Chapter 6
Chapter Six
THE NORTH WIND
I head to the War Room just before midnight, massaging my temples against a threatening headache.
The absolute fucking nerve of Oliver and Jacques!
I know not everyone is happy with me being crowned.
Darkness knows, I have mixed feelings about it myself.
Human children born of vampire parents are rare, not because they aren’t born very often, but because they’re usually not allowed to live.
The fact that my mother fought to keep me is unusual, especially in a ruling family.
I wonder what she saw in me, what she hoped to accomplish by putting a human on the throne.
My father said to me, as we sat on the steps watching a rebellion catch fire, that he and my mother had tried to protect me from cruelty, that they didn’t want anyone to think differently of me.
I wish, now, that they’d let me bear it, rather than keeping me hidden away.
I already grew up feeling like I wasn’t good enough; what difference would a few more insults have made?
At least I might have had the chance to stand up for myself, and show everyone who I am.
It feels like I’m coming into this on the back foot, having to prove myself even before my mother anoints me.
I can understand why Oliver and Jacques want to challenge me.
A human girl, responsible for exposing their father’s treachery, ruling over them?
I’m surprised they haven’t tried to kill me already.
And now I have to sit in a room with the North Wind, another of Mistral’s stupid dangerous schemes, and pretend like I don’t know my father’s life is under threat. Because of me.
Heavy the head that wears the crown. I read that somewhere, once, and it always stayed with me. Now it makes more sense than ever. I’m not even Raven yet but I feel overwhelmed.
Moonlight paints silver shadows on the darkened carpet, the long hallway walls.
Bertrand pads along behind me. The War Room is close to the Costume Room, filled with dusty maps and ancient books of strategy, weapons on the wall.
A huge central table features a relief map of the world, the four realms mapped in copper and silver, jade and gold, like the one on the wall in the library.
My father waits for us, his hand on the door, a gentle gleam in his eye.
There’s an answering glow in my chest, comforting as a warm fire.
It seems wildly unfair that we might have just mended the distance between us, only for this to happen.
I cannot lose him, not now. I know how strong he is, how talented a warrior. But he’s not infallible.
He opens the door, ushering me inside with a quick glance, brows raised.
I hastily school my features into a calm mask.
The War Room looks different, tonight. More …
alive. Candle lamps glimmer in golden sconces, sparking light from the map on the table.
Chairs surround it, carved ebony inlaid with silver, the Raven emblem on the tall backs.
Guards are stationed against the walls, including my parents’ personal contingent, flecks of red among the silver on their livery.
Bertrand takes his position among them, his massive arms crossed.
Varin is already here, as is Ira. The club-owner bows to me, his hand to his chest, his ice-blue gaze warming.
His tattoos are mostly hidden tonight under a tailored black shirt, though there are some visible at the edge of his cuffs and collar, including a flash of red on the inside of his wrist. With him are two humans, a man and a woman, both dressed in tidy yet worn clothing.
At my entrance their eyes widen, glancing at each other.
The woman’s hands are twisted together, the knuckles white.
It’s understandable. Being in a room full of vampires, in the home of Raven itself, must be daunting.
I stay close to my father, my shoulders back, my head high, conscious of the part I need to play.
I might feel out of my depth, but I can’t let anyone else know.
Negotiation is about appearance as much as anything.
My father’s lessons float through my mind.
It is the same in battle. Arrive as though you’re already the winner.
Leave nothing exposed that you do not wish to have exploited.
Mistral started the North Wind rebellion as a distraction to undermine our house, to get rid of my father and me, just so he could be with Mother again.
Why he thought a plan like that would work I don’t know.
Mother would never have forgiven him. I suppose he was so arrogant he thought he could just breeze back in and save the day, and she would fall into his arms. I wonder whether he really knew her at all.
Yet it did almost work. If Kyle hadn’t been distracted, changing Jessie into a vampire, I would never have been able to expose him to the light and kill him, then escape.
The rebellion itself was more successful than Mistral ever thought it would be; I remember him talking to Kyle about it, when they both thought I was unconscious, and his surprise that humans would fight back, and so strongly.
Yet another way he underestimated them, and me.
My mother enters the room. Clad in black velvet, severely cut. Her flawless beauty shines in the dimly lit space, like a sharpened blade in the moonlight. Everyone bows, including me. She is Raven incarnate tonight.
‘My lady.’ Ira straightens up from his bow. ‘May I present Jane, and Andrew, of the North Wind.’
My mother inclines her head, her expression cool. She pulls her chair out from the table and sits. We all do the same, the humans slightly clumsy in their haste. I hate that for them. I meet their puzzled gazes; perhaps they think me some sort of human pet. They will soon learn I am no such thing.
‘I am Penelope Raven,’ my mother says. ‘Head of the house of Raven. My husband, Aleksandr.’ She gestures to my father. ‘And my daughter, Emelia, who will be the next Raven.’ She places her hand on my shoulder.
‘I’m sorry, Lady Raven. Did you say this was your daughter?’ This is the woman, Jane. Her hands are still clenched together, but her voice is clear and strong.
My mother squeezes my shoulder, lightly.
‘She did,’ I say. ‘The next ruler of Raven will be human.’ I smile, just a touch. Jane’s lips part, and she glances at Andrew again.
‘Tell me.’ My mother’s voice slides into the room, like a silvery poisoned blade. I think again of her rage in the library. Of blood on her face, in a darkened meadow. I know her. And she’s still angry. ‘What is it you would like to achieve tonight?’
‘Your forces have destroyed all but a few of our settlements.’ Jane’s hair is greyish-blonde and curling, tied back from her fine-boned face. She looks tired, yet there’s still fire in her grey eyes. ‘The ones that remain … there are children there. We wish, therefore, to ask for peace between us.’
‘We didn’t know that Mistral’s promises were hollow.
Nor of his plan to harm your family. But you have to understand—’ Andrew is tall, broad-shouldered, his angular face tanned, his dark hair greying at the temples, a scar across the back of one of his hands like a badly-stitched seam ‘—we just wanted things to be better for us.’
I wince internally. I get it. Vampires stole so much from humans when they took over the world. Their blood, of course. But also their freedom of movement. Their choices.
‘I can appreciate that.’ My mother’s tones are measured. ‘But there was always the opportunity to speak with us, rather than embark on this cycle of destruction. It was you who chose that path, and your movement is now paying the consequences.’
It’s funny she thinks humans would have dreamed of approaching her to ask for changes.
Would the cow in the meadow ask the farmer for mercy?
My mother is ruthless when crossed. I saw her order the death of twenty humans as punishment for the attack on my father, then stood on a darkened cliff top and watched her carry out the sentence.
She sent her former lover to a spiked and burning death for what he tried to do to me.
I wonder what she wants to do to these humans.
They’re wondering, too. I can almost smell their fear. What will Raven demand as payment for what they’ve done? All at once it feels impossible, that there could be any sort of peace between vampires and humans.
But my mother just smiles, though her eyes remain dark. ‘I ask again. What do you want to achieve here?’
‘We want the attacks to stop. Want your dark forces withdrawn. We want…’ Jane falters momentarily. ‘We wish to rejoin the human community. Then, perhaps, we can talk about the possibility of change.’
Rejoin the human community?
‘Our dark forces, as you call them, are no longer attacking your movement.’ My father’s voice is deep. ‘So, I don’t understand what it is you want to stop.’
Jane and Andrew glance at each other. ‘But … there was a raid, just the other night. On a camp near the Darkmeadow, where you hold your Gatherings.’
A camp near the Darkmeadow? I don’t understand. Humans live in Safe Zones, work in vampire towns and on the estates. At least, that’s what I’ve always been told. I glance at my father, but his face gives nothing away.
Jane speaks. ‘No one was left alive. If it wasn’t Raven, then who was it?’
Shit. Surely that’s not how we do things. My mind is racing. Was it Reapers again, like the attacks on the Safe Zones? I try not to think of the floating bodies, the shadowy dark figures.
‘As Lord Raven said, this is not our doing.’ My mother’s dark brows draw together. ‘We are no longer actively engaged in breaking your organisation apart. As far as we’re concerned, it’s already broken. Your presence here tonight is proof of that.’
Ouch. My mother isn’t wrong, though. A few months ago, a meeting like this would have been out of the question. I wonder again at Ira’s presence. Why has he been allowed to stay for such high-level negotiations? Again, there’s the feeling of something more here, something I don’t quite understand.
Jane looks close to tears. I can’t hold back any longer. ‘When you say, “rejoin the human community,” what do you mean? Aren’t you already in the Safe Zones?’
Andrew turns his attention to me. ‘No. But we’re willing to return and start monthly blood donations, if it means our families are safe.’
I think fast. Aside from the mind-blowing fact that these humans have been surviving outside Safe Zones, I don’t feel that decanting a bunch of rebels back into them is going to be great for human morale, nor will it ensure a lasting peace. A kernel of an idea takes shape.
‘What if there was somewhere else to go? Somewhere you could actually be free?’ I know they’ve done terrible things. But so have my family, much worse and for far longer. Kyle said something about it, once. Any animal will fight, if cornered. And humans have been cornered for a long time.
Everyone in the room is looking at me. This might be madness. But, faced with such quiet desperation, I feel the need to do something. ‘How many of you are left?’
‘Around two hundred, including children.’
Two hundred? That seems like a lot of rebels. I know my father is surprised as well, by the way his hand twitches. Still, it’s just about the perfect number of people for what I have in mind.
‘When the North Wind almost killed my father,’ I say, ‘I wanted to speak with you. To find out what it was you wanted, why you were trying to hurt my family. Then I spent time in the Safe Zones, and realised how it really was for humans. Why you wouldn’t want that.
And why you would choose to fight back.’
Surprise ripples through the room. Ira seems to be fighting the urge to smile. Jane and Andrew stare at me, their mouths half open.
‘I saw what was taken from you. How your lives were subject to Raven’s power. I witnessed the Moon Harvest and I also saw humans attacking vampires. This is a cycle of violence without end, unless something changes. And that’s what I’m offering. Change.’
This might not be what my parents had in mind.
But it feels like the right thing to do, more than just about anything I’ve ever done.
All the injustice, the pain and death and sorrow of the past few months well up in me.
I blink away tears. My father said I had a voice here, and I’m going to use it.
‘After my experience, one of the first things I wanted to do was create a true Safe Zone. A place where humans can live without blood harvesting, free to follow the lives they choose.’ I pause, searching for the right words.
‘I want to change things, but I know it won’t happen overnight.
I would like to offer you, and your community, the chance to live on the Channel Islands, in a vampire-free zone.
In return, you end this rebellion. Completely.
Change is coming, but it cannot come with blood. Not this time.’
The room is silent. This is most definitely not what my parents had in mind. But if they want me to lead, they have to let me make decisions, too. Not everything has to be about death. Jane has tears in her eyes.
‘Is this a true offering? We lay down our arms, and you’ll let us do this?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Though it must be all of you who remain, and a true surrender, rather than a ceasefire. Those who wish to return to Safe Zones may do so. Those who wish to be part of the new community will be taken there. And the North Wind ends here, today.’