by Sarra Cannon
“Yes, how did you know that?” I asked.
He definitely didn’t seem surprised by the news.
“I had a feeling she would make a move while Rend was away,” he said.
“What do you know that you’re not telling us?” I asked.
He sighed and motioned to the empty chair near the fire. “Do you mind if I sit down? This is going to take a while,” he said. “If you all want to be here while I tell you what I know, I might as well get started now.”
My shoulders relaxed.
“Sit,” I said. “And start talking.”
Silas took his time settling into the large leather chair. He clasped his hand around his father’s stone, almost cradling it close to his heart.
“I left the Devil’s castle that night with every intention to destroy this stone,” he said. “I tried, too, but nothing I could think of worked on it. I thought about hiding it, instead, but every time I tried to find a suitable place to hide it away from anyone who might want to release him from this stone, I just couldn’t leave it behind.”
My jaw tightened, and I sat down on the stone hearth, my back to the fire.
“That’s when I started hearing my father’s voice in my head.”
My eyes snapped to his. “He’s been talking to you? I didn’t know that was possible.”
“I didn’t either,” he said. “At first, I thought I was losing my mind. I didn’t want his voice in my head. I had watched my father do despicable things after I joined him here in the human world, and I didn’t want him telling me lies or turning my heart to darkness.”
“What did he say?” Franki asked, sitting down on the couch closest to Silas and leaning forward.
“What he said shocked even me,” Silas said. “It was the Mother Crow who placed him in the stone, but it was the Council members who sat on those thrones tonight who arranged the whole thing.”
My eyes widened, and something inside me shifted, like a piece of the puzzle suddenly clicking into place.
“Abagore, Raum, and Gideon?” I asked. “Why would they do that?”
“Because my father was trying to change the Brotherhood,” Silas said. He leaned forward and reached for Franki’s hand. “No matter what else you’ve heard, Solomon loved your mother. He didn’t manipulate her into falling for him. He truly fell in love with her, Franki.”
A tear fell down Franki’s cheek, and I crossed over to sit next to her.
“Her love changed him,” Silas said. “Before he met Mary Katherine—Franki’s mom—he always believed that witches were all like the witches of the Order of Shadows. He thought that killing them was doing a service to the world, ridding them of evil. He never saw himself as evil until he met your mother and realized that he’d been killing innocents.”
I shook my head. “I find that hard to believe,” I said. “How do you know he’s not just telling you these things to manipulate you? Solomon is clever, Silas. You know that. Maybe he’s just telling you what he thinks you want to hear.”
“You don’t think I went through all of that in my head?” he asked, sitting back again and releasing Franki’s hand. “I argued with him for weeks. I didn’t believe a word he said, but I’m telling you, there’s something different about his energy, Rend. His power has shifted. Yes, the darkness is still there. None of us can completely erase the sins of our past, and Solomon has centuries of pain to answer for. But there’s light in him, too. I can’t explain it, but I know it. I’d be willing to risk my life on it.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing,” I said. “You’re risking all our lives on this right now. If I succeed in killing the Mother Crow, Solomon’s spirit will go free. He’ll be a ruler on that throne again, and even if I take the Devil’s spot, how do we know that Solomon won’t vote to put an end to those of us who killed his brother?”
“Because Solomon hated his brother,” Silas said, his eyes flashing red.
“How can you say that?” I asked, standing again. I needed to move. This was madness. “They terrorized this world together, as a team. I watched them with my own eyes. I saw the kinds of things they did. He certainly didn’t seem to hate his brother back then.”
“The Devil was the one behind so many of my father’s actions,” Silas said. “I know it’s hard to see, but I believe him, Rend. The Devil was the one who convinced my father and the rest of the Brotherhood to kill as many witches as possible. He filled Solomon’s head with lies.”
“So, what? That absolves him of all the things he did in his lifetime?” I asked.
“No more than the changes you’ve made in your life absolve you from the things you’ve done,” Silas said, nearly knocking the breath from my lungs.
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” Silas asked, meeting my eyes straight on. “If I were to judge you solely on the vampire you were eighty years ago, what would I have to say about your character? Would anyone believe you had the capacity now to truly love a witch? To save the lives of others?”
Damn. He had me there.
“Continue,” I said through clenched teeth.
“He fell in love with Mary Katherine, and her love changed him. Made him see the truth about the witches out there,” he said. “But of course, when Mary Katherine found out she was pregnant, she knew she had to return to the crows. She felt bound to the Mother Crow and was terrified that if she failed to go back to the crow village, she would be putting Solomon in great danger.”
“If he loved her, why did he let her go back, then?” Franki asked. “Surely he could have protected her against the Mother Crow.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Silas said. “He had more to deal with than just the danger of the Mother Crow’s power. He also had the entire Brotherhood to fear. If any of his brothers found out he had mated with a powerful crow witch, it would have put her life in even greater danger. Not to mention his unborn child, whose blood he knew would be incredibly powerful and hard to resist.”
I closed my eyes. He was right. The Devil himself would have killed Mary Katherine in an instant if he’d gotten close to her. It would have been difficult for Solomon to keep her safe.
“He should have come to me,” I said. “I could have kept her safe at Venom.”
Silas shook his head. “He didn’t want to take that risk with her pregnant. In his eyes, the safest place for Mary Katherine to go through her pregnancy was there in the crow village, where none of the vampires could reach her. They had plans to reunite after the baby was born, but he needed time to try to convince the Brotherhood’s Council to guarantee her safety. He was trying to change the Brotherhood from the inside.”
“I imagine that didn’t go over well,” I said.
“No, it didn’t,” Silas said, anger flashing in his eyes as he clutched the stone harder. “He knew that his own brother—the Devil—would be the hardest to convince, so instead, he went to the other three Council members first, explaining to them that many witches were innocent. He tried to convince them that they should make changes to the Enchiridion stating that no witches could be killed.”
“He tried to ban the drinking of witch’s blood?” I asked, shocked.
“Not exactly,” Silas said. “He was trying to explain that if every vampire could work with the witches, there would be an endless supply of blood.”
“Like a voluntary thing?” Franki asked.
“Yes. Solomon was trying to change everything about how the Brotherhood operated,” Silas explained. “He said that if they changed the Enchiridion’s laws to say that every vampire needed to first find a suitable mate whose blood was powerful enough to sustain him, there would never be a need for killing again. He truly believed that if vampires and witches could work together, they could be more powerful than the Order of Shadows ever dreamed.”
I took Franki’s hand, and she met my eyes. If this was true and Solomon had really tried to make these changes, our love would not only be allowed by the Council, it would
be honored. Everything would be different for us right now.
But how did I know I could trust what Silas was saying?
This was all so out-of-character for Solomon that it was hard to believe.
“Think about it,” Silas said, “If every vampire of the Brotherhood had a blood-mate who would willingly give her blood, there would never be a need to kill again. If every relationship was based on love and trust, instead of fear, no vampire would ever go too far. They would have an endless supply of power. A renewable resource.”
“It makes sense, but I can’t imagine the Council would ever agree to that,” I said. “They wanted to have me killed when I first declared that I would not drink the blood of witches. I tried to go to them when I first developed some of my potions that allowed me to cast without using blood, but they tried to lock me in the dungeons until they could find a way to kill me for treason. Even Solomon opposed my abstinence.”
“Back then, he did,” Silas said. “If the two of you had ever had the chance to work together twenty years ago, things could have been very different, but he went to the Council first.”
“What happened?” Franki asked.
“Abagore, Raum, and Gideon knew that the witch Solomon loved was a crow witch,” Silas said. “After Solomon proposed his changes, they told him they would think it over. They gave him hope that things could be different. But in secret, they met with the Mother Crow, knowing that she would want Solomon’s power for herself.”
I brought a hand to my forehead. Had this really happened?
“The three Council members called Solomon to a meeting at the castle, saying they had made a decision about his proposal,” Silas said. “When he arrived, they had their Hollows seize him. The Mother Crow appeared with two of her daughters in tow. She cast a spell that took the lives of both of her daughters, just so she could permanently lock Solomon’s soul in this stone.”
He wrapped his fingers around the stone.
“She planned to use his power for herself, hoping that it would extend her life and stop the decay she’d been fighting for years,” he said. “But when she tried to draw from the soul stone, it only quickened her decay.”
“This is something I’ve always wondered about,” Mary Anne said, speaking up for the first time since Silas had begun his story. “The Priestesses of the Order are even older than the Mother Crow, but none of them actually seem to age. Why doesn’t the Mother Crow stay eternally young? She’s using the same kind of magic to extend her life, isn’t she?”
“She’s consuming souls, similar to the way the Priestesses do, but she’s missing one vital element,” Silas said. “Something she’s coveted more than any other thing in her long life.”
Mary Anne’s eyes fluttered, and she nodded. “A demon,” she said.
“Exactly,” Silas said. “All the Mother Crow ever wanted was to be a Prima, but it was Harper’s ancestor who stole that from her. At least from her point of view. All the Priestesses of the Order of Shadows and every Prima of every demon gate has a demon locked inside of them. Their bond with that demon is what enables them to use the magic in a different, more efficient way. A witch with a demon soul trapped inside her has the power to keep her body from severe decay. The Mother Crow relies on the darkest of magics to keep her body alive, but it’s decaying now that she’s over a hundred years old.”
“And Solomon’s soul made her decay more?” Franki asked.
“That’s what he tells me. He said every time she tried to draw from his power, he poured all of his hatred and the more toxic parts of his power into her,” Silas said. “For that, she had one of her daughters hide the stone far away from the crow village until she could figure out a way to use the power to extend her life, rather than cause more deterioration.”
“And somehow the Devil found it,” I said.
“Which almost brings you up to speed on the things my father has told me,” Silas said. “Yes, the Devil tracked Solomon’s power until he found the stone. Of course, the Devil had no idea that Solomon had ever gone to the other members of the Council and tried to change the Brotherhood. He also had no idea the Council had betrayed his brother in that way.”
I sat back against the couch, letting all of this sink in. It was quite the story, and I still wasn’t sure I was willing to believe it.
The timeline was right, and everything he’d said was possible, but it was also possible that Solomon simply wanted revenge and was telling Silas what he’d always wanted to hear—that his father wasn’t as evil as he seemed.
Silas had loved his father so much that he couldn’t handle it when Solomon left his family behind to go to the human world. He’d followed Solomon here as soon as he realized where his father was, but what he’d found when he got here was nothing but torture and death.
Silas had joined the Brotherhood hoping to change his father or to somehow understand why his father had abandoned him.
He’d learned quickly that Solomon was not the father he’d always believed him to be, but he’d been unable to leave him, hoping that someday he would change back to the demon he’d known as a shadowling.
Silas had always wanted to believe that his father was capable of love, and this story certainly put Solomon back on that pedestal.
But what would happen once Solomon was free?
One way or another, we would find out the truth.
“So, your plan is to have me kill the Mother Crow and set Solomon free?” I asked. “How do you know we can trust him?”
“I just know it,” Silas said. “You’re going to have to trust me.”
“I don’t really have much of a choice now, do I?” I asked. “The situation you’ve gotten me into now means that I have to kill the Mother Crow in the next week, or I’ll be either sentenced to death or banished to a life in the dungeons forever.”
“You’re going to kill her,” Silas said. “We’ll find a way. We’re so close to being able to change the Brotherhood forever. To make it what we always dreamed it could be. What my father dreamed it could be. Can’t you see that?”
“It’s not exactly easy to see how that’s going to happen,” I said.
“When my father’s spirit is free, he can finally hold the current Council accountable for their betrayal,” Silas said. “They’ll be the ones sentenced to death, Rend. And you and Solomon will rule the Brotherhood. You’ll be able to start over.”
“But won’t he need a body to inhabit?” Franki asked. “When the Devil tried to kill me, he planned to place Solomon’s spirit inside the body of the witch who claimed to be my mother. She had delusions of being the first female vampire before we ruined their plans.”
“He will,” Silas said. “But we have a plan for that, too.”
“We?” I asked. “So, you and your father came up with these plans together? That’s taking an awful risk with my life, Silas.”
“What was the alternative?” Silas asked. “Without my intervention tonight, you would have had to fight, and between the Council, the brothers who opposed you, and the Hollows at their command, you would have had to have the fight of your life just to survive it.”
“And what would have happened if I’d lost the vote tonight?”
“I knew that you wouldn’t lose,” Silas said. “There are so many members of the Brotherhood who have been wanting change for a very long time. They admire you and what you’ve been able to do at Venom. I was hoping you would win and this whole thing would be over. Then we could have taken our time going after the Mother Crow, but since it was a tie, we still have a chance to make things right. We can still do this, Rend. We just have to all work together.”
“And we have to work quickly,” Franki said. “I’m not sure how long Katy will survive in her current state. So, what we need to figure out is how we’re going to find the Mother Crow.”
“This story of yours isn’t easy to believe, but right now, Franki’s right. We need to focus on killing the Mother Crow. Then we’ll know if Solomon was te
lling the truth or not,” I said. “What are these suspicions you have about where to find her? Because I’d like to finish this, once and for all.”
“Someone get me a map,” Silas said with a smile as he leaned forward, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s get to work.”
Ghost Towns
Franki
Once Silas had marked up several locations on the maps we brought to him, we got to work exploring every possible place where the Mother Crow could have placed her new village.
He had about twelve possible locations, and he told us he’d come up with them after months of following every rumor and possible crow sighting, all in anticipation of this moment.
Essex, as a skilled tailor, was able to use his magic to put drops of both mine and Mary Anne’s blood into special armbands that each member of our exploration party wore as we searched for the crow’s village.
He had used a similar magic once when Harper had needed to use the old abandoned village in the trees near Peachville. Since the crow villages were protected by a spell that allowed only people with crow’s blood to enter, the armbands worked as a sort of key for anyone else wanting to trick the protection spell.
We knew that if we did happen to find the Mother Crow’s hiding place, it would be important for everyone to be able to enter and fight.
We spent the following day and a half searching all the possible locations, traveling around the entire United States in search of the Mother Crow’s village. In some of the places, we actually did find more abandoned villages. They had all been set up very much like the abandoned village in Peachville, with houses, gardens, and an altar in the center.
However, none of the places we found had any sign of life still in them.
They were ghost towns, completely abandoned and left behind.
None of them had spell books or clues as to where the crows had gone, which only left us all feeling tired and frustrated.
It was as if the Mother Crow had been creating these villages, living in them for a while with her family of crows, and then moving on to create a new village.