Prophecy: Child of Light (41 page)

He led her to one of the armchairs and she sat in it, giving him a weak smile when he knelt in front of her, looking up into her eyes.

“Are you sure?” he said and when she started to open her mouth, he cut her off. “Of course you are. Ridiculous question.”

She smiled at his dismissive tone, as though he was speaking more to himself than to her.

“I don’t know what it means,” she said, wanting to get it out into the open before he asked her. “I just saw them, in the heart of the star. I felt as though I knew they would be there, or that someone would be there. I don’t know. It’s all so confusing.”

He placed his hand lightly over hers where they were resting in her lap.

“Do not worry, child. The answers will come when the time is right.” A soft female voice drew her attention.

She looked up to see Mia standing beside her, a graceful smile curving her lips.

“And you’ll bring them, won’t you? You’re the person Valentine wanted me to see.” She felt his fingers curl around hers.

Mia nodded. “But not tonight. Tonight, we should not be discussing business.”

“We need to,” she said. “Time is running out. You’re the princess that Mathias spoke of. You’re the one with a part of the scroll and we need it.”

Mia hesitated for a moment and then sighed. “I have the half of the scroll you are seeking, but I do not see what good it will do you. The prophecy is black and white, as you would say. Either you will save us, or you will condemn us.”

“Mathias believes that there is more to it than that. The scroll may tell us things that I need to know in order to fulfil the prophecy.”

Mia’s eyes moved to rest on Valentine. “You wish to discuss this now? Is there no time for peaceful conversation?”

He shook his head with an air of regret. Prophecy could see that he had wanted a night away from the burden of what they were facing, but it was a night that she couldn’t give him. Her heart demanded answers and it wouldn’t wait. She needed to see the prophecy that she was at the centre of. She needed to know it was real.

Mia rose, bowed her head and walked out of the door she had come in through.

Prophecy watched her go and felt Valentine’s hand leave hers. She looked around at him, her eyes following his every move while he spoke to Dmitri. Sipping her blood, she ignored the tremble of anticipation in the pit of her stomach and tried to remain focused.

In a few moments, she would finally lay her hands on a part of the manuscript that had foretold her destiny.

Her gaze roamed over Valentine while he spoke. She didn’t listen to what he was discussing with Dmitri. They were probably just catching up with each other. She let her eyes move wherever they wanted and she found them falling to rest on the scar on his neck.

Dmitri had done that to him, and in turn, Valentine had seriously injured him. It seemed strange that two people who had once fought against each other were now friends. She smiled and mused that it was even stranger for a Caelestis to be friends with an Aurorea, if they were friends. She couldn’t quite tell what they were to each other. Was she a friend to him, or just a fellow warrior? Was she a woman to be toyed with and discarded, or loved? She narrowed her eyes, scrutinising him where he stood sipping his glass of blood. The mark over her heart itched. She tried to ignore it but it became a steady burn.

Looking down, she raised her brows when she saw that it was glowing faintly. Did it always do this? She couldn’t remember ever seeing her marks when one of them felt like this one did now. Maybe they always glowed, or maybe it was her thoughts about Valentine that were making it react. She had doubted his feelings for her, and it had began to burn, as though she was wrong for doing so. Pressing her fingers to it, she smiled at the way the glow seemed to be drawn to her fingers.

She lifted her head when she felt someone watching her and found Valentine staring at her fingers where they still rested against her chest. There was that spark in his eyes again, that fire that made her see that his feelings for her ran deeper than she had at first thought possible. She kept still while his gaze moved over her, rising slowly to rest on her mouth and then finally reaching her eyes. She swallowed. He smiled.

“Mia may be some time,” Dmitri said. He walked over to the side table and picked up a canister of blood. Carrying it over to her, he refilled her glass. “Time is running out, yes?”

“Yes,” she said.

He gave her a grim look. “What time?”

“I’m sorry?” She frowned.

“Why is it running out?”

“There is an army in Romania.” Valentine came to stand next to her and she looked up at him. “Our contact in Venice believes that it will move shortly and it will be coming for us.”

“You want to head it off?” Dmitri placed the canister down again and stared at the crackling fire. “I have kin in Romania. It is an, what is the word, outpost?”

Valentine nodded. “You have warriors there, people that can get word to us?”

“I will send word and they will respond in a day. We will know if this vampire is making an army.”

“Thank you,” she said and stood up at the exact same moment as the door opened.

Mia was walking in with her hands held out in front of her. Prophecy’s eyes immediately moved to them and the slim silver tube that Mia was carefully carrying. She went to move but stopped herself. She was shaking inside, trembling. She glanced at Valentine, wanting him to do what she didn’t have the courage to. He nodded, walked past her and took the tube from Mia’s hands. He unclipped the lid and she stopped breathing when he gently removed its contents, sliding the rolled parchment out with his little finger.

He slowly opened it and stared at its contents. She didn’t know what kind of reaction she’d expected, but his deadpan expression clearly wasn’t it. She rushed forwards, peering over his shoulder at the scroll.

The dark red ink looked like nothing more than scratches made at varying angles. It was no wonder it had taken the vampires a decade to decipher it originally. She couldn’t make sense of it at all.

“It is written in cuneiform,” Valentine said.

Her gaze met his and she frowned. “Can you read it?”

He shook his head and a hint of apology entered his eyes. “It could take years to translate this.”

He carefully rolled it up and slid it back into the intricately carved silver holder. Prophecy stared at it and found herself wanting to touch it. She wanted to feel the weight of it in her hand so she could measure it against the weight of the burden it had placed on her shoulders. She glanced at Valentine again. It wasn’t all on her shoulders. He was carrying a lot for her. She knew that. She wasn’t blind. Since leaving Prague, he had done most of the work, including the fighting. Sometimes it felt as though she was along for the ride, a passenger in his adventure. It was time that changed. She couldn’t continue letting him take care of every scrape that they found themselves in, or find every contact that might have information for them. This was her fate, her life. It was time she took command of it.

“We have to take this to Mathias,” he said.

She grabbed hold of the slim metal case and felt as though she was finally taking hold of her destiny. It was so light, so strangely light when compared to the gravity of what it contained, and it was so small, barely six inches long.

“There isn’t time,” she said. “We must go to the castle like Elena said. Mathias won’t have time to decipher this and we won’t have time to get the second half before this war begins.”

Valentine gave her a look that said he wasn’t so sure but she stood firm, showing him how resolute she was. She wasn’t going to travel all the way back to England now, not when they were so close to the final battle. Seeing the language the scroll was written in had forced her to react, and she was going to do exactly as her heart commanded.

She was going to war.

She was going to save the world.

No matter what the scroll said.

That was her destiny.

V
alentine stared at Prophecy, taking in the serene look that sleep had given to her. She was lying on a chaise lounge, her hands resting on her stomach and her dark hair flowing around her shoulders. She looked like a corpse. In some people’s eyes, she was. Humans always saw vampires as reanimated corpses. He’d never really figured out why. The demon didn’t inhabit the body; it was a part of it. What humans saw as the demon inside him, was just him. They believed that any human emotion felt by a demon such as himself must be the human side that had existed before death by a vampire’s kiss. There was no boundary between human and demon. His human side was dead, reincorporated into the demon that he’d now become. Although he was a demon, there was a more animalistic side of him, one that all vampires held deep inside. When released, it was this side of him that altered his appearance. It was the instinct deep inside that made him want to change and whispered words to him about killing and blood, and words about Prophecy. Vampires were the same as werewolves and other shape shifters—a demon with another side, one that changed their appearance and unleashed a basic instinct to kill. They were always a demon though and never the human they appeared to be.

The exchange of blood hadn’t infected him with a virus-like creature. It had merely mutated his DNA and given him life after death. There was nothing human about him, not any more. His memories were the only evidence of his life. Everything he felt were his feelings, not some lingering human emotion. He wasn’t human. No shred of the man he once was remained inside him. He couldn’t even remember the name he’d gone by. In time, he wouldn’t remember to breathe, and after that, he wouldn’t even recall what a sunset had felt like.

He brought his focus back to Prophecy again. She’d been so nervous when he’d first brought her into the room where Mia would be working with her to unlock her memories. It had taken them several attempts to get her into the deep sleep needed for Mia to regress her. He’d reassured her time and time again that she was in safe hands. Mia could read Prophecy’s mind with all the ease of reading a book. She would be able to unlock the barriers that had been set up by Arkalus.

Mia finished her blood and placed the glass down. He smiled at her when she walked across to where Prophecy was lying and sat on the padded seat behind her head.

“I will need some time and some peace if this is to be successful,” she said with a serious look.

He nodded. “It is a nice night. I shall leave you to it.”

With a small bow in her direction, he turned and walked out of the French doors and onto the little stone balcony that overlooked the river. This side of the castle was high up and there was nothing but a fifty-foot drop between him and the rushing torrent below.

He listened to it in the darkness. The moon was hidden behind patchy cloud tonight, but when it chose to appear it cast enough light on the world to show him the rocky bed of the river and the white crests of the water as it smashed into them. His eyes scanned the pine forest, his ears trying to pick out the sounds of the night creatures as they went about their business. He longed to be out there with them, hunting something, anything, so long as it took his mind off what was happening in the room at his back.

He wondered how long it would take Mia to regress Prophecy. He’d never seen her do it before. She’d once offered to take a look into his mind but he’d refused. His mind was something that he wanted to keep to himself. Besides, Mia could read him like a book without having to open the cover.

Sighing, he turned and leaned his elbows against the stone wall. He let his head fall back and stared up at the sky. It had an ominous look about it. The clouds seemed to move too fast, their grey bodies edged with a silver glow when they passed across the moon.

All around him, he could hear the chatter of animals.

He frowned when silence descended.

Something felt wrong.

A scream pierced the still night air.

Running forwards, he threw the curtains aside and stared at Mia. She was sitting calmly behind Prophecy with her hands on either side of her head. She looked around at him, clearly not disturbed by the frantic, jerking movements that Prophecy was making.

“Do not worry,” she said with a grim smile on her lips. “We have just hit a barrier or something in her past that has been long forgotten. Her reaction is to be expected. Now if you would.”

He stared at Prophecy for a few seconds, watching her body as it jerked off the chaise lounge while her head remained perfectly still between Mia’s hands.

Dragging himself away, he repeatedly told himself that she would be fine. Mia would never hurt her. She’d never hurt anyone she liked. He walked over to the edge of the balcony again and let his eyes drift over the scenery while he tried to get a hold of his scattered emotions. He had reacted in less than a heartbeat to the sound of Prophecy crying out in pain. Maybe Mia and Dmitri were right about his feelings for her. He took a deep breath and sighed it out.

Had he been so busy fighting against his feelings that he had been blind to their true depth?

Did he love her, a child of his enemy?

He suddenly felt like the star-crossed lover he had wanted to avoid becoming. Here he was in this fairytale castle with a girl of his bloodline’s opposing family. He hoped that Shakespeare was wrong and they weren’t such an ill-fated couple.

His gaze fell to rest on the far distance and he stared at the dark hills, barely able to make out their form against the pitch-black sky. Leaning forwards, he rested his elbows on the wall and propped his head up on one hand. He hated waiting. He wanted to see the things that Mia was seeing, wanted to know Prophecy’s past so he could help her answer all the questions she had.

Mia was right to send him out of the room. He would only wind up pacing and distracting her. What she was doing required her utmost concentration and he couldn’t risk Prophecy’s mind by disturbing Mia as she probed it. He glanced back at the drawn curtains, listening closely for a sign of anything happening in the room. It was silent. The night creatures in the woods and the air around him made the only sounds.