9. Awaiting Fate
9
AWAITING FATE
I n the aftermath of the vampire’s presence, Luella wilted.
Alone.
For the first time since her life had ended and her freedom had been stolen…
She was alone.
Her legs gave out from under her, and she crumpled to the ground.
Her mouth opened in a silent scream, but she refused to be loud and let her anger out. For too long, she had been used to stifling her cries. It came easy to her. Even easier in this pit of despair that she had found herself trapped in.
The iron bars of her cage enclosed her, growing tighter and tighter, squeezing her. She couldn’t breathe. The congealed blood shone under pale moonlight that filtered in through the thick canopy of apple trees, and her chest rose and fell heavily. She swore it was like she could feel the bars of the cage grow even closer around her, constricting. The tree limbs seemed to grow thicker, gusts of air making the leaves flutter dangerously, thick arm-like branches holding back the sky, dipping lower… Like they might wish to reach into the cage and devour her whole, squeeze her until she was nothing but an unrecognizable, lifeless mass discarded on the gore-soaked ground.
Luella wailed, a mournful and silent death cry as she lamented all the innocent lives lost. And the not-so-innocent lives—her parents, for one. She was saddened, yet… relieved. Some part of her was glad they were dead. A part she didn’t wish to look at too closely for fear of what she might find lurking in those deep shadows.
Righteous anger and scarlet-hued joy. Violent and so unlike her. She was frightened by the heavy prospect of the thoughts swirling in her head.
Some sick and twisted part of her, shrouded in shadows and night, wished it had not been an easy death for them. At the very least, for her father. Her mother, she hoped, went gently and quietly. Luella hoped she had been afforded at least that one luxury in her life of opulent servitude.
With a wet, choked-up sigh, Luella rested her head on the ground, hands covering the sides of her face like she could ward off the sight of the congealed, blackened blood on the ground or the stone stage of the gallows glinting in her peripheral.
Her fate.
The vampire said he would keep her from death, but she feared a fate with him might be one even worse than the oblivion found in death’s cold embrace. She shivered at the memory of his unnaturally cold hands against her skin—far colder than that of death, leeched of all warmth, and almost like the lifeless skin of a porcelain doll.
She knew vampires were feared creatures. Feared in a different way than the shifters or even the angels. They were coldly calculating, cunning, and conceited, partaking in all manner of things to fuel their voracious appetites. Appetites for blood. And for the flesh.
The shifters were known for their beastly, wild nature, like the beasts they could shift into, but the vampires didn’t have a beastly counterpart; nothing to attribute to their violent natures except for themselves. It made them an enigma, a feared and preternatural being. That, combined with their Mind magic, and anyone would tuck tail and run at the mere mention of a vampire.
They were similar to the demons in that way. Stories spun of blood-soaked earth that proceeded their very presence. But the demons were the perfect coalescence of the shifters and the vampires. Known for their cold cruelty, yet still with a feral tinge.
The angels were akin to the fae— revered and more than slightly sanctimonious. Their shunned counterparts, the fallen, kept to themselves mostly. The most quiet and secretive of all the creatures, even the fae.
In the last few days, Luella had already met far more of the varying creatures populating the realms than she had in her entire existence. And it was enough for her to last the rest of her existence. However short it may be.
A mage, a shifter, a vampire, and whatever manner of being Graves was—he was inhumane, that much Luela did know.
Resting her back against the hard iron of the bars, she took in her surroundings, forcing the despair inside her down into the dark, swirling midst of vile thoughts.
It was fully dark now, and she struggled to make out the shadows in the distance. The swaying leaves around the small arena, circular shapes of apples dangling from their limbs. She could see tall sprigs of grass nestled in between the stone pathways, strange zigzag, maze-like patterns weaving to and fro throughout the large circle surrounding the raised steps leading to the gallows.
The blood, the decadent, glinting flesh of the apples—both a deep red.
Strange, she thought, that two different things could both be the same shade; one gives life, and the other, a marker of death.
Her eyes grew bleary, shapes blurring as a haze of sleep threatened to take her, but she refused it stubbornly. She didn’t want to be taken advantage of.
Who knew what would be waiting for her while she was vulnerable here, trapped in this cage in the middle of dark loneliness?
And now, even in her sleep, she wasn’t safe.
The vampire would come for her. He, with his promises and sinful words, had stolen into the safest spaces of her mind to plant seeds of doubt that she felt niggling against her subconscious like little, marching ants crawling against her skin.
She was no match for her foes here. She was alone. All alone.
A weary sigh escaped her.
Luella wasn’t sure if being alone was such a good thing now.
Moments passed, turning to minutes, which turned to hours. But still, she did not sleep, for she did not want to dream.
Every time her eyes started to slip shut, she jerked with a start, the memory of a half-strangled scream resting upon the bruised skin of her lips and hands clenching in fury with remembered horrors.
She refused to sleep, and so, the hours of the night passed silently and quietly, with only the occasional chittering of animals in the gardens keeping her company. Softly squawking birds and the rustle of leaves as little animals of prey skittered about through tall grass and hopped between mossy rocks.
Another caw of a bird. Closer this time.
Her head perked up, tired eyes squinting in the darkness. She crawled across the ground, knees and palms against the rough ground of the cell as the tattered ends of her nightgown dragged through the dried blood. She was beyond caring now.
Luella’s hands curled around the iron bars, and her forehead pressed against them as she searched for the source of that all-too-familiar sound.
There .
She gasped.
A raven. Perched upon one of the larger rocks, wings spread wide as it stared right at her with piercing eyes.
The eyes were intelligent. Taunting in away.
Her heart stuttered in her chest as she remembered the raven that had watched her the other night. The night that started it all. It was there, watching her, perched upon her windowsill as she disrobed. It had been there like a warning of what was to come.
If only she had known.
If only.
It couldn’t have possibly been the same one.
"Just a coincidence," she mumbled to herself. The sound of her voice startled her. It had felt far too long since she had heard it; she licked her dry lips and spoke again: "A coincidence…"
She sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
It had to be mere chance.
But—
Luella held out a hand, fingers stretching out of the bars of the cage as she beckoned the raven to come to her.
"Hello , " she whispered into the night. The cool air stole the word from her lips and carried it to the awaiting raven. Black wings fluttered as she spoke. "Don’t leave me alone . Please."
The raven’s head cocked to the side, an eery motion. Her skin tingled.
One last, lonesome caw sounded in the night before the raven took flight, wings flapping as it left. She tried to track where it went, but her sight wasn’t that sharp, and she lost it in the darkness.
Luella swallowed a vile curse that bubbled up, huffing as she thumped her head against the bars.
"Come back," she quietly pleaded, but the words were swallowed up into the night just as the raven had been—falling on unhearing ears. The only noise of acknowledgment: the whisper of air and rustle of leaves.
As she sat back on her heels, that’s when she noticed it.
Little torches in the distance, dancing and hopping along as the orbs of orange light grew closer, weaving between trees. A muttered symphony of sound in the distance. The wind carried sharp clangs and howling hoots to her ears, and she crouched back in her cell, her spine pressing into the unforgiving bars.
She knew those raucous cheers. The soldiers.
They were here.
It must have been in the middle of the night, for they took many hours longer to arrive than Tharen, Graves, and she, with the swift and relentless pace her two captors had set. The soldiers marched through the trees and stumbled over rocks, not at all quiet, for they knew they were the predators here. Anyone they stumbled upon in this orchard would be easy prey.
She pressed a hand to her chest in fear as she looked around the small cage she was trapped in. She was stuck. What once may have been a small mercy to be tucked away alone for the night turned into a trap. Luella recognized it for what it was. She had been left like bait to feed the starving pack of animals that would soon descend upon her, to feed their starving tempers.
They stumbled into the clearing, and she caught sight of a shifter breaking through the army of males, wearing the crest of Serpentis proudly on his chest. He shoved a tied-up male onto his knees—a prisoner—who wore fine silks of spun gold. His hair was golden yellow, and his ears were arched. A Solis fae.
Luella swallowed thickly, her heart pounding so hard in her chest that she felt like she may faint.
The soldier kicked the prisoner further into the ground, boot digging into his side as they all let out cheers. She heard a wail coming from somewhere inside the tightly packed group.
"No!"A female shoved through the soldiers, gleaming tears in her golden eyes.
The faint rays of moonlight and golden firelight from the torches made everything shaky and strange to Luella as she watched the prisoners. The female’s golden hair was fine as spun silk, and the orange glow made it shine from within. The female blinked up at the males around her, vicious and scared. Luella could see a bright wetness shining in her eyes as she threw her body over the male, shielding him with her shaking form.
"Get out of the way, or we’ll kill you too," the soldier sneered.
Luella was thankful they hadn’t yet taken note of her, but she knew her luck would run out. It always did. Her white gown was a beacon in the darkness of the cage, and she wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, covering herself as much as she was able.
The soldier jerked the female up by her arm, throwing her down behind him as another soldier pointed a steel-tipped sword at the prisoner’s throat.
"Please," the male prisoner begged. "Spare her. Take me only. She’s innocent."
The soldier tipped his head back, cajoling the others gathered around with an evil smile. "Innocent?" He bent forward, resting his hands on his knees as he watched the prisoner plead. "My wife was innocent, too, and it didn’t stop her from being infected. I watched as she bit our own child, nearly tearing a chunk out of her arm. I was forced to kill them both because of the darkness your kind"— the soldier gritted his jaw, a meaty hand coming up to wrap around the prisoner’s windpipe —" helped bring to power. The last thing my wife and child saw was me, driving a dagger into their chests so that I might save the rest of our village and stop them both from turning everyone else into shadows."
Fingers dug into the prisoner’s neck, crushing him. The male prisoner wheezed, eyes downturned and resigned as the soldier seethed.
"So, no. I don’t think I will spare her. I want you to watch and your last moments to be ungodsly as the fires of the Below. Maybe then you’ll realize how it feels to have everything taken from you."
The female was tugged up the steps and to the gallows, the male prisoner’s pleas following after her. Luella had never heard such a heartbroken sound before.
She wished she was braver. Maybe then she could call out and do something .
Anything would be better than silently watching death, but fear froze her, made her weak and trembling.
Luella pressed her head into her shoulder, listening to the sounds of wails and choking, the snap of a rope as it unfurled, and cheers as something thick thumped against the ground.
Peeking through where her hands were pressed over her eyes, she felt bile rise in her throat at the sight greeting her.
Two soldiers forced the female prisoner onto her knees, while the male prisoner’s hands were fastened in a stock made of tarnished wood as he was forced to watch. A soldier wearing the crest of Nix brandished a serrated blade; the edges were like teeth and slightly rusted from far too much use. He raised the blade high above him, and the male prisoner let out one last whimpering plea as the female simply closed her eyes. Even from a distance, Luella could see the resignation on her features. She knew it was over.
In an executioner’s blow, the soldier swung the blade. It perfectly arced down in a simple, quick motion against the back of the female’s neck.
It was a clean cut.
Luella didn’t look anymore…
She heard a thump as the headless body fell to the ground. The male was still screaming. It went on for some time. Until it stopped. A quick, short croak, and he made no more sound.
She thought it was over, then. But it wasn’t.
More pleas, more screams of fear, and thumps of bodies. Cheers, strangled cries, and rowdy laughter. It continued for hours, it felt like.
All the while, her nose pressed firmly into her trembling shoulder, shaking hands covering her eyes as she rocked away, stifling whimpers that attempted to escape and reveal herself from where she was desperately trying not to attract their evil attention. It was selfish of her, but she didn’t want the force of that wickedness directed solely on her.
Luella wanted them to ignore her and go away, far away. She wanted to be safe.
What a coward , her mind hissed.
Maybe she did deserve her fate.
Sometime in the early hours of the morning, rays peaking through the clouds that had gathered in the sky, the cheers stopped, the screams died out, and she opened her eyes.