Page 35 of Once Upon a Dark October
Chapter Thirty-Five
S orcery hastened winter’s arrival, a frost-laden breath exhaling over the ballroom like a January squall trying to drown the wharf. Candlelight smothered in an instant. Wisps of pale smoke streaked the air as if she’d called upon the souls of the lost sorcerers to her aid. Noises of tense delight ricocheted through the crowd. A few bursts of applause and laughter followed, though some were left shivering in their fine evening gowns. The harbor was used to dramatics like this, especially on the night of the Blood Moon, where conjuring the dead and reveling in the macabre were part of tradition.
Bathed in red moonlight, surrounded by ruins and forgotten ghosts and ancient tales of blood and magic, they didn’t know anything was amiss.
Morrigan pushed the warded metal into her ears and dropped the pair she’d stowed away for me into my palm. Stay close. I’d rather we didn’t get separated.
I held so tightly to her fingers that my knuckles began to hurt.
Sonia rose from her throne and perched at the end of the dais.
“Centuries have passed since this hallowed place has seen a gathering like ours.” Her welcoming grin had an unsettling edge to it, flinty and insincere. Uncertainty trickled into the faltering, sporadic applause that broke out around us. “Many of you have never walked these halls, never stood beneath this ceiling. And what better night to invite Dreadmist Harbor back into its castle than the autumn Blood Moon? What better occasion to begin anew than the season of dying, with the first winter frost close on the horizon?”
I searched the ballroom for any sign of Gwen and Josephine, darting from one shadowy alcove to another, then back again. Morrigan squeezed my fingers, my pounding heart making a leap into my throat.
Sonia descended the first step, slow and light, holding her attentive audience captive. “It’s time we resurrected the throne.” Her declaration filled the entire room, weighing heavily, an incantation of a conjurer rousing wayward spirits. Drawn breaths, sharp against the air, turned quickly to whispered chatter.
“We are ready for another blood sorcerer to sit on Dreadmist’s throne,” she continued. “We have waited far too long. Generations have come and gone, the blood that was spilled here has since washed away. And in our absence, you have put your trust in a weak, ineffective council. A dying sorcerer too fragile to protect you. They did not pass my test. They stood by and let your children disappear.”
A crash of breaking glass punctured the tense air. Morrigan and I watched the crowd part with a few murmurs and yelps, people scrambling out of the way before blood-wine stained their skirts and shoes. Shattered glass in a pool of claret red lay at a councilor’s feet—a dhampir man.
“You cannot take a throne that no longer exists,” he shouted.
“We’ve torn it down once, we can do it again,” someone else said, voice rising. Another councilor, not far from where we stood. A vampire woman, the eerie moonlight glancing off her pin. “Don’t be fooled by her lies. The people you’ve elected have had their minds twisted by her false promises.”
“She’s stolen away the dhampir,” the man yelled. “She’s addled their bodies with her magic, and she’ll do the same—”
Sonia dashed her hand across her body, slashing the dust motes drifting in hazy beams of moonlight. The man’s shouted plea became a horrendous gurgling, choking on the blood that spurted suddenly from a gash across his throat. Sonia had torn him open, ichorous veins writhing beneath her skin. His blood running onto the floor, he collapsed facedown, and the ballroom erupted into panic and shrill screaming. A handful of guests pounded on the doors, begging to be let out.
Another slicing motion of her hands, and the vampire woman fell in front of the dais she’d tried to ascend, grasping at her mangled throat. Blood sluiced down her fingers, followed the veins in her arms before pooling on the marble. The demands to fling the doors open grew louder, the throne room spilling over with a mounting crescendo of impatience and fear.
Morrigan gripped my fingers, and we threaded a path through the restless crowd and toward the scent of blood. I rose on the tips of my boots to check the alcoves for my coven-mates, despair winding around my chest. A shock of sorcery washed over the room again, the glacial chill forcing silence, demanding order.
“Your precious dhampir children are under my command now,” Sonia announced calmly to a sea of tear-streaked, wide-eyed faces. “And they’ll remain with me—they must help with the hardest task of all.”
Morrigan let go of my hand, and my lungs seized with terror. What are you doing?
Buying more time, she answered. Stay there.
“It wasn’t the High Council who poisoned the dhampir with demon’s blood.”
Leaving me at the edge of the crowd, Morrigan stepped into the center of the ballroom, a length away from the councilor’s body.
“It isn’t their own weakness that stains them, is it? The same curse that turned a girl to ashes. And it was your unruly coven who left another dhampir woman murdered—two of them, as I recall. One of whom was the daughter of a councilor whose dead heart you sent to the rest.”
“Queens do not rise without blood.” Sonia gestured to the bodies, their blood still inching across the floor, almost pitch-black in the moonlight. “Blood sorcerers cannot reign without power. Dreadmist deserves a queen whose might can tear their enemies’ hearts from their chests.”
“ Your enemies, you mean,” Morrigan countered. “The harbor enjoyed peace long before you ruined our lives with your curses, destroyed our coven beyond repair. You’ve done nothing except make us the monsters in their eyes, like those who came before and died in their own blood, choking on their power. Your reign would be another bloody tragedy, Sonia, and the harbor has no need for that.”
“Well,” Sonia drawled, “fortunately you’d be useless in my court.” Clasping her hands in front of her, she stepped onto the throne room floor, the marble tacky beneath her heeled shoes. Only the cooling corpse of the vampire woman stood between them. “And I have no need for anyone else who wants to defy my right to rule.”
Where were Josephine and Gwen?
Time was running out too quickly.
“No one has that right,” I yelled. Morrigan’s head turned, and so did Sonia’s steely gaze as I pushed through the crowd, shielding Morrigan. Terrified she’d slit Morrigan’s throat, too, I’d leapt forward without thinking. Her hand curled around my shoulder. My temples ached from how fiercely my pulse was drumming. “It’s earned…and even then, it’s tenuous as the harbor fog. ”
Sonia laughed, but retreated back to the last step. “Of all people, I thought you’d understand the slight of being denied your inheritance, girl .” She gestured broadly to the crowd. “I realize not all of you wish to see the reign of a blood sorcerer. Though unfortunate, I have prepared for the worst. Those of you who don’t need convincing may join us on the dais. For the rest, perhaps your beloved dhampir will encourage a change of heart.”
As the clock heralded the eleventh hour, the doors to the throne room burst open and split apart. I thought the people had finally torn them down, but it was worse. Morrigan caught me by the waist. A swarm of poisoned dhampir rushed the guests at the doors first, an ocean’s swell of gnashing fangs and tearing claws, their eyes burgundy-dark with ichor. It dripped like venom from their blood-teeth, the air rotting with its stench.
They’d become wilder since they’d nearly Turned me, clothes hanging off them in tatters, their hearts an endless, sprinting cadence akin to a hundreds of bat’s wings. There were more than I’d thought—much more.
“Don’t kill them,” Morrigan shouted over the screams and snarling, guttural shrieks. Her voice sounded tinny to my blocked ears. “If you can, subdue them, and if you must, injure them—let’s hope Jo and Gwen get here quickly.”
“And don’t let them get their fangs into you,” I reminded.
“Easier said than done.”
We were tossed about by the fray. A town folding in on itself, succumbing to the rot of mindless violence. The dhampir had no interest in escape, only the frenzy of pumping blood, the fresh terror coursing through veins. Some guests slipped through the broken doors, only to be met by Sonia’s coven. I ushered a few scattered groups toward the servant’s corridors, hoping they’d find a way through. The ripping of silk and brocaded jackets churned my stomach. The smell of blood touched every corner of the room, the past come back for its retribution.
Claws gouged the marble, splattered the columns in red. A dhampir woman, her sleeve ribboned, pleaded with her sister. Guilt clouded her misting eyes as she shoved the younger woman back, begging her to remember, please, it’s me, while she dodged the thick ichor leaking from her sister’s mouth. Morrigan jumped between them, her sorcery blazing against my senses. The ichor squirming in the dhampir woman’s veins heaved at Morrigan’s touch. She growled, her knees buckling of their own accord, falling to the floor before she could sink her blood-teeth into Morrigan’s shoulder.
But Morrigan couldn’t hold her for long.
“Don’t,” I warned. “You need your strength—you can’t pull it from her.”
Morrigan met the sister’s teary gaze, her hold unflinching. I grasped her outstretched arm. We have to wait for Jo. You can’t fight if you’re already torn open and vulnerable.
With a pained sigh, Morrigan broke the young woman’s leg, a shard of bone piercing through the skin. Her sister wept harder and nearly lunged at Morrigan, but she held up her palm. The sister recoiled, stricken by fear. “She’ll heal,” Morrigan said. “When this is all over, she’ll be all right. This gives you both a fighting chance.”
We moved onward through the chaos. Morrigan subdued the slavering, wild-eyed dhampir to slow their attack as they grappled with mortals who did not stand a chance against them. The vampires were less easily overpowered. But some of them, from a glance, had sustained bites. We’d be outnumbered at this pace. I centered my focus on a heartbeat at time, if I could pick them out.
Clumsy at first, I couldn’t find my way in, couldn’t get my power to wrap around their veins. Sheer panic drove my attack—a dhampir boy, not more than seventeen, charged at me, a trail of ichor oozing in his wake. A flourish of my fingers and I heard the gut-wrenching crack of his bone breaking.
Which one, exactly, I didn’t know. But he crumpled to the floor, howling, and I still couldn’t breathe a full exhale. The monster within me just as easily could’ve ripped his insides apart. I felt it surging, wailing for blood after getting its first taste.
“Morrigan?” I whirled around, my gown moving with me. I’d lost sight of her in the crowd. “Morrigan!”
Sonia had seated herself upon the throne amongst her coven and court, taking in the spectacle of vicious bloodlust.
There was a man lying mere feet away, his body jerking under the ichorous blood-teeth that had torn a chunk of his flesh. It halted me where I stood, my fingers—my empty fingers; where had she gone?—worrying at my scarred neck. Back and forth, I felt the raised skin with my fingertips, the chaos around me fading out.
A solid blow struck my back. The air in my lungs constricted and wheezed out of me. Thrown forward, my cheek came inches from smacking the marble. Arms coiled around my neck. Thrashing to the side, I knocked them loose, fighting my own petticoats to roll onto my back. Dazed, I blinked and found Estella’s face looming above. Her dark curls a knotted nest, her delicate clothes threadbare and dirty, her serene brown eyes overcome with demon’s blood.
After everything we’d done to save her from this fate.
Estella’s elongated claws scraped at the floor. Her head canted to one side, I found the cadence of her heart, breathlessly fast. She took in my scent, an unearthly snarl crawling from the back of her throat.
I didn’t want to hurt her—she’d been through enough.
“Estella.” I turned my face away from her salivating fangs. “Estella, listen to me—this isn’t you.” Her blood-teeth snapped a breath away from my vulnerable neck. With her pulse so near, I felt it, tasted its rush, its cold reek of rot, but I couldn’t keep it in my grasp. “ This isn’t you. Remember Gwen… Gwen’s coming for you, she’ll save you. But you have to fight this… please , for her. For Gwen.” I pushed against her frayed corset. “Estella, don’t— ”
A blast came with a flash of golden light. More followed behind it like errant fireworks, miniature suns bursting to life, the smell of smoke burning in my nostrils. Estella cowered and covered her face. I sat up, finally breathing out my panic. The explosions kept coming, flares of warm sunlight driving out the dark and cold. Not to kill or maim, but to shield.
The dhampir shrank back, desperate to reach the night that still hemmed in the throne room floor. They retreated toward the alcoves, hissing and groaning as they fled into shadow. The room went silent, a hushed inhale or a whimper scattered among the carnage they’d wrought. Something arced through the air—a pumpkin seed, I realized, before it burst into radiant gold in front of the dais. Sonia’s coven squinted at the offending daylight and drew back, a crimson shield around their false queen.
“By the forgotten stars, where’d you ever find that ugly thing? That’s a…throne?”
Gwen’s innocuous question made Sonia stand from the aforementioned chair, her lips pursed in repressed disappointment. Gwen flipped a pumpkin seed into the air and caught it while they hurried to meet Morrigan at the floor’s center. Their flight from the dungeon must’ve been perilous, as their evening gowns had turned shabby, lacerated silk and wounded lace. Gwen’s gloves were missing, and they were both soot-covered and dusty.
The next glowing pumpkin seed Josephine threw landed on the second-last step. Anastasia pushed her underlings in front of them—emotionless, she watched them burn when the light touched their skin, smoke curling from raw, blistering flesh. Sonia didn’t so much as flinch at the fledglings’ anguish.
“Enough now, Josephine,” Sonia said at last. “You have my attention. Though I must confess I thought the two of you would’ve been torn apart down there.”
Josephine’s hand reared back for another shot. “Don’t even need these to make it hurt, anyway.” Her lip curled, fang showing in a threat. “You remember that, don’t you? Remember what it felt like with your blood boiling inside your veins? Don’t think the harbor would bow to a queen whose enemy is daylight.”
“Your stubborn refusals have grown tiresome,” Sonia sighed. “So if you’re quite sure you want to die with this coven, I’m quite eager to bury it—as I should’ve a century and a half ago.”
“Well,” Josephine drawled, slipping the pumpkin seeds into Gwen’s palm, “as long as I have your attention.” She held Sonia’s impaling gaze, defiant, her fangs fully bared now that she was reaching for the vials beneath her petticoats. Sonia made to move, but Josephine was faster, a wickedly triumphant grin quirking her mouth.
“Clarabella sends her regards.”
She hurled the first vial onto the center of the ballroom floor. As the blood seeped across the marble, Clarabella’s banshee shriek exploded from it, a brilliant shockwave tumbling over the room. Even dampened with alchemy, her screaming stabbed my ears. The chandeliers burst all at once with the windowpanes, glass raining down in a furious, crashing storm. Goblets and wine glasses splintered to bits. The guests—who’d pressed to the walls after the pumpkin seeds burst forth—plugged their ears. Even Sonia and her coven wilted, falling to their knees, curling up on the dais. I could smell the fresh blood all around me.
But it was nothing compared to the rot of ichor.
Sonia must have been the first to discern it, for she started cursing as she fought Clarabella’s echoing shriek. Ichor twisted in her veins. She was trying to reel it back in, the air burning cold with her effort. Plumes of demon’s blood began leaking out of the dhampir, icy and dark as the petals of an autumn mum.
Estella sobbed at my feet, her hands braced on the floor, ichor exorcized from her body in a misting vapor. I felt its roots trying to claim another vessel, awakening the ancient bloodlust within me. My hands curled tight into fists, I scrambled away from it, but it was impossible to escape—the ichor hung as the morning fog above us, ominous in the Blood Moon’s light .
Gwen dropped a second vial.
With the first still resonating faintly, the next shrieking wave hit the ichor, a thunderous swell, a storm rushing the horizon. Sonia was tossed back into her makeshift throne, demon’s blood crawling out of her cursed veins, slithering from her heart. I had to work to keep myself sitting upright, pain splitting in my eardrums. It was haunting to hear Clarabella like this in the walls of this long-abandoned room—as if she spoke for all the lost souls who’d died in these ruins by a sorcerer’s hand and those whose blood remained in our crypt.
The ichor imploded above our heads. As if we had stolen the stardust from the night sky, the room shimmered with falling specks of gold. Josephine’s wards burst with it, Morrigan’s blood disappeared in a spray of sunlight.
Estella lost consciousness and sunk into the floor. I stole barely a moment to rake my fingers through her curls until I was reassured by the slow, steady beating of her heart.
The embers of stardust were gentle as they fell and faded into the ether. I struggled to my feet and hurried to Morrigan’s side, wending between the bloody detritus the night had left in its wake. The crowd had thinned, the wounded left behind with the dhampir, whose bodies I imagined were too feeble now without the demon’s blood they’d been feeding on. More were taking their chance at escape while they had it. Morrigan said nothing and took my chin in her fingers, turning my head this way and that until she was satisfied.
Our coven stood together, the last flecks of luminous, dead ichor waning around us.