?We all rear back in surprise and twin growls rumble from Varian and Callahan. Neither of them look happy that their fated is asking for another male.
?Aslan tilts his head to the side and asks curiously, “You want to know where Castiel is?”
?“Yes. He knows about the sun death realm.” Both my father and Aslan jerk back. Mavyn purses her lips together. “And clearly you do too.”
?My father clears his throat. “And how is it you know about that?”
?I have never heard of the sun death realm before she said that’s where she was when we were all in her dorm room. When she had apparently disappeared into ashes somehow and reappeared like nothing happened. Where both Callahan and Varian learned they were fated to her.
?She traces her fingers up and down her arm subconsciously and gets a faraway look in her eyes. “Because I’ve been there.”
?I have never seen my father ever surprised or stumped. Not by events that have happened, not by things I have done, not by any challenge or puzzle or game he’s done. He can be hot-tempered, but he is always aware and calculating. He is always thinking at least a dozen steps ahead.
?Except now.
?“How?” He asks it on a breath in complete astonishment. That seems to be the repeating emotion around her.
?“I am cursed by Lyalthil Kyros, the Sun Devil of Miy and blessed of Ruu. Killed by a fated death blow through a blood art magic in his sleep along with his fated.” Mavyn curls her nails into her palms and glares into a blank space. Her devils flood the room with their suffocating magic and I nearly do the same before catching myself. “I had killed her first. Made sure he was awake and watching as I did it. After they were dead was when the nightmares started. The first time I was pulled into the sun death realm was the one year anniversary of their death. It’s the only place he can still touch me.”
?Questions roar in my head about what this realm is and what it means. How can someone already dead still touch the living? How can he still hold power if his soul should be gone?
?My father asks with a shaky breath. “Lyalthil Kyros’s soul still remains in a realm?” Mavyn slides eyes full of disgust and distain and rage towards my father. Red, damning eyes.
?Something within her shifts and her scent overlaps Callahan and Varian’s both. Her aura building around her like a cloak simply drifting around the form of her body.
?“Yes,” she growls with a rage and hatred I’ve never seen from her before. “A remnant of his soul still is with the living – no matter that it’s a nightmare realm for us. Despite it being called the sun death realm, Ruu the God of Sun holds power there. Since the sun devil was blessed by the god he was able tocling onto a part of the living. So when his strength is raised he pulls me through.”
?So the devil is still torturing her. Even all these years later – and we still don’t even know how long she was with him. She was adopted as a toddler but when exactly was that and how long before she killed them?
?I bring us back to focus by asking, “What does the sun death realm have to do with you knowing the spirit’s song?”
?She flashes irritated blooddrop eyes at me. “I am trying,” she grits, “to be more open.” Making a face at me like I should be grateful for her giving us a bit of information. But we had already known she had been in the sun death realm, so I don’t know how it’s helpful. She rolls her eyes at me. “I’ve been to one realm before, do you think I haven’t been to others?”
?I understand Varian’s frustration with her now.
?“It is true that all vampires hear the song and some know the words, but I. . .” Something in her eyes flashes and her expression drops. Like a memory replaying within her mind. “I don’t remember my. . . family, but I remember so much after. I remember warmth and cedar before rain and thunder. Then there was citrus and pine before death rolled. I remember those hikers finding me and bringing me to the police, and the house where I was kept for those first three years. I remember first seeing those icy blue eyes and what he said to me even though I was only three.”
?Another flash through her eyes and it makes her lashes flutter. There’s a pang in my chest. She had been three. She was three when that devil caged her, six when he cursed her, and ten when he claimed her.
?Seven years.
?Seven years she was beat and scarred and tortured.
?“He taught me about other realms,” she murmurs, still half lost in her head. “About the sun death realm and others. Ones that were between the past and afterlife. Where the dead still lingered even though they no longer existed now. Those words, the songs, Sanivin the first vampire sang them to me.”
?Another presence enters the room that does not have a physical body. An entity drifting by, consuming the space but somehow not dominating Mavyn’s magic and aura. It’s listening, has been listening as she said she’s met the first vampire created.
?My father had met her once, when he was a young child and it was right at the end of her immortal life. He said Mavyn felt like her on the battlefield. Sanivin. . . the godskiller.
Six
Mavyn – Novam 14
The winter solstice is in a week. There’s supposed to be a ball sort of thing for everyone that Jullia keeps babbling about. She said it usually happens the night before because the Willow of Lore ceremony happens on the winter solstice, but because it already happened the ball will be moved to that Sunday.
?She’s currently out with Hanna and Asher in town looking for dresses. After admitting that I have – in a sense – met Sanivin before three days ago, of course a million and one questions were asked. But it all got shut down when my stomach rumbled and Callahan had shut everyone up.
?He led me out and back to his room at Stone House where everyone had stared at me, but let me use his private bathroom to shower and change into one of his long sleeve shirts and an old pair of sweats. Then he ordered more food than even I couldever eat, but I did my best, and after he had blood bags sent from the infirmary for me to gorge myself on.
