“This is how they're getting stronger?”
She nodded. “For some reason our blood—the blood of Krae—sustains them most. There's a reason why our blood doesn't taste as good to each other. It was the goddess’s design that we did not feed off each other for fear that we would become too powerful. But Aurelia…” She grabbed my face between her shaky hands. “This is not over yet. The prophecy can still be completed.”
“I don't want to hear about the prophecy anymore?—”
“You’re right. This family was never supposed to last. Your father and his father tried to do the same thing—to run from the prophecy. In order to do that, they have been stealing our blood for decades.”
I stood straighter.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that this family was supposed to have died out long ago. They stole us. Murdered our people and impregnated our women. But no more. The three of you can do this, I am sure.”
“But Mother?—”
“Hush now. Rest while you can. This isn't over.”
I wanted to fight her, but I couldn't because, for the first time since I was a child, she started singing to me. Slowly, my bodylowered so that my head was in her lap, and she was stroking my hair.
My eyes met the bodies piled in the cells, and my heart started breaking in my chest when I met very familiar eyes looking right back at me.
My stepmother and stepsister never got away after all.
I closed my eyes and let my mother’s voice carry me away.
Cedar
“Aurelia! Vesper!’”
I screamed as I tried to reach for them, but it was lost in the magic that transported us from the Castle palace to the cathedral where our White Lotus meetings were held.
I was thrown to the ground, the high priest’s laughter echoing throughout the room.
Flashbacks of every single time I had been in the same room hit me all at once, disorienting me.
Don't get distracted. If you do, you'll die.
A burst of magic was suddenly thrown at me, and I rolled, just narrowly escaping it.
“You thought you could get away. Leave the White Lotus. After everything I have done for you?”
I forced myself to my feet. He was facing me, his magic spilling out. But it wasn't only his magic. He was standing on top of a rune that gave him the power. The same rune that stole our magic from us as he whipped us.
The statues of the gods were behind him, all of them looking down at us. Watching, but not intervening. Just like always.
Helma, please.
I was at my wits’ end, begging internally to a goddess while the enemy was right in front of me.
I had always waited for the gods to answer me. I was dedicated in my prayers. I prayed to them my entire life. I believed they were the ones pulling the strings. That they could help me.
It was why I stayed for so long, thinking they would show me the way. It wasn't until I met Vesper and Aurelia that I started to think differently.
I stopped praying to them and started focusing on my lovers and what we could accomplish together.
Still, the gods remained silent. Was it because they had abandoned us for the atrocities we committed? Or because they abandonedme?
“You killed my parents,” I hissed at him. His magic was crawling inside me. After years of him pumping it inside me, it was starting to wake up just for this moment.
