Chapter 84 Kidan
KIDAN
Head resting in June’s lap, Kidan stared at the noisy air vent, blowing a string and faint dust around them.
They were in a motel in Zaf Haven town, deciding where to go next.
June’s soothing voice was a balm to a wound, fingers running through her braids. “You’ll be okay, Kid. I promise.”
“I felt it crack,” Kidan said numbly.
“Hmm?” June asked.
“The mask. I felt it… crack even though Samson couldn’t break it. I know it sounds crazy, but I think I can do it. Break the artifact.”
June remained silent, running her fingers down her hair.
Kidan thought about her palms, reliving the sensation of power coursing through her when she held the mask.
A dangerous thought slid into her unbidden.
One that would perhaps plunge the world into eternal ruin.
She couldn’t flinch away from the violence this path promised.
This plan, this blood-lettered plan would irrecoverably change everything.
She could lose herself across it, or perhaps finally find herself, finally marry herself to the darkness so no one could tell them apart.
“I want to break them all, June. Use whatever power I gain to bring them back. I want to use the Sage’s power.”
Kidan curled in on herself, waiting for her sister’s disapproval. Her good, reasonable sister would pull her back from such a dangerous, devastating idea. And her shame would deepen.
“Do it,” June whispered instead. “I’ll help you.”
Kidan propped herself up, silent tears flowing. “What?”
“I’ll help you.” June’s eyes were large, almost hopeful.
“Really?” Her chest tightened. “Our parents knew the ring artifact’s location. They were close to finding all the bind artifacts.”
It sounded absolutely—
“I believe you.”
Kidan blinked her wet lashes. “You do?”
June gently wiped her tears away, her brown eyes determined and alive. “I do.”
A rush of warmth cocooned the two. Kidan hugged her sister tightly. It felt wonderful to be believed easily, without having to prove herself, to be validated.
“Do you think I can bring them back then? Yusef and Yos?”
June hesitated for a long moment, then said, “I think you have to try.”
Kidan stood, her heart beating with this new plan. She paused, realizing something. “I need to find Samson. He knows where the blade artifact is.”
June’s eyes slid to the side, her bottom lip disappearing into her teeth.
“What?” Kidan asked.
“I know where the blade artifact is,” June said.
Kidan’s brows rose. “Where?”
A smile curved on her rosy lips. “The ivory house.”
Kidan and GK stood outside an iron door on a quiet street, waiting for June to come out of the abandoned white mansion. Kidan shifted on her feet, trying to look inside the boarded-up windows.
GK was watching her with his quiet regard, ever silent but speaking multitudes.
“You don’t approve,” she said.
“No, I don’t. Breaking the blade artifact would shatter the First Bind—vampires will be free to feed on anyone. Not just actis. What you plan to do will hurt civilians.”
“What about the actis inside Uxlay? The ones that have to kill to share their blood? You yourself dropped out of Dranacti because you saw how awful it was,” she said, bracing for the wave of disappointment rolling off him.
GK stared at her with those dark brown eyes, still more kind than her own, even though his soul had become immortal.
“Don’t do this, Kidan.”
She thought of her parents, of Yusef, her promise to Susenyos.
I’ll protect you.
The joy carving into his face at the mere thought she’d consider him worth protecting. And the dead soulless gaze that greeted her mere hours ago.
He was her companion, the first to reach out his hand when she was drowning, and if she had to break the world to rescue him, she would.
“Mourn them and move on,” GK said quietly. “I can help you.”
Her head was already shaking.
“I know it hurts. I know it burns. It’s why we master solitude as Mot Zebeyas. Grief can destroy you if you let it.” GK stared deep into her soul. “I can teach you to be alone.”
Kidan jerked back. Those words. The peacefulness to them, stripped of any loss or pain… this was what drew her to GK, even on the first day they met, his loneliness. His embrace of it, and comfort in it.
Tears stung her eyes, touching her wrist where her butterfly bracelet used to be. “I’ve been alone, GK. Before I met you all. I know what I become. I can’t go back to that.”
The door opened and June waved them over.
Clearing her throat, Kidan took a step forward. “I brought you back from the dead, GK. I promised to make you human again. I can bring Yusef back. Yos back. I can protect you all.”
His face was grave. Full of warning.
“Besides”—she tried to smile—“you said I’d die when I turned twenty-one. If I only have one more year left, I’m going to go after everything I lost.”
When he said nothing, Kidan squared her shoulders and climbed the porch. Even as his finger chain chattered in warning, she welcomed the sound. This new path would be filled with death but by now, she knew the dark lord intimately.
Silently, her Mot Zebeya, her Guard of Death, followed her in.