I swayed a little on the spot, feeling sick and quite light-headed.
‘Can we go b-back?’ I stuttered, eyes struggling to focus. ‘I’m kind of cold,’ I lied.
Felix, oblivious to my plight carried on. ‘But it’s only a little further and there’s a whole load of dead trees.’
I swayed, dropping a few sticks. As they fell, Autumn abruptly whirled around, her eyes following them until they hit the ground before her gaze bounced back up to mine. Something warm and alien brushed against my mind, before I vaguely heard another voice.
‘I’m cold too.’
I heard Felix sigh exasperatedly. ‘Okay, okay … I get it … we’ll go back …’
I closed my eyes for a few moments, taking a few deep breaths. When I opened them, the other two were already heading back up the path, the sticks that I had dropped at my feet gone.
The moment I stepped back into the clearing, Kaspar’s eyes shot up from where he was silently whittling a piece of wood with a penknife. Questioning, they swept across me before they returned to his carving.
I dumped the wood beside the fire and dropped beside him, leaning against the trunk of a great tree.
‘What’s the time?’
‘Mr Wolf.’ He smiled at his lame joke, but his flat tone told me his heart wasn’t in it. This Dark Heroine business had wiped the smile clean off his face. ‘Almost midnight,’ he added, not glancing up from his work. He stared at it, intent, tiny curls of wood floating to the ground at our feet until eventually all that was left was a shard of useless bark. He dropped it to the ground and folded the knife back up, watching as Felix and Cain arranged the sticks into a rough pyramid in the stone circle. Fallon knelt beside them, whispering words into the cradle of tinder.
Autumn gravitated around her companion, seeming reluctant to get too close to anyone else. Eventually she settled against a nearby tree, a little way out of the circle. Her eyes feasted on the smouldering beginnings of the fire, never leaving it, even as Fallon’s face shone with a child’s glee as flames sprung from the damp wood, or when the boys let out a satisfied shriek of surprise.
Yet again I found my gaze could not be torn away from her and I watched, even more fascinated now after her sudden act of insight and kindness towards me, a virtual stranger. The flames were reflected in her amber eyes and they were taking on an even greater depth – too deep for a shy girl of sixteen. They were the flickering eyes of an adult who had endured pain and torment; who understood the world and what she had to do.
I had seen those eyes before. They were the eyes of the King, of my father, of Eaglen, yet here they were, encapsulated in a young Sagean girl.
The clearing settled as the fire grew higher and higher; warmth spread outwards, creeping slowly across the ground until it reached my toes, then my legs and as I leaned forwards towards it, my face, which glowed and began to burn.
Fallon, content with his handiwork, held his hands out to the fire, warming them. Autumn shifted closer and joined him. Immediately, the fire quite literally bent towards them both, becoming brilliantly orange and distorted. She pursed her lips as though about to whistle and blew gently, forcing the reluctant fire back like a chastized child. Fallon just chuckled as the fire sprung back, trying its luck again. His serious companion did nothing this time, but continued to stare into the depths of the fire, even as the falling leaves landed in a little ring around them.
The vampires, on the other hand, scuttled away from the flames. Kaspar hesitated for a few minutes, staying close by my side but it wasn’t long before he too succumbed to the burning heat and withdrew into the shadows.
It was mostly quiet for a long while, other than the occasional giggle from Lyla from the shadows – it did not take much imagination to know what her and Fabian were up to. Felix and Charlie occasionally whispered a few words to each other but their conversations were short. Alex eventually took out his guitar and retreated even further away from the fire and began strumming half-heartedly, competing with the crackling of the fire, Cain interjecting every now and then.
I sensed that everyone was lost in their own thoughts, just like I was: it was odd to think that the people sat around me were at the centre of everything that was happening to the dimensions, as things started to breakdown.
As are you, my voice said.
I scoffed in my head. Hardly. I don’t even understand the Prophecy.
Then maybe you should ask.
I contemplated its suggestion for a moment but decided I didn’t have the courage to ask – I felt such a fool with the Sage around. I turned around, wondering if I could quietly question Kaspar but as soon as I met his eyes he stood up.
He walked around the fire, grabbed one of the bags and reached into it, pulling out a handful of chocolate bars. He chucked a couple of them my way and gave the rest to the two Sage. Autumn ripped hers open and devoured it hungrily, making her seem more human than her vampire counterparts; seeing that, Fallon handed her the rest and with a wave of his hand, conjured an apple from midair.
Kaspar handed the beers around which Autumn politely refused and settled back down behind me. I moved back a bit and joined him, tired of the burning heat, taking a few sips of the beer.
‘How do you do that?’
‘Do what?’ Fallon asked, taking a second bite out of his apple.
‘Produce food from thin air.’
He took a third bite. ‘Magic.’
‘But how is that possible?’
‘Just is,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders.
There was a pause. ‘Then nobody starves.’
Fallon frowned ruefully. ‘We feed our own.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, knowing full well what he was implying.
‘We can only conjure what nature provides, and nature cannot provide enough to feed the expanding population of the world; of each dimension.’
My face cleared with comprehension but my mouth fell slightly open, aghast. ‘So millions of humans – innocent children – die whilst the dark beings wallow in wealth?’
‘I wouldn’t say wealth,’ Fallon argued, but I turned to Kaspar for back-up.
‘You said yourself that there’s no such thing as poverty for dark beings.’
He nodded solemnly. ‘But it’s more than that. There’s too much politics involved between dark beings and humans.’
I straightened up. ‘Clearly,’ I retorted, knowing that my situation reflected that perfectly.
‘Kaspar’s right,’ Cain said. ‘Co-operating is basically impossible. Mother’s proof of that. There’s no trust.’
My eyes guiltily slid to the ground and the box rattled. ‘Well maybe that is what needs to change,’ I ended, defeated.
‘I agree with Violet,’ a quiet voice suddenly said.
All eyes turned to Autumn as her gaze briefly met mine. Quickly, she hastened to explain herself. ‘The wealth could be more evenly distributed.’
‘But Miss Lee,’ Fallon begun. ‘Who do you suggest could implement such a change?’
I flushed. ‘The Dark Heroines? Isn’t that what the Prophecy said they would do?’
The clearing went silent and Fallon cleared his throat, glancing sideways at Autumn.
‘We’ll tell you the first and second verse of the Prophecy, but no more. You don’t know enough about the other dimensions to understand it.’
That stung but Fallon’s mouth was set in a line and I knew not to argue.
‘I’ve heard the first verse before,’ I said, still hearing the hallowing penultimate line in my head.
‘From Kaspar, I presume?’
Kaspar nodded and rested his head back against the trunk of the tree, looking resigned. His hands rested on the ground beside him and his nails dug into the earth, his arms tensed. My heart dropped, longing to know why he had become so withdrawn all of a sudden and almost instinctively I moved my hand as close as I dared to his, our little fingers almost touching. Perhaps he felt my warmth because his arm relaxed.
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‘Just the second verse then.’ Fallon shrugged his shoulders and took a long swig from his can of beer. Finishing it, he crushed it in his palm, the metal disappearing beneath the crevices of his fingers. When he opened them again, all that was left was dust, which he scattered onto the fire.
Autumn glanced his way and then began to speak in her native tongue, Fallon weaving a translation in-between.
‘Her fate is set in stone,
Bound to sit upon the second throne.
Destined to betray her kin; she lives in his past sin,
Bathed in the blood of the black rose above.
No birth, no time, no choice,
So as martyrs, two innocents must die,
For the girl, born to impassion the nine.’
Her last words were spoken with a severity and urgency there hadn’t been before and she gave a small gasp, as though surprised at herself. Fallon didn’t question her behaviour, but lay there patiently, his eyes roaming across the dark sky, as though counting the stars. With her gasp came silence, the fire the only one to speak as the wind raced through its mouth, sighing through pursed lips as the air escaped and hurried on, zipping between the trees and leaving only a whistle behind.
I nestled further into the tree and stared up too, wondering whether, perhaps, with its strange, airy, even earthy language that the stars were more familiar than the first dimension and its even stranger inhabitants, the Sage.
Fallon sighed and propped himself up on his elbows. ‘That verse is a true declaration of war.’
‘But this is peacetime?’ I questioned, confused.
‘No, Miss Lee,’ Fallon cooed again. ‘If this were peacetime, you would not be sitting here, a prisoner of politics, faced with a decision you hardly dared to consider until recently.’
My eyes lowered to the ground.
‘If this were peacetime, no child, whether a descendent of magic or not, would starve.’
My hands clenched together.
‘We have not been at peace for millennia. I highly doubt we ever have and things are now coming to a head. You just can’t see it yet, Miss Lee.’
Autumn’s eyes lowered to the ground.
‘And you’re hoping that the Heroines will sort it all out?’ I snorted. ‘Good luck with that!’ Chuckling, I leaned back against the trunk of the tree. A quickly stifled laugh came from Kaspar beside me, who sobered as soon as Fallon disapprovingly looked his way.
‘Was that some sort of backhanded insult, Miss Lee?’
I shook my head innocently but rather exaggeratingly winked at Kaspar who resorted to biting his bottom lip with his fangs to mute his laughter.
‘I don’t see this as a laughing matter.’
‘I-it’s not,’ I choked, trying to subdue my giggling. And it wasn’t funny, I was just glad to see Kaspar smiling and laughing again. ‘But seriously, if I know anything about people with power, they’d rather die than accept change.’
Suddenly, Autumn stood up and muttered something that sounded like ‘tired’ to Fallon who replied in their native language. She shook her head and began to walk away but in one fluid movement he had stood up and grabbed her hand, stopping her mid-step.
Immediately, I stopped laughing.
Fallon called after her and she stopped, her back to us. ‘You forget yourself, Autumn. You are in the presence of royalty, remember.’
Her shoulders rose gradually and fell as though she was sighing, before she slowly turned and in a show of manners or mockery, I wasn’t sure which, bowed to the ground in a full curtsy.
‘Your Highnesses. Lords. Sirs.’ Her eyes glided across each person until they came to me. ‘Madam.’
Her gaze turned to Fallon, reproachful, and lingered there for a moment like she was searching for his approval. But she didn’t wait for it because she sprang back up, her hair flung from about her neck to her back and in one leap; she had disappeared into the thick canopy of leaves.
There was stunned silence at her departure. An acid-y, sickly feeling settled in the back of my throat. I had only met this girl a few hours before, but I felt as though I had insulted a close friend; the jealousy I had felt when Kaspar had shown her kindness earlier seemed trivial; my thoughtlessness childish.
Fallon stared into the forest and slowly turned back to Kaspar, a rueful look on his face. Niceties were exchanged as he apologized profusely for her behaviour – ‘So inappropriate’ – before he turned into the darkness after her with the assurance the vampires would keep watch for the night.
The last thing I saw before sleep enveloped me sometime later was Fallon’s swirling scars through the many lashing, lusty tongues of the fire as he returned and a hand – Kaspar’s hand – creeping closer to mine, palm facing the stars.
FIFTY-FIVE
Kaspar
The hands of my watch moved achingly slowly as the night wore on, tiresome and troubled. Below me, Violet’s soft breathing was the complete opposite: calm and even but still agitating.
I had kept my hand near hers for the first half an hour or so, but was forced to move it as she rolled over in her sleep and moved dangerously close. We were many miles from my father but he would know. And even if he didn’t, I couldn’t touch her. The King was right.
My responsibility was not to Violet. It was to another. It had always been to another. I may not have known about it, but it was my duty. It was Prophecy.
Here Violet was, prepared to sacrifice her humanity for me and what did I have to give her in return?
I was a fool for letting her get this close. A fool for not stopping and realizing what was happening. A fool for not realizing what I felt for her until we were apart for two weeks. It’s crazy, it’s wrong and it’s going to hurt her.
Yet she brought you back, Kaspar. She brought back the ‘you’ your mother knew, my voice reasoned.
And what me was that?
It did not answer.
I looked down at Violet’s frail frame and felt a pang of guilt. I had wronged her and worst of all I couldn’t bring myself to tell her why. I knew I would never work up the courage either and that she would find out the hard way: as fate played out.
It was so close now. So real. Athenea had their Heroine, whoever she was, wherever she was, and the second would follow.
Sighing, I pulled a crumpled, roughly folded piece of paper from my pocket and opened it, thumbing the darker parts of the page where tears had fallen. Mother’s letter. One of a pair.
Dear sweet Beryl,
I didn’t have to read on to know what it said. I had studied it so many times now that tiny tears had appeared along the folds where I had repeatedly folded and unfolded it. It was the other letter I was interested in, which I extracted from the crumpled mass and flattened out on my bended knee.
‘My dear beloved son, Kaspar,
A warning, sweet child: I leave for Romania in a week and I will not leave without entrusting what I know to you. But I would advise that you don’t read on until you must – if you are at peace, my son, do not turn the page. I know you are wise and true enough to heed my words.’
I had been in possession of that letter since the day she died; the first time I ever turned that page was when father had given me her letter to Beryl – one we all treasured.
‘That letter is one of a pair,’ he had said, resting against the stone atop Varns’ Point, the morning after I slept with Violet. ‘It is time for you to read the other.’ And then he told me. Everything. Why we couldn’t touch. Why he was sending me to Romania.
I ran the whole way back, taking the stairs two at a time, bursting into my room, maids bowing and making hurried excuses as they dropped the dust sheets from their hands, fleeing from my snarls as I flung the white coverings away, pulling drawers from their runners until I found the second letter. Flinging my mother’s letter to me onto the unmade bed, untouched since she had slept in it. Reading it. Hearing Violet’s heartbeat as she slept next door, collapsed and stunned, not peacefully as she doe
s now.
That letter changed everything. Even as I realized that Violet was no longer just a prize won and thrown away, but one to be treasured and revered – she wasn’t just another notch on the bedpost. That letter changed everything.
I took the second, hidden part of the letter with me to Romania, along with her last letter to Beryl. Drinking myself delirious. Drowning my sorrows. Selfishly hoping she would return my feelings but knowing it would be so much better for her if she didn’t.
Returning, desperate to see her before the ball but distracted and swept up by the politics as the news that sealed so many fates fell upon our ill-prepared ears.
They found her. The first girl. The Sagean Heroine.
Athenea closed their borders and refused to give news. But the ball went on. I’ll never forget her face, as my father sunk his fangs into her neck. Never.
The locket should have been farewell. I should have let her go, but I couldn’t. Not when Father announced her feelings for me.
I can’t let her go and I can’t break her heart.
After a while I realized I couldn’t sit there and listen to her sleeping. So I got up, crushed both letters into a ball in my pocket and walked away, leaving the questions of the others unanswered as they called after me.
FIFTY-SIX
Violet
The forest brims with life this night, he thought. Not that life is quite the right word.
Gone were the rogues and the slayers, driven away by Varnley’s guards in anticipation of Ad Infinitum. Forgotten by the council too, for a few days at least, was Michael Lee’s plan to rescue his daughter. To replace it had arrived lore and legend: the Prophecy.
He sighed. Leading a double life had left him weary. It was a relief simply to walk in the forest as his true self, and not the cloaked figure the forest had learned to fear.