GENERAL ODOM LET ME FREAK OUT and cry and scream.
He didn’t try to console me or quiet me. He just let me rage and cry for nearly an hour.
I didn’t know how I was going to survive this.
Danai, Elex, Carolee—now my parents were a lie.
Celine Stormbreaker. First of Rest. The woman who slept for three thousand years.
My mother.
Eventually, I came back to myself—although it was really starting to feel like I was just shutting ‘Kimber’ off and letting the ‘Breaker’ take over.
Still, it was necessary. I couldn’t let the emotions rule me yet. Not until I knew I would be safe back in the temple.
The general saw I was calming and started to gather the dishes so he could take them away.
“You need to know that anyone who is in my company is on my—our side.” He spoke so the clang of dinnerware could drown out his words. “You should also know that Aiko, Billan, and Kane are aligned with us. You may trust them if you need to do so. I will be leaving during the Blood Rite tomorrow night.”
He stared at me, as I was once again seated across from him.
“You will not like the Blood Rite. It’s primitive, horrible, and savage. Those of us who defy Savion, and who have left this place, have changed it. He has kept it as it was millennia ago—and it is a bloodbath. He will make you go. Whatever you do, please, do not offer your blood, and do not let anyone give you any. It could well be drugged, and I don’t know what that would do to you.”
I nodded. “And your plan for me?”
“One week from tomorrow night. Aiko will relay the details when he can beforehand. Can you hang on that long?”
Giving him a terse yes, I released the bubble of magic and the sound flooded back in. “General, thank you for the meal. I will be ready for dinner at the usual time.”
Picking up the tray, he bobbed his head and left the library.
I managed to walk to the back corner and found a couch I had seen earlier. I couldn’t even say I sat—I fell into it.
My whole life was swirling around and around.
Why had my parents gone to such lengths to excuse me from so many of my magic training classes? If I was the daughter of the First, her magic had been documented in the Rest as tremendous.
The more magic a druid had, the longer they could take rest. Only the most powerful could rest more than two or three hundred years.
Had they suppressed my magic when Cely died? Hid it from me? It would go a long way to explaining why my magic felt so incomplete, why there were parts of my life I had trouble remembering. Was it possible to do that?
My reverie was ripped away when the screaming started again.
I was starting to wonder if I was going mad. Even when it happened in the hallways and common rooms, when I was accompanied, no one reacted to it.
And it was usually the same screaming, accompanied by a long, low sound after.
I just didn’t know who to ask without seeming insane.
Though it seemed, I was insane.
Without much thought, as the sound disappeared, I walked to a section of the stacks where I had seen books on druids. These books were ancient but magicked so they didn’t fall apart and crumble to nothing.
Looking at the titles, I ran my finger down the spines. Some intrigued me, some were just bad poetry, and some were histories of people that time had forgotten.
Though despite my best efforts, a single title continued to draw me back to it. Violet of Island of Flightless Birds. Somehow, I knew that wasn’t a flower but a person. I pulled the book for my piles so that it would stop distracting me.
Finally, I found one that made me pause. Of Druids and Their Magic. I took it out and headed back to my table with the piles of other books on it.
Dry and simple, there wasn’t much in it that I hadn’t already found on my own. Most of it was covered in school when I was younger. Only the last chapter was interesting, and even that didn’t answer my questions. I felt like the best way to find out would be to ask, but all three of my ancient males were nowhere to be found.
I slumped into the chair. I couldn’t scour the whole library to find things I didn’t know. I only had a week left. A week of living with a vampire who was the most awful being I’d ever met. I didn’t know what was going to happen after that. It was a small price to pay to make sure that Vitas and Roran got back to the temple.
I hoped I could survive a week.
* * *
Quietly reading one of the books on my stack the next day, I sensed someone else in the library.
Without the sound of the door opening and closing, I was instantly suspicious and on guard, but I kept my head down.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone standing between the stacks, perfectly still.
I glanced over and instantly recognized the long black hair and strong jawline.
Aiko.
He put a finger to his lips and motioned me to follow him. I left the book as it was and stood.
I didn’t think there was a way they could spy on me here, with no painting to cut eyes out of, but I wasn’t going to take my chances.
Walking backward, Aiko guided me through several more stacks and then to the very back of the library where a rich, woven rug in reds and creams sat under several plush chairs and a settee.
Finally turning away from me, he walked to the end of the stack on the right and pulled a book.
The center of the wall slid back and pulled to the side just enough to allow a person to pass through if they ducked a bit.
Aiko smiled, winked, and ducked inside.
I followed.
The door slid shut a moment later and several lights popped on.
“This stronghold is full of secret passages.” Aiko took my elbow. “This one comes straight up from the stables and garages.”
“Can you sneak me out?” I didn’t want to spend the week if I didn’t have to.
“Yes, but not yet.” He stopped and turned to me. “We have a plan, and I know you don’t know us from this hole in a wall, but you have to trust us. Everything we do around Savion has to be calculated carefully. Early on, we realized he would rip the throat out of anything that displeased him. And we don’t care to lose the Breaker of the Spine on our watch.”
Chuckling, I motioned for him to continue walking. “I’d like it if you didn’t lose her either.”
The passage was short, and we were in the stables in just a few minutes. Aiko finally stopped and pulled me to the side.
“Kane, Odom, and I have been talking. It’s better if we sneak you out for the next few days and show you how to use a gun and get you back on a horse. Savion is in no mood to grant us that favor. And”—he reached behind him and pulled something from behind the riding tack—“teach you to really use the sword.”
I gasped and grabbed the sheath and sword he held out to me. “Oh, gods, thank you! This was my father’s—.”
My father who probably wasn’t my father.
I shoved the thought aside and strapped the sword to my back, quickly and easily. “What’s your plan?”
“We’ll ride out to the firing range beyond the river and get you set up with a weapons master and rifleman. Do you think you can do this?”
“Where’s my horse?” Anything to defy Savion and his cruelty.
Handing me a bag, Aiko pointed to a door. “Change. We can’t take the chance that Savion or someone loyal recognizes your clothes. These are just common clothes that most people wear. When you come out, we’ll be ready to go.”
In just a few short minutes, I legged up on a gorgeous tan and white horse. We were flying out of the stables and down the road moments after.
It was so good to feel the wind on my face. I was at home on this horse, galloping at breakneck speed, away from the stronghold, and away from where people could spot us.
Once we were in the forest just north of the stables, Aiko slowed our pace to a healthy trot, and we rode for an hour. Most of it was in pleasant silence, but I finally interrupted it.
“Why do you work to undermine the king, Lord Aiko?”
He answered with no hesitation. “He killed my sister. He used her in the bedroom, and when Kumi became pregnant, he killed her.” He glanced over at me. “It was years ago now, but until that day, I was loyal. So was she.”
“Only that made you turn away?”
“I had doubts before that, but I pushed them away until that moment. Once I saw her headless body being drained into the fountain, I knew I could not uphold a madman’s rule.”
Another silence followed. “You want to kill him.”
“Yes, I do. Me and thousands other of his subjects. I will be happy to see him brought down.”
“How long has he been king?”
“Since the Spine rose.” He glanced around at the trees. “He cheated to get the crown, too. Once the old king disappeared, there was a call for a new queen. Once Niniane won the crown, he slaughtered all the other men who possibly could have won.”
“Were you there?”
“Me?” He laughed quietly. “No. I’m not so old as that. I’m only two hundred. Odom was. Kane was, as well. A few of the lords. But not me.”
“Why now to bring him down?”
His lips curved in a smile. “Because you broke the Spine. The rebels have waited for that day for years. It’s why Savion wants you under his control. He thinks that we will follow him because you stand by him.”
“I won’t ever. I’ll die before that.”
Aiko nodded quietly. He understood completely.
“Thank you for getting my sword.”
“You seemed attached to it.”
“I am, really. I may suck as a magic wielder, but I can use this like nobody’s business.”
He slipped another look over to me. “Really?”
I chewed the inside of my lip. “Don’t think that I’m pretending or making that up. I can actually use it.”
An indulgent grin spread on his face. “Really.”
I sat up on the horse and stared at him. “Yes. Really. Would you like to be the first to spar?”
“Indeed, I would. A pleasure.”
Kicking his horse into a canter, he guided us off the large trail to a smaller one we followed for about ten minutes before we had to slow.
There was a treacherous cliff the horses had to take us down to a small but solid bridge across a swift river.
“It’s the First Brother River. If you follow it to the north, the Second Brother joins it, becoming Brothers’ River. It tumbles over the Two Brothers Falls.”
I smiled. “Apparently, there was a set of brothers you all liked at one point.”
“So the stories say. The ones in the stained glass in the entrance way, supposedly.”
I filed that information and promised I would get over the fountain and spend some time studying the windows.
With the horses moving again, we followed the river for a while, then turned right into the grasslands there. A group of bushes appeared for a moment. In the next, the ground sloped down again, and an expanse of grasslands dotted with trees appeared there.
“Welcome to the Range. The common people of East S’Kir train here. It’s a recreational area. Most of the people here are rebels.” Aiko snorted. “Most of the people of East S’Kir are rebels.”
We dismounted and walked the horses to a line that had been set up with a trough and a few hay bales.
Aiko untied a bundle from his saddle, tossed on his shoulder, and motioned me to a path.
He disappeared in a blast of wind.
I couldn’t help the roll of my eyes. Vampire speed and he thought I could catch up?
With a sigh, I started walking down the path in the direction where I could hear faint explosions. I figured those noises were the guns going off. It certainly sounded like the weapon that had torn into my leg.
It took five minutes for Aiko to finally reappear. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Clearly.” I pointed to the path beneath my feet.
“Well?”
“Well what? I’m walking.”
“Why don’t you run?”
“Because I’ll wind myself, and then you’ll be able to take me out with the sword.” I grinned.
He stopped walking. “You… can’t run?”
“No, I cannot. Not like you.”
“But…” His words fell off, and he was clearly confused.
“Roran is older than the Spine,” I offered, knowing that’s what he was thinking of. “None of the younger generations had any idea we were supposed to be able to do that. Dorian was going to teach me, but we—”
“You were caught in hostile territory.”
I answered with a simple nod.
With three long strides, Aiko was behind me, and one more stride allowed him to pick me up.
I screeched, which immediately turned in to a scream when he started running.
Everything sped by in a blink, and less than a minute later, he was putting my feet back on the ground, probably a third of a league from where we started.
I punched his shoulder. “Don’t ever do that again!”
“I’ll have to so I can get you back to the horses.”
“Warn me then!”
He walked away from me, chuckling.
Cheeky asshole.
I pulled my sword from its sheath and whacked him on the ass, hard.
He spun, indignant.
I whipped the blade to the side and grinned like an idiot. “I was told there would be sparring.”
“Marco! Sword!” He held his hand out, and a moment later, a blond man slapped the hilt into his hand. He pulled it around vertical and saluted me. “If that’s what you wish, Mistress Breaker.”
Holding my sword loosely in one hand to the side, I waited for Aiko to make the first move. I figured he was cocky enough to do it, and I was right. It took him only seconds to come at me when I didn’t move my arm.
He stabbed down, and I wasn’t there. I danced away so his blade was at my back, and I smiled at him. At the same time, I smacked the flat of the blade against his thigh.
“Ouch!”
While he was maneuvering into a better position to strike at me, I spun, switched hands, and easily disarmed him.
The metal clattered on a rock and rang for a moment before falling silent.
Aiko stared at me, his eyes flashing bright red.
I saluted with a vertical blade. “That was to instruct you to not think me inexperienced.”
His eyes settled, and he smirked. “Indeed. I have been schooled, Mistress Breaker.” Grabbing the sword off the ground, he dusted the hilt off and repositioned it in his hand. “Shall we try that again?”
In response, I assumed an open parry position. “I would be delighted.”
* * *
An apple appeared in my view.
“Hungry?”
Looking up, I found Aiko standing there. I took the apple with a grateful bob of my head and bit into it.
I cleared my throat a moment later. “Is your arm all right?”
He pulled up his sleeve. “All healed. Once I was able to take a few swallows of blood, it was good.”
“I am sorry.” My voice was sheepish.
“No, you have nothing to be sorry for. You warned me, again and again, that you weren’t kidding with the sword. And you weren’t. And I didn’t believe you. Therefore, I deserved the stab.”
“I didn’t have to break your bone, though.”
“It was a good lesson to remember that, while you cannot run or heal like us, you can damn well learn a host of other skills. Are all the druids so trained?”
“No.” I shook my head after I took another bite of the apple. “We aren’t rare, but not everyone is trained. This sword was a part of my life since I was very small. It’s part of me. A gift from—”
Aiko watched me. “From your father.”
“But I don’t know if he was my father.”
“Did you call him such?”
“Yes.”
“Then he was.” He punctuated the statement with a firm nod. “No buts about that. You might even consider yourself a bit lucky that you had two people you could call mother. Even if you didn’t know it at the time.”
I grunted. I still wasn’t in a good place to talk about it. “What’s on the agenda for this afternoon?”
“I’m going to show you how to use a gun. A rifle.” He paused and looked over at me. “You’re not going to tell me you already know how to do that, are you?”
The laugh was louder than I wanted, but I couldn’t stop it. “No, no. I’ve never held a gun. I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Excellent!” Aiko tipped his head. “Well, not really excellent, but I’m glad I get to at least teach you something.”
“I liked our lessons this morning.” I openly laughed.
Aiko held his laugh back, trying to scold me, but it wasn’t working very well.
He pulled out his gun and started naming the pieces as he took it apart to clean it. “It is important that you clean it because the carbon from the ammunition can really mess it up and foul the aim.”
Two long hours of taking apart and reassembling one of the other guns, then the rifle, he finally felt that it was time to let me try firing one of them.
We walked to the range, and Aiko handed me the long gun, the rifle.
“Now, you have to remember when you pull the trigger, you’re going to experience something called kickback, and you have to know how to handle it. With a rifle like this, you have to tuck it into your shoulder—no, no, lower, into the crease of your arm.”
I moved it down and tucked it into the spot he pointed to, and it was actually more comfortable.
“Why are you doing this?”
“What?” He was confused.
“Why are you giving us guns and teaching me and…”
“And letting your other raiding party steal the weapons from the north?”
I tucked that information in the back of my head. Rilen’s raiding party had been successful.
I nodded.
“Because we need your help to rally the vampires. We are beaten, oppressed, and just damn tired of fighting. With you behind us, we can stir the rebels back to fever pitch and, with luck and skill, kill Savion.” He pointed the gun down the range while I held it. “We need your fresh energy to finally—finally be free of him.”
I remembered everything Aiko had told me about the gun—about aiming, how the gun worked, and just to be patient with myself.
I found the target and pulled the trigger.
The gun slammed into my shoulder, and it did hurt, but only for a moment. I held on and held it steady. Glancing downrange, I could see that the bullet had already done the damage it needed to.
“Excellent,” the lord knight said quietly. “Do it again.”
I nodded.
The raw power in the gun was stunning, and I knew it could be a very dangerous thing in the wrong hands.
Savion’s hands.
I aimed again.
And again.
I imagined the target was first Savion, then Elex, then the ass who took Carolee’s head. Every single one of those images was something I wanted to destroy.
For the next four hours, all I did was put bullet after bullet in the targets that came up. Some still, some moving.
All now with lead embedded in them.
My lead.
From my gun.
I would make sure Savion was dead.
* * *
The bedroom door clicked as someone unlocked it.
I never slept well, so I just held still until it was opened, then shut and locked.
I threw a ball of pure magic at whoever was there and hit them squarely in the chest.
“Ouch!” Aiko exclaimed from the floor.
I grabbed the sheet—When had I started sleeping naked? Oh.—and jumped off the mattress. “Aiko, I’m sorry! I just heard the door—”
“At least we know she packs a punch,” Odom said, the laugh clear in his voice.
I sent some magic at the switch and flipped it on, brightening the room. Odom, Kane, and Aiko were near the door. The other two were helping Aiko back to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” I said, sitting back down on the bed, pulling the sheet tighter.
“It’s fine.” Aiko waved me off. “You were defending yourself. I like it.”
I raised an eyebrow, and Odom coughed.
He almost growled at Odom. “I liked that she was able to defend herself against me without a sword, you insufferable prick.”
I cleared my throat. “Gentlemen. If you don’t mind?”
Kane nodded. “Mistress, tomorrow night is the Blood Rite. It is overwhelming when it begins, and we have to make sure that the general can get away without issue. Aiko will be the only one tomorrow night who can keep an eye on you.”
“There’s usually only one of you keeping an eye on me.”
“Even though you don’t see it,” Odom said, “we have the backing of those who support it to keep you safe. The guard who caught you on the stairs was one of us. Even the ones who lifted him above the fountain were loyal.”
“Why, if you are everywhere, is he still the king? There were so many opportunities to take him down. Ever since I’ve been here.” I looked between the three of them.
Kane answered me. “There are two reasons. One, most of the Lord Knights are still loyal to him, and their guards are still loyal to them. There are still more of them here at the stronghold. We do what we can to undermine him. And second…”
His eyes darted over to Aiko and Odom, and he cleared his throat. “The second is that we have to be ready for true madness if we kill him. He is the only one who can control the queen, and she will unleash a hell like no one else in S’Kir ever has.”
I stared at him. “The Queen.”
Odom nodded. “Niniane won the crown. Savion killed all of her potential kings and took the title. Killed everyone, including the man she thought was her soul mate. She was defeated and conceded the crown to him.”
Aiko took over the story. “He locked her away. The only thing she ever asked of him was a child. But a prophecy told him any daughter under his roof would be the death of him. He had also seen a family thrown to shambles because of a child. So he never took her. Refused her bed. Took as many other women as he could.”
I blinked, my voice quiet. “Which was how your sister died.”
Aiko nodded. “If they got pregnant, he killed them. Eventually, in a fit of bloodlust and blood rite, he took Niniane. She became pregnant, and he was going to have her executed.”
Odom took a deep breath. “He couldn’t have the throne if she wasn’t living. So he couldn’t kill her.”
Kane came in again. “He gave her a drink called leadium, a red wine boiled in lead pots. His only reason was to make her miscarry and make her feebleminded. Except she didn’t miscarry, and she didn’t become feebleminded at all.”
“Niniane had been a good person when I first knew her.” Odom’s voice was quiet. “The leadium drove her insane in short order. She was stark raving mad by the time she was halfway through the pregnancy. The other half of that was that she’s highly intelligent. She knew exactly what was going on in her madness.”
Kane took a deep breath. “She stood in the middle of the old front courtyard, and ripped the child and her own womb from her body, throwing them at Savion’s feet. Screaming that now he had no obligation to her. Now she would work toward his death and the utter destruction of the Vampires of S’Kir.”
My shocked gaze darted back and forth and over the three of them standing there.
“She ripped the child from her body?”
All three nodded.
Taking just another moment to digest what they had said, I grimaced. “What the fuck kind of madness do you people live in?”
All three stepped back.
“Seriously!” I snapped. “A king cutting off heads at the slightest insult? Voices screaming through the walls at all times of day? Prisoners bled in cages? Women ripping their own pregnant wombs from their bodies? This is utter and complete madness! How do you live like this? Wouldn’t it have been better to just slide a knife between his ribs and be done? Instead, you’re sneaking around and pretending you work with the devil himself.”
“You don’t understand how the madness has Niniane,” Kane said. “She’s far worse than her husband because her husband made her that way.”
“So now you’re ready to deal with her madness?”
The three of them looked at each other, and Odom pulled something out from a pocket, holding it out to me.
A hushwillow box.
I stared at for a very long time before pulling the sheet nice and tight and walking over to them.
“Is there a whisper shell in there?”
Aiko nodded.
“Who is it for?”
Odom cleared his throat. “Mine.”
I put a hand to my head. “Did you all used to get one of these?”
The general shook his head. “Not all. But the Three were rather prolific as trouble escalated before the Spine rose.”
I picked the box out of Odom’s hand and studied all the words carved into the box. They were words of protection and silence and a name.
The lid slid easily open, and it was quiet in the room for a moment. I waited. Odom, Kane, and Aiko were quiet.
“…a vision for Odom Panther. The insanity of the crowns binds you to them. The loss of love creates the path to life, a slumber that kills. When mountains fall, when the Bright Sword arrives, the first of the dark crowns will fall, and the time to conquer the throne will follow… a vision for Odom Panther. The insanity of the crowns…”
The whisper shell repeated the vision over and over. After the sixth time, I slipped the lid back on.
I took a deep breath. “So you have four of your five checkboxes ticked, then.”
“You are the Bright Sword,” Aiko said.
“Yes, I know! I know!” I turned and walked back to the bed, running a hand through my hair. “I’m the Breaker, I’m the Bright Sword. Next, you’re all going to tell me I’m the next vampire queen.”
“I don’t think—”
I held up my hand. “I’m being facetious. I know I’m not. I’m just tired of being this focal point.” I slumped down on to the bed. “Okay, fine. So tell me about the Blood Rite.”
“Keep your wits about you. It’s violent,” Kane said. “Stay close to Aiko no matter what. Even if you have to wrap your arms around him and let him drag you through the rooms, stay close.”
I looked at Aiko. “That bad?”
He nodded tersely. “No one—no vampire can resist the call of blood completely. We always give into something in the rite. The blood or the lust.”
Taking a deep breath, I looked at the ceiling. “And there’s no way to get me out of this?”
“Savion is still king,” Odom said.
It felt like that was an excuse, not a reason.