Mira (29 page)
“Mira! Get a hold of yourself.
You can’t go in there.
It’s gone.”
Finally she stopped fighting him and collapsed into his arms crying.
“I can’t believe this has happened.
I hope Rillan is alright.”
“Come with me,” he said, ignoring her last comment.
“You’ll stay in my family house tonight.
You’ll be part of the family soon enough.”
Mira barely protested.
She was so tired she thought she might collapse and fall asleep in the clearing beside the burning round house.
The fire raged on through the night.
It was all they could do to keep it from consuming the other buildings nearby.
With the breaking of day, the druids found themselves sifting through the ashes, trying to account for bodies and attempting to determine if the vampire died in the flames or not.
Chapter 15
“Absolutely not,” growled an ancient voice from the back of the room.
Echoes of agreement bounced from one side of the room to the other.
Lilith waited for the group to calm down.
“I fully expected the reaction would be thus.
Still, I propose that we all consider what I suggest.”
Knowing the value of letting others come to the correct decision on their own better than most, Lilith sat and allowed the various factions to argue.
“It certainly would solve a couple problems.
Firstly, we wouldn’t have to worry about sacrifices any longer.
Secondly, if we wanted him to leave, he could.”
“At the very same time, what prohibits him from merely going at that point, whether we want him to or not?”
More rumbling filled the room, while people voiced their concerns about giving Rillan a way to be free of them.
“We still need protection.”
“Well maybe this kind of protection isn’t right any longer.”
“What do you propose?”
“Get rid of the vampire.
If we’re going to start using the ancient rites again, then perhaps there would be a better solution to our protection than the vampire.”
“Yes, something not so frighteningly dangerous.”
“We need an army.”
“An army whose loyalty is in the right place.”
“One that can’t be bought off.”
“An army that doesn’t need our blood!”
“Give him Mira.”
“Yes, give her to him.”
“She wants to go.
Let her.”
Lilith waited until the general consensus seemed to favor sending Mira back to Rillan.
“I wish it to be made clear what we are suggesting here.
Immortality is not a gift given lightly.
Our people decided long ago that death is necessary to bring meaning to life.
Without it
,
we found that people fell into patterns of depravity.
Without consequence it is difficult for a human mind to resolve questions of morality.
Rillan ap Tiernay was made into a monster on purpose.
It was believed that his existence in death would remind him what he was granted.”
There was silence in the room.
Most of the elders at some point were told the origins of the vampire and why the ancients had chosen to create such a thing.
Even so, those lessons were long ago, and no one in the room seemed even a little hesitant to revisit the rites.
Lilith could almost see the thoughts floating about the heads in the room.
“Do we still want to grant Mira something so precious as eternal life?”
“Lilith?”
The voice that spoke was small and quiet.
The woman who spoke rarely said anything, but when she spoke everyone listened.
It was assumed that she would one day take Lilith’s place.
“Why do you insist upon leading us all by the nose?
This is the point where the room has been cued to argue that Mira’s consequence is to live eternally with the vampire and is therefore just as cursed as his existence.
You have your way on this.
I believe that the entire room has agreed.
Enough guided debate.
You skirt the true issue.
We may have unleashed another.”
No one wanted to speak to the thought that Aris may have survived the fire.
Now it had been said aloud.
The small woman continued to speak.
“So we create a companion for Rillan.
And we face the possibility that Aris has escaped, and we’ve unleashed something terrible.
Is that a topic we are going to discuss?
Is there even anything to discuss?
Can we change it?”
Arguing continued for hours.
Loudly and quietly, sometimes even violently, people proposed solutions to dealing with the possibility that an insane vampire had escaped their village.
* * * *
The storm threatened all afternoon.
Darius ap Jos watched the sky through the tree branches, with an impending sense of foreboding.
It was nearly dark enough to call it evening instead of afternoon.
With a sudden thunderclap
,
the sky opened up.
Even the cover of the forest foliage wasn’t enough to keep the rain from soaking through his cloak.
“Fucking hired Empire scum,”
Darius swore to himself.
“If they had only listened to me.”
Spending most of his time walking in unknown directions, scavenging food, and blaming the Empire for his failure was leaving a bad taste in his mouth.
It was all he could do to keep himself from believing that Marcus had sent the storm.
No matter how he tried, Darius couldn’t think his way out of this one.
He wasn’t welcome at the Circle, and he was no longer welcome in the Empire.
When the drugs wore off and Marcus realized what actually happened
,
there may actually be a price placed on Darius’ head.
“I will find a way.
When I do, they’ll all pay.”
Spotting a small cave mouth in the side of a hill
,
Darius ducked in out of the rain, praying that it wasn’t occupied.
It looked the perfect home for a bear or worse.
Even with the prospect of running into an unfriendly animal, the rain was more than enough incentive for Darius to chance the encounter and head for the shelter.
“Who is he,” Aris asked herself under her breath.
Rain pounded so loudly she almost didn’t hear the strange voice.
He looks familiar.
I don’t really know.
“Poor soul.
He’s so wet and bedraggled.
You could help him.”
How?
“No one wants to wander alone.
You certainly don’t.”
Do you think he would want to come with me?
“Of course.
What man wouldn’t want what you can give?
What woman wouldn’t want it?”
I don’t,
Aris whispered.
“
You’re a cowardly child.
Anyone else would give anything to live forever.
Even their very souls.”
I don’t think they would.
“You don’t know human nature very well.
Trust me.
Have I lied to you?”
No.
“Well then?”
Somewhere in the black of the cave Darius thought he may have heard something.
Turning he stared into the abyssal darkness.
Nothing.
* * * *
Even Helen tried to convince Liam to wait for the elders.
Adamantly Liam shook his head.
“They all knew when the handfasting was to take place.
It isn’t necessary for them to be here.
I’m not waiting for anything else to go wrong.”
All of the decorations had been washed away by the storm.
Mira loved the clean smell of rain.
It was as if the Fates were reassuring her that the ceremony wouldn’t happen.
The entire clearing was a mess of trampled scattered plants and flowers.
Even so, there was no convincing Liam that the ceremony wasn’t going to happen.
“It’s alright Helen,” Mira said softly.
She fiddled with the pendant around her neck as she spoke, not really looking at anything.
“The Fates seem to rule my future no matter what I do.
If this is what is meant to happen—“
“Finally some sense,” Liam interrupted.
He took Mira’s hands in his, tearing her fingers away from the pendant.
It fell in slow motion to land on Mira’s chest between her breasts.
As he took her hands, the surrounding druids began to sing.
No joy or true feeling could be heard in the song.
The druids were tired and upset that Liam was being so insistent.
He hadn’t even listened, when he was warned that after such tragedy and upset there was very little chance that they would be able to summon any of the fey.
Voices droned on into the stormy sky, singing the familiar words without emotion, and a few sparkling lights began to blink and flicker around them.
“That’s enough, Liam.”
Lilith’s voice brought an end to the song and the ceremony without hesitation.
“What do you mean by this?”
Liam seemed on the verge of tears.
“I thought we had your blessing Lilith.”
“Liam,” Lilith sighed in obvious frustration.
She rarely allowed her emotions to show through.
Between the meeting she just left and Liam rushing into the handfasting, she was losing her patience.
“Even if the elders had no ulterior motives in canceling your handfasting, I venture to guess that you are intelligent enough to recognize that Mira is the only sacrifice left.
Is there any chance that you may have attempted to push this through before the meeting finished in theveinvain
hope that if you had already staked your claim to her we may not send her back to the vampire?”
If not for the anger in her tone
,
Liam may have tried to deny the accusations.
But he would have been lying, and it was obvious that would only make matters worse.
Releasing Mira’s hands, the cord meant to bind them together fell to the ground at their feet.
“Mira,” he said softly, not able to look her in the eyes.
“I’m sorry Liam.
This wasn’t meant to be.”
Mira wished she could take his pain away.
He merely had the bad luck of being in the middle of a very difficult situation.
“He’ll never be able to love you the way I could have,” Liam said softly.
Reaching up
,
Mira brushed Liam’s hair back from his face and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead.
“Perhaps not.
Still, I need to let him try.
You don’t have to understand.”
“That’s good,” he answered angrily.
Finally he looked up at her, tears on his cheeks; his eyes hard as steel.
“I never will.”
WiththatLiam turned away and left the stones.
Mira faced Lilith.
Excitement starting to build in her chest, even through the concern she felt for Liam.
“Is there nothing that can be done for him?”
“Your heart is too good at times child.”
Lilith shook her head.
“There’s no need.
He’ll get over this and take a different wife.
He’ll be fine.
Liam is a good strong man.
He’ll learn that he’s capable of loving another, in time.”