Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (78 page)

I nodded, feeling slightly nauseous with the smell and the lack of air, but, under it all a hard kind of winded feeling compressed my lungs. I looked at Morgana as it all sunk in for her too, and we both let the wave of relief mix with the hope and the fear, bringing us to tears.

“Aw, come on,” David said, stepping in to wrap me up in his arms. “This place is scary enough without
two
girls crying.”

The entire dead, dark underground came alive with breathy joy then as Morgana and I laughed.

***

I wasn’t sure she would linger here in this place now that she’d been set free, but I took a chance that she might still be here, and headed into the forest to tell her about her son. And her grandson.

“Lilith?” I called softly, casting my eyes around the leafy trees, looking through the trunks and beyond to the pitch black of midnight. “Lilith, are you here?”

I felt the pink glow before I saw her, and heard my name in a soft voice as I turned around. She hovered there in the clearing by the Tree of Life, where the Stone of Truth once sat, smiling softly, like a goddess with a secret.

“It has been a long time,” she said.

“I’ve been busy—with Jason. You heard about what happened to him?”

“I did.” Her eyes reshaped with sadness. “I have also recently learned of my son—his passing and the tragic events that led to it.”

“I’m sorry.” I looked down at my feet.

“Do not apologise, Seeker.” Her finger appeared beneath my chin, tilting it back up. “He tried to kill his own granddaughter—”

“To save Sam. And countless other humans, apparently.”

“Yes.” She turned away, closing her eyes a moment and then looking into the tree line as she opened them. “But we are creatures with the gift of Sight, my son and me. We do not get to choose one life over the other simply because we have seen its end. He should not have attempted to alter the course of Fate, and I warned him of this.”

“Then you knew he would come for her?”

“You knew he would, too. Eventually.”

“Yeah, but I thought that was because he wanted to prevent Anandene being born.”

“He did. And you did not need to know the rest. Knowing what you know about Sam could put you all in danger,” she explained. “It is his fate. It is his story—he will die by the hand of Elora, and I have seen no alternative paths. All who try to turn the course of fate will meet their own untimely end.”

“Then you knew Vampirie would die?” I asked, saying his name the way she always did—not the modern way.

“A creature of his kind is never truly dead. One day, when time has passed and Samuel is long gone, we may resurrect my son,” she said, but I knew in my core that I would never let that happen.

“So Sam will die one day,” I said sadly. “And that’s all there is to it?”

“As will a hundred-year-old man,” she said with a smile. “We all must leave this earth eventually, but Sam is here for a reason. And he will die for a reason. And when he does, his soul will be put to use.”

“What use?”

Her smile moved in to shadow her face in secrets again. “Enough has been said already. Now tell me, how is he?” she asked, the smile softening with a thousand fond memories. “The boy—Jason?”

“He’s slowly recovering. I don’t think he’ll ever remember his old life, but he’s…” I thought about his face—how young he looked because of the grin beneath his eyes, yet how, at the same time, he also looked a bit older than David—given that he actually was now. “He’s happy,” I finished.

“And the Spirit Bind?” she asked with interest. “It’s broken?”

I nodded, searching inside myself for the feel of that connection—but it was still gloriously absent. “It seems mortality also breaks its spell—as death does.”

“What good news.” She bunched her hands together beneath her chin. “A happy ending then—for all?”

“For some,” I corrected. “And there’s still the issue of Jase and I being soulmates.”

“But there’s a different kind of love there now, is there not?”

“As in… do I still care for him like a lover?” I asked. “No. I love him deeply—as…” I thought about that. What was this love we had now? Friends? No, it was deeper than that. Brother-in-law to sister-in-law? No, it was deeper than that, too. Brother? Maybe. But a little bit closer. “Perhaps I love him like he’s a part of me—like a son, but also not.”

Lilith laughed. “Then that is a good kind of love.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, my eyes drifting away with thought. “It is, isn’t it?”

“And how is my great-great granddaughter?” Lilith’s face lit up like Vicki’s did when she talked about Elora.

“She’s crawling now, and starting to think about walking. And David’s been sitting her in his lap at the piano once a week to start lessons.”

Lilith laughed, the sound trickling through the air like fresh cool water. “With such a talent for her teacher, I’m sure she will be playing fluently by her first birthday.”

“If by fluently you mean bashing the keys and making an awful racket, she already is.” I moved over to the tree and sat down under its golden glow, all thoughts stopping for a moment as I took in its warmth, closing my eyes and drawing a breath to really
feel
the magic here. When I opened my eyes, Lilith was watching on with a smile.

“It is an amazing feeling.”

“It is,” I said, remembering the way the Other Side felt. I looked behind me at the gates of Elyse, reflected softly in the glow of the tree. “I think about the Lost Souls a lot.”

“I know you do,” she said softly. “I’ve been watching.”

My eyes narrowed as I tried to count how many times I’d seen the little blue bird dancing outside my window recently. “When will I begin my training?”

“You role is a great responsibility, Amara. Not to be taken lightly. I feel it best if we begin your training once the child is fully grown.”

“But what about all those souls in the meantime?” I sat forward off the trunk a little. “They’re suffering.”

“Yesterday, you looked at your daughter and noticed that she’d grown overnight. You held on to a prayer in your heart that you would never look away long enough to miss any of it. And if you begin your task as the Seeker now, she will grow before your eyes and you will be too busy to see. Time moves differently in that realm.” Her eyes swept along the ground slowly until they landed at the gates of Elyse. “Days may go by before you return, and decades will pass before your training is complete.” She looked back at me. “Raise your daughter first, Seeker. And then you can free the Lost.”

With those words, not one ounce of me wanted to argue. My entire heart agreed and moved my head in a nod. And in the silence that followed, I found myself staring up at a seemingly ordinary piece of fruit. My thoughts wrapped around it and travelled backward, touching on everything that led me here—to this moment. Lilith sat in silence while my mind wandered, moving her head slightly to look at me again when a string of questions entered my mind.

“When you offered me that apple on the condition that I show David what I did with Jason, and tell him about Arthur, what was it exactly that you needed to see?” I asked. “I know you said you wanted to see if he was worthy, but how could his reaction to what I told him about Arthur show you that?”

“To prove your worth as Queen, you took the Walk of Faith; you were tested beyond the normal emotional limits of any average being. But David was sworn in only by your word that he was a good, kind man. Yet the David I had come to know was cold and mean—not worthy of the power he received from the Stone or the right to walk eternally beside my descendant. I needed to push him to the limits to see how he reacted.”

“So, you were pleased that he ran away from me and then burned the training hall down?”

“Pleased that he did not hate you. In his heart, not one ounce of all that hatred he felt was for you. Not even after he saw what you did with his brother. I knew then that his love would stand the test of time. I knew then that he loved you as much as the other boy did. I knew then that his soul was not as impure as I first believed.”

“What did his soul have to do with it, though?”

“I did not know then what the Fruit of Wisdom would show you. Had it shown you that you must give the child David’s soul and be eternally happy with Jason, I needed to be sure that he was not pure evil. And if the Fruit showed you another path—one where you might save both boys—I needed to be sure that he was worthy of remaining as King for eternity. I knew the time was approaching where our fates would intertwine—where you would set me free of my burden to the Stone, and that I would then move on from this place, leaving it in the hands of the new King and Queen. I owe this entire great land to the power of that seed I planted and there is magic here beyond imagination.” She looked around at the treetops, her eyes filled with wonder. “I would not leave it so lightly in the hands of an evil man—one that could not love his wife enough to forgive her.”

I felt a weight lift as it all fell together, all the pieces of my life here that had never really made sense. Lilith acted for the sake of the Stone—the power that was beneath it all along and, second to that, she acted to protect the bloodline—those that would, eventually, be charged with the protection of the Tree. One day, Elora would assume that role, and if she was lined with an impure soul, she would not be worthy of her inheritance or, worse, she might abuse it as Anandene did.

I nodded at Lilith, smiling. “I understand now.”

“I knew you would. One day.”

***

Mike laid another plate of cheese, crackers, and his amazing guacamole onto the table, moving out of the way quickly as Ryan dived in for a double dip.

“Gross!” Alana shrieked, grabbing a cracker and scooping up Ryan’s ‘germs’ from inside the bowl. “Don’t do that.”

Ryan laughed, taking the contaminated cracker and popping it in his mouth.

Mike smirked at me, standing back with his arms folded. “Ara’s the same—she double dips, I mean,” he said, and I caught a flash of a thought in his mind—a joke, about double dipping into siblings. He stopped it as quickly as he thought it, though, laughing to himself as he walked back into the kitchen—my kitchen.

While David talked with Em and Alana about current events, I sat scanning the old dining room of the house I once lived in—in another life, it seemed. I would always own this little house, but I couldn’t bring myself to live in it now—not after everything I went through here. It felt like a place in my past that I would only ever visit but never return to. And since I owned it outright, it didn’t matter if it sat here empty for months on end, waiting for a visitor to come from another country or state that needed a place to stay. I guess it had now become a sort of
Ara’s Friends and Family Holiday House.

“…I was just saying that to Em,” Alana said with a laugh. “There’s one bedroom left in this house to fit another baby.”

Em smiled sweetly, reaching for the dip. “When I’m human again, I want to spend at least six months eating everything I don’t really enjoy as a vampire.
Then
I’ll think about a baby.”

“You’ll be pregnant before we return from the honeymoon,” Mike said, folding his arms and leaning against the kitchen counter.

“What makes you so sure?” Em said with a cracker filling out her cheek.

“Because, while you can’t resist food, you also can’t resist something else.” When he winked at her, she looked down shyly, and we all cringed, making a point of it vocally.

Mike laughed, shaking his head as he turned away to pour some more drinks.

“I still can’t believe it,” Alana said. “I always suspected David was a vampire, but knowing now is… it’s really cool.”

“And maybe now you know vampires can be made human again, you might change your mind about being turned?” I suggested, looking at Ryan, since he seemed to have the final say.

He shook his head at Alana and she just smiled to herself.

“Ryan likes his food too much,” Alana said, hugging Ryan’s skinny arm. “But maybe once we’ve started a family he’ll change his mind.”

“Why then?” Ryan asked.

“Because you’ll be scared something will happen to one of us, and our children will end up in your mother’s care.”

Ryan cringed, but then laughed. “You’ve got a good point. So it’s a maybe.” He pointed at me with a cracker. “A big maybe.”

“Yay!” I clapped once, bouncing in my seat. A maybe was as good as a yes.

“So what’s happening with Drake?” Em asked. “Has Morgana called yet to say he’s awake?”

“No.” I pouted. “But it took a few days for Morg to wake up—”

“It’s hard to say, Emily,” David cut in. “All vampires—all Originals are different. There’s no one set of rules, and we’re avoiding getting Ara’s hopes up too much.”

“That’s bollocks.” Mike sat down, bringing a tray of cocktails with him. “Let her hope. She needs it. Look at her—” He extended his arm, motioning to my face, “—she doesn’t stop thinking about it. Any idiot can see that.”

“She loves him,” Em said. “Of course she’s thinking about him.”