All I have to do is take one life.
The vampire lord standing before me is the source of all our pain. All the anguish. Without him the Hunter’s Hamlet would be free of its obligations, its walls. My family would be whole. Drew and I would’ve gone to the sea long, long ago. How can one man be the source of so much despair and hope? How can one man be so hard to kill?
I fray and begin to rip. Seams I didn’t know were holding me together buckle and come undone; I explode with pain I’ve been ignoring my whole life. Fury I’ve never allowed myself to feel dredges up from a forgotten place deep within me and erupts with violent force. My father’s death. My brother leaving. Every longing glance I never let anyone else see because I was not permitted a moment of happiness that a normal person would have. Years of pent-up hurt smooths over the breaks in my flesh and ache in my muscles. This anger gives my feet speed.
The world blurs and I charge toward the vampire lord. I shift my weight, putting one foot forward, rearing back with my arms. I swing the blade with all my might, bringing it down like a forge hammer in an arc of hope.
He doesn’t even flinch. The lord lifts a hand and catches the sword easily by the blade. It’s so dull that the steel can’t even penetrate the leather of his gauntlet. Ruvan heaves a monumental sigh.
“The hard way, then.”
He rips the sword from my grasp and swings it through the air. The strength that filled me is evaporating. I don’t have time to dodge before the pommel meets my temple.
The world goes black.
CHAPTER7
Hazy twilight mutesthe crimson of bloodstained sheets.
Tunnel vision. Slowly blinking. Filtered scenes of the withered visages of vampires hovering above me. Their haunting eyes shining as they speak. Inspecting my battered body. I can almost see myself through their gaze.
Shattered, pitiable thing. Pathetic. The words start out in the deep resonance of the vampire lord, but evolve into my own. I was not strong enough.
I was a forge maiden. Not a fighter. I wasn’t supposed to have even been here. That was made clear in the end. A true fighter would’ve been able to end it.
What had I been thinking? With a vial and a drink, I stepped into Drew’s shoes and assumed the obligation of killing the vampire lord.
Where is my brother now? Does he live? Something in me says he does…but I worry I can’t trust that hopeful, foolish corner of my heart. I have to fight, for him. But want is not enough. My will has severed from my body, leaving me like a puppet whose strings have been cut. The elixir took all I had and then some. I cannot move any longer.
Darkness once more.
A man with long,silvery hair sits at my bedside. “You pushed yourself too hard,” he says, sounding somewhat exasperated.
I did?I want to say. But instead, “I know” slips from my lips with an almost coy sigh.
He leans forward and I can see his face clearer than anything else. I feel like I’ve seen it before, many times. And yet I would remember a face as handsome as this. I would remember a man who smells of evergreen with eyes like sunlight.
“What am I going to do with you?”
“Love me forever?” My mouth moves on its own.
“Careful, or I just might.”
I drift through not-quite consciousness,odd, fleeting dreams, and heavy, smothering nothingness. My mind retreats to a place very far, and very detached, from my body. I have been in this dark, internal nightmare before. This is the same void I went to when Davos killed the vampire that stole my father’s face, exposing the horrific truth underneath.
I lived here while I drowned in that pain. The pain of knowing Father was gone. That nothing more could be done for him or my family. But that maybe…maybe if I had been old and strong enough to forge him a sharper sickle…if I had not wanted him to be home for so many dinners that he skipped training…maybe he would still be with me…
How did I get out of this pit of despair, then? How did I find the strength to move during those days of endless grief?
Ah, that’s right… I smothered everything. Thoughts. Feelings. Unnecessary and dangerous. Instead, I worked. I hammered until my hands were raw. That’s what I must do again. I must smother the pain. I must pound the frustration from my bones. If I feel nothing and treasure nothing, then I cannot be hurt. I will be immune to their blows. Once I do, my mind will be clearer.
I can get back to work.
But what can I work on?
Work.Endless. Always much to be done. But we’re close.
A woman walking through darkened halls. Passing through like a ghost: present, felt, but unseen. Arms laden with three journals. A raven-haired man is on one side of her, a golden-eyed man on the other.
