my head. “I never paid very much attention to it in the past. I did not know it was a torrial. And even if I did,” I shrug, “I wouldn’t have had any particular interest.”
“But you knew the constellations,” she says. “You knew to watch the stars.”
“Yes. Based on what Mother told me to do.”
“We think the throne needs to be in light of the moon for me to use it,” she explains.
My eyebrows go up. “How do you mean?”
Felix speaks up. “Your Mother had a small window installed at the top of the throne room in the castle,” he says. “It ensured that at least once every cycle, the moon shone down on it.”
“We think it gets its powers from that light,” Eleira says.
I narrow my eyes. “I won’t pretend to know more about magic than I do,” I say. “But is that really possible? As far as I know—as you’ve told me—the magical currents exist outside of any other thing on Earth.”
“On Earth, yes,” Eleira murmurs. “But the moon is not on this Earth, is it?”
She turns to one side and starts to pace in a little circle. “Morgan always insisted on the ceremony taking place on a full moon. Just like The hunt, right?”
“Don’t remind me,” I grumble. My utter failure with the villagers—leaving them to be slaughtered in a moment of madness by Phillip, after what I had promised them—weighs heavily on my mind.
She keeps going. “I never understood why before. But now, I think I do. The throne is special because it draws its powers from a fifth element.”
My head jerks to her. “What?”
“I think there is a fifth Element,” she repeats. “And it forms the basis of the other Elemental Forces. It gives the framework, the structure, on which they rely.”
“Phillip would be the one to talk to, in that case,” I say. “…were he sound of mind.”
“Felix and I have been discussing it,” Eleira says. “And we both think it makes sense.”
“So what’s the fifth Element?”
“It’s like…” Eleira hesitates. “It’s like the ethereal substance that binds the other Forces and lets them be separated. It coats them, in a way, and segregates them from the mass of the currents. Almost like...”
“Like Spirit,” Felix says.
Eleira turns on him.
“Spirit is what gives us our souls,” Felix says. “It is the fabric that gives rise to our minds, to our bodies. That ethereal essence, as you described, Eleira.”
She thinks on it. “Actually,” she says after a moment. “I think that’s a great analogy. Spirit. I like that.”
“Spirit,” I repeat. “Sounds almost whimsical. But you’re the witch here.”
That earns a smile from her. “Thanks for reminding me,” she says lightly.
Then she’s all serious again.
“So we’ll call it Spirit. The fifth Element. And I think it is contained only in moonlight. All the other Elemental Forces exist here, on Earth. Fire, Air, Water, and, well—and Earth. But Spirit relies on the moon.”
“And on a full moon, it is strongest, is that it?” I ask.
Eleira looks at me as if I’ve stumbled upon the biggest revelation. “Yes, yes, that exactly!” she says, very excited.
I look at Felix. He gives a minuscule shrug.
Eleira starts pacing the floor. .
“But that explains so much,” she says, half to herself. “Morgan’s obsession with the full moon. The linking of the ceremony to it. And how she would have been unable to attempt it, regardless, on a night without the full moon!”
Eleira suddenly stops and turns on me and Felix. “I know what needs to be done.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Eleira
The stronghold
“Felix, gather the strongest of the guards. I need them to bring the throne above ground. Raul, you call together the rest of the vampires. You tell them—” I grin. “You tell them that their Queen has a show for them tonight.”
The two men rush to fulfil my orders. When they’re gone, and I’m left alone with the throne, I feel a solemn weight settle down on me.
The enormity of my task is so very evident. Not only do I have to care for all the vampires of this coven, I also have to erect the wards, protect us from the threat posed by The Crypts, and then—as soon as I can—start to figure out how to deal with the larger threat posed to the entire world by Logan’s coven.
I tug the sleeve on my arm back. I look at the skin. It is white and flawless. Nothing at all gives any sign of the marks that have been embedded into me.
I hope deeply that Felix will be able to find the Forsaken Sisters, when the time comes, and bring them to me as newly-made vampires. Only with their council and knowledge of the world will I have a shot of doing what I must.
I look back at the throne. Will I be able to do it? Will I be able to link the great torrial to myself and resurrect the protective wards that have for so long shielded The Haven?
I’m not certain.
I’m not certain, and that very much scares me.
But I’ve gotten through everything else just fine, haven’t I? Even the ordeal with Morgan. I managed to extricate myself from that…
Somehow.
I can’t help but feel that more or less everything I’ve done has been the result of one major fluke after another.
Or is that just me underestimating myself?
I can’t tell. But I really, really do wish I had some way of knowing how the spell to erect the wards will work.
Or even if it will work.
I have no guidance there. It’s not like Morgan left instructions!
And of course, she doesn’t have any. Because she never actually intended for me to succeed her. It was all a ruse, an act, designed to get her my powers…
And enable her to rule the coven for all eternity.
I take a deep breath, then walk closer to the throne. I bring a hand out and lay it on the armrest.
I close my eyes and remember the last time I stood beside this throne, with April hidden behind me, as Morgan introduced me to all of The Haven’s vampires as their future Queen.
Now that time has finally come to pass.
I reach out with my mind and scan the surroundings for any vampires. The closest are at least a minute’s walk away—at a regular pace.
I don’t think any will burst in on my unexpectedly.
Then, knowing I have at least a little bit more time alone, I open my mind to the Elements and seize them all.
Air. Fire. Earth. Water. The currents rage through me. They fill me with tremendous strength. Within them, I possess incredible might.
I direct the smallest flow at the throne.
As soon as the weaves touch it, the torrial comes alive. Bright blue light explodes from the crystals and coats the entire room.
But the light is the only thing I can affect. Channeling more power into the throne makes the light stronger. Nothing else.
I don’t feel any of the usual trapping of magic within it. My weaves do not take on any sort of shape or pattern directed by the throne. Rather, they simply feed into it, and the throne absorbs them all and spits them out with that blue light.
I cut off the stream of pr
obing magic with a grunt. The light continues for a few moments and then ebbs away.
I am no closer now than before to figuring out exactly how I can get the throne linked to me.
Because it is not simply a special pattern. Other torrials are easy to use. Direct a bit of magic at them, they activate, and shape your weaves into the proper forms. The throne, on the other hand, simply seems to absorb them.
Footsteps alert me to approaching vampires.
By the time the doors open and let them in, all the light from the throne is gone.
A team of eight guards comes in.
They salute me, as is proper. I look past them for Felix, but the central figure says, “Just us, my Queen.”
“I thought Felix would return with you.”
“He said he would be delayed by a few minutes,” the guard informs me. “Said he went out to get something for you, Elei—my Queen.”
I smile. So the coven’s vampires are no more used to my new title than I am.
“That’s fine,” I say. “I want this throne brought out. Above ground.”
He looks at me with unexpected hope in his eyes. “So it’s true, you’re finally letting us return to our homes?”
“The Narwhark is no longer a threat. There is little reason for a lockdown. The only benefit of staying down here while The Haven is exposed is having better defenses against a coordinated attack. But I do not believe we are under any such threat now.”
“My Queen,” he agrees.
“The throne will be placed in the center of the large opening,” I continue, “right beside the remains of the castle. If I recall correctly, there is a clearing there. Am I right?”
“Assuming nothing’s changed,” the guard says. “Yes.”
“Then I want you to bring the Throne to the middle of the space. Make certain it is not shielded from the light of the moon in any way.”
He gives a salute and commands the other guards to do as I said. I watch as they lift the throne onto a very short, very sturdy trolley and start to roll it out.
As that’s happening, Felix arrives.
He hurries to me. “Forgive my absence,” he says. “But there was a matter I could not divert my attention from.”