Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Page Eleven—I search for the books.

I search and wish they would find me.

I wipe a line of blood from my arm, dripping from the fresh bite mark on my shoulder. It's a sore spot that will hurt every time I move, but it will heal eventually, like all the others. Sometimes I run my hands over my scars, the thousands of them that litter my body like artwork, and remember the time when there were none. When I was a starving kid in the orphanage, who just wanted someone to love her. Sometimes I wish I had died in that orphanage. Other times, I'm glad I was chosen by the king.

The king lies naked next to me on his stomach, and there is a dead fae woman on the floor. He killed her before having sex with me, and I did nothing but smile. I did nothing but pretend I don't feel sick to my stomach every time he is inside me. Every time he drinks my blood and groans how perfect I am. How he would turn me if he didn't love my blood. If he didn't love me. I don't think he understands what love means. I don't think I do. No one has claimed to love me except for him, and if this is what love is, then I don't want it. I'd rather spend a lifetime without love.

I stare at the only marks on the king's body. Burns in a decorative mark, and sometimes I think the shape almost looks like a tree with strange symbols woven into the branches. I've never been brave enough to ask him what happened.

I only know he is a king of a race he created and dark magic must have been involved. That book still haunts me, and it's been two weeks since I heard it last. I've made every excuse I could to avoid going back into the mountain because I don't want to hear that voice. I don't want to see those creatures, even if they are flying in the skies day and night. Those awful screeches fill the silent night, and I wince. I've struggled with sleep since getting here, and I doubt I will ever sleep well while the Silkvir fly above me.

Will I ever be free? Or is this the life that I'm going to have now and absolutely nothing else? I climb off the bed and go back to the bathing rooms to clear off the blood and other things from my skin. I'll never truly feel clean, but it helps. The water's freezing as I wash myself, but I'm not waking any fae to get hot water. They are all run off their feet helping the Silkvir riders that have started to appear. Thousands of them, and all the vampyre riders ride their Silkvir well enough that I know the king has been training them for years like he claimed. They are fast, trained and deadly. There is going to be a war, and the dragon riders have no idea what is coming.

I scrub at my skin, again and again, desperately trying to get rid of stains only I can see. The feel of the king on me. My skin is red raw when I finally drop the scrubber into the dirty, bloodstained water and climb out. I dress lightly in a thin dress that was given to me by the workers here. It wraps around my shoulders, glossy soft material, and it covers me from my neck down to my wrists, hiding all of my scars. It will also stop the bugs from snapping at me in the heat. It's never truly dark here, but the light fades to orange in the middle of the night, and I prefer it. I head outside the front of the tent, just for some fresh air. The hazy, thick, humid air slams into me like a wave of the sea.

I remember swimming in an oasis in my village as a kid. It was my very first memory and last one I have of my parents being happy. My mother's shiny red hair, my dad's cheeky smile. I remember this heat, how good it felt in the warm water, and for a moment I let myself be back there. My wet hair falls around my shoulders, and I hear a dripping noise. I assume it's my hair, but something makes me look at the royal guard vampyres outside the front. They don't move. I frown at them, wondering why they're so still until I find the source of the dripping noise. Blood is pouring down from their necks, and I stumble back. A gasp is the only noise I can make before a slender hand wraps around my mouth. I can't scream.

The queen leans into my back. "Silent." She tightly wraps her arms around me, and everything moves so fast that I can't breathe. I gasp in the air, trying to focus on anything at all as I'm dropped onto the sand. The queen stands over me as I crawl backwards, the hot sand burning my hands. We're far outside the village, and no one will hear me scream here. "Don't scream."

"Please don't kill me." I put my hands up in the air. "Please. You know I don't want to be with him. It means nothing to me. I want to live and I…" I search for more words she wants to hear. "I'm just a toy to him. You're his queen."

She laughs and if it wasn't this woman, I'd say it was a pretty sound. The queen's silver fangs flash in the orange light, and they match her soft locks of hair that fall down her shoulders. "You believe I'm a monster, and I am one. I crushed every inch of my good heart until it never beats. I did that to save my life and that of my children. You do the same every time he touches you. Am I correct?"

My heart races so fast, and a cold sweat drips down the back of my neck. "Yes. Are you going to kill me? Drain me?"

She sweeps out the red gown she is wearing, moving to a rock and perching comfortably on it. "Do you know every blood slave that he's taken to his bed has red hair? Every single one looks like his previous wife. His obsession with her never ends. He chose me because I reminded him of his home in the Dawn Dynasty, where I was born. My mother, she married a distant relation to the crown and had a prince before she remarried and had my sister and me. My brother would never have taken the throne, he didn't have enough royal blood, but he was invited to court often. I had no royal blood in me, not a single drop, but I was dragged along with him. I wish my mother and brother never took me." She looks up at the sky. "In the Dawn, the stars used to look like orange burning flames at a certain time of night. I haven't seen that in so long. He never allows me to travel to my old home because he knows if I look into the past, I might remember who I am underneath the monster."

She pulls a metal box out from under the rock and slightly opens the lid. I feel the horrid magic from the book hit me in the chest, and I put my hand up between us. She shuts the box before the book can talk to me. "You know what this is and what it means for me to have stolen it. I cannot stop the riders of the Silkvir, but I can do this. My husband thought nothing could remind me of home, but he didn't look at our youngest daughter for long enough. She looks just like my mother and sister. She is my home and my reminder." She lifts her head high. "I have done terrible acts and I do not regret them. I had to pretend in order to keep my daughter alive and to see out my plan. I knew he would find the book in the end."

"Why are you telling me all of this? Why take me?" I question, climbing to my feet with confidence that I don't feel. The queen is talking about her "terrible" acts like they aren't mass murder and torture of thousands of fae. I've heard what she is, and she has always scared me more than the king. "I don't understand what you want."

"You need to leave, and I need you to take the box with you. There are few fae with the power in their blood left to be able to travel with the book and not be turned by it." The queen rises to her feet. "There's two horses in the palm trees behind you, and my daughter is on one of them. She knows not to touch the box or the book and to let you lead. She's going to protect you as far as she can, but she has her own way to go to make sure her father can't find her again. Take this book, go to the mansion, to the dragon riders. It needs to be returned to them before the king flies."

"Why don't you just take it yourself?" I wave my hands out. "I'm just a lessborn fae blood slave, and you're trusting me with this?"

"I will die this night, but he will not find you. It will hurt him more to have you betray him alongside me." She smiles like a woman scorned, but sadness bleeds into her lifeless eyes. "It's been a long time since I've done something that's good. I've killed endless amounts of your kind just to try to feel something again. To be the cold-hearted queen he wished for. When I was changed, all emotions bled out of me, more than I bled out at every delivery of the royal children that he made me keep having. He corrupts them one by one. My youngest daughter—she's different. She was not born corrupt, and the king never paid any attention to her. She is the only child I chose and could love. She made me want more for her than this life. My son, the heir, he is very much like his father, and he will not stop. Something must change this cycle. I had given up hope that anything ever could change. I stopped praying to the deities the day I was changed." I didn't know that vampyres hoped for anything. "I was fae once. I was alive. I lived and loved my family. Like this," she says, gesturing to her vampyre features, "all I want is death, and I definitely will dance with death tonight."

I think she wants to die. I will end up dead with her when the king catches up to me. "No distraction is going to be long enough for me to get away. He has flying creatures to chase me!"

She places the box at my feet. "I am not alone, stupid girl. You will have a few days' ride ahead of him, and he won't find you. There is a boat waiting to take you close to the Nightwell city. There is a barrier, but that book will get you through it. Just take it out and walk in."

I shiver even thinking of touching that book. It feels wrong. "Again, why me? I don't believe you that hurting him is the reason you are using me."

"Check the bag on the horse," she cryptically offers. "I've been watching you and your family for a long time, Avaluna."

My blood runs cold, and she waves to the thick palm trees about a mile away. "Go and fucking smile, young one. You're about to be free." She tilts her head to the side. "You look the most like her. Except for that one blood slave my son found. Her name's Story Dehana. Did you meet her?" I nod. "I tortured her myself and I tasted her blood to see…I was right." She pauses as she talks so casually about hurting Story. "And when the king gets his hands on her, it won't matter what my son wants. If you find her alive, tell her to run and hide before my husband ever sets his eyes on her."

The queen leaves; nothing but a rustling of the sand is left and that box. I look down at the box, feeling the immense power stretching out of it before reaching for it with shaky hands. Even touching the box feels wrong, and I shiver from head to toe. My eyes widen as I see the mountain shake, right before rumbles and blasts explode into the night. The entire mountain caves in on itself, black smoke pouring into the air as I stumble back. She blew it up. She wasn't alone. The king should have never underestimated his queen. She might be a monster, but she isn't right at this moment.

I turn and run straight for the palm trees and the princess waiting for me. I'm still surprised to see her, two black horses waiting in the middle. She is all in black, a cloak hiding her silver hair, but her clear blue eyes find mine. "We must leave. We have a three-week ride ahead of us, and it takes two weeks to travel the sea. Anything could go wrong and if you aren't up for this, run away now."

Caelina is the last person I thought I'd be running away with. I don't know her or trust her, but here I am. The best chance I'm ever going to get. I'm back in the forest. A black cloak lies on the saddle of the horse I'm taking, and I grab it, chucking it on to hide my own red hair. I slip the box into a bag attached to the horse's saddle, pausing when I see the other book in there. The Twilight book I was hiding under the bed. The queen knew I had it. I frown as I close the bag and climb up onto the horse, thankful for all the travels the king took me on.

He taught me how to be a blood slave, but also how to ride, how to be fast, and I am using that to escape. I look at the princess, the one who looks so much like her mother, who just saved my life. "My name is Avaluna. As long as you keep your teeth away from me, princess, I won't run."

The princess nods once. "Caelina. Not princess. I want nothing to do with my royal blood. It's the name my mother gave me in secret, and I'm using it now. I hope you can ride well."

I nod before I touch my horse's neck and silently thank the deities as the sky fills with black smoke, and the ground shakes so hard the sand shifts under my feet. My heart leaps as I look at the desert stretched out in front of me and lead my horse into it. She runs like she can feel my heart race, like she knows what this moment means. I finally let the rage I've held deep down burn through my blood, and I promise never to dampen it again.

In all the years I've breathed the warm air of the Lightsun lands, it suddenly tastes like freedom.