Vampire Girl 2: Midnight Star (4 page)

Lower.

Lower.

I run out of cloth. The ground isn't too far away. I shouldn't break anything if I drop. I take a deep breath and let go, falling into a roll as I land, just like Fen taught me. A bit of air is knocked out of me, but nothing is broken, and I can still walk—mostly, so I call it a success. It takes a moment to situate myself and figure out which direction I need to go.

I hear someone above me, at my balcony, and I hide in the shadows, half running, half limping toward the mountains with the gryphon. The sun has set. The streets are nearly empty.

It doesn't take me long to find my way to Gryphon International. I need to fly back to the Crystal Palace, using the landmarks I remember, and take the elevator back to the Seven Realms.

I climb the stone steps and seek out the gold and white gryphon I rode earlier. It's resting like a cat against a tree. I move closer, cautiously approaching the magnificent beast. It notices me and jumps up on its back legs, roaring at me as it bears down its claws. I raise my arms in defense.

And the talons tear into my flesh.

It's a deep, burning wound across my forearm, and I bite my lip to avoid crying out from the pain.

The gryphon steps back, cautious of me. But at least he's not attacking anymore.

I hear yelling from behind me. Someone is coming. I have to act fast.

I step forward, my good hand outstretched, and make soothing sounds as I approach. 

The gryphon allows me to draw near, and I pat its head. "Good boy. Can I ride you now? Would that be okay?" The gryphon seems to think about my request, then lowers to the floor, bowing his head. I pull off the shackle around his leg and climb onto the saddle more gracefully than before.

The yelling grows louder.

I grab the reins and tug, and the gryphon launches into the air.

We dive off the island, fast, the wind tearing at my wounds and the night freezing my bones. The ground comes closer and closer.

I tug on the reins. "Up!"

But my gryphon keeps flying straight down. We need to level out. I pull harder, and he surges up, pushing me back in the saddle so fast I lose my grip and fall to the side. My leg catches in a leather strap, and I flip upside down, dangling like a rag doll off the saddle. The gryphon lurches wildly in the sky, confused without his rider guiding him.

I reach for my leg, trying to pull myself up, but my one arm is nearly useless from the cuts and blood, and it's hard to find purchase. I catch my ankle and attempt to leverage myself into a better position, but my bloody hands slips. The leather strap breaks.

And I fall.

The earth rushes up to greet me, and I know in this moment I am going to die. I will be a splat of blood and bone on a world I don't understand.

I close my eyes. I don't want to see when death steals me. Instead, I think of my mother, how she sang to me when I was little. I think of Fen, how his arms felt around me, how tight he held me when he was sleeping.

And then I feel arms around me. Real flesh and blood arms.

I no longer fall. I float through the sky.

I peel my eyes open, his name on my lips. "Fen?"

Asher smiles down at me. "Not quite, love."

***

We fly higher until we land on a cliff far above Air Island. Asher carries me off the black gryphon he guided and sits me down against a silver tree. My arm burns with pain, blood dripping everywhere from my wrist and forearm.

He doesn't speak, just rips strips of cloth off his nice suit and wraps them around my cuts until they stop bleeding. When he's finished, he sits in front of me, his face hard. "You almost died!"

I rub my arm, flinching from the pain. "I'd rather die than be a prisoner."

He pauses, the anger draining from his eyes. He falls back to sit on a stone, the moon bright behind him. "I never wanted you to be a prisoner. I wanted to tell you the truth… have you join the Fae willingly. But my father, he doesn't trust you."

"You don't have to follow him," I say. "You are your own man."

Asher looks at me with more vulnerability than I've ever seen in him. "He's my father. He's the King. He's taught me all I know."

Despite my anger and pain, something in his eyes tugs at me. I put a hand on his. "You're the better man."

He snorts. "I've had millenniums of people telling me otherwise." Asher's eyes drift to the sky above us, a sky full of stars. "Sometimes… Sometimes I just wish for home."

"Your realm?"

"No." He shakes his head. "Home. My true home. Where my brothers and I played in the Silver Gardens. Where my mom sang me songs of the angels."

I close my eyes, picturing his words in my mind. "Tell me about your home. The house you lived in."

"It's… it's hard to remember." He chuckles, but it's not a happy sound. "Gifted with immortality, but no great memory. There are only flashes left. Only dust I try to grab in the wind. I remember… I remember a palace of white and gold. I remember spires that glow like the sun. I…" he grows teary, then swipes at his eyes. "I'm sorry."

I squeeze his hand. "We all miss home."

He smiles. "Thank you. For helping me remember."

"Asher, let me go home. Let me go home back to Fen."

He looks at me deeply, a great sorrow lurking in his eyes. "Sometimes, we can never go back."

Chapter 3

LOST CITY

Fenris Vane

"Fen is a good man, but he is myopic in his focus."

—Kayla Windhelm

Her blood pumps
through my veins, like fire and ice. My demon mark burns with her call, a demanding pulse that beckons me, drawing me forth, through the layers of fresh snow and ice, through the carcass of winter left behind by the storm.

I am not a man accustomed to fear, but I feel it now, filling me with its poison of doubt. What have they done with her? What will they do? What if I never see her again?

Kayla lays a hand on my arm. "I see the worry on your face, brother. Ari is strong. And if they wanted her dead, they wouldn't have gone to such lengths to keep her alive."

My half-sister is not wrong, but it does little to temper my rage. I should have kept her safe, instead, she saved my life and risked her own.

I had hoped for some clues at Stonehill Castle, but of course there were none. And despite the refugees of my capital city swarming to the castle for safety and help, despite the chaos caused by battle and death, I left the moment I felt Ari call for me with blood.

Kayla insisted on coming, though I know she worries for her charge, Daison, who didn't make it out with the others. She worries for the people under my care. But she too loves Ari, I remind myself. She wants her safe and home almost as much as I do.

"There is nothing out here," Kayla says as we walk further into the wildness that is the outer edges of my realm. We are coming close to the Outlands, where rebel Fae likely gather to strategize their next move.

They must have her there, in the Outlands, on the edge of our world. Where else could they have taken her? Certainly not to one of my brothers—none of them would work with Fae. And if the raiders still have her in my realm, they are more foolish than even I have given them credit for. I already have what scouts I can spare searching my lands. With orders to kill.

The pulse in my wrist changes and I stop, looking around at the withered trees and old stones. "She's close." The white wolf at my side sniffs at something in the air and growls. I rest a hand on Baron's head. "Find her, boy. Find Ari."

He howls and leaps through the snow. Kayla and I follow behind. In moments, Baron turns into the mountain and disappears.

A cave, nearly hidden by snow-covered vines, is carved into the stone, and Kayla and I duck to enter, both of us pulling our swords out in preparation.

Baron doesn't waste time checking to see if we're following. He shoots through the darkness toward a destination only he can smell. Kayla flicks her hand, and a glow of soft white light appears before us, illuminating the darkness—she knows she can use her magic with me, if not with anyone else. We creep forward, Kayla's light and our enhanced night vision guiding us.

We travel through narrow passageways guarded by stalactites and stalagmites that threaten to impale us with one wrong move, until we reach a cavernous space with two towering blocks of rock standing as sentinels at the corners of a stone door. In the middle is a spiked imprint in the shape of a hand.

My mark blazes. She has to be here somewhere.

Kayla walks up to the door and examines the markings carved into stone. "This is Fae magic," she says. "Only a Fae can use this, I think."

"Do it," I say.

"I'm only half Fae, Fen. It might not work." But she puts her hand over the spike and shoves her flesh into the door until her blood covers the imprint.

Nothing happens.

I curse and punch one of the stone pillars.

"That's not helpful," Kayla says, tearing a piece of fabric off her shift and wrapping it around her bleeding hand.

I walk over and stick my own hand over the spike. I hear something, the faint sound of metal grinding, but then nothing. Using sheer strength, I attempt to open the stone door, but despite my considerable power, I cannot budge it.

"Go back to Stonehill," I command Kayla. "Put together a crew. Find Ace and get his help. Tell him we need something that can open this. I'll wait here. I will break down this door and dig my way to the center of hell to save her, if I must."

Kayla hesitates, and Baron glances between the two of us, waiting. "Fen… " her voice is soft. Conciliatory. And I know what she's going to say before she says it. "We don't even know where this door leads. If it leads anywhere at all." She lays a hand on my arm, as if to soften the blow of her words. "Let us research. Let us think this through. And let us go back to Stonehill. Your city is burned. Your people displaced. They've lost their home. Their loved ones. They need their prince."

"Ari needs me more."

***

I consider staying. But Kayla's words haunt me. What would I do alone in the cave? Beat my stubborn head against the stone waiting for it to break? I will be more useful in Stonehill, so I leave with Kayla, even as Baron dances in circles around the strange door, howling and growling and sniffing and wagging his tail in distress. He can feel her. Smell her. He knows they took her this way. But neither of us can crack the code of how this door opens or where it leads, so we have no choice but to head back to the castle. The sun is near setting by the time we return.

We walk through the city more slowly this time, taking in the damage. The burned houses and destroyed food stores and fallen trees. The bodies that litter the streets. The stench of burnt flesh that still lingers in the air despite the storm.

"We will need to put together work groups to collect and bury or burn the dead," I say as we walk.

Kayla nods, but says nothing.

Until she sees something within the ruins of a collapsed and burned building. She cries out and runs into the ash. I stop and wait, my heart heavy when I see her return with a charred body in her hands and tears running down her dirt-smudged face.

"It's Daison," she says. "He's dead."

"I'm sorry, sister." It is all I can say. Ari would know how to comfort her, how to share in her sorrow, but I have had to lock my heart against the cost of war, or I could never do what I do. Still, I understand. Her pain is raw, her grief deep. She raised that boy, trained him as her apprentice in blacksmithing, loved him as family. The wall around my heart cracks a little for her as we walk.

She carries the boy's body all the way back to the castle, and I set about having the city cleared. The vampire remains will be burned in funeral pyres, as is our way. The Fae slaves who died will be buried, as is theirs. The Shade can go either way, depending on their next of kin preference. Tonight, the sky will burn with the fires of sorrow.

I have Kal the Keeper send out six ravens, one for each of my brother's realms, with orders to hold a Council meeting immediately. I'll need their help if I'm to find Ari and pull my realm back together after the Outlander attack.

Waiting is the hardest part. I don't spend a lot of time in the human world, but I do envy their technology and rapid communication methods. A cell phone would be particularly useful right about now.

To stay busy, I make my rounds through the refugee camps that have formed within the castle walls. Funeral pyres have already been constructed, and many have begun the process of burning their dead and whispering goodbyes. Vampires don't much believe in an afterlife. We are immortal. If we die, that's the end. But Fae have different beliefs, of resurrection, of living beyond. The Shade often straddle the fence on what happens after death.

I stop at each ceremony, giving respect to the dead before moving on to the next. I ask myself what would Arianna do to help the people heal, and I try to offer her words, her kindness, through my body. It's not the same. She's so much better at this than I am, but it's the best I can do.

When I reach the pyre for Daison, I stop and stand next to Kayla. I do not touch her, or hold her, because I do not feel she wants those things. Instead, I offer her my strength silently with my presence.

She speaks an old Fae blessing and lights the flames to set Daison's body free. I'm surprised she chose the vampire way rather than Fae, and I tell her so, when it's over.

"He and I lived by the fire of the forge. It seemed fitting he should leave this world by fire as well."

I nod and then finally pull her into an embrace. Baron howls as the fires fade and the ashes are all that remains of Daison. Kayla weeps silently.

There will be many pits of ash this night. Many new graves dotting the landscapes beyond, some marked, others not.

Many empty homes and hearts that once were full.

And in the end, there will be more war. This is what I have wrought. I am the Prince of War. I am the Prince of Death.