“Siberia…” I shivered again even though the cold was normal for my typically frigid body. “So you were serious.”
Cassius smiled even wider, maybe being home was good for him.
“So…” I spread my free arm out as we walked down the abandoned icy streets. “This is where young Cassius grew up.”
Cassius’s face darkened for a brief moment before he grabbed my hand and started whistling.
The tune wasn’t familiar, but its haunting melody had me shivering as he continued to whistle and the wind picked up. I wrapped my jacket tighter around myself and ducked into his body.
I’d always hated the wind. When I was little it had reminded me of anger, of cold, and now that I was a Dark One and didn’t really get cold in the same way, I still hated it because it was still angry.
Wind was nature’s temper tantrum.
At least it had always felt that way.
“Wind…” Cassius stopped whistling. “…is a warning of things to come.”
I frowned. “In nature or in life?”
The wind dipped and roared down the street as we made our way toward a small dark house.
“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.
But the villains.
I kissed her forehead and began my story as I walked into her dream, grasping her hand tightly. “Look, look at the ones who watch.”
Two hundred men stood on the edge of the mountain, each of them well over seven feet tall, their faces were perfectly shaped as if the person who had created them had special knowledge of just how far away eyes should be from the nose, and the nose from the lips.
To stare at them was to experience the fullest of contentment.
To be in their presence was absolute adoration.
A battle brewed in front of them, yet they were immobile.
“They were called the ones who do not sleep.” I pointed at the line of men as their gold armor glistened against the sun, a sword and shield was placed in each hand. They continued to stand, their hair tangled in the wind, a mixture of reds and black tendrils escaped out of their gold helmets.
One of the two hundred flinched as a man was decapitated.
He lowered his head for a fraction of a second, while one of the men next to him grunted.
And still, they stood.
“Why aren’t they helping?” Stephanie asked. “Humans are dying! Getting slaughtered by one another. Why don’t they intervene?”
“Because it’s not their job,” I answered. “Their job is to watch, their job is to never close their eyes. For when you close your eyes, even for a brief moment, you lose sight of what’s in front of you, and at times, you can lose sight of what’s inside.”
“That makes no sense.” Stephanie pointed back down at the humans. “Blood’s everywhere, it would take two of the men o
n the mountain to stop this.”
“One,” I corrected her. “It would only take one.”
The scene changed and suddenly the village in front of them was getting swallowed up in flames.
And again.
They watched.
Stephanie screamed at them. And yet they watched. “Cassius! Do something, there’s women…” She choked out a sob. “Children are dying!”
“Children die every day.” I spoke in a soft whisper. “They see it every day, they’ve been watching for hundreds of years, what makes this day different?”
Stephanie covered her eyes as a child was tossed into the fire—alive.
Screaming she tried to run toward the men watching, but I held her back. It shattered my heart, to see her reaction, to know that the men could have done something—but that they couldn’t.
“Stephanie.” I licked my lips. “To act is to go against every cell in their body, every reason they were created. You have to understand, they were not made to feel, they were made to act.”
“Then why don’t they act!”
“Because they have not been told to… yet.”
More children screamed.
And then suddenly a light shone down on the two hundred men, flickering against their gold shields. Each shield held the design of a tree, but every tree was different, as if its origin came from a differing country or region.
The shields swiftly moved to the front of the men, and with a roar the two hundred descended upon the crowd of humans getting slaughtered.
It was over in thirty seconds.
Less than that.
The humans thanked the men, the same men who had watched them suffer for days, weeks, years, not knowing that this wasn’t some army marching through as they had claimed, but actual beings, created to watch over humanity.
My mother stumbled out of her hut, then fell to her knees in loud choking sobs.
The man, the same one who had flinched while watching, stopped in front of her then knelt down. “Woman, why do you cry?”
His voice was so hollow, as if he didn’t understand emotion.
“My son.” She choked out a long horrendous sob. “He was thrown in the fire…” Even through tears stained cheeks, blood caked to her fingers, and her hair matted, she was beautiful. The man sucked in a sharp breath, admiring her for the first time. “He was only a year, sir.”
“A year,” he repeated. “To be so new…” He shook his head. “I cannot comprehend such a short amount of time.”
“It wasn’t enough.” My mother hung her head. “I’ll mourn him forever.”
As an angelic being, the man could feel the woman’s sadness as if it was his own. He pulled off his helmet, set down his armor, and helped her to her feet.
It was his first mistake.
For without his armor.
He’d forgotten his purpose.
And when he touched her.
He closed his eyes. For the first time in his existence.
And when he opened them—her.
Only her.
And nothing else existed.
How, he wondered, had he gone so long watching, but not truly seeing?
As his men walked back up the mountain, to regain their rightful place, to stay awake, to watch.
He hesitated.
He never hesitated.
He wasn’t aware of the meaning of it.
Until that moment.
So beautiful.
I.
Want.
His breath came out in a whoosh.
Want.
Want.
Want.
Heartbeat slowing, he pressed her hand to his cheek as his blood roared for something more—than watching.
Watching was no longer enough.
He closed his eyes again.
And again.
And again as she continued to touch his face.
“Why are you crying?” the woman asked.
“Name?” he whispered. “What do they call you?”
“Nephal,” she answered. “It means—”
“—fallen.” He jerked away, took one step, then two. As if his very life depended on it, he put distance between him and Nephal.
“And yours?” she asked.
Want.
Want.
Want.
He knew he shouldn’t tell her, something cried out inside of him, that it was wrong, the entire exchange, something told him it would not end well, but he only wanted seconds, minutes, hours, maybe he wanted days, and was it wrong to want time? When he was given so much of it? After all, he was still watching, he was just watching. Her.
“Sariel.” The minute his name was released into the atmosphere, the wind picked up, a warning, from nature, from the very earth that he’d sworn to protect.
Do not do this. The mountains trembled.
Do not do this. The wind hissed.
Do not do this. The ground shook.
“I will not do this.” Sariel repeated out loud as the wind died down.
The woman hung her head. “Thank you… for all you’ve done.”
She turned her back.
He didn’t want her to.
He wanted.
Want.
Want.
Want.
“Sariel!” One of his men barked out his name. “We return to the mountain.”
“To watch,” Sariel said, his tone bitter.
Azeel looked stricken. “Brother, of course we watch. It is our purpose.”
And for the first time, Sariel… wanted more.
The earth shifted that day, without his brother’s knowledge, for when he watched, he watched Nephal.
When he watched, he dreamed of her.
And when his brothers were doing their duty.
He was closing his eyes and remembering her hand on his face.
It was years before he would see her again.
And the opportunity arose as the village was yet again attacked. The men, disbursed from the mountain.
They went in all directions.
But Sariel went to Nephal.
Once he reached her hut, he knocked on the door then burst through when she did not answer. “Nephal? Are you hurt?”
“No.” She frowned, rising up from her bed, the fur fell from her naked body. Sariel had never seen anything so beautiful in all his life.
Already he could sense that the battle was nearly over, his brothers, returning back to the mountain.
“I missed you.” Tears filled her eyes. “I do not know who you are… but I miss you. Why do I miss you?”
He didn’t know why.
He just knew he felt the same way.
“Why do you only come when we are in trouble?”
“I cannot answer that.”
“Why do I feel strongly for you? A man? A stranger I do not know?”
“I cannot answer that either.”
She nodded, covering herself with the fur and laid down.
Sariel was immobile, and then he found himself peeling his armor off, layer by layer.
He lay by her, pulling the woman in his arms as his body whispered mine.
But his heart.
His heart was in the most danger of all.
For when she sighed against him, it was as if time, did not slow, but picked up, reminding him, that it would run out. And his precious woman, would die.
Sariel returned to his men, to his spot on the mountain a different being that day.
And his brothers knew.
“What have you done, brother?” Ezaju whispered under his breath, rarely did he ever speak. “You smell of humanity,” He turned his head, taking his eyes off the village. “You stink of earth.”
Sariel looked down, in shame. “I love her.”
His brothers, all one hundred ninety-nine of them, seemed to gasp in unison, and then began talking all at once.
“Do you want to send us to hell?” One spoke above the rest. “Do you realize what will happen if one of
us falls? All of us fall!”
Sariel sighed. “You think I don’t know that? You think I’m unaware of repercussions. I cannot help how I feel.”
“Try!” Ezaju yelled. “You must try. For the sake of all of us!”
Sariel nodded. “I will… try.”
“We watch,” Bannik replied. “We do not sleep. We do not close our eyes.” The brothers all returned to watching in one loud clap of thunder and repeated. “We are the ones who keep our eyes open. We are the awake.”
But Sariel… did not repeat it.
For his vow was long ago broken, the minute he closed his eyes and wanted.
Stephanie hid her face in my chest. “I’m not sure I want to see anymore.”
“The story ends soon.”
“But does it end well?” she asked.
“It ends the only way it can.” I licked my lips as the vision disintegrated in front of us.
Sariel was again at the village.
And Nephal was already waiting for him.
He knew his brothers were watching, but he kept thinking, if only they saw the joy, if only they saw what they could have.
He slept with her.
Not once.
Nor twice.
Many, many times, and each time he grew more and more attached to the woman who held his heart. The woman he would bind himself to forever.
She was lying across his naked body when she whispered, “I am with child.”
“Impossible.” Sariel shook his head. “We are not human.”
Already he’d told her too much, about the heavens, about the stars, about his race.
“It is possible. It must be.” She touched her belly. “Already I feel his movement.”
“And how do you know it is a boy?”
“Is it?” She smiled brightly and Sariel caught on to the excitement, pressing his hand against her stomach in joy until the destiny of the child played out in horrific visions of the future.
With a gasp, Sariel pulled his hand back. “He must… not be born.”
Nephal jerked away from Sariel. “How could you say that? This child was conceived in love?”
“This child.” Sariel shook his head. “Will be hated… scorned, constantly surrounded by darkness.”
“Darkness?”
“He will never experience true joy or contentment, constantly pulled between two planes, between immortals and mortals alike. He will know division and darkness, the darkness and cruelty of the human race will be his lover, his companion. I cannot allow him to be born. My love for him, for you, is what guides this.”