My throat constricts. Because I understand.
Every one of those humans is broadcasting live.
Kala steps forward, in view of all of those phones. They each shift to focus on her. “The country of Austria has been holding a secret for thousands of years,” she begins. “It may not have started here, but it spread from here. This man,” she turns, looking back at Cyrus, “created something incredible. But then he hid it from the world. But that is going to change. Because all of these people, everyone you see is-”
But the air suddenly rushes from her lungs, cutting her words off abruptly.
A huge blade is embedded into her back, and blood instantly runs down her shirt and she collapses to her knees.
Cyrus breathes hard between his teeth, still poised in position from throwing the massive blade.
Some enemies just won’t die. Others, you expect to put up a huge fight.
Kala has survived under the radar for nearly two thousand years.
And Cyrus just killed her with no effort.
“Leave,” he seethes, though his voice is not loud. “If you value your lives, and the way the world looks, leave.”
But the humans don’t even get a moment to respond. Because from further down the road, behind this army my grandson has amassed, there are cries and shouts. And the sound of clanging metal.
Bodies shove past the broadcasting humans, swords raised. Others take aim and fire.
It takes only one and a half seconds before the first human drops to the ground, dropping her phone, dead.
I can’t save them. There’s no protecting them. And there’s no hiding what their cameras are about to see.
With blood red eyes, with fangs bared, with brutal, inhuman strength, we have no choice but to surge forward and fight the war that will determine the future of the world.
I swing my sword, digging the blade deep into the side of a man who rushes at me with wild eyes. I spin, yanking it from his ribs, using my momentum and lop his head off just as he raises his own sword.
A shot fires and a woman rushing at me with a stake drops to the ground, her chest a bloody mess.
From the corner of my eye, I spot Cyrus. He’s a whirlwind of arms and blades as he battles two other vampires. With a huff, I dart through the crowd, slicing as I run. With a great scream, I leap through the air, swinging my blade down.
I drive it through the top of one of the men’s heads, sinking it down, down, through his throat, into his chest, and I aim for his heart.
I know I’ve hit it when he collapses to the ground. A spray of blood splashes over my face as Cyrus decapitates the man he fights.
Our enemies slain, we look at one another for a brief moment. A quick check that the other is alright, that we’re uninjured.
Other than the burn in my throat that reminds me it’s been days since I fed, I feel fine. Great.
I feel a little smile pull on my lips. One tugs on Cyrus’ face and he grabs the front of my armor, pulling me to him, and he crushes his lips to mine. It’s a possession, a declaration that no matter what, I’m his and he is mine. We’re in this together, to whatever the end might be.
Cyrus suddenly yanks me to the side, nearly throwing me off balance, when he raises his sword, and swings wildly at a woman who snuck up at my back. He drives the blade into her stomach, and rips up, cutting her open, and spilling her entrails. He gives a great cry, breathing hard as he looks back at me.
“Don’t kiss me again out here,” I say with a smirk. “You’ll get me killed with those lips.”
Cyrus doesn’t smile, and know to him it isn’t the least bit funny, but I turn, a smile on my swollen lips, and search for my next victim.
I’m covered in blood from head to foot as I battle Born after Born. I’ve lost track of the bodies I’ve fell. Somewhere between fifteen and fifty. It becomes difficult to navigate through the battlefield, there are so many bodies littering the ground.
Bodies of Moab’s people, bodies of Court members. Bodies of my half-siblings.
Bodies of those stupid humans who had no idea what they were getting mixed up in, or how little Moab and Kala’s army cared what would become of them.
Realizing how many bodies were falling, and exactly zero answers I had, I grab the next Born I come across, yanking her toward me, nose to nose as I knock the stake from her hands.
“Where is Moab hiding?” I ask calmly, even though we’re nose to nose, my sword pressed into her navel.
“Right under your nose,” she says with a smile. “Can’t you find him?”
I yank her a little tighter to me, and the tip of my sword sinks into her stomach an inch or two. “I’m not a fan of vague answers,” I say quietly into her ear. I back up, looking into her eyes. “I want specifics. An exact location.”
She laughs, shaking her head, oblivious to any pain my penetrating blade is causing. “It doesn’t matter where Moab is. It doesn’t matter how long you fight against us. The world knows now. They’ve seen. And everything has already changed.”
My stomach has disappeared. My body feels cold.
I know how the world works now. I know what technology is capable of accomplishing. I know the power of the internet and social media and the news.
There were two-dozen humans live-streaming on our side. I have to assume there were another two dozen of them on Lorenzo’s side.
Forty-eight humans spreading the word is all it would take to set the world on fire in this modern age.
With a loud scream and a grunt, I shove my hand forward and up, burying my blade into her chest, piercing her heart.
I don’t even give her a second look as she collapses to the ground, dead.
Looking around the battlefield, I see Cyrus holding a man to the ground, a blade pressed into the soft spot under his chin, interrogating him. Only a few moments later, he buries the blade into the man’s brain.
Others from Court are using words, attempting to gain information about Moab’s whereabouts.
Where are you hiding, Moab?
And suddenly, there, tickling the back of my brain, there’s something.
Something I nearly forgot, even though it was traumatizing in the moment.
A snow-white scalp.
Sitting in Cyrus crown on his desk chair.
Moab’s signature move.
Moab had been in the castle.
What if…
What if…?
I turn, my eyes going to the mouth of the canyon, even though it’s miles away. My brain traces the path back along the road, down the valley, past the lake, into stone walls.
What if…
Moab escaped hundreds of years ago.
No one knew how.
All entrances to the castle were watched round the clock under normal circumstances.
Where is he?
Right under your nose.
But there was one entrance, one I thought only Cyrus and I knew about. It wasn’t us who had created it.
What if there were more ways to access it than just the one I knew about?
What if…?
My eyes turn back to the battlefield. Golden-jade eyes flash from everywhere, and side-by-side, the members of Court fight with them to destroy Moab’s army.
But in my gut, there is a feeling.
We haven’t been able to find Moab, because he isn’t here.
“No,” I mutter under my breath. “No.”
All my organs turn to ash. My feet start moving before I can logically plan anything. Before I can take a second to think. Before I can give four words—back to the castle—as an order to my people.
I just start running.
Chapter 11
I see perfectly clear as I run, an invisible blur. My feet are numb within seconds from pounding the ground so hard. My hair rips from its braid, flowing out behind me.
I crest the road, the valley coming into view.
I hear a scream. I hear glass shatter.
It comes from the castle.
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A curse and a prayer slips over my lips as I race down the road.
“No,” I cry, so, so desperate and sick. “No.”
I bullet toward the lake, to the southeast corner. I don’t slow as I leap into the air, forming an arrow with my body, and dive into the water.
The cold hits me like a baseball bat, but I use every ounce of strength I have to propel myself through the water. I rocket through the dark, frigid water, knowing exactly where I’m going.
Even with my enhanced vision, I can hardly see the dark hole. I rely on memory more than sight.
There, deep, along the cliff of the shore, I find the entrance to the cave.
The rock cuts back into the shore, creating an underwater tunnel. I swim through it for a good fifteen yards, dragging my hands along the roof of it, and finally, there, I find the opening.
A narrow circle opens above my head, and I pull myself up and out of the water, onto a muddy ledge. Gasping for oxygen that I don’t really need, I pull myself up into the cold air.
A tunnel, barely tall enough for me not to have to crouch to walk, cuts from here at the lake’s edge, and drives back straight toward the castle.
It’s pitch black. I can’t see anything. So I walk slowly. I have to inspect the entire thing. I have to know if there are any other entrances to the castle beside the one I know.
It feels like it goes on and on forever, and I have to remind myself, the tunnel is in fact nearly two miles long. But I don’t cheat, I don’t skip anything. I have to find any other entrances. I have to know.
The entry that I know of into the castle is directly ahead. It cuts down into the castle and comes out in the secret armory in the floor of my bedroom. Even though this tunnel feels infinitely long, I know that there are exactly sixty-seven more steps before the tunnel makes a slight left bend and then begins rising.
I drag my hand along the tunnel, breathing hard, using my enhanced senses to listen to the sound reverberate against the walls.
My hand drops into cold air at the same time I hear a sound that doesn’t belong.
Three footsteps.
I halt my breathing and follow my hand into the unknown entry. I have to crouch down as my forehead hits the dirt ceiling. I tuck myself against the wall and place my hand on the hilt of my sword.
Straining, I listen hard for more footsteps, for breathing.
There’s one, but then no more. And then another.
They’re coming toward me, from the direction of the lake.
Someone followed me.
They’re deathly quiet. I only hear a footstep every thirty or so feet they travel.
I count in my head, imagining myself stepping through the dark to gauge when they should level with this side tunnel I just stepped into.
And just as they step level with me, I draw my sword and swing.
A huge hand wraps around my wrist, stopping my swing instantly. A finger presses to my lips before I can say anything and a low voice whispers in the dark.
“It is me, my Queen,” they say, not letting go of me so I cannot use that sword, or the stake in my other hand to kill him.
“Larkin,” I breathe. My heart is going a million miles an hour, making it hard to breathe.
He makes a quiet affirmative noise. “The issue you asked me to take care of has been dealt with.” It feels like forever ago, when there were Born who had gotten into Roter Himmel and planned the attack on Cyrus that led to him being decapitated. There had been four of them. One of them had betrayed the others, killing them, and then fled. I told Larkin to track them down and not return until the problem was eliminated.
I knew he would succeed.
“You just got back?” I whisper.
“Just moments ago,” he says. “I came through the mountains, and was on my way to the castle when I saw you run straight from the canyon to the lake. You looked as if you needed assistance.”
“I do,” I say with an appreciative nod I know he can’t see. “We’re fighting Moab’s army right now, with Lorenzo’s aide for the time being. But we haven’t seen any signs of the man himself yet. I think…” I really didn’t want to think what I thought. “I think he’s inside the castle.”
A booming sound echoes through the tunnel and I can’t stand here and explain any longer. I take off through my newly discovered branch, dragging my hands along the walls to guide me.
By my estimates we have a quarter of a mile left to go before we will be under the castle. I count down the steps in my head.
And when I get down to fifteen, I feel the air shift.
“There’s an opening up ahead,” Larkin whispers very, very quietly.
I nod my head in agreement. I draw my sword again.
Slowly, we creep through the tunnel and my heart hammers faster as the rush of air grows steadier.
Faint, faint light cuts through the ceiling of the tunnel up ahead, and I slow as I come to stand beneath it.
It’s a pile of rubble. I reach out with my sword, prodding at it, and immediately, a pile of rocks falls from up above and scatters across the tunnel floor. I reach up, digging through the rubble. It goes at an upward angle. And after about a foot of digging, my arm suddenly breaks free into open space.
I look back at Larkin, only barely able to see part of his face through the dark.
He cups his hands and I place my foot into it, and he gives me a lift.
I find myself in a dug out hole, three feet deep, six feet in length. Above that opens into a big space, lit with torches along the walls, with a wide tunnel with stairs rising up.
Just to the side of this coffin built into the stone floor, is a massive boulder, multiple tons in size.
My jaw slackens.
Moab’s prison.
When Cyrus captured him after the war, he had Moab brought here, to this specifically designed prison. A hole in the ground, where Moab had lain for sixteen centuries before somehow miraculously escaping.
“This was Moab’s prison,” I say as Larkin climbs through the little hole at the end where Moab’s head would have lain. “He…he was here for hundreds of years. He…” I look back to the tiny hole we escaped through.
“He dug himself straight through the rock,” I said. “That tunnel, it was just a foot under the bedrock. He…” I shake my head. “Moab simply walked out of the castle to escape and found his freedom through the lake.”
The sound of metal against stone draws both of our eyes to the stairway.
“I think we know exactly how he got back into the castle,” Larkin says aloud.
There’s a shrill scream, and when it triples in volume and fear, I realize it’s not just one person screaming, but multiple. Four, five.
“Come on!” I say, forgetting instantly to keep my voice down.
As always, Larkin is armed to the teeth, even if it isn’t immediately visible. He pulls out two fighting blades, and we race up the stairs together.
The stairs rise before flattening out, and we dart through a long tunnel. Moab’s prison was carved into the darkest heart of the mountain. Away from the world he so longed to take over. So through an incredibly long tunnel we travel, before we reach another set of stairs.
They’re steep and are nearly more like a ladder.
“There is a hatch just up above,” I whisper to Larkin, who climbs behind me. “It opens into a supply closet. We just have to hope and pray it’s unoccupied.”
He makes a small noise, acknowledging what I just said.
I rise four more stairs, holding my hand above my head. In the pitch black, I can’t see a thing.
And there’s the hatch. I rise up one more stair, pressing my ear to the smooth wood, listening.
There are still sounds of the ambush, but I don’t hear anyone in the space above us, so I slowly lift the hatch.
The room is empty. Where it should be filled to the brim with supplies, all the boxes have been pushed away from the hatch, things toppled over. Like a lot of people came in through that
little entry into the castle.
“Shit,” I breathe.
Larkin surfaces behind me and we both silently creep to the door.
Peering through the crack, I see a woman from the House of Cordero locking swords with a man. He pushes her back down the hall.
She slips, getting knocked down to one knee.
I don’t think.
I’m so stupid.
I dart from the room, silent and unexpected. I bring my sword down, cutting clean through his skull, slicing it right down the middle. He drops to the ground in a bloody heap.
My head whips around, surveying the scene, looking for others, as the woman breathes my name and a profuse thank you.
We’re in a hallway on the fourth floor, a little way down from the main stairway that goes up to the main floor.
I turn, grabbing the Cordero woman by the front of her shirt and drag her back toward Larkin and the room we just came through.
“Sevan,” the woman breathes. “Thank…thank you.”
“How many of Moab’s people are in the castle?” I demand, ignoring her.
“We…” she struggles to focus, to think back through the events of the last hour or two. “We were spread throughout the castle, guarding the entry points. I was on the third floor when suddenly all these people poured up the stairs.”
“How many?” I demand again. “Twenty people? A hundred?”
“I’d guess fifty or so,” she says. Her eyes are wide and keep flicking back to the door. She’s totally overwhelmed.
“And how many of us are dead?” I ask the question I do not want to ask. “Do you have any guess?”
Tears prick her eyes. She shakes her head. “I don’t know. They took us off guard, coming at us from inside the castle.”
I sigh through my nose, frustrated that she can’t keep it together in this moment.
“Larkin and I are going into the castle,” I say. “I need you to stay here.” I grab her sword, which she dropped in the doorway and hand it back to her. “This,” I say as I point down at the hatch, “is how they all got inside. I want you watching this hatch, and if anyone tries to come through it, you hack them to pieces. Got it?”