Chapter 23 #2
He let out a low chuckle and that tight twisted coil inside me loosened some. It was such a normal thing to do. Not vampire-like at all.
“Does anyone else know?” I asked.
Vander frowned. “No. You and,” he gestured toward Jaeda, “are the only two.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true, is it?” Jaeda arched a sleek brow. “There is a very large group that knows.”
“The vampires,” I mused. “And they’ve never outed you?”
“There aren’t open lines of communication between Nocturnus and Nighthaven,” Vander explained.
“Who are they going to tell and who would believe it? Everyone believes all vampires are bloodthirsty savages who take and kill for blood as they see fit. I’m not quite that.
And I’m not old enough to be a daywalker from what anyone knows. ”
Jaeda laughed and drummed her nails on the desktop. “I’m glad you admit that after your speech back there trying to convince your poor apprentice to kill you. So dramatic and for what?”
Vander glared at her. “Don’t make light of this situation. It puts her life in danger even knowing. Your utopian ideals are not shared by anyone I’ve ever known, not even among mages. You endanger yourself by even suggesting it’s possible.”
She pressed her lips together. “That’s why I’d frame it as having an advantage in the war rather than killing perfectly good soldiers.
I’m not an imbecile.” She rolled her eyes and stood.
After smoothing down her dress, she picked up her staff.
“I need to go. The hour is late, and I need my beauty sleep. It was lovely meeting you, Aesira. I hope to see you again soon.” She smiled and pointed her staff at me. “It doesn’t hurt, don’t worry.”
I still tensed and fought off the urge to close my eyes as the crystal hummed to life with a bright light. She glanced at Vander. “I could make her forget this. You could take her back to the room and she wouldn’t know your secret. She would have deniability if anyone found out.”
My eyes snapped wide to his. My heart drummed with an irregular rhythm.
Part of me wished to forget, but it terrified me more.
I finally knew what he’d been hiding. I clenched my fists until my nails dug into the leather of my gloved palms. “I think I should have some say in this, and I don’t want my memory tampered with. ”
“Sorry, it’s a delicate situation and I’ll leave it up to him,” she shrugged.
He stared at me, his expression careful and blank.
The seconds ticked by and my pulse beat harder.
As my trainer he’d shown he’d protect me at all costs, likely to keep me in the dark so I wasn’t damned by the knowledge of what he was.
But if I was more than his apprentice, if he cared for me more deeply, he would want me to know.
He finally pulled his gaze, decision made and looked at Jaeda. I took a sharp breath.
“No, it’s time she knows about me, just protect yourself,” he finally said.
Relief flooded me, and I uncoiled my fists.
With a small smile, Jaeda nodded. “Alright. And the only reason I’m doing this, Aesira, is because the vampires can never know I’ve mastered the daywalker spell.
If they ever captured you and interrogated you.
.. they can never know I found a way. Never.
If they ever find out even my name and were to take me to Nocturnus—”
“I understand.”
“Good.” She chanted unfamiliar words again. The sapphire glowed even brighter. A tingle fluttered over the top of my head and down my spine. With a smile, she tilted her staff upright once again. “All done. See you same time in three days?”
Vander nodded. “Thank you.”
A swirl of white glittering light circled around her. Then she was gone, and I was left alone with the impossible truth standing right in front of me.
With the black curtain separating our sides of the room drawn aside, we sat on our beds facing each other.
The tension between us was tinder on the edge of igniting.
The underlying current that I knew what he was kept us at a distance.
The fire in the stove popped and crackled. The tower creaked and groaned.
I wouldn’t sleep tonight, not even if I wanted to.
Vander sat against the wall with his knees up, absently rubbing his thumb over the back of his clasped hands.
His tousled dark hair was swept half over his forehead.
He looked like he was somewhere else as he stared out the window.
What was he contemplating? Leaving or telling the Commander like he threatened to?
My stomach hollowed at the potential of either.
Our walk back to the room had been silent. Without Jaeda as a buffer to the truth that had changed my world, I was uncertain.
Not about whether he would hurt me, but about our future here. I considered his and mine intertwined now.
Was this Murial’s vision? I didn’t know. I was conflicted, but not so much that I was being devoured. It had almost been too easy for me to decide not to kill him.
I grabbed my pillow and set it on my lap, squeezing it as I worked up the courage to speak. “Can I ask you some questions?”
His gaze shifted to mine and my chest warmed. “Please do.” There was a guarded edge to his voice.
“Is it difficult to be around humans and ducai?”
“Sometimes.”
“Maybe you can’t say, but how does the daywalker spell work?”
He pulled his assassin top up and tugged down his pants over his left hip.
A silvery inked tattoo in the shape of a rune or symbol I’d never seen before marked his skin a few inches below where the waist of his pants usually sat.
It was about the length of my thumb and half the width; curving lines crossed in several places and curled at the ends.
The shimmering silver ink appeared to swim within the lines.
“If the vampires saw that, would they know how to replicate it?”
“All the old daywalkers in Nocturnus have it, so no. I truthfully don’t know how she did it.
I don’t remember anything other than going to her and asking for help.
Everything after that is gone. I woke up in my room the next day panicked about how I’d gotten there and found a note that just said to smile at the sun today. ”
“You don’t remember anything about how—” I tried to speak Jaeda’s name and suddenly found no sound came out. It was like my tongue suddenly stopped working. “We can’t say her name at all?”
He shook his head.
Interesting.
The less I knew about that the better anyway. “How do you keep your composure when there is blood? You sewed up my hand seemingly without difficulty.”
He swallowed and leaned his head back against the wall, exposing his throat.
“It was not easy to sew up your hand but I’m around it often enough that I’ve grown used to it.
It’s much harder when I’m thirsty, so I don’t let that happen often.
Have you ever gone without food or water for days?
Have you ever been so hungry you would eat something that would ordinarily disgust you? ”
I shook my head. There were times during winter when food had been slim but never were our stores completely barren. I knew hunger, I didn’t know starvation. And with a stream nearby, we always had water.
“At first, it’s just an ache in the throat.
Then the need gets stronger and agitation sets in.
Wait long enough and the delusions start.
A person will see water where there isn’t any.
They would drink their own urine. People hungry enough have been known to cannibalize.
Survival becomes more important than rationality.
” He dropped his chin to level his gaze to mine and my skin pebbled.
“Now imagine that times a hundred—a thousand. Imagine the thing that can quench your hunger and thirst being right in front of you. You can hear it rushing through the veins, you can touch the soft skin above it, the pounding of a heart starts to sound like a siren’s song.
You start to rationalize why you should have it.
You need it to survive. You must have it. It becomes madness.”
I squeezed my pillow harder; the muscles tensed in my gut.
“At first, I tried not to drink blood. I didn’t want to.
The idea of it repulsed me. But that’s when I found myself in those dark prison cells ripping into those men.
Some part of me was rational enough not to kill just anyone.
That’s when I went to my friend. It had only been days, and I was losing control of myself. ”
“So she’s been meeting up with you every few days to give her blood for two years? She must be a very good friend.” Again, I wondered how she felt about him. That was true devotion.
He arched his brow. “She’s like family. Sometimes I still go to the prisons because I feel like I’m taking advantage of her kindness.
I don’t like using her for blood. I hate that she has to hurt herself even if she has magic to heal.
” He sighed. “She used to bring me a few bottles to store, but once you were assigned to me, I couldn’t risk you finding it, so our meetings had to become more frequent.
As long as I have blood often enough, it’s only a mild bother to be around it.
When you’ve eaten a full meal, your favorite dessert is tempting but you can turn it down. ”
“After the challenge with Dred, you were different.”
He nodded. “I was afraid to leave you alone until the matter was settled so it had been too many days. With all the blood in that room, and my own fear that my wounds would heal too fast, and someone would notice. I was unpleasant. And I’m sorry for that.”