“Didn’t you?” My voice sounded choked, even to me.
“With that much power, you could have locked me away forever. Made it so that I could never get out, not even when you slept. You could have been free of me, completely free, for the first time.”
“And you could have banished me,” I pointed out. “Sent me off to wither and die alone, to dissolve on the winds. Taken this body and lived your own life. Been free yourself.”
She shook her head. “That wouldn’t have been free. I would have been haunted by what I’d done, how I’d hurt you.” She turned to look at me. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
She raised a hand, and I swear I felt a brush of phantom fingertips against my cheek.
“You do that enough to yourself.”
I blinked. “What?”
That wasn’t exactly what I’d expected to hear.
“For five hundred years, you existed on the fringes, as you told our Sire. What you didn’t tell him is that you’re still there. In here.”
Her touch dropped to my chest.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s not—I don’t know what you think—”
“Five hundred years of watching,” she told me. “I saw. You weren’t any freer than me. You think you decided what we did? They decided. Where you could go, what you could do. You didn’t become a hunter merely because you’re good at it. You did it because it was all they would allow you to be. You were dhampir, hated, despised, outcast. It was a hard, meager, cold life. But it was all you knew. And, eventually, it was all you wanted to know.”
“You know—you can’t talk to me like—”
But she could, and she did.
“It became familiar, comfortable. Most people are frightened on the fringes, in the woods in the middle of the night, in the old, abandoned places. They set horror movies there, don’t they? But you weren’t frightened. You were the eyes in the darkness, the shadow on the wall, the thing that goes bump in the night. Others were afraid of you. They didn’t know those places. You did. You made them your world—”
“You don’t understand anything!”
“It wasn’t the dark or the cold that frightened you. It was the light and the warmth, the places where it wasn’t possible to hide, the places where you had to be seen. You think I wanted all those things: family, home, children, because they were what you wanted. But you couldn’t have them, either, and every time you tried, every time you came close to anyone, you were hurt. So you learned to love the shadows. . . .
“But the shadows are gone now. You stand in the light. Surrounded by all the things you always thought you wanted, and it terrifies you. Even after what you just did, claiming that vampire, there’s a part of you that wants to run. That is so afraid of losing all you have, that you are thinking of throwing it away, to leave before you’re left, to go back to the desolate wastes because there, at least, you know the rules.
“You don’t know them here.”
“And you do?” I asked harshly. “You seem so sure what I want—what about you? This doesn’t scare you? All of this?”
I flung out a hand, because I didn’t have words for all the ways my life had changed recently. And was probably going to change further. Into what, I didn’t know and couldn’t even guess.
“Yes. It scares me.” She looked up at the moon, floating overhead. “I don’t know how to live this way, either.”
I waited, but she didn’t say anything else.
“That’s it? You don’t know?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not very helpful!”
“You’re asking for an ending, the answers all spelled out. We aren’t at the end, but the beginning.”
“That’s . . . profound.” It was also pretty damned useless.
“You want answers,” she told me. “I don’t have them. I don’t even know all the questions yet.”
“Yet you sound excited.”
She turned to look at me. “Aren’t you? Five hundred years, with everything the same. Suddenly, nothing is. It’s frightening, yes, but isn’t it a little exciting, too?”
I didn’t answer, but not because she was wrong. But because—
“What’s going on?” I asked, because something was. Something that looked a lot like Olfun, booking it out of the house and down the street, with something in his arms. Only no. Not something, someone. Aiden.
And I suddenly remembered what he’d told me. About how a lot of people who’d opposed Efridis’ plans for her son were suddenly coming on board, now that they knew ?subrand no longer wanted the gods back. I just hadn’t realized that Olfun was one of them!
“You won’t be fast enough,” Dorina told me, standing up. “Not with our leg as it is.”
“And you’ll never defeat that bitch!” I was standing, too, feeling pain course through my body and cursing my weakness.
“Perhaps she isn’t here—”
“She is!” I pointed to the top of the little hill, just down the road, where a couple streets crossed. Efridis was still in white, the pure color gleaming under the moonlight, lighting her up like a beacon.
“I have to try,” Dorina said, pulling away from me and spiraling up into the sky.
And then just stayed there, because no, she didn’t.
There were fey streaming out of the house, and chasing after Olfun. But his legs were longer and he had a head start. They’d never catch him in time.
But someone else would.
There was a sudden, terrifying screech from overhead, like a thousand nails on a thousand chalkboards. And a strange, crystalline sound, and a rush of wind so sudden and so severe, that it knocked me to my knees. But I was still up high and there was a gap in the trees, and through it I saw—
Something that would forever be etched in my memory, no matter how long I lived. A huge dragon, black winged and purple tinged, with frightening sunburst eyes, sailing overhead, its body blocking out the moon. As well as the light reflecting off the tiny-looking woman on the ground, who barely had a chance to realize what was happening before the dragon dove—silent, awe-inspiring, death incarnate.
And then Claire ate Efridis.
Epilogue
Burbles was looking grim.
I almost didn’t recognize him, with his normally jolly face dour and his arms crossed over his chest in what should have looked like a protective gesture, but mostly looked like he was trying to keep from strangling someone. I smiled and waved.
He did not smile back.
Mircea sidled up behind me. “What have you done to poor Vincent?”
“Saddled him with sixteen in-need-of-a-home vampires.”
“Saddled him?”
“I told them they could stay in my consular suite, until they figured out their housing situation.” I looked over my shoulder at his amusement. “Well, it’s not like I’m going to be living here.”
We were at the consul’s, waiting for the ceremony to finally confirm us newbies, which was following a bunch of other ceremonies. Because that’s apparently all vamps ever do: get dressed up and parade around, trying to impress people. Which might explain Burbles’ current attitude: Ray’s guys weren’t looking so impressive.
“And where will you be living?” Mircea murmured, leaning on the balcony beside me.
I turned my head to look at him.
“Why?”
“I saw Louis-Cesare a few moments ago. He was looking . . . absurdly pleased with himself.”
“Are you about to get all paternal and complain that I didn’t invite you to the ceremony?”
“Do you know,” Mircea told me thoughtfully, “we have ceremonies for almost everything, except that? The bite is considered an intimate act. It is customary to take care of it in private.”
Yeah, I could see that. We hadn’t been up to much that night, both of us being exhausted and very much under the weather, but Louis-Cesare had enthusiastically made it up to me several times since. Most recently in an alcove downstairs before he had to go away to get his own family ready. Although, it was really all the same thing now, wasn’t it?
I realized I was grinning stupidly and stopped it.
“So what’s the problem?” I asked.
“No problem. I merely wished to ask if—”