“Oh my god, oh my god,” Eloise sobs.
“You can’t save her. You can’t even save your own kingdom,” the harpy squawks.
Shadows shoot out from me, climbing the walls and pointing sharp tendrils at the beast. “Try me.”
It lunges and I swing. Dawnbreaker slices through the thing’s neck like it’s made of butter. Its bird-body flops on the table, blood spilling into the tea and across the floor. Instantly, the room changes. The entryway appears again. Reaching behind me, I usher Eloise toward the door along the far wall.
“Don’t let the blood touch you,” I warn, pushing her toward the exit. We leap over the spreading pool of blood.
“What will happen if the blood touches me?” she asks.
“Our legends say it burns like acid.”
We both look back when a crash rings through the cursed room. The table has collapsed. Blood sizzles against the remains of the table legs where it continues to dissolve the wood. I glance at the blood on my sword and wipe it off on a set of curtains in the adjoining hallway before I resheathe it on my back.
“Can we get out of here?” Eloise asks in a pitifully weak voice.
“We can try.” The truth is, I don’t know how many challenges we must face on this road. We might be done with Harcourt Manor, or we might find ourselves in the attic next. But I take her hand in mind and we keep going.
Our feet fall on the wooden planks of the hallway for what feels like a mile and then the wood turns to black bricks and the walls start to crumble away. We reach the back door of Harcourt Manor, and when I open it, we spill out onto the forest path. The road is just the road again.
I walk close to her as she wipes under her eyes. “I know that was terrifying, but we survived.”
“How many more of those do you think we have to face?”
“I don’t know. Catarina didn’t say how many she faced, but even if she had, it might not be the same, considering we’re together.”
She nods, our feet falling steadily in the silence.
After some time passes, she asks, “Damien, tell me something. Was she right?”
“Right? The harpy? That wasn’t even real.”
“It was real.”
“You mean the promise you made to your grandmother? You can’t hold yourself to that promise. Everything has changed.”
Her gaze finds mine as we walk shoulder to shoulder in the center of the road. “Does it bother you that I can’t have children? If we take back your kingdom but produce no heir, who will be king after you’re gone?”
I frown. “I am not concerned with such a distant future. To be sure, I would have been happy with you in that cottage on the side of the mountain, no kingdom or children to speak of.”
“You really mean that, don’t you?”
“Indubitably.”
She sighs deeply and wipes the rest of the tears from her face. “Then let’s finish this.”
We walk faster, toward whatever the shadowpath holds in store for us.
43
A Castle in the Sky
ELOISE
As our walk stretches on, I’m thankful for our moments alone. It gives me time to think. These challenges are uniquely personal and ultimately spiritual. Thanesia is trying to break us. I think about all the souls who walk this road alone at the end of their lives and how the sacrifices of blood their families are supposed to make can ease their way. Considering this land isn’t crowded with ghosts, I assume most souls eventually make it through Thanesia’s door and enter the Darklands. Now, having experienced what we have, I wonder if, by the time they do, they have a different understanding of their life. A different understanding of themselves.
As a shade, Damien will live a long life, perhaps thousands of years, but he won’t live forever. My life as a vampire will, too, have an expiration date, even if that is ten thousand years from now when the flesh clings to my bones like shrunken leather. In the end, when we walk this road once more, I wish we could have children to mourn us. Children to ease the road.
