Her body wasn’t suited for life anymore.
There are always ways.
Intellectually, Ravenna knew she had to snap out of it. She was strong. She wasn’t a wilting flower, nor was she a child born of innocence. She wasn’t one to give up just because the one she loved was dead. Even though she couldn’t stop weeping, even though her soul would continue screaming, she knew she couldn’t give in.
She knew this. Her heart did not.
Her heart was determined to know an end to pain. Her heart wanted rest.
And to never beat again.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered into her tear-stained pillow. “I’m so sorry. It should’ve been me, Nicolai. You tried to get me out. You tried so hard to free me of it.”
God, he had. He had so desperately. Every night, he would lie beside her, running his hands down her arms and through her hair, stroking her cheek with curled fingers and begging her sweetly to let this be the night she didn’t return to her prison. He’d beg her to let him hold her for a little while longer, to watch the sun hit the canvas she’d made out of their wall.
He’d asked her every night, and he’d never gotten impatient with her need for time. In such a short while he had defied her conventional knowledge of vampires. She’d been raised by a man who thought vampires were nothing more than Satan’s messengers, and while that sort of radicalism had never seeped into her blood, the backwards mentality was there all the same.
Then Nicolai had come along and redefined her. He’d made her into a human.
She hadn’t been human before.
How was it that it had taken a vampire to show her how to live? What would happen if she forgot now that he was gone? Ravenna’s insides hardened. The man who was supposed to be her father had taken away the one thing which had made her human. The man she loved had been ripped away from her by the person supposed to be her father.
Kenneth had taught her to hate.
Nicolai had taught her to love.
Here she was. Alone.
There are always ways.
Nicolai had freed her and died for it.
Ravenna sucked in a deep breath, but no amount of wishing could keep away the incursion of tears. She couldn’t will away the pain consuming her insides. She couldn’t bring Nicolai back.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered again into the pillow, tears ribboning down her cheeks. “Oh Nicolai…”
There was no answer. There was nothing.
She’d killed him. She hadn’t listened. She hadn’t left when she had the chance.
He’d saved her life and she’d gotten him killed.
There are always ways.
Her voice cracked uselessly against the muted air. “Please,” she begged, her body breaking into tremors. The walls around the numb collapsed, and all at once, pain laced through every vein in her tortured body. She couldn’t do this. God, she couldn’t do this. Her body was ripping itself to shreds and nothing save Nicolai could ease the pain.
She’d condemned the man she loved.
“Oh God, please.” Sobs wrenched through her throat, squeezing her windpipe until she couldn’t breathe. “Please. I’ll do anything. Please!” Another wave crashed over her. “Please…”
There could be no living like this. No living, no dying, no in between.
She’d cost them everything.
There are always ways.
The voice would not leave her alone. Ravenna knew what it meant. She knew what it was asking of her, what it wanted her to do.
She’d been raised by a man who knew dark magicks, even if he never shared their trade. She knew what the voice wanted her to do.
She knew because it was her own.
Nicolai had sacrificed everything to save her.
Perhaps, then, it was time to sacrifice everything to save him back.
* * * *
The Mal cabin was empty when she arrived. If a part of her was surprised, she didn’t feel it. She didn’t feel anything upon moving through the halls which had seen her upbringing. She walked past the room that had housed her through her earliest years, and felt nothing but apathy. She didn’t shiver. She didn’t draw in a significant breath as her chin wobbled, not even when her eyes fell upon the porcelain doll which sat in a small wooden rocker Kenneth had carved for her fourth birthday. It was the last genuine thing she remembered him doing.
She wasn’t here to reminisce. She was here for one reason.
Kenneth’s room had always been off limits to her. Not once had she walked across the forbidden threshold. Not once had she had the desire to do so. Even as a child she’d known enough of her surrogate father’s wrath not to test him. She’d been obedient and studious. She’d done everything she was told from wash the dishes to take out the nest by the Black Lake. She’d done everything. Everything.
Here she was, moving through her once-home, and doing her best to ignore the shrill ringing in her ears and the thundering of her heart. It took all she had not to break down for the knowledge of what the cottage’s inhabitant had taken from her.
Ravenna swallowed hard and pushed into Kenneth’s room without hesitation. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but strangely she wasn’t surprised to feel nothing. It wasn’t as though she raided the Quirinal Palace. It was just a room like any other, but home to a loathsome creature.
She hoped he did not return while she was here. Her hands trembled, and her body threatened to give way just at the knowledge that she stood in the air that belonged to Nicolai’s killer. If she saw him—if her eyes fell upon his hideous face—she didn’t know what she would do. God, she didn’t know if she could trust herself not to do something horrible.
The call for justice was overbearing. Her tears had long since crusted dry on her cheeks, but there was no end to the pain which saturated her every nerve. No end to her mind’s screams and the agonizing ache diseasing her heart. If she slowed down, if she allowed herself to know exactly what was lost and what would never be hers again if her spell didn’t take, grief would be consumed with fury—fury which would bring this damned village to its knees.
“Keep a straight mind,” she whispered, her eyes immediately landing on the training crossbow Kenneth kept mounted on the wall. It seemed years had passed since she’d last seen it. Before she could stop herself, she’d removed it from its seeming place of honor and had it in her arms, its pack of arrows slung over her shoulder. Better, she supposed, to be armed in enemy territory than to be taken completely off guard.
Ravenna was rather surprised to find his belongings visible to the naked eye rather than under guard of lock and key. He had a large, hand-carved shelf dedicated to his assorted weapons aligning one wall, and a perfect duplicate along the parallel wall filled with books which would potentially unlock the gates of Hell and return Nicolai to her side.
The idea of her love being trapped in a world of eternal torment had her dried-eyes dampening all over again. Demon or not, he was not made for Hell.
He might have been a monster before meeting her, but he’d been a man every second thereafter. Perhaps not at first, but he had. She’d touched him. She’d tasted him. She knew him.
A man such as he didn’t belong to Hell.
He belonged to her. She would save him no matter what it cost her.
Ravenna sucked in a deep breath and paced forward, her eager eyes falling over the dusty covers of Kenneth’s collection. There were many titles and many volumes she’d seen before. There were books as old as her, as old as her Guardian, and all for the purpose of study or preparation. Thankfully, her familiarity with his library gave her insight in the titles to avoid. If she’d seen it before, it served no use to her. While she’d never thumbed through his personal collection like this, Kenneth never concealed where he kept the books containing dark magic. A part of her had always wondered if she had been meant to seek them out.
Ravenna knelt to inspect the books with ominous black bindings along the bottom row. Upon feeling the spin
e of one, she knew she’d found the one she was searching for by the dark chill which seized her spine.
Of course, the dark chill could have been a delayed warning on part of her singed senses, for she felt him the next second.
Everything in her turned black.
“Ah, sweet Ravie,” Kenneth clucked disapprovingly. “Thou hast thy father much offended.”
A cold shudder claimed her shoulders. She did not reply.
“I didn’t know which one of you to expect, but I confess myself unsurprised. After your lover’s rather inventive diversion, it became most evident he would rather himself end up dust.” He sighed wistfully. “A truly romantic notion, I suppose, for a creature so foul.”
Ravenna closed her eyes, a silent mantra falling on her tongue. She couldn’t allow herself to be provoked. She couldn’t give in.
“He didn’t tell you then?” Kenneth asked, before nodding his head to answer his own question. “No, of course he didn’t. If he had, he would be here, searching for a way to bring you back rather than this. Granted, he wouldn’t be allowed entrance to my home, but I suspect he would find a way. Not that I knew the fellow personally, but given his creativity—”
“What do you mean…he didn’t tell me?” She hated the shake in her voice almost as much as she needed the answer.
“You really don’t know? My dear, if you’d wanted, you could have cured him whenever you wished. Your blood works as a powerful antidote to any potent vampiric poison. Something I’m sure dear Nicolai knew and, for the tragic love of you, didn’t disclose.”
A dark shudder passed through her body. For a blind second, she feared losing whatever of herself she had left to lose. The tears she’d kept at bay came surging forward with a vengeance, and for a long minute, she thought she might be sick, though on what she didn’t know. It had been days since she’d last eaten.
“How long did the holy water take?” Kenneth continued conversationally. “I’ve never seen it in action myself, and I admit I am quite curious.”
It was an instinctive thing really. She didn’t remember any blank spaces between hearing his repugnant voice and leaping into action, the crossbow in her arms coming up and firing as if controlled by a will of its own. It was either some moral strain or a last second firing of consciousness which kept her aim from his heart and rather directed at his arm.
The arrow pierced his skin and imbedded itself in the wall behind him, taking him with it. It was over before she could blink, before she even knew what had happened. Thus when her mind returned to her, she found herself holding a crossbow and her so-called surrogate father nailed to the wall, courtesy of her aim, pained moans ripping through his lips and murderous malice lighting his eyes.
“You little harlot!” he spat, pulling hard against the arrow to little avail.
Ravenna swallowed hard. “Words, words, words,” she retorted, reloading an arrow into the crossbow’s cavity and raising it again. The move effectively ceased Kenneth’s struggles and had his eyes widening with astonishment. If anything, witnessing his fear only strengthened the force of her hatred. “Give me a reason not to do it, father dear. I beg of you.”
“Ravie—”
She fired another arrow, this one spearing through the wooden frame above his head, showering him in splinters and dust. “Do not speak to me,” she growled. “Do not even look at me, you befouled—”
“I am the befouled?”
“You killed him.”
“No, my dear. It is you who did that.” Kenneth’s expression contorted in pain as he twisted under the force of the arrow, resuming his unsuccessful struggles. “I raised you—”
“I do not want to hear of how you raised me!” Ravenna barked. Her eyes welled again as her eager hands loaded another arrow into her weapon. “I don’t want to hear of how I’ve failed your many expectations or how I’ve tainted the damned line by…how did you put it? Rolling in filth every night. I will not—”
“Ravie—”
“—I am not yours!”
“You are the High Council’s.”
“The High Council ordered this, then?” Ravenna asked erratically, the paces between them closing rapidly. “The High Council contacted you? Demanded you to kill my—”
“Ravie—”
“Do not lie to me!” The crossbow lowered so she could hit him properly and soak in the sensation of her flesh smacking his, even if her hand stung from the impact of the blow. She watched greedily as his head rocked with impact, as his gaze widened in surprise and the flash of fear returned with a vengeance. “The High Council couldn’t give a damn, could it?”
A few seconds passed before he could reply. “You know well they care a great deal.”
“Enough to kill him?”
“A villain might speak pretty words to you, my dear, but it doesn’t make him any less a villain.”
“A lesson you have personified, thank you.” Ravenna drew an arrow out of her pack and shoved its point against the fleshy part below his jaw. “Answer me truthfully,” she all but snarled, fire blazing her veins. “Your actions were your own. The High Council—”
“Trusts nature will take its course. If not him killed by you, then you killed by him. I didn’t have the same faith.”
The screaming in her head threatened to drown out all semblance of sound. Her arm pushed forward without her mind’s permission, and she felt the tip of the arrow tear through his skin. God, it felt so good she wanted to do it again, deeper and deeper until the old man’s tongue was completely forked.
“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord!” Kenneth gasped. Gone was the contemptuous gleam of seconds before. There was only fear now, for something he’d seen in her eyes, perhaps, or for something else entirely. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. “You cannot kill me, Ravie,” he continued. “Your soul—”
“Is not yours to lose, so I wouldn’t worry over it.”
“Do you really wish to kill me?”
That was the ultimate question, the one waging war in her conscience against the demands of something she couldn’t name. Her claim with Nicolai perhaps drew primal urges forward in lieu of human rationality. Did she want to kill Kenneth? Yes. By God, she did. She wanted to seize back what was taken, and while the books she’d discovered would lead her wherever she wanted to go, the darkest part of her wouldn’t be satisfied until this man was gone and lay at her feet, revenged for what he took from her.
After all, he was the one who had taught her to hate, how it felt to hate, and what to do to those one hated.
He would have killed her. He would have let the town burn her, all because she’d wandered from hate and fallen in love.
She loved, so he killed.
Ravenna knew it wasn’t black and white as all that. Nicolai was a vampire, and she was One of the Few. They lived in opposite worlds and they were, by nature’s decree, an abomination.
If to be natural was to be without Nicolai and the freedom he’d given her, she didn’t care to ever again embody the world in appearance or action.
Yes, she wanted to kill Kenneth. She wanted to give him back the pain he’d caused. She wanted to adhere to Old Testament law. She wanted blood for blood.
An eye for an eye.
Yet, her human conscience wouldn’t allow her to kill him in cold blood, not even out of revenge.
That sort of act would lead her down a path from which she could not return. It would open a door of eternal darkness. It would contort her, turn her into something black and twisted, something she wasn’t.
She replied steadily, drawing the arrow out between the flaps of torn flesh, ignoring the pool of blood which ran down the narrow cylinder and spilled onto her fingers. “Death is too gracious a punishment for you.”
The relief on his face was tangible. It made her stomach turn.
“Good girl,” he said.
Then his free arm moved, and the next thing she saw was the silver of a blade lunging toward her face. There was no time to think o
r second-guess herself. She had nothing left but instinct. Ravenna stumbled back in shock, the crossbow coming up again. Her finger caressed the trigger before she could help herself, and with a crushing gasp, she felt the arrow discharge.
It seemed the world was born and divided in that instant. Ravenna’s wide eyes took in his and the sight of the arrow protruding from his chest, his free arm outstretched, and his hands clamped around the handle of the blade he’d produced. The one he always kept on him. The one she’d forgotten.
The one he’d reached for without her notice.
“Too gracious,” Ravenna repeated, expelling a deep breath. “Somehow I’ll manage to get over that.”
“You…” Kenneth glanced down in wide-eyed horror at the arrow. “You…killed…me.”
Ravenna couldn’t breathe, move, or look away. The walls of her mind were realigning. Truths were defined and banished. What was canon suddenly became heretical. What she knew was overwhelmed by what she didn’t.
“The Lord hath accomplished his wrath,” she murmured. “He hath poured out his fierce anger and he hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.”
“You…quote…scripture…to me?” Kenneth’s eyes blazed, and his arm made an angry arc, swiping at her with the blade. He hit nothing but air. “You…damned little…”
“I am not damned,” Ravenna replied, her voice shaking but certain. “I am not damned for loving.” Her eyes fell upon the blade in his hand, which clamored noisily to the floor without further overture. “Nor am I damned for saving myself.”
He tried to speak but words eluded him, gurgling in his throat as his eyes widened, a twisted rage contorting his face. For all the death she’d crafted and tasted, Ravenna had never seen a human die, and she’d never given thought to how it would feel. Standing just out of reach of the man who had brought her up, raised her, smiled at her when she was young, instructed her when she aged. He’d taught her everything she’d known about herself, and now he gasped for air, blood leaking out of his mouth and life draining from his eyes. The man who had been her father.
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