The Heart's Ashes (86 page)

“
Not at all.” One corner of his mouth pulled up into a smile,
his skin still too dry to show his dimple.

“
How are you feeling?”

“
Better.”

“
Are you hungry?” I held out my wrist.

“
Yes.”

“
Eat.”

He hesitated,
looking back at my eyes. “You haven’t had my blood—will you be
immune to my venom?”

“
Why? Do you want to bite today?” My tone peaked with
excitement. “Are you feeling well enough?”

“
I think so.” He touched his neck. “My throat burns for the
bite. I just...don’t know if I can use my teeth
anymore.”

“
There’s only one way to find out.” I grinned
wildly.

He shook his
head, still holding my arm.

I wish he
would bite me. I miss his bite, his touch—I miss lying with him,
feeling his arms around my shoulders, his lips on my neck. “I miss
you,” I said.

He titled his
head a little, his smile poorly concealing sympathy. “I’m not going
anywhere—ever again.”

“
I know.” I bit my lip, considering the colour in his eyes,
how, a second ago it was bright green, but for every breath he
tried be normal, the colour faded, became murky. “You look so
tired, so pale.”

“
I won’t for long.” He smiled, the warmth lighting the corners
of his lips.

I pressed my
thumb to where his dimple should be. “I have to go out for a bit
longer today.”

“
Training?”

“
Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “Mike wants to teach me how to
manipulate the elements—because apparently he’s mastered it. Never
mind that he burst a water main the other day,
practicing.”

He laughed
breathily through his nose. “You know it took me nearly twenty
years to master that.”

“
Mike’s had Morgaine to teach him.”

“
She’s a good teacher.”

“
Yeah. She’s been my Lilithian politics and history teacher,
too.”

“
I know. I’ve been listening. But
you
haven’t.”

I sat quiet
for a moment. “It’s boring. I hate politics, David. Half the time I
feel like I’m falling asleep.”

“
No matter, you need to learn this stuff, Ara. The past will
form the foundations for decisions about the future.”

“
You sound like Mike.”

David
chuckled. “How is he—Mike?”

“
You know him; he’s in his element with all this knight
business. He was born for this stuff.” I sat taller,
grinning.

David,
struggling to contain a cough, rolled slightly onto his side, doing
well to hide his pain from me. “He doesn’t come to see me.”

“
He’s busy with the knights.”

“
No. He blames himself for this.” He motioned down his body.
“He tried to convince us the plan would fail.”

“
He did?”

“
Yes. Said it was ludicrous, to think for one second, that
you’d actually kill me.”

My gut
wrenched.

He moved
quickly to grab my hand. “Not because of how much you love me, mon
amour, because he thought you wouldn’t have the strength—the
courage.”

“
Then he doesn’t know me very well.”

“
No one but me does.” David looked at the roof for a second,
lifting his hips to reposition himself. “The Knights—have you
started—?”

“
Turning them?” I shook my head. “Not yet. Mike wants me to at
least be able to defend myself before I go into a room of dangerous
men.”

“
Typical.” David grinned.

“
Yeah. He’s right, though. If Drake had a mole in there, it
could be bad.”

“
For them—” David’s voice grated out through his lips this
time. “Mike will—” He rolled slightly and coughed, trying to catch
his breath.

“
Shh, don’t speak, David.” I touched his chest. “Rest now. We
have plenty of time.”

With a deep,
laboured breath, he turned his head and closed his eyes. I reached
across and gently brushed wisps of his thick, wavy hair away from
his forehead.

“
Ara?” Mike tapped on the door.

“
Hey, Mike.”

“
Hey. Training. Now. I gotta leave for the manor a bit earlier
than planned.”

“
Oh, okay. Sure. I’ll just give David some blood, then I’ll be
there.”

“
Okay. Five minutes. Max.”

“
Got it.” I saluted him then turned back to David, rolling my
sleeve. “David?”

He roused from
sleep long enough to watch me dig into my vein. It still felt weird
to openly cut myself; to just dig my nail in and press until blood
spilled out; something about it felt so wrong, kind of scary.

My heart
jumped into my throat as a pair of ice-cold fingers shot up and
grabbed my wrist. Before the breath even left my lips in a gasp,
David planted my stinging arm to his mouth and sucked hard—closing
his eyes, losing himself to the pleasure of my blood.

“
You’re getting stronger.” I winced, my arm tensing with the
throb of his bite. His touch, combined with the smooth circles of
his tongue over my flesh, made my blood run hot inside.

Regrettably,
it clotted under his grasp before he seemed satisfied, but he
grinned and muttered in a smooth voice as he turned his head, “The
vampire is returning.”

Breathing the
moist, warm air of the lake—our secret lake—I watched the sunlight
filter through a gap in the leaves along the trail, making yellow
patterns as it spilled onto the leafy floor. Out here, away from
ears of various breeds of vampire, away from eyes, watching me
train, it was easier to practice my new skills, but also harder to
forget David—which, funnily enough, made the practicing easier
too.

With a long
sigh, I held my hand out in front of me and frayed my fingers in
the sunlight. My skin looked pretty, almost transparent—kind of
glowing pink. For the tingling in my fingertips, though, a
sensation so constant now, I expected to see bursts of electricity
rising off my hands. But they just looked ultimately plain and
human.

“
Petey?” I said, looking down at him by the base of the rock.
“Wanna see something cool?”

He stood up,
his eyes on the lake, following the aim of my hand. As I rubbed my
fingertips together, heating them with friction, a small blue light
flickered around my nails. I rubbed faster, holding my breath when
the rise of energy flooded through my arm, like an injection of
sizzling air. It built up to an almost unbearable sting, drawing a
tight ache deep within the back of my skull.

It’s
ready.

With a flick
of my hand toward the lake, the light disappeared. Then, without
any sign of affect, a ball of fluid shot up out of the water, as
high as the trees, and fizzled into steam before evaporating into
the atmosphere. “Cool, huh?” I folded my arm back around my knees,
blinking off the niggling headache over my left eye.

Petey barked
and ran to the edge of the lake, coming back with a fish in his
mouth.

“
Oops.” I shrunk my neck into my shoulders a little. “Is it
dead?”

He dropped the
lifeless form onto the ground and sat by it, licking his chops.

“
Wait, you’re not going to eat that, are you?”

He pawed it,
shoving it away a little.

“
Good dog.”

In my pocket, my phone buzzed for the tenth time. I pulled it
out, slid my thumb across the touchscreen, then rolled my eyes and
replied:
Yes, Vicki. Having fun. Paris is
great. Tell Dad I’ll call soon.

Only, I won’t
call. I don’t want to hear Dad’s voice right now because I know I
can’t hide the pain in mine. I never could hide that from him. No
one else noticed it, or maybe they just didn’t want to
know—couldn’t bear for me to talk about what Jason did to me now
that I seemed to have just ‘gotten over it’. And I guess, in a
small way, I feel the same. If it’s unsaid—it never happened.

But that
doesn’t change the fact that it did.

My phone vibrated again;
Dad in NY.
Conference.

Oh yeah, the Artefact Conference; some museum-get-together
for old guys who love history. I texted back:
musta forgot it was May
, then
switched my phone off and dumped it in the pocket of my shorts
behind a many-times folded piece of paper.

Petey nudged
me, his paws on the rock, his hind legs extended.

“
What is it, boy?”

He sniffed at
my pocket; I pulled out the letter. “You want to see this?”

He sat
down.

“
Do you want me to read it out?”

His answering
wine was probably a yes.

“
Okay.” I cleared my throat, working up my best
formal-speaking-ancient-vampire accent; “Dearest princess Amara.
How I long to be by your side once more. The days are not blessed
with the sun in this dark world, but while I keep your smile in my
heart, I am blinded by the beauty I can find in each day. I will
return to you in the summer, and I intend to remain by your side
until happiness is a part of your life again.” I smiled, imagining
Arthur at a desk, writing the note. “So, then he signed it with
just,
your friend, always,
not
Arthur,
like he usually does.”

Petey nibbled
the edge of the note.

“
No, Petey. I’m keeping this one.” I folded it and put it back
in my pocket. “I know I’m supposed to burn all our letters, but
this one just sounds so genuine, you know. No talk of prophecies
and plans. I like it. It feels like a letter from a
friend.”

Petey sat down
again, huffing once.

“
I don’t care what you think, Petey, and I don’t care if
Arthur gets mad at me for keeping this. I have no friends left—” I
smiled at the dog when he whined, “—except you, Petey. Just…just
let me keep this one, okay.”

He looked at
the lake again. I knew the conversation wasn’t over, but being that
it was between me and a dog, really, I didn’t care either. Part of
me wasn’t even sure the dog was real, and everything I thought he
‘said’ was all assumed and imagined. The only saving grace was that
Mike could see him too; otherwise I’d think he was a figment of my
imagination.

A soft breeze
swept over my face and I closed my eyes, revelling in the
simplicity of the moment as the sun came out again. Petey’s soft
whimper made me look back at him, and my gaze followed his to a
pale stream of light in the tree line where the wind carried a pair
of fluttering blue and black wings; the butterfly struggled against
the breeze, coming to rest on the rock, right by my toe.

“
Look, Petey.” He sat up, and we both gazed in wonder,
although, Petey was probably contemplating eating it. “She’s
beautiful.”

She fluttered
her wings for a moment, then set off again, floating along until
she reached the tree line once more. I watched her dancing, and
smiled. I’d love to be free like that—to fly, follow the breeze
wherever it might take me. But behind her beauty, the darkness of
the forest revealed a figure that stole my breath as I watched,
waiting for it to come closer. My cheeks froze in the half smile
they wore and the tall man, walking toward me, wearing a broad
smile, became more than just an illusion or a wish.

“
David?”

“
Ara.” He caught me in his grasp, nearly falling over for real
with the force of my Lilithian-speed run to him.

“
David. What are you doing out of bed?” I stood back, brushing
my hair from my face, and looked up at his. “You’re—you’re
completely normal.”

He smiled,
stroking his thumb over my cheek once, then dropping his hand.
“Yes. Emily came by this morning after you left, used some new herb
and within about four hours, I could sit up again.”

“
What herb?”

He shrugged.
“No idea.”

“
Well, it’s been nearly eight weeks. It’s about damn time you
got better.”

“
I’m not completely healed, though.” I noticed the hand across
his waist then, the way he slightly folded over. “Em says a few
more days should do it.”

“
But we only have two days left,” I whined. “I’m leaving for
Loslilian, remember?”

“
I know.” His lip pulled sharply on just one corner; the smile
of the boy in the library at school. My heart fluttered in rapid,
tiny little pulses. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“
I—I’m just trying not to cry.”

“
Don’t do that, my love. Don’t be strong for me. You, of any
person in this world, has the right to tears.” He held out an arm,
offering his embrace. “Cry, and I’ll hold you until all the pain
goes away.”

“
No.” I shook my head, reaching for the empty space my locket
no longer sat. “This isn’t the time for tears; I’ve used enough of
those.”

“
Well, if you don’t fix this proximity issue—” he motioned to
the gap between us, “—
I’m
going to cry.”

I launched
back into the exquisiteness of his arms, my legs flying freely
behind me while he spun us around; his soul in the realm of joy,
but his arms in a world of loss, of pain; a hold so tight I could
feel he never wanted to let go.

He placed me
on the ground and shook his head, the soft smile staying on his
perfect, dark-pink lips. “I missed you beyond words, Ara-Rose.”