“I don’t need it,” I told the little girl. “I’m a vampire. I don’t even get cold.”
She laughed, and so did I.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” the woman said, collecting her little girl in her arms.
I glanced around the homes of the outer ring, and the bundles of baby’s breath lining the muddy snow.
It reminded me of when I’d left my village for the last time, on the last night I was human. Even though my human memories were fuzzy, something thick formed in my throat.
This was the reason why I fought. I had a duty to protect them. All of them. The ones who came with me to fight and the ones I left behind. The people of Roselyn were a tough yet loving bunch who lived on the border between lands. They valued peace more than anyone else.
“We’ve begun laying the foundation for the youth homeyou asked us to build,” her mother said, beaming. She gestured toward the furthest end of the city, where the outer ring wall brushed up against the tree line. “You should see it before you go. Maybe offer a blessing.”
I nodded. “I will.”
Starting this new facility couldn’t fix what had happened to Claire, but it was my way of giving back. I didn’t want anyone else to harm children who had lost parents the way she’d been harmed.
Getting back on my horse, I waved goodbye to the little girl, who was swaddled in my cloak, and urged Lucien in the direction of the youth home. I made my way down the less-trafficked streets that were covered in a soft layer of snow. The village lights thinned, lanterns giving way to shadows. The mountain air carried the scent of frost and iron.
Lucien snorted and flattened his ears. He refused to move any closer toward the wall. I followed his gaze and swore I saw the outline of a creature I hadn’t seen since before the Choosing.
Chapter 7
Se préserver
CLAIRE
The worddaughterslodged somewhere deep in my chest. I kept trying to process what the old witch had said, but it wasn’t making any sense.
“Damien and Diana do not have daughters,” I insisted, my voice trembling. “That’simpossible.”
“Do you want to hear the story or not?” she croaked.
I considered her with a weary glance. My mother had always loved spinning stories, but not the kind that would help you fall asleep. She told the kind that made you want to avenge your bloodline. Dark Witches were evil. Vampires were complicit. And anything that didn’t bow to the light deserved to be destroyed.
Mama’s stories weren’t meant to teach me the truth. They were meant to keep me afraid. To turn me into the perfect pawn for her revenge. I wouldn’t put it past the old witch to try to scare me, too. Still, curiosity tugged at me. I was sent down here for a reason.
“As I said,” the old witch began, “once upon a time,Damien and Diana had two daughters.”
Steam rose over the lake, and I swore I could see images forming in the mist. Diana and her white hair slipping into the underworld to seek out the bed of a god. Then I saw pieces of the moon fragmenting like a daughter being born.
The steam sank back into the lake, and I found a pair of emerald eyes fixed on me. She continued. “The girls were lovely in their own right. Each talented. Each beautiful. Which was why they hated each other so much.”
She paused, enjoying my reaction to her story. She was clearly excited that I was hooked. Desperate to hear more.
“The eldest daughter, Rosa, was smart,verylogical, and ill-tempered. She believed everything should make sense. Maris was whimsical and saw beauty in every little thing. It’s said that Maris was so precious to Diana that she gifted her with control of the oceans. Her sister, who was always starting fights, was sent to rule the wind. This angered Rosa. She wanted to be in charge of something more important than an unseeable force. Her anger whipped up the wind, causing great storms. She raged just to destroy the delicate balance of Maris’s tides. So, Diana gave her favorite daughter the gift of foresight so she could warn the people who lived where the tide met the sand when one of her sister’s storms was coming.”
One sister, logical and ill-tempered. The other, whimsical and full of wonder. It should’ve been a beautiful story of balance. But instead, it spoke of fighting and jealousy.
Without trying, I thought of my own sister. Sera. We weren’t like Rosa and Maris, but we were very different people. By the time she was born, I was seven years old and already an outcast. With my silver lilac hair and lack of magick. She was cherished by our coven from the start. Doted on by her father, who rarely spared me a glance.
Mama never let me hold Sera, but sometimes I’d watch her sleep in her bassinet. Tucked in quilts stitchedwith moons and stars. And I thought she was the most wonderful thing in the world.
Her father died when she was a year old. It happened during one of Mama's many missions to destroy demonic relics. As my little sister grew, Sera became a hurricane of a girl. Blowing raspberries at our aunties during her lessons and chasing crows through the cemetery. She was like my very own relic. My moon. My only source of joy in a home that felt like a cage.
“Favor,” the woman said softly, “has a way of makingenemies.”
I bristled at that. I’d never been jealous of Sera, not really. Sera took no joy in being more talented than I. If anything, as she grew older, she became even more reckless—balking rules at every turn and daring punishment—just to take attention away from me.
