Page 33
Story: Ever Dark Academy, Vol. 2
No Master Necessary?
G rayson stared at himself in the mirror. He’d lit the fat, white candles in there but hadn’t put on the lights. Electric light in the Ever Dark should have been incongruous. So should modern plumbing fixtures, but everything was here. The best of everything. The toilet even had a bidet function!
But he was looking at himself in the mirror and not the gorgeous shower that begged to be used.
His face was familiar to him, of course, but the longer he stared at it, the more it seemed like he was looking at a stranger’s visage.
His green eyes should be silver. But that was the only thing he could remember about how he’d looked as Ashyr.
And he knew that even that unremembered face wasn’t his original face. They were beings of light and darkness. They flowed through the universe. Between one universe and the next. And, at one point, they had decided to take physical form.
Did he remember this? Or had someone told him at some point?
Maybe Daemon. Daemon would know. He was the greatest of them.
But Daemon kept his silence about so many things.
Even tonight, when he must know what they should do about the Sect of Dawn--about everything really--he had turned the questions back around to him and Ryder and asked them for answers. But this was familiar, too.
“Knowing where we’re going is not knowing how to get there, Ashyr. Don’t you remember?” Daemon had asked as Grayson had finished the last bit of steak.
Grayson had dragged that last piece of steak, which had a little bit of crispy fat on one side, through the remainder of the hollandaise sauce.
He closed his eyes as he chewed it and swallowed.
It was amazing that in a place run by and for Vampires mostly that the food should be so incredible.
Every meal he’d had so far had been the best he’d ever experienced.
“You make me wish I still had to eat,” Ryder laughed and rubbed Grayson’s back with his free hand while he sipped the rich, red wine.
Grayson relished that touch. Had he really said to Ryder that morning that he just wanted something casual ? That this wasn’t love ? That he would be just fine if they moved on from one another without another thought?
I was lying even then. But now, I can’t imagine saying those hateful, cold things to Ryder… to Weryn.
“We can eat, right? I mean… I remember eating,” Grayson said, opening his eyes. “Before. When I wasn’t human.”
“We can eat, but there’s not so much pleasure in it. Blood, of course, is different ,” Daemon answered as his eyes fluttered shut with some memory.
He is likely thinking of Julian. I know how much he yearned for a fledgling of his own to the exclusion of all else, really. And now he has him. The boy is beautiful and kind and intelligent and funny. No surprise that he should be the whole package.
“You said ‘we’, Grayson,” Ryder said, sounding rather awed and happy that he was being so accepting of himself as Ashyr.
But it was trying to accept himself as just Grayson that was perplexing him at the moment. He wanted to shed this skin and move on.
“It’s hard to think of myself as different,” Grayson replied, realizing that Ryder was right. “I am one of you. A select group.”
“You’re not turned yet, Ashyr,” Daemon reminded him.
Grayson felt a touch of annoyance at that.
In some ways he simply wanted to get it over with.
He wanted to be himself fully again. He imagined when his Immortal nature was restored that the memories would pour back inside of him.
Right now they came in flashes and half-remembered snippets.
He didn’t like that, because knowledge had always been power.
And, right now, having just his memories as Grayson was a hindrance.
Yet being turned--who did it, how it was done, and when--were all crucial things not just for himself, but his Bloodline and even Vampires’ understanding of the Immortals.
He knew this intellectually, even if he hadn’t experienced it as a fledgling before.
He had made every turning of every fledgling special.
This moment would be imprinted upon them and would make the natural obedience and loyalty that a fledgling had for their Master--and vice versa--natural rather than a fight.
But who should turn me? I wish Daemon could do it, but I assume his blood would kill me as it has so many others and that will put us back at square one. I will have to be reincarnated again and found again. No, that’s not an option. Not with all the unrest we’re facing.
His eyes flickered to Ryder who was sitting very still on the couch as if by doing so he would become invisible. But Ryder was huge and could never disappear. What was he thinking? Was he worried about who would turn Grayson?
In some ways, it wouldn’t matter who turned them between him and Ryder. He wouldn’t need the parent-child relationship that others required. This was a means to an end. He would be with Ryder no matter what any “Master” said to him. And they would not dare say a word.
Would Ryder turn me? A shiver ran down his spine.
To share blood and intimacy with Ryder like that would be incredible.
But there are issues there, too. And he has not suggested himself for the job.
In fact, from the way that Daemon and he are regarding one another I would almost think Daemon was against it. But why?
“How does the turning work?” Grayson asked, breaking the awkward silence.
Daemon laughed, leaned back in his chair, and looked delighted. “Just like in the movies! Or don’t you remember?”
“Oh… really ? I…” Grayson paused for a moment as a flicker of a memory burst through his consciousness of a trail of blood running down Dani’s collarbone and onto the swell of her breast. He shook his head sharply. “Oh. So it’s not different for Immortals?”
“Wasn’t for me.” Ryder scrubbed the back of his neck as if he didn’t want to recall the experience.
But who could blame him considering it was Lawson who’d done it?
There likely hadn’t been any kindness there even in the beginning.
“Balthazar, Caemorn and Fiona had the usual turning, too, I think. Well, for Balthazar and Caemorn… usual doesn’t exactly fit anything that’s happened to them. ”
“So each of them were turned by their own Bloodline just like you were, Ryder?” Grayson asked. “That’s fortunate, right?”
“What do you mean, Ashyr?” Daemon stretched out his booted feet.
“Well, every Vampire gets their particular gift from what Bloodline they are turned by,” Grayson said haltingly. “Right?”
“Yes, that is true of Vampires.” Daemon nodded.
Vampires and not Immortals. Is he making a distinction here? Or is it a distinction without a difference? I doubt he’ll say.
But Grayson tried to push the idea, “So if Ryder had been turned by an Eyros--”
“Gods forbid,” Ryder muttered.
Grayson squeezed his knee in sympathy. “If Ryder had been turned by someone other than a Weryn Vampire would he still have the Weryn gift or would he have another gift? Or would Ryder have both gifts?”
“Those are interesting questions,” Daemon murmured into his wine.
“That is not an answer, my king,” Grayson chuckled, not surprised by Daemon’s word play and avoidance of a direct answer.
But what does it mean? Why isn’t he speaking plainly about this? There must be some critical choice here. One he fears will impact what he desires, but runs counter to perhaps what I do.
Daemon used the Ashyr gift to lift up a log and put it on the fire. Sparks flew everywhere and there was a crackling sound as the papery bark caught and ignited. They all watched it burn. There was a fascination about fire that was eternal.
“I know that the body I had last time wasn’t turned by anyone. I just…” Grayson furrowed his brow, trying to get the memory to come but it didn’t. “I just was.”
“We built our bodies. Transformed others,” Daemon nodded.
“So being an Immortal is what I am so why can’t I just do that again?” Grayson asked.
“Do you not want to have a Master?” Ryder asked softly, not quite meeting his eyes.
“It didn’t work out really well for you, did it?” Grayson pointed out. “And I notice that none of the other Immortals seem to have Masters waiting around them either. I take it that theirs were bad too. Like Lawson?”
Ryder flinched when he said that.
“I’m sorry, Ryder.” Grayson squeezed his knee again. “But that’s a reason not to have a Master. Like reason 9092 not to have one.”
“I take your point. And you’re right. Each of them, including me , killed their Master,” Ryder explained.
“Okay, that’s not good. I certainly don’t want to entrust someone with my turning only to have to kill them later,” Grayson said with a grimace.
“Unlike you and the others, I am consciously choosing someone. I would have someone I could trust and would care for turn me. The thought of having to murder them--”
“It was only because none of our Masters allowed us to take our places as Immortals that they couldn’t last. They stood in our way.
Whoever you choose won’t do that,” Ryder answered.
“You seem so at ease with this now, Grayson. You had no desire to be turned before. I thought you’d be more against it. ”
Grayson’s eyebrows lifted. He barely remembered having that conversation.
He left out a soft huff of laughter and shook his head.
“I hated Vampires because I feared that their existence would out mine. But, clearly, I don’t care about that any longer.
I want to be fully myself again. Being an Immortal is at the core of me. Being human is…”
He didn’t have words, but instead just shook his head to show how unwelcome it was.
“Ashyr recognizes the challenges ahead and doesn’t want to be without every advantage,” Daemon smiled as he said this.
“Exactly. Remembering my full past is necessary too, and I think this human form is hindering me doing that,” Grayson answered.