The Garnet Dagger
Andrea R. Cooper
Avon, Massachusetts
This edition published by Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
Copyright © 2013 by Andrea R. Cooper ISBN 10: 1-4405-6559-7
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6559-5
eISBN 10: 1-4405-6560-0
eISBN 13: 978-1-44056560-1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © 123rf.com; istockphoto.com/Nicolas McComber, Mark Hilverda, iconogenic
To my husband who not only showed me that love is real, but opened up a world of magic and fantasy. Who encouraged me to indulge in my love of reading, and never told me to give up my dream of becoming a writer. And who wrestled with little ones so I had time to write. Thank you for your support. I love you.
To my children, Troy, Levi, and Chloe, may you always follow your dreams, and hold onto them until they come true. Never accept defeat even if everyone doubts you.
A Sneak Peek from Crimson Romance
A special thank you goes to Jennifer Lawler for giving me and this story a chance. The Crimson Romance editors for polishing my story and inspiring me to make my writing better. Crimson Romance staff for helping my story reach others.
Thank you to my writing group, friends, family, and strangers who supported me by listening to my ramblings about this book or reading it and offering insights.
I’ve known death. For over half a millennia, I escorted many to death at the end of my sword. In the eyes of the dying, I watched it shroud them. Foolishly, I thought many more eras would pass before death came for me. It came so swiftly that I could not run; I could not escape.
At a village, dressed in human clothes, I took in everything. By observing for eons, I understood and spoke their language. The world of mankind fascinated me. Their hobbled homes burrowed into the ground. Rocks crunched on top one another with thatched roofs woven from straw. Never had I seen a home or inn that was higher than three levels, as if they were afraid of the sky.
I delayed my return to my people as I watched human jugglers bounce torches and knifes. It was autumn equinox and the festivities would continue well into the night. Children laughed as they chased each other. A trail of leaves from their costumes twirled after them. It was dark when I reached the forest. Since I was already late, I hiked uphill to a shortcut rather than take the long path back home. I didn’t need to alert any of my kind near the barrier at this hour. Liana would wonder why I was late. Tonight was the two month anniversary of our hand twining ceremony. One more month as was custom, and then we’d be wed.
A gasp rustled through the trees. The roots shot a warning through to me with stifled caution. Adjusting my pack, I continued on instead of changing back into my Elvin clothes. After I passed the border which kept humans from entering our land, then I’d change.
In the distance, I heard a groan. Curious, I spun in the direction of the sound. The autumn wind breezed through my worn human clothes, chilling me. But someone needed help. I turned in the direction of the sounds.
Whatever made the noise should be a few yards ahead. I hiked slower than my normal speed, so as not to startle whatever human called out. My leather boots crunched upon dried, diseased leaves and bark. Horrified, I glanced up.
Branches twisted around each other to suffocating. Lifeless limbs cracked in the wind. Flesh of the trees sloughed off in layers, exposing its bones. Gashes hollowed out chunks of warmth. Fragments of leaves clung to finger tips, marking sepulchers of the dying trees.
Trees mourned with wails like splitting wood, and I brought my hands over my ears. I must flee before I became infected, they told me.
Flee before the stain of this defilement creeps into you, they warned. Trees spoke to my kind, always had. Yet these trees were in such agony of death that I could not breathe. Felt as though my lungs had folded in on themselves, like a moth unable to break loose from its cocoon.
Nothing I could do for them, and if I lingered too long, whatever disease gnawed upon them may choke me. Where would I go if I carried something so foul as to devour trees from the inside out? I’d never return to Tamlon if I brought this infection with me.
I drew away, but a movement at the base of a decaying tree to my right caught me. My night vision picked up the sight of a human. His sallow face seemed to glow in the moonlight. Poking out from rags lay his arms and legs, which resembled skin stretched over sticks.
So cadaverous was his face, I’d have thought him dead if he hadn’t moved.
“Please,” he said and his voice sounded like cicada’s vibrations, “help me.”
“What ails you in this troubled place?” I wondered if my voice, foreign to my ears in speaking the human’s language, revealed my nature.
“I am lost.” His dark eyes crinkled around the corners. “Without strength to rise. If you would but assist me up, I’ll be on my way.”
I’d never touched a human on purpose before. Was it that that gave me pause, or dread that stilled my heart? My feet itched to flee. As soon as I helped him, then I’d leave. I gritted my teeth and reached a hand down.
His gnarled fingers snapped on my arm, making me wince. Jerking me forward, his face contorted. Surprised by his strength, I fell beside him. Blackness curled around me.
Teeth, fangs, broke through the skin on my neck. Then I knew him for what he was, a vampyre. I struggled in protest. My words trapped in my mind. This shouldn’t happen. I was not human. But I felt my essence slip from me with each sucking sound he made.
I tried in vain to push him off me. I was paralyzed. My joints and muscles locked in place. I couldn’t move.
Release. Get away.
I screamed again and again in my mind, but my body refused to obey. If I could reach my sword then I’d behead the monster. But my hands, even my fingers, refused to move.
Felt as though my bones were replaced with steel rods, which now in place, were tempered closed. Embracing death. Wind roared in my ears, bringing the laments of the trees around me, piercing into my soul. Here, I was to die.
• • •
He twitched.
And I felt a tugging at my wound. But apparently neither of us could disentangle. He was locked with me, and I with him.
Pain churned behind my eyes like scorching fire. It seeped through my skull and down my spine. His essence mingled with mine and filled me.
And I knew him.
I knew his thoughts, his name, and his victims through the centuries. Inside my head he was yelling. “Not human. Not human. What are you? Draining me, my power.” His words shattered through my mind.
I didn’t know what was happening. The ground beneath me sighed. Bugs crawled along the leaves, their mouths crunching through the bark. In sleep birds ruffled their feathers.
Stench of blood and death lingered. A feeling of falling coursed through me. Everywhere my skin tingled like pine needles pricked me. I sensed each groove of my knuckles.
Strength returned to me, and yet something more. A thickness settled over the beating of my heart. Just beneath my skin, an itch, a tingling.
My muscles and bones relinquished their rigidness. I shoved him away and he gasped.
“What have you done?” Black blood ran from his eyes.
“Nothing.” I saw his life force shimmering like the dew in morning. Fragile and waiting for the day to melt it away.
His eyes rolled back into his head, and he was dead.
But I was alive, no vampyre. I shrugged it off that my kind must have immunity to his. Doubt tickled behind the veil of my conscious mind. Fleeting stories of prophecy and a dark monster read to me as a child.
My fingers brushed across the wound from my attack. Before I stumbled upon any other visitors, I decided to change my clothes. These human clothes had nearly killed me.
I removed my old human clothes and left them beside the rotting body. Thrust my legs into my trousers. Then I yanked my silk tunic over my head.
Images of wolves swam through my mind. They’d be upon me in two hundred paces. Why I felt they come for me, I could not explain. Never before could I sense animals so far away, or their intent. I stomped on my boots and slipped on my cloak. Leaving the discarded clothes behind, I ran.
Heard howls echo behind me. I dared not stop, but flew over the rocks to my home. I’d search the scrolls. Warning steeled my breath when I thought of approaching my parents with what happened this night. No, I must find out for myself before I spoke about this to another.
My breath eased out of me when my boot hit the marble floor of the city. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized I held it. Below, the wolves bayed at the moon. Everyone rushed to watch them. Wolves roamed the lands, but these did not move to leave.
Catching the uneasiness in the air, I refused to let myself run to the library vault. Instead I advanced at a set pace. Doubt clutched me. Perhaps something changed my countenance. But everyone I saw greeted me the same as before.
The prophecies would assist me. I’d review them before discussing them with my parents or Liana. The wolves’ howls echoed through the chambers and I felt as if they vibrated through me.
Inside the library, I rushed forward, unable to slow my steps. I careened around the shelves of histories and laws, then ducked behind the velvet curtains to the vaults. As I was growing up, I and my father visited these vaults often. I had tagged along behind, as privileged few were allowed access.
As an adult, I did understand the reason for my father’s admittance. We were the key to the prophecies. Somehow. Our family through generations commissioned to read the prophecies to their first born sons. I don’t remember much about the words, except they intrigued me about the human world. My father stopped taking me over a century ago.
I pushed open the marble door. The coolness faded into my palms and the door swung open. After stepping through the doorway, the door slammed shut behind me. At a table carved from the marble wall, Nivel scoured through tattered parchments.
Nivel’s silver hair contrasted with his smooth face. Although he was the oldest of us, he bore no signs of his age, except his hair. Once, when dared by my friends to ask his age, he answered in riddle.
“I am the age I’m meant to be,” he said. “Continue my course, until all is set before the dark one who will come.”