Chapter 23

W e are a procession seventy-some strong. The prison area has been thoroughly cleared, as has the entry level and everything beneath it; Zirae, the other surviving members of the Tribunal, and their remaining forces have abandoned the bulk of the mountain base, choosing instead to hole up near the peak, behind what Belliah claims will be several layers of immensely powerful wards which cannot be unlocked from the outside.

Intel from those who have taken my mark of fealty estimates another hundred or so warriors wait for us, not including the members of the Tribunal.

I've finally learned the names of the Tribunal.

Zirae, whom I've met; Elias, my grandfather; Salome, an ancient Judean queen; and Isis, a Babylonian princess, representing the fae.

Horeb, a Philistinian general; Toresh, an Egyptian prince, the forgotten bastard son of the Pharaohs from the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom; Amalfia, a warrior queen from a Third Century A.D. Germanic tribe; and Freya, a Norse warrior after whom most of the Norse myths base the goddess upon, representing the vampires.

Sinoa, a chieftain of an ancient and long-forgotten Polynesian people; Hagones, a warrior of the Seneca tribe of Native Americans, after whom the Seneca named their trickster god; Nomkhubulwane, a shapeshifter goddess of the Zulus; Ch'aska, a queen who became the Incan goddess of dawn and twilight, representing the shapeshifters.

What is not known is who among the twelve sitting rulers of the Tribunal will be on my side and who will stand with Zirae. My grandfather is the youngest member of the Tribunal by a thousand years, and the newest initiate, inducted after Magnus Flavius Vespanianus, a forgotten bastard son of Titus Flavius Vespasianus—better known as Emperor Vespasian—voluntarily vented due to age-sickness, an event which mortal history remembers as the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. Apparently, Aeldfar has been sitting on the Tribunal in an informal capacity since 1883, but the Tribunal didn't see fit to officially induct him until his success with the breeding program that resulted in me.

What confuses me is that the Tribunal and the IRRC consider the program that resulted in Theris, Aquilia, and myself a resounding success, but they then went out of their way to bury the results—literally. Raphael, my sire, is the only surviving member of the breeding program, and it's not entirely clear, according to those whom I've questioned thus far, why he still lives.

So many questions. Why go to so much trouble to find a solution to immortal reproduction, find said solution, and then hide the results and kill anyone connected to it?

Did Aeldfar know Mom was going to be executed? Did he know about the various attempts on my life? Was he party to the execution of the others involved in the breeding program, Meaning, Theris's and Aquilia's parents?

Raphael knows very little, having been kept in that cell for the majority of the last twenty years. He knows there were male and female subjects from each race. So, he was the male vampire and my mother the female fae, resulting in me. The female vampire and the male shifter are the parents of Theris, and the male fae and female shifter are the parents of Aquilia. Each subject was the child of a member of the Tribunal or the Council, whose members were the eldest immortals considered to be the second tier of eldest and most powerful immortals after the Tribunal. Except for Raphael, apparently. Where he fits in no one seems to know, and now isn't the right time to interrogate him.

I cannot comprehend the thought process or sequence of events that could lead the members of the Tribunal and IRRC to choose to execute their own children, after subjecting them to the breeding program in the first place.

But then, it has been made clear to me thus far that those immortals are corrupt, age-sick, mad, evil, depraved, and vile.

If they will not join me in re-making the leadership of immortal society, then they must either choose exile or death.

We will not be led by a corrupt oligarchy anymore.

I chew on these many answerless questions and obscured sequences of events and depraved individuals and my own personal convictions as we ascend the mountain, winding up stair after stair and trooping down hallway after hallway, clearing rooms and finding no one.

"Mae?" Caspian, at my side, speaks up after several long minutes of silence.

I look at him. "Yes, my bloodmate?"

"What…" he takes my hand, tracing the fangs inscribed in white-and-gold ink, and the red droplets of blood on my hand. "What happened to you?"

I frown at him. "What do you mean? You know what happened to me. I have not kept it secret."

He shakes his head. "No, I know the facts—the events."

'Then…I confess I'm uncertain what you're asking, my love."

"You speak differently. You've always, since I met you, had a way of surprising everyone, including yourself, with unexpectedly advanced and brilliant uses of magic, but lately, it's even more over the top and…I don't know." He shakes his head, frowning. "I don't know, Maeve, but you're… different ."

"It's a combination of things, I think." I thread my fingers with his. "I've…I guess I've had to grow up. Not just in, like, a nineteen-year-old girl sense, as in a mortal girl on her own in the world. Obviously, discovering I'm not mortal at all was a shock, and not only does this whole world exist, but I'm part of it. And more, I'm something that has never existed."

I let out a sigh. We walk in silence a moment or two.

"All that is enough, you'd think," I say. "But no. The same corrupt leaders who subjected my mother to what she went through and then killed her for it, for daring to try and give me a chance at a life…they want me dead. They chased me all over the country. I discover who and what I am, and become your bloodmate—something I am proud to be, Caspian. I discover that what I know of human sexuality doesn't apply to me. I have a coven—a whole group of men who…desire me. But the rules are different, and I don't understand them. I don't understand my own body, my desires, my needs. I just… do things, and those things kill people, Cas. A lot of people. I've never seen death directly, not until this. Mom just… didn't come home one day."

I feel my eyes sting, and blink back the complicated sensation of my tears—bloodtears and prana-infused fae tears.

"We're attacked in New York. I do things…awful things. Tearing people apart limb from limb, drinking their blood, their prana…and then Calliope? And then as if all that isn't enough, I'm brought here . I understood within an hour that Caleb was acting not out of greed, or evil, or anything but his responsibility to his pack. I never blamed him for bringing me here, not for a second."

"Well, that makes one of us," Caspian mutters.

I pivot and walk backward in front of him, taking both of his hands in mine. "You have to move past that, Cas. If you knew they had not just me but Alistair, Fin, and Stirling, and if you didn't go capture and deliver some random girl they'd kill us all? And you knew they'd likely kill them all anyway…what would you do?"

He truly considers the question. Sighs. "Fuck. I'd do it. No question. I assume he didn't know much about you?"

I shake my head. "Not until he came face to face with me. Apparently, as a mortal, I'd called him to me in my dreams—in The Dreaming. Every night. I'd fall asleep and dream, and my dreams would call him to me. Then, he just thought it was some weird fluke, some random mortal girl with more mana than usual. And then he met me in person in that alley, and he knew me, and he realized it was…more."

"Like…fated?"

I nod. "Yes, like fated. He knew I'd need him, and knew he'd need me, so he stayed up on top of the mountain, hidden, waiting for me in The Dreaming." I shake my head, sighing. "What I went through here, Caspian…there aren't words. The mage-cuffs…I partitioned my magic away so the cuffs couldn't reach it. But that made me helpless, and it seemed impossible to de-partition myself. I almost didn't. They almost sterilized me, too, Cas. They strapped me to a table and…" rage and agony I've been ignoring and suppressing flare, and I feel my magic burn—the hallway we're in is dark and ill-lit, and the glow of my hair—now pure white—casts weird shadows on everything around us, shadows that move in dissonance to reality.

"They murdered the life in my womb, Cas. Our child. Our son our daughter. Like it was nothing. And I couldn't stop them." My knees quake and give out. "I couldn't stop them, Cas. I tried. I fucking tried!"

He scoops me up and nuzzles my cheeks, kissing the bloodtears away. "I know. I know you did everything you could, my love."

"It wasn't enough. They murdered my mother. They murdered my child. I…I wasn't ready to be a mother, but…they had no right." I bury my face in my mate's chest and let myself cry for a moment. I feel the silence. Feel the eyes of my people watching me fall apart.

I force the emotion back in—now is not the time for the breakdown I know I'm due.

"Put me down, please," I say. When he does, I square my shoulders. Continue my…explanation, I suppose. "I managed to de-partition before they could sterilize me. I vented, essentially, but not exactly. Vaporized dozens of immortals, most of them innocent, just doing their jobs. And then I…I went feral, Cas. Not bloodlust…just…pure fury. I killed everyone I saw. They managed to subdue me—they almost killed me. And then…" I shake my head. "That's not even discussing what Zirae did to me. The ward—the cuffs. The agony I went through, daily, the entire time."

"I felt it," Caspian whispers. "I felt it all. Not…not as intensely as you did, I'm sure, but…I felt it."

"So, yeah. I went into The Dreaming." I sniffle. "It was…quiet, there. Peaceful. The bond-sickness didn't touch me there. And…Caleb was there. He comforted me when I needed it most. He was just there. At first I…I didn't understand. I thought it was just a dream. Like, up until a certain point, I just felt like what happened in The Dreaming was…not real. Like, not the same kind of real as what happens here, in The Waking. But then…something happened in The Dreaming with Caleb that made it apparent that it was real. I was physically affected in The Waking by what happened in The Dreaming."

"You mated with him."

I lean against him. "Yes. I…I needed comfort. And he was there. And it…it was…" I swallow hard and force the words out because they're true. "It was right , Caspian. To be with him. I knew it. I felt it. Just as right as it felt to be with you. And that confused me. Because I never forgot about you. Not for a moment. I felt and still feel guilty. Even though my bond with Caleb is…" I fight the truth out. "It's just important and precious to me as our bond. And he helped me understand that I can love you both equally. I am not limited. My love is infinite, Cas."

"He's a shifter," he whispers.

"Yes! He is!" It comes out more forcefully than I intended. " We are the change, Cas. We have to be. If anything has changed me, as you say, then it's this truth: I have a responsibility to all immortals. I have to set the standard. I have to show the way. I don't know what's happening out there—I can't think about it, either. I have to focus on this, here and now—the battle in front of me. But out there, immortals will be looking to me ." I look up at Caspian. "They call me the WorldBreaker. Did you know that? I didn't want this. When was it I was just a mortal girl living in LA, hating school, and worrying about the popular girls not liking me? A lifetime ago. A different person ago. Now I'm the WorldBreaker. I either already did or I will break the world. Do you have any fucking clue how that feels? To be the breaker of the FUCKING WORLD ? Of immortal society and culture? Mortal culture, too, probably? How do I bear that weight, Cas?"

"You don't bear it alone, Maeve. You have me. You have us. All of us. Caleb included." His eyes are dark and intense and human. "I love you. Yes, it hurt when I felt you mate with him. When I felt that pleasure and knew it was coming from someone outside the coven. It hurt. I was jealous. I…I've been taught my whole life that shifters are…dangerous. Not like us. That their animal can take over."

I laugh. "It seems bigotry is not exclusive to mortals. That's all bullshit, Cas. They're just people. Immortals, like you, like our coven. Like your mother. They just want to love and be loved, to be free, to have children, to be accepted. They have lived oppressed and forced to exist in secret, barred from bearing children, forced to watch entire family lines die out— just…like…you . Immortals are on the brink of extinction, Caspian. We are not gods. We do not deserve to rule over mortals simply because we live long lives and have abilities mortals do not. But we do deserve to live freely. To not hide our bodies, our abilities, our very selves. We deserve to mate, and marry, and have children."

I feel attention on me and realize my voice has risen, and my little gathering of less than a hundred immortals are all listening.

So I turn and address them all, even as I speak to Caspian directly.

"Yes, this means that over time those of the First Blood, you fae, vampires, and shifters, you will become the minority. You will be fewer and fewer as decades and centuries pass by. But that means you are all the more important. You alone know the true history of the world we live in—the history taught by mortals, the history I was taught, is incomplete at best, and wholly inaccurate. It will be up to you, you of the First Blood, the Primi, to continue the traditions and lineages and histories of your families, your race. What makes a fae, fae? Is it magic? Is it prana? What does it mean to be a vampire? Merely the need for blood? And no, not mortal blood. Immortal blood is far more powerful. Shifter blood is not repugnant…but it tastes far, far better when it is given freely rather than taken by force, I can tell you that. And you shifters… what defines you? Your animal? Your pack? These are the questions you must answer. These are the questions we fight to answer. Those up there?" I jab my finger to the ceiling, feeling the words just…pour out, unbidden and powerful. "They don't want to let us answer those questions. They want us to die out. They don't care, as long as they stay in power. And yes, I know, the upheaval that will result from the answer will be… devastating. Already, I hear, the world beyond this mountain is reacting—changing. Our work has just begun. Removing the Tribunal from power is only the first step. We have a long, long road ahead of us. The path will be dangerous, bloody, and painful." I turn and point behind me. "I do not compel you beyond this door."

A pair of double doors stand behind me. Twenty feet tall, forged from iron and silver, stamped with a unique symbol: a triangle within a circle, with four dots at each point of the triangle arranged outside the circle. The insignia of the Tribunal.

The doors are heavily warded—the heat of the ward radiates so intensely that we have stopped a full fifty feet away. This ward rivals, and perhaps even surpasses, the ward on the main gates.

"We fight for a new world. We must create it, together. But first, we must break the old one. Our goal is not to kill anyone who stands in our way but to change minds . Death must be the last resort—there are too few of us as it is—we immortals are on the cusp of extinction, as I have said, as you all doubtless understand far better than I. The preservation of life must be the highest priority. So, then, it is not the world I am here to break, but the old ways of doing things."

"Will you replace the Tribunal with yourself, then?" Comes a voice—Raphael. My sire. Stepping forward, coming face to face with me. "Will we trade an oligarchy for a monarchy?"

"I do not seek to rule. What will the future look like? What will replace the Tribunal? I don't know. But no, to answer your question, I have no intention or desire to become a queen over anyone. I lead now because it seems it has been placed on my shoulders. If anyone else thinks they can break this ward and face Zirae and whomever else on the Tribunal is on his side, then please, step forward and make yourself known. I am only doing what seems right to me, one step at a time. I am fallible. I am frightened. But I will do what I must—and I can only do it with you, all of you, supporting me."

Raphael's grin as he fades back into the crowd tells me he asked the question as a test, and I passed.

My sire is an interesting vampire, that's for sure.

"Hail, Queen!"

The chant erupts as one voice, and soon the very hall echoes, shivers, trembles with immortal voices raised in unison.

Caspian stares at me as I turn to face the ward, and his expression is thoughtful, curious—as if seeing me in some new light.

Caleb pushes through the crowd, wraps an arm around my waist, and presses a hot, hungry kiss to my lips.

"Hail, Queen," he murmurs.

And then amber light flares and Wolf stands panting in his place.

Caspian circles to my other side, snugs his fingers into my white-glowing hair at my neck, nips my lip to loose a freshet of blood, and kisses me with such passion that my sex ignites with need.

"Hail, Queen, indeed," he whispers. "Fuck the Tribunal, baby. Break this fucking ward and let's do this."