The Ballad of Aramei

  Suddenly I hear a violent scream echo through the stone stairwell. My body jerks around and my ears pop, amplifying the scream even more. The voice screams out again; blood-curdling and desperate. I’m afraid at first and can’t move, but then I begin to walk towards it. It’s coming from the floor above me. I stop at the foot of the stairs and gaze up, but can see nothing around the wall as the stairs spiral around and upward into the sky. I wonder how much higher this tower can reach.

  The screams just get louder as I ascend the steps, funneling down into my ears and causing my heart to beat violently inside my chest. Though the air is cold and my feet are frozen to the bone, sweat beads off my forehead relentlessly, drenching my hair. A shadow moves along the wall and I freeze in my steps until I see that the shadow follows suit and realize that it’s my own. Another blazing torch is mounted on the wall and the heat burning off it only offers my body more discomfort. When I make it to the next floor, I see an enormous wooden door set in the wall straight ahead. There are no more stairs leading upward so I know this is the highest point in the tower.

  I feel my heart thrashing against my ribs, trying to burst out as I approach the giant door. A fiery torch burns on each side of it.

  A voice resonates from inside and becomes louder as the door is pushed open and a tall, brooding figure steps out before me.

  I freeze in my spot in the wide open. There’s no where I can run except down, but it’s already too late. I wouldn’t have time to make it to the stairs before I’m seen.

  The man walks toward me and my heart falls right down into my knees. All of the saliva evaporates from my mouth instantly. When he is within ten feet of me, I feel like I should be certain that I’m about to die, but instead I’m not even sure that he sees me.

  He stops within three feet and looks around curiously as though he senses something odd, like when someone feels there are eyes watching them, hidden in the shadows.

  I can’t breathe.

  And then he looks directly at me, but I sense that he’s seeing through me instead. His black hair is buzzed short and a long, braided goatee dangles from his chin. He is dressed in strange leather-like attire: long, split coat like Trajan always wore, black leather pants and tall boots with silver buckles around the shins. Black silk shirt with a crisscrossing tie that holds each side together. His eyes are fiery red and orange, just like a flame. His cheekbones are strong and high making his eyes appear tightened and almond-shaped.

  He sniffs the air around my head and a forked tongue snakes out of his mouth. I yelp, thrusting my hand over my mouth, but he doesn’t hear me.

  And then he walks right through me, taking the breath right out of my lungs. I don’t move for what seems like forever, until finally I gather my composure and make my way to the door. Placing my palm against the wood, I take a deep breath before pushing it open.

  Aramei is looking directly at me as she dangles by her wrists from shackles mounted high enough on the wall that her feet barely touch the floor.

  “Adria….”

  My stomach wrenches so violently that it crushes my insides into a ball. My mouth is hung open, my eyes wide and terrified and confused.

  I dash across the giant circular stone room to get to her.

  She has been beaten and tortured; her face is heavily bruised, her thin white gown is covered in blood and blackness like soot from a fireplace. I reach out intent on touching her, just to see first if she’s even real, but my hands stop just inches from her waist. Her arms are stretched high above her head. Her long hair is wild like strips of dry straw and soiled with filth and muck.

  “Aramei…I-I….”

  I can’t even begin to understand the meaning of conversation or inquiry. I feel like I need to wake up. Any second now I should wake up. But my heart tells me this isn’t a dream. I’m really here and she is really there, speaking to me.

  She’s actually speaking to me….

  “I’ve waited for so long,” she says. Her tears are choking her into submission, streaming from her eyes in a display of suffering and absolute relief. “I’ve waited for you for two hundred years.”

  I can’t hold my own tears back; they stream down my face.

  “You know me?” I say, choking the words through my sobbing. “How can…What is this place?”

  So many questions. I can’t decide which is more important and then a fragment of my rational mind sears into my awareness. I look up at her shackles again and immediately know that I need to help her down.

  “Where’s the key?” I say desperately, my head jerking around in every direction looking for any sign of it.

  “No, Adria…listen to me….”

  I stop and look up at her.

  “There’s nothing you can do for me here,” she says.

  Two tiny droplets of blood fall in slow-motion from the end of her chin. For a moment, I’m mesmerized by how they fall, so poetically and quiet.

  “You can’t stay here long,” she says pleadingly, snapping me back into her voice. “Adria, you have to leave this place.”

  “But…I-I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this.” I feel like I might die with the weight of all these questions and the uncertainties crushing my chest and my brain.

  “You know what you have to do,” she says softly and I just stand here, staring up at her.

  “I’m getting you down.”

  “No!” she shouts, thrashing her hands above her making the chains resonate an ominous racket through the room.

  The severity of her voice stops me cold.

  “You have to free me,” she says so desperately. “I don’t want to be trapped… to feel the pain anymore.”

  And before I have a chance to protest, the door bursts open and the strange man from before storms back inside. I push myself against the nearest wall, pressing my fingertips into the grooves of the stone, clutching it with so much force that it hurts.

  He still doesn’t see me, but he stops once again like he did outside the room, because he senses that something is amiss.

  Aramei screams out to me, “You can’t stay here! Hurry!” and the man grins a wicked grin and slithers his way towards her.

  In the moment she cries out at him and a set of giant black porous wings emerge from his back, I am sucked from this strange place and find myself dangling from the balcony in the cabin by Eva’s hand.

  The realization of my predicament snaps me into the moment and I panic. “Oh my God! Eva! Don’t let me fall!” I grip her wrist, struggling to stay in her grasp until finally she pulls me back over the railing and we both land hard on the wooden floor.

  The whimpers and quiet screams and whispers of the awed servants on the bottom floor are all that I can hear for a long moment. My back is pressed against the wood, my arms and legs splayed awkwardly as I stare up at the rafters in the ceiling. My shirt is drenched in sweat. My heart is so tired that it can’t even beat fast anymore, but it thumps in a slow, awkward sequence.

  I roll over onto my side and push my body up on one hand.

  Eva is sitting on the floor with her fabric-covered legs curled in behind her. I look at her, studying the tired and slightly panicked expression alive in her face. She’s breathing hard and she’s making no effort to stand. I decide that I can’t yet, either.

  I look up toward the bed at Aramei, but all that I can see of her are her bare feet.

  “Eva?”

  “Yes…I am here.”

  I didn’t realize that the way I called out her name did sound as though I couldn’t see her.

  My head falls back in her direction and I look right at her. But she spares me trying to find the way to ask the questions that I desperately need answers to.

  “I am a Praverian,” she says, “and Aramei is my Charge.”

  My head is shaking back and forth in small jerking motions, my eyes as wide as I can stretch them.

  I point towards her, “You…why did you say it? Eva…you said it out loud….”

&n
bsp; She finally stands and walks over to me, reaching out her hand. I stagger to my feet because my legs are incredibly weak. I can’t stop looking at her, mesmerized by her admission and her death wish.

  “I am tired,” she says breathlessly. “I just want to rest and now that you are here to do what you were fated to do, I can finally…sleep.”

  “What are you saying?” My head is still shaking side to side, my mouth hung open in awe.

  She smiles weakly. “Adria, I have lived so many lives, died so many deaths and protected so many Charges, that I can’t do it anymore. Aramei, I knew, would be the last. She had to be or else I might go Dark myself, just as your friend did.”

  Harry’s form solidifies with us in the room and I gasp at the sight of him.

  Because I know why he’s here.

  I throw my hand out towards him. “No! You wait! Not yet!” I know I can’t stop him from drinking her Soul, but he has to give me time to understand what just happened and to find out where Aramei is trapped.

  For the first time since I’ve known Harry, even after we all found out what he was, I look across at him and he doesn’t seem like the Harry I know. Right now as he watches us calmly with his hands folded together down in front of him, he is all Praverian and has put away any evidence of his human self.

  It scares me.

  “Please, Harry,” I beg, tears forming in my eyes again, “…just…wait.”

  Eva takes my hands into hers and smiles at me as if to say that everything will be alright.

  “How am I supposed to help Aramei? H-How…What was that place? Eva, I know you know everything.”

  Her hands come up and cup my cheeks.

  “It’s…,” she stops herself and softens her smile even more, but I get the immediate feeling that she’s backtracking her answer to cover up the truth. “The minds of the insane are intricate and vivid and strange, but they are not real.”

  “That was real, Eva. Don’t you tell me it wasn’t real.”

  “But it wasn’t,” she says and either she’s telling the honest truth, or she’s a really good liar.

  She tucks a lock of hair behind my ear.

  “Every time you went under inside Aramei’s mind, you risked being consumed by it, by the madness that she sees. I feared for you because you were so determined, so addicted, that I knew you might go too far and end up like her, lost in her mind where anything she believes is real can become real.” She lets her hands fall away from my face. “Aramei is a tortured soul and only you can set her free because only you can get close enough to her to help her. Only you understand….”

  My eyes keep glancing to Harry at my side so that I can make sure he’s still waiting and not making any moves forward.

  “But what about you?” I say. “You understand—more than I do—.” I laugh miserably and then sniffle the tears away. “You’re here with her more than anyone.”

  “But I cannot help her, Adria. What has to be done I cannot do because I, being what I am, am incapable.”

  She wants me to Turn Aramei. Why?

  I make sure my mind is shut off tightly to Eva and Harry. I can’t let them fish around inside my head while I’m thinking these thoughts.

  I look across at Aramei lying amid her covers, but her eyes are wide open as she lays sprawled on her back. Nothing about her position is graceful or angelic as she always appears. She looks…dead. But I know that she’s not because I see the rising of her chest vaguely. And then I picture the way she looked at me in that strange place, the way her tormented and anguished and broken soul bore into my heart. I can still hear the sound of her pleading voice, the way her desperate words seared into my ears.

  And I know that I have no choice. I have to do it. I have to help her.

  I shut my eyes softly for a brief moment of understanding and then step away from Eva.

  “I do hope you can find your peace,” I say to her and I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

  Harry moves toward her and the two of them share a silent moment, peering into one another’s eyes longingly as if they are lovers. A dark reddish light begins to emit from Harry’s body, the same color as his Praverian eyes, and it becomes a thin smoke surrounding them. Eva closes her eyes and collapses into Harry’s arms, her arms dangling lifelessly around him. His lips part just inches over hers and a quiet sucking sound carries on the air as he begins to drink her Soul. A light purple smoke dances from her mouth and enters his. I watch as Eva’s eyes open again and they are the most beautiful amethyst I have ever seen. Her long red hair takes on a life of its own, just as Zia’s did that night in the trap; the very tip of every strand is luminescent in the darkness of the room. Harry drinks down all of her and with every dramatic passing second, I see visibly how his own body becomes stronger.

  Not until every last wisp of amethyst smoke has been drained from Eva’s body and into Harry’s, does he stop and lay her against the floor.

  She is gone. There is no life left in her, or a soul left to carry on into another life.

  And it makes me sad.

  Tears stream down my cheeks again, but my body makes no sound. I can’t sob or wail or gasp for breath anymore because much like Eva, I am so tired. I am confused and traumatized and tired….

  I sit down on the end of Aramei’s bed and just stare at the floor.

  “You’ve been coming here with me all this time, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” Harry says and already he seems to be himself a little more, the Harry I know and love. I feel a sort of comfort in him. “Sorry I never told you, but I thought you’d be mad.”

  “I would’ve been,” I admit.

  I still don’t look at him.

  “But I’m not now and I know you were just looking after me.”

  He moves to sit down next to me, but I stop him by finally making eye contact.

  “Harry, did you know about any of this?”

  I don’t know why, but this feels like the single most important question I’ve ever asked him.

  “I’ve only known of your destiny and that every bit of it had to do with Aramei.”

  “If I infect her, Harry, she’ll die.”

  He shakes his head. “No…,” he says kneeling down in front of me on the floor. “She is different, powerful. She’s special. She can live through it.”

  “But why is she special?” More and more I’m questioning my trust in Harry and although it hurts, I know I have to be sure of my feelings. “Why is it so important that she be Turned? Is that what causes the war?”

  Something isn’t making sense. Actually, a lot isn’t making sense. What Harry expects me to do and the things Aramei said to me don’t add up. I stand up and walk away from Harry, moving around to the side of the bed. I look down at Aramei and contemplate everything she said to me.

  Suddenly I turn to face him.

  “If I do this, I want to be alone with her.”

  Harry stands up and nods, accepting my request.

  “I’ll go outside and wait for you.”

  And without another word, Harry leaves down the stairs and heads outside.

  I sit down quietly on the edge of the bed, staring down at Aramei’s comatose state. Her eyes are eerily wide and unblinking, glazed over by a layer of natural moisture. Her pupils are so dilated that her eyes look black and enormous. Her lips, which have always appeared soft and full, are dry and cracked and beginning to shrivel.

  I reach out my hand to touch her face and a tear falls from her eye. I gasp quietly at the sight of it and my own tears begin to shudder through my chest.

  Finally, I just let it all out.

  I bury my face in my hands and wail, letting the sobs rock me for a long time until I can’t cry anymore.

  “I will free you, Aramei…from yourself.”

  ISAAC

  28

  I HATED LEAVING ADRIA in the cabin like that, but I knew it was something that she wanted. I really could give two-shits less about my father’s orders—he has nothing t
o do with this and soon I know I’m going to have to face him and make things right. Right in the way I’ve dreamed since I sired Adria and was initiated as Alpha into this totalitarian empire. Things are going to change soon and I’m going to be the one to change them.

  But this issue with Aramei has to be dealt with first.

  “Isaac?” Alexandra says in the doorway of my room.

  I look up from my book to see her standing there, wringing her hands nervously, which in itself is odd. Rachel is standing behind her.

  “Yeah?” I set the book down on the comforter beside me and sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

  Alexandra swallows and I notice her eyes moving back and forth from me and the window.

  “What is it?” I urge her.

  I don’t like the feeling I’m getting from either of them.

  “Ashe is on his way here,” Alexandra says.

  I shoot straight up from the bed.

  “What the hell do you mean?” I point downward at the floor. “Here? As in here? He contacted you?”

  Alexandra nods furiously.

  Rachel steps around to her side, a hard, angry line set in her face. “Yes, here, Isaac but that’s not all.”

  “Oh? You mean it gets worse than having three Vargas rogues on my property?” I’m being a complete smartass because as always, Rachel deserves it.

  “I resent that,” Alexandra says with a sneer.

  “Well, get used to it because it comes with the territory—now on with how this gets worse.”

  “Nathan,” I say telepathically to wherever he is in the house, “get everybody ready now—we’re going to have company.”

  “Viktor is with him,” Rachel announces.

  I do a mental double-take and my eyes have stopped blinking altogether.

  Alexandra nods solemnly at me, confirming Rachel’s announcement. “It’s my fault,” she says. “They’re coming for me.”

  “Not your fault,” I say as I rush past her and dash into the hall. “Stay inside the house! Both of you!” I shout back at them as I take the stairs three and four at a time.

  “Vargas?” Nathan says as he rushes up to meet me in the den.