CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Elsie’s eyes once as green as the first touch of spring rain over grass, had lost their vibrancy.
The news of James’ passing was devastating.
I could hardly speak through the tears. I had encouraged her to take some time off, but she insisted that she needed to work.
She had to keep busy. Once she stopped, all the thoughts would pile up. I understood.
Saying goodbye to her was harder than saying goodbye to my mother, because she was the mother I never had. She showed me true, unconditional love. She never once believed I was haunted. And even if I was, that would have never swayed her love for me. When she found out everything, she grinned.
“Told you it was no demon, just a deranged man clueless about women.”
I had laughed, though it was lackluster.
She paused, examining me, seeing grief mirrored back to her.
“Well, I’ll be damned, child. You loved him.” A pang of guilt shot through me. This was the man that had indirectly killed her son, my brother, though he was certainly at fault for it all.
“Not exactly—though—maybe, in an odd way,” I whispered.
She let out a light laugh. “You were always an odd duck, but I love you all the same.” She pulled me into a hug. “I’m sorry you lost him.”
I took in a sharp breath, careful to keep the pieces together. I pulled away, clutching on to her hands. “The vampires won’t take anyone else from this world.”
She squeezed my hands, releasing one to cup my cheek. “Except for one last soul.”
My mother and sister had come into the room then. I gave Elsie one last hug before turning to them. Tears already stained my sister’s face. She had been crying for a while. I wiped them away, holding on to her face.
“I will find a way to see you again.”
Those words opened the floodgates as she sobbed. I held her in my arms until she could breathe again.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,” she whispered.
I held on to her shoulders, attempting to hold her down on solid ground. “Live.”
Her lips curled down into a pout. Suddenly she was four again.
“Promise me that, Olivia. Live and be happy.”
She nodded, sniffling.
My eyes caught the necklace around her neck. She wore the rabbit’s foot. I reached out and stroked the soft fur. Leo had survived, thank Brennus. I had failed miserably at attempting to casually bring up the subject of Olivia with him. I ended up just telling him he should talk to her.
“Did you speak with Leo?”
A speck of light illuminated her eyes as she smiled softly, a rosy hue spreading across her cheeks. “I did. I’m going to see him tonight.”
I grinned as I pulled her into a tight hug. Mother shifted, drawing my attention to her. It was clear she hadn’t been sleeping. Her skin lacked its usual glow, her eyes of sapphire muted and distant. She stepped closer, still holding herself in that demure way of hers.
“I need you to know ...” Her voice held a heaviness to it, as if she was holding up a crumbling wall, desperate to keep away what laid beyond.
“I did not know any of this, what your father did. I had no idea. He betrayed me too,” she paused, searching for the words.
Her hesitance broke me a little. “I’m ashamed of how I’ve treated you.
I don’t expect your forgiveness, but I am sorry, my dear Charlotte. ”
I stood stunned for a moment, not quite sure how to absorb the words.
It was a relief to know that she was just as in the dark as the rest of us, that she didn’t condone what Father had done.
Though her words could not erase the pain from the last twenty-six years.
Those scars were permanent. I was grateful to hear her apology, to be able to see her through a different lens.
I gasped as she hugged me. I didn’t remember the last time she had hugged me.
Had she ever? I hesitated to return it, until I forced my arms around her.
This may be the one and only time I hugged her.
When we parted, she nodded once. I nodded back.
It may not have been the goodbye expected of a mother and daughter, but it was all we could give each other.
Sebastian came through the doors then, and his presence cut through the mournful air, easing the weight off my chest. “The carriage is ready.”
I went to him, taking his hand, turning back to my small family.
I looked to each of them. Elsie’s wild mane of curls and the look of pride on her face, seeing the woman she raised off to a new life.
Olivia’s reddened eyes, though woeful, were rimmed with hope.
And Mother’s usual cold exterior seemed to warm, and for the first time in my life she looked to me as a mother should.
A breath caught in my throat. Sebastian squeezed my hand bringing me back to earth. I said my goodbyes, hoping to the gods and goddesses I’d find a way back to them.
* * *
The portal had a new meaning to me now. I had unknowingly opened it with Alaric, and it made sense to me now why I was always drawn to it. Its swirling black abyss mesmerizing, beckoning me into another world, the world I connected with my own.
We stood before it. We would be the last to go through.
The two members guarding it would retire their post. They stood uneasily beside us.
I was familiar with them, Michael and Eldridge.
Though Sebastian had worked with them, they couldn’t quite meet him in the eye.
Everyone had to adjust to the transition.
We all worked together to get the vampires to Dreigo.
The Society was absorbed into the king’s guard, where they would patrol for any vampires that somehow managed to slip through the cracks.
Right on time, the sound of hooves echoed through the woods.
Pari rode into view, and I beamed as I took in the sight of her.
She donned the royal colors, midnight blue and black.
The first uniform tailored to fit a female soldier.
She swung her leg over, hopping off, and she held her head a little higher as she strode over to me.
She clutched my arms. “I can’t believe you’re leaving me.”
I smiled as a tear slipped down. “I can’t believe it either.”
We held each other’s eyes a moment, seeming to run through every memory we’ve ever had with each other.
She was like a sister to me, and I was losing nearly everyone I loved in one day.
But I was a bridge between worlds, and that bridge would fall today.
And I could finally live, not a normal life but a life of my own.
“Did you see him?”
Her eyes held a look of knowing. “Yes. He is to be executed in three days.”
With the sudden finality of his end, I let out a long exhale, letting go of the perception I had always held of my father. His true nature was new to me. I was only attached to a mask, and that I would grieve.
With him gone, my family would be taken care of. As Prince of Svealin with access to seemingly unending resources, Sebastian made arrangements.
“I will find a way back to you. This is not goodbye.”
She smirked, her rich brown eyes welling with tears. “Never goodbye.”
And after a final hug that hurt to break, Sebastian and I stepped through the portal.
* * *
I felt a little lighter in Svealin. Though we still had one more thing to take care of. We stood on the other side of the portal, my eyes lingering on the writhing rubies for one last time. They clashed together, breaking apart with an eruption of light.
Sebastian held up a dagger, reaching for my hand.
“I can do it.”
He paused, looking up to meet my eyes and giving the biggest smile I had ever seen from him. My mouth fell open at the sight, at the sight of his impenetrable exterior, that perpetual blankness, giving way to a lightness I had never seen from him.
“That’s my killer.”
I smiled back at him as I took the dagger.
I dragged the edge along my palm, sanguine beads trailing after it.
The red pooled together. I held what had started it all in my hand.
My other hand went to the base of my neck, tracing the raised flesh there.
It ached beneath my skin, the source miles beneath, transcending worlds and astral planes.
I extended my hand out to the portal. It disappeared into the void.
A deep cold froze me to the bone, wrapping around my arm, reaching in and spreading throughout my body until I shivered.
Prying fingers prodded against my rib cage, rifling through me, stealing a breath as it withdrew, leaving my lungs vacant.
I choked on nothing until I finally managed to heave in a breath. The portal dissipated, my hand still raised to the forest beyond. The blood was gone, just a trail of pink left behind from mended skin.
Sebastian wrapped his arm around me, and I realized I hadn’t moved, my hand still raised, my eyes locked upon what once was.
I relaxed into his hold as he pressed me into his chest. His fingers brushed the side of my face.
I leaned into it. He pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead, sending sparks dancing across my skin.
“I have something to show you.”
The sun hung high in a sea of cerulean. The warm air flowed around us like velvet as he guided me down a path carved through waving grass.
Through a tunnel of oak trees, we came to the end.
A statue carved from what looked like red jasper stood just above us.
It was a veiled woman in a floating gown.
There was a name inscribed on a plaque at the base of the statue. Alaric.
“The Red Woman?” I had meant to keep my voice lighter, though sorrow was close behind.
He smirked. “It was one of my favorite memories with him.”
I nodded, looking back to the statue, then the ground beneath it.
“I had buried him back in Kilthorne. He wouldn’t have wanted to come back to Dreigo.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” I whispered.
We sat down on the cool grass shaded from the sun. Golden rays spilled through the canopy above, falling across the Red Woman. Silence enveloped the three of us, and I sat between all that I had gained and all that I had lost.
Though a piece of me would ache for eternity from the empty space in my soul, my bond with Sebastian grew everyday, soon it would be bigger than me, than us.
Soon the ache would be an echo of the past, one I’d be happy to carry with me forever.
Because Alaric deserved love, the absence of it plunging him into a darkness he couldn’t escape.
He fought against monsters until he lost himself in his own fight.
I would reserve a piece of my love for him, a light to hold through the dark.
After a long moment of silence, Sebastian tugged on my arm, helping me up.
He smiled. “I have something else to show you.”
We walked further into the trees, until a distant bubbling drifted in.
We came across a small creek that weaved through flowing grass speckled with flowers of white and yellow.
He guided me down, sitting before the water, the sun draping over the land in a crystalline gold.
I glanced around as I recognized what was no longer a dreamscape, but reality.
“This was the first illusion you showed me.” It was just as beautiful and magical as he had once conjured.
“It was the first moment I thought I saw a shift within you. When you might have started to see us, me, as something other than a demon.”
Sebastian pulled me onto his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he cradled me.
He rooted around his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, velvet box.
I looked to it, then to him. My lips parted slightly at the look in his eyes, the way he looked at me with a reverence.
The bond pulled us impossibly close. I knew my eyes mirrored his.
He opened the box with one hand, and I gasped.
In it sat a delicate, silver ring with a circular moonstone rimmed with celestial rays of diamonds.
“Our betrothal may not have been real, but it was always real to me, and I want to make it real to us, if you’ll accept.”
I didn’t hesitate. “I would love nothing more.”
I removed the first ring he gave me, placing it on my other hand. Though it was a sham, there was a part of it that had always been real to me too, even though I had no idea how to face my truth at the time. He placed the ring on my finger, and we both stared at it for a moment.
Our eyes met, a union between worlds, a melding of souls.
He pulled me in closer, our lips meeting in a slow, lazy kiss, my body melting into his. He paused, his face hovering above mine.
“So, mannyenska, what would you like to do in your new world?”
A croaking broke my attention to the raven perched in the oak above us. For the first time, the sight didn’t fill me with dread. I smiled, looking back to Sebastian.
“Everything.”