Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (8 page)

Drake laughed. “Pardon me?”

“The sheep.” I pointed to the paddock.

“Oh.” He frowned at it then looked back at me. “To eat.”

“But you’re all vampire. Who here eats?”

Very slowly, like a timid child, he put his hand up, and he looked so human and so normal that I laughed.

“You eat?”

“I may be vampire, Amara, but I am also an original and, so, very human—just like you. A condition inherited, unfortunately, from my father.”

His
father?

It hit me then, sinking through me like worry. I had always known Vampirie was Drake’s father, but to hear it in those words—to hear us all likened to one another in the same sentence—the truth took on a new meaning. His father.
My dad
was
his
biological father.

And that was it, wasn’t it? The truth, cold and hard and staring right at me: Vampirie was an original too. He’d loved and cared for others before me—for centuries before me. I was not, nor would I ever be his only priority, because he loved Drake as much as he’d loved Morgana. And above all, he saw the absolute and vital need to protect the human race: which is why he would not want Anandene alive—why he would keep the soul of Lilith from Drake for centuries and why he would refuse to put my soul into this child. It wasn’t worth the risk to him. Not to have all this repeat itself again and again.

I suddenly felt very alone.

“Perhaps you would like to eat,” Drake suggested. “Then take a short tour around the castle—and David’s old chambers. Who knows?” he added with a very modern, youthful shrug. “You might even decide to stay.”

“Fine.” I shoved past him, with my nose slightly tilted to the air. “But only because I’m hungry.”

“You and me both,” he said, following me from a safe five paces behind.

***

Pointed arches stole my eyes upward to the highest point of the entrance hall, and almost as quickly the gothic twin staircase led my mind ahead of my body to a brilliantly lit second floor—the giant windows trapping the greyish sunlight and splashing it in wide columns at odd angles across the chequered tiles.

While the History student in me had imagined grey cobblestones and wooden fixtures, I was quite surprised to find exposed oak beams crowning pure white walls, and the rather pleasant and homely smell of smoke lingering along the draughts. Ancient coats of arms, swords, and shields proudly marked their place in the castle, and as Drake led me up the staircase I stopped and stared down the hall of shining knight’s armour, guarding both sides of the corridor.

“I’ll show you to the drawing room,” Drake said, his voice small in the large surrounds, prompting me out of my pause. “We can eat, then I’ll give you a tour.”

“I’d like that,” I said, a little distracted by it all. None of it was what I expected; the brushed red carpet under our feet, and every other surface from the dark-wood hallstands and the tiny crevices on the knight’s boots, were pristinely clean. I could actually imagine myself staying here—even after we killed Drake and gave this castle back to Arthur. If we ever saw Arthur again, that is.

“Something the matter?” Drake asked.

I rearranged my facial muscles. “No. I’m fine.”

Drake just laughed to himself, planting his hands behind his back. “I am a man of many centuries, my young queen, and if there is one thing I have mastered in all that time it is the ability to recognise an ailed woman.”

His blue eyes shone so magnificently in this broad pale light, the thick black lashes framing them like eyeliner, and all I saw beneath them as I stared back at him, trying to find the monster, was kindness and genuine concern.

“I’m worried about Arthur,” I confessed. “Do you think David will ever forgive him?”

As we passed through an oak-framed archway into a long, slightly darker corridor, Drake stayed silent, but clearly in thought.

“I know what you want me to say,” he said, “but unfortunately I cannot say that I know what David will do either way. He has changed since he lived here and, in my opinion, he is… unpredictable.”

I made a face at that, screwing my nose up. “That’s not very helpful.”

Drake laughed aloud, tipping his head back slightly. He did have a gloriously charming laugh. I expected he used that when hunting or luring his prey. “Perhaps
you
could, in time, sway David back to the bosom of his uncle. One thing I know for sure is that he values your counsel.”

That
raised my brow. “I completely disagree with you.”

“Only because you do not know the old David—and you were not privy to the complexities of his relationships with girls before you.” He slowed his steps slightly to walk beside me rather than leading me. “I can say with intense certainty that he didn’t give Pepper quite so much regard… or freedom.”

My mind instantly thought about David’s journals back at the manor—the fact that none of them predated the two years before we met. Those older journals were most likely here somewhere in this castle, and if they were I would sniff them out and feel not an ounce of guilt for reading them. Hearing Drake reference David’s past relationships made me want to know
everything
about who he was before he met me—all the stuff he would never tell me.

“If Arthur and David were still Set leaders, how do you think David would’ve reacted to what Arthur and I did?”

“Ooh, in a very different manner than he did, I must admit.” Drake shook his head a few times. “He would never have struck a High Councillor. In fact, I expect he would have carried the hatred in his heart for the rest of his days—never spoken a word of it.”

“Seriously?” My shoulders rounded. “Now I feel worse. I mean, I’m the one that got Arthur into this.”

“Arthur is a very wise and very noble man. He is not easily led and therefore does not commit to anything without solid consideration. You must not blame yourself.”

“But David hates Arthur now. After all those decades together—he hates him. And that is because of me. No matter what anyone believes, I wasn’t manipulated or molested. I was willing. And Arthur was just trying to save David.”

We walked in silence then, taking turns and moving slowly along wide, long corridors, and after a while Drake looked across at me. “Arthur was my first council member, did you know?”

I looked up from the brushed red rug. “I know a little about it all—but not much.”

He nodded. “A decade or so before the Black Plague, I was approached by a man claiming to be my father—”

“Vampirie?”

“Yes. You see, I’d been searching for him for thousands of years, but never found him. He came to me only to warn me that if I continued on this path of human destruction—creating vampires and allowing them to feed without restriction—the Lord above would find a way to restrain me.”

“Must have been bad to draw Lord Eden out of hiding.”

“I admit, it was. At the rate of vampire creation versus consumption, we had very little time left to enjoy our… fruits. And when the Black Plague struck and wiped out almost half the population of the town I lived in, I decided to take control of my vampires. However, they were arrogant, unlikeable and insubordinate. So I recruited a body of men completely dedicated to me, sworn to an eternity at my side, who could help enforce the new laws. Arthur was my first.”

“That’s right. I remember now—you offered to turn his brother as well, but he refused to become a demon like you, and so Arthur swore to protect his bloodline for all eternity.”

“Correct,” Drake said with a nod. “It took us nearly a century to gain some control, and it was only when my sister Lilith was born in the fourteen hundreds and grew to become deadly to vampires that we were truly successful. By then I was tired of the battle between Vampire and Man, and Lilith took her place as Queen, freeing me for the first time from the burden of my errors in nearly five centuries.”

“So you were happy she was made Queen?”

“She wasn’t
made
queen, Amara. I gave her the role, and Lilith, my grandmother—The Fifth Keeper of the Realm of Spirits, Guardian of Nature—blessed my sister’s reign, using the power of the Stone.”

“Wow. I didn’t know that bit.”

“Not many alive today do.”

“In that case,” I said, slowing as Drake did, “I feel privileged.”

We came upon a pair of large dark wood doors, directly across from an identical pair. Drake bowed, offering the way, and as if at command of his gesture, the door swung open. “After you.”

As I stepped into the light, airy room, half-checking behind the doors for a person, the crystal chandeliers, matching furniture in golds and light blues, and the pale colour on the walls transformed the ancient castle into a palace.

Drake pulled a curvy chair out from a small white table, clearly stolen right out from under Queen Elizabeth’s nose, and offered me a seat.

“Thank you,” I said politely, planting my butt on it. My hand absently went to my crux, but as it grasped at a bare chest instead, a pang of panic went through me. I retraced my steps in a flash of a second and as I went past the point where we arrived at the castle, the panic turned to relief.

That’s
what Falcon picked up from beside my bed. And if he had my crux, not only did that mean Drake couldn’t get it, but also that my soul may wander to find it when I fall asleep. I still very rarely remembered travelling outside my body, but as long as he saw me it didn’t matter what I remembered—as long as he knew I was okay. Of course, if I could travel to Jason’s side again and talk to him, that would be better, but it seemed that since the crux came into my possession I travelled to him less and less.

“Would you like the fire lit?” Drake asked, and both of our eyes drifted across to the white mantle, the simmering embers below burning down to almost nothing.

“Yes please.” I rubbed my arms. “In the rush I never thought to grab a sweater.”

“Do not concern yourself with such things,” he said, standing up and walking across the room to one of three silky ropes hanging near the wall. “If you decide to stay here I will see to it that you are clothed appropriately and have all that you need.” He tugged the rope and a loud gong rang out somewhere in the distance—something I imagined I wouldn’t have heard if I wasn’t a Lilithian.

“And if I don’t—stay with you?” I challenged.

“I would be sorely disappointed.” He sat back down. “But I will still see you taken care of, Amara. You are, after all, family.”

I went to speak, but the door opened and three people came in: one with a tray of tea and cake, another with an armful of firewood, and an immaculately dressed man with a silver tray.

“A messenger arrived with this, your Majesty.” He bowed before his ‘King’ and offered the tray.

Drake looked at me as he picked up the white folded paper, then read over the words quickly, his eyes darting from left to right, and stood up. “Leave us.”

I jumped to attention, thinking he meant me, until the portly woman laying out the tea practically dropped the cup and exited the room, the others following gracefully.

Drake walked to the fireplace and toed the pile of wood there, pushing it all onto the grate. Bright red embers scattered up into the air and turned black as they hit the hearth around his feet.

“Drake?”

“Word from Loslilian.”

“Already?” I looked at the clock on the mantle. “But it’s only been an hour since I left.”

“Vampires move a great deal faster than humans, my little Queen.” He took a lighter from atop the mantle and laid it to the paper, letting it burn for a moment before dropping it onto the wood. “And you are, as of this moment, no longer Queen Amara.”

“I’m not?”

“You are in disguise—as a personal friend of mine.”

The paper smoked and curled on the edges, but the flame receded before it turned to ashes. Drake squatted down and held his hand over the wood, closing his eyes and pushing his hand into the fireplace. A great blue-orange flame came to life a second later and consumed the wood and the paper with it, roaring on as Drake moved away and sat down.

“Did you… how did you
do
that?” I said, my eyes round and wide with awe.

His mouth angled sharply on one side in a very human grin. “Perhaps I will teach you.”

“I’m not magic,” I said. “I can’t do witchcraft.”

“Lucky for you it wasn’t witchcraft.”

“What was it?” I looked back at the flames, noting the slight blue glow.

“That’s right,” he said in a leading tone.

“Cerulean Light?”

He nodded once.

A few squares of a puzzle I didn’t know I was doing fitted into place. “That’s why my light didn’t harm you—back at…” I let that story trail off, not wanting to bring it up again.

“Yes.”

“So
your
light can’t hurt
me
then?”

He shook his head slowly, sharp blue eyes fixed on me with a slight hint of humour beneath.