Chapter 39

RED

T here is a river of red that flows through the heart of the Blood Woods. I wonder whether it connects to the Lantis Ocean, the crimson colour reminiscent of the glittering rubies on the ocean's surface. I kneel and run my fingers through the cool ripples, letting it splash up my knuckles. It's clear when it touches my skin, and I wonder what kind of magical illusion it is that makes the water red in our city.

I don't want to do this. I don't want to fight Lincoln or Talulla. Let alone any of the vampires.

Since the riots in the market, and the spirit trial especially, we're not exactly peaceful, but there is a shared understanding for everything we've been through. This trial feels like it's shoving a blade between all the progress we've made.

But worse, given what Amelia has told me, what happens if I accidentally injure one of them or worse, kill them?

Then I transform? Become this thing everyone wants me to be?

What about what I want?

What if I don't want to step into this role? If I do, would I really be any different from the vampires who took my family? Would I be a monster like them?

I scold myself silently because Octavia is one of those people, and I don't see her as a monster. Perhaps I could find a way to see myself as something other than a monster?

I shake my head and stand up, brushing the river water off onto my trousers.

It doesn't matter. I don't want to become the dhampir because I don't want to be responsible for that kind of power.

I don't want to become one of them.

Even if that means sacrificing myself.

I knead my temples, attempting to stave off the headache brewing deep in my skull. This trial, more than any other, has us all rattled. Even Dahlia is behaving oddly. She was playing nice with Octavia as if they hadn't taken chunks out of each other at the partnering ceremony. Like they haven't spent centuries hating each other.

The trees rustle in with a nonexistent breeze, and several burnt ochre and red leaves drift to the ground.

I glance up, but there's nothing there. No person, no animal skittering through the canopy. I frown and turn back to the river, only to leap out of my skin.

"The fuck, Sadie? You sneak up on me like that, it's enough to give me a heart attack," I say, trying to bring my breathing back to normal.

She laughs. It's silent, but her open mouth and rocking shoulders are a giveaway. She raises her hands and signs at me. "I was trying to take the competition out early."

I tense up. Did I put myself in danger by meeting her? She pouts, her eyes glimmering in the dappled moonlight showering through the trees.

"Were you?" I ask.

She shakes her head, smiling. She was making a joke? The pressure gripping my shoulders eases away.

"Then why did you ask me here?" I ask.

Her lips press together. She glances over my shoulder and scans the surrounding area. When she's satisfied there's no one in the vicinity, she signs.

"You're ready."

"For wh?—"

She tilts her head at me.

"You're offering to give me my memories back?"

She rubs her thumb over her middle and index fingers in the same way I remember my father doing as he proudly told us he'd secured a higher paying job.

I sigh. "You'll give them back for a price?"

She nods and signs, "And it won't come cheap. So how much do you want the memories, Red?"

"More than anything."

"Why is it you want them?"

"Because she took them. Octavia took them and even though she says it was by my request, she won't return them now despite my asking. She's controlling a piece of me, and that's the kind of behaviour I hate from people in power. I want to love her with my whole heart, but I can't. How am I supposed to love someone who keeps a piece of me that isn't theirs to have?"

"So it's about love?" she says.

"And power."

That makes her smile. "Is there a difference?"

I open my mouth to answer and find I cannot. Are love and power really the same? If I love her, does she have power over me? If she loves me, do I wield power over her? Are any of us really free? If we love another, do we sacrifice that freedom for them? Or perhaps we gift it to them. Maybe that is the true power of love—we gift our hearts, our souls and the freedom we breathe. We drop it into the hands of our lovers, praying they'll keep it safe. Keep us whole. Keep our freedom nestled alongside theirs.

"Perhaps not," I finally answer.

She nods at me as if she approves of my answer. "I'll give you what you want. But I'm certain this is one of those times where you should be careful what you wish for. Sometimes things leave us for a reason. Some secrets should stay hidden."

I take a moment to catch up with what she said. Replay the signs in my head, processing her words, and as I comprehend each one, my skin grows colder. Like her words are an omen, a warning filled with ice.

I shake it off. She hasn't seen my memories yet. Which makes me pause. What if she can go into any of my memories? What if she works out who I really am?

"If I share my mind with you, will you be able to access my other memories?"

"Yes, but if I did, you'd know about it and be able to throw me out of your head. I'll only access what has been lost to you."

"Then tell me, what is the price you require?" I ask.

"Mother is only going to make one of each pair fight this evening."

I frown. "What? Why? I figured we'd all have to fight each other."

She shrugs. "I don't pretend to understand her motives. But I request you fight in Octavia's place..."

She leaves her hands hanging as if there's more to that sentence.

"And?" I ask. "Because that's not the end of the sentence."

"No, it's not," she shakes her head, her eyes dropping away from mine, and that's when I understand whatever she's about to ask is going to be the price that will hurt.

Finally, she glances up again and holds my gaze. "I need you to let Dahlia win."

I snort out a laugh. "You're kidding?"

But her face remains expressionless as she holds my gaze.

"Fuck me, Sadie, you are kidding, right?"

But she continues to stare at me. The dull ache in my head roars back to a pulsing throb. "Mother of Blood. You're asking me to sacrifice our chance of winning the trials. That would kill Octavia emotionally and risk our shot at winning. And you forget, I want that cure as much as she does."

"Just because you win the trials, does not mean you'll win the race to the boundary," she signs.

"That's true. But it's beside the point. It would kill Octavia. It's a total betrayal of everything she wants."

"And she took your memories. Many more, I fear, than you're aware of… don't you want those memories? Don't you want to see what she took from you?" she signs and folds her arms.

I narrow my eyes at her. "Why do you want Dahlia to win?"

"Does the reason matter? If you're getting your memories, then you're getting what you want," she signs.

"Of course it matters. You're asking me to betray my teammate."

"If you want to keep your memories private, and me out of your head, then you'll let me keep my secrets about Dahlia…"

Interesting. Her expression is dark, seething heat billowing under her eyes.

"You hate her as much as Octavia does," I say, less of a question and more of a statement.

"She could have let me out. Of the cage, I mean."

"Couldn't any of them? Octavia and Gabriel too? Xavier?"

She shakes her head at me. "None of them had any idea where I was. But Dahlia sought me out. She wanted to know what her mother was doing, wanted to watch on as I drove myself insane trying to escape. Night after night she would come and dangle keys, blood, anything that she thought would torture me in front of the cage. And night after night, she would leave. So yes… If Gabriel and Xavier are out of the running and if I don't win, then there's no choice between Dahlia or Octavia. I choose Octavia every single time. Her heart is in the right place, at least."

That takes me a moment to process too, but I get there eventually. My heart is heavy.

"You hate her, and yet you want her to win," I say.

She tuts at me. "Don't be shortsighted. Lose a battle to win the war, Red. That's how the game is played."

I sigh. "Octavia won't forgive me if I jeopardise our potential to win," I say.

"Would you rather she lived and hated you? Or died fighting Dahlia because you loved her too much to let her go?"

I grit my teeth. What choice do I have? I stare at her, those dark eyes such a stark contrast to her white hair. I wonder what her birth parents were like.

"Fine. I agree."

"And you swear that you'll prevent her from competing?"

I take a deep breath. The human man's blood is still coursing through my veins, and as much as that thought makes me sick, I cannot change the fact that it brought me back from the brink of death and has strengthened me in a way I'm struggling to define.

I can fight.

I can win.

I just need to believe it.

"Yes," I say.

"So be it," she signs and then she steps up to me.

She places her hands on either side of my head and stares into my eyes. Hers are dark pools, endless orbs that hold so much more than I can access. A vastness I dare not tread into. It's only now, this close to her, I notice that the perfume she wears is as cold as her personality. She smells like winter and frozen landscapes. A sharp scent that cuts through wind and water and makes my throat burn with the odour.

"Remember," she says, and I frown. I hear a voice. But I'm not sure if I'm making it up or if it's in my mind or if I actually heard it. I couldn't have. She has no voice.

"Remember," she says, stronger this time and definitely inside my mind. I relax now, letting her vampire magic undo what was done to me.

Her words wash over my consciousness like a blanket of silk, lulling me into a warm hug, a sense of safety, and then she rips something in my mind, and I am screaming.

I scream and scream and scream as my mind burns and sears as she tugs memories from lost places. I should have listened. These memories should have stayed hidden.

My vision whites, the pain spreads from the deep well of my brain outward, washing over my ears and down my neck.

I'm on the forest floor, leaf mould and detritus smothering me as a flood of memories tears through my mind.

I'm on my knees. We're in her castle. I have no recollection of this. I don't know what I did or said, but Octavia's eyes well with unshed tears. She whispers quietly, "You need me." Her words are in a tone I don't understand. She's never been like this with me. What led us here and why is she talking like that? She continues, her voice cold and callous.

"You need my blood. Without me, you're nothing. You're just another blood slut desperate for your next fix."

I don't know if it's my actual hand or my hand in my memory, but my fingers come to my cheeks, and they're wet. How could she say such awful things?

I sob, I wrap my arms around my legs. I cry out at her, "You don't understand. I can't leave. Or be what you want. I have a family. Responsibilities. I have to keep my job as a hunter."

"And yet you can't do that and keep me," she says. "Or you're not willing to. You're throwing me away like I'm nothing but a fix, Red. Don't you see?"

I'm screaming at her, my words fuzzy and muffled all at once.

Octavia sneers at me. "So be it."

Then she's towering over me, and once again, she tears the memories of her away, the memories of our love, our fights, our heartache. All of them stripped away.

I am now certain Octavia lied.

Not a small white lie. But a huge, cut-my-heart-in-two betrayal. She didn't take one or two memories.

She fucking took them all.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

She erased herself from my life like we meant nothing.

For what feels like forever, Sadie reveals memories of the times Octavia removed little pieces and giant chunks of herself from my life, my heart. How fucking could she?

The night Amelia was turned comes flooding back. I'm laid on the floor of Dahlia's mansion, Amelia screaming something I can't hear, then she rushes toward me. Something is wrong. It doesn't fit the motions that Octavia and Amelia told me. It's like the night is slightly out of sync, a beat off. There's another lie here. Another truth hidden from me.

I'm covered in blood, Amelia is sobbing, drenched in my blood, but when Octavia rounds to face me, I realise she compelled Amelia, too.

Oh Octavia, what did you do?

When I try to pull the memory closer, to make the sounds, voices and conversations clear, they're yanked away.

Octavia rounds on me, and I glance behind her shoulder. Amelia is glassy-eyed and slack-mouthed. Everything they told me the other night was just another lie, another half-truth.

I don't even know her.

I snort in my mind as I wonder, is Octavia even capable of telling the truth? Betray her? I will gladly lose this round. Fuck Octavia, I'll get the cure for my sister no matter what. Even if I have to save for a lifetime to buy it once it's been manufactured.

I want this to stop. I want to scream out to Sadie and beg her to stop this, but once again, I'm dragged through my mind and this time Octavia and I are in a village.

Oh gods.

Elysium. The village is called Elysium.

I remember now. This is where I met her for the first time. The village flares to life, small bungalows popping up around me, a brick wall bordering the village that I was walking around patrolling. A local bar.

A hoard of angry men screaming at her, trying to kill her. A pitchfork stabbed into her gut.

It moves on. I'm injured now. A scar across my belly. The memory flits forward and backward.

Octavia saves me. This is why I've always loved the name Elysium. It was the first time we met. And she never fucking told me.

The memory shifts again. I am in her arms. She feeds me her blood. Why the hell is she feeding me blood?

I know in my gut that this is the first time I've drunk blood. The addiction might not be her fault, but it never would have started if it weren't for her. None of this would have happened if it weren't for her.

I harden against the memory.

It flashes forward. We spend the night fucking and making each other come, drunk on the blood lust of her blood filling my veins.

And then morning comes, and I rise from the blood-drunk reverie. I panic. I'm afraid that I've fucked up, that the Hunter Academy will fire me, that I'll lose everything and Amelia will starve because I've lost my job.

Octavia wants to see me again, but I'm stricken with guilt, and I tell her it was a mistake. That she was a mistake.

Her eyes flash. The pain in her expression breaks me. But what she does next hurts me even more.

Her expression hardens, and she rounds on me. "You don't get to treat me like meat. You don't get to take a piece of me and then leave. If you don't want me, then you can't have any of me."

"Please don't," I beg. "Don't hurt me."

"Hurt you?" she snorts. "Gods, I thought you were different. I thought because you looked at me, actually looked at me, that you were different. You're just like everyone else. How could I be so fucking stupid? You're never going to see me for who I am. So fine. You don't need to see me at all."

She grabs me by the scruff of my shirt, and she wipes the night out from my memory. Leaving me doe-eyed and confused as she races me back to Elysium and dumps me there to pick up the pieces from the incident that night.

She drops me in the heart of the bodies and blood and battle remnants. But I'm barely functional after having my memory wiped, and she discards me like I'm nothing but trash. When she races away, she doesn't look back.

So many betrayals.

How could she take the first time we met, the first time we fucked, and the first time I drank from her away? Why would she take that from me? But there's no time to dwell on this memory because Sadie unleashes more. One after the other, they come flooding into my head.

I thought Octavia was different.

I thought she was the only one who was on my side, the only one not manipulating me, and this whole time she's been controlling my narrative. Controlling what I know, controlling what I remember…

Controlling me.

It's time for that to stop.

Sadie releases my temples and raises her hands to sign. "Will you fulfil your end of the bargain?"

I nod. "Without exception."

"Good, then I will return the rest of your memories after the trial. I suspect you'll be needing these…" she says and uses the hem of her gown to pull out and drop a pair of silver cuffs and some rope on the ground.

And then she's gone, racing through the forest and into the night.