I Am Forever (What Kills Me) (12 page)

Did he...did he just leave me?

The silence and shock enveloped me. Seconds, or minutes, later—I didn’t know—Uther opened the door. He had changed into a mahogany-colored robe.

“My lady?” he asked, his voice soft and full of concern.

“Yes, Uther,” I said thickly, talking through what was like sludge in my throat.

“Are you all right?”

No.
“Yes.”

“It’s time. Where did the swordsmith go?”

“He left.”

“Well, he will catch up with us at the ceremony. I’m sure he wouldn’t miss this moment. Come, my lady. Everyone is waiting for you.”

The walk to the Amphitheater was a blur of stone corridors, of dusty, saccharine smells like that of rotting flowers. Uther talked at me, his voice becoming background noise.

“...the Aramatta will do a ceremonial drill...then after the head cleric reads from the Sacriva, you will...”

I can’t believe he just left. Why did I let him walk away? Should I have gone with him? Is he right? Why did I hesitate?

I stared straight up to keep the tears at bay.

Of course, Lucas doesn’t trust the Monarchy. They slaughtered his father and his sisters; they betrayed his maker. But things are different now. I’m here. And they bow to me. This isn’t the time to flee, when there’s so much we don’t know and when my mind doesn’t always seem to be mine.

I’d witnessed Ryka and her boyfriend’s perennial arguments and they always ended when Raj fled in a frustrated fury. She would obsess about his tone or his heated words and affirm that it was “over for sure” this time. But he would text her a few hours later, “Hey” or “Hi” as if nothing had happened, and Ryka would accept the text as a white flag.

No, he must be coming back.

The difference was that Ryka and Raj had been together since junior high and as Dr. Femi had reminded me, I had only known Lucas for a couple of weeks. What did he owe me? What did I expect? That we would live here together happily ever after? Have a vampire marriage until death (number two) do us part?

The first person Lucas called for help was Samira.
The only vampire he trusts. His ex-freaking-partner
, I thought. They’d known each other for centuries. They’d dated for decades. Of course he would turn to her. I pictured her slinking around Lucas and batting her feathery eyelashes. I pictured his fingers in her violet punk-rock hair and his other hand stroking her impossibly long legs.

But he came back to save me. He risked his life for me. He must care about me. He has to know that I care about him and I am going to protect him.

Although—Uther says it’s my responsibility to protect everyone now.

“Do you have any questions, my lady?” Uther said, busting up my pity party.

“Oh, uh, no. You’ll be with me, right?”

Three maids gently pulled my veil and splayed it out behind me.

“I will be right behind you. When the doors open”—he gestured to the thirty-feet-tall wooden doors, which made me feel like a shrunken Alice in Wonderland—“all you have to do is walk down the carpeted walkway to the altar, go up the stairs, and sit beside the Empress.”

A sonorous drumbeat shook the doors and vibrated my insides. It began slow, like a giant stomping the grounds, and increased in tempo until strikes rained against taut drum skins.

“Ready, my lady?”

The thunder stopped. I had no idea what to expect, and fear washed in to fill the void that Lucas had left.

The doors crept apart.
Oh wow.

I could not have expected this.

I gazed out at an open gray space as long as a football field. There was too much to see. But none of it moved, so I took it in, as I would an immense painting.

There was the Empress, at the end of a strip of red carpet, seated on a stone platform bound on all sides by stairs, like a truncated pyramid. There were vampires, maybe tens of thousands of vampires, in the stands, all wearing red so that it looked as if the arena was bleeding. And there were more vampires on either side of the carpet, like wedding guests waiting for a bride.

There was nowhere to hide from their stares. I was exposed. I thrust my trembling hands into my abdomen as if I was giving myself the Heimlich maneuver.
Breathe. No wait, I don’t do that.

It was eerily quiet, so that when Uther whispered, “Go on, my lady,” it embarrassed me to think that someone might have heard him. I took a shaky step onto the softness of the carpet, the jingle of the gems on my dress making me feel even more self-conscious.

Then the drums began again. I timed each of my steps to the steady sound.

The Amphitheatre was cold, pewter-toned and primitive like the Roman Colosseum. The bricks that formed the domed ceiling darkened at the center; looking up at it reminded me of falling into the well.

A wall of soldiers flanked the path. The walk seemed unending.

When I scanned the faces of the vampires on the ground, they dropped their gazes as soon as our eyes met, as if bowing with their lashes. They were all so beautiful. Porcelain skin. Radioactive eyes. The men wore scarlet high-collared jackets or suits. The women were in gowns.

Beside the aisle, a hundred feet from the platform, Pavone was in a long red dress with what looked like birdcages as shoulder pads. The wired sleeves were so big that she took up two seats. I smiled at her and she lowered her eyes, the corners of her mouth forming subtle slopes.

I climbed the stairs, putting two feet on each step before daring the next. The jewels against the stone reminded me of the
ping
of my chains when I was the Monarchy’s prisoner. The Empress watched me ascend. The lace appliqués on her see-through dress strategically covered her body parts; the floral patterns, raised and fuzzy like moss on a tree, slithered around her pale torso.

Perhaps sensing my unease, her eyelids fell with the faint drop of her head, as if she was drifting off to sleep.

I reached her side and turned to face the crowd. The drums crescendoed and then ceased. Uther and a procession of clerics split into two lines and climbed the stairs on either side of the platform. They formed two rows behind me, with Uther at my back. Meanwhile, a parade of more vampires was coming down the carpet and filling the front ten rows at the base of the platform.

Then, at the end of the cavalcade, I caught a glimpse of his solemn face and his green eyes.

Thank God.
Lucas had come.

I lost him behind an androgynous vampire wearing red-rimmed glasses that were clearly for show, since vampires had supernatural vision. Desperate to connect with Lucas, I focused on the lineup. He wasn’t craning to see me.

He came back into view. He had dressed for the occasion. I could see his shoulder—his red suit with a gold belt across his chest. His hand rested on the handle of a long samurai sword.
They gave him a weapon? Why would you give an angry guy something sharp?

I knew he wouldn’t do anything to endanger us, but I wondered if he had some crazy escape plan.
Hard to pull a disappearing act in front of tens of thousands of vamps while wearing a dress as twinkly as a Christmas tree.

He slowed enough to come into view and our eyes met.

Wait. What the hell?

His brown hair was long, chin-length. He was broader. He had the same handsome features, if on a slightly fuller face. The same lips and the same feline green eyes.

Holy crap. That’s Lucas’s brother.

Taren.
The brother who’d stayed with the Aramatta while Lucas left with his banished father. My feverish need to talk to Lucas about seeing Taren collided with the painful awareness that I might not see him again.

A voice on a speaker echoed through the Amphitheater. I searched for the source and found a lanky cleric at a podium to the left of the platform. He spoke in a language I did not understand. More soldiers formed perimeters around the arena and the platform, and my three female guards stood on the bottom stairs.

“You may sit, my lady,” Uther whispered, standing behind me.

The stone throne was sculpted with circular patterns and a rounded back; the Monarchy’s emblem was carved where my head would rest. I didn’t know if I could sit in this getup. I swept my veil to the side and lowered myself onto the throne beside the Empress. I clenched my teeth. It was like sitting on thousands of jagged pebbles.
This is why some vampires look so constipated. Their outfits are literally a pain in the butt.

Taren took his seat in the front row, so I was able to examine him while the cleric sermonized in a monotone. Taren sat so rigidly, arms at his side, muscular shoulders pressed down, that he looked like an unsmiling Ken doll. He had Noel’s hairline and chin. It made me sad to think that he’d never see his father again.

“The high cleric is citing the passages from the Sacriva that describe your coming,” Uther said behind my back. The high cleric angled his bony body toward me, gesturing with an open palm as if serenading me.

“Oh, okay, thanks.”

Taren watched me, as did everyone else.

I glanced over at the Empress, poised, regal, her hands resting on the stone arms of the chair. I straightened up and folded my hands over my knees. If I didn’t look god-like, I wanted to at least appear calm.

The high cleric’s tone darkened and the pace of his words slowed.

“He is now proclaiming the divine rules,” Uther whispered. “As you are the First, you will now be henceforth referred to as the Divine.”

The vampires in the crowd shifted and created an almost imperceptible wave, as if they were leaning forward in anticipation. I was suddenly afraid. Something was happening, something bigger than I could comprehend, and I could sense the air change.

“The Divine will not be touched. The Divine will not be cut. The Divine will not be blasphemed against. The Divine is everything and all.” Uther affirmed every statement with increasing emotion. The vampires, mouths open, eyes wide, hung on every word. A tremor moved through the dome. The crowd rustled like wind through trees as thousands moved and murmured.