Hope.
All this time, I kept hoping someone would come save me. That I would be freed from that cold, lonely place. That maybe I would wake up and this would all be some type of nightmare.
But this was my cold, cruel reality, and I was stuck here. Never to leave again?—
“Vesper?”
That isn’t Charlotte’s voice calling my name.
My heart leapt into my chest.This is real… right? Please, please be real.Too many times I prayed to the gods in my mind. Krae, the witch gods, the human gods. Any who would listen.
But they never answered me, let alone in a way that sounded this real.
I was scared to turn around. Scared to hope and be disappointed. But I couldn’t stop myself. Because hope, the annoying addictive emotion that it was, seized my body. It made me wish, long for things that could never happen, and no matter how many times reality crushed me, hope was still there, pulling me up through the tiniest of cracks.
I turned toward the voice. There, before me, standing tall, was the witch who had changed my life.
Cedar looked at me with a pained expression that slowly morphed into a small smile. She looked so different as I watched her with my new eyes. Her gaze was brighter, her skin more freckled. I wanted to memorize it all and was upset that I hadn’t thought to do it from the beginning.
I was so taken by her that I almost didn’t notice the long-haired vampire by her side.
“You’ve gotten taller,” Cedar said, swallowing thickly as if she had some sort of knot in her throat.
I tried not to flinch at her words. And then I tried to stop my mind from going back to the cold, dark place they locked me in. But it did anyway.
I couldn’t breathe. My stomach was so hollow, it hurt to even exhale. The blood, once metallic tasting, was getting sweeter as the days went on.
Day? Weeks? I couldn’t tell.
Pain. All I felt was pain. My teeth ached. My mind was going crazy. Hallucinating. Hunger. Always so hungry. And the blood poured over my lips?—
She said I’m taller. Does that mean she knows? Is it that hard to look at my changed form? Does she hate it? Hateme? Does she still want me like this? Will she ever want me again?
I needed to know. It pained me to think that I was going to lose her because of this.
I moved to step toward her, but Charlotte was there, pulling me back by linking her arm with mine.
“Let’s not get my Vesper in trouble, hm?” Charlotte commented, a reminder of my status here.Right.Hope began to dissipate, and I deflated. “Atlas, it took you long enough. Have you thought about my proposal?”
The vampire looked at her with an expression I could only describe as disgust. She looked the same, the only difference was the power that emanated from her. Atlas seemed to be a lot morepowerful than I ever thought. Or maybe I just couldn’t tell until now.
“One dinner, one chance, no promises, and then?—”
“You givemyVesper back to me,” Cedar said, her voice full of the kind of strength that had me wanting to fall to my knees in front of her.
She came. For me. This is happening. It’s not all in my head.
But regardless of how happy I was, there was still one overarching worry.
Where is our vampire princess?
Aurelia
There were a few places that I avoided in the palace since coming back. They brought back memories I'd rather keep dead and buried for more reasons than one.
But on the day before the eve of my wedding announcement, I found myself wandering the garden that my mother loved so much.
I thought my brother would have destroyed all of it, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the flora and trees coming to life here once again.
