Vermilion Dreams_A Vampire Fantasy Epic
Page 37
Taa sucked in a slow breath. “I explained to her that he would be better off with me,” Taa replied. “Believe me, ayetha, it is not easy raising a son when you have given yourself to the old magic.” She kept her eyes away, watching the forest in the distance. Far off, there were glimmers of dawn. Hints of an amber sky. “The boy will have a better life this way. A place in the palace between my travels and his training.”
“But that is not the real reason,” I interjected. “You wouldn’t care for something like that. At the very least, you would have given the boy to someone else to care for. Why are you really keeping him?”
Taa turned to me, nodding in an appreciative way. “The Sisterhood demands it. He belongs to them now. Not only for his own safety.”
“And so they can take him away from his mother?”
Taa paused.
Yephi was watching from the other end of the hallway, arms crossed as she waited. Iris appeared from behind her with an annoyed look, her eyes still half-closed as she yawned.
Taa studied me for several seconds in silence, then let out a calm breath.
“I see your father in you, ayetha.” She pointed her staff at me, then paused for several more seconds. With her other hand, she drew a straight vertical line through the air. “Cold is the way, ayetha. Cold is the way.” She pointed down the hall with her staff. “Go now—you have been through much today. It is time for you to dream with your sisters.”
***
I did not have to wait long for sleep to come. I settled next to Yephi, thinking of the day’s events. The dream, the forest, the totem creature. Mother and the Sisterhood. Avisynth and the nether. Saythana. The war on Rhauk. Uncle and Queen O’nell. The way that Yephi and Aymeer took to magic so easily. The way that everyone in the great hall expected such a great deal of alchemical talent from me. Father’s words and Mother’s warnings. The way Avisynth’s eyes changed under light and the way Elsa trembled silently after seeing the child of Nosa in the forest.
Taa changed the world today. I felt it. Her deepest impressions on Mirradalia do not come about from the way she affects places or events or a kingdom’s policies. They come about from how she changes people. With a soft touch, Taa tilts the trajectory people are on in their lives, sending them hurtling down paths they’d never find without her. She never needs more than a few words, or an extended hand. With only those, she could find the animal in one person, and the cold wit of another.
I do not know magic. Not when I am awake. But in my dreams, I command ancient Serpentine alchemies and feratu blood magic. I am a general, a poet, a detective, an artist, and a thief. I ride shadows and scale glass mountains. I trek dunes that would melt your feet and climb caverns that have never seen the sun. I perform on-stage in Mimenhi and the crowd weeps. I search for hidden treasures in the corners of Adhib. I look at Semladon in the eyes. I graze the bottom of the seas and learn to sail the ocean through Iklips. I gain the trust of daemons and the admiration of children. I clasp hands with the Immortal King and watch Enek’Senehet battle against all the gods. I laugh, I cry, I dance, and learn to play the ocarina. I fight gods, I fall in love, I tell lies.
And during it all, I lose myself in vermilion dreams, vermilion dreams, vermilion dreams.
THE END
Book 2 is slated for release in winter 2018, and continues Dina’s story four years later.