47. Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Seven
Tovi
“ W hat do you mean?” Evelyn whispered.
Kindness. Hope . It flickered like silver in Evelyn’s eyes.
Tovi’s heart pounded in her chest. The truth of her past, her making, peeled back a curtain to who she was, who she’d been, and she hated the vulnerability of it. Standing out in the open, at the cusp of a cliff, ready to descend into the depths of what she tried to forget. She didn’t enjoy being watched as she fell, fell, and fell to a place she didn’t want to return. She shivered, like a cliff’s breeze hugged its cold embrace around her shoulders.
But Evelyn had seen Tovi at the altar, and yet Tovi said nothing. She’d refrained. Nadia’s secret hadn’t been her own, yet this was. Evelyn was giving her a chance to own it. Despite not believing she deserved her friend’s patience, it lit a warmth in her belly.
Besides, what else did she have to lose? Eldrick already didn’t trust her. Telling the truth didn’t compare to how she was already hurting. And more importantly, the team needed to learn everything to know what they were up against .
Goddess, she wished she had a glass of wine. Resolve. Something to hold onto as she entered this dangerous path. She grasped onto hope of her own instead. Like the hilt of a dagger or grip of a bow.
She ignored the sadness seeping into her centuries-old muscles and swallowed.
“I’m originally from Callum, you know. My family and I used to live on a farm, ten generations strong. Back then, my parents along with a few other families, didn’t agree with the persecution of witches. When the Great Burnings started, they began hiding witches in their home, keeping them safe, and then assisting them on getaway ships. I was nineteen then, as was Riven, both at the cusp of adulthood. I remember clear as day helping witches in the night, the scent of burning flesh in the air. It was a dark and dangerous time for Torren, for humans and witches.”
Tovi exhaled. She could still smell death over the spring grass, clotting the air. It didn’t compare to the now cheery Callum.
“One night, we were leading a notoriously violent coven through the harbor when persecutors intercepted us. Half the coven perished in the chaos, and those who’d attacked didn’t care who they killed—witch or human. We barely made it out alive, fleeing on a ship and heading west without anything at all. No belongings, no money. Merely ourselves and three other families. We hoped to reach Sorin and find refuge with witches we had saved in the past.”
The team remained silent. A single emerald stare bore into the side of her face, but she ignored Eldrick.
“A brutal storm hit, veering us farther north than we anticipated. On the third week, tired, worn, and food stores running frighteningly low, we landed on the shores of what we call today Drystan. The land was beautiful, but harshly cold compared to home. We began our new lives and started a settlement.” Tovi scoffed, memories fit with cold and snow. “Riven was shit at farming, but he tried. He’d been studying to be an artist in Callum, but those dreams were long gone. I, on the other hand, didn’t care for books or sitting and had been a hunter in our old village. The skill came in handy during the colder months.”
Tovi shifted in her seat, the chair’s frame creaking in the cottage’s silence. She recalled the whine of her taut bow, how snowflakes landed on her nose, the rush when the arrow pierced her target, and the shine of pride on her father’s face when she returned with a kill large enough to feed their entire settlement. That pride had frozen over in the years to come.
“It seemed we’d made a life for ourselves, and we dared hope that was our new home. Until the coven we’d failed found us. They arrived with a vengeance, believing we had led their sisters and brothers to their deaths on that horrible night. Nothing we said swayed their blame, and they burned our settlement to the ground, a year’s worth of work gone in an instant.” Tovi paused, the flames of that night merging with the flicker of the fireplace. “We were defenseless against their magic, and they killed anyone who tried to fight. Desperate, a handful of us fled, retreating into the tunnels of the mountainside, but my mother had suffered grave injuries, and death clung to her.
“My parents, our family for that matter, didn’t have a lick of magic weaved into our souls, but I do believe my mother and father were made for each other. Soulmates. My father couldn’t bear losing her as she bled out. He succumbed to a maddening chant. Calling to faeries, the ancient kind of our homeland, any gods and goddesses he knew. For days, he and his mutterings filled the corners of the tunnels.”
Tovi couldn’t sit still. Memories fleeted through her mind and quickened her heart. She had to move, to do something other than sit idle. She rose from the table and stared out one of the windows. Tovi crossed her arms against the chill seeping through the seams, focused on the snow blanketing her people’s land.
“I don’t know if it was fate or bad luck, but out of all the places we could’ve retreated, we stumbled onto the altar of a particularly wicked deity, the Blood Goddess. Her history is so old, I think even the gods and goddesses we know forgot about her. During their reign, her greed and power grew, different and darker than the others. Her cruelty and destruction began to threaten the future of this world, so the gods and goddesses went to war. In the end, they succeeded, vanquishing her from this realm into the depths of Hel.”
The pines swayed against a mighty gust of howling wind, as if the deity herself cried out against Tovi mentioning her name.
“What happened?” Evelyn asked in the tiniest whisper.
Tovi shut her eyes. “While my mother’s blood seeped into carved runes, my father prayed to whatever being that would listen. Between his chants, love for my mother, and the blood offering, his calls were answered. The Blood Goddess gifted us the ability to save my mother and become strong enough to fight the dark witches. She made us in her likeness, immortals in the living realm.”
Someone fidgeted and cleared their throat. “There has always been one constant in the story of vampyrs,” Kade said. “Witches bones. Where does that play into your story?”
Tovi sighed, turning to her audience. “Our creation, our making , was a gift from the goddess in exchange for the bones of witches as well as agreeing to rule over her lands. Desperate, my father agreed. He was the first vampyr. He turned our mother to save her life, immortality in his venom, and then they turned us. One by one, whoever remained of our settlement became a vampyr. With our new heightened abilities, we tracked down the witches, slaughtered them all and brought their bones to our new goddess, our first promise fulfilled to the deity we called maker.”
Yennifer, blue eyes wide, shook her head. “It’s similar to the Moon God giving werewolves the power to shift in his likeness or the kernel of power in witch’s souls from the Sun Goddess’s light.”
Bitterness coated Tovi’s tongue, and she scoffed. “At first glance, it may seem that way.” She began to pace, her story pushing to be released.
“For a time, my father ruled Drystan as a fierce leader as the Blood Goddess wished. The humans who traveled to Drystan and desired to be turned into vampyrs were. Our kingdom grew. Every hibernal solstice, the longest night of the year, we celebrated the Blood Goddess and embraced the magic of darkness, thanking her for everything she gave us.”
Tovi grimaced. Those celebrations had been filled with wine, pleasure, and the party princess her people resented and judged. Goddess , she prayed her people would recognize her efforts and she’d become the queen they deserved.
“A full century after witches had settled in Sorin, we decided to invite them to that year’s feasts. During the celebrations, my parents took part in a great hunt with the other founding families and our guests. Yet, that night, a pack of madras demons surrounded the hunting party. The witches weren’t used to the beasts of Drystan like we were, and their fear created chaos. Amidst the fighting, a witch shot their magic towards a madras, their aim far too close to hitting my father. My mother jumped in front of the blast, saving him, but sacrificing herself.”
Tovi and her mother had drifted apart over the decades, but the loss of her had still left a scar on Tovi’s heart.
“My mother’s death destroyed our father, riddled him into a broken and withered man in a matter of moments. He died of a broken heart. With his death, our prosperous kingdom crumbled. Unlike your gods, the Blood Goddess didn’t gift us anything. We bargained for it, and in my father’s death, he ceased ruling the lands as promised and broke that bargain. She used my father as a vessel.”
“With the bones of the witches, she made you all immortal,” Evelyn whispered, “but with the broken bargain, she was able to curse you and your people. The darkness, it changed all of you.”
Tovi nodded. “Insatiable hunger, the inability to walk in sunlight. The curse twisted our natural tendencies and made them wicked. Not to mention, her bargain was also directly tied to the land, casting it into darkness is a part of the curse.”
Kade shook his head. “Do you have any idea why the Blood Goddess did this? ”
Tovi shrugged. “I imagine it’s to return to this world. Revenge against the gods that banished her perhaps. Darkness feeds off darkness, right? In the passing centuries, the Void has grown. Not because more demons are entering, but because more of my people have fallen completely to darkness.”
“Caillte,” Evelyn said.
“Precisely,” she said. “What better way to grow power in this realm than to create a people infected with her darkness.”
“It’s allowing her to grow stronger.” Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered.
The weight of her friend’s words fell over the team. A lightness had settled over Tovi, but her tale had cast a shadow over everything they had known, believed . Eldrick caught her stare, but he snapped the connection
Why did she get a sense unburdening her truth had meant nothing to the alpha?