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WITH MAER ASLEEP ON Sloan’s shoulder, I finally allowed myself a sigh of relief. She was on the mend and that was all that mattered. I reminded myself that she was the whole purpose of the escape from Sanlow. The last thing I would want to happen was for her to lose the fight.
I took stock of our next harried situation. Leysa was driving the horses across the night-cooled sands of the desert whose name I didn’t know—if it even had one. There were plenty of stars, not a wisp of a cloud, the moon behind us. Aspen, who, as a half-blood vampire, didn’t need as much sleep as a human did, moved to the backseat to hold on to my scythe and watch for pursuers despite Leysa’s assurance that, apparently, not a single Rhidian or Moros could follow.
Sloan was leaning against my arm, also fast asleep. Having her safe beside me made the knot inside my chest loosen. As long as my sister was on the mend, too, that was that mattered.
We were all covered in sand, splattered with blood, and barefoot. I had no idea what our next location or move was, and it made me want to scream in frustration.
Ever since I’d killed that vampire with a scythe burning with heatless blue flames, I couldn’t shake the feeling of adrenaline. Why did it feel satisfying to kill it?
Bloodlust. A hunter. Enchanted. Penagrum, imb, cinis, sano, igni—words that sounded like a different language, that had the power to trap vampires within a circle, imbue Bloodlust (an unknown inner energy that fueled my anger and prompted the invisible outside force—from what I’d gathered), and set things on fire. On top of that, Sloan had the power to transform one object into a completely different one.
“You, Maer, and Sloan were gifted with the ability,” Leysa had said. “It was just talked about in secret amongst the witches of Dawnhaven—at least, that’s what the rumors I heard said—that there needed to be a bane to vampirekind. They wanted to imbue humans with temporary vampire senses. They would call these humans hunters.”
A few days ago, we were just two Gladiators and a Medic in training. Now, it seemed, we had abilities that surpassed even a coven leader’s.
That didn’t sit very well.
I looked out the dusty window to the endless desert landscape—an entirely different world. I felt like an entirely different me. With each passing event, my confidence to lead my friends to safety was waning. Sloan was right; I wasn’t a planner—but I was steadily realizing I needed to be.
Witches. Another creature for humans to fear? I wondered. Maer, Sloan, and I had only ever known Sanlow. Our bloodlines went as far as—
Two pieces clicked together. The migrations of the vampires—surely they had taken their human cattle with them to settle in Sanlow, one of whom helped them establish it—Galen Shayla. Did some of their cattle include witches? Were witches human, and it was only a title, or were they something else?
Were our ancestors witches?
My heart pounded in my chest, slamming against my ribcage. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Startling the girls awake as I forcefully climbed into the front seat beside Leysa, I snatched the reins from her unsuspecting hands and yanked. The horses reared and bayed, digging their hooves in to slam to a halt.
I received four different indignant shouts of protest.
Leysa glared at me and bared her fangs in a hiss. “What was that for?”
“You’re giving us answers,” I demanded. “We’re not continuing until we’re satisfied.”
“Koen,” Sloan gasped in disbelief, tugging my shirt. “What’s gotten into you?”
I wondered if I looked as crazed as I felt, but my voice was harsh and even. “Tell us the truth, Leysa.”
The half-blood looked at my friends, who I saw in my peripheral vision staring with wary expressions. “They’re thrown off by your character change,” Leysa noted coolly.
“But that doesn’t mean we don’t want the same thing,” Maer snapped. I fought a sudden smile. She’s got my back, I thought. “We’re tired of waiting—tired of being blind about our own pasts. Don’t forget we know how to kill vampires now, so don’t make us angrier.”
A low growl of frustration rumbled in Leysa’s throat. “Can’t you wait until we get to our destination? We’ll get there in—”
“Now.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Fine! Make yourselves comfortable, I guess.”
Choosing to trust her, I climbed back into the carriage, tucking myself between Maer and Sloan while Aspen squeezed in beside Maer. Leysa turned around in the seat and crossed her legs. It felt like children crowding around an elder whom they pestered for a story, except this story was going to be real and true and would decide our future.
The night was steadily giving way to dawn, and I began to notice the temperature rising. But I would rather bake in the unforgiving sun than go another minute not knowing up from down.
Leysa inhaled deeply. “What do you want to know?”
Maer and Sloan opened their mouths, but I spoke over them. “Are we descended from witches?”
The girls gaped at me. “Are we what?!”
Leysa’s brows rose. “Smart little human.” Then her eyes cut between the three of us, sharp as a knife. “You want a straight answer? Yes—at least, a viable guess.
“Vampires have always carted around their food—humans—for as long as anyone can remember. They kept their cattle on leashes from their homelands to Dawnhaven to Sanlow. It was the witches who founded Dawnhaven, succumbed to the vampires’ attacks, and eventually reclaimed it. But many were taken prisoner, added to the herd. Over the years, they started families with humans—”
“Are witches humans?” I interrupted.
“Yes and no,” Leysa answered with a hint of annoyance at being interrupted. “They’re mortal, but they age very slowly. They don’t require blood; their diet is the same as a human’s. But they have the power to harness the impossible.
“An uncountable number of years ago—decades, hundreds, maybe even a thousand—they created their own language to control objects and bend certain things to their will. They can cast spells like the ones on the bridges—protection spells. They can be offensive to aid non-fighters, like transfiguring a rock into a healing potion, for example. Or they can be defensive, like creating an undefeatable weapon.”
“Galen—”
“Galen Shayla is a witch, yes.”
Maer sucked in a sharp breath. Eyes huge, she whispered, “That’s why her shop looks so different...”
Leysa quirked her head. “Did you happen to see a book lying around? Something with a pattern of intersecting triangles on it?”
Maer’s brow scrunched in thought, but then she shook her head. “I saw a book but not anything on it.”
“Hm. Well, there’s a good chance there was. Last I heard, it was going to be the symbol of the hunters. It was she who thought of the idea to create them. To take diluted bloodlines and revive them with full witch power—a secret weapon against vampires that would steadily grow in numbers until they were strong enough to overpower them and free all humans from Sanlow so they could go wherever they pleased, slaves no more.”
“So there are others like us,” Sloan asked carefully. “Or are we the only three?”
“As far as I know, you are test subjects,” Leysa said. “An uprising—that’s what they’re planning, in the end—of this size, big and powerful enough to stand against four covens, takes years to plan and implement. And with witches far and few between, split amongst the covens, it’s a slow-going process. They’re a dying breed.”
“How do you know all of this?” demanded Maer with narrowed eyes.
“I’m nosy,” Leysa purred with a fanged smile, “with keen ears and a thirst for knowledge, as our friend Aspen does.”
Aspen ducked his head in embarrassment.
Her smile faded, and the look in her eyes turned dark. “I don’t like mentioning that I share blood with Tanith from our mother. But the Serpent Queen,” she spat with scorn, “basks in her pedigree, ignoring the fact that our mother was unfaithful with a human man. My father was a Domestic under the historian subcategory. He tended to records of all sorts, from birth certificates to forbidden history books. Historians and librarians are one of the few allowed to traverse to all four covens.
“He was the one who taught me forbidden knowledge. It’s certain that he’s not from a witch bloodline, but with the traveling he was allowed, he came into contact with them, hidden as historians and healers.
“Almost all witches end up as healers; it’s the perfect coverup. Witches keep extensive records of their ancestry. They try their best to keep tradition and the power itself alive, so to anyone they trust, they’ll reveal certain secrets. Having learned them before I was born and being a devout believer in their cause, he decided his daughter would be an asset to it.”
Leysa smiled fondly. “As the years went by and he fed me little morsels of secret knowledge, I grew to who I am today: a defender and leader of the saviors of the trodden.
“So yes, I’m knowledgeable in plenty, including basic spells that neither my father nor I could practice—save a few, like penagrum—but could memorize for the future.
“But,” she continued, her smile turning bitter, “when Tanith decided she wanted the throne, she murdered her parents and my father. It was planned that we would escape Sanlow eventually. There was always the possibility that I would go alone.
“And so I did, taking several half-bloods from across all four covens with me who were also aware of the cause. Few would miss us, and I would escape a terrible fate my half-sister surely had for me. We fled with a course due south—which led us to our first step to uprising: discovering the lost coven of Ophir.”
Leysa looked down at her hands, falling silent. Her voice turned wistful. “We got sidetracked in the mission when I met Vidar. It’s rare that vampires feel love, but I found it in him. We have grand plans.”
There was another long silence. I became aware of the absence of noise in the desert, just the stirring of sand and the faint whistle of a hot breeze—the sounds of emptiness and loneliness.
I’d never been selfish before. But caring about what Leysa might have lost slipped my mind. Shame swept through me. Who am I? Who have I become?
“But he’s not dead,” Leysa said quietly, not looking up. “I can feel it. Our kin have defeated the invaders.”
I leaned forward, heart lurching. “How do you know?”
She lifted her head slightly, eyes gleaming between the strands of hair. She purred huskily, “Because we have witches among our ranks. And they know penagrum and cinis pretty well.”
The mental image of dozens of vampires being caught in circle traps and then turning to ash was equally disturbing and satisfying. I glanced at Maer; she looked deep in thought. Was she wondering if Aeros or Cirillo were among them? Her hand was resting on her stomach. Who was the father? She said it wasn’t planned. My blood boiled. Whoever it was, I would burn them to ash myself.
Calm down, Blackwood, I thought, forcing my anger aside. I didn’t have to be angry now. I’d gotten my answers. Most of them, anyway.
“You want vengeance,” Leysa noted coolly. “You all do. Becoming hunters assures that.” She finally looked up and fixed her amber eyes on Maer. “And it secures the safety of your life as well as your child’s, should you want that for them. Even if you’re on Death’s doorstep, someone you can trust will spare you from that fate.”
Maer’s pale blue eyes burned like the cinis flames. “If that means,” she said in a teeth-clenched whisper, “that someone will Turn me, then you’ll tell them that I would rather die.”
