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I reached through the Heart of All, searching for the names of potential survivors here. I knew every vampire by name and location, our lives tethered to this jewel. If their names were not drenched in loss, then they were alive.
Seven of them from this palace were still with me.
Staying out of sight, I navigated the cliffside down into the fields below by foot rather than flying. There were no soldiers here.
I made my way down a steep public path to find the well, hidden between two huge boulders covered in snow. A sealed well with a code required for entry.
I brushed the snow aside and placed my right palm flat against the thick stone lid, tapping along the surface with my left fingers and touching the subtle indents there in the intended order. A soft click followed, and the lid dropped open.
A warchopper roared overhead. I made myself small, waiting for it to pass. Once it did, I jumped into the well, the lid closing behind me.
I landed in a crouch in the darkness, immediately on the hunt for my people. A stone door greeted me within a few yards, requiring a different code but using the same method. It opened and I rushed through it, getting through the second door.
The tunnels were dark, the air chilly, a vacuum of silence and shadows twisting and turning around me. It was set up like this to consume any executioners, drowning them in dark confusion.
It didn’t take long for me to find the seven huddling vampires at the bottom of a small yet rather steep slope.
Jemma, the woman at the front, let out a strangled weep of relief when she saw me.
“Majesty,” she said.
The others stood, all seven bowing in respect.
“Oh, Majesty,” a man called Neo whispered. “We’ve lost so many.”
“We don’t know what to do,” Jemma added.
I beckoned them all closer. “I’m with you now.”
Neo hugged me first, the others following. It was lovely to hold them, for their lives to still be intact.
After the last vampire broke away from me, I took my phone from my pocket. Mercifully, it was waterproof, and Medusa had handed it back to me before I flew away from…
…my elf.
These tunnels were fitted with small masts to boost phone signal in case of emergencies, another wonderful engineering achievement from my genius vampires.
More deaths hit the Heart of All, new life counteracting it.
Vaughn picked up. “Where are you?”
I told him.
“I’m still at the house with Declan.”
“Medusa will come for you. Please tell her to come here.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” His voice sounded tight.
“How are you?”
“In limbo, as Layla used to say.”
“I’m sorry.”
He sighed down the line. “I wish I had more to say.”
An interesting effect of having many things to discuss, yet the words failed.
