Page 44 of The Curse of Eternity (Descendants of Helsing #1)

Foundations of Decay

Dawn streaked inside through the opaque window.

Illuminating the silhouette of my sweatshirt while the embers glowed in the fireplace.

I yanked the material over my head, and the tag caught on my tangled curls.

A chill seeped in to raise the hairs along my arms, which I quickly shoved into the plaid jacket’s sleeves.

Blowing out a breath, I adjusted the waistband of my pants before retying my boots’ laces with a double knot.

By the time I looked up, Drake was fully dressed and already standing, his hand outstretched with the machete in his grasp.

Smirking, I accepted it before shoving the sheath back through my waistband.

His palm remained extended when I finished, and I placed my hand in his. Once upright, I gauged my balance for a second, but the dizzy feeling from the first time he’d drank my blood never came. Guess he didn’t take as much , plus, I’d actually eaten recently.

“Are you ready?” he whispered, and I nodded as Drake’s fingers entwined with mine.

“As I’ll ever be.” My hand tightened in his, and while my jugular pulsed against the healing flesh where Drake had marked it, I didn’t hesitate to follow him.

The squeak of my boots against the stone floor was nothing compared to the scream of the door hinges, but our noisy exit was lost amongst the flock of birds cawing and rising from the surrounding trees.

Over the course of our time here, the world outside had changed entirely.

Gone were the dangerous, murky shapes hidden in darkness.

Now, the gray sky was slowly giving way to streaks of blue.

Light cascaded over dewy grass, still short after the winter but budding violet flowers were sprinkled here and there.

Wind rustled the moss-coated branches and my hair alike, forcing me to tuck the strands behind my ear to keep the wonders before me in sight.

“It’s beautiful,” I murmured. When Drake didn’t move or respond, I looked his way. Behind his bloodshot eyes, sunken around thinned skin, a flicker of nostalgic sadness burned. Noticing my gaze, his expression smoothed with a fleeting smile.

“I did not anticipate this part,” he said, tugging my hand to follow his steps toward the edge of the clearing.

“What part?” My boots squelched in the damp, natural mulch of broken twigs when we reached the forest.

“That I would experience such a…longing. To be brought up short by merely seeing this place again, after nearly two centuries away.”

It was hard to wrap my mind around the idea of abandoning the first place I’d ever thought of as home. Except, after what he’d shared, I reckoned he wouldn’t have been eager to return to where he was brainwashed into revering Dracula as a deity.

In a whisper, he added, “I suppose it is because, one way or another, I will never have the freedom to return after today.”

“You can’t say ‘never.’” I grinned through the melancholy, goaded on by the curious amusement he faced me with. “You’re immortal, you might not know what will happen, but you’ll probably be around to see it.”

“Ah, Maria.” Drake chuckled, the easy sound making my heart flutter, but he shook his head.

“You know as well as I that immortality is a falsehood. My race is as easily eradicated as the tinder I set aflame in the hovel. I daresay that has always been our greatest weakness, to convince ourselves that we are the most durable. In truth, time wears on all—even the deceased.”

“Maybe you’re right.” I shrugged. “Or, maybe not. But if believing you can survive anything gets us to the next sunrise, then I’m willing to have some faith.”

A true smile graced Drake’s full lips, stealing my breath even with the sunshine trickling through the canopy above marring his image. “There is irony in that, for I am the one who has placed my faith in you .”

Our pace slowed to a stop, facing a cluster of roots separating two enormous trunks that grew toward each other.

Between them, set into the hillside and covered in vines and moss, was an iron door.

Stone bricks surrounded the entrance, held together by mortar older than this country.

A long oval latch was barely discernible behind the greenery.

Drake reached for it before I’d even recognized it as a handle.

My fingers closed around the hilt of my weapon when Drake released my hand. His progress was slow to turn the latch, and my eyebrows rose. Just how stuck was this door? His arms strained to move it, but it eventually gave way with a click that carried on the breeze.

Sweat beaded on my skin, a drop trickling down my neck. My blade was at the ready when Drake pushed the door inward. He stepped back as the iron surface swung away under its own weight. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but the empty dark hallway beyond wasn’t it.

Goosebumps erupted over my body when I breathed in the stale air escaping the depths within. Drake’s brow pinched into a frown, but there was no fear or concern in his steady gaze.

“This is how I was brought to the fortress as a boy,” he said slowly, like he was struggling to remember.

“It was the path they used to bring in all the children whose families Dracula deemed appropriate for service in his army. And it was also through here that I left for the first and final time…”

Lips pressed together, he stared past the open door but didn’t move.

This time, I reached out to take his hand.

With the gentle squeeze of his palm against mine as encouragement, we crossed the threshold into the tunnel together.

Exposed wooden beams lined the ceiling, becoming invisible the deeper we went, leaving the light of the entrance behind.

Dust caked the walls and most of the stone floor.

The only sounds were my footfalls and fast breathing.

I strained to hear anything else, but only silence greeted me in all directions.

Before long, the ground shifted from a flat walk into a descending spiral staircase.

I gripped Drake’s hand harder to maintain my pace and balance.

We must have entered the ruins of Poenari Castle somewhere between the forest door and now. This wasn’t adding up, and the silhouette of Drake’s easy posture put me on edge.

“Where are all the vampires?” I whispered under my breath, barely audible but confident Drake could hear me.

“While this is the most direct entrance to the fortress, it is not one that is frequented often, these days.” Except his attention lingered on the displaced dust coating the steps below.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I hedged, my grip tightening on the machete’s handle.

“Only select immortals, lycans, and the sorcerer of the Domnitori reside within the fortress—and we are not yet there.”

“What are you talking about?” I retorted, straining my voice low. “ This is where Helsing defeated Dracula. My family’s passed that story down for generations. They weren’t lying.”

“No, they were not,” Drake agreed. “Although there is a distinction between Poenari Castle—the home to Vlad the Impaler—and the fortress built by his son, the vampire Dracula.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I insisted, keeping my guard up.

“Dracula employed powerful sorcerers to strengthen his position. He instructed them to utilize the immortal magick in his blood in order to create a fortress to shadow this one, parallel with the Poenari Castle of his youth.”

“Like the Summerland?” I nearly stumbled, and Drake steadied me through the shock. “There’s a hidden realm—no, a hidden fortress inside this one?”

“In essence? Yes.” Drake descended another step, and my footfalls softened when the flooring leveled out.

I followed Drake around one last bend, and nearly ran into him when he stopped. Eyes wide, I glanced over the room we stood in. Across the space, two figures imitated our position, and I raised my blade. When the silhouette opposite did the same, I stopped short.

Roughly thirty feet ahead was an enormous mirror.

Its edges stretched to obscure the stone wall behind it, with a gilded frame that glimmered despite there being no light to reflect.

I swallowed, shivering from the cold and the eeriness pervading this empty room.

Nothing existed between us and our reflection, but the smell entering my nostrils churned my stomach.

A memory flashed, of the days before Halloween following my fourteenth birthday.

The funeral service, my crying family members, but I’d already exhausted my own tears by then.

Numbed and heartbroken, I couldn’t help but focus on the smell .

Decay staved away only by formaldehyde and the rosy blush on Mom’s unmoving cheeks.

Bile rose up my throat, but I gulped it down, focusing on the here and now.

“That’s why Helsing spent nearly three centuries searching for Dracula,” I mumbled, releasing Drake’s hand to take another step. “Because he was hidden, somewhere Helsing couldn’t enter.”

“There is a…falsehood, for lack of a better term. The myth regarding vampires owning an invisible reflection.” Drake walked past me, his silhouette nearing in the illustrious mirror, undamaged by time or the elements.

“It is a mistranslation. The truth is not that Dracula was unable to see his own reflection, but that he was concealed within it.”

“Why a mirror?” I approached, feeling the room grow cooler with every step.

“Where else would you create a place identical yet inverse to your own?” Drake’s gaze traveled along the perimeter of the glass, never quite facing his own image.

“This passage is rarely used anymore. When the Domnitori diverted their agenda from conquest to self-preservation, they no longer left their fortress on a regular basis. Instead, their sorcerer communicates with the Cneaz in command of whichever region they wish to contact.”