Blood Prophecy (32 page)

The representatives of the Raktapa Council sat at a long table. The other vampires who still supported Viola, without even knowing it was her they supported, had taken to leading their humans on leashes like pets after I had the post demolished. Constantine’s men stayed close to them, eyeing me hatefully. Chandramaa stood inside the circle and were stationed on the path. In the center, to my left was a small table holding the royal crown.

There was a nefarious kind of tension clinging to everyone and everything. It hadn’t been here at the start of the Blood Moon but now fear hung in the air, sour and fetid. Too many had lost loved ones to hunters, and too many eyes were searching for blood-drinking murderers. The secure haven of the encampment didn’t feel particularly secure anymore.

Still, the ritual itself was easier than the one in the caves where Kala had shown me the prophecy being spoken.

Until she came at me with a sharpened dog bone, like a cross between a giant knitting needle and a stake.

I had to force myself to stand utterly still, even as my every nerve ending screeched for me to fight back, to run, to dodge,
anything.
Since she wasn’t instantly turned to dust on the tip of a Chandramaa arrow, the ritual obviously had been approved beforehand. I’d ordered them to let Kala do what she had to, but that was when I’d thought the worst thing I might have to do was chant in my underwear. Mom took a step forward.

Kala jabbed the pointed tip into each of my wrists, and once over my heart. The cuts were shallow but they bled quickly and swiftly. The
Hel-Blar
clacked their jaws together and howled so viciously, Aidan had to struggle to keep them contained. Kala ignored them all, the screeching, the muttering, the hissing. She only cared about the blood currently dripping into the snow.

She touched her fingertip to the rivulet trickling from my heart and smeared the blood over her forehead, then mine. Isabeau held a small bowl carved from stone under my wrists until my blood gathered there like wine. She passed it to Kala who drank from it, taking a small ritual sip. There was no hunger to it, her fangs were always extended but they didn’t look any sharper or longer than usual. She was deep in her magical trance, seeing things the rest of us couldn’t see. The drumming got louder, faster, like a thousand humming bees. It made me feel slightly disoriented.

When Kala lifted her head from the bowl, the whites of her eyes were red. The drumming stopped abruptly, as one. No one moved, no one spoke. Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath. Kala didn’t move but it was obvious she was somewhere else. Less obvious to the others perhaps, that she was prowling through my inner
landscape. I could feel her prying open doors and rusted locks, peering under the bed for monsters. It was the strangest feeling and not altogether pleasant. My teeth chattered.

“Spirit,” Kala whispered in a creepy singsong voice. It was all wrong, like a doll in a frilly pink dress holding a butcher knife. “Spirit.”

Wounds that still ached, throbbed inside my head. I was being scraped raw.

“Viola,”
Kala snapped. “Show yourself.”

I shivered all over, knees buckling. I landed in the bloody snow. But there was no voice, no sense of vertigo or disconnection.

“The last test,” Kala announced.

I looked up at the sound of weeping.

Constantine.

I blinked, confused. It took a moment to realize the weeping wasn’t inside my head. A pack of the Hounds’s dogs milled about his ankles, snapping and growling to get him moving. There were bloody bite marks on his calves. His hair stood on end and his eyes were bloodshot and red. He was weeping loudly, brokenly. He looked nothing like the charming, witty vampire who had saved my life from the Furies and kissed me in the Bower. He looked, quite frankly, insane.

He stumbled, distracted by the sight of Madame Veronique. “You.” He seethed, fury and pain contorting his usually handsome features. His fangs gleamed. “You did this,” he shouted, tripping over the dogs as he tried to get to her.

Madame Veronique didn’t react, she didn’t even blink. She sat like a medieval ice statue in a velvet dress. Her handmaidens stepped
protectively in front of her, but it was Isabeau who knocked him off his feet before he reached her and before the Chandramaa could attack.

“You may die on your own time,” she said briskly, her accent sharp.
“After
the testing.” She yanked him to his feet by the back of his collar and the dogs raced back in, hackles rising. Their teeth looked every bit as dangerous as a vampire’s fangs.

I shrank back as the dogs brought him closer to me, remembering that it was his presence that had called Viola out, had tethered her inside my body. Constantine fell to his knees in front of me, grabbing at my arms. “Viola?” he asked with such fractured hope in his violet eyes that it was painful to look at him. “Viola, come back to me.”

And then he kissed me.

A kiss to tell the truth from a lie.

I tensed, listening so intently for Viola’s whisper that I could hear the scuttling of moles in the earth beneath us. But nothing else. I sagged with relief even as Constantine shook me frantically. “No!” He sobbed. “No!”

“He’s no threat.” Kala dismissed him. “He’s broken inside.”

I pulled sharply out of his hold and rose slowly to my feet. He knelt, weeping and gnashing his teeth. I’d never seen an ancient vampire having a breakdown before. It wasn’t pretty. Blood seeped from his eyes and his chewed lips. I just stared at him, unable to feel anything but pity. I couldn’t even muster enough hatred to hit him again, as I’d done that day under the tree bridges, even as he tried to hold on to my feet so I wouldn’t move away.

The same couldn’t be said for my family. My mom snarled, but it was my dad who hauled off and punched Constantine in the throat. “Come near my daughter again and I’ll kill you,” he said calmly, almost politely, as he loomed over him. “Slowly.”

Kala stepped back, blinking blood from her eyes. “The spirit has been banished, all because this girl,” she pointed at me, “was strong enough to hold her ground when all around her were blind to the battle. This other spirit can do you no harm,” she told the council and the others. Her voice didn’t get louder but it seemed to reach everywhere, snaking between bodies to the very furthest corners of the camp. “The prophecy has been fulfilled,” she added. “And is no longer any concern of yours.”

My dad seemed to deflate briefly with relief. Madame Veronique’s posture got stiffer. Voices slammed into one another. Kala walked out of the circle to sit on a pile of pelts, dogs curled at her feet. Isabeau stood next to her, at attention. Constantine crawled away. I couldn’t even look at him.

Everyone else started to talk at once. My family surrounded me but they were all shouting between themselves as well. The delegates from visiting tribes were demanding council.

“I have something to say.” I tried to be heard over the cacophony but it was next to impossible. I went on my tiptoes and tried to catch the eye of one of the Raktapa representatives but they were too busy talking among themselves.

“I have something to say!” I tried again but with no greater success. Mom would have been confident and terrifying; it was just her way. Dad’s way would be to find some sort of common ground to
negotiate with. I only had my own way, whatever that might be. I’d have to rely on logic and common sense, and appeal to our united goal, which was, essentially, the desire to be left alone. That was something I understood on a level my parents didn’t truly appreciate.

But if they were going to listen to me, I’d have to make them hear me first.

My voice was just one of many, no matter how loudly I shouted.

So I’d stop shouting.

I was the quiet one anyway, as Lucy had teased me on the phone. So I’d use it to my advantage. I surreptitiously reached over and took the crown. Between Viola and the prophecy, it was a symbol everyone seemed to be obsessed with. And again, this time I’d make it work
for
me instead of against me.

I slipped through the jostling crowd, easing between arguments and apologies, bloodslaves and brothers. I stopped at the foot of the chopped down tree post. There were still chains curled at its base, still bloodstains in the dirt. I scaled the post, splinters breaking off under my boots. When I reached the top, I pulled myself up so I was standing. I didn’t do anything else, I just stood there, waiting silently and patiently, with bats circling over me.

It was several minutes before anyone noticed me. Sebastian was first, then the vampires around the post, then Nicholas, then Duncan. Slowly the conversations around me faltered, the silence spreading. The bats dipped down between the few still arguing, startling them apart.

Faces looked up at me and I had to swallow on a dry throat. “I
have a proposition to make.” My voice trembled slightly. I straightened my shoulders to compensate.

“I’m not wise enough to be your queen,” I said. “But I’m wise enough to know it. I’m also wise enough to know that this system is hopelessly outdated and only sets us against one another. We can’t keep killing one another as if it’s the only way to sort out our differences. My cousin died for me, for this stupid prophecy, and the war over the crown. And I won’t let her death be in vain. Humans have trials and laws and jails, so why can’t we?” Dad looked so proud I thought he was going to start weeping right then and there. “If we’re going to gather from all over the world and sit at a council table, then we need to make changes. We all need to make treaties with the Helios-Ra, not just the local Violet Hill families.” Someone spat in the snow. I eyed her calmly. “The League is changing, just like we are. This isn’t the twelfth century.” I looked coldly at Madame Veronique. “And we need to stop acting as if it is.”

I held up the crown. “This is just an object,” I insisted. “It’s not worth dying for. But if you all really want it so desperately, then take it.” I snapped off one of the rubies. Someone gasped. I jumped off the post and walked toward Kala. “The Hounds answer to themselves.” I handed her the ruby. The whispers swelled angrily. I snapped off another one and turned to Saga. “The Na-Foir answer to themselves.” She grinned cockily, snatching the ruby out of the air. The last ruby I placed on the table in front of the Raktapa Council. “The ancient families answer to themselves.” I tossed the seed pearls that dangled on what was left of the crown, scattering them like tiny white mistletoe berries.

“And we all answer to one another.” My father had said those words enough times that they came naturally. “I want to abdicate the throne.” The hissing and shouting was so loud I flinched. Dad caught my eye and leaned his head ever so subtly in Mom’s direction. “But for the time being, I name Helena Drake as my Regent.” I smiled at Dad. “And Liam Drake as co-Regent.” Mom would be able to keep order in the chaos but Dad was the one who’d be able to make this plan work. He could settle disputes and soothe tempers. If he could handle Mom, he could handle vengeful vampires.

“And the rest of us?” a man in a plaid jacket asked. “Who represents us?”

I hadn’t considered that. I nibbled on my lower lip, fangs stinging as they poked through my skin. I wasn’t strictly Raktapa, because I wasn’t like the other Drakes. I wasn’t Hound or Na-Foir. I thought of Marigold and the others of the Bower. I was outside the circle, just like the solitary vampires who chose not to ally themselves. “I will,” I offered. “Until you choose your own representative, I’ll stand for the tribeless. If you’ll have me.” Dad really did cry then, just one tear, which he brushed hastily away before anyone could see him.

“Nicely done,” Nicholas said hours later to me as I stepped out of the main pavilion. Apparently when you took down the monarchy, you then had to sit and listen to speeches for hours, until your butt went numb.

“I just couldn’t let London die for nothing, and then have it happen all over again the next time some old woman gets stoned on
weird mushroom tea.” I rubbed my face wearily. “But do you think it will work?” I asked, doubtfully. “We’re not exactly known for our laid-back nature. I mean, Aunt Hyacinth is still holding a grudge against that boy who waved a pistol at Queen Victoria’s carriage. And that was in 1872.”

“It’s worth a try,” he replied. “Some of the vampires have already packed up and left in a snit. But just as many are making toasts to a new era.”

“I can see that.” I watched one vampire lean drunkenly on another. While we’d been talking and talking and talking, everyone else had been drinking. We turned and wandered down the path. A group of vampires gathered outside one of the tents, whispering and staring.

“One thing hasn’t changed,” I muttered. “I’m going to start my own circus and be the main attraction.” I glanced at Nicholas. “Want to get out of here for a while?” I’d never been comfortable in crowds and whatever Nicholas had been through on Dawn’s orders had made him nearly as solitary as Duncan. I wanted to kill her all over again. My fangs poked into my lower lip drawing blood. One of the vampires by the tent pointed at me.

Nicholas just raised his eyebrows. “You’re so hungry you’re trying to eat your own face?”

I elbowed him. “Some people are scared of me, you know. Like that guy over there.” The guy in question paled when I looked his way and tried to hide behind a banner half his size.

Nicholas snorted. “Ten points if you can make him hide behind that creepy little girl over there.” It was such normal banter, tears
sprung to my eyes. Nicholas was instantly horrified. “What? What’d I do?”

“You should hate me.” I sniffled. “I made you drink from Lucy. I’m so sorry, Nic.”

“Lucy called me a drama queen when I was sorry about that too.”

I choked out a laugh. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.” He quirked a smile. “So stop being so soggy.”

I swallowed. “Brothers are so sentimental.” My smile was watery. And actually, they totally were. They just thought no one knew it.

“So where are we going?” he asked as the snow began to fall very softly around us, so softly it was barely there at all.