Crown of Ruin

  Painted over seventeen hundred years ago, it is a massive family tree.

  At the top is mine and Cyrus’ names. Just below that was our sons’, but it’s now covered with angry black paint streaks, forever crossed out from our history.

  Below that there are all of our grandchildren, each of their names blotted out as well, with the exception of Dorian and Malachi.

  Every one of their children branches off from them. So many names, so many faces I can recall.

  There are each and every one of my fathers throughout time. Helda’s. Edith’s. La’ei’s.

  Our DNA may be far scattered, with such variation you’d have to dig deep to find the common denominator of Cyrus and I. But here’s the evidence. That we’re all connected, we’re all family in some distant way.

  I feel the two voices inside myself in awe. Logan is amazed, overwhelmed at the size and spread of all of these blood descendants.

  Sevan feels such a surge of love and protection for them. These are her heirs. The result of a terrifying night of stripped-away will, and then a few years of being a happy, though complicated, family.

  I clutch my hands to my heart as I search this wall, taking in all of the names that have been added through time.

  With a breath, I turn, and head back through the castle. I walk out the front gates onto the road that leads straight down into the town.

  It’s a quiet night. Despite the fact that it’s beautiful weather, warm and comfortable, not a cloud in the sky, there aren’t many people out. It’s dark now, the beginning of our day. But the streets aren’t filled. Most seem to still be in their homes.

  The shops are quiet as I pass them. The eateries are largely unoccupied.

  I don’t mind. It’s less risk I will be spotted. It means I can just reflect on our town that Cyrus and I built together.

  I walk down the road and hit the tee at the lake’s edge. To the right it rounds the lake, more homes and businesses set off to the side of it, and eventually it goes to the canyon that is the main outlet to the outside world.

  To the left, it cuts toward the fields and farms that support the town. The homes are spread out further.

  There is a trail that loops around the lake, and it’s to that I set my course.

  I think back as I walk. To what this place was when Cyrus and I first arrived. It was covered in snow. The remaining buildings had been toppled, the homes burned to the ground. The castle still stood, but it had been mostly gutted.

  We learned centuries later that this town had been invaded once and the inhabitants killed.

  No one had ever come back to reclaim it. No one ever traveled the road our direction. Roter Himmel is remote, over an hour’s drive to the nearest town. We are not located on any map. So here, we have been safe for centuries.

  But all that is threatened now.

  I feel like a greedy king as I pull myself up onto a large rock at the lake’s edge. Cyrus and I have ruled for a long, long time. Maybe someone else would do a better job. Would be a better ruler.

  But after doing things our way for so long, it’s nearly impossible to give up control. I could never, ever trust someone else to lead us and to protect our kind.

  “Did you ever want more?” I asked Cyrus as we walked along this same river’s edge. My hand was in his, his grip strong and secure.

  “More what?” Cyrus asked me to clarify.

  I looked at him, wearing Shaku’s face. “More children? I know it was an impossibility, but did you ever think about it?”

  He looked out at the trail ahead of us, his eyes going dark. “There was too much to think about in those early days to wish for more than just our son,” he said. “Between our changes, between running for our lives, no, I never thought about more children.”

  I looked over at the man I’d loved with four different faces now. “It is still possible,” I say, but my words came out quiet. “We know for a fact that you could take a human woman. You could still have more children if you wanted, Cyrus.”

  He pulled me to a stop, stepping in front of me so that our faces were very close together. His brows furrowed. “The only thing I desire any longer is to be with you, Sevan. And how could I ever think I would make a good father, after what became of our son?”

  I reached up and laced my fingers into his hair. “I have to believe that we come into this world with our own ideas and desires. I do not think what happened to our son was entirely because of us.”

  Cyrus reached up, palming my jaw and brushing his thumb over my cheek. “Let me be very clear, im yndmisht srtov. I have never wanted more children. I would never, ever lie with another woman. You and I, it is all I have ever wanted. And what we have built here?” He looks up, his eyes searching for the small town off in the distance. “This is our legacy. All of these people here. They are our family. They are our blood. And I have never wanted anything more.”

  I smiled as I looked up into his face.

  Cyrus was so passionate whenever he spoke. I always believed every word he spoke, because of the way he said the words. With such conviction.

  “I love you,” I breathed as I leaned in and kissed him.

  “And I love you, Sevan.”

  I tuck my knees into my chest, hugging them tight. The air feels cold now. There is no body hugged to mine to keep me warm. There’s just me, on this rock, in this incredible town that I love.

  I look back on it now, and my heart feels heavy. Because come morning, during the brightest part of the day, every one of these descendants of mine will quake in fear, thinking the end has arrived.

  Chapter 13

  They come in the middle of the day. Wearing a set of sunshades, I go to the window in my room and look out over the valley nestled between the mountains.

  Like ants, black dots slip silently through the canyon. They spill out into the green grass floors of Roter Himmel. I’m truly impressed at their silence as they creep closer and closer to town. There are so many of them. Their footsteps should send a rumble into the air like the sound of a stampede.

  But they’re soundless as they flood into the town.

  I watch as they surround every single home while my people rest inside, oblivious to what I’m about to do to them.

  The horde stretches up the road.

  Holding my head high, I step out of my room, and work my way down through the castle. Dorian and Malachi are waiting for me on the main floor. We give one another a silent look, our expressions grave.

  We understand the weight of what we’re about to do.

  But there is no other way.

  I step forward, crossing the entry. With one last breath, I pull the doors open.

  Three hundred soldiers, each of them bearing the Austrian crest on their uniforms, rush forward, flooding into the castle. Two of them roughly grab me, yanking my hands behind my back and handcuffing me. They do the same to Malachi and Dorian. The other soldiers spill into the castle, heading for every crevice and room in the castle.

  The ones they can find, anyway.

  I look to my grandsons again, and their faces are calm but worried.

  Just two minutes later, shouts, screams, and protests fill the air, coming from every direction. Outside in the town, from down the halls of the castle.

  You have to pretend now, I tell myself. They have to believe it.

  “No!” I scream, fighting against the men who have cuffed me. “We’ve done nothing wrong! You cannot just invade us like this!”

  I pour every ounce of vile acid I have in me into my words. I lunge and buck, and four more guards throw themselves at me.

  Just in time. Because just then, soldiers drag Ian, Alivia, Eshan, and some of the other prisoners into the hall.

  They’re battered. Bruised. Cuts line their fists and faces.

  But every one of them is cuffed with four or five guards handling them.

  “Cooperate, or she dies,” one of my guards bellows. He grabs me roughly, holding a huge blade to my throat.

/>   “Logan!” Alivia screams, her eyes wild. There’s a huge gash on her cheek and blood slips down her face.

  “What the hell is going on?” Ian demands, struggling against the six men who hold him under their control.

  “I don’t know!” I cry, my muscles automatically twitching, trying to keep that blade from slicing my throat. “Just…do what they say! I don’t want anyone to get hurt! We’ll figure this out.”

  Soldiers drag Lorenzo out into the hall and I meet his eyes for just a moment before my own soldiers drag me toward the front doors.

  I brace for the pain. Because to sell this, I had to take my sunshades off before I came down the stairs.

  They shove me forward, and I stumble out into the blindingly brilliant summer sun.

  A scream rips from my lips, and it’s one hundred percent genuine. Pain rips through my head, burning my eyes. I’m blind. There’s so much sun and my eyes remain so permanently dilated, all I can see is white and fuzzy orbs.

  I want to rip my eyeballs from my head.

  My brain is melting. I swear I taste steel and copper in the back of my throat.

  There are endless screams of pain around me. I blink furiously, trying to force my eyes to clear as the soldiers roughly shove me down the road and toward the middle of town.

  My vision clears. Not much. But to where I can somewhat make sense of the fuzzy shapes around me.

  Here, down the road, every resident of Roter Himmel has been herded into the middle of the street. Four hundred vampires, forced outside in the blinding midday sun.

  Surrounding them, there are rows and rows of soldiers. Human, every one of them. But heavily armed.

  There are six thousand of them. There are four hundred of us.

  They outnumber us fifteen to one.

  Down the road they force me and as I approach, I see bloodshot eyes turn my way. Looks of fear and panic deepen on their faces.

  I am their Queen. And here I am, a bound prisoner, just as they are.

  “Sevan!” some of them shout. Some of them jerk against their bonds. Some reach out to me. Some cry.

  Others shout vile things at me. Accusations about not protecting the town.

  Everyone is terrified.

  The rest of us who were in the castle are shoved into a herd and the ring of soldiers tightens around us, guns all pointed at us.

  We’re strong. We’re fast.

  But outnumbered fifteen to one, with all those assault weapons? We don’t stand a chance.

  I look around at my people, trembling.

  I really am scared.

  Because this looks even better than I planned it.

  A man beside me mutters, over and over, his words hardly even comprehensible. Something about bad omens.

  As I look around, I see a mix of reactions.

  In some faces, I see a daring look, and my anxiety reaches near heart-stopping peaks, because I know what will happen if they really do try to fight their way through this.

  But on others, I see terror. Most of them here were never part of those early wars with my son. Most of them here have never had to fight for anything.

  I realize now how soft everyone at Court has grown.

  “It was a bad omen,” the man mutters again. “Foretelling of darkness. The sun overtaken by the dark.”

  Something pricks at the back of my brain.

  Words.

  Words spoken in sleep. Spoken in dreams.

  “The darkness during the light,” the man says.

  I turn, looking at his face. He has his eyes closed, his face turned toward the sky, despite the burning sun above us.

  “What do you mean?” I breathe. Because suddenly I remember. I remember that first dream I had of Cyrus, when he was so frantic, saying that we must prepare. Talking about the dark during the light. “The darkness during the light? What are you talking about?”

  The man’s eyes slide open. They’re absolutely bloodshot, and it’s a horrifying sight. “It was a bad omen,” he says cryptically. “We should have known something dark was coming. For the first time in over two hundred years, the dark will overtake the light in Roter Himmel.”

  I feel cold and twisted. “I don’t understand,” I whisper.

  The man’s eyes grow wider slowly and he raises a hand to chest height, and points to the sun. “Exactly as the astrologists predicted. The day after tomorrow, the dark will take over the light.”

  “A solar eclipse,” I breathe as a million lights turn on in my head.

  A shot fires into the air, and I instinctually duck slightly, covering my head. All the screams and cries fall silent, and every set of eyes turns just to the south.

  On the balcony of a house, just past the ring of vampires, a man stands, looking over us all.

  His gaze cuts. He stares down, a look of absolute disgust on his face.

  His hair is a dark blond. His lips have a slightly pinched look to them, making him look like he’s always thinking about something serious. A strong body is framed in an intimidating uniform. I’d say he’s not much over thirty years old.

  “My name is General Matthias Reiter,” he says loudly over the quieting crowd. “On behalf of the Republic of Austria, I am placing all of you under arrest for the murder of over six thousand residents of our country.”

  Confused whispers billow into the air, frightened, bloodshot eyes searching one another for answers.

  “This will be a thorough investigation,” Matthias says, his eyes darkening even further. “I hope you are all comfortable. The country of Austria wants some answers, and this may take some time.”

  Soldiers shove their way to me once more, roughly grabbing me and dragging me to the outside of the circle.

  Those around me grab at my arms, trying to keep me from the soldiers. But when big guns are shoved into their faces, they let go, panic in their eyes as they watch me be dragged away.

  “Please cooperate!” I bellow as they drag me through the crowd. “But never forget the promises we must keep to our own!”

  My words are cut off as I am dragged into a building, and the doors swing closed with a slam.

  The crowd outside goes insane, shouts and screams and rioting.

  I hear one gunshot, and everything goes quieter.

  I pray that one of my own isn’t lying dead on the street because of my choice.

  “This is quite a ruse you’ve pulled off here.” A voice cuts through the home I was pulled into. I hear footsteps and see booted feet descend the stairs just off to my left.

  From the shadows at the back of the house, Dorian and Malachi step forward, rubbing their wrists as soldiers release them.

  “You certainly fill the part well,” I say. A soldier releases my own bonds and I straighten my clothes.

  Matthias gives me a little smile and stops just in front of me.

  He fits the part so perfectly, I nearly believe he actually is a General in the Republic of Austria.

  “We will make sure no one sees you go back to the castle,” he says. “As far as the public knows, you’re being held here, undergoing extreme interrogation measures.”

  I nod in acknowledgement and turn to my grandsons. “They look perfect.” And a smile slowly grows on my face.

  Outside there are six thousand soldiers, far outnumbering the residents of Roter Himmel. Every one of them looks the part of a soldier in the Austrian army.

  But they’re all fake.

  True, most of them actually are soldiers.

  But they come from Dorian and Malachi’s own private armies.

  Dorian rules all of Russia. His reign is vast and he could never keep it under control without some real force.

  Malachi has always allied himself with real political power. One phone call and multiple governments turned over sections of their special force armies.

  Combined, with faked uniforms and illegal weapons, they look the part of an Austrian army.

  “The interrogations will begin today,” Matthias says, steppin
g forward. He eyes me up and down, his gaze slightly too appreciative. There’s a dark look in his eye.

  “Take your time,” I say. “Let them panic. Let them get scared. Let them have time to consider how outnumbered they are.”

  Let them realize how fragile we as a species really are when there are so few of us.

  The entire goal here is to reiterate how important keeping our kind secret really is.

  Above all else, Cyrus valued secrecy. Because he had been hunted before. He knew what could happen to us if the general public knew about us.

  They all need to understand that fear.

  “Of course, your majesty,” Matthias says. Locking his dark eyes on mine, he takes a deep bow.

  He is from Russia, but his accents and German are impeccable. One would never, ever guess that he was not born and raised in this country.

  Dorian trusts him implicitly. He has a massive role to play. And thus far, I do believe he will rise to the occasion.

  “Don’t let me down,” I say.

  With a smile, he straightens.

  I turn toward the back doors where a wagon waits, where I will hide for a while, before a soldier takes it away, and then I will sneak my way back to the castle.

  I stop between Dorian and Malachi as I walk between them. I place a hand on either of their shoulders.

  “Thank you,” I say, looking at each of them. “Over and over you have proved your loyalty to this family, and it will never, ever be forgotten. None of this would have been possible without your help.”

  I will go back to the castle. But Dorian and Malachi will stay here, working with Matthias in rooting out any who might betray our kind.

  “Anything, All Mother,” Dorian says as he kisses my hand that sits on his shoulder.

  “You have my loyalty until the day I die,” Malachi promises with determination in his eyes. He hands me a pair of sunshades.

  I smile, my heart filled to the brim with appreciation and love.

  With a deep breath, I step forward and slip the sunshades on. A soldier holds the back door open for me.

  I step into the small garden out back. Soldiers keep lookout and wave me forward. A wagon waits behind the shed, and I climb into what appears to be a cargo box.