CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I couldn’t stop smushing the paint around the canvas, and it turned brown yet again.
I fussed with the shapes until anything discernible melded into one giant blob.
What sat before me was a deserted wasteland.
I’d add color only for it to blend out into nothing, and the desolation grew along with the pit in my stomach.
My failed painting was not just a bad day; it was a bad omen.
It had been too quiet.
I had not encountered Alaric in over three months.
Before I met Sebastian, he haunted me every single day, and now he had simply disappeared.
Shadows remained stagnant. The temperature sat still.
And though he had left me alone, his silence was his worst method of torture. Because I knew it was coming.
Alaric did not quit.
He was showing no mercy. With it being this long, he was planning something huge. His final move. A decimation, which was what laid before me, a dull haze I couldn’t bring life to. No matter how hard I tried, I could not resurrect the wasteland. And my strokes became frantic then.
A large hand clasped over mine, stilling it. “Breathe, mannyenska.”
“I can’t wait any longer,” I whispered.
“We’ll be ready for him.”
After Alaric had shown himself at the harvest ball, the Society had tried to monitor him and his army as best they could, but he was a master illusionist. Sebastian knew he was hiding something, though he couldn’t exactly explain that to my father.
No one knew that vampires were capable of creating illusions.
It was a bad idea to attack Alaric. We could have marched right into the middle of his army and not known until he pulled back the veil, ambushing us.
Sebastian convinced my father to wait, but be prepared for an attack at any moment.
He picked up the painting that would haunt my dreams and set it aside, placing a fresh, blank canvas before me. He picked up a clean palette and brush, squeezing out a rich green onto it and handed it to me. The color of life.
I smiled up at him, and his gaze draped over me like velvet and honey.
Olivia was painting again. I observed her furiously, constantly at her shoulder absorbing all that she did.
She was mostly herself again, though I’d often catch her eyes still, set on something far off in the distance, far away from this world.
After awhile she would wake, blinking softly, adjusting once more to her surroundings.
Pari would visit me when I stayed with Sebastian at his townhouse.
She had an advantage over the Society now, one she could not share.
He taught her everything to know about vampires, their abilities, how they fought, and most importantly, how she could work around their strengths.
The truth could have saved so many lives, but Father would not hear of what he did not discover himself.
I swirled my brush into the deep green, working to awaken life now. Olivia read on the settee. Mother worked on her cross stitch. Pari sharpened her dagger.
And with the flipping of pages, the pulling of thread, and the swift grinding of metal, it was still too quiet.
And my heart fell with the first tremor.