One by one, I send each of them out of the room to assist in the interrogation of the four hundred residents of Roter Himmel.
What they do not know is that this is not enough for me. Words are only words, they mean so little.
I’m going to need proven proof of loyalty.
Chapter 4
I’m so damn exhausted.
For ten minutes, that’s all I dare take, I sit in that interrogation room by myself, just staring at a wall. For ten minutes, I let it all wash over me, let it overwhelm me. Everything I have to do. Everything I’m dealing with.
And when my ten minutes are up, I stand, hold my chin high, and I walk out of the room and down the hallway toward the stairs. Through passageways and down through the belly of the castle and mountain into our secret tunnels.
My heart pounds when I stand outside of the lab.
What if?
What if?
What if?
Emotion makes my throat tight. I have to rein in my imagination from getting too dark, but also too hopeful.
“Face reality, woman,” I quietly say to myself. My voice reverberates madly off the stone walls, a chorus of reminders.
I open the hidden door and step into the lab.
The torch still glows dimly against the far wall. Shadows dart wildly as my movements send the flames dancing for a moment. The air is warm, humid. It’s comforting.
My eyes dart straight to the table, and on it, Cyrus still lies. I swallow once as I cross the space to him, my mouth feeling dry.
“Hello, my love,” I say as my voice threatens to crack.
He still lies there, utterly still, not breathing.
But as I remove the bandages and look closer at his neck, hope floods through me.
More tissue has reconnected. Barely still visible, I see white bone reattached. I see nearly whole muscles. His skin is slowly knitting back together.
Cyrus’ body may heal. But will he actually return to me?
Will I get Cyrus back? Or will I only end up with a husk? A body that looks like my husband, but isn’t?
“I know you are lost right now,” I say quietly as I sit beside him, lying my head on the table, our faces only two inches apart. “That you’re so confused and thrown into chaos. But I’m here, Cyrus.” I reach up, taking his hand in mine, lacing our fingers together. “I’ve been in the darkness, too. But in the end, we always find our way back to one another. Keep searching for me, Cyrus.”
I bring his hand to my face and gently press my lips into his skin.
“I’m right here, Cyrus,” I say softly.
I feel myself grow heavy.
I’m so tired.
So exhausted.
So overwhelmed.
So when it calls, I let sleep pull me down into its depths, hoping and praying that I can find my forever heart again.
* * *
A sliver of light sears my eyes. My hand darts up, adjusting the sunshades on my face, once more safely blocking out the sun.
My head tilts, grass rustling beneath me.
And there, lying beside me, is my husband.
“Cyrus,” I breathe with a smile.
He lies in the grass beside me, a pair of sunshades on his own face.
We lay in a field, beneath the brilliant sun. Just the two of us.
“Im yndmisht srtov,” he says gently as a little smile grows on his lips.
I roll over and Cyrus tucks me into his side. I rest my head on his chest, taking in a deep breath. Peace washes through me.
There’s nothing, nowhere in the world either of us needs to be. Nothing to take care of. Just Cyrus, just me. Here. Together.
“I found you,” I say, resting my hand on his chest. His comes up to mine, cupping it tightly.
“Not yet my love,” he says and I feel his eyes rise. “The time is nearly here. We must be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” I ask, looking up at his face.
“You will only have minutes,” he says, his eyes still fixed on the sky.
“Cyrus, I-”
But the world grows dark. The temperature drops.
And I feel him slip away.
All there is, is air.
Chapter 5
I startle awake, jerking up in my chair. In confusion, I look around, expecting tall grass and blinding sun.
But it’s comfortably dark. And I’m surrounded by stone.
I look at Cyrus, see his beautiful face. But he doesn’t open his eyes. His lips do not twitch with the prospect of words. He lies there perfectly still. Perfectly dead.
I’ve already lost too much time, and I have no idea how much of it has passed. Jumping to my feet, I restock the fire, burning two small logs. I get new bandages, gather fresh mud from the grotto. In a bowl, I mix the ashes, the mud, some herbs, and my own blood.
The bandages immediately soak through when I dip them. Carefully, so I don’t disturb the healing tissue, I wrap Cyrus’ neck once more. I get down on my knees beside the table he rests on, and I offer up a prayer to anyone who might hear me, begging for him to be returned to me.
And even though it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, I walk out of that lab, having to trust and hope. Because I am the Queen, and our people need a leader.
Up and through the castle I rise. Up through the fifth floor, and then the fourth. And then on the main floor, just as I round the stairs, I nearly run straight into Eshan.
“E,” I breathe, immediately pulling him into my arms. It’s incredible, we have only been in Roter Himmel for two days, and already so much has happened. I miss my brother. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, his voice sounding a little panicked, despite what he just claimed. “Where the hell have you been, Logan? There’s been some serious, heavy stuff going on, and no one knows where you’ve been!”
My eyes darken as my brother lets go of me and glares at me. “What’s happened?” I demand as I start walking, even though I don’t really know where I’m most needed at the moment.
“Those people you told to do the interviews,” he says, walking beside me, much faster than I can on his long legs. “They’re done. They’ve interviewed everyone in the…kingdom.” He hesitates, says the word a little tight. Because I get it. For me this is normal, what I’ve done for centuries. But this is all brand new for him. It’s all like something from a TV show. “They sent five people to the dungeon, or prison, or whatever.”
“Good,” I say, feeling hopeful. Like maybe we’ll actually get a resolution to this problem.
“I’m not done,” he says.
Down the hall, I hear a rumble of voices. They grow with each step. They come from the great hall.
“Everyone from this place, they’re all here,” Eshan says, slowing as we turn, the doors to the great hall coming into view.
There, stepping through, Alivia walks toward me.
She’s dressed in sophisticated-looking clothes. Black and white and regal. Her hair is done up in a serious but elegant bun.
Her expression is grim.
And in her hands, she carries something golden and shiny.
My crown.
My heart does a little sputter at the sight of it. The gold surface, polished and hardly worn down. The glittering diamonds. The gleaming rubies.
Alivia—my mother, and the leader of the House of Conrath, stops just in front of me. There’s worry in her eyes, but also belief.
“How bad is it?” I ask, my gaze flicking to the great hall. I see dozens of bodies standing inside. I don’t recognize anyone.
Not everyone survives centuries and millennia.
“They just want answers,” Alivia says. “They’re scared and they don’t know what to expect.”
I see someone shift at the doors and find Ian and Mina there, watching me, but also, I get the feeling they’re standing as a barrier. Between me…and them.
For just a second, I’m terrified.
I’m just a girl. I’m twenty-fr
eaking-years old. I have the worst luck in the world. I lose everything. Even Cyrus now. I can’t go in there, with all those vampires who have hundreds of years of experience in Court.
But as my eyes fall to the crown, I know what I have to do.
I’ve never been the one to lead. I never wanted to. Cyrus may have been brutal, but he was a man our kind could follow.
But I helped start this. I am the mother of them all.
I have to take on the crown.
With a tiny nod, I take it from Alivia’s hands. Like a glove, it slides on my head, and I hold it high as I walk forward, flanked by a House leader, and my all-too-human brother, and step into the huge space, filled with my descendants.
I don’t stop and greet any of them. I roll my shoulders back, pretending I am not wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday to torture a man, to conduct those interrogations, to sleep in the lab. I hold my chin up, perfectly balancing the crown on top of my head.
There they are. Two thrones. One for me, nearly always unoccupied. And the one for Cyrus. Carved out of the darkest African blackwood, they gleam, polished to the sheen of a mirror. Deep, rich red upholstery covers the seat and back.
Walking straight to the platform they sit upon, I stand in front of Cyrus’ throne, and turn.
Four hundred sets of eyes stare back at me, waiting.
Tiny flickers of recognition jump out at me here and there. I remember that man, Dominic. And that woman, Pricilla. And those twins, Camilla and Cambrius.
That man there, he has to be Hector Valdez’ son, Horatio.
But largely, I do not recognize the faces.
Eshan stands off to the side of the platform, joined by Alivia and Ian. Mina and Fredrick go to stand on my other side.
“I know you all know who I am,” I say. And I’m surprised with myself. While I held such calm and confidence just moments ago, here, up on the stage, with every one of them looking at me, I’m overwhelmed and nervous. “I am Sevan. I’ve been gone for 286 years. Before that I was La’ei. And Jafari. And Antoinette. And now I am Logan Pierce. I grew up in the United States. I did not know what I was until Cyrus was called and then I died and remembered everything.”
Every one of them watches me, expectantly, holding onto every single word I say.
“I know I look different, but I promise, I am her, the woman who married a man I loved. A woman who conceived, and gave birth to the one we all came to fear, the man called the Blood Father.”
The mood in the room darkens just at his title. I’m fairly sure none of them were there, at the battle. They don’t remember the seven years of war and darkness. But they all know the stories, back and front, the legends of the man who wanted to take over the world.
“I am the woman each of you stemmed from, can trace your lineage back to,” I say. I have to swallow once, overwhelmed by that fact. But it does something to me. It warms my chest. It makes me look at them just a little differently.
Yes, thousands of years ago, every one of their bloodlines trace back to Sevan and Cyrus. But looking at them, after those thousands of years with new DNA, contributed to throughout the world, they all look so different.
But they are mine.
These people here: they are my family.
“But the King,” a woman says. Her voice is breathy. Emotion pushes its way through. “What about Cyrus?”
I hate it. The fact that he lay there on display, alone and vulnerable for fourteen hours before I made it to his side to protect him. All of Roter Himmel saw how exposed, how defeated he was in that moment.
“The man who did that to him has been dealt with,” I say through a tight throat. “I know for a fact there are three others who were in on the plot, and I swear, I will deal with them severely.”
I try to read their faces, to pick out any other betrayers. But I just see their fear, their doubt.
“Is this the end?” a man asks. His tone tells me he doesn’t want to ask the question, but he can’t keep it in. “Now that Cyrus is dead, is this the end of Roter Himmel? Is this the end of peace?”
“Nothing will change,” I speak up immediately. “Court will be chaotic and stressful in the weeks to come. But I swear, the Houses will continue to manage the world. Our existence and our safety will always remain our greatest priority.”
“And who is going to enforce that?” a voice from the middle of the room pipes up. My eyes scan the room. An older man, older than the vast majority of those here at Court, with a wrinkled forehead and purplish lips is the one who spoke up. “You feel prepared to step up, and fill the role Cyrus has dominated for over two thousand years?”
I don’t know if the crowd realized. How Ian slipped among them the moment the man finished his first sentence and began carefully making his way through the crowd. But I see it when he stands behind the man, and I have no doubt that he has a stake hidden, ready to use.
“No one,” I vow very low and dangerously. “No one cares about preserving Roter Himmel more than I do.” Emotion kinks my voice, and I hate it when it does.
But I see a light rise in the eyes of so many before me. Their sympathy and belief in me sparks.
“This is my home,” I say. “I have lived dozens of other places, but at the core of every one of those lives, this is my home. And you are my people. My family. And I swear—I may do things differently than my husband ever did—but I swear, I will protect our home. Our people. Our kind.”
“And when you starve,” the ugly man pipes up again. “When you wither, and when you die, what is to become of us then?”
I’ve been putting on a show. Stalling. Putting on the bravado and leading for the time I must. Because I have to believe, with everything in me, that Cyrus will wake up. That this little known part of his curse will remain true. That he truly cannot be killed and he will wake up when his body has finished healing.
I believe Cyrus will awaken.
But none of them know that. None of them have reason to believe this isn’t the reality.
So they’ve caught me here.
Because sure as time will continue to march on, at some point it will happen again.
I will starve. I will wither. And I will die.
“What then, Queen Sevan?” the man questions again with a dark look in his eyes.
Just then, the crowd gasps and steps away from him. He makes a choked off sound followed by a wet ripping sound.
Two figures stand beside the man, one holding a bloody heart in his hand. Their dark eyes glare out into the crowd, daring anyone to come against them.
I have never seen these men before with these eyes, but I know exactly who they are.
These are my grandsons.
Dorian and Malachi.
“What happens then is none of your concern,” Malachi says, dropping the man’s heart from his hand, letting it hit the floor with a wet smack.
“You may be members of court,” Dorian says, his voice smooth, but utterly dangerous. “But it has never, ever been your place to question the All Mother.”
Goosebumps flash over my skin and my heart races. Emotion pricks at my eyes.
“I’ve given you all my promises,” I say. My voice is not as strong as I would like, but it carries clear and loud. “Be watchful. If we want to preserve our way of life, we must all watch for traitors. Because I have heard whispers that there are those of us here who want things to change. Be careful who you trust.”
They look among themselves, like they can read the word off of each other’s foreheads—traitor.
“You’ve been given all the answers you need,” Malachi says. “Now get out.”
They don’t hesitate. One by one, they turn and slowly file out of the Great Hall.
And I bristle. With everything in me, heat and anger and bile rise, racing with the speed of flames.
Logan can’t believe it. That they questioned me, that they did not clear out until a man told them to do so.
Screw them all, I think. Things will change.
>
Dorian and Malachi wait for the crowd to clear, watching each of them with darkness, daring them to challenge the commands. But they all leave, emptying the hall.
Emotion bites at my eyes when they both look at me at the same time.
Over thousands of years, these two, they have always been there, unwavering in their loyalty.
I take a step forward at the same time they step toward me. We meet in the center of the ballroom and I wrap an arm around each of their necks, hugging them in tight to me.
“Sevan,” Malachi says with reverence. “You have finally found your way back to us.”
“We are here, All Mother,” Dorian says, hugging me tightly.
Slowly, the others behind me cross the space and with two tears slipping down my face, I let my grandsons go.
“Alivia,” I say, turning to her. “This is Malachi, and Dorian.”
She offers an empty little smile. “We’ve met.”
Oh. Right.
Her trial.
“And Ian, I suppose you have, too?” I question.
He only gives a thin-lipped nod.
“Well then,” I say, turning in Eshan’s direction. “Dorian, Malachi, this is my brother, Eshan Pierce.”
He looks terrified. But to my little brother’s credit, he steps forward, and shakes Malachi’s hand first, and then Dorian’s.
“They’re…” he stumbles over his words.
“Technically, they’re my grandsons,” I say, appreciating how weird this whole situation is for the Logan side of me. “But, considering this body never pushed any babies out, let’s just leave it vague and call them family?”
We both huff out a little laugh that sounds the same. We might not share a speck of the same DNA, but being raised in the same house for thirteen years leaves a mark of similarity.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Dorian offers with a warm smile and a little bow. He always was the one who could take a person in and make them feel comfortable, even in the middle of a horrific situation.
“How bad is it?” Malachi asks, getting right to the point. “Where is the King now?”