by A. M. Hudson
“But I’ll lose sleep anyway, David,” I cried. “Please?”
He wandered over and wound the crank, sending the last man slowly to the burrows of Hell.
“David, this is madness. Please stop, I’m begging you.”
“This is how things have always been done, Ara.” He turned to face me. “They tested our resolve, and this is their reward.”
The man’s screams hollowed out, his scratching and clawing becoming an echo as the box hit the earth and the darkness of the past—the darkness David had become accustomed to, grown up in, desensitised to—rounded out around me, drawing me into both his world and his past. And I didn’t want to be a part of that.
I watched him shovel a heap of dirt and toss it ceremoniously into the hole, and I loved him and respected him as much as I hated him right then. I knew he was right. I knew if those men were allowed to escape with easy punishment, they’d be back here in thirty years having done the same thing, as would many more over that time. David was the rightful king, the man who had the heart to get things done, even if those same things would break mine. But he wasn’t my David, right now. He wasn't the boy I fell in love with. This David was something else entirely.
I dropped to my knees as the last heap of dirt covered the vampire’s cries, and David came to squat before me. “My love?”
Tear streamed past my lips, making my nose run. I wiped them away with my sleeve, refusing to look at him.
“I’m sorry, Ara.” He stood up. “I hope one day you’ll come to understand why I had to do this.”
I nodded, pushing up off the ground to stand. “I understand. I really do.”
He stroked my cheek once. “But I’ve hurt you.”
My tears salted the air on my lips. I looked up into his loving eyes, and the hatred I had for him a moment ago trickled away, taking the anger with it. “Like I said, I understand why you did.”
He kissed my brow and stepped past me, nodding at the guard before leaving the crypt, his shadow flickering on the walls under firelight until it disappeared.
***
“Blade?” I met him on the stairwell toward the eastern quadrant.
“My Queen. How are you?” He touched his chest, bowing. “I heard what happened.”
I stopped on the stair below him, hearing the screams of that man echo throughout my soul. My tears had dried, but I knew my face was still red. “Look, I know we shouldn’t be talking alone, given the curse of Lilith and all, so I’ll get straight to the point.”
“Of course, My Queen. How can I help?”
“You’re the only one I can trust with this, Blade. You’ve always been on my side, and—”
“What is it, Ara?” He stepped down so he stood beside me. “You can ask anything of me.”
“You’re good with the law, right?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because, it has come to my attention that I am of little value in this system—that David and Walter and everyone else are calling the shots, while I'm left to wander around thinking I'm making a difference.”
“Aw, Ara, it’s not like that. You’re—”
“No. It’s true. They’re so used to me being this inept little human, they haven’t seen me become the vampire—the Lilithian.” I stood taller, rolling my shoulders back. “I want you to tutor me. I want you teach me the laws, the ways, the things I'm missing so that I can finally step up and play the role I was born to play.”
“I thought Morgaine was teaching you.”
I paused for a second, thinking about her lessons. “I get the feeling sometimes that she’s teaching me only what she wants me to know.”
His brows moved slowly to pinch over the bridge of his nose. “Serious?”
I hesitated only for a second. “I’m serious.”
“So you. . .” He leaned closer, his hot breath brushing my hair with the scent of mint. “You don’t trust her?”
I shook my head, half checking over my shoulder.
He nodded, his lips thin. “Neither do I.”
“What?” My eyes flicked onto his.
He started walking, motioning for me to follow. “I’ve had my suspicions from the beginning about her. I’m not sure what the deal is, but I . . . I dunno. Something tells me not to trust her.”
“So. . .” I walked quickly, trying to keep up with him, feeling a little uncomfortable in this quadrant of the manor. “You’ll help me?”
He stopped walking. “Are you sure you want to do this—stepping up, I mean? It won’t be easy.”
I thrust my shoulders back. “If I wanted life to be easy, Blade, I would have left Drake on the throne.”
“Yeah!” He pumped his fist then held his hand in the air. “High five, girl.”
I slapped his palm. “So, does that mean you’ll help me?”
“When do we start?” he asked with a grin.
“Tonight. After lights-out.”
“Perfect. Where?”
“Oh, um, meet me in the library at twelve,” I said, turning to walk away.
“I’ll be there.”
Even though the table was only meters long, the separation between David I felt like miles. He sipped his wine, eyeing me the whole time, probably trying to get a grasp on my thoughts. But I had a mind blanket the size of Manhattan quilting them. He wasn’t getting in, no matter how hard he tried.
Jason looked across at me, his shoulders sinking, and offered a sympathetic smile. And I looked away. With the mood David was in right now, last thing I needed was him making an ‘example’ out of Jason too.
“I have to say, I agree with Walt,” David said, and I looked up. “If his contact says Drake hasn’t returned to Elysium, then I’m happy to go ahead with our plans this weekend.”
Walt nodded. “I believe it’s best, Your Highness, to get these prisoners sorted quickly. There are more important matters at hand.”
“Like our missing venom stores,” Margret added.
“We’re looking into that,” David said. “But we haven’t got anything to go on.”
“We could just call Drake and ask him if he took them?” Morgaine said, her tone light, joking. “I mean, I still have his number in my contacts.”
Everyone at the table laughed.
“Actually, I’ve sanctioned the help of our white canine friend,” David said, sipping his wine after. “He’s going to sniff out the trail.”
“Sniff it out, Majesty?” Walt raised a brow.
“Yes.” David held back a grin, knowing how ridiculous it sounded. But it was actually a good plan.
“Well, perhaps I may be of service then,” Walt added. “I could follow the dog, take a team with me, and hopefully recover our losses.”
David nodded. “Thank you, Walt. Although, I’m not sure we’ll find anything more than the route they took.”
“Much can be learned simply by knowing their method of entry,” Walt added.
My eyes narrowed involuntarily, and I sent a little thought to David: So we’re trusting Walt now, even though he’s only pretending to be Blood Bound to this Throne?
He looked up, answering Arthur then Margret, and thought, I’ll talk to you about that later, for me.
I shook the irritation from my head, biting my teeth together. One minute, Walt was the traitor that infiltrated our Council, the next minute he’s in charge of a very important operation, and David says he’ll talk about it later. How was it that I got left out of this loop along the way? If things had changed regarding Walt, I should have been the first to know. And this just cemented even deeper the notion that, as a wife, I could trust David with my heart but, as his queen, I couldn’t trust a goddamn thing he said.
I sat back in my chair and aimed my gaze at Blade, hoping he’d catch it, but his eyes were small and smiling, lost on Emily’s face as she talked with him across the table. Even Morg was watching them.
“What’s the deal?” I leaned closer to Morgaine.
She sat up, looking away from them. “What do
you mean?”
“Oh, come on, Morg. You know what I mean.” I presented Em and Blade.
“Nothing.” She smiled in their direction. “Emily just told a funny joke.”
“Oh.” I sat lower in my chair. “Guess I missed it.”
“That’s because you weren't paying attention,” she said casually, scooping some food onto her fork. “Nothing new there.”
I rolled my eyes and slumped lazily on the arm of the chair.
***
A fire burned bright between the windows, making the brown spines of old books glow orange. The tables were all bare again, the librarian having finished her cataloguing, and the room once again looked like a place of sanctuary. Even Arthur had taken up a seat by the long table facing the flames, instead of reading in his room like he had done lately.
I wandered across and peered over his shoulder. “What you readin’?”
He looked up quickly, flipping the book closed. “My Queen.”
“Human anatomy?” I frowned, plonking my butt on the chair beside him.
“Yes.” He spun in his seat to face me, resting his jaw on his hand. “I’ve decided to study human medicine again.”
“Why?”
“Well, we’re a society made up greatly of both vampires and Lilithians,” he explained. “And with Lilithian bodies retaining much of their human makeup, I figured a doctor who is versed in both vampire and human biology might be of some use.”
I nodded. “So, you planning to deliver a baby sometime soon?”
“You saw that,” he stated to himself, nodding.
“Yeah. Why are you reading up on reproductive systems?”
“I was just comparing the differences in knowledge from the days when I was the most educated man in medicine to what they know now.” He laughed, making a pile of his books as he stood. “Quite a few advances.”
“Yeah, just a few.” I stood too. “Why’s the fire burning? It’s only just September.”
“It makes me feel more…human to sit here and read with the glow of firelight.”
I looked at the chair by the fire, the pipe on the arm, and the copy The Hunchback of Notre Dame on the footstool. “You used to sit here with Arietta.”
He smiled at the scene. “Yes.”
“I'm sorry. I wish I could bring her back to life.”
“Well,” he said, picking up his reading material. “Let’s just focus on making sure I never have to say those words to you.”
I smiled as Arthur walked away. “Night, Arthur.”
“Night, my dear,” he said, then tipped his head at the dark-haired knight who entered as he exited. “Blade.”
“Arthur,” Blade said casually, turning once to watch him leave. “I think we scared him off.”
“Probably for the best anyway.” I leaned on the tabletop. “Not sure I want everyone knowing what we’re up to.”
“I thought you trusted Arthur.”
“I do. But I’m starting to see why people around here place more distance on friends than they do enemies.”
“Oh?” He leaned on the table beside me, crossing his ankles. “And why is that?”
“Because friends betray you in your best interests, Blade. And there is nothing more dangerous than a person who is trying to protect you from the truth for your own good.”
The corners of his lips turned down with thought, his head bowing once in a nod of approval. “You sure you need me to teach you anything?”
I laughed. “You sure you need to ask that question?”
He stood from his lean and wandered over to the whiteboard—stuffed neatly into a crevice behind a desk—and lifted it onto its stand. “Right, before we learn anything about the law or the ins and outs of queenly duties, let’s start with where you’re going wrong and why you may have the respect of your people but not of your peers.”
I looked into my lap for a second, digesting that. “Straight to the nitty-gritty, huh?”
“I see no need to waste time on small talk, My Queen.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Let’s get started then.”
“Sit.” He pointed to the chair.
I sat down.
“Now, first of all—” He paced the floor, his hands closed around a whiteboard marker behind his back, that English accent of his more prominent in Teacher Mode, “—most unlikeable thing you do: tantrums.”
“Tantrums?”
“Yes.” He grinned, making an overly dramatic point of stomping his foot.
“Oh. That.”
“Yes, that. A queen does not need to stomp her foot to get her own way. You’re on the right track, Ara—” He stuffed the marker in his back pocket, “—standing up for what you believe, making decisions and seeing that people follow them. It’s what you need to do. But you don’t need to stomp your foot to do it.”
“I never even realised I was.”
“I know.” He squatted in front of me and delicately took my hand until I looked at him. “And, this isn’t a pick-on-Ara session, either. I just want to point out a few things that need to change if you’re to earn the respect you actually deserve.”
“Okay.” I drew my hand back. “So, no foot-stomping.”
“Right. And every time I see you do it, I’m going to throw something at you, or maybe pinch you,” he said, probably imagining it.
“Okay. I give you official permission to pinch me if I do.”
“Excellent. Now—” He joined his hands and stood up again. “One of the other annoying things you do—”
I sat forward, listening eagerly.
“I’ve watched you with Arthur, with Mike, even with David, and one thing I can say that’s consistent about you, girl, is you tend to believe whatever whoever you’re talking to at the time says.”
“What’d you mean?”
“There’s a lot of mystery and history surrounding our past and possibly shaping our future as a nation, and you seem to believe too easily what you’re told you need to do—or even to believe.”
“Like what?”
“Take this prophecy for example. What do you actually believe about it?”
“I…” I considered all Arthur’s points, the things Jason taught me in the library the day he translated the scrolls, and all the things Morgaine had told me in the beginning—things I took as fact, that now turned out to be so far from the truth they weren’t even worth remembering. “I’m leaning more toward it being a contract, not a prophecy.”
“And what about the power of your foretold child?”
“The power to free the Damned?”
He nodded once.
“I . . . I think I can free them.” I waved my fingertips in the air.
“And what about Drake coming for your child. What do you believe about that?”
“I believe there’s a reason he wants her dead. Maybe she turns out to be the devil. I don’t know, but we can’t just rule him as the bad guy because he seeks to kill her. I think we should have a heavily guarded sit-down meet, and talk about it all.”
Blade smiled. “And why hasn’t this been done?”
“Because no one else agrees with me.”
“And . . . who has all the power in this monarchy?”
I sat straighter. “The queen.”
“Precisely. So, I reiterate—” He knelt before me, his elbow on his knee. “Why hasn’t it been done?”
“You’re right.” I stood up, forcing him to shift backward quickly. “I need a plan. I need to think about what to ask Drake, and I need to organise to meet with him.”
“But your people,” he gasped dramatically, like a shocked old woman, rising to his feet, “they won’t like it.”
“Well, it’s my decision. I may be young, but I’m not stupid.”
“I think they’ll fight you on this.”
“Then I’ll damn well overrule them,” I said, stomping my foot. “Ouch!” I swiped Blade's hand off my arm, cupping my sore skin. “You pinched me!”
“You stomped your
foot. Try again.”
I walked cautiously away from him and stood across the room, looking out the window. “A meeting with Drake, in person, to talk—sift through the lies and webs in this whole prophecy—is what’s best for my people. War leads to death. And secrecy—” I turned around to look at Blade. “It begets secrecy. I need to flush this out.”
“Okay. So, now you believe that for yourself, what will you do?”
“Tell them that’s the plan.”
“Tell whom?”
“My people, my council, my House. And they will go along with it, because anyone who opposes will be asked to step down.”
Blade appeared beside me, the dark shadows shaping his smile. “That’s my girl. And when they oppose you—which they will—what will be your immediate reaction?”
I pictured myself in front of the House, standing at the head of the boardroom table, calm, taking slow breaths, staying silent until they all finished arguing around me. “I’ll whisper,” I said, “to get their attention. I’ll tell them this is the plan. Tell them, including David, that I overrule them.”
“Just tell them?” he prompted. “No yelling?”
“I think quiet repetition should suffice.” The corners of my lips pulled outward, making me smile.
“And…how do you know this is the right course of action? How do you know I’m not leading you into some trap, bending you to my will?”
“Because I trust you.”
“You trust Arthur. You trust Morgaine. You trust—”
“Point taken. But…” I exhaled softly, touching my chest. “Blade, I’m following my own heart. Often, when people tell me something or ask me to do something, I do it because I’m trying to be the queen I’m supposed to be, even if it feels wrong. But I don’t care about that anymore. I care about doing what’s best for everyone—for my people and my family, myself last. What they think of me doesn’t really matter anymore. So, if I do what I always think is right, then I’m choosing who to trust, not just walking blindly, guided by every voice of reason I hear.”