20. Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Wilder

Icollapse against the wall, heaving for breaths and shuddering. I can't seem to get my trembling limbs under control. I don't even know what wing of the academy we are in now. I just ran blindly in my panic. I'm surprised I had the presence of mind to grab Bronwyn before the urge to flee overtook me. Otherwise, I would have left her behind just as I ran away leaving behind all reasonable thought.

Gregos… my friend.

Asimov had said that he wasn't feeling well, but I hadn't thought anything of it. I still remember my transformation so vividly still. How Morozov arrived at my manor a few weeks before the break ended. My father said that it was for the best. Then came the bite.

I spent three days bound to my bed, tormented by feverish dreams and then I awoke as this.

It was the worst, most horrid experience of my life. I would give anything to go back and save my younger self from this fate. But there is no known cure for vampirism.

And now Gregos is its victim as well. And I'm just as at fault for his fate as Morozov.

All this time I've played a complacent partner in his plans, trying not to think of what they will mean. After all, they were my only hope for normalcy. So, I made the selfish decision to keep my eyes and mouth shut to what Morozov was up to.

I chose to save Bronwyn, protecting her was a boon on my guilty conscience.

And all the while he was turning one of my only true friends into a monster. While I stood dumbly by and let it.

Morozov may have been the one to bite him, but I'm the one who made Gregos into a vampire.

Liquid streams down my cheek but I'm unsure if it is sweat or tears. Then suddenly a hand is on my shoulder. It gently wraps around me, pulling me close. Her other arm wraps around my middle, and I feel her chin on my arm.

She hugs me in spite of the lettuce stuck to my spellbook and the grease staining my robes. Probably ruining her beautiful dress.

She doesn't say anything, and for that, I am grateful. She just holds me until I stop shuddering. Then she slides to the ground with me as I drop to my knees, worried that they will give out on me if I stand any longer.

She finally releases me as I turn with my back to the wall. We sit there shoulder to shoulder for a while. I don't know for how long, but I'm grateful that she doesn't try to use my weakness to pry me of my secrets. Although, I'll admit that it leaves me with the odd desire to share them all with her regardless.

"My father forced me," I rasp out, surprised by how raw and husky my voice is. I am too drained to lift my head away from the wall, but I do turn it enough to take her in as she's sitting next to me.

She presses her eyes shut, her long lashes brushing the top of her cheek. She gives her head a little shake. "You don't need to explain anything to me."

"I want to," I say firmly. I want to finally be able to tell someone. I feel the silence that I have been forced into clawing at my throat, begging me to keep it, but I can also feel it eating away at me. Rotting my insides and leaving me as nothing but a hollow husk. "I want to."

She slides her hand across the stone floor, her fingers extended toward me. I move my hand toward her, our fingers tangling. That warmth gives me the strength I need to push through.

"I always knew that my father was a hard man, not the kind of man you messed with. Not even if you were his son, but I'd never thought… the extent…" I give my head a sharp shake as I try to block out the memory.

The sight of my father standing in front of our hearth, a stranger next to him. He smiled at me, he never smiled at me, and then he beckoned me forward.

He told me that it was time I started meeting his business associates.

And then he introduced me to Morozov.

"He has plans, such horrid plans for this world," I choke out.

Her fingers press into mine, and I swallow. "I don't know how long he has been planning this with Morozov, but they intend to create an army of vampires from the students of this academy. One by one they will turn them just as they did to me. I was the first."

"How could they think they could get away with something of this scale?" she demands, finally speaking up.

"That's where I came in. I was supposed to find the most powerful, wealthy, influential students and bring their information to Morozov. He would start to build his vampire army from the best of the best. Anyone who would stand against us we would crush and all else would be forced to join us. They wanted the whole academy before the year was out."

"Those papers you were writing," she murmurs. Then she turns to me. "But after he turned them into vampires, he would have no control over them. Why did he think he could turn so many against everything they had ever known? They have friends and family that surely, they wouldn't want to harm by becoming part of a vampire army?"

"He planned to play on their desperation to belong. You have no idea what it is like to have your humanity taken away from you. You have nowhere to turn except to the monster who made you this way. Vampires are hunted, Bronwyn; none of us can exactly go to the authorities. That is what he was banking on. He would do something irreversible to us all, and then promise a world we could live in without having to hide. With the promise of acceptance, he would control them all. It's how they controlled me." My voice catches in my throat and I take a moment to clear it. "After they turn us into vampires, we will do anything for that promise. At least, that's what they were betting. And I certainly did not let them down because even though I hated my role I felt I had no other choice. Once the era of the undead had begun I could finally be what is normal again. Even if the new normal is facing life as a vampire."

"But that could never work," Bronwyn says sliding her hand from mine. She pushes to her feet and begins pacing back and forth, her anxiety apparent. "There is a whole world outside this academy. They would have stopped you."

"Who can stop an army of magickers?" I ask with a snort. "Not anything I know of."

"You would have been trapped within these walls and others like it," she says, slapping her hands against her hips. "Vampires cannot rule, not while the sun is in the sky. You will always be regulated to prowling at night and hunted during the day."

I hold up my finger. "But that's the beauty of their plan. We are in the Academy of Magickers and once they have it at their disposal, they will also have all the magic they need to overcome their weaknesses. Although there is only one magic Morozov says he needs. Water magic."

Bronwyn goes so pale that for a second, I wonder if she was bitten and is now a vampire. "Water magic?" she breathes.

"His specialty. His obsession, more like," I snort in disgust as I think back to the hours, I had to listen to Morozov ramble on about it. "He swears that there is a spellbook written by a long-dead magicker who mastered water magic which will help him attain what he wants."

"Petrov Hansimov," she mumbles so quietly that I can barely make it out.

"Yes, that does sound familiar. Morozov says that this man was more powerful than any magicker here today, that he once created a storm that covered the whole of Ruskhazar. Morozov wants to recreate that storm. Blot out the sun with the clouds and rain. Then the third era will end," I say with a shrug. "He is so obscene he wants to create a fourth era, the era of monsters."

Bronwyn looks down at me, her face is still but I can see a thousand thoughts racing through her eyes. "How does he intend to get Hansimov's spellbook?"

I lift my shoulder in a shrug. "Probably by turning the guardian of it into a vampire and forcing her to work for him for her own survival. It's his plan for most things."

Bronwyn lunges forward, I blink in surprise, but she simply drops to her knees in front of me. She clutches both my hands, holding them up in front of us. "Wilder, we need to get this book before he does. Will you help me?"

I hesitate only with my mouth but already I feel myself nodding. At this point I'd do anything to stop Morozov's plan, even if it comes at the cost of my future of never having to hide from the sun again. "I—yes. But how are we going to do that?"

"I have a plan," she says as she pushes to her feet. Then she turns away and starts down the hall, seeming to believe that's all she has to say to get me to join her.

She's right, but I'll expect a full explanation later.