Page 49

I nodded in understanding. The only luminites with black hair came from the Austet, Kinnara, and Huitzilo clans, who had beautiful dark skin of varying shades to match.

My heart ached at her giving birth all alone in a strange and barren world.

Waves of guilt engulfed me. I should have been there for her.

“Delgarias arrived that night. He had a birth certificate and social security card ready, along with more money so I could take an extended maternity leave.” She smiled, and the world brightened around her.

“When I went back to work, I was able to bring Xochitl with me. Though it was agony to wait until my break times to check on her. The baby room was so far from my classroom.”

I listened to her cheerfully describing her struggles with working a job, paying bills, cooking and cleaning, and raising a child all alone, and all without magic and marveled at her strength.

Especially when Xochitl started to grow.

Her bond with cats manifested before she was a week old, she was reading and writing before she was three, and Kerainne began teaching her magic around the same time.

“Del told me not to teach her to shield because when it came time for her to fulfil the Prophecy, she needed to be found.” Kerainne frowned then took another swig of her awful drink.

“I still wish I could have, because her power radiated so strongly that I think that’s why all the humans disliked her.

The constant rejection and bullying hurt her so much… ”

“Kerainne?” I said quietly after she finished telling me about times she’d been called to her daughter’s school to meet with officials either because Xochitl was being bullied or a teacher not liking the way she dressed. “I’m so sorry.”

“Things got better after she met Sylvis,” Kerainne continued brightly as if she hadn’t heard me.

“Aside from Del telling me his visits had to stop before she noticed that he was different. By then, I’d figured out that he was a vampire, but I never let on that I knew.

Unfortunately, with Del’s visits stopping, so did the money.

I was never very good with it. But we never went hungry.

I took her huckleberry picking every summer and morel foraging every spring.

And she loved to fish. In a way, having to fend for ourselves was for the best.”

“How so?” I couldn’t tolerate the idea of Kerainne living in anything less than luxury.

“Because as a leader, Xochitl needed to know what hardship was like. Also, that’s how I learned that she was capable of killing.”

“What?”

“Sylvis’s dad was an avid hunter, and since she and Xochitl were inseparable, he taught them both. From then on, she killed a deer for us every fall. Grouse too.” Her mouth screwed up in a frown. “Processing meat is awful. But the freezer full of meat was always a relief.”

“What did you think of Sylvis being related to me?”

“It was a shock at first, but then I remembered that you’d never had anything to do with the Earth Jagwolfes, so I thought less of you and more of the fact that my daughter’s first friend had luminite blood.

At first, I assumed that’s what Del meant when he said I had to raise Xochitl in Coeur d’Alene.

But that was only a small part of it, though the lessons in hunting, martial arts, and guitar that Sylvis’s parents provided all helped toward the Prophecy. ”

“Then she made two other friends with luminite blood.”

Kerainne nodded. “That’s when I knew that Xochitl and Sylvis blistering their fingers learning to play the guitars we’d found at a yard sale was more significant than just a luminite’s love of creativity.

When they brought Beau and Aurora to my home for the first of many sleepovers when they were fourteen, with a drumkit and bass and amp in tow, I heard them play and felt the magic they generated together.

So I did everything I could to encourage that music.

There were many meetings with all their parents as we came up with schedules and ways to accommodate their band practice without driving ourselves or the neighbors crazy. But then I started to get sick.”

My heart clenched as Kerainne described her slow death from Earth’s lack of magic. How her exhaustion worsened until she collapsed on the couch as soon as she got home from work and how Xochitl was frantic with worry as she tried to take care of her.

“She tried to get me to see a doctor, which of course I couldn’t do.

It was so hard to not be able to tell her the truth.

But to stay hidden, she needed to believe she was human.

” Kerainne wiped a tear from her eye. “When I reached my last days, I let her skip school so she could be with me. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to come down and see her for at least a couple years so I wouldn’t be recognized.

On my final night, I called her to my side and told her I was sorry I couldn’t make it until she was eighteen and made her promise she’d stick with her friends and keep making her music. ”

She paused again to wipe her eyes and I pulled her into my arms as she continued on in a choked voice.

“I held her as long as I could while she cried. Then death’s dark veil enveloped me and I awoke in Luminista, fully restored physically, but completely empty inside.

Silvara and her guards seized me and locked me away immediately for birthing ‘an abomination.’” She sniffed in derision.

“I would have been hurt if I wasn’t overcome with worry about my daughter.

I begged for a scrying sphere so I could find out if she was okay. ”

“And that was all my fault.”

Kerainne’s snort of laughter startled me.

“Don’t be so arrogant. Silvara wouldn’t be influenced by the likes of you or anyone younger than her.

Even if you hadn’t told her about my baby, she would have found out on her own and still arrested me.

She wasn’t really punishing me for being impregnated by the Evil One.

She was punishing me for the loss of her daughter because I was the only one she could reach. ”

“But—”

“I’m not finished.” Kerainne released me and plopped back in her chair, taking another big gulp of her drink.

“It took three years for Gabriel to smuggle a scrying sphere into my cell. It was wonderful to see Xochitl and Rage of Angels having fulfilled their dream. But I didn’t find out what happened in the years I was gone until after she’d gone into a coma after killing Zareth’s half-brother.

That’s when Gabriel, and you managed to free me. ”

“Oh, fates, that’s right,” I breathed. “I’d known your daughter was in a coma and in danger of dying when I helped distract the guards so Gabe could get you out, but I didn’t know it was because she’d killed a person until a few months ago.”

Kerainne nodded. “Those months of keeping her alive and waiting for her to wake up were agony. But eventually she did and we were able to catch up.”

“So what happened to her after you died?” I found myself worried about that girl who’d thought her mother was gone for good and empathized.

“I’d left papers for her to be emancipated, but of course, the state didn’t listen.

Instead, they put her in a group home, where she met Akasha, then she was given to some horrific foster parents.

” Kerainne finished the last of her drink and continued.

“I’d thanked the Lord Vampire of Coeur d’Alene more than once, but we have yet to have a full conversation about those dark years that would have been darker for Xochitl.

Del had instructed him to watch over Xochitl when he’d become Akasha’s guardian.

Of course Silas is so kind, I think he would have done so without it being an order.

Then in one swoop, Xochitl had protection and a place for her band to grow. ”

I shook my head with mingled awe and new understanding. “I’d wondered why you liked the vampires so much in spite of everything that had happened with your sister.”

She smiled. “I may have liked them sooner, but Nik ironically helped them more. Did you know that she spent centuries taking out rogue vampires and turning them in to the Elders?”

“No. Why did she do that?”

“To tweak Del’s nose.”

I laughed. “That sounds like her.”

Kerainne laughed with me, then hiccupped. “I love J?germeister, but I think I loved it too much tonight. Could you help me upstairs?”

When I helped her to her suite, every cell of my being wanted to follow her inside and hold her again. Instead, I politely bade her goodnight.

The next few weeks made me regret that decision.

Though the remaining Leonine and Jagwolfe matriarchs departed the following morning, Silvara’s declaration that she would no longer forbid any of her subjects from joining the war yielded immediate results.

A dozen luminites from both clans arrived mere hours later.

“That makes nineteen,” Del had said in a tone that said we still needed more.

However, the rest of us were grateful to not be overwhelmed with an entire army. Zareth arranged housing for them and tasked Nikkita and me with teaching them to fight. Kerainne and Artavian gave them lessons in healing, making our schedules so tight that we barely saw each other.

Akasha and the vampires both decided that it was time for some of them to reside in Aisthanesthai permanently. Shen Li, Silas’s sullen enforcer was selected to become the new Lord Vampire of Niji, though he would of course answer ultimately to Xochitl.

Razvan’s enforcer, Sarah, was dubbed the Lord of Raijin.

Each vampire was assigned ten subordinates for the beginning.

Though Sarah’s people wouldn’t be leaving for Raijin right away.

All new Aisthanesthai vampires would stay in the castle with the new luminite recruits and train beside them in battle and culture.

In the meantime, Xochitl and Zareth would work to prepare the regular townsfolk for having vampires from Earth living among them.

Aurora called it a “PR campaign,” which made most of us laugh, though they had to explain it to me before I caught on with the humor.

All the blood houses in Aisthanesthai were contacted, requesting they temporarily relocate to Niji while the vampire army was being trained.

They would be well compensated as Zareth intended to pay for their meals.

As for Earth, Silas, Razvan, and Del monitored the activity there. While there’d been no further attacks in either of our worlds and the rate of mage disappearances slowed, the number of vampires and humans joining the Order of Eternal Night continued to rise.

Xochitl and her friends used that time to finish writing and recording their new album, strengthen their relationships with the Earth mages and the Nightwatch Society, and slip in the lessons in magic and combat that they also needed.

Sylvis’s transformation to nearly full luminite increased her power so she graduated to red robes, which made her two ranks below Xochitl’s and my purple. However, since she was now unable to kill, Nik taught her how to maim.

Although I sometimes missed having a daytime schedule and missed the tranquil pace of life in Luminista even more, I found myself feeling more satisfaction and purpose in life than before.

If only the path we were on wasn’t going to lead to inevitable pain and bloodshed, and if only I could spend more time with Kerainne everything would be perfect.

But I’d learned that life wasn’t meant to be perfect, no matter what I’d been taught.

At least I got to spend more time with Xochitl.

She was everything Kerainne described and more.

She excelled in the sword lessons Nik and I taught, even surpassing Akasha, who’d been training longer with one, albeit in a style with broadswords like the knights of Wurrakia.

Xochitl lacked the upper body strength that Silas’s mutant human Bride had, so the Shellandrian steel katanas were more suitable for her.

We started making a routine of having lunch together before she had to return to the recording studio.

I learned about her likes and dislikes, her hopes and ambitions.

She had her mother’s vitality and optimism, but there was a craftiness and a volatility to her that made me thank the fates that she had no intention of using her gifts for evil.

When she learned that, like Gabe and now Sylvis, I could shapeshift, she begged me to teach her.

“I want to be a cat!” she declared with irrepressible enthusiasm. “I’ve always wanted to be a cat.”

“What kind?”

“All of them!”

I admired that kind of energy. I promised to teach her when we had time and somehow ended up also agreeing to get a tattoo with her.

I still had no idea how that happened.

If my waking hours weren’t already filled, Zareth summoned me to his new laboratory. The protection spells around the perimeter and upon most of the books and objects pressed on me heavily until I learned to block them out.

Zareth sat at his desk and fiddled with a raven’s feather.

“Tanis is having another bad time. I’d like you to try to help him snap out of it.

Not only to make him feel better, but also because we need to learn more about Qua’ al-fán.

The time will come soon when we march into the portal Sylvis created. ”

I’d been expecting this request. In the past few weeks, we’d discovered that poor Tanis frequently went into catatonic states. Artavian, the Wurrak healer, was treating him alongside Jayden, Razvan’s seeress bride.

I nodded, grateful that there was something I could do to remain useful to the king who could become my son in law. “Of course I’ll do whatever I can.”

Unfortunately, every time I’d tried to visit the freed luminite captive, he was asleep. After every failed attempt, I returned to my room, placing my hand on the wall separating me from Kerainne’s suite in silent entreaty for the fates to send her to me.

I had no idea how extreme their answer would be.