Page 42 of Forty Deaths Till Us Part
Manu whistled. “I didn’t realize vampires were that strong.”
Cass shrugged. “Our strength in our undead body is reflective of our human one. Constantine is almost as strong as Rene. He is more of a showoff, though.”
Constantine stared at Cassara as he passed the pipe to Rene. “You should read the passage.”
Rene took the pipe and gently pulled the paper from the inside out. He unfurled it slowly and his eyes moved over the ancient script.
“What does it say?” I asked.
He was silent for a few minutes. “This confirms you are the blood witch.”
My shoulders sank, and I stared at the floor. “Of course it does.” Rene touched my shoulder gently. “This page tells you to accept your destiny as the blood witch. It is not the dark omenwe assumed it to be. This says you are the protector of the vampire race and holder of the king’s heart. That only you can help the king survive what is coming.”
“What?”
Constantine sighed. “She is as we hoped. The anchor for the king.”
Rene nodded. “I knew she was mine the moment I saw her, but I have no way of confirming she will anchor me.”
Manu frowned, flicking his beam between us. “What are you talking about?”
Cass moved to stand in front of Manu. “It won’t be a secret for long, but Rene is... going through a transformation. I trust you will keep this to yourself until we have more information.”
Manu nodded. “I would never betray you or Rene, but what is this transformation? What does it do to him?”
Cass shook her head. “We don’t know. Raven is the holder of the king’s heart. She is the only one who can keep him... stable and balance his power during this process. None of us know what a true king is or what Rene will transform into. The previous overseers went mad during the process.”
Manu motioned to the page. “Is there anything else?”
Rene nodded. “The witches want Raven dead because they know she is the only one who can stabilize me. They are scared I will become more powerful than them with access to magic.” He stared at the page. “This page ends mid-sentence. There is another.”
Manu stepped forward, making his flashlight bob in the dark. “Do you know where it is?”
Rene pointed to a symbol of a fire. “The hearth. My guess is the private cavern of the hunter leader.”
CHAPTER 16
“Where is the private cave for the hunter leader?” I asked.
Rene glanced back the way we had come. “The personal caves are further into the mountain. I did not remove those implements.”
Rene placed the page back inside the metal tube and handed it to Manu. “Come with me.”
He grabbed my hand and led us through a series of intersecting tunnels. Explorers had likely found these caves, but Rene had only concerned himself with weapons from the Monster Hunter sect.
I didn’t even realize we were in a personal cave when Rene stopped. “This is it.”
My gaze roamed around the small room as Manu’s flashlight illuminated the walls. Unlike the sandy floor of the training room that hid the forge, they chiseled the floor of this cavern, smoothing the rock. While they had evened out the more jagged pieces on the floor, it was still quite rough. “Did they have beds?” I couldn’t see any sign of a structure.
Manu knelt down and pulled a tattered piece of cloth from the ground. “Tanned leathers. They lay on the floor on their version of a bedroll.”
Rene stared at the walls. “It was simply fur rugs with a cooking area in the center. The leader had a few items in here. It was his wife and child’s responsibility to cook for him and maintain their domicile.”
Cass grunted. “I know it was a different time, but being treated like cattle is wrong no matter the century.”
Constantine began to kick loose gravel from the chiseled rock. “They buried their forge. It seems reasonable they would bury other valuables.”
We all began kicking loose gravel but after a half hour we had covered the entire floor with no result. Manu was moving over the sidewalls of the cavern and stopped when he found a slight indentation. “This impression is packed with the same sand we found in the training cavern.”