I narrow my eyes, still not moving, sensing a trap. “What are you talking about?”
“Your murder of my bastard son, of course,” he gloats. “I felt the exact moment you snuffed out Riyu’s life. Very well done.”
I keep my face stone still, kept my body frozen in place, not daring to betray a single ounce of emotion.
Riyu is dead?
“I presume you came back to bask in your success,” Logan continues. “I assume you came here to bask in your glory.” Suddenly he spins back, and his eyes bore into me. “Isn’t that right, Dagan?”
I stiffen my back. “I never seek glory, and you know that. I live only to serve.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Logan says dismissively, fluttering his hand. “I know you don’t seek it, but, nonetheless, you expect a reward. Well, I have it here for you.”
He pulls out a small sealed vial, with a few drops of The Ancient’s blood inside.
Without warning he tosses it in the air. It arcs toward me. I snatch it.
“You must decide who will be granted the precious gift, of course,” he says. “After all, I cannot let you get away with absolutely no accountability for what you did to me when we met in the other dimension.”
“I—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Logan says. “Spare me. I don’t need your explanations. I just need to ensure that you are still the warrior I first appointed my Lieutenant. Are you that vampire, Dagan?”
Without letting me answer, he spins his hand, and a sudden portal is created in midair. Deep hatred of Blood Magic runs through me, chilling me to the bone.
“My pet here,” he says, touching the statue again, “will help ensure the suitability of your… character. If you survive the encounter, all is forgiven. And if you don’t—” now the miasma is clear, storming in his eyes, “—if you don’t, my demon here will have no problem devouring you and the girl. Good luck.”
And just like that, he steps through the portal.
...and the statue starts to move.
Chapter Nineteen
Eleira
Beneath The Haven.
I stand frozen in place, watched by those awful screechers.
I feel wholly helpless. Somehow, Rebecca’s dried herb was able to repel all the currents from reaching me. Without my connection to them, I cannot access even the other well of magic given to me by the Forsaken Sisters.
With the screechers watching my every move, I cannot make use of my vampire gifts, either.
I feel totally trapped, worse than when I was bound against the wall by Morgan and being tortured. Here, all of my powers have been taken away.
Even worse, my ability to protect the vampires of The Haven has been taken away.
The clock ticks by. The Tentoria watch me silently from outside the cave. The bodies of their slain kin lie scattered around me. None of the still-living ones show any sort of response to that.
I wonder how alive any of them really are.
Carefully, slowly, I put one foot forward. The screechers do not react. I take a step to them. They do not react.
Slightly emboldened, I walk very slowly to the exit.
Only when I’m a few feet away do the ones in the first row tense and open their mouths as if to scream.
I stop immediately and step away. They relax.
At the very least I’m allowed to move around in here.
I glance back at the one woman trapped by the invisible walls. Something tugs at my memory again when I look upon her shape… but I cannot quite grasp it.
Very slowly, trying to show them I’m not afraid, I turn my back to the screechers and walk to the woman’s prison.
The rubble is piled high on top of it. The runes in the stone slab are active. I don’t understand how they can operate on magic given the fact none of the Currents reach inside.
Perhaps it is connected to the outside world through some sort of conduit in the floor beneath, I don’t know.
All I know is that such luxury is not afforded to me.
Again, very, very slowly, I reach up and start to pick the pieces of stone and rock off. The screechers don’t seem to mind me uncovering the prison. That gives me a small bit of confidence and a little bit of hope.
As I work, my mind drifts to Riyu, to the sad shape of his empty body, to his corpse being dragged away.
I failed him. I failed him in the worst possible way, after I promised him my protection.
My eyes moisten. Angrily, I swipe at them. I will not let Rebecca reduce me to tears!
That bolt of anger makes me more determined to unearth the old woman’s prison. Rebecca did not say anything against it, and it seems that as long as I remain in the room I am free to do what I want.
It takes a long time to finish. The whole way through I expect to be interrupted by Rebecca’s return.
That does not happen. Eventually I reach the bottom of the pile and scrub the last bits of dust off.
I get my first look at the woman’s face and gasp.
It… can’t be. No!
But yes, there she is: Cassandra.
Of course, it is a Cassandra many years aged… but the resemblance is unmistakable.
Suddenly, all the pieces fall into place. Cassandra was taken down here by the Tentoria. She was pulled away from Raul while unconscious but without being killed. And Rebecca, who was the first vampire to have her soul severed from her body, has somehow survived here all these years…
A soft laugh comes from behind me. I stiffen but do not turn around.
Don’t let her see you nervous.
“Do you like it?” Rebecca asks, walking into the room and stopping by my side. For the first time I get a flickering sort of sense of her presence. It’s strange. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it before. There are long moments when I don’t feel anything, and then suddenly there’s a small burst, and I feel her acutely… but not for long enough to judge her strength.
That on its own confounds me. Instinctively, I’ve always been able to instantly understand a vampire’s place in the hierarchy compared to me. Obviously, she is weaker, but the presence of all her underlings makes the situation very, very tricky.
“It took me many, many years to manage it. Many years of trial and desperate error. Many years of working to get back what my cousin stole from me. And finally, now, I achieved it… but it seems a trifle too late.”
She plucks at my sleeve. “I needed Morgan to have the crown, to give me the satisfaction of ripping it off her head. To have the glory of being the one to wipe that vile smirk off her face, and to see her damned, damned as she damned me.” She gives a light, little laugh. “Unfortunate for you that you were the one to take her place. I am disappointed, I must say, by how easy it was to neutralize you. I would have expected the Queen of The Haven to put up more of a fight.”
She’s goading me, I know, and I absolutely refuse to rise to the bait.
“It’s a simple thing, this little torrial,” she tells me. “It is a device capable of transfusing the soul of one into another. Not the full thing, of course, and not the essence that makes somebody themselves. But souls are mutable, and when their ethereal substance is transferred from one vessel to another, it takes on the full characteristics of that body. Lucky for me, Morgan left enough of my soul in this body for me to survive.”
“You’re a witch,” I say softly, accusingly.
She giggles. “Dear child, what gave it away? Magic is strong in my family’s lineage. I was not granted very much of the gift, but I had enough to make something of myself. Enough to be able to do this.”
She motions from herself to Cassandra’s crippled body.
“She will be kept alive through it all, don’t you fret,” Rebecca continues. “It is the final manifestation of her duty to me. How lucky that this particular vampire was made with Royal Blood. That was key to the entire transmutation.”
“That’s horrible,” I say. “You are no better than Morgan, for what you did to her.”