by Tanith Frost
Tempest is the enemy, but that doesn’t mean they’ve got it all wrong or that they’re any more irredeemable than any other vampires.
Daniel was right. Pure hate would be so much easier.
I barely notice the first fight as it unfolds. I’m aware of two humans in the ring. I’m certainly not immune to the scent of hot blood on the air that’s driving the crowd wild. And yet it’s a meaningless blur. Someone wins. Someone else dies. Slips of paper change hands—I never thought to ask what, exactly, they were betting on any of this, and it doesn’t matter now.
Another fight. As soon as they announce that it will be vampires, I know who to expect. Leila stomps in, arms waving, urging cheers from the stands. No fear or uncertainty in her, and why should she doubt herself? Every fighter comes into this ring with a perfect record. She’s beaten 50/50 odds so many times that victory must seem inevitable.
Daniel’s quiet again. Focused. Boring in comparison to his flashy opponent and with far fewer wins under his belt. He doesn’t get many cheers, though it’s clear that a few of the first-row vampires are on his side. Their eyes are locked on him, and they sit still and stiff, hands clenched on their laps as though their offerings of quiet dignity can strengthen him.
My own hands are gripping my skirt tight, and my jaw is clenched so hard I expect to find my teeth ground to shards when I open my mouth. It’s all I can offer. All will be lost for both of us if I give myself away.
Even if he falters, even if he turns to dust before my eyes, I have to believe it doesn’t matter.
He scans the crowd quickly but doesn’t show any sign of recognition or acknowledgement when he sees me.
I close my eyes and open my perceptions. It’s painfully overwhelming, and I’m glad I don’t know most of these vampires well enough to pick out their individual energies. It’s all a swirling storm of void, crashing waves and screaming winds. My power, one I’ve fallen in love with, but tonight I’m afraid of it. It’s too strong, too loud.
Too much of a wonderfully bad thing.
But there. Stillness in the midst of the storm. Not calm, but an island to swim toward nonetheless, solid and familiar. Daniel can’t feel me, but I can feel him. He brought me into this dark world and guided me through it. He didn’t make me what I am or what he wanted me to be, but he gave me the space and tools I needed to grow into myself. He helped me become strong enough to face a cold and hard world without crushing the warmth or vulnerability from me.
I can face this. I have to, even if what I feel from him makes me want to scream.
He feels stronger and more like himself than he did when he first confessed the change in himself to me, but there’s still something wrong with his energy. It’s heavy, undeniable, pure void. It’s like theirs now, like Tempest. But the void is so strong here. Becoming like them should be better for both of us, so why is he finding it harder to use his gifts?
The crowd roars. The fight has begun. I don’t want to look, but someone will notice if I sit here with my eyes closed.
No weapons yet. Leila launches confidently into an attack that Daniel dodges. He catches her as her momentum carries her past, trips her, forces her to the ground, and twists her arm behind her. She screams, seemingly with as much rage as pain, and throws him off.
He’s talking, but I can’t hear him over the crowd. And then I can’t see him. Everyone is on their feet, blocking my view. Vampire blood on the air, drowned beneath the lingering smell of human. I reach the aisle and push my way to the front. Daniel’s nose is broken and dripping blood. Leila is limping slightly, but grinning.
Weapons fly into the ring from somewhere outside, a pair of machetes that land near Leila’s feet. She grabs both and lets out a crowing noise as she pumps them in the air. Daniel doesn’t miss his shot. His shoulder hits her squarely in the stomach, and he wrenches one of the knives from her hand as she falls.
They’re circling, prowling like predators, but only for a moment. Steel glints under the lights of the chandeliers. Blades clash. Grunts. Blood. When he cuts deep into the muscle of her right arm, she shifts the knife to her left hand.
He grabs her by the arm and pulls her so close she can’t lash out at him. They’re near enough that I can just make out some of what he’s saying.
“You don’t want to win this.”
She laughs. “I do. I really do.”
“They’re using you.” His next words are drowned out, but I catch the end of it. “… came here ready to put an end to it and find peace.”
She should be listening—slowing as his words lull her mind, convincing her that his thoughts, not her own, are the truth. It’s a terrible gift, one he’s been reluctant to use, but one that as far as I know has never failed him.
Leila bares her teeth and twists out of his hold, throwing him off balance. Only for a split second, but it’s all she needs to sink her blade deep under his ribs. “I will carve you apart and hear you beg for the mercy of oblivion. That is my peace.”
Daniel shoves her head back and swings his blade up, catching her in the throat. He doesn’t have the distance and momentum he needs to get a perfect strike in, but it’s enough that she throws him aside and presses her hand to her neck.
Humans would be fighting for their lives with wounds like these, but this battle is barely getting started. Leila is right. Without wooden stakes or weapons heavy enough to allow for swift decapitation, this could go on for a long, painful time.
I glance over my shoulder at Lachlan. A smile plays at his lips as he leans forward, watching with keen interest and obvious pleasure.
Daniel is facing me now and meets my gaze over Leila’s shoulder. There’s no fear in his eyes. No plea for help. He lingers a little too long, though, as if it’s the last time he’s going to see me.
I’d forced myself to forget how different I feel when we’re together. Stronger, somehow.
I suck in a hard breath. He didn’t mean emotionally stronger. That would be too vague, too shameful a thing for him to think worth mentioning.
It’s like you carried with you every good thing from the past I needed to forget.
But that’s not it.
My mind flashes back to a night not long before I left Maelstrom. A motel room. Me, weak and hungry. Gideon, injured and in pain, unable to control the flood of light that threatened to destroy the void in me.
The void returning once it was gone, stoked by fire, somehow deeper than it was before.
Daniel was wrong. It’s not anything good in me that makes him feel stronger when we’re together. It’s something bad.
The enemy.
I shouldn’t risk exposing myself, but I have to know whether this certainty that’s growing deep in my gut is true. I let my fire rise. It’s hard at first. I’ve trained myself to keep my walls up and ignore the fire, letting it fade to ashes, thinking that my gifts and strength would only grow without it opposing the void.
And I think I was completely wrong. We all were.
This is my strength.
The void came back stronger in me after the light tried to destroy it. What if the same is true of all of the energies we consider its enemy? Faced with a threat, it becomes what it needs to survive, changing and deepening and adapting, and that’s the difference Bethany and Lachlan feel in Maelstrom’s vampires.
I’ve managed to create a certain peace between the two powers that inhabit me, but they’re still enemies by nature, and each strengthens the other by challenging it.
God, I’m an idiot. I’m not special in spite of my mistakes but because of them. The very thing that Lachlan is destroying, the thing that I’m allowing to die in me, is what makes me so fascinating to him.
It’s only a theory, but it’s true for me. It’s true for Daniel and every other vampire whose void-sustained being is constantly challenged by other energies. Tempest has found its strength in exterminating threats, but Miranda has unknowingly nurtured ours by allowing them to thrive in our lands.
Or
so I hope. Because if this backfires, Daniel is finished. And if anyone catches on to what I’m doing, so am I.
The vampires who surround me shift their weight to give me space. It’s clearly not a conscious decision—they’re still focused on the fight. Some part of them feels the fire, though, as it rises and burns brighter than I’ve ever allowed it to in the presence of enemies who didn’t already know my secret. It has to be showing in my eyes now. I look at the ground, keeping my focus inward as the fight brings Daniel and Leila closer again.
This doesn’t just have to work. It has to work fast.
The vampires in the front row hurry to get out of the way as the scuffle threatens to break out of the ring. Leila catches Daniel, digging her fingers into the wound under his ribs and tossing him toward us, then laughs as he struggles to stand.
I duck behind the vampires closest to him and reach between their legs to rest a hand on his blood-slick arm, willing my fire for the first time to make itself known and directly challenge the void in another. Daniel slips away from my grasp and rolls back into the ring, narrowly avoiding the descending tip of Leila’s machete.
I return to my place on the bleachers and focus on quieting the fire before anyone notices it. Someone elbows me in the ribs. That’s fine. They can all pile on and take their subconscious aggressions out on me after the fight if it means Daniel also gets to walk out of here.
At first, there’s no change. More injuries, more blood, but no clear advantage for anyone. Then Daniel starts taunting her, loud enough for all to hear, enraging her.
His voice drops. A hard shine comes into his eyes as they lock onto hers. His lips barely move, but she’s hearing him. Her eyes glaze over, and she gives her head a hard shake as she backs away from him.
Come on.
Daniel grins and rakes one hand through his hair, setting it on end in messy, bloody spikes. “You look tired,” he says louder, now playing to the crowd. “Ask nicely, and I’ll end this quickly for you.”
Leila screams and rushes at him. Daniel dodges at the last second, grabs her by the arm, and lets her weight carry her into a throw that ends with her flat on her back.
I want to look away. I can’t. Whatever shame, pain, or disgust I feel over this is nothing compared to what Daniel will wrestle with later.
For us, this is the cost of survival. I won’t make him bear it alone.
He brings his full weight down with the blade as it descends, burying it in the centre of her throat. Leila’s body twitches uncontrollably as he pulls the knife free. Daniel bares his fangs and braces himself, closes his eyes for a moment, then stabs deep into her abdomen just below her breastbone, angling upward. Leila’s trying to scream, but there’s no sound. The cut is deep and imprecise. Leila’s back arches. Daniel’s muttering again. She falls still, eyes closed, but a knockout doesn’t win this match.
Every muscle in Daniel’s torso tenses, hardened with effort as he works the knife and his other hand into the cavity of her chest and pulls her heart free. It’s a pale thing, slick with the weak blood that coats his hands, trailing remnants of a circulatory system that’s been useless to Leila since the day she died. Daniel stands, holding it out toward Lachlan like an offering to a vengeful god, head bowed and shoulders slumped. The heart turns white, then crumbles and disappears along with the rest of Leila’s remains.
The blood on his hands is gone, but not what’s still dripping from his wounds. He doesn’t move. If I hadn’t seen the fight myself, I wouldn’t think he’d just won.
He’s the only still body in the room, though. I don’t know whether this gory pageant of suffering is the most extravagant they’ve seen here, but it’s enough that the group seems on the verge of a voyeuristic orgasm from watching it. High energy doesn’t begin to describe it. This is a thrill for them.
Entertainment.
I shut them out. Shut myself down. Let the void rise though it means drawing from the same well as those who celebrate this violence without having the guts to put themselves on the line to participate. And again I feel it. The excitement. The sense that it’s okay if it’s happening to someone else, someone lesser—she deserved it for not being strong.
These feelings are a part of me. I won’t deny them. I also won’t allow them to control me. Not as Aviva. Not as Ava.
No matter who I am, I can be better than this.
I gather my full skirt close around my legs and make my way out, weaving through the jostling crowd, ignoring those who hit me a little too hard and glare at me with hatred that tells me they still feel my fire.
I have to get away. I can’t let Bethany feel what I’ve done.
The garden seems like the safest place. Daniel won’t be there, but it will be a quiet spot to hide until I’ve got myself put back together. There’s a dam inside of me that’s threatening to burst. I can’t think about Leila’s silent screams, or Daniel’s defeated posture, what I did, or what we just lost even as we won the fight. If I do, the tears of fear and rage that prickle behind my eyes will come out in a flood.
I head straight for the shelter of the willow tree and hide behind its broad trunk, pulling my knees in close to my chest and resting my forehead on my arms. I can’t let any of this out. Not now. I’ve learned that pain can’t be denied forever, but if I allow this regret, confusion, and sorrow to exist it will come back to harm me. Someone will see. I have to become a stone.
Deep breaths. Mossy air. Damp earth. Pounding pain behind my eyes from the lights.
Inhale. Exhale. My body doesn’t need this, but my mind does.
Fire calms beneath waves of void. Void settles, forcing fire deeper. Quieter. Invisible. I barely feel myself. Barely feel anything.
Better.
I stand and drag my fingers under my eyes to tidy whatever makeup has smudged and practice the answers I’ll give Lachlan.
No, I wasn’t pleased. I didn’t care for Leila, but she didn’t deserve that. If it entertains you, so be it, but we’ll have to agree to disagree. I’d be lying if I said I found it at all pleasant.
Reveal what’s acceptable. Forget the rest. Confess my crimes before Lachlan beats a more dangerous version of the truth out of me, and hope that whatever punishment I bear will distract him and buy Daniel time for… things I can’t think about now.
The overhead lights go out, leaving me bathed in the soft twinkle of those strung through the willow’s branches.
Footsteps. Two sets, coming closer.
I crouch behind the tree and hold my breath.
22
“Is this necessary?”
Lachlan’s voice. They’ve come all the way to the back of the garden, seeking solitude just as I did. They stop short of the tree, but it doesn’t help me relax. I’m glad I’m dead. If I weren’t, my heartbeat in my ears would probably drown out the conversation.
“I can’t think of a better place. This will only take a moment, but I assure you that privacy is essential.”
I know this voice, too, though it takes me a second to place him. He was in the room the night they brought me in, watching my interrogation. Someone powerful, though I don’t know his name. I don’t dare peek, either.
“Then spit it out. I’d like to enjoy my evening before anyone pins me down to pester me with details about the ball. As though I care.”
“This will take precedence, I assure you. Though you may find yourself unable to enjoy the—”
“Get on with it.” Lachlan is clearly irritated. And he was feeling so good during the fight. Poor baby.
“We’ve received word from a contact in clan Sturmflut relaying news from his contact in Maelstrom.”
My chest muscles seize painfully. No. Fuck, no. Not yet.
“It seems we’ve underestimated their ability to keep a secret.” The speaker sounds nervous, as though he thinks Lachlan is going to shoot the messenger. “The reason we haven’t heard from Viktor recently, it seems, is that he was found out.”
Lachlan’s momentary silence spe
aks volumes. He clears his throat. “What details do we have?”
“Very few, sir. He was attempting a coup of sorts, aiming to take position as high elder through seemingly legitimate means. Something went wrong. He was found out as a traitor.”
“And did our name come into it?”
“Details are scarce at the moment, but I would assume it did.”
My fingers dig hard into the bark of the tree as if I’m clinging to wreckage from the ship that’s just sunk from under me.
“We can’t assume, Reg. I want details. I want names so I can make sure those responsible are made examples of alongside Miranda and her inner circle.”
“We’re already working on it.” Reg’s tone has grown so smarmy and obsequious that I picture him bowing with every word.
“Good. Viktor would have been the quieter option, but there’s no point whining about it if he’s lost to us. We knew it was a risky move.” He sighs. “How long will it take before we’re ready to move more directly?”
“Ah… not long, not long. But you see, these plans have been kept quiet within our own clan. And vampires involved may need time to adequately—”
“How long?” Each word falls like a stone.
Say months, I silently beg. Years, even. Let vampire time work in my favour just this once.
“A fortnight at most. But—”
“Make it a matter of days. If Maelstrom knows we were involved in this, we’ve lost the element of surprise.”
I can almost hear the wheels turning in Reg’s head. “I’ll give the orders, sir, and report back when I have a better estimate. What will you do in the meantime?”
Lachlan lets out a cold chuckle. “Well, I suppose I’ve got a fucking ball to attend tomorrow night, haven’t I? We wouldn’t want to interrupt everyone’s solstice season merriment for the sake of a little thing like impending war.”
“Indeed.”
One set of footsteps hurries away, too light to be Lachlan’s. The branches on the opposite side of the tree stir—he’s seated himself on the low wall that surrounds the willow’s bed. If he turned around and poked his head through, he’d spot me.