by E. M. Knight
“Our vampires fought with me, side-by-side. We stood against The Convicted! The Haven’s residents are loyal, Phillip. If we ask, if we appeal to them—they won’t let us down.”
Phillip looks at Raul for a long moment without saying a word. Then, he pushes off from the post he was leaned against, walks forward, and stops half-an-inch in front of his face.
I feel a cackle of electricity spark through the air.
“Loyal,” Phillip says softly. “Loyal. Again and again you bring that term up. But you’re so blinded by the—by the goodness of Eleira—” he flings a hand in my direction and snarls the rest, “—that you do not see vampires for what they really are! Was it loyalty that made Smithson lock all of us away? Loyalty that made Mother force me to feed? Was it loyalty, Raul, when Deanna stabbed me, while we were in bed, or when James kidnapped Eleira, or when Mother sentenced our brother to become one of The Convicted, or when Smithson abandoned, or when the Wyvern vampires ran?”
He turns away. “No. That was the vampire’s true nature on full display. What Eleira says is right. Darkness is rising.” I gasp—I didn’t think he’d heard me.
“Darkness will come. And darkness is contained within each and every one of us.
“So don’t you dare—” he spins back and shoves Raul in the chest. “Don’t you dare assume to know how the coven’s vampires will react. You’ve been shielded from the worst. First by Liana, and now by Eleira! And when both those women disappeared, what happened to you?”
Raul narrows his eyes in obvious anger, but restrains himself enough not to answer. It’s taking its toll, though.
His entire body is quivering.
“I’ll tell you what. You felt the darkness come again. You came to face the vampire dwelling inside you. You blamed it on the wound, but that wasn’t it. The wound simply took that protective layer away.
“So for all that you profess to be, brother, you are no great strategist. Tell our vampires what happened here, and chaos will rule. And if that happens, I won’t gloat. But I won’t help you clean up the mess, either. Because once too much entropy enters the fray? There is no going back.”
Raul scowls. Every single muscle of his body is tight.
“I don’t agree,” he says, his voice clearly strained, “but for Mother’s sake, I’m not going to challenge you. At the very least...” he grunts. “At the very least, we both see eye-to-eye on the priority of getting her back.”
Phillip doesn’t answer. He walks back to the bed. “We all have darkness inside,” he mutters. “Better for all involved that we stop suppressing it. It’s like Carter—the bastard—it’s like he said, so long ago, at the gathering of the Royal Court. We are vampires. We are creatures of the night. Why deny ourselves our nature?”
Just then, it hits me. This cloud that’s come over Phillip? The timing coincides perfectly with April being taken away!
Perhaps all the Soren brothers share that vulnerability. Perhaps all of them give way to darkness when their women are lost.
Or maybe that’s just a consequence of the vampire condition.
Before I get a chance to speak, the door flies open. We all look and see Geordam burst inside, a stack of rolled-up parchments in his arms.
“I got them,” he says. “I got them all.” He kicks the door shut. “I apologize for taking so long. Navigating the tunnels undetected carrying all this proved trickier than I first thought.”
“But you weren’t sighted?” Phillip presses.
Geordam shakes his head. “No.”
“Good man,” Phillip congratulates him. “Now, quickly! Spread them on the floor. We need to find the one that includes this room.”
Geordam does as he’s asked. We all bend over the ancient blueprints.
Phillip raises his hand and looks at me. “Is your spell still up?” he asks. “Are we still safe from any eavesdroppers?”
“Of course!” I say. “I wouldn’t release it just because.”
“I had to be sure,” Phillip says. “The mere existence of these papers is an enormous secret. I only discovered them by fluke. Mother was the only one who knew of them, I suspect. And Eleira, if what you say about the portrait room is true—”
“Yes, it’s true!” I interrupt him, annoyed with his constant doubt of me.
“—then I’d imagine the vampires who helped Mother create the stronghold are some of those trapped inside. She wouldn’t risk anybody else knowing her secrets. Or her vulnerabilities.”
“Then how did you come across it?” Raul asks, full of undisguised suspicion.
“A story for another day,” Phillip deflects.
“Here,” Geordam says suddenly. He points to a particular architectural drawing. “We’re somewhere in the vicinity of this.” He traces a large circle over a portion of the map. “I recognize the cavern space where the villagers are being kept.”
He taps the distinctive features on the drawing.
Phillip brings it closer to him. “Yes,” he says. His eyes dart all over the neat, intricate lines of the plan.
I can’t make heads or tails of it. For all my supposed dexterity in academic subjects, reading drawings such as this one was never a strong point.
“Aha!” he exclaims, grabbing the parchment from the floor. He jumps up. He scans the outer wall, then walks determinedly to an undistinguishable portion of it.
“Here.” He taps the middle. “It’s right here, I knew it!”
I share a look of skepticism with Raul. Both of us can see, with our superior preternatural sight, that the wall is absolutely seamless.
“But,” Phillip grouses. “We don’t have the key.” He slams a fist into it. “Dammit, dammit, damn damn damn!”
“Easy,” Raul says. He jumps up. “If you’re so sure of it, we’ll just break it down. He looks back at me and the three guards. “Between the six of us, we definitely have enough strength.”
“It’s not that simple.” Phillip shakes his head. “I wish it were, but...”
He trails off.
I stand up and approach the wall. “May I?” I ask, motioning to it.
Phillip and Raul both step aside.
I position myself right in front of the spot. I square my shoulders and give my body a little shake.
Then I shut my eyes, inhale deeply, and reach for the tendrils of magic shimmering faintly in the air.
They come to me, pooling in my core as effortlessly as water flowing down a hill. I glow with power, in a subtle, gentle, warming way. When I summon magic, my mind is at peace. I feel no anxiety. The vampiric instincts inside are completely muted, and all is well.
With eyes still closed, I extend my hands. My palms hover over the surface of the wall. I bring them slowly outward, then back together. Outward and together. I test the underlying rock for any residue, for any small hint of left-over magic…
I find none.
A little niggling feeling begins to vibrate in the back of my mind. I wouldn’t even notice it were my head not so clear. At first, I attribute it to that ball of anxiety that came to life when we discovered the Queen missing… but then I realize it’s something else.
I reach back and tug on it. It’s like catching the thinnest end of a thread from a golden spool.
It starts to unravel! And with it comes this… awareness, an awareness that’s ever so faint, but awareness, nonetheless, of a little camouflaged flux in reality just in front of me.
My curiosity builds. Was Phillip right? I keep pulling on the golden thread, and it joins the swirling mass of colors and shades and hues within me—the swirling mass of magic—and somehow enriches it, seeping into it and altering the powers I hold in the most subtle way.
It’s not bad or menacing, simply different. Instinct begs me to reach out and probe the wall again, but this time, to use the modified source.
I do. And, to my enormous pleasure—I feel it: the thinnest, most intricate veil over a hidden door.
It bursts into being in my mind’s eye. I can s
ee it as clearly as if I were the one to make it. The veiling is thin, oh-so-thin. It has to be, to remain undetectable to others…
To others, but no longer to me.
Apparently, there’s something to be said for the prophecy guiding my life, after all.
With my hands, I reach out and touch the spots where it would end. Of course, I feel nothing beneath my fingertips. But the mere act of pretending that I do strengthens the solidity of the object in my mind. It makes it more a part of this world and less hidden away.
My hands move down both sides as I trace its outline. I hear Phillip’s voice, Raul’s voice, in the background. But my mind is operating on a different frequency. I can attribute no meaning to their words.
The cover is delicate. I know it is. I see the spot for the “key.” It’s not so much a physical keyhole but a certain type of receiver.
The key would be an object, no doubt, specially enchanted, a gem or a stone perhaps. It could be any sort of thing, really—which makes it so perfect for secrecy.
I deepen the connection to magic in my mind. I force myself to delve deeper. I want to see, to feel, the very threads that make up this gossamer veil…
But that proves impossible. Even I have limits to my strength. I’m actually astonished, though not entirely surprised, that I’ve managed to get this far…
Except on the outside, to the other vampires in the room, it looks like I’m doing nothing. Nothing except miming some motions.
Well, at least this is more productive than when I tried probing Morgan—
My hold on magic slips. It skitters away, like wet stone from out of your grip. The impact of that loss rebounds back into me. I feel a very sharp twang in my mind, almost like an electric shock.
I give a small gasp and my eyes pop open. I’m returned back to the regular realm.
Phillip starts to say something, but before the first word leaves his mouth, I screw my eyes shut and dive back in.
This time, finding that spool of thread is much easier. At least, I know it’s there. I gather all the magic surrounding me and inject it with the golden thread.
The veil is revealed once more. I cannot let my thoughts drift this time. My focus has to be absolute.
Of course, it irritates me that I cannot see the veil’s make-up. That would make it so much easier to unravel…
Well. Maybe easier is the wrong word. I can only imagine the complexity of such a weave. And to have it hold itself up, for who-knows-how-long, with no maintenance from the witch who cast it…
It’s nothing short of incredible.
Yet, I am not here to admire Morgan’s handiwork, if it is hers. We need to get past it, in order to save her…
Brute force won’t do. I see what Phillip meant when Raul suggested it. There’s an intricate mechanism behind the veil that would be trigged were anyone to simply try breaking through. It would seal off the entrance completely, making it permanently inaccessible.
Good thing Deanna and Carter did not know of it. Otherwise they could have easily foiled our attempt to follow them.
No, brute force isn’t the way… delicacy is.
Using the thinnest thread of fire I can channel, I direct it to the four corners of the veil. Slowly, carefully, I ease the fire beneath it. It pushes its way under—and stops.
There’s a resistance blocking the way.
Fire is too thick, I think. I need something finer. So, I try air.
I make what I imagine as a tiny wedge of air and gently nudge it between the veil and the door it’s protecting. I hold my breath as it comes into place. I wait…
One of the corners eases off.
Triumph shoots through me. This is an intricate thing. But I think I can manage. It’s like trying to peel a label away from the side of a jar without ripping it or leaving any glue streaks. It requires patience, above all, and just the right amount of force.
Not too much, but not too little, either.
So I set at it. The little wedge of air is my starting point. I combine the other elemental forces and they come together as a sort of “hook” that slowly pulls the veil away.
I concentrate and put all of my effort into doing it just right. I fear that if the veil snaps back, the effect would be exactly the same as if it had been broken.
Namely, that the entrance would be lost.
A bead of sweat trickles down my back. I know I must look like a statue to the other vampires in the room. But at least they have the foresight not to disturb me. I should have maybe told them before I began, but it’s too late to change that now.
Sliver by sliver, the veil peels away. It takes an inordinate amount of time to get it to move even the slightest inch. But it’s so delicate, and this is the only way…
I get a tenth of it done. Already my mind feels strained and my body exhausted. Vampiric endurance and stamina do nothing to protect against the exertion that wielding magic brings. The two sides—vampire and witch—are both a part of me, but they exist in two separate planes where there’s very little overlap. My capacity to do magic is the same now as it would have been if I’d remained human.
I get another, maybe, five percent of it done. My arms, held out in front of me, start to shake from the strain. I let them drop.
The process becomes agonizing. The slightest drop in concentration, and it will fail. I can’t think of the time involved—can’t think of how this very second, Carter and Deanna are getting farther and farther away. I can’t think of the horrendous creatures Beatrice is making, or the threat The Crypt vampires pose not just to us, but to the entire world.
No. Right now, all I can think of is peeling away this fragile, ridiculously thin cover… and revealing Phillip’s door.
And the only way to do that? Forget about getting to the end, just focus on the effort required here and now.
I keep going. The exhaustion becomes unbearable. I cannot, I cannot—
I can! I tell myself firmly. I can and I will.
Everybody is relying on me.
And so I trudge on, applying just the right amount of magic needed to do this well.
It seems like hours—days!—have passed when I get to the final bit. No disaster so far, no lapses in concentration, though the toll it has taken on my body is extraordinary. Already, I feel like if I lie down to sleep, I’d be out for weeks.
The last two percent. I’m so close to the finish I can taste it. In my excitement, in my haste, I put in a touch too much pressure… and the veil cracks.
I gasp. Abject horror takes me. No, no, no, I think and scramble to weave magic as fast as I can to stop the crack from splintering all the way through.
I act on instinct alone. I call upon some other presence asleep deep inside me that takes control of the elements and directs them into the proper paths. Fire, air, water, mixed together just so, and touched with only the briefest dab of earth…
The spell works. The crack stops a hair’s breadth from the top. I sigh in relief.
Then, with ridiculous amounts of patience, I go as slow as I can to peel the last bit of the veil away. It comes free from the door. I open my eyes, and for a second, I think that I can almost see the ghost of its image falling away. I take an unnecessary step back to avoid it.
But, of course, there’s nothing. Except, a sudden outline of a hidden door appears.
A few gasps come from the others.
Phillip comes up to me first. “I don’t know enough about magic to even claim to truly appreciate what you just did,” he says. “But I can imagine it took enormous effort.”
Raul squeezes my arm. “I never doubted that you could do it.”
The passage of time feels like a crushing weight on my chest. “How long was I… in trance?” I ask. “How much time did we lose?”
Raul cocks his head to the side curiously. “Lose? Eleira, that took you less than a minute. You moved your hands over the space—” he gestures to the wall, “—and the entrance appeared.”
“Oh, wow,” I
breathe softly. The extreme exhaustion I feel makes a lot more sense. My mind was operating on hyper drive, and—just like with the Narwhark—my perception of time slowed considerably, because all the neurons, I’d imagine, were firing at a much, much faster pace.
Phillip eases his way to the door. “I still can’t believe you did it without the key,” he mutters. He places his hands on the slab that is a door and gives it a push.
The slab of stone shifts and draws inward. Then, as if on a track, it lifts upward, groaning, and reveals a space that is a completely black void.
My sight does not pierce the darkness. And the menace I suddenly feel, emanating from there…
“Phillip,” I say. “This isn’t a passage into another part of the stronghold.”
“No,” he murmurs in agreement.
“Then what...” Raul begins.
“It’s a torrial,” I say. My voice fills with gravity. “One that leads straight into The Paths.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
CASSANDRA
PHILLIP’S BEDROOM
I pace the inside of the rooms, growing more and more restless.
That wicked vampire, Carter, came and took April away hours ago. I haven’t heard a peep since. Nobody’s come for me, nobody’s checked up on me. Phillip—I have no idea where Phillip is.
He told me to remain here until the transformation took. But how long will that be? Does he just expect me to sit on my hands and wait?
Hours, days, weeks? That’s what I was told by the Queen. Of course, there’s a way to expedite the process. There must be—and that’s what I’m truly waiting for.
For one of the royal family to find me and finish the transformation that was initiated when Raul gave me his blood. They’d give me more of the serum, more of their blood, and this whole waiting game would be over.
I walk from one wall to the next. From one, to the next. My arms are crossed beneath my breasts. I chew on my lower lip, lost in frantic thought.
I hate the creatures who keep me here. I hate what I am destined to become. There’s no way out, not for me, not now.
No way… except for death.
That’s the only option. And it’s a cowardly one. But it’s been weighing on my mind ever since I’ve been alone, since April left.