by E. M. Knight
“Enough of this,” Morgan announces. “I came here to stem the discord running rampant amongst you. Brayson—I charge you with an attempt at high treason. The voice was a figment of your imagination and, charismatic as you are, you got the other humans around you to agree. You are the troublemaker here. And, as they say—” she gives a vicious grin, “—cut the head off the snake, and the body will follow.”
Chapter Nineteen
PHILLIP
On Mother’s proclamation, the entire assembly before us explodes into a riot of confusion.
“The boy is innocent!” somebody yells.
“We all heard it! We all heard the Voice!”
“It’s true! It spoke to all of us!”
“Brayson’s done nothing wrong!”
Mother lets the protests go on and on for a long time. She turns to me and Raul. “You see what you must do to free their tongues?” she asks with a knowing smile.
She turns back to free the villagers below her.
“Very well!” she proclaims. “Now that more of you have owned up to hearing this voice, the real questions can begin. Did Brayson speak the truth? Did the Voice tell you that these caves would collapse?”
“Yes!” a thousand voices scream in unison.
“And you all claim to have heard it?” Mother asks. “Each of you can vouch for what it said?”
More cries of agreement rain up from the crowd.
Leonardo looks up. “My Queen, if I may offer an opinion?”
Mother gestures for him to go on.
“The humans are liars,” he hisses. “My guards and I have preternatural hearing, many times better than any of theirs. If there was a voice whispering in their ears, we would have heard it.”
“A salient point,” Mother admits. She turns to me. “Phillip? What do you think?”
I’m staggered by the sudden address. “You’re asking me?”
“You are my son, aren’t you? One of my two boys? Your opinion matters. So I must know.”
I flinch at how obvious Mother’s attempt is to disown James, and at the unnatural way she forces the ‘fact’ that she only has two sons.
“Leonardo might have a point,” I say, thinking. “But that doesn’t mean the humans are lying. Look at them! Have you ever seen them united with such conviction? Have you ever seen them with so much genuine fear in their eyes?”
I glance at Raul and Eleira, who have moved closer to each other.
“Something scared them,” I finish in a low voice. “What it was, I couldn’t tell you. But to ignore it now and call them all liars would have them quickly make an enemy of you. And despite everything, Mother, we need them on our side. The Haven would collapse if they revolt.”
“They don’t have the courage to revolt.”
I turn around in surprise. Smithson is strolling toward us, every cocky step a measure of his arrogance.
All my instincts go on high alert. There is something terribly rotten about the man.
By the way Raul tensed at Smithson’s unexpected arrival, I can tell my brother feels the same.
“If you want my advice,” the Captain Commander continues, addressing the Queen, “make an example of the boy. Show them what a true ruler does when challenged by an uprising. If you do not do it with a heavy hand now…” he spreads his arms, “…they will start to think you weak. And if that happens—well, that’s when the real danger sets in.”
He finishes his walk right at the Queen’s side and whispers something in her ear.
“You’re right,” she says finally. She leans across and kisses the older vampire on his cheek. “What I would do without your sage council, I have no idea. When I’m surrounded by fools and weaklings…”
She trails off. Then, without any warning, she thrusts her staff forward. The light singles out the human boy again.
“Brayson!” she calls loudly. “I stand by my original position. You are hereby charged with high treason and attempt at rebellion. Treason against your Queen is the highest crime a human can be accused of.
“There will be no trial. I sentence you to death, at the hands of my most loyal guards, who’ve done an admirable job in stemming this ill-advised uprising. Leonardo—you may take him now.”
The vampire guard surges forward and grabs hold of the boy’s neck. The other humans are so shocked by the pronouncement that none offer their help. A few yell weak protests from the fringes, but other than that—nothing.
Leonardo drags the human boy, kicking and screaming, out of the group of humans and onto the vampire side of the divide. He puts him in a headlock and readies to sink his fangs into his neck…
Eleira steps forward. “No!”
Her order alone would normally do nothing. But with the word I feel such a strong surge of power come from her, power that all vampires respond to, thanks to the overruling hierarchy, that Leonardo goes shock-still.
He looks up, his eyes burning with bloodlust. But they’re glazed over at the same time, as is what happens when a stronger vampire exerts her rule. Brayson stops struggling, too entranced by his unexpected champion.
Raul quickly runs to Eleira and takes her hand. I hope it’s to show her that she has his support, because if I know my Mother—and I do—what the Queen does next is not going to be pretty.
But Morgan surprises even me by regarding Eleira coolly. “You challenge me?” she asks.
There’s a current of danger beneath her voice.
Eleira stares at the Queen totally defiant. “There has to be a trial,” she says. “It’s the only way the humans will ever respect you.”
“And what makes you think she needs their respect, girl?” Smithson growls.
“Eleira’s right,” Raul says. “We have to have justice in The Haven. Doing something like this, acting in the spur of the moment, sets the wrong precedent. Justice has to extend to vampires and humans, if we’re to co-exist.”
“So my son mirrors his lover’s ideals,” Mother murmurs. “And you, Phillip? Do you side with them, too?”
I step toward the pair. “I do.”
“Ah,” Mother says. “It seems once again, I’ve been overruled.” She looks down.
“Leonardo,” she calls out. “Release the boy.”
The guard lets go. Brayson staggers away and stumbles to a stop a good six paces clear of any vampire.
The assembly beneath us has grown ghastly quiet. Both vampires and humans are waiting to see what happens next.
Mother directs the light of her staff at Brayson. “You heard what my advisors have said,” she intones. “Lucky for you, you won’t be made into a vampire’s meal. Unluckily—” her voice takes on a melancholy inflection, “—neither will you leave this encounter with your life.”
Before any of us can react, Morgan mutters an incantation. White hot flame bursts from the end of her staff.
Brayson is instantly engulfed by the fire.
“No!” Eleira screams. “No, no, NO!”
But it’s too late. The fire winks out. Nothing remains of the boy but a pile of ash on the ground.
The Queen looks at Eleira sadly. “You see what you made me do?” she asks, in a voice barely above a whisper.
But her soft voice carries through the whole of the underground space. She must have bewitched it.
Nobody else dares breathe.
Mother turns to speak to the humans.
“Remember this day!” she tells them. “Remember it as the day you let the words of a liar, a fraud, a cheat, ruffle you into arms against your most merciful ruler. Remember that The Haven abides by the justice of the Queen, and to go against me is to spit death in the eye and expect death not to strike back. I can be fair, yes—but for that, I require your trust.”
“If all you wanted was to leave this enclosure…?” she spreads her hands and gives an apathetic shrug. “All you had to do was ask. Leonardo?”
The shocked guard looks up. “Yes, my Queen?”
“Escort the humans back to the villag
e. They’ve been here long enough. See that the rebuild begins tonight. They have shirked that responsibility for too many days.”
Leonardo bows deeply. “Of course.”
Morgan addresses the human crowd one last time. “I hope this serves as a valuable lesson for you all. There was never any need for such, ahem, histrionics, to get my attention.”
She turns and walks away. “Now,” she says, only to us, “Let’s go see what James has gotten himself up to.”
Chapter Twenty
JAMES
I wade out of the icy river, shivering as my body tries to warm itself.
Even vampires get cold. We may be more resistant to the effects, and exposure can never kill us, but that does not mean we are immune to the nasty sensation.
Especially when it comes together with tumbling around and being forced this way and that by a mighty river.
By now, I’m miles away from The Haven. I don’t think even Mother knew about the river. I certainly did not.
But somebody else did.
The Voice that told me to jump was not imagined. I did not make it up. I’m sure of it now. I heard it in my head, clear as day.
As I was swimming, an uncomfortable memory bubbled up. I had heard the Voice once before, but not in my head. I heard it when its owner spoke to me outside The Crypts.
It belongs to The Ancient.
It’s a measure of how badly the silver collar is affecting me that I did not pick up on the association right away. Even now, every step I take away from the river is done in a haze. The collar is not as bad as the velvet sack, but in my weakened state, it makes a close second.
I make my way to a nearby boulder and hurl myself onto it. The rushing sound of water continues beyond me. Up ahead I can see the river run out from the cave. It falls in a steep waterfall.
I can also see the sun. It’s evening out there, which means I have to remain here, underground, for however long it takes for it to set.
I wish I could find another route. The more miles I put between me and The Haven, the better. Who knows how many of Mother’s guards have already come after me?
I force myself to stand. I’m still woozy, but I don’t want to be caught unawares by the guards bound to be coming after me.
To my relief, I find the cave is shaped exactly as I first thought. There are only two ways out, following the river back up, or through the gaping end of the waterfall.
I get antsy with nothing to do, so I decide to use the remaining hours of daylight to try getting the collar off. I know there’s a mechanism, some sort of latch, behind my neck.
Yet every time I try to find it with my fingers it’s not the pain from touching silver that stops me, but a chilling numbness that shoots down both arms. It must be an effect of the spell Mother put on it.
There’s no way to get the collar off on my own.
I curse and fling myself down, back on the same boulder.
The sooner I get this blasted collar off me, the better.
I’m anxious waiting for night. When it finally comes, I breathe a sigh of relief and venture to the edge of the waterfall. I look down.
Whoa.
I’m standing high above the sheer cliff face of a mountain. The falling water disappears below me in a shroud of mist. I can’t tell exactly how long the drop is, but I know it’s sizable. Impressive. Perhaps even…
Frightening.
There is only so much force a vampire can withstand without shattering his bones. And even if the impact won’t kill you, healing from such a fall could take days.
Do I have days to spend lying broken on the ground, knowing Mother’s guards are coming after me? And what about the sun? I’d be unprotected down there. It would scorch my skin and eventually kill me.
“IF YOU JUMP, WE WILL FIND YOU.”
I spin around. “Who said that?” I hiss.
“TRUST, BROTHER. TRUST IN US.”
My head! It’s the Voice in my head again. But this one is different from the one I heard in my cell.
“Who are you?”
“TRUST,” the Voice repeats. “TRUST AND JUMP. TRUST…”
It fades away. In its place comes a stark emptiness.
I eye the space before me. Do I dare listen to the Voice? Am I going crazy? Maybe such a long exposure to silver is making my mind imagine things that are not there.
“Voice,” I say. “If you are truly there, give me some sort of proof!”
Silence greets me.
I scoff. “Just as I thought,” I mutter. I edge my way closer to the opening. Maybe I don’t have to jump—maybe I could scale my way down, and—
All of a sudden the ground starts to shake. I leap back from the edge. There comes a monstrous roar, and next thing I know, the roof is caving in behind me, sealing the river off as more and more rubble comes crashing down.
The loud noise disorients me, all because of the silver collar. I lose sense of where I am, and my head starts to spin. I stumble, and, in the shaking, trip and fall.
Thankfully, I’ve gotten far enough from the ledge to avoid that endless drop.
After what seems an age, the shaking stops. I wipe the dust from my eyes and look out at the end result of the quake.
The way back is completely sealed. Only the tiniest trickle of water makes its way through the rocks.
“IS THAT NOT PROOF ENOUGH FOR YOU?” the Voice screams in my mind.
I bolt up. “You did this,” I say.
“YES.”
“And you want me to…” I look out over the edge. The fall is bottomless. “…jump?”
“IT IS YOUR ONLY WAY OUT.”
“And so it is,” I agree.
I mutter an oath and step out over the edge to plunge into the nothingness far below.
Chapter Twenty-One
ELEIRA
My mouth tastes of ash in the aftermath of Morgan’s senseless murder of the boy.
I want to say that I cannot believe she would do something like that… but it isn’t true. I know how much value the Queen places on human life.
It isn’t much.
I’m part of a solemn group that follows her through The Haven. We’re going back to the castle, from which point Morgan will lead us to James’s cell.
“If I find out that any of you had a part to play in this,” the Queen says as we delve into the darkness below her fortress, “the consequences for you will not be pretty.”
Raul and Phillip shoot each other an unreadable look. Smithson glares openly at the two of them.
“Eleira, come away from there,” the Queen beckons. “Walk with me.”
I glance at Raul, who gives me a miniscule nod.
I walk forward and join Morgan.
“You’re troubled,” she tells me. “I can see it in your eyes.”
I press my lips together.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one, I think.
“You don’t like the way I handled things with the villagers,” she continues. “Your flaw, my dear, is that you have a weak heart. You’re still hanging on to the parts of you that are human.
“That will pass, given enough time. We must both stay patient, and it will pass. Soon, you will fully embrace all your vampiric gifts. Small trifles like a single human life will mean nothing to you.”
“You’re wrong,” I say. “If you think I’ll ever be like you—”
She cuts me off with a delicate cough. “You’re already more like me than you think.” She glances at my free hand. “That ring on your finger. Where did you get it?”
Immediately I cradle my hand into my body, hiding it from her. “It was a gift,” I say.
“You weren’t wearing it when you escaped The Haven. Who did you get it from? Let me guess… James? No, that’s not his style. Perhaps somebody you met as his captive? But that doesn’t make sense either. Hm…” she taps her lips. Then she lifts one finger up. “Ah! Of course, I know. It came from Raul.”
I tense at the way she says his name. She
knew the ring was from him the entire time.
She holds her hand out. “May I see it?” she asks.
On instinct, I angle my body away to protect the piece of jewelry.
“Oh, I won’t take it off your finger, don’t worry,” she says. “I simply want to examine it from up close.”
I glance over my shoulder at Raul and Phillip. They’re engaged in a deep conversation with each other and don’t notice me.
“Eleira…” Morgan says. “You’re not going to defy a direct order from your Queen, are you?”
I sigh and hold my arm out. “Doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice,” I mutter.
“Oh, but this is spectacular!” Morgan marvels once she touches the ring. “I can feel the power within. How did my son ever come across something precious like this?” She shakes her head. “That doesn’t matter, since it’s yours now.” She gives me a most meaningful look. “You know the deadline I set of three days?”
I eye her warily. “Yes?”
“When you come to me with your final decision, you will also give me the ring.”
I jerk my hand away. “What?”
“I can feel what it’s doing to you, Eleira. It’s preventing you from becoming the woman you are destined to be. I will not have the future Queen of The Haven be suppressed the way Phillip was for so many years. I’ve been too lenient with him in the past. But the time for leniency ends with your coming. The Haven will be ruled with an iron fist while you are being groomed for power. The first step of that is getting you to accept your vampire nature. Without…” she casts a disgusted glance at my ring, “…without your abilities being hampered.”
The worst kind of sickness settles in my stomach. It feels like all my defenses are being stripped bare.
Just when I start to look back at Raul for help, the ground starts to shake.
We’re thrown against the side wall. The vampires around me quickly regain their balance.
“What was that?” Smithson yells. He casts a worried look at the stone above us. “If this place caves…!”
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence. At that moment a bright blue light flows out from around Morgan. It envelops us in a protective orb.