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“What have you done, Wyvern?!” Ryder demanded.

“Taken all of the Weryn Bloodline to Daemon’s Palace, to the Ring,” The woman before him was Fiona Darksilver, also known as Immortal Wyvern. Her voice was rich and regal. She regarded him out of cool, yet sympathetic silver eyes.

“The Ring?” He had no idea what she was talking about. Was this some place where they were to cool off and not fight? After everything Daemon had said to him, he couldn’t believe that! It was as if Daemon had foreseen every moment of this…

Because he did. He has Seeyr’s gift, even if she hadn’t told him what would happen here, he realized, feeling a fool.

“It’s a gladiatorial ring,” she clarified. “Where you will fight Lawson in front of all the Bloodlines and Daemon himself.”

“This a Weryn matter!” He slashed a hand through the air, feeling angry and exposed. He was not fighting Lawson as a show. He needed his Master to stop. To stop… “This has nothing to do with other Bloodlines!”

She grimaced and then nodded as if she had expected him to say nothing less. Maybe she had lost a bet to Balthazar about it.

“No, Ryder. We are not individual Bloodlines any longer where our business is our own. What affects one, affects all,” she reminded him.

He shook his head again. “No! This is an internal matter!”

“You know that’s not true. You do not seek power for power’s sake.

If there was no difference in what would become of the Weryn under Lawson’s leadership or yours, you would never have done this, but there is.

” She lifted her chin. Her silver eyes flashing in her dark face.

“I know what it is like to have power and authority you did not want thrust upon you. But like Daemon is king, we are what we are.”

He studied the beautiful woman before him. Strong. Proud. Wise. Her regal bearing demanded respect. She inhabited the role of Immortal and leader as if it was bone deep inside of her. Yet she had just said that she hadn’t wanted it.

She shocked him when she touched his cheek with one hand. A gentle, tender gesture. A good friend’s touch even though he hadn’t said five words to Fiona in his existence.

“I don’t think it was a mistake that all of us were brought into our Second Lives by Children damaged by the War we all started and pursued,” she said.

His mouth went dry. “But you’re agreeing to set it up all again. Daemon. The Immortals. Now this school… ”

“The future is not the past unless we do not learn from it,” she answered, her fingers lightly brushing his chin before withdrawing the hand.

“All of us so far: Caemorn, Balthazar and myself have all had to defeat our Masters. Had to overthrow them and stop the damage they would continue to inflict.”

“I know of Balthazar and Caemorn’s Masters, but you, too, had to--”

“Yes.” She lowered her head and studied the ground for a moment.

“Just last month. I found her and… it had to be done. I had escaped her by going into the Order, but her continued evil grew unchecked without me to counter it.” She lifted her head and her silver eyes pierced him. “Now it is your turn.”

“You are Immortals! I’m just--just… what?”

She stared at him.

He shuddered. “I’m not…”

She stared at him.

He raked his fingers through his hair, ripping it practically from his head.

It had all been so clear when he’d recognized Lawson’s hate and connected it to his own past. It had been so much easier to think of defeating Lawson to protect Grayson alone.

Daemon’s remembered words had helped him see the prison he had been in for so long.

But now? Now it had to be done, but there was more to it. More to it that he owned.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” he confessed, rocking slightly back and forth. “I don’t know if I want this!”

“That is a good sign. Wanting to kill--even those who deserve it--is unwise,” she agreed.

“It’s not just that!”

“I know.”

He crouched down, practically wrapping his arms around his whole body. “Weryn created Legion and through him Lawson and so many others.”

“Weryn?” She challenged his third-party admission.

He closed his eyes tightly. “I--I created them. I created them.” He repeated those words, realizing that they were true. “How could Daemon want me back in power after what I’ve done?”

“You don’t remember what you’ve done. None of us do. Seeyr knows, of course. Maybe Kaly does too, but…” She shook her head and the beads clicked .

But his memories were there. Not all of them. She was right about that. But more than just fragments that floated past his mind’s eyes that he could capture if he wanted. His past. It had always been there. But he had rejected it.

“Though it might be cold comfort, Lawson’s desire to kill you--his own Childe--with glee tells me all I need to know about what his leadership is like and where he is taking the Weryn,” she said.

“And where will I take it? The past is a good indication, isn’t it?” His mouth tasted of ashes and he didn’t know why. “You feel it, too.”

She shrugged. “I strive not to repeat my mistakes. But like Daemon, we are the Immortals, the leaders of our Bloodlines. We have no choice but to rule. What we do get a choice about is how we do it. Learn the lessons from the past. That is all you can do. All any of us can do.”

“There’s been so much… death . Must I make some more?”

Ryder looked down at his hands and though they were clean now he could see the blood of ages past pooling in his palms. His fledglings’ blood.

The blood of others’ fledglings. Children’s blood.

Blasted hellscapes that had once been beautiful littered with the corpses of those that they had claimed to take into their dark embraces out of love .

They’d made monsters. Weren’t they monsters in return?

Fiona sighed. “We must go. I wasn’t to keep you this long, but I had to…”

He looked up at her then. Fiona’s midnight-lovely face was taut with grief for him and maybe herself, too. She met his gaze evenly again, the grief smoothing over until the calm mask of serenity and wisdom replaced it.

“You wanted to prepare me?” he guessed.

She nodded. “But is that possible? I’ve told you who you are. But Balthazar says that telling isn’t knowing . That’s why when Daemon told us, we didn’t fully accept it until later.”

He knew what she meant. He had been called Weryn reborn for most of his time as a Vampire, but he’d never really believed it.

It had been both flattering and disturbing, considering what the Order had said about Immortals.

And Lawson had always mentioned it in a mocking way as if to diminish Ryder with the comparison, instead of lift him up.

Fiona put a hand on his right shoulder. “I won’t ask if you’re ready. You’re not. But you will be. There’s a moment… there will be a moment and you’ll know.”

“That I’m Weryn?”

“What it is to be Weryn. You’ll understand,” she corrected.

And then the world was sucked away. Blackness and a sensation of moving at great speed but then stopping abruptly.

Ryder almost lost his footing as he rocketed forward.

Fiona caught him so that he remained standing.

It was like traveling through the gates and he realized that the two things likely were connected.

Wyvern had made the gates. But then all thought was blasted from his head as the sound of the crowd filled his ears.

Screams, shouts, bloodthirsty howls and yells of excitement.

He was in the center of an old gladiatorial ring just as Fiona had explained.

There were seats rising up on all sides just like in the Colosseum.

There was a raised box where the emperor--or in this case, the king --would sit and give a thumb’s up or a thumb’s down.

But it was still empty. The stands were not.

They were filled from top to bottom with Vampires. Each section was divided into a single Bloodline. They waved colored flags with the symbols that Balthazar had assigned to each Bloodline. They stomped their feet and raised their fists into the air. It was almost a carnival atmosphere.

And Lawson was loving it. He stood with his shirt off with Natasha by his side on the opposite side of the ring.

Other members of the Weryn Bloodline--powerful Vampires, heads of Houses--were clapping him on the back.

The rest of the Bloodline sat in the stands, not cheering, clapping or anything. Just sitting there.

Demos ran across the ring to him. Ryder was both happy and worried to see him. No one else joined them. Siban and Harlan stood near the bottom of the stands. They weren’t cheering, but they weren’t giving him a thumb’s up either. Irine was sitting down and bopping one leg up and down anxiously.

“Fiona,” Demos said with a nod at Wyvern. “You could have given us a head’s up about the trip.”

She smiled. “What would be the fun in that?”

She then turned and sauntered towards the Wyvern Bloodline section. She didn’t cheer though, but she did take a flag from one of her Vampires and gave him a nod as she sat down.

“So…” Ryder turned to Demos, “looks like you’re the only one that wants me to defeat Lawson?”

“ Wants ? Oh, no, even those assholes over their slapping Lawson’s back want him to go down. They just don’t think you can do it,” Demos contradicted.

“Maybe you should stay in the neutral seats until I win,” Ryder suggested.

Demos’ eyebrows rose. “Oh, no, I want to rub it in their faces when you end him.”

“Demos--”

“Have I ever been wrong?” Demos cut him off.

“Ah… no.”

“You’re going to win, because if you don’t…” Demos’ right hand swept towards the box. Daemon, Balthazar, Caemorn and Julian were filing in.

And there was one more person.

Grayson .

“Ah, there he is! My prize!” Lawson roared with laughter as he pointed at Grayson. “You’re going to be mine, little boy!” His cold-eyed gaze swung back to Ryder. “After I kill this disloyal scum .”