Chapter Twelve
Samara
Raphael dropped me off at an unfamiliar door when we returned.
I opened my mouth to ask, but he cut me off.
“Four hundred and twelve paces,” he said stiffly. “As far as I can offer you without causing you pain.”
Right. I swallowed down any response. The space I wanted—needed. Raphael was already walking away when I opened the door. It wasn’t the stronger one that had been installed before.
The furniture inside was… mine. The dresser and the bed, anyway.
The space was smaller than what I’d had before.
It didn’t have the large sitting space, but there was a vanity beside the bed and a single chair by the fireplace.
The colors were the standard for the kingdom: deep crimson and purple.
I hadn’t realized how used to my other space I’d been until I took in the sight and scents and sounds and realized this was something altogether different and strange.
I’d always planned to leave. So why did it hurt to have Raphael give me exactly what I’d asked for?
The soundproofing wasn’t as good. With vampire hearing, I could listen to the footsteps some distance away. The smell was devoid of any personal history, none of Thea’s lingering citrus scent or the old parchment from the piles of books I studied.
The grimoire. I found the book once more in its hiding spot, tucked away in the hidden compartment of the bed, and pulled it out. I slipped on satin gloves and flipped through pages of spells, but though the book radiated magic, I had no way to use it if I couldn’t tap into my own power.
I braced my forehead against my knuckles. How could I practice? There were no vampires I could practice on. Except, of course, myself. Could I thrall myself?
I moved over to the vanity. The woman in the mirror was a stranger to me: white hair; red, sunken eyes; pale lips.
I curled my fingers into fists. I wanted to smash this mirror, just like I had the one in my former bathing chambers.
As if not looking at my reflection, not acknowledging how I’d changed, would fix me.
But if I did that, I could never learn to master these powers.
I thought back to the times I’d successfully compelled vampires—Demos and the librarian. I’d been angry and scared too. The maelstrom of emotions had helped me unlock whatever necromantic power was buried inside me.
Of course, I didn’t feel those acutely right now. But vampires didn’t need to be emotional to thrall someone. I’d seen Raphael do it with half a glance.
I stared into the red-eyed vampire in the mirror and tried to mimic Raphael’s confident tone. “You will raise your hand.”
My hand stayed rooted at my side.
“You’ll raise your right hand in front of you,” I clarified.
My fingers didn’t even twitch. “I’ll raise my right hand and hit myself on the side of the head with it!”
Nothing happened. Frustration licked at my heels. I was a failure of a witch, with no clue where to start. I slammed my fist on top of the vanity. The wood immediately splintered, the pain barely enough of a punishment to comfort me.
“Sam? Is that you?” someone called from the hallway.
“Thea?” I plucked the splinter from my finger and went over to open the door.
She frowned when she saw me, taking in the blood on my hand. I quickly pulled it behind my back, ashamed of my loss of control.
“Is everything okay? You weren’t in your rooms, and Raphael said you were here now. I wanted to see how you were feeling this evening.” She peeked around my shoulder. “Your new place is… different.”
I glanced back. It was a palace compared to Greymere, but on the other hand, it was far smaller than her quarters, as well as my old ones.
But it gave me distance from Raphael.
I debated waving Thea off, but… she was my friend. I didn’t want to be alone with my frustration and anger.
Thea entered as I backed away from the door. She looked around, headed over to the bed—the one I never slept in—and flopped down. “Not much room for company.”
I flopped down next to her, exhausted. “It’s fine.”
“It’s ridiculous. If you were able to go farther, I’d say you should just move in with me. Not that Raphael would like you being so far. I’m surprised he tolerated this.”
I snorted. “He owed me some distance. Besides, I can’t move in with you.
There’s no space for another person among your hoard.
” Thea’s chambers were a precarious place, filled to the brim with furniture, dresses, shoes, books, enchanted cards, cosmetics, and I suspected at least a few ancient heirlooms.
I didn’t mention the fact that I woke with blood caked under my fingernails each morning, my throat raw from scratching it in my sleep. Raphael had warned me if I was thirsty enough, I could attack someone—Thea—in my sleep.
“I’d clear at least half a wardrobe for you,” she offered grandly.
I smiled. “I think your version of a wardrobe is just the floor.”
We sat for a while in the quiet. The quiet wasn’t the same quiet I’d known as a human.
Her heartbeat was a metronome, each beat steady while mine would have been racing.
The scent of her blood was burned into my memory.
After I’d drank blood last night and this morning, I should have been okay.
But the thirst was always there, always in the background, urging me toward the monster.
“Thea, you know you’re the closest friend I’ve ever had, right?”
She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on an elbow, and I did the same.
Thea was just a few years older than me, and in many ways she’d had as hard a life as I had, if not harder.
But she’d kept some brightness in her. Surrounded by monsters, she kept her back straight and her tone imperious.
Around a vampire king and general, she was glib.
And with me, she just didn’t give up. No matter how reluctant I was to let someone in, she had been there for me through the past months with a quick joke or comforting squeeze.
Even after how I’d betrayed everyone, she’d been the first to insist there was an explanation and ask to hear it.
She trusted me. A precious gift I’d been careless with.
“Is this your way of saying you want to go back to the club tonight, and I shouldn’t feel threatened by you making other friends?”
I snorted. “Not hardly.” I wouldn’t be going back there anytime soon.
“Though I realize I didn’t thank you for taking me there before I ran off.
” I’d gotten upset so abruptly with the vampires.
One moment I’d felt they were almost normal, the next that sudden surge of anger had risen in me. I couldn’t even understand it now.
She flicked her hand, dismissing it. “It’s good for you to be around people, Sam. I’m happy to help facilitate. I know it can be particularly hard for you—both being around others and asking for help.”
Asking for help. I looked away and ran my fingers over the plush spread on the bed. “Spending time with other vampires is… interesting,” I said hesitantly.
“You’ll get used to it. Vampires can’t be so scary now that you’re one of them, right? You’re at the top of the food chain.”
One of them. I swallowed, unsure how to broach this topic.
“There is someone the vampires fear, though, right?”
“Everyone fears something,” she said, ever the diplomat. “But as a vampire, almost nothing can harm you.”
“But,” I pressed, “there is one creature. One witch. The necromancer.”
Thea glanced over her shoulder, as if the word might conjure the scourge of the vampires, not knowing she was lying in bed with it—with me. “They don’t like hearing that word in the kingdom.”
I got off the bed. Could I trust Thea with this? Could I tell her about my magic? “But that’s what they fear—a witch. Do you even know why?”
Thea sat up and looked past me onto the open grimoire. “You still have that?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m unnerved by the feel of its magic.”
The Black Grimoire might have hated my touch, but I loved it. Still, I hesitated. My palms were suddenly clammy. Once I told Thea the truth, there’d be no going back, even when I fled. If she ran and told Raphael everything—or worse, told Demos—I’d be executed.
But I wanted to confide in my friend. Because not trusting anyone wasn’t as safe as I let myself believe. When the fledgling bond faded and I left Damerel, I would still need to learn how to master my magic. I’d made precious little progress on my own.
It was a gamble. I prayed Lixa would spare some of her kindness from Round Toss for this.
“Do you know what the necromancer”—I said the word for spite—“the scourge they’re so scared of can do?”
Thea threw her legs over the bed and stood, still keeping her distance from the grimoire. “Raphael’s never been explicit, but I know they’re meant to be the antithesis of vampires, a punishment from Anagenni. Something unnatural, born every two hundred years.”
“What’s unnatural is cheating death, as vampires do,” I countered.
“But I figured out the real reason they fear the witch.” I laid the opening passage out on the bed.
I’d burned my coded translation before, but now I had mastered the Old Runyk enough to decipher it anew.
“‘Through the goddess’s will, the necromancer has dominion over bone and blood, soul and spirit. The undead bow to the necromancer. One witch is gifted to the world every two hundred years with Anagenni’s blessing.
They alone can right the balance.’ You see?
Everything the vampires are to witches and voids, this witch is to them. ”
She was silent, staring at me.
“Thea, remember how you said there’s no such thing as illegal magic?” I prodded. “If the necromancer exists, with goddess-given magic, then how can you call it wrong? How can you help the vampires stay in power, hunting down the Witch Kingdom’s only chance at freedom from a life under vampires?”
Thea shook her head at me. “The vampires aren’t oppressing the witches. Raphael hasn’t tried to claim any new part of the kingdom as his own—and you know he could. There’s peace here, Samara. This book could throw that into chaos.”
“Ogre dung,” I snapped. “There’s no peace.
Maybe the vampires aren’t actively conquering the witches, but it’s not peace.
We can’t trade with other kingdoms like the vampires can.
Hells, before coming here, I’d never even heard of a land beyond the western border, but there are entire maps here.
They take mortal children and turn them into vampires.
They take blood from those who seek refuge. They take everything.”
That dark, dangerous anger rose in me with each word. Vampires. Monsters. Sometimes I thought it might be different, but now, with the book in front of me, it was so clear.
Thea recoiled, and the anger dissipated. I didn’t want to scare my friend off—I wanted her help. Needed her help. Her support. I couldn’t do this alone.
“I’m just saying, you’re a witch, Thea. I know you’ve found a home here. I… I have too.” The words weren’t a lie. “But just because vampire-kind wants something dead doesn’t mean you do too.”
“I’m not exactly the Storm-blooded King’s biggest fan,” she reminded me.
“Like you said, this is my home. If the necromancer”—she lowered her voice around the word—“is a threat to Damerel, they’re a threat to the place that took me in when the king upheld the order that all oracles should be put to death. ”
“It’s not about the king. It’s about balance,” I reminded her. “The necromancer can control vampires, right? If that’s so terrifying and unnatural for vampires, maybe vampires shouldn’t have that power over mortals.”
Thea frowned. “Is this why you betrayed Raphael? You read what was here and thought you needed to help some mythical witch balance the scales?”
“I do need to be the one to balance the scales. The Witch Kingdom has been surrounded by vampires for centuries. They never stood a chance.” If Raphael had killed the last few necromancers, cutting short a life born only every two hundred years, no wonder everything is so wrong.
“Why, Samara?” Thea demanded. “Why does it need to be you? You’re a vampire now—I’m sorry, I know you never wanted to be, but you are. You can be a good vampire, the same way you were a good person. Why keep pushing things? Maybe they aren’t perfect, but they are peaceful.”
“Because.” I held her gaze completely. “Thea, I’m the necromancer.”