His agitation over Ana distressed her. “I wrote them a letter about my relation,” she said, trying to avoid the subject of his sister. “I thought that perhaps it would be better to do that instead of just showing up. I still have to wait for her guardian’s reply.” She sat next to him and touched his face. “I’m so sorry for what Ana’s doing,” she spoke softly, hugging him.
“
I can take you to see her, still,” he said, not replying to her statement about his sister. “She doesn’t have to see
us
. Just to get a look at her beforehand.”
She stared at him a moment, and then she showed gratitude as much as she could with her kiss. He let go and stood, motioning for her to get up. She did so, and he held her hand.
Her vision blurred again.
The next thing she saw was a familiar room. Her old room.
It was the one that she had owned for twenty years. Everything was the same: the wallpaper, the desk in the back, her bed…but most of the furniture was gone. The window was behind her, and she turned to look out of it, expecting to see the house that had previously almost been her home: Saria’s house. She felt stiff.
It was completely different.
The Kendricks must have left.
She knew they had to have, because there were no flowers or gardens.
She turned away, her heart heavy. She pushed back the memory and swallowed. Then she felt Traith’s hand on her arm.
“
Don’t speak loudly,” he whispered. “She can hear us but not see us.”
She couldn’t see him either, but she could feel his touch. There was a worn-in bed with a girl sitting on it. She was crying to herself while brushing her hair. Rein knew that was her sister.
Taverin
.
She was a little girl—petite. Her hair resembled Rein’s in color and length, and her eyes were blue like Rein’s used to be.
When she was a little girl, Rein recalled many people saying she looked much more like her father than her mother. She figured that the townsfolk had known her parents when they were young and newly together. But Taverin’s face didn’t look like her own; it looked very different. Probably like her French mother.
Rein didn’t say anything for fear of being heard. She wished she could see Traith and what he was doing or wanting to say, but she stayed silent. The girl was crying for some reason, and it was so late that she had expected her to be asleep.
Taverin missed her father. Rein’s father.
“
Oh Traith,” Rein winced in a whisper. “I know why she’s crying. If only she knew I was here and that I felt the same way.”
She felt a hand cover her mouth. A nearly silent, “Hush.”
The girl abruptly looked up, staring into the dimness of her room. Rein knew that no matter how low she had spoken, anything was audible in the silence they were in. The young girl’s eyes were red and swollen, and that in itself made Rein’s heart break.
She collapsed with her eyes closed into Traith’s chest. She opened them and found herself in the castle’s master bedroom, Traith holding her up.
“
Rein…”
She knew he didn’t know what to say.
She let go of him and lay on the bed. “I’m tired,” she murmured, fighting back tears. She wouldn’t show him her face.
“
At least you’re tired at night,” he said. “But that isn’t a very good excuse for avoiding telling me the truth.”
“
I’m not avoiding…” she had to stop. Then she broke down and cried her heart out into the pillow. She couldn’t hold it in. “Saria’s dead,” she sobbed. “Her parents aren’t there. I missed my father alive by only a few days. A sister I don’t know is alone and crying for him as well. My father lied to me. Traith, I just can’t…I’m sorry, I don’t want to seem selfish, but I…” She re-buried her face into the pillow. “I just—one more release.”
His arms surrounded her and his lips brushed her ear. “Cry hard, Rein,” he whispered. “I’m here.”
Chapter 46
The next morning was bright, and the sliver of light that shone through the balcony drape must’ve hit his eye just perfectly. She heard him grunt and put his hand up fast to cover his eyes, and then he rustled until she heard him leave the bed. She blinked a few times and turned, but when morning vision blurriness finally subsided—
Morning vision? It was morning. It was morning, and she was waking up. It was the first time in so long.
With much effort she pushed herself up, but Traith wasn’t there. She stretched and stood up, wiping her eyes to make them clearer. He wasn’t in the bedroom at all anymore.
After a few minutes she made it down to the library and saw that he was sitting in his grand armchair reading a book. There was an empty vial by his side.
His head shot up, and he closed the book. He coolly took the skinny glass and it disappeared in his hand. “Good morning, Rein,” he said awkwardly.
She smiled and walked in, the stone cool beneath her feet. “I’m going to marry you,” she said. “I think that you should not attempt to hide those anymore.”
He shook his head and acted as though he was continuing his reading. “You do the same thing, Rein,” he said. “And that girl, by the way, looks nothing like you.”
“
She has only my father’s blood,” Rein said as she took a seat on a sofa.
“
How old is she?”
“
I think she’ll be turning sixteen,” she replied. “Four years younger than me. But no, there is no such resemblance between us as there is between you and
your
sister.”
She’d seized his interest. “Me and Ana? Rein, you’ve never even seen her!”
“
But I did. I saw her clearly, at least mentally, and you look—forgive me—she looks just like you.” She smiled. “One might say you were twins. Those eyes, and—”
“
Twins? I think that’s pushing it some.”
“
I don’t.”
He disappeared in his seat, and she flinched when he appeared right next to her on the sofa. “I have something for you.” He held out his hand, palm up, and in an instant a letter appeared on it. “I managed to get to the town that’s miles away from here. Believe it or not, this old castle of mine
is
on the Romanian map, and the mail carriers acknowledge it.”
“
Aren’t the villagers curious about this place?”
“
Not really,” he said, and he chuckled.
“
What?” she asked, propping herself up on her knees on the sofa beside him. “What’s funny?”
He shook his head, still snickering. “Well, they’re…scared, in a sort. Before I was cursed onto the ship when Carden lived here with me, we played tricks on the villagers so they never came around here.”
She shook her head. “That’s horrible.”
“
Well, now they all think this place is haunted. They don’t dare come near—it’s in their folklore, I’m sure, by now. They’re a rather primitive society.” He laughed. “Yet this castle still receives mail.”
She laughed and leaned on him, opening the letter. Her eyes darted back and forth reading it. It was from Bruce Hall of Teesdale, Taverin’s guardian.
This was the reply to the letter she had written to Mr. Hall inquiring about Taverin originally. The letter she’d sent was regarding her half-sister’s future, explaining very little about herself, only her relation to the girl and their father’s death. She told Mr. Hall she had been separated as a child from her family, but not her inheritance, which, of course, was not entirely accurate. She said she needed to speak with Taverin about the parting, which had never been fully explained to her. The letter from Hall said that he would speak with Taverin about everything before they met, and he gave the date in which Rein and Traith could arrive. Two weeks.
She jumped up with excitement and threw her arms around Traith. He fell backward onto the armrest, surprised.
“
Was it that good?” he asked.
“
Yes! One fortnight, Traith, and we can go. I think he figures we need that time to get to England from Romania.”
“
Ha,” Traith said. “Doesn’t he know who I am?”
She kissed him, and he melted underneath her.
Lightning continued to strike the foundation of the bastion outside of the canvassed bedroom. Candles were lit, placed at random around the rugged floor and on top of dressers and steps, melting into their positions, and the shadow of two people moving in a bed was clear through the veiled curtains. The room was red, with red, laced lining pinned over the walls, and the velvet rug sparkled vibrantly under the candled bed.
A shadow sat up and leaned out of the curtain shelter. It was a woman with large wings protruding from her shoulder blades. She was dressed in translucent chiffon, and her hair flowed down her back, covering some of what was easily seen. Her arm reached up and smeared across her grinning, red lips, wiping away blood. Her tongue rubbed across long fangs, blood still staining them.
“
What are you brooding about, my dear?” A gasp of a voice asked from behind the curtain.
Her grin turned into a scowl as she licked the side of her lip. She blinked slowly and stared out the window, tucking her wings over her shoulders. “I want them gone,” she hissed vehemently. “Traith Harker, Rein Pierson, and Rein’s last of family—Taverin Badeau.”
“
Why are we thinking on this now?” the man asked. “Give it time; let us not think about them, and come back to—”
“
Time? We have had time enough. Neither of them is going to give in. Neither of them is going to be able to be kept restricted.” She slammed a fist onto a bureau. “We’ve had chances to kill Harker before, and we didn’t! Chances to torment him until he
shriveled
, to beat secrets out of him until he was
smashed
, and instead, we let Ana do with him what she pleased.”
“
She ridded us of him,” he responded. “We had time to become stronger, while Mistress and the rest weakened without him. Think of those we were able to kill with him gone; a whole half of the Council of the Presage! The Mistress is not as strong as she would have us believe, and their council is small now. There was nothing Harker could do about us when he was on the ship, and we destroyed over half their council.”
“
And in all that time, Traith Harker
still
didn’t give in to us, even cursed on that ship! Ana just ruined things. Then our man did the worst possible thing he could do. He toyed with the woman and made the grave mistake that ended his life, thank the Devil. But now there is more than one, and the new Ms. Pierson will become more powerful than their leader. She nearly has. She’ll be unstoppable. Their council is very powerful, Ben, despite their small numbers.”
The man stood up and stretched. “You really think she is stronger than Traith?”
“
Not in sheer strength, but in power and proficiency.” The woman unlocked her bedroom door. “We need to surprise them. Traith has always been cautious when it came to us. He is hard to surprise. But both their minds will be distracted when they go to meet the girl, Taverin. Ben, they need to be weakened now. I do not care how many of our own die in the process; those two must be stopped before it’s too late. First, we must get rid of the girl they are going to see. Make them weaker. Then we can try to restrain them once more. If it doesn’t work, I don’t care how powerful either of them is; we
kill
them. Tanya!”
After a long silence, another woman came down the hall with a small candle in her hand, covered in blood. Her long, auburn hair was tied in a braid hanging over her shoulder. “Interrupting a vampire during a perfect massacre of humans is unwise, Helena.”
“
Tanya, I need you to do something for me. I want you to kill the girl that is the last of Rein Pierson’s family. Make her writhe.”
The woman cocked her head in amusement. “You want me to kill her?”
“
She’s a damnation, Tanya! A human! It would be so simple! And now is the precise time to act. Traith will take Rein to see the girl in a fortnight. We will show up uninvited.”
“
How do you know this?” the man asked, pulling on a light robe. “The exact date, time?”
“
How do you think I know? A small raven told me. Fool! My insight works in many ways. But be careful, all! We must kill the girl, not Rein or Traith yet. She’ll suffer. Then he will suffer. Remember we want them alive, but if that is entirely impossible, we have no choice but to murder them.”
Tanya looked at the small flame of her candle, put her fingers around it, and closed them tight, snuffing out the fire. “Murder is a virtue in my book, Helena.”
The street was filled with life, as was regular in those parts of town. Ladies held umbrellas high to shade their delicate skin from a blistering sun, and gentlemen walked against them with a stride most casual. It was a rather common-man town, but it was a wealthy one nonetheless. The houses were quaint and lovely; gates swung open and wagons parked in the dusty stretches of road; fields stretched across the plains. But the plains were barren now, as if life outside of people was dead. No horses made their homes in the grasslands any longer.