by Eden Fierce
“When did you start this?”
“This is the only one. Not long ago. It was Lukas’s idea. Until now, I didn’t think it would work.”
Daniel frowned. “It wouldn’t have if I weren’t distracted. Thinking through this plan, combined with walking so close to you, has my mind in other places.”
“I’m distracting you?”
“Clearly,” he said with a smirk.
EVANDER TOWERED OVER US, noticeably unhappy. “Was that your plan, Daniel? To allow a terrified child to reveal Eris and our coven to Dyre Helgren?”
“Not…at first. But Eris believes Jonathan will at least convince his father to speak to us alone, and I trust her judgment.”
“The judgment of a daughter of the Priory you’ve known all but a few months?” he seethed. “Now that he knows, he could be planning an attack, Daniel. We agreed you would be present for this discussion. You assured me that before he had a chance to act on the offensive, you would end it.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “We’re prepared. We could easily overpower them. Why do you fear my father?”
“I fear war, Eris. I fear lives lost. Do you desire a battle, Eris? Do you desire for your brothers to die when they attack and we must defend ourselves? We had the tree line to divide us. If they come here and have even an inkling of our numbers, the Fall will happen all over again. Our evasion was the only way to keep a balance between human and immortal! You two seem determined to bring us all to ruin!”
I sank back a bit.
Evander sighed. “You must go to him. Both of you. Now. And if he doesn’t accept what Eris is…if he doesn’t listen, you must kill him. If you don’t, I’ll have no choice but to order the coven to descend upon Ona. Heinrich will not allow us to wait for them to come to us.”
“Understood,” Daniel said, taking my hand and leading me away.
We ran to the tree line just as the sun began to set. Daniel was agitated, and I put my hand on his arm.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Daniel shook his head. “It’s not that. There is something else he’s not saying. The anger in him you saw was not the Evander I know. Him speaking of war and balance. That’s Heinrich talking.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. There’s something else I’m not seeing.”
A small group of torches gathered at the front gate. Daniel and I stiffened. As the sun lowered slowly behind the mountains, the torches came closer to the tree line. I gasped when I saw my mother holding one of them. A deep line had formed between my father’s brow, and I could tell he was already suffering.
“He’s coming to kill me,” I said. “He didn’t believe Jonathan.”
When they came closer, Daniel and I backed away from the tree line, keeping the thicket to our backs. The torches lit up the surrounding area, and my family charged through, my mother at the back, standing with Ander.
My father’s arm was already high, his largest ax in his hand. Lukas had his bow drawn.
“Just look at her first, Father! Just hear her, first!” Jonathan said.
“Wait. Wait! Wait!” Mother cried.
“Father!” I screamed, holding up my hands.
Father hesitated, and I took that half second of opportunity to blurt out the most important thing. “Let me save you!” I screamed.
My words confused Father just long enough for Mother to push past Clemens and look over Lukas’s shoulder.
“Is it her?” she said, her voice breaking. She took in a sharp breath when she saw me.
“See?” Jonathan said. “Her eyes are red, but she’s still Eris. She didn’t hurt me, Father. She let me live. She wouldn’t do that if she was controlled by the thirst.”
“What if she’s different, Dyre?” Mother said, begging in her voice. She tried to reach out to me, but Father stood in front of her.
It took me a moment to process the scene. Daniel and I stood just two meters from my entire family. I choked out a breath and then smiled. “I’ve missed you all so much.”
Mother’s cheeks were already wet with tears, but more came. She reached out for me again.
“I told you to stay back, woman!” Father commanded.
Mother gritted her teeth and then burst from the line of men, surrounding me with her arms. Father and all the boys except Jonathan readied their weapons.
I hugged her to me. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m so sorry! I’ve missed you so much!” My tears didn’t come, but I still cried.
Everyone around us watched in shock, even Daniel.
“I don’t believe it,” Clemens said.
“I told you!” Jonathan squealed.
Mother’s knees buckled, and I helped her slowly to the ground. She took my face in her trembling hands and shook her head, smiling. She was staring straight into my eyes.
“I’ll just have to get used to them.” She kissed my cheek and then pulled away, her lips quivering. “You’re so cold.”
“I know. But I’m okay. I swear to you. Now that I get to see you again, I’ll be okay.”
“How is this…possible?” Father said. He looked to Daniel. “Is it true? Eris was dying at the bottom of the ravine?”
Daniel nodded.
Father’s jaw flitted under his skin. “Does Cala know?”
Daniel’s eye twitched. He clearly wasn’t prepared for my father to recognize him. He nodded.
“Did…Ireck?”
Daniel nodded again.
Father shook his head and nearly dropped his ax. He looked down at me. “Your eyes, daughter.” He gripped his ax and raised it above me. “They lie to us, Ingrid! Just as demons do!”
“No!” Mother screamed, covering me with her own body.
Daniel was there too, covering Mother with his.
Father froze, his ax held with both hands above his head. With heaving breaths, a tear rolled down his cheek.
“Father,” I said, nervous. “I swear to you. I’m still me.”
He relaxed his arms, letting his ax finally fall to the ground. He dropped to his knees and began to cry quiet tears.
I crawled slowly to him, stopping just short of his knees. “There is so much wrong with what we know. If you’d just listen. I didn’t believe it myself, but now I can feel the strength they have. Their heightened senses. They could overtake us, Father. But they choose not to. They seek a truce.”
Father frowned.
“I know…I know it’s hard to believe. You don’t have to make a decision now. It doesn’t have to change overnight. I’m just asking you to listen to what I’ve learned. That’s all.”
Lukas knelt down and then took me into his arms. I hugged him back. It was a bit unsettling, hearing his heartbeat like it was inside my head, and his blood whooshing through his veins, but I didn’t feel the slightest urge to sink my teeth into him.
Clemens leaned down to help Mother to her feet, and just when Father was about to speak, Jonathan was lifted off his feet and hurled into a tree. His back snapped like a branch, and he fell lifeless to the ground.
I was on my feet, as was Daniel. Father scrambled to his feet, and Clemens pulled Mother behind him as her scream echoed for miles.
Ayana perched herself on the tree above Jonathan’s limp body, a satisfied smile on her face. “Now you will know, Eris, half the agony I felt when you took my child from me.”
Father hurled his ax, grunting as he pitched it, but instead of hitting Ayana, Efraim, her partner, was stopped in midleap and violently cast backward, to the ground. Ayana screeched.
The moment I decided to move, I was yards away, cradling Jonathan in my arms. Mother wailed as Clemens dragged her away, and Father charged us.
“You don’t know what you’ve done!” Daniel screamed to Ayana. “Eris!” he tugged at me as my father ran toward us at full speed. Still, he was nearly in slow motion.
I took one look at Jonathan’s face, still a bit chubby, signaling the years he still had of his youth. I arched back my neck a
nd wailed to the sky.
“We must go, Eris! Now!”
My dagger was still in Jonathan’s belt, so I pulled it out and held it in my hand. “I’m so sorry,” I cried.
Daniel pulled me away with one arm and scrambled up a tree with another, leaping over and over again until we were too far away to hear my family’s cries.
When he finally stopped, he pulled me into his arms, holding me tight while I sobbed. It didn’t matter. I was inconsolable. I couldn’t think or hear. The only thing I could do was let the grief crush me. My entire body shook, and even as the sun rose, I writhed in Daniel’s arms. The pain was excruciating, total, and unabating. The sound of Jonathan’s bones cracking played over and over in my mind.
Finally, when my body began to tire, I sniffed and whimpered, but forming words was too much while trying to manage the anguish consuming me.
I awoke sometime in the afternoon. It was the longest I’d slept since Daniel had turned me. I was in Daniel’s hammock, and he was on the floor beside me, covering my hand with his.
He scrambled to his knees and watched me for a moment before speaking.
“I’m so sorry, Eris.”
I shook my head. There was nothing to say. My brother was dead, and my Father likely thought I had lured them into a trap.
“It’s over,” I whispered. “Evander will kill them.”
“We can fix this. There’s still hope.”
I looked away from him. “Does he know?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been here with you.”
I stood.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To find Ayana.”
I tried to walk around him, but he stepped in my way. “We should go to Evander, Eris. Explain to him about Ayana. This is her fault. He has to understand.”
“If I’m going to die,” I said, “I’m going to die protecting my family. But first I’m going to find Ayana.”
“Eris,” Daniel said, holding up his hands, “I know you’re grieving. But you have to think for a moment. Try not to do anything that will make this worse. Evander will have to punish her for this.”
“She took everything from me. She took my life. She took away my family when I had to be turned, and now she’s done it again. She is going to die. And I’m going to be the one who kills her.”
Daniel’s shoulders fell, and I started past him to leap from the doorway. He grabbed my arm and stared into my eyes, just a few inches from my face.
“Ayana is older than I am, Eris. She’s very strong. You have no idea the kind of danger you’re walking into.”
I pulled away from him. “She killed my brother!”
“She could kill you too!” He reached for me again, and when I pulled back, he sank his fingers into my shoulders and pulled me against him.
“I need you. That terrifies me, Eris. We’re in such an uncertain time, and you…I need you.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t about you. Or even me. We put everyone at risk.”
“It’s about you for me. Will you just wait? Let’s think about this for just a moment before you run off to try to get yourself killed. There is something more to this, and we have to figure out what it is.”
I looked into his eyes. “I don’t care what it is.”
“What if finding out means saving your family? What if finding out means stopping the inevitable war that is moments away?” His voice grew louder with every word.
“Is that why you don’t want me to go after her? For the war? For my family? You haven’t been honest with me from the moment we met! You’ve been grooming my father for decades for this!”
“For…what?”
“It’s too convenient, Daniel. Ireck! You! Ireck practically raising my father, and now I’m here! Like this! And I’ve fallen for it all because I wanted to believe that you…I thought that…”
Daniel watched me, deep hurt and pure hope in his eyes. “You thought what?”
“I thought I…that you…” My lips formed a hard line. I couldn’t say it out loud.
“You’re right.” Daniel pressed his lips to mine. At first I pushed him away, but he refused to let me go. When he finally relaxed his grip, his brows pulled together. “Say it. For God’s sake, Eris. Tell me how you feel.”
“No,” I said, and finally took the leap.
I RAN THROUGH THE GLADES AT TOP SPEED, looking, smelling, using all my senses and everything my father had taught me to hunt down my killer, who was now also the one who had killed my little brother.
A smell that was both familiar and strange filled my nose. It was an immortal. I took a hard left and stopped abruptly, ready to pounce.
“It’s a good feeling, isn’t it? Purpose. Much better than sitting on your floor alone and miserable.”
It was Ilana. Her back leaned against the trunk of a tree, her arms crossed, one foot perched to expose her knee through her skirt.
“I would rather not need one. I would gladly be back there, sitting alone in my nest and knowing that Jonathan is alive.”
“Who is Jonathan?” she asked, a bit amused by my half-crazed state.
“My youngest brother. Ayana killed him. In front of me and my parents. He’s dead.” My voice broke. It caused actual pain to say the words, so I concentrated on imagining the look in Ayana’s eyes when I found her.
Ilana stood up and let her arms fall to her sides. “You’re here for revenge?”
“Yes,” I said simply and without guilt.
Ilana stepped to the side. “Then don’t let me keep you.”
I turned to leave but stopped. “He was just a boy.”
“Did he kill Ayana’s child?”
I shook my head.
“Lead the way.”
I frowned. I didn’t want to trust her willingness to let me hunt down her oldest friend. Or whatever they were to each other. “Did you come here to stop me?”
She dropped her chin. “You spared my life. I came here to help you. Whatever that may mean.”
“You’re going to help me kill Ayana?” I asked, unconvinced.
“Ayana is much older than you, Eris. I’m going to help you stay alive, whatever that may mean.”
After a short pause, I took off again. Ilana’s steps were just behind, but I could also hear another. It was Daniel.
I picked up a scent and knew immediately whom it belonged to. I stopped and looked up. Ilana stopped next to me and did the same.
“She’s close,” Ilana whispered.
Daniel stopped farther back and then kept his pace slower than ours the rest of the way, falling farther behind. “This is a bad id—”
Before he could get the words out, Ayana jumped from the treetops to the forest floor. She stood before us in front of a young sapling narrowing her eyes.
“You came to kill me?” she asked, half-entertained, half-insulted by the notion. Her question was more of an accusation.
I opened my mouth to speak but was knocked off my feet and into the closest tree. I scrambled to my hands and knees to see Efraim and Daniel grappling. Ayana lunged at Ilana, but I ran at Ayana, knocking her to the ground.
Efraim dealt a hard blow to Daniel, and he grunted. Ayana used my momentary distraction to wriggle free, and then she struck my face.
“You don’t belong with us, Prior!” she hissed. “My only regret will be that you couldn’t see what Heinrich has in store for your family! For them all!” She leaped from one tree to another and then tackled me to the ground. Ilana tried pulling her off me, but Ayana elbowed her in the face, sending her dozens of yards away.
Ayana took my head in her hands and pulled.
“No!” Daniel said, running toward me.
Efraim attacked again, watching with a smile on his face. “Do it, Ayana! End this!”
She pulled, and I struggled to get out of her grasp. Just as I felt my neck stretched to the brink, I reached down for the dagger, rolled, and plunged it into Ayana’s chest, pressing the button, allowing all of the E
itr to pour inside the wound.
She cried out, and I jumped back.
Ilana grabbed my arm. “Do you have wounds? Did it penetrate your skin?”
“No,” I said, looking to Ayana. She was jerking violently, and her eyes rolled back into her head.
“Ayana!” Efraim cried out.
We watched as she convulsed.
“Ayana!” her mate screamed again, running to her. When she stopped moving, Efraim laid over her body and sobbed.
“We didn’t want this!” Daniel said. “How many more have to die, Efraim? You decide!”
Efraim stood and turned to us. He was holding the dagger. “Only one.” He jabbed the dagger into his own neck and then fell to the ground next to his mate. He stiffened and then screeched in pain.
I watched in horror as he suffered the same death as Ayana, but the Eitr was nearly gone, and his was a much slower death.
Finally his body relaxed, and he lay still, his face frozen in a perpetual state of agony.
“So much for being immortal,” Ilana said.
Daniel and I both craned our necks at her.
Unaffected, she walked away, disappearing behind the pines.
“What did she mean?” I asked. “About Heinrich’s plans?”
Daniel shook his head. “I have a feeling we’re getting ready to find out.”
We returned to the spot where Jonathan had died. They had already taken his body away. I stood at the tree line, watching my home. Torches were burning every few yards along the stone wall.
“We have to do something,” I said. “Before Father brings my entire family into the woods. They’ll all be killed.”
“He’s too angry to listen to reason. We have to warn Evander.”
“Do you trust him?”
“Ayana only mentioned Heinrich. I don’t know. I’m not sure we have another choice.”
I picked up a scent, and I could see that Daniel could too. Footsteps crunched along the forest floor, but they were much quieter than the average villager. I gasped when Lukas came into view.
He crashed into me, and I wrapped my arms around him.
“Eris!” he said, his eyes red from crying.
“What are you doing here?” I cried.
“It’s Father. He’s mad with grief. He means to gather the cousins and raid the woods right after we bury Jonathan.”