A Shade of Kiev 2 (8 page)

T
he moment
we left the boundaries of The Shade, my migraine returned full force. And soon after, I was coughing blood again. I should have expected it. I would have had to be dense to not conclude by now that it had something to do with the spell the witches had placed over The Shade.

I tried to hide my symptoms as best as I could from my siblings. We had more important matters to focus on. I tried to distract myself from it as best as a man could distract himself from the feeling of heavy clubs beating against his skull.

We arrived at Matteo’s island the next evening. Since all three witches came with us, we didn’t need to travel by ship. We all gathered in the courtyard and they used their magic to transport us there.

I ran to the main gate as soon as we appeared on the beach. As soon as the watchmen at the wall noticed us, they would put the whole island on red alert.

“Let me in! It’s me, Kiev,” I shouted, knocking.

The gate opened slowly and Brett’s face appeared.

“Kiev?”

He opened the door wide just enough for me to step inside, then slammed it shut. Several vampires approached, eyeing me curiously.

“Bring Matteo and Saira here immediately. It’s urgent.”

Three of them raced away and returned with them several minutes later. Matteo stepped forward and stared at me.

“Matteo, the rulers of that island—The Shade, they call it—are my brother and sister,” I said, wincing from the pain in my head.

“What? How?”

“It’s too long of a story to tell you now. But they’ve agreed to hand over a witch. And they have all come to make peace with you.”

“You brought them here?” Matteo’s chest heaved as he spoke the words.

“Yes. Yes, Matteo.”

He took a step back, a shocked expression on his face. The vampires behind him exchanged mutterings.

“They agreed to let you have one of their witches,” I continued, barely hearing my own words over the throbbing in my skull. “She… she can stay with you as long as you can keep her here.”

Matteo paused, raised both hands to his face and rubbed his temples, pacing up and down. Lorena appeared in an opening in the crowd and launched herself at me, wrapping her legs round my body and kissing me hard. I broke away and pushed her away from me irritably.

“I’m so relieved you’re safe. I was worried about you,” she breathed.

“Not now,” I snapped, clenching my jaw and trying to breathe deeply.

She looked hurt but didn’t attempt to hold onto me.

Matteo stopped short and looked at me disbelievingly.

“They may be your siblings, Kiev. But I don’t trust them. Not one bit. Why couldn’t they just send the witch with you? Why did they all have to come here?”

“They’re here because they want to apologize to you for whatever caused a rift between your two groups in the first place. And they also want to thank you for taking me in.” I stepped forward and gripped his shoulders. “They’re my siblings. Trust me on this. You don’t have to even allow them to enter inside the wall if you don’t feel comfortable with it.”

Matteo still looked at me doubtfully, but appeared to be somewhat comforted by my promise.

“All right. A few minutes. They don’t set foot inside here. Saira and I will come out to meet them on the beach.” He paused. “I’m only doing this because I trust you, Kiev.”

His last words echoed around my head as I stepped back out of the gate. Erik and Helina stood on the beach in front of the crowd of vampires. I beckoned them to approach.

Then I stood aside, now delirious from the pain, and watched them approach Matteo and Saira. Matteo’s jaw was clenched, and he looked more tense than I’d ever seen him. I looked to my siblings. Their expressions were unreadable—completely blank as they eyed the two leaders of the island.

Let’s get this over and done with. Then Celice can cast the spell over the island and I can retreat there to get rid of this cursed headache.

Erik was the first to hold out his hand. Matteo paused, then took it in a shake. Helina did the same, holding it out for Saira. She shook it the best she could with her large brown paw.

Then Brett’s shout filled the air.

I had been so focussed on the leaders in front of me, I had failed to notice several vampires sneak behind my back and race toward the open gate. I whirled around. Brett attempted to shut it, his grunts filling the night air. He must have kept the door open to watch the events unfold. Somehow, they had crept into a blind spot and come round the side of the wall. Tristan leading the way, they forced their way in.

Matteo and I locked eyes. I saw shock. Then accusation. Then fury. Panic coursing through me, I whirled round to face my siblings. But they had made a run for the gate too. By this time all the vampires had already forced their way inside.

I was stunned by their speed. They had flitted into the island, conjuring up strength that I had never seen before in any vampire.

As those witches weren’t ordinary witches, clearly, these vampires were no ordinary vampires.

“No!” I screamed, racing after them. Matteo and Saira were hot on my heels.

I was seeing everything in double. I turned around, scanning the clearing to catch a glimpse of my siblings. All around me, The Shade’s vampires were attacking Matteo’s people. My people. Vampire against werewolf. Vampire against vampire. Ripping at each other’s necks. Tearing at each other with their claws.

My breath hitched when I saw a few had fallen already.

“Helina! Erik!” I screamed through the woods. I stumbled forward, even as the battle around me grew more brutal, more bodies being felled by the minute. But they didn’t answer. There was no sight of them.

Mad with fury, I swore.

Why would they do this to me?

I stumbled into a small clearing where I caught sight of Lorena struggling against Tristan. Although I’d never developed much of an attachment to Lorena, the sight of Tristan attacking her made me lose it. I flew at him, gripping the back of his neck and digging in my claws. He let go and stumbled back.

He looked like he was about to fight back, but then something flickered in his eyes when he realized who I was.
A Novalic.
He staggered back and ran away into the woods.

“What’s going on, Kiev?” Lorena asked, terror marring her beautiful features.

“I don’t know,” I gasped. Gripping my burning temples with my fingers, I darted away from her.

I retraced my steps back into the heart of the chaos. Then Matteo’s voice boomed from across the clearing.

“Retreat! Retreat to the ship! Now!”

Matteo. No. Wait.

“Kiev!” a familiar voice called out to me. I turned around. Saira bolted toward me. She didn’t stop when she reached me. She ran right into me, knocking me to the ground with her massive frame. She lowered her head over my face, her eyes alight with fury and hurt. “Why would you do this to us? We trusted you.”

Speechless, I was knocked breathless by her accusation. I didn’t have a chance to respond before she stepped off me and bounded away toward Matteo.

I staggered out onto the beach to see all the surviving vampires and werewolves fleeing toward the main ship. I caught up with Matteo just before he boarded.

“No! Matteo! Wait! I’m sorry! You don’t understand,” I yelled, my head feeling like it was splitting in two from the exertion.

He turned to face me, his chest heaving. His hair and face were wet with sweat, his shirt ripped and soaked with blood.

“There’s only one person who should be sorry,” he hissed through the night air as he gripped the ropes hanging from the side of the ship. “Me. For being fool enough to believe my sister’s killer could ever be redeemed.”

He climbed up the side of the ship and swung himself over the railing.

I watched helplessly as the ship sailed away, its shrinking silhouette gliding over the dark ocean.

“
I
don’t want
you seeing Rhys any more. Do you understand?”

I stared at my mother, my eyes wide with outrage.

“But he’s my best friend!” I spluttered.

“Mona, listen to your mother.” My father entered the room and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Rhys has been spending too much time with his aunt lately.”

“So what?”

“The council issued her a warning yesterday. She’s suspected of cursing her cousin to drown in the river.”

I stared at my mother.

“Do you understand what that means?” She gripped my shoulders and shook me. “She’s being suspected of breaking the most important law of The Sanctuary: harming another witch. Rumors are spreading that she is practicing forbidden magic! If they find her guilty, she’ll be exiled.”

“Well, all the better,” I argued. “If she’s gone, there’s no reason that I can’t continue seeing Rhys.”

“No. You’re not going to see that boy any more,” my father said sternly.

“How many times do I have to tell you? Rhys is nothing like his aunt.” I stamped my foot in frustration.

My parents glanced at each other.

“We’re not convinced of that.”

The next day, despite my attempts to persuade my parents otherwise, I didn’t go out to see Rhys at the usual time. From my window, I watched him calling up to me and kicking around stones while he waited. But I wasn’t allowed to even call out to him. I was to have no contact with him at all from then on.

When his aunt was convicted a few days later, my parents became even stricter. I was to stay in with my siblings. And I wasn’t allowed to even sit in the same classes as him.

It wasn’t until one evening when my parents had to go out to attend a meeting that I saw him again.

He climbed through my window.

“What happened?” he asked. “Why have you been ignoring me?”

I looked down at the floor in embarrassment.

“This is to do with my aunt, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

He sighed deeply and sat down on my bed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I want to see you,” I assured him. “But my parents won’t allow it.”

“You’re just going to do what your parents say?” He looked at me challengingly, one eyebrow raised, his head cocked to one side.

I stared at him and bit my lip.

“No,” I said finally.

“Then come with me.”

As I left with him that evening to take a walk down to the river, I rationalized to myself that my parents were wrong about him.

But that evening was the first time Rhys displayed his true colors to me. It was the first time I saw that dark fervor in his eyes. It was the first time I felt afraid in his company.

But being a headstrong young girl, I wasn’t going to back out of a challenge that easily.

Waiting for us down by the river was a group of other children our age, including Rhys’ siblings. It was the night they cursed our class teacher to die in her own bed. And we all watched until the final breath passed out of her.

“You don’t understand,” Rhys had said to me, his eyes gleaming in the firelight. “This isn’t about hurting people for amusement. This is about sacrifice for a greater cause.”

His words sounded strange coming from the mouth of a boy his age. Those words didn’t sound like his own. Those words sounded like his aunt’s.

“
Our council calls this forbidden magic,” he continued. “They are hypocrites. If it weren’t for our Ancients pushing the boundaries of their magic, we wouldn’t be in the position we are today. We have lost a sinful number of abilities since their time. There was a time when our race could open up gates into other realms. Now we can hardly protect our own. We have frittered away all those thousands of years’ worth of knowledge and become lazy, enjoying the fruits of their hard labor. We’re a disgrace to our own kind. Our Ancients intended for us to use the knowledge they left for us in the Scrolls to continue their work. They wanted us to advance further, not—in the name of sanctuary—become lazy and lose everything they had worked for.”

That was the evening I was first invited to join their cause. Revivalists, they called themselves. At first their ideas sounded exciting—even if scary—because I was doing all this independently, without my parents watching over me. And Rhys’ enthusiasm was infectious. I wanted to be strong and bold, like him. I wanted to take risks. I wanted to be powerful.

So I followed blindly.

Ignorant as I was, I agreed to take the oath of allegiance to their cause and be bound by it. Rhys performed it himself. Within a few weeks I was actively taking part in what they justified as restoring the boundaries of magic. Reviving our Ancients’ legacy. The Scrolls—the only recorded instructions left by the Ancients for future generations—became the rules we’d live and die by. Rhys believed that following those laws patiently and faithfully would eventually restore their powers within us. And once we had cured ourselves of the impotence we were born with, thanks to the newer generations of witches, we would take over The Sanctuary, and run it the way our Ancients had always intended it to be run.

Then one evening, we all got caught. A member of the council had been taking a walk along the river bank when she saw us.

My parents and family were shocked and devastated. But they were barely given a chance to even bid me farewell before I was expelled.

We were all exiled. I followed Rhys to the only place we knew to go—a little island north of The Sanctuary where his aunt Isolde had taken up residence.

And it was there, once Rhys was reunited with his aunt Isolde, that we all spiraled down into levels of darkness that were much further than I was willing to go.

When I admitted one day that I regretted my decision to ever join the cause, and that I wished I could return home, he became angry that I did not appreciate being a part of this. And in that moment of rage, with the help of his aunt, he performed a spell that was to alter my life forever. He bound me to him.

Still, not understanding the implications of betraying both the oath and binding spell at once, I escaped back to my family.

My parents pleaded with the council that I was innocent and should not be expelled. But they along with the rest of my family died before the case even had time to go to trial. And my powers as a witch vanished.

After that, I was beaten, labeled a heretic, and thrown out of The Sanctuary once again. I had no choice but to return to Rhys. I didn’t think I could survive on my own in the wilderness at such a young age, especially not without magic. I’d never left The Sanctuary all my life until the day I first left with Rhys.

But over the years I spent with Rhys, his aunt, and the others who left with us, I realized that going out on my own, even without magic, was a far more attractive option. I was a slave to a cause I didn’t believe in. A foolish decision I’d made as a child, I was now suffering the consequences for as an adult.

I understood my curse by then. Everybody I loved was already dead. I had nothing left to lose. So I made the decision to leave and never get close to anyone. That way, I could have my freedom without anybody getting hurt.

What could go wrong?

R
hys
, Isolde and Efren gathered around my bed the following morning.

“It’s time,” Rhys said.

I wrapped myself in the black cloak he handed me and followed them out of the room.

We entered the large chamber with the red door and I took a seat around the circular table next to Rhys.

“We should begin with Mona stating her oath,” Isolde said sternly. She walked over to the cupboard and withdrew a heavy leather book—the Ancients’ Scrolls—and brought it back to the table. “And before we begin this, remember, each time you run away, the oath you take next time will be stronger, and come with more consequences should it ever be broken. This is your third time now taking this oath. Should Rhys see that you have broken it again, he will have no choice but to abide by the rules and kill you himself.”

Rhys glanced my way, looking uncomfortable.

I knew that he wouldn’t want to kill me. But Rhys didn’t ever act according to personal desire. He only acted according to the rules set down by the Ancients. As was the way of every other witch in this coven.

“I understand,” I croaked.

“Then begin your oath,” Efren muttered. “You should know it well enough by now.”

I placed both of my palms flat over the scrolls Isolde had placed in front of me and chanted the ancient syllables that would bind me to live and die by the rules of the Ancients.

My throat became so dry, I was rasping by the time I got to saying the final words. My lips trembled as I withdrew my hands from the scrolls. Rhys took one of my hands in his while Isolde took the other and we all formed a circle—chanting the spell that would seal the oath.

I felt like I was sealing my own coffin.

Then silence fell on the room. After three minutes, Isolde and Efren got up and left the room. I remained sitting, my hands still shaking. Rhys reached for me and tilted my chin up to face him. I fought to avert my eyes away. I was scared that he would see the tears within them. And I hated to cry before him. I hated him to see me weak.

I returned to my room and stayed there the rest of the day, dreading the moment Rhys would return later on. Because I had no more excuse to live separately from him. Now that I’d been reinitiated, I was fit to share Rhys’ bed again.

Soon after midnight, the door to my room opened. He came in and planted a kiss on my bare shoulder before picking me up and carrying me to his room. As I lay in my nightgown, I felt him settle down beside me, sliding an arm around me and drawing my back closer against him.

“Do you ever think about how we used to be?” I whispered, my eyes glazing over at the memory of the carefree boy he once was. After all this time, I still kept that image of him etched in my memory. I supposed I did it because it helped me to be less afraid of him at times like this.

I felt him sigh against my neck.

“When we were frivolous children? No.”

I reached for one of his large hands and held it in mine. I stretched out his palm, spreading out his long fingers, and stared at it.

“I liked you better then.”

There was a pause. He reached around my midriff and flipped me over so that I was facing him. Propping his head up on the pillow, he looked down at me, his hand resting on my thigh. His face was stern, eyes intense as ever.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve with this conversation. Just promise not to leave me again. All right?”

I nodded, my heart pounding in my chest.

He planted a kiss on my forehead and extinguished the bedside light.

Give it up, Mona. He’s too far gone.

As you will be soon.