A Shade of Vampire 83: A Bender of Spirit Page 2

  Thayen nodded slowly. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to find a way for everybody to win.”

  “That’s kind of you,” Sofia replied, giving him a soft smile. “But I don’t think there’s a way for everyone involved to come out of this unscathed. Your mother, the Darklings… they’ve done too much harm over the years. They won’t let their privileges and power be taken away from them easily. Not when they’ve spent their whole lives profiting from death magic.”

  Valaine cursed under her breath. “I’m not ready to die. If I have a shot at stopping this madness once and for all, I’ll take it.” She got up, fists tight at her sides as she looked around. “And you’ve all been through so much to protect me until now. It would be cowardly on my part to just… give up and let them kill me. No, if there’s freedom ahead, I want to find it. Just show me how to tap into my memories, and I’ll do it.”

  “There’s one thing we’ve not made clear here, and I’d like to know,” Tristan said. “What will happen to Valaine once we free Unending?”

  Phantom smiled. “She’ll still be there. Valaine and Unending are one and the same, in a sense. Valaine is one side of our sister. When she remembers who she truly is, chances are she’ll remember every life, every aspect of herself, including the whole that is Unending.”

  “So, I’ll still be me, only… amplified?” Valaine asked.

  “Or enriched, for lack of a better word,” Widow replied. “Nothing is lost. It’s just that everything is regained.”

  “Okay. Let’s get cracking, then,” Valaine said.

  I hadn’t seen this side of her in a while. Determination shone brightly from the blackness of her eyes. Her brows were slightly furrowed, her lips pressed into a thin line. As the wind blew over the hilltop and the trees whispered behind us, her hair danced in the breeze like threads of silk. The ghouls kept their distance from her, but I could see some of them watching. They seemed wary, their beady eyes fixed on Valaine. They feared and revered her. They could sense her true nature better than those of us among the living.

  This was a complicated mess we’d gotten ourselves into, but I felt only gratitude at the sight of us all brought together this way. My team and I had struggled on our own for too long on Visio, and knowing we hadn’t been the only ones did make me feel better. The veil had been lifted, and I could see clearly now. I understood what kind of world this really was, what had been done here a long time ago, and what we could do to fix it.

  As Kalon took my hand in his, offering a faint but reassuring smile, I was energized and eager to get the ball rolling. The Spirit Bender was gone, and there was nothing he could do to break us. Whatever he’d left behind had its limits, as he was no longer around to adjust and adapt, and there was only so much the Darklings could do before we freed Valaine.

  Tristan

  She was the Unending, and the thought scared me.

  It didn’t stop me from falling even deeper in love with her, even if my reason demanded some restraint. It reinforced my initial suspicion that there was more to Valaine than met the eye. She was merely an Aeternae facet of a greater being that had been around for a very long time. I didn’t want to differentiate between them, to consider them separate entities—Unending was Valaine, and she would continue to be Valaine. At the same time, Valaine would continue to be Unending. And once her memories returned, she’d be both and more at the same time…

  There was darkness inside her, yes. But there was light too, and plenty of fire that raged and yearned to fight, to push through, to taste the freedom she hadn’t had in eons. There was beauty, and there was loneliness. Unending deserved more than what she’d been dealt over the past five million years, and if this was her exit point, I planned to be right there with her.

  Of course, it did reshape our dynamic. I’d thought I’d fallen for a noble and highly intelligent Aeternae, not the very first Reaper that Death had brought into existence. I’d fallen in love with the Aeternae, sure, but there was obviously more to her, and I couldn’t exactly separate Valaine from the rest. Technically speaking, I’d fallen in love with both. Too late to turn back now, I thought. This was one bell I definitely couldn’t unring.

  “What does Valaine need to do in order to dig into her past lives?” I asked, looking at Night and Morning. They’d seemed to be more knowledgeable about Valaine’s peculiar condition.

  “She needs to enter a trance-like state,” Morning said. “There’s no guarantee that it’ll work, but it’s something I know I’m able to help her with. Reapers store their memories deep within their souls, due to the vast number of years they live through. In order for us to retain our sanity and not just our experiences, we’ve learned to make the most of the almost infinite inner space in our souls.”

  “Think of us as massive storage containers, neatly fit into this form,” Night added, pointing both thumbs at himself. “From the outside, this is all you can see. On the inside, however, the rules of space and time are bent.”

  “We’re dimensions of our own,” Morning replied. “Entities that will exist for as long as there is time, or until Death decides to whack us.”

  Soul nodded. “And Unending here is the same,” he said, calling Valaine by her true name like the other First Tenners. We, the living, were the only ones who stuck to her Aeternae name—maybe a force of habit.

  “Okay, well, while Valaine works on that, we need to figure out what we’re going to do in the meantime,” Esme interjected, looking around nervously. “This hilltop has been nice until now, but we need to find a proper safe place. A base for our operations. We also need to organize an offensive against the Darklings.”

  “Yes, Laramis was only the beginning,” Kelara said. “We promised them that.”

  “I’ll stay with you, in case you need my help,” I whispered to Valaine, but she shook her head, her brows pulled into a deep frown.

  “No. I think it’s time to put some distance between us,” she murmured. “I’m obviously dangerous, Tristan, and I don’t want you getting hurt because of me.”

  I was baffled. “What? No. No, Valaine, I’ve been by your side until now. You can’t just push me away.”

  “I can, actually. And I will. After everything we’ve learned, after everything that has happened, how can you possibly think I’m at all good for you?”

  Morning chuckled softly. “My dear sister, you’re not a ticking time bomb. You’re simply more than you thought. And truth be told, Tristan has been an ally since day one. We already know he’s got a… let’s say calming effect on you. We could use that going forward, since we have no idea what can of worms we’re opening with the trance state I mentioned.”

  Valaine was speechless for the briefest of moments. I had a feeling she’d expected the First Tenners to side with her on this one. I knew she was trying to push me away purely out of concern for my safety, but we’d already survived plenty of traumas together. I doubted we’d be as strong apart, and she had to know that. Maybe she just wasn’t ready to accept it.

  I took her hands in mine, determined to keep her close. “Listen to me very carefully, Valaine. I don’t care who you really are or what sort of powers you have. I know you make me want to be a better person, and I sure as hell won’t let you go on this journey alone. Your father betrayed you. Your people betrayed you. If ever there was a time you needed true friends by your side, it’s right here, right now.”

  “While I’m no fan of consorting with the living, even I must admit that we should stick together on this one,” Night muttered.

  “I’m sorry, Tristan,” Valaine conceded. “I just… I don’t want you to get hurt. I could never forgive myself.”

  “Oh, enough with the drama!” Soul snapped, shaking his head. “You’re not dying, sister. You’re coming back to us, and you need all the help you can get.”

  Sofia got up, hands resting on her hips. “We’ll get through this,” she said. “We’ll all get through this.”

  Widow chuckled softly. “Is this your
way of reassuring yourself?”

  “I have to!” Sofia replied. “We all have to! Look at us! Valaine is struggling with one hell of a situation. My husband is a prisoner of the Darklings. Nethissis no longer has a body to go back to. And Thayen—the poor child—his mother is a Whip. She killed his father.”

  “I’m guessing you’re not going to send him back to Danika even if she gives you Derek, then?” I asked, suddenly reminded of the greater picture we’d become a central, though unwilling, part of.

  Sofia shook her head. “No. She’s unfit to be his mother. Thayen deserves better.”

  “Have you thought about asking the kid if he wants that?” Ridan chimed in, his gaze fixed on Thayen. The boy was quiet, staying close to Sofia. He was probably struggling to wrap his head around everything that had happened. He was looking at years of therapy, no doubt about it.

  “I’m not sure I want to go back.” Thayen sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Nethissis sat in the grass next to him and offered him a warm smile. “Would you be okay with staying here? I know Sofia will stop at nothing to protect you.”

  “I… Yeah, I guess,” Thayen replied. “But what if Mom comes for me? What do I do then?”

  It didn’t surprise me that he didn’t already have the answer to that question. His situation was extraordinary, and he only had us to look to for guidance. I sympathized with his misery, but like Sofia, I didn’t want to see him back in the palace. I doubted any of us would be comfortable returning Thayen to the belly of the beast at this point.

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we get there,” Sofia said, resting an arm around his shoulders. “The decision belongs to you, Thayen. It’s your life, your family. You are the only one with the power to stick around or walk away. Remember that.”

  Thayen nodded slowly, then looked at Night. “So, you’re the one who made vampires, huh?” the boy asked, eager to change the subject. It caught Night with his guard down. The Reaper exhaled sharply, his shoulders dropping.

  “It wasn’t my intention to create the Elders. To be honest, I’ve always thought they really created themselves. They didn’t come to Cruor with the best intentions—they were exploiting a witch and looking to conquer that world, much like they’d done with Rimia and Nalore. I didn’t exactly feel sorry for them. The moment they set foot on Cruor, I could read their minds. I could see their memories. I knew what they’d done.”

  “I admit, I feel a sense of relief,” Sofia said. “It’s hard to explain, but after everything we went through on Cruor, it’s as if the circle sort of closed itself, you know? I understand why things happened the way they did. Why we got involved, all that suffering and darkness… it’s justified.”

  Night gave her a sad look. “I never meant for any of that to happen. My unhappiness morphed into a disease of its own, spawning the Elders, who then tormented you and your people. For that, I am truly sorry.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. Not really,” Sofia replied. “Despite everything, Cruor did give us vampirism. To us, that is strength. It’s the possibility of living far beyond our human years. Consider it our silver lining.”

  Kailani added more wood to the fire, the flames crackling hungrily as they reached for the sky. She pulled her rich golden-brown hair back, then twisted it over one shoulder as she settled back in Hunter’s arms. “It does connect us to the Aeternae, though. More than we’d originally thought,” she mumbled. “And to Unending, if you think about it.”

  Valaine’s eyes widened. “I gave them immortality, right?”

  All the Reapers nodded at once.

  “But why would I do that?” she asked. “From what you’ve told me, it sounds like I was pretty unhappy with my ability from the beginning.”

  “That part is still a mystery,” Soul replied. “Something or someone must’ve changed your mind. You’ve always been hardheaded. Always stuck to your ways.”

  Phantom grinned. “You were the only one we were ever truly afraid of.”

  It shocked Valaine. “Really?”

  “I think that’s why Spirit went to such lengths to keep you trapped,” Widow said. “He put a lot of work into this whole place. The Darklings are proof of that. He never would’ve shared his knowledge with living creatures otherwise. He probably wanted to make sure they would keep you under control in his absence. With you, Unending, all it takes is one moment for you to seize an opportunity, and Spirit knew that.”

  “You make me sound so… cool,” Valaine murmured, slightly amused.

  Kalon laughed. “Oh, come on! You’ve always been fierce!” he said. “For as long as I’ve known you, Valaine. You’re ruthless and determined. What you’re experiencing now, this… this revelation, it’s thrown you off balance a little, sure, but it doesn’t change who you are. And for what comes next, we all need you at the top of your game, as Valaine or Unending or both.”

  A few moments passed in silence as we all looked around at one another, wordlessly agreeing that we were in for one hell of a rollercoaster ride. The Darklings were going to fight us tooth and nail. Corbin was going to come for Valaine’s head. And we had to do whatever we could to take them all down and restore the balance of this world and everything beyond it.

  “Has anyone heard from Lumi?” I asked, wondering about Derek and his less than pleasant predicament.

  “She’ll reach out when she’s got Derek,” Kailani said. “I imagine Danika has put some death magic traps in place to make sure no one dares touch him.”

  “Especially since I’m still your pretend prisoner,” Thayen added.

  “I trust the swamp witch,” Seeley replied, earning himself an appreciative nod from Nethissis. I was still adjusting to the sight of her, after mourning her death. It was good to see her, but it also broke my heart—with her body gone, her chances of revival were slim to none.

  “Lumi’s pulled through in tougher circumstances,” Nethissis said. “Besides, she’s not alone. She’s got Sidyan and Maya with her.”

  “Speaking of ghouls, is that Rudolph?” Kailani asked, watching one of the ghouls as he got closer to our group, the light of the fire dancing across his translucent skin. “Poor fella.”

  “I guess he’d agree, but he’s lost his ability to speak.” Nethissis sighed, smiling as Rudolph nestled next to her. “His first days were better, but the more he devolves, the more ghoulish he becomes.”

  “Can we trust him?” Ridan replied.

  All the Reapers nodded without hesitation. “They were given clear options,” Kelara said. “Either they help us, or we reap them.”

  I wanted to ask what would become of them once their duty here was done, but it wasn’t the right moment. Not with all of them around. I did hope they’d get a deal similar to what Ibrahim’s ghoul, Herbert, had been granted after his cohort’s assistance during the Hermessi incident—a planet of their own in this vast universe, where they could live and feed off the corpses of locals.

  These ghouls were all the more deserving of such a merciful fate because they hadn’t chosen this existence. They’d been forced to turn. They’d been abducted and tormented, and their willingness to help simply proved that they’d retained some part of their consciousness. Eating souls hadn’t clouded their ability to discern between right and wrong.

  My only hope at this point was that we’d be the ones who reached the finish line in this insane and bloody race, and not the Darklings. Whether that would be the outcome… well, that remained to be seen.

  Lumi

  We left Maya to watch over Derek, unbeknownst to him, while we stayed relatively close to Corbin, Danika, and Petra. Derek’s liberation would have to wait a little longer, since the Master of Darkness had decided to call a meeting with all his Whips. They had plans to retaliate against the Reapers, and we had to be flies on the wall for this reunion. Since neither of us were ghosts like Nethissis, odds were they wouldn’t sense us. For some extra security, Sidyan had added concealment spells around us, to minimize our chances of
discovery.

  He held my hand, making sure we were both unseen, unheard, and basically immaterial while we listened in. His touch sent shivers through my body, and the Word resonated with him in ways I hadn’t experienced before. It was as if my whole being hummed with a mixture of excitement and delight—and that was dangerously distracting under the circumstances. I took deep breaths and forced myself to focus on the room.

  Corbin sat at the head of a long wooden table with Danika on one side and Petra on the other. One by one, the other Whips came in, escorted into this part of the imperial palace by Crimson guards. The soldiers also announced their entrance and titles, according to what we assumed was Darkling tradition.

  “Drezel Volla, Whip of the Darklings and Lieutenant of the Third Sector,” the Crimson guard said as a tall, good-looking Aeternae man walked in. He wore red leather, gold chains jingling across his chest, and a broad smile.

  “My liege, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” Drezel replied, looking at Corbin. His serenity faded when he saw Danika and Petra. “First Sector and Second Sector Whips… long time no see,” he added with a faint nod.

  Danika scoffed. “Can’t say I was looking forward to this.”

  “I agree. However, here we are,” Drezel shot back. There was clear animosity between them, but it only served to irk Corbin, who shook his head in dismay.

  “Enough with the childish nonsense,” he said. “Sit down, Drezel.”

  The Third Sector Whip took his seat next to Petra, whom he seemed to despise less than Danika. Sidyan squeezed my hand. “Sectors? They have sectors?” he asked, keeping his voice low. The Darklings couldn’t hear or see us because Sidyan had taken additional precautions through death magic, but he still wasn’t taking any unnecessary risks.