He had few memories of his father. But the ones he had, he coveted. There were some things his mother could not be allowed to poison. And the knowledge of what vampires should be, and how they were meant to rule, was one of them.
Volencia had corrupted their way. If his father had been alive…none of this travesty would have ever happened. The world could have been made right if only Raziel had won.
If only.
If only.
If only.
Two words that meant nothing in the end.
In his memory, Raziel’s father held the blade aloft, pointing it at the others who stood in attendance. “We are vampires. And we are to be feared.”
Nadi.
He loved her.
And he had never told her.
Now he never would.
His grandmother Lilivra. A shadow behind a curtain. Never appearing in full, always just a silhouette, seated in bed. Her voice was strong, but somehow…even as a child, Raziel was worried the old woman was frail.
Something was wrong with her.
“Your grandchildren, Mother.” Volencia stood behind them, her head bowed. Mael, Lana, Raziel. The first time they had ever seen their grandmother. They were told not to speak. Lana was shaking in fear.
The silhouette of the woman sitting up in bed didn’t seem like an old lady. She looked young to Raziel. Or at least, she wasn’t hunched and withered. But it was hard to tell.
“One is destined to rule. The others to die. One is a mad dog, who delights in the kill. Another a golden beast, with honor in his heart.” Lilivra lifted her hands, palms up in front of her, as if cupping water. “The third, will change this world forever. Come closer, Raziel, second grandson. I have words meant only for you.”
Volencia sputtered. As a child, the moment had seemed strange to him. As an adult, Raziel knew how angry that had made his mother.
“Silence, Volencia.”
Raziel had crept forward, his hands clutched together in front of him. He hovered close to the edge of the gauze curtains.
A hand darted out from behind the curtain and snatched his wrist, yanking him close. The hand wasn’t skeletal—wasn’t wrinkled—it was youthful and the grasp was impossibly strong.
Grandmother Lilivra’s whispered words were seared into his soul that day.
“Tear down the walls. Burn the metropolis to the ground. What they have built is a mockery to what we vampires are meant to be. Only you understand our true nature.”
She had pushed him away violently then, sending him sprawling onto the ground.
His destiny. Laid out before him when he was nothing more than a child. All their destinies, in fact—and their mother had seen to it that they would fulfill them, whether they liked it or not.
Raziel had always wondered if Lilivra had never spoken those words, how much of his life would have played out the way it had.
Would he have ever learned to delight in murder the way he had? Would he ever have become the bastard that he was now? Would he ever have been trapped inside his own mind, dying forever?
A flash of the real world. Of where he was. Of darkness. Of a coffin. He wondered if he was still sinking. He wondered if it mattered. Of drowning.
Nadi.
He loved her.
And he had never told her.
