Page 52
“Hundreds of miles without civilization. Those woods hadn’t seen a human in a thousand years. I wandered for days, sure I would die of thirst, be eaten by beasts, or be attacked by fiendlings. But then I met a woman. A weaver.”
My skin goes cold. I can say nothing.
“She lived alone in the darkest part of the forest. And she told me the story.” His eyes meet mine. “She told me there was a girl with a broken heart, that she was my destiny, and that she would rise to power with me and rule by my side. Then I came here to open the Ridding. I saw you, and my heart knew.”
Saint Nona, one of the Sisters of Necessity, met him on the road. Forces beyond me have been weaving this long before the Ridding began—my fate planned for me long ago. A feeling of powerlessness overcomes me. How much am I, how much are any of us, in control of our lives when powers like this exist?
“The weaver made me a bargain. If I swore to offer her something in return, she would tell me where I could find the power to save my kingdom and ascend the throne with my bride. I agreed to her terms. She directed my path through the woods, and in not half an hour’s walk, I was out of the trees and at the doors of the Baquesian royal palace.” He laughs incredulously. “A damn miracle. I was so relieved. But then, when I entered . . .” He looks at me darkly. “It was no wonder we’d had difficulty communicating with Baquesia. The palace was empty and filthy, covered in molded food and destroyed furniture. And there was a man there. He told me what had happened, that what they call a sickness had spread throughout the east first. That there was no choice left but to fall or become one of them. That I would not leave there in the same state I’d come. Death or the immortal life of a siphon; that was my choice. That man became my sire, and he sent me back to Gault.”
He looks at me sadly. He expects me to see the impossibility of his choice. My unruly tongue wants to bite back that he should have chosen death, that he has doomed Gault, not saved it. But I have to perform.
“That must’ve been terrible,” I say quietly.
He nods. “It was.”
I swallow. I want to get the information I need from him and get away as quickly as possible. But I need to be clever. “So we’re immortal. We won’t age?”
“Never,” he says. “As long as we feed regularly, we will never wrinkle, never get sick. You’ll stay as young and beautiful as you are now.”
Like he’s offering me a damned gift. He doesn’t know what a rare treasure it is to grow old, that it was all my parents wanted—to live and age and die in each other’s arms. They were robbed of it.
“They’ll try to kill us,” I say. “When Imaelhain discovers what you are, they’ll lose all restraint.”
He nods thoughtfully, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “They don’t know what they fight against. Their Dark, even their Great Nightmare . . .” He rolls his eyes at the mention of it. “None of it can stand against us. See, becoming a siphon, it takes something from you. A sliver of your humanity, possibly. You can likely feel it—the absence of it. But to lose a fraction of one’s soul and gain the world? A fair trade, I think.”
I’ve lived too long with a broken heart to agree with him. I have none of my humanity to spare.
“So there’s—there’s nothing . . . I mean, we can’t . . . die?”
“We can. There are few things that could kill us, though.” He looks at me curiously. A lump rises in my throat. I’ve gone too far. “Why this line of questions, Vesper? Are you still so riddled with fear that even now you’re worried about death? Or . . . are you hiding something?”
He stands, descending the steps toward me, stepping over the girl’s body without so much as looking at her. I push myself to my feet.
“You know, the second trial is obfuscation. Secrets and lies are of the Dark. Revelation is of the Light. And if we’re to be joined for an eternity, I would hate to start out that relationship with dishonesty.”
“I’m not—”
His hand lashes toward me, grabbing me by the arm before I can back away. “Be very careful with your next words, dearest. The Ridding will see through your deceptions. Liars will out.”
“I have no lies to tell.”
Galvin doesn’t back down. There’s a predatory gleam in his eyes, just before white begins to cloud them again. My Light does nothing against him. I can’t fight back. He pulls me toward him, pinned against his body.
“You know, when I kissed you before, it was so momentary. I didn’t get the chance to properly taste you.”
His fingers trace over my neck, and I realize he isn’t talking about a kiss. I push against his chest, and then he’s grabbing my hair, twisting my neck to the side. “I promise not to drain you,” he hisses. His hot breath brushes the skin of my neck. “But Saints, Vesper, you don’t know what the scent of your blood does to me.”
With that, he plunges his teeth into me. The puncture is sharp and deep and rough. The pain is so much worse than I’d imagined, and I cry out, forced to grab the front of his uniform to stay upright. But the pain of his teeth is nothing compared to what comes next—the pull of my blood and the venom that pushes into my bloodstream. The pain is unbearable, like fire coursing through every vein. Tears fall down my cheeks, and I’m screaming, screaming, screaming.
It’s instinct to reach for my timepiece, a reflex to want a piece of my mother right now. The warm metal touches my hands, and the moment it does, my Dark magic rushes to the surface. Pain, anguish, fear—they are all sources of the Dark.
And then I realize—my Light cannot hurt Galvin. I haven’t tried the Dark.
I plunge deep within my Darkened heart and pull my magic up, up, up, till I’m welling over with it. I let it flood me, and I use the shortest poem I have in my arsenal, letting the old scars bleed anew.
What I loved most
But loved me not
