Chapter 18 18
ARIA'S POV
The safe house was being attacked, and I felt Draven’s disbelief and betrayal through the mark as though it were my own. His own brother. His own people. While under the influence of the Fifth King.
Four kings were going to battle thousands of vampires with only the four of them and me. Ronan was complete, pacing in his huge wolf form near the door. Kael’s spell flows formed gilded shapes and spirals around him. Lucien was drawing the darkness to him, at a clear cost to himself. And Draven just stood there, not even fidgeting, his face a pageantry of nothing that I was coming to recognize for the lie it was: He felt so much he couldn’t express anything.
"We can fight them," Ronan snarled, his voice mangled by wolf. "We've faced worse odds."
“Not like this,” Draven muttered softly. "These are my people. I've ruled them for centuries. I know every family, every lineage. I cannot slaughter them wholesale."
"Then what?" Kael demanded. "We let them have Aria and the child?"
“No,” I said, a little more assertive now and walked toward the door before any of them grabbed me. "We don't fight them."
"Aria, no," Ronan cautioned as he stepped in front of me.
‘Move,’ I said, and something in my voice warned him to budge even though every fibre of his being told him not to. "I'm tired of being protected. Tired of hiding. I’m so fed up with everybody deciding what I want, like I’m some delicate/little/vulnerable princess who can’t decide things herself.”
“You’ll get yourself murdered,” said Lucien.
"Maybe. Or maybe I'll surprise you." I looked at each of them. "Trust me. Please."
Draven looked at me for a long moment before he nodded. "Let her go."
I did not bother waiting for the others to debate. I wrenched the heavy door open and then I was in the cave, between the safe house and vampire soldiers.
Thousands of red eyes locked on me right away. I could feel them wanting, their carnivorous instincts rousing at the sight of the solitary human facing them. But I stood up straight, fought down the terror that threatened to make my legs shake.
Marcus Ashborne was at the front, and close up I could even see resemblance to Draven in his face. The sharp features were the same, and so was the elegant bearing. But Draven’s eyes contained ancient sorrows; Marcus’s eyes held something empty and cold.
"The girl of humans pops out," Marcus said. "How brave. Or how foolish."
"Either," I answered, feeling surprised that my voice did not waver. "I'm just tired of hiding."
The mark on my wrist lit up. More than the four sigils from my connection to the kings – something deeper, that had been slumbering within me since I came into this world. Ancient divine power of the vast, come to me out of my need.
Light erupted from my body. It was not painful, not burning, but it wasn’t nothing. Blindingly white light that drove away the blackness of the cave and caused all the vampires' to cover their eyes with their arms and retreat for a single moment.
There was importance in my tone that had never been there before when I spoke. Authority that came from something greater than me, beyond this life. "I am the Oracle Queen. I am the Heart of the Veil. I am Celeste, again, and I will not be taken by force or terror.”
The light increased in intensity, and I could feel energy flow through me unlike anything I’d ever felt. This was what Celeste had been; it’s what I could be. Human girl in supernatural politics is not just through the looking glass but a force of creation.
"See for yourselves," I went on, my voice carrying over all the vampires in the army. "The realms are dying. The Veil is rent a little further each day. The Fifth King will use what you fear and all your old loathings to ruin everything. He offers power, but all he delivers is death and emptiness.”
I saw that a few of the vampires were already on their knees. Their instincts knowing what I was even if their conscious minds didn't grasp. Others appeared less sure, their guns sinking.
I have an offer for you,” I said. “Fight with me to save the realms, every realm, not only your own. Unite against the darkness that wishes to devour everything. Or get the hell out now, walk away, deal with whatever on your own. But take this to heart if you go on serving the Fifth King through your own free will, or even by some trickery, that is not life but death.”
It was a gamble. But I didn’t know if anything I said would matter, if the power that ran through me was strong enough to silence whatever hold the Fifth King had over them. But something in me knew this was correct, that this was Celeste’s way.
Marcus sneered, and the sound that emerged from him was a shout in the sudden quiet. "Pretty words, little girl. But words don't change facts. The Court has voted. Draven is unfit. You're a destabilizing influence. The child is too dangerous to let go. These are facts."
"Are they?" I challenged. “Or are these lies you’ve been fed? When did the Court vote? Who actually cast those votes? How many of your facts are actual ones that you’ve verified, and how many did you just accept?”
I watched doubt flash across some faces in the army. Saw vampires exchanging glances, questioning.
“It doesn’t matter,” growled Marcus, and his face transformed. His features contorted, elongated, turned into something not of vampire. "The will of the Fifth King cannot be denied.”
The evolution was painful to observe. Marcus's body twisted, cracked and remade by old bones, skin darkened to shadow. That thing that emerged was not of man; it was wide and tumorous to the extreme. Its eyes were hollow, the same as in the Abyss.
“The original Marcus has been dead hundreds of years,” the creature said in a voice that contained harmonics that physically made my heart hurt. “I’ve worn his face, assumed his role, bided my time. But know this, little goddess: now you die.”
It raced at me in a speed that I can barely comprehend, and closed the gap… from one breath to the next. I’d little enough time to throw up my hands in self-defense before it was upon me.
But it never reached me.
I had four kings intercept at once and they moved as a team with an organization that literally astonished me. Draven was left, his vampiric speed nearing that of the shadow beast. Ronan went in from the right, and as a great big wolf, he brought some serious beef. Kael leapt down from above, golden chains coiling his limbs. And Lucien, bloodied from their battle but unbroken, rose and erupted from the depths in a torrent of hellfire and darkness.
Their synchronicity was perfect, instinctive, beautiful in its deathly efficiency. This was what they used to be before jealousy and curse had torn them asunder. This was the solid defense that had for so long safeguarded Celeste from danger.
The shadow monster struggled, but there were the four Munsterammimas all working together. Draven's blade found its heart. Ronan's jaws ripped into its neck. It was held in place by Kael's spell. And Lucien’s hellfire was eating it from the inside out.
Though it was disintegrating, the creature's laugh continued to fill the air as its body turned to threads of shadow. "Too late," it gasped. "The seeds are already planted. Traitors in all your courts. You have the offspring of the Fifth King walking amongst you, waiting, watching. You cannot trust anyone."
Then it vanished, evaporating utterly into nothing.
The vampire host remained motionless, some of them appearing horrified at what they had just seen. Their captain, their paladin, a monster with a friendly face.
Draven took a step forward and addressed his men with what authority he could muster despite the disdain he had just suffered. "Marcus Ashborne died centuries ago. What you just saw was a puppet, a shadow in their face. How many of such people are there in our court? How many of you have been twisted and used, led astray with lies, to betray your own king… by those who would pretend to be your friends?”
Murmurs ran through the crowd. Shame. Confusion. Fear.
“I have let you down,” More Draven, and it was obviously tearing at him. “I was obsessed with the prophecy, with keeping Aria safe that I forgot my obligations to my people. For that, I apologize. But believe me when I say - we have an enemy that not only challenges Noctra, but all four realms.' An enemy that will exploit any vulnerability, any division, to destroy us. We will rise together or we will fall divided.”
The army started scattering, vampires dropping their weapons to the ground, most of them bowing before they took off. In a matter of minutes, the siege was toppled and the threat defused with truth rather than force.
I felt the adrenaline recede, my legs go suddenly weak. Ronan was there in an instant, human again and holding me upright by my shoulders.
“That was either the bravest thing I’ve ever seen or the stupidest,” he said, but there was pride in his voice.
"Probably both," I admitted.
There was a tugging at the mark that made me turn. The draw pulled me back toward the safe house, toward the crystal coffin we’d abandoned in there. "Mine, too!" I followed without question and the others followed me.
The child’s eyes were open again, those strange silver eyes full of too much seeing. It looked at me directly as I began to approach it, and when it spoke, the horrible certainty was present in its voice.
"Mother," it whispered. "I can feel him. The Fifth King is in their mill. One of the four kings has a darkness taking root within them. Something dark, something corrupted. And if you don’t find it soon, it will eat away at them from the inside.”
Ice ran down my spine. "Which one? Tell me which one."
The little one shook its head slowly. “I cannot see well enough to tell. But it is there, getting stronger by the minute. You must find it, Mother. Before you must kill a king of your own with your bare hands.”
I stared at the four of them surrounding the coffin and saw my own horror reflected in their expressions. One of which was touched by the corruption of the Fifth King. One of them was in the process of slowly becoming a weapon against us.
And we had no idea which one.