“I do not know, Ma Reine,” Naomi answered, clearly not having heard the other voices. “I have never been down here before. It is forbidden. There have only been rumors of what lies beneath the graveyard. The Queen has always kept the tunnels well guarded.”
“Can’t you hear the ghost voices?” I asked, glancing at her. “They’ve been guiding us the entire time.”
“What?” Naomi said, stumbling as her voice caught for a second. “I hear nothing but your voice.”
“Um…” I hesitated, not wanting to upset her. I don’t care how strong a supe you were, ghosts were freaky no matter what. “We’re surrounded by dozens of trapped spirits. I’ve agreed to try and break the barrier holding them here, in exchange for finding you.”
Naomi was quiet, her face pensive.
“Do you think I should do it?” I prodded. “Break the barrier, I mean? Is it a good idea?”
“The Queen has always stated that she keeps her vampires safe by protecting us inside her power shield. If you destroy it, I do not know what will happen,” Naomi finally offered. “But I will follow your decision, Ma Reine. As always.”
“She lies.” The ghosts were agitated.
“The Queen keeps us to do her bidding.”
“Free us and it shall come true.”
“What will come true—” A hunk of dirt exploded from the wall right next to us, exposing a hole no bigger than four feet wide. The shock of it took me by surprise and I eased out of my fighting stance.
“You must enter.” Fingers prodded at my legs, unsuccessfully trying to force me to kneel. Next to me, Naomi stilled. “They want us to go through here.” I gestured to the new hole the ghosts had blown in the wall. “To be honest, I’m not sure if I should trust them, but there aren’t too many other options presenting themselves at the moment.”
By her expression Naomi had started to pick up on the energy from the ghosts swirling around us. “As I said, I will follow you, Ma Reine. You must honor your word to these spirits and I will help you if I can. It is the correct thing to do.”
I knelt down. It was too dark to see much of anything in the new tunnel. Before I started forward, I reached back and grabbed on to Naomi’s wrist, pulling her gently down beside me. She lowered herself easily. This close I could see her face flush with my blood. Thank goodness I hadn’t been too late. Finding her had been the right decision, any later and it could’ve been disastrous.
“Listen,” I murmured. “I appreciate your willingness to support me no matter what, but I want you to know you always have a choice. If you disagree with me, you can say so. I don’t expect you to follow me blindly. In fact, I don’t want you to. I value your input way too much. This isn’t a monarchy, and it will never be. Honestly, most of the time I have no idea if I’m making the right choice. The only thing I have to rely on is my gut, which is made up of an extremely bossy she-wolf, and common sense. My wolf is the equivalent of your vampire tutorials, except I don’t always understand what she’s trying to tell me. It’s been a steep learning curve and she’s the first one to call me slow on the uptake. I do promise to make the best choices I possibly can, but I can’t always guarantee they will be the right ones. Do you understand?”
“I do.” She nodded. “But the difference is I have faith that you will make the right choices, where you are still unsure. Your confidence will bloom over time.” She smiled. “The Hag was very clear those many years ago when she told me I would have a choice to pledge myself to someone who was worthy. I did so, and I have no regrets. You are worthy of my pledge in every way. I will follow you.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “But I want you on my team, not as a silent follower. If you believe fate has steered our paths together, and we are in this ridiculous tunnel together for a reason, then I need your help. Vampires, ghost, barriers, magic, politics—I need an intelligent guide by my side to make sense of it all. I have limited knowledge of how the supernatural world works and my only real concern right now is keeping my father alive. He’s the entire reason I’m in this place.” I gestured around the earthen walls. “We have to make sure he lives, and to do that we need to talk about the barrier and why we should or shouldn’t blow it up. I feel like this is a huge decision and it will affect him in some major way.” Whether or not to blow up the barrier was beginning to nag at me.
The ghosts whispered around my body, not liking that I’d taken a short break. I hadn’t heard anything after us in the tunnels, so we had a minute more to spare.
“You must go.”
“The barrier must come down.”
“You cannot wait any longer.”
I ignored them as Naomi nodded. “Forgive me for not being so vocal,” she said. “It is difficult to shed hundreds of years of servitude. The Queen has never asked for our opinions on anything, so it does not come naturally to me.”
“I understand,” I said gently, “but I’m asking you now.”