Chapter 88 The First Darkness
KAEL
The answer came before I could speak.
A laugh. Low, ancient, amused. It echoed from everywhere and nowhere.
"Well, well. Someone finally broke the cage. Took you long enough."
The temperature didn't drop. It vanished. Warmth became a memory.
Crystals of ice formed from breath.
In the middle of the destroyed throne room, something appeared. Not slowly. It appeared out of nowhere, as if it had always been there and we could just now notice it.
A female. If that's what you'd call it. Tall, impossible to look at, with hair that moved like smoke and skin like moonlight. Despite being empty pits, her eyes managed to see everything. She donned darkness as a dress. Wonderful. Joints that shouldn't have cracked made noise when she stretched. Seventy years in that little, claustrophobic prison. You realize how boring it was?
Listening to Elena's whining?"
"Who are you?" Sera had her blade up.
"Rude. I should ask you the same question, considering you're standing in my throne room." The woman smiled. Teeth too white. Too sharp. "But I suppose introductions are warranted. I am Morvenna. First of the Shadowborn. Original vampire queen.
And you sit on my throne, little half-blood."
The term struck me like a blow to the body. Shadowborn. The lineage that came before all others. Prior to the existence of the five great families, the first vampires were in power. The exterminated blood lineage.
Apparently not, though. You've passed away." From the doorway came Arianna's voice.
She'd followed Nyx. "The Shadowborn were destroyed three thousand years ago. Every record confirms it."
Records written by the victors. My children did such a thorough job rewriting history. She looked at me. At the void, energy crackling around my hands. "Oh. This is delicious. You're void-touched. Death-walked. And you have no idea what you really are."
"I know exactly what I am."
"Do you? Then tell me—why does void magic respond to you?" She moved closer. Each step left frost. "Because you're Shadowborn. Descendant of my bloodline. The very line everyone thought extinct."
No. "My family is Draeven. Pure Draeven—"
"Going back to when? Can you trace it past a thousand years?"
I couldn't. Nobody could.
"The Shadowborn didn't die out." Arianna's voice was hollow. "They hid. Integrated."
"Yes. When my children betrayed me, they scattered. Diluted the bloodline. Hid it under new names." Morvenna's smile was poisonous. "But the blood remembers. And when you walked those gray halls, the old power woke up."
"You're lying." But I felt the truth in my bones.
"I don't need tricks. I'm free now. Thanks to you." She spread her arms. "Seventy years, Elena kept me in that vessel. Used my power to fuel her revenge."
"Elena knew about you?" Sera's voice was tight.
"We had an arrangement. I taught her void magic. Showed her how to curse the blade that killed dear Kael." Morvenna examined her fingernails. "In exchange, she promised to free me once she'd turned him into a vessel."
"Except I destroyed the vessel."
"But then you shattered my ride before I could claim it." She didn't sound upset. She sounded delighted. "Which means I'm free without being bound. Free to reclaim what was stolen."
"The throne," Arianna said.
"I want my kingdom back. My power. My children are kneeling at my feet begging forgiveness." Morvenna's eyes fixed on me. And you, descendant.
You're going to assist me. I'm not assisting you in any way. You have no other option. You're Shadowborn. The void in you answers to me. I am the source. The origin. The first darkness." She raised her hand. "Kneel."
The void inside me surged. Responded. Tried to obey.
I fought it. Pushed back. Used every scrap of control I'd learned.
But she was stronger. So much stronger.
My legs buckled. I went down hard, one knee hitting stone.
"Stop!" Sera moved to help me. Morvenna gestured casually.
Sera crashed into the wall after flying backward. "Don't touch what's mine." You don't own him.
Nyx stepped forward. Tiny. Furious. "He's ours. And you don't get to command my family."
"Oh, the time-walker speaks. How precious."
Morvenna's head cocked. It was you who revived him from the grave.
Who gave him just enough void power to break my prison? Thank you for that, child.
You've been really beneficial. "For you, I didn't do it." Not important. The outcome is identical.
I'm free. Your father is under my control. And soon I'll have this entire kingdom exactly where I want it." She looked around. "First, I rebuild my power base. Kill everyone who knows the truth. Then I reveal myself as the rightful queen returned. It'll be glorious."
"The bloodlines won't accept you." Theron's voice was rough. "They'll fight—"
"They'll die." Morvenna's voice was flat. "Anyone who resists dies. Anyone who kneels lives. Simple math." She looked back at me. "Starting with you, descendant. You'll be my first general. My champion. My proof that Shadowborn still exist and still deserve the throne."
"I'll kill myself first."
"Will you? Even knowing that will kill your bond? Your wife? Your daughter?" She smiled. "The blood bond doesn't just connect you to Sera. It connects all three of you. Kill yourself and you murder your family. Is pride worth that?"
Silence. Crushing. Terrible.
She had me. She knew it. We all knew it.
"That's what I thought." Morvenna moved to the old throne. Sat. It fit her like it had been waiting. "Now. Let's discuss terms. You serve me. Help me reclaim my kingdom. In exchange, I let your family live. They'll be prisoners, naturally. Insurance. But alive."
"How long?" My voice was dead. "How long would I serve?"
"Oh, only a hundred or two years. Long enough to put an end to the uprising and restore my authority." She dismissed it with a wave. "Time pass quickly when you're immortal."
A century. Two hundred years of being her weapon while Sera and Nyx rotted in cells.
I spent two hundred years turning into the monster I had worked so hard to avoid. There must be an alternative. Sera spoke in a strained tone.
"Not this time." Morvenna's smile was cruel.
"I have spent seventy years planning this. In that cage, waiting, considering every possibility. A third alternative does not exist. Only submission or death."
I looked at Sera. At our daughter. At the family I'd died to protect.
Saw the same impossible choice reflected in their eyes.
"I need time." The words tasted like ash. "To think. To decide."
"You have until dawn tomorrow. After that, I start killing people you care about. One per hour. Until you agree or until there's nobody left." Morvenna stood. "Your kingdom. Your people. Your family. All of it balanced on your choice. Choose wisely, descendant."
She vanished. Simply gone. Leaving us in the ruins with impossible decisions and no good options.
"Kael—" Sera started.
"Don't." I couldn't hear comfort right now. "She's right. She has us. And I don't see a way out."
"Then we make one." Nyx's voice was steel. "We always make one. That's what we do."
"How? She controls the void in me.
She has been organizing this for decades and is strong and elderly.I turned to face my daughter. "How should I proceed? Allow her to murder you?" You should have faith in us. Sera took hold of my face. forced me to gaze at her. "You should keep in mind that we have overcome insurmountable obstacles in the past.
Because we're too cunning, obstinate, and cruel to give up. "This isn't the same." It's never the same. It's always worse. We always manage to find a way. She gave me a kiss.
Hard. In a desperate situation. "So we leave. We get back together. We make plans. We also discover Morvenna's weakness, as everyone possesses one. Even the old vampire queens who believe they have triumphed." And if we are unable to locate it? "Then we create one." Nyx's eyes twinkled. I have the ability to travel through time.
Timelines have crumbled for me. Resurrected individuals from death. She took hold of my hand. "If she thinks seventy years of planning is impressive, wait until she sees what we can do in eighteen hours."
I wanted to think they were real. wanted their self-assurance to triumph against the inevitability of failure.
But I had witnessed Morvenna's strength. I could feel her dominating the emptiness in my blood. realized that we were genuinely outmatched this time, possibly for the first time. "Eighteen hours," I muttered. "I then have to make a decision. Slavery or death."
"Eighteen hours to find option three." Sera pulled me toward the exit. "Now come on. We're not planning in this death trap."
We limped out. Wounded. Terrified. Running out of time.
And Morvenna was laughing somewhere in the palace.
She believed she had triumphed.
Perhaps she had.
We weren't quite dead, though. And there was still hope as long as we were alive.
However small.
However impossible.
There was still a chance.