“Many of the rebels are still living within the forest,” Max explained. “The rebel life is what we knew for so many years, so even after peace was achieved, many chose to stay. These woods are the home of the rebels and where we were always more comfortable, even Aria. We know how to avoid vampires. We may not have their strength, but we know how to hide, know how to sneak up on someone and how to set traps. We know how to take a vampire down. Outside of the palace walls, Aria will return to the rebels.”
“And she’s going to get closer to the palace walls,” Daniel said. “She’ll want to know what is going on there. We will find her somewhere in that area when we go to meet with her.”
“You can barely walk,” Jack said.
“Not now,” Daniel replied. “But as soon as we’re feeling up to it, we’ll go for her. It has to be done.”
“He’s right,” Timber agreed.
“Sabine has been gathering her troops. It’s time to start gathering ours,” Daniel said.
CHAPTER 12
Aria
Aria swung her bow onto her back again and adjusted her quiver. Though she’d recently washed herself off with a cloth, washed her hair in the basin, and wore the clean clothes Mary had given to her, she didn’t feel any fresher. She didn’t think she’d ever feel clean again.
She managed to keep her hands from shaking as she lifted them to pull her wet hair into a braid. She couldn’t bring herself to look in the mirror above the washbasin until she’d finished. Her hands clamped onto the sink when her ruby-colored eyes greeted her in the mirror.
No matter what she did, no matter how badly she willed them to do so, she could not get her eyes to return to their normal blue hue. It was something she wouldn’t care about if she wasn’t going out amongst humans. She’d been a human, the daughter of their leader, they still trusted and liked her, but a vampire’s red eyes signaled a loss of control. The humans would be apprehensive around her.
She couldn’t let them know what a tumultuous mess she was right now. They’d flee from her, and if they fled from her, they could wind up in Sabine’s clutches. All she wanted was to keep them safe, but if she couldn’t keep up appearances, she may end up being the one to drive them to their deaths.
She had to be controlled, confident, and a leader; her eyes signaled she was anything but. Lifting her hand, she almost drove her fist into the mirror, but stopped herself from doing so. Destroying the hateful thing would only confirm to them her instability.
A knock on the door had her lowering her hand and clutching the basin once more. “Come in.”
William opened the door and slipped inside. His eyes met hers in the glass. “I can’t get them to change,” she admitted.
“I know.”
Walking forward, he handed her a pair of dark sunglasses. Her fingers shook when she took them from him and settled them onto her face. It may be nighttime, and they may be underground, but the glasses hid her eyes and she wouldn’t be taking them off until she was able to get her eyes to return to normal, if they ever returned to normal again.
“Where is Tempest?” she inquired.
“Speaking with Mary and John. They’ve taken a liking to her.”
“That’s easy enough to do. This place, it’s so like those drawings and plans Daniel did before the war with Atticus.”
He grinned at her as he rested his hand on her shoulder. “The rebels discovered some of his plans in one of the caves. Either he forgot them there, or he never had the chance to return for them after everything unfolded. They used his designs and calculations to build a few of these, what they call, safe houses.”
Aria glanced at the beams of wood in the ceiling above her head. Daniel would be happy to know his design had come to life in such a way, and the rebels had done an amazing job of it. William turned her away from the mirror and pulled her out of the small bathroom. A single lantern hanging on the wall cast shadows over the dirt floor and wooden walls.
Her gaze fell on the back door, one of the only two exits out of this place. However, she doubted anyone would ever find it. She followed William down the long hallway toward the main room. At least twenty doors lined the hall, most of which were open to reveal the small rooms and straw pallets stacked on the floor within. Another room held at least a month’s worth of supplies for at least fifty people, and another had clothes and a large cache of weapons stashed within.
They entered the large main room where Mary, John, and Tempest sat around a table near the wall across from them. John’s face lit up when he spotted her; he leapt from his seat and gestured for her to take it.
“Thank you,” Aria said to him and slowly sat on the edge of the chair.
“Thank you,” John said. “You saved my life and my mother’s, Your Highness.”
“Please, just call me Aria,” she murmured as she kept her gaze focused on the windowless wall across from her.
Mary hadn’t been kidding about taking them to a safe place. Aria never would have discovered this safe house buried beneath the earth. She had thought the walls of the caves pressed against her, they were nothing compared to the oppressive air encompassing this place.
Judging by the look on William’s face, he felt much the same way as he paced from one wall to the other.