| |
Esme fed on another one of her helmsmen, yet it did little to ease the gnawing pain in her belly. She needed real nourishment, something that would sustain her and fill the void. She despised hunger almost as much as she hated being forced to kill one of her helmsmen. These were her men, her warriors. They should have been out there gathering blood slaves for her. She shouldn’t have to kill them to survive.
Stale blood wasn’t enough to give her more than a few hours of strength. She wandered back to the gate, where the wards still held firm. She needed an avatar to bring them down permanently.
Esme raised her hand. The gate glimmered with light, but nothing happened. She needed blood from someone with magic to restore her to her full strength. Maybe then she would have a chance of breaking down the ward herself, but she doubted it.
“Curses!” she growled, storming back to her pod chamber. Rummaging inside the pod, she hoped some of her possessions had stayed with her during her hibernation. She’d been too distracted by the wretched hunger to check earlier. Esme dug through the fleshy skin of the pod, burrowing deep until she finally felt something cold and hard. Yanking it out, she stared at the mirror. The glass held no reflection, and only blackness stared back at her.
Show me the avatar, she commanded.
The glass became illuminated with a swirl of colour.
The woman with long ebony hair appeared, this time dressed in a vest and dark trousers. She looked the spitting image of the bitch who’d sent Esme to this hell realm in the first place, cursing her to a fate worse than death.
Her claws dug into her palms as she thought of Aurelia.
Be calm, she told herself. Watch.
“These bodies look human,” Ella remarked as she walked into the room containing the gate.
Esme scoffed. Why would the little avatar be interested in a rotting corpse? Bones did nothing, meant nothing. She laughed. How the mighty avatars have fallen!
“Maybe they were avatars.” A man appeared, dark-haired with dark eyes.
Esme froze.
Him? No, it couldn’t be. How could the very two people who’d opened the portal to her all those centuries ago be here now? Avatars weren’t immortal, they lived and died just like any other scrap of meat.
Yet here they both were, just as they had looked when they’d stepped into her palace millenniums ago.
Her mind wandered back to that fateful day.
Esme reclined, drinking blood from a silver goblet. The contents tasted as good as feeding from the living and sustained her well.
“My queen, human visitors are here asking to speak with you,” announced her helmsman, Storm.
She sipped more blood, enjoying the sweet taste of it. She’d have to ask where it had come from. Perhaps the source would still be alive. She’d savour that morsel, perhaps keep them around as a permanent blood slave.
“What visitors?” she asked, stretching out on her divan. “I know of no one coming here today.” She played with a strand of her long, blood red hair idly.
“They say they travelled here from another realm.”
Esme laughed.
“Such a thing isn’t possible,” she scoffed.
“They look very different from the inhabitants of any of the lands we have visited, my queen,” Storm said. “Should I send them away?”
Esme dipped her hair in the blood then sucked on the end of it. “Let them in. It’s not every day food willingly comes to us.”
The doors groaned open, and two people came in. They appeared to be a male and a female. Both wore bright colours. Both had dark hair and beautiful faces.
Esme set her goblet down on the table beside her, mouth watering. These two would taste delicious. She could almost hear their blood singing to her.
“I am Esme, Queen of the Esrac. Why have you come here?”
“Greetings, Queen Esme. I am Lucan, and this is Aurelia. We are travellers, peaceful explorers from another realm,” the male said. “Thank you for allowing us into your hive.”
Esme stared at them, half-bored. “It’s not often I have slaves come to join me willingly, if ever.”
She cackled.
“Slaves? No, you misunderstand, we’re not from your world. We travelled here in hopes of learning about you and your people,” said Aurelia. “In return, we are willing to share the knowledge of our world with you. Perhaps even trade cultural items and—”
Esme rose, her long leather skirt billowing behind her as she cut the male off. “Your words are strange. I do not trade information, or the secrets of my people. Your kind is food, farmed the same way you might farm livestock.” She moved toward them. “I don’t like talkative food.” She reached out to touch the woman’s face, the suckers on her palm aching to draw the woman’s blood, drain the life from her. This one would be sweet—they both would—and she’d savour them.
Light suddenly flared in Aurelia’s hand, burning like fire. “I’d step away if I were you.”
Lucan took his wife’s arm. “I can see we aren’t welcome here. Please excuse us, my lady.”
Esme stared at the fire in disbelief. None of the morsels in her lands had even basic magic, let alone real power like this. It wasn’t just their blood that called to her, she realised. It was their power. She wanted it for herself.
Both strangers backed away, preparing to leave.
“Wait,” Esme growled. “You are truly not from this realm?”
Lucan nodded. “Please accept our apologies. We’ll not intrude on you any longer.” He bowed his head.
“I want to know how this is possible. None of my people, or the...humankind—” she growled out the word. “—can travel to other worlds.”
She’d always believed other worlds existed, had had her best alchemists look into the possibility. They’d dismissed the theory as nonsense, yet these two strangers came from a realm outside of her own. She had to possess this power.
“Good day, Queen Esme,” Aurelia said politely as Lucan headed for the door.
Esme blurred in front of them.
“Wait, please.” She gave her sweetest smile, fangs glistening. “Forgive me. I did not greet you in a proper manner, and that was wrong of me. I’d be interested in learning more about you and your world. Please, join me.”
The two newcomers glanced at each other hesitantly.
“I’ll have food and wine brought for you. Sit. We have much to discuss.”
The memory faded, and Esme continued to watch the woman examine the bones. She had power, just like Aurelia had. Esme could feel it.
You’re the key to getting me out of this hell. When you do, I’ll enjoy draining you dry. It won’t be a quick death. I’ll make you suffer for every century I’ve spent stuck here, little avatar.
Esme moved away from her pod, setting the mirror down. First, she had to wake the rest of her hive. She’d need a couple of helmsmen to help her enact revenge on the avatar, the Valan and the descendants of the Arkadians. She moved along the row of pods, yanking them open as she went.
“Wake,” she commanded. “Rise and greet your queen.”
Nothing happened.
“Rise, you fools,” she growled, slapping one of them hard.
But none of them awakened. They’d been asleep too long and didn’t have enough blood in their veins left to help them rise.
Esme screamed in frustration. One way or another, she would kill that avatar for what she had done.
