Chapter 21
Having been given centuries to wrestle control of the threat, we must now ask ourselves why the Imperium Alius refuses to allow members of the Custodes Hominum to survey their work. One must wonder what it is they are hiding…
We walked into the gardens and sat on the first bench we found. Telling this story hadn’t been on my agenda, but now that Drayven had asked, I realized how much I needed to tell it.
Too long had it lived in my mind, unsaid, unspoken. Maybe giving it voice would make the soul-ache smaller somehow.
It was worth a try. My throat was tight, and I knew talking would only aggravate the swelling, so I kept my voice to a soft whisper.
“Annabeth Damascus came to live in my village the summer I turned twelve. Although I didn’t know who she was at first. She was just a girl who’d come to stay in the cottage at the end of the lane—a rental that had sat empty all year.
“I was excited—she was someone new, someone who didn’t go to my school, didn’t know who I was.
To her, I was just Ana. Not Onyx. She told me she was there with an aunt but nothing more than that, and it honestly didn’t matter that she didn’t speak about her home life, because that meant I didn’t have to speak about mine.
We became friends, and that summer was the best of my life. ”
For a moment, I was back there, in a simpler time when the summer stretched ahead of me, joyous and filled with endless possibility. For a moment, an echo of that joy swelled inside me. I allowed it to expand, breathing it in and closing my eyes to savor it before letting it go.
“We played in the forest and by the river almost every day, meeting at noon and staying out till dusk. There was a small, abandoned atrium close to the river. It had a dodgy door that tended to stick, but after we’d gotten trapped in there once, and had to use both our strength to get out, we’d kept it wedged open.
The glass was some special, unbreakable material.
We’d tried. That atrium became our haven.
We planted flowers and herbs, spending hours in the warmth of the sun.
Annabeth loved sunbathing. She always said she had to make the most of it while she could, that her turning could happen any day.
I knew what she was—a pureblood vampire.
That her summer in Pembrooke Village was her respite before her turning.
I knew it, but I…” I lost my words for a moment, faced with the horror of what I was about to reveal.
“Go on,” Drayven coaxed gently.
He had such kind eyes. Eyes that held no judgment.
Not yet anyway. “I genuinely believed that I’d found a friend, that maybe I could tell her the truth of who I really was someday.
But that choice was taken from me before summer’s end.
That fateful day, we met at the atrium as planned, but she was angry.
So fucking angry, and I knew—before she said a word, I knew.
It was in her eyes, you know? The look of disdain.
The one I’d been subjected to all my life.
She’d found out who I was. Someone had told her about the Onyx girl.
The taint to be avoided. She called me a liar and a cheat, screaming that I’d tricked her into being my friend.
How her father would be furious if he discovered the awful association.
That I could have ruined her reputation.
“I screamed back, asking how, after everything we’d been through that summer, she could just turn her back on our friendship? She said she could never be friends with an Onyx. A murderous bloodline. I slammed the atrium doors in her face and ran.
“I locked myself in my room and cried for hours until exhaustion pulled me under. When I woke, the sun was setting, and there was an awful feeling in the pit of my belly, then I realized why. I’d slammed the door.
The door that tended to stick.” A lump formed in my throat, and I swallowed past it to continue.
“I ran back as fast as I could. The door was still shut. I couldn’t get it open.
I cried out her name but got no answer, so I rounded the building, peering through the glass into the moonlit interior and…
I saw her.” The image flared in my mind now, as vivid as the day I’d seen it.
“She was crouched on the ground, her arms up over her head. As if she’d been trying to protect herself…
to shield herself. She was charred and blackened. ” I choked on a sob. “She was…dead.”
“Her turning happened…”
I nodded, blinking back the heat gathering behind my eyes. “It happened while she was trapped beneath the sun, with no way to escape. I left her there to die. She burned to a crisp.” I squeezed my eyes shut, dislodging tears. “I killed her.”
“It was an accident,” Drayven said—the same words everyone had repeated to me over and over in the hope that I’d believe them, and even though I knew it to be true, it didn’t change the horror of the consequences.
I wiped my face. Crying wouldn’t solve anything.
“My father claimed the same thing when the Inquisitors came for me. They saw I was a minor and set a date for a blood trial, but two nights before the trial, hooded men came to our home. They came for me. Damascus’s men.
But my father begged them to take him instead.
His blood instead of mine.” I didn’t want to relive this.
Didn’t want to see it in my mind, so I spoke fast, spilling words just to get it over with.
“They dragged him into the street where a carriage waited. A man climbed out. Hooded and masked. He demanded to know where I was, and my father replied with, ‘Her blood is mine, and mine is hers.’ The hooded figure drew his sword and said, ‘Then I, Sterling Damascus, claim the debt,’ and cut off my father’s head. ”
Silence stretched for several beats before Drayven spoke. “They bypassed a trial. A trial where the incident would have either been ruled an accident or a debt suitable for a minor would have been applied.”
I squeezed my eyes closed. “I will never forgive myself for what happened to Annabeth. But I swear, it wasn’t deliberate.
I didn’t want her dead. I just… I needed to get away from her.
From her words and the pain that they caused.
But because of that, because I’d been too weak to withstand them, she died in unimaginable agony, and my father was forced to give his life to protect me.
But Sterling had no right to take it.” Rage simmered in my chest. “He broke the law and suffered no consequences.”
“It was your head he wanted,” Drayven said. “But your father invoked the right of proxy. He had no choice but to accept because you were a minor.”
“Are you defending him?”
“Of course not.” He looked genuinely offended. “The fact he was there in the first place broke all the rules. He should have realized your family would protect you. In fact…” He trailed off, realization coloring his features.
“He knew what would happen. He didn’t care—as long as he got blood vengeance, something he knew wouldn’t happen if the case went to trial.” He’d come to the same conclusion that I had over the years.
“And now you’re here. No longer a child. Ana…you must stay away from him.”
“He can’t kill me, and as much as I want to kill him for what he did, I can’t.
” An emotion I couldn’t quite read sparked in his eyes.
“My mother signed a blood contract. No retribution on either side. When he had me by the throat, I genuinely questioned whether he would break that oath, but…I think he simply wanted to frighten me.” I drew a shuddering breath.
“I have all these emotions and all this rage… Trust me, the only time I’ll be spending around him will be mandated.
Anna’s death was an accident, something I will never forgive myself for.
But what Sterling did to my father was straight-up murder, and for that… For that, he will one day pay.”
* * *
We sat in companionable silence, something I hadn’t done with anyone since…well, ever. Yet, I’d done it with the Unwoven and was now doing it with Drayven.
There was something undeniably and inexplicably soothing about sharing space this way.
But all good things had an end.
“Let me walk you back to Bramble Tower,” he said.
“I’m sure you have better things to do than babysit me.”
“I have things to do. Yes. But better things?” He leaned forward slightly, forearms braced on his thighs as his thoughtful gaze met mine. “No.”
I chuckled. “I appreciate your help and…just you being here.” Telling the story out loud had been cathartic. “So do you always take an interest in new arrivals, or do you have a thing for pariahs?”
His expression grew serious. “I don’t think you’re a pariah, Ana.
In fact, I find you fascinating. You’re here because you want to be.
You’re here because you survived out there.
” His gaze drifted over my head. “Nightsbridge is filled with Horrors for us, but you’ve been surrounded by horrors all your life.
Horrors that wear human faces. I admire you, and I don’t admire many people. ”
Heat bloomed in my cheeks and I ducked my head, not wanting him to see how his words affected me. Kind words were something only my mother had ever offered me, and with her gone, I’d given up hope of ever being on the receiving end of them again.
“Thank you.” I took a beat to compose myself before lifting my gaze to his once more.
A soft breeze blew my hair forward, stray tendrils sweeping across my face. He gently brushed them aside, tucking them behind my ear. The contact sent a shiver down my neck, and his fingers lingered, warm and reassuring. I couldn’t help but lean into his touch.
“Being the last of your bloodline doesn’t mean you have to be alone,” he said.
If only that were true. “Being alone is safe.”
“Being alone is…lonely.”
Was he counseling me or himself? “I like my own company.”