“Both.” Cassius began whistling again, and the wind howled right along with him. By the time we made it to the house it had started to snow, the wind causing near white out conditions.
“Be afraid,” Cassius whispered. “Of the beauty of the heavens.”
“What?”
“Humans are afraid of what they do not understand, but the minute they come into contact with the very thing that brings them fear, and aren’t burned or harmed in any way, bravery takes over… they touch.” He winced. “They explore.” His body trembled. “And they fall.”
It seemed liked he was talking in riddles.
He pushed the door open.
A fire was lit in the hearth taking the chill away from my body immediately.
Stepping into the house was like stepping back in time.
A woman rocked back and forth in an old rackety chair, facing the fire, her small hands knit furiously at what looked like a child’s sweater. “I knew you would eventually come.”
Cassius hung his head, then pressed his hand to my back, pushing me toward the woman.
With a sigh, the woman stood, the fur blanket fell from her shoulders and she faced me.
“What…” I shook my blurry confused head. “What are you?”
I didn’t sense that she was human… but there was something about her blood as I sniffed the air.
She smelled human.
She looked immortal.
With pitch black hair and bow-shaped red lips, she was like a princess, her eyelashes had pieces of snow in them as if she’d just been outside dancing and twirling underneath the moon.
“Mother.” Cassius’s greeting made me gasp. “Meet—”
“—your destiny.” The woman held out her hand. “I see a great darkness in you, Stephanie.”
I pulled my hand back and grabbed Cassius’s arm.
“Something we all possess, Mother,” Cassius said in a low voice. “Darkness is not new to you.”
“No.” She sat back down. “I guess it is not.”
I watched their exchange in silence. Still unable to understand how that woman could be Cassius’s mother.
How was she even alive?
“Sit,” his mother instructed me. “And I’ll tell you a story.”
In silence, I sank onto a tired-looking wooden chair, a bit surprised at how sturdy it turned out to be.
“I was told the beauty was unparalleled, like walking through paradise.” The woman sighed in contentment. “The problem with humanity has always been its need for more knowledge and power, never satisfied, never content.” Shivering, she wrapped the blanket tighter around her as Cassius moved to her side and tucked the edges around her small body. “Immortal beings have always… been.” Her eyes lost focus for a brief second as she stared into the fire. “They were created right along with the Angels, have always co-existed in perfect harmony. Like two worlds that paralleled one another. The immortal plane existed, and the human plane existed. But there have always been situations where humans have learned of immortals or been forced to work with them. That is where your stories of lore come from.” She rocked back and forth in her chair, back and forth, so far she wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. “There was only one rule.” She sighed. “Do not fall in love.” Her eyes locked on mine. “But I did.”
The fire crackled as she spread her hands wide, her palms facing down. “My father was trusted with the immortal secret, with the knowledge of another world. He helped bring them humans in the beginning, he was the one who helped start the calling of numbers once immortals realized that humanity would need more help reigning itself in. The immortals were a type of police, and they didn’t have the numbers for it. So my father helped start the calling of breeders. They discovered that if an immortal Vampire for instance, mated with a human, the human not only gained immortality but she was able to birth children. It was the perfect plan.”
“But not all immortals are created equal,” Cassius mumbled and then pressed a kiss to his mother’s hand. “Why don’t you sleep? You look tired, I can tell her the rest of the story.”
“Yes.” His mother nodded, tears pooling in her eyes. “Yes, I’ll do that.”
She stood and walked off, softly shutting the door behind her.
“How is she alive?”
“A gift.” Cassius answered. “From my father.”
“Sariel?”
Cassius nodded. “You said you wanted to know what Dark Ones really were and how it happened, so I’m going to take you back to the beginning.”
“The beginning of the Dark Ones.”
His eyes flashed. “To the first one ever created.” He sighed as if he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Me.”
Cassius
THE PAST WAS A painful reminder of my uncertain future, and exposing her to that, unsettled me completely, but if she wanted the truth.
I could not.
Would not, keep it from her.
“Watch,” I whispered, lying down with her near the fire, as her body relaxed against mine, I waited for her to fall into a deep sleep and prayed that she wouldn’t hate herself for what she was.
Because Dark Ones… were not the heroes.