The Vampire Gift 2: Kingdom of Ash (14 page)

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen what I have,” Raul says softly.

Smithson stares at me.

“She’s the one they want,” he says. “Isn’t she? But what is so special about some newly-turned vampire—”

Morgan slaps him. Full on, across the face, she slaps him. “Don’t be a fool! You feel her strength. No, if they’ve come after Eleira, we must do everything we can to protect her. And that includes carting her out of harm’s way if she’s threatened.” She looks at her two sons. “Can I trust you both to that task?”

The brothers nod.

“Wait!” I protest. “I don’t understand. How does one small earthquake possibly mean we’re under attack? It doesn’t make sense.”

“She’s right,” Smithson says grudgingly. “It could be coincidence.”

“You think it’s coincidence that the humans
all
heard a voice?” Morgan seethes. “No. Somebody—or something—is trying to undermine my rule. And the force is coming from the Outside.”

“You believe there was a voice!” I gasp.

“Of course, I believe it,” Morgan hisses. “I’d be an idiot not to.”

“But you said… you
killed
the boy…”

“To stem the humans’ discord and to show that I won’t be swayed or influenced by them,” she says. “It calmed them down, didn’t it? It got them to conform?”

“That’s horrible,” I whisper.

“That’s what being a ruler is!” The Queen glares at me. “We’re vampires. You’re a vampire. We’re all creatures of the night! You’re also a witch—the trials of humans mean nothing to you.”

“You rely on them,” I begin.

Morgan slices a hand through the air. “Enough of this. Smithson, what are you still doing here? I told you to run!”

“I don’t think it’s wise for me to leave your side,” he begins.

“You think I’m under threat from my
children?” S
he scoffs. “I don’t like you questioning me, Captain Commander. I won’t tell you again. Go. Now.”

He offers a quick bow and darts back the way we came.

Morgan turns to all of us. “Now,” she says. “On to James.”

RAUL

I stand on the outskirts of our group, looking into James’s empty cell.

The hole in the floor is enormous. Each of us have come up to the edge and looked down.

The fall into the water below would knock out the strongest vampire.

Mother tells us all to step back as she casts a probing spell underground. Just before she does it, though, she calls Eleira forward.

“You watch,” she says. “See if you can pick up on anything I do.”

Eleira swallows, clearly uncomfortable being around my Mother after their prior argument, but then comes close.

I turn my attention away from them and look at the crater. Who could have helped James escape like this? It’s definitely not coincidence.

How many allies did he make in The Crypts?

Phillip shuffles around the edge. “It’s a long way down,” he says. He lowers his voice. “Do you think James could have recovered from the fall fast enough to get away?”

“I hope so,” I mutter under my breath. “It’s the only chance he has.”

Phillip nods, deep in thought.

After a few moments, my Mother makes a horrible noise of frustration. “
Gah
,” she says. The light around her dies out. Eleira shivers and steps away. “The way is blocked. A pile of rocks came crashing down to block the river. That was the earthquake we felt.”

“And James?” I ask, hope rising inside me.

“Gone,” Mother spits. She turns away and strides toward the exit in a fury. “Looks like we have another vampire hunt on our hands.”

I don’t say anything out loud, but inwards, I cheer my older brother on.

Get as far from this place as possible, James,
I think.
No matter your faults, nobody deserves a fate like that sentenced to you.

SMITHSON

Fury takes me that the Queen would so easily dismiss me from her side.

My whole purpose in coming to The Haven is to ingratiate myself to her. I must make myself invaluable. I must have her absolute trust.

Without it, none of my goals are possible.

I scowl at a rag-tag villager who stumbles into my path. The man gasps, frightened, and trips over his feet. He falls.

I pick him up by the neck and jerk him close to me. “Don’t,” I warn, “get in my way again.” I shoot a disgusted glance at the burned-out huts and houses surrounding me. “Shouldn’t you be making yourself useful with repairs?”

“Y-yes,” he stammers. The other humans take a wide berth around us. None step in to help their own.

“Then get to it,” I hiss, shoving him away. “If I catch you slacking again, it’s right back to the underground.”

He mutters a few frightened placations and turns to run the other way.

I watch him go. He doesn’t know how close I came to taking his blood. It’d be against the rules governing The Haven… but not such a big transgression that it couldn’t be overlooked for the Captain Commander of the Queen’s Royal Guard.

I take a moment to consult with the guard from the caverns, Leonardo. He’s watching over and directing the humans in their restoration work along with fifty other vampires.

“Keep an eye on that one,” I say, pointing out the human who had gotten in my way. “He seems likely to make trouble.”

Leonardo nods.

“The Queen wants posts around the outskirts of The Haven,” I continue. “How many can you spare?”

Leonardo looks around at his team, and then at the humans milling about. “Half,” he says.

“Good. I don’t need more.” I count out the guards who will come with me. “You’ve done a good job keeping order. Make sure it lasts.”

Leonardo gives me a salute, and I walk away with my new retinue.

Half an hour later, all the guards are where I need them. It seems like an awful waste of resources. If the Queen would
listen
to me, she’d understand that the danger comes from that upstart young vampire-witch she keeps beside her. Eleira.

Not from an imagined, unseen foe from the Outside.

But my temper has cooled off, and I understand now that I have to do exactly as she says for me to get her complete trust. Our shared history gives me a slight leg-up, but not as much as I had assumed when I first arrived.

Once my duties are complete, I decide to turn my attention to the one vampire in here I
know
is not all she pretends to be. Victoria.

I look through the view-latch to the cell. She’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room at the top floor of the tallest tower in the castle. Her eyes are closed. She seems to be meditating.

I snap the view latch shut and undo the main lock. I take a moment to prepare myself for the assault on my senses that all the silver on the other side will bring.

Then, taking a deep breath, I push the door open.

Victoria looks up right away. “About time,” she says. “I was beginning to grow bored. I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”

“Don’t move,” I warn. I shift one hand to the pommel of my sword. “This isn’t a friendly visit. I’m here for answers.”

“About what, my darling?” she wonders. She cocks her head to one side and gives a little laugh. “You don’t need to be so guarded all the time. You must know that if I wanted to kill you—” she shows her teeth, “—you’d already be dead.”

“Your co-conspirator, James, broke free today.”

Victoria’s eyebrows shoot up. “You don’t say. Where is he now?”

“Far from here. Out of the Queen’s reach.”

She bats her eyes. “
You
wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would you, Smithson?”

I spit on the ground and growl. “Don’t insult me, wench. My allegiances are to the Queen alone.”

“So you say,” Victoria mumbles. In a smooth, flowing motion, she stands up. She stretches her bound hands over her head like a cat, not bothered at all by the silver surrounding her.

In fact, she seems perfectly at ease in this place.

“Your strength is fading,” I inform her point-blank. “You’re weaker than when we first met.”

She shoots me a dangerous look. “It’ll still take many weeks until I’m as weak as you.”

“Don’t test me.”

“Nothing of the sort,” she promises. “It’s just… an impartial observation.”

I scoff.

“So, you said you want answers?” She steps toward me. I shift my grip on Witchbane aggressively. She stops. “If you want answers, you need to first ask questions.”

The one thing that’s been bugging me the whole time I’ve known her comes to mind. “How can you stand the silver?” I demand. “It’s not pure strength. Otherwise vampires would become less susceptible to the metal as we age. We do not. So why you?” I narrow my eyes at her in consideration. “It has to do with The Ancient’s blood, doesn’t it?”

“Oh no.” She shakes her head and gives a perverse grin. “The Ancient has the same weakness that all vampires do.”

“Then what? Is it magic?”

“Not magic.” She gives a wistful sigh. “I cannot do any of the sort.”

“Then what?” I ask, stepping closer.

She holds her arm out toward me. “Do you see my skin?”

“What of it?”

“Have you ever known a vampire with a tanned complexion?”

“I assumed you were like that when you were turned.”

She laughs again. “How little you truly know. No. Even if I
were
like this when I was turned, my skin would pale from lack of sun. I’m tanned, Smithson, because
I go out in the sun.
”

“What?” I shake my head. “You can’t. The light would burn you to a crisp!”

“Oh, that’s what you want to believe. The truth? Being in the sun is simply… painful. It does not kill.”

“I know
that
to be a lie,” I growl. “I’ve seen vampire’s tortured by being left in the sun’s rays.”
I’ve ordered vampires tortured by being out in the sun’s rays.
“The stronger ones might last longer, but in the end, they all perish. If left out there long enough.”

“Then I guess I really am the strongest you’ve ever met.” She winks at me. Then she shrugs. “What can I tell you? The pain of the sun, the discomfort of silver… I
crave
those sorts of feelings. I
embrace
them. That’s why your cells, your silver, your sword—that’s why none of those things frighten me.”

“You’re a masochist,” I say under my breath.

“Maybe. Some might call me that. But you didn’t come here to discuss my… personal perversions. And yet I’ve given them away. Could it be that I trust you, Smithson?”

“Don’t,” I warn. “Don’t get any ideas in your head. You’re still my captive.”

“Yet with all you know about me, don’t you think it would be
so easy
for me to break out?”

“No,” I say. “You have a high opinion of yourself. I respect that. But if you are like that around the Queen, you will get yourself killed sooner or later.”

She throws her head back and laughs. “Oh, I
highly
doubt that. The Queen is desperate. She needs me more than she knows. Tell me about James. He’s gone?”

“Yes. We suspect your coven had something to do with it. The question is,” I start to pace the cell, despite the discomfort moving around silver gives me, “why would they break him out?”

“You know it’s them for a fact?” Victoria asks.

“The Queen was sure of it.”

“It’s easy, then.” Victoria shrugs. “James knows their secrets. Logan would do anything to keep those secrets safe.”

“But you know those secrets, too,” I say.

“Yes.” She smiles at me, and it’s the smile of an opponent who knows she has the upper hand. “I know them, and many, many more.”

ELEIRA

When we emerge out into the night, I feel like I can take my first full breath in ages.

I did not like the close proximity of the underground. It reminded me too much of my imprisoned arrival in The Haven.

The magic Morgan showed me… I wanted to deny seeing it.

At first I thought the streams and gossamer flowing out of her body and coalescing into the spells she cast were just my imagination. But when she called me close and used the probing spell, and I
saw
the disparate threads collect above her head and then surge forth in a rush of power… I knew that it was real. I could not deny that I could see them anymore.

I wasn’t frightened by it. No, I was more concerned about the
affinity
I felt for the force. My fingers itched to try commanding something of the same sort. I
wanted
to own those powers, wanted it almost as much as I had wanted to be whisked away from my ordinary life in my early teens—

Wait a minute. I look at Raul, then at Phillip, and finally at Morgan. I’d forgotten all about that old longing, the old desire that I once had. I felt it very acutely every single night I went to sleep for a period of almost six months, after getting too caught up in a series of fantasy books I was reading.

Is that longing the reason I was so susceptible to letting these vampires take me and define my life?

My eyes go to Raul. He notices and breaks off his conversation with his brother just long enough to give me a sweet, assuring smile.

Is that why it was so easy for me to develop feelings for him?

A vampire guard I don’t know runs up to us. “The Captain Commander sent me to tell you that all the arrangements have been seen to. The Haven is under the protection of the guards, all of whom are on high alert.”

“Good,” Morgan replies. “Take me to him. I want to inspect the posts he set.”

The guard salutes her and marches off. The Queen follows.

Raul hesitates, looking at me and Phillip. “I should go with her,” he says. “But Eleira, we need to talk—”

“Don’t worry about me,” I say. “We’ll have time for that later. Go! Do your duty.”

He nods. “Okay.”

Just before he runs off, he pulls me in and places a chaste kiss on my lips.