Chapter 1 Hope #2
“There is a better version of both of you,” she said severely.
“You won’t believe me now, but I can honestly tell you that those versions of you will be happier, stronger and different than you are now in very basic ways.
Ways neither of you could imagine right at this moment.
And those versions will love and serve Daemon as they should. ”
“And what about you, Seeyr? You haven’t said anything about a better version of you,” Eyros snorted as his eyes narrowed at her.
“Oh, I will be different. But better? I don’t know.
The cost of what we must all pay to get to this future is very high and it will leave its mark on each of us in big ways and small,” Seeyr continued, waving away whatever would happen to herself as if it were of no matter.
Only the future mattered. “Which is why you both need to have hope. You need to believe in what we are doing or otherwise you might not stay the course.”
“Hope?” The word tasted strange on Kaly’s tongue. “I am uncertain if knowing such a perfect being for Daemon exists, or that Eyros and I will be so different as to be unimaginable, gives me hope, Seeyr.”
“Harming yourself didn’t make things better, Kaly,” Seeyr answered. “But this future will.”
“Show some of it to me then. Prove it,” Kaly demanded.
Eyros lifted an eyebrow. “I agree with Kaly, which is already turning my stomach. But if you want us to believe in this great future, show us a part of it. Show us what we’re suffering to get to.”
Seeyr sighed. She studied both of them for long moments then nodded.
She extended one hand towards Kaly and the other to Eyros.
They each took her proffered hands. But it wasn’t she who would be able to put the images inside of his mind, but Eyros, so Kaly offered his hand to the other Immortal.
Eyros stared at it for a moment before taking it as if touching a dead fish or something else slimy and cold. All three of them closed their eyes.
At first, Kaly saw nothing. He was about to say something when the world shifted.
The room had long tables with stone tops and dark wood.
There were bubbling alembics, half a dozen mortars and pestles with ground herbs and bone in them, vials filled with fluids of every color of the rainbow, basically everything that would make up one of his labs.
And yet… This place did not feel like the Kaly Palace with its walls of windows showing tall trees, comfortable furniture in warm woods and glossy metals.
There was an openness yet coziness to the space. He couldn’t quite identify it.
“Caemorn, are you sure I can do something this advanced?” A young man’s voice had his head snapping over towards the sound.
The young man was tall, muscular and incredibly handsome with dark, wavy hair and purple eyes.
Purple eyes… This is the king’s fledgling!
The young man’s lean figure was clothed all in black.
Black pants that encased long legs. Boots that were only laced half-way up.
A cashmere sweater with a v-neck that showed off the tops of his pectoral muscles.
He stood at one of the lab tables. Before him on a silver tray was a dead crow.
Kaly could tell from the way the young man’s mouth tightened that being so close to something dead was disturbing him.
No, not disturbing him. He is sad. He feels pain that it has died. An innocent creature in his mind.
“Julian,” he said in a voice he did not recognize and yet it felt right. It was male, too. A rich timber, but slightly lower, huskier than Julian’s. And he heard an unfamiliar tone in it. A desire to soothe and comfort. “You are more than capable of reviving this bird.”
Julian swallowed. “But what if I make a mistake and–and hurt it?”
Kind. Yes, he is kind. He is not a Kaly Vampire, but he has the gift. He must have all the gifts due to Daemon’s blood. We weren’t certain that would be the case, but…
He stopped himself. This young man was not an experiment. He was the king’s fledgling. And he was taking lessons from Kaly himself.
But he called me Caemorn. I don’t understand… Does he not know it’s me? Am I pretending to be someone else just to get close to him? And a treacherous voice asked, How could Daemon allow me near him after all I’ve done?
“I would suggest then merely reanimating it,” Kaly said.
“I don’t want to puppet it either. That seems disrespectful. If it can be brought back then it should be. I’d like to only puppet those things that can no longer live,” Julian answered.
“This poor creature couldn’t tell the difference between Balthazar’s glass walls and free air. It broke its neck. It had many years ahead of it absent such an accident,” Kaly said.
Julian let out a breath between his teeth.
At that moment, another young man with blonde hair, silver eyes and a green scarf around his neck came over.
He had two soul stones in his rather elegant hands.
He flipped the stones from finger to finger, forward then back again, before enclosing them in his palms.
“The crow’s spirit is still here, Julian. You’ve called it already,” this new young man said.
“You are supposed to be practicing calling your protective spirits to you, Christian,” Kaly found himself saying in a slightly repressive tone, but there was good humor in it too, which did not make sense.
A student not doing exactly as he’d asked? He would have them on the floor with their blood staining the wood or stone! How dare such a one waste his precious teaching moments with the Vampire King’s fledgling?
“I have been, but I keep seeing the crow dancing around on the table by me. I can tell it wants to go to Julian, but he isn’t calling it over,” Christian explained. “I know you want him to make the decision to reanimate and then call the bird, but…”
“But?” Kaly asked, not sounding angry.
There are no buts! I am the one that makes the rules! You do as I say! You do not question me–
“Julian needs to know that the bird wants to be reborn,” Christian answered. “He doesn’t want to selfishly bring it back just for himself. Or to control it to do his bidding. Not even in training.”
Julian looked over and smiled. “I don’t know that I understood that I felt that way. But, of course, you knew.”
“Your thoughts were running in a powerful stream out of you. I’m afraid that I couldn’t help but listen,” Christian answered with a shy smile.
“You know you have my permission to always listen,” Julian told him. “You’re my best friend.”
Julian clapped a hand on Christian’s slender shoulder.
Christian’s smile became wry. “Yes, and as such, I should be just as cognizant of honoring your privacy. But since this was about something that was holding you back…” Christian shrugged. “I just thought I’d say it.”
Christian is an Eyros not a Kaly Vampire! Yet he has protective spirits? And he handles soul gems with ease.
“Who did you call to you, Christian? Who are your protective spirits this time?” Kaly asked, or rather Caemorn did, as he had no control what came out of his mouth.
“Nothing like those werewolf sisters thankfully!” Christian shuddered. “But they’re not human. I mean they weren’t human when they were alive. They lived under the water in the Gray Tides.”
He’s a Speaker to the Dead! That means I sliced myself into a Kaly Vampire that made him or someone very close to him. Interesting.
He felt himself lift an eyebrow. “Really? And they’ve come to protect you?”
“I’m not compelling them. Just asking,” Christian quickly offered.
“I would rather you were compelling them,” Kaly/Caemorn said.
And Kaly agreed with this. If the spirits were there freely they could be up to no good. And the creatures beneath the seas of the Ever Dark were not friendly to Daemon despite his reigning over all.
“Because you fear their motives? Yes, I understand. They are a very proud people and have little enough to do with anything that walks on dry land,” Christian agreed. “But they’ve come, I believe, to assist me because I am best friends with Julian.”
Julian’s eyebrows lifted, but then understanding filled his handsome face. “They hope their good actions will win their living relatives something from Daemon in return?”
“I think they know that change is coming since Daemon returned. They do not want war,” Christian stated after a moment of listening to someone that neither he nor Julian could hear.
Kaly realized that Christian must be an extraordinary Speaker to the Dead to call such beings and to understand them. He wondered who his Master was. Whoever it was, if it wasn’t him directly, had to be a very powerful Eyros.
“We don’t want war either,” Julian said, but then tightened his jaw as he added, “But we’re prepared to do whatever we must to keep ourselves and the Ever Dark safe.”
He is realizing that his words as prince matter, even to the spirits of Ever Dark creatures.
“If I bring back the crow, there will always be a connection between me and it, won’t there?” Julian asked him.
“Most Kaly would say no,” Kaly/Caemorn answered.
Indeed, there is not. Unless it is that we bind them to our will to serve us–
“But that would be a lie,” Kaly/Caemorn continued. “There is a bond with everything we revive and return. That bond can be used to twist them to our will. Or it can mean we are responsible for them on some level.”
Responsible? What–
Julian was nodding. “I understand. I’d like to bring the crow back since it seems like it wants to return.”
“It’s doing a little dance,” Christian laughed and pointed.
At that moment, a small mass of blue-white glowing mist flew into the room and landed on the laboratory table beside the dead crow. It soon formed a ghostly image of itself. It leaned down and tried to nudge its old body as if to wake it from its deathly slumber.
“Remember what we practiced, Julian. Use the energy in that soul gem to revive the bird’s body and then invite it in,” Kaly/Caemorn said.