Page 11

Story: This Violent Light

Sebastian clearly has a god complex, and I’m not sure there’s anything more terrifying than a man who assumes he’s above all else.

“Let’s get started,” she says, returning her gaze to me. Her eyes are dark and wide-set, making her look far more innocent than she probably is. “Come in, Grace.”

Despite myself, I glance back at Sebastian. I don’t trust him by any meaning of the word, but he’s yet to physically harm me. Even when I was paralyzed and completely defenseless, he didn’t draw blood or violate me. He only carried me to my cell and left me face-up on the bed.

He’s stated he needs me several times, but who’s to say Cora feels the same way? Who’s to say she won’t kill me the second he leaves?

“Just you,” he says to me. He nods at Cora. There’s nothing reassuring about his gaze, nothing gentle or soft. His eyes are cold and hard, as if he’s desperate to be rid of me.

I look away, embarrassed I turned to him in the first place. With a quiet breath, I step into Cora’s room. This time, I don’t look back.

“It’s not working,” Cora says.

We’ve been at it for two hours and sixteen minutes.

I know, because unlike anywhere else I’ve seen in the Echo, her room has a clock.

It hangs above her kitchenette, adjacent to a small window.

Through the glass, I see glimpses of a barren landscape with jagged mountains in the distance.

The town, the place with a look-a-like university building, must be the opposite direction.

“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing,” I remind her. I drop my hands, turning to glare at her. She’s stood behind me for the last hour while I hold my hands out like a zombie. Every now and then, she lets me lower them to get feeling back in my shoulders.

“You’re supposed to be channeling your magic.”

“And again, I have no idea what that means.”

“Clearly,” she bites. She rounds the couch and roughly takes my hands in hers. She doesn’t look at me as she crouches, turning my palms toward the ceiling and then the floor.

“Maybe I’m too human,” I say.

I study the houseplants that line the wall behind her.

They’re all in black pots and though they look dead—shriveled and limp—I’m weirdly confident they’re not.

I think she’s somehow growing dead plants.

They sprawl along her stone wall, filling the room with the overwhelming scent of death and decay.

I bet she and Tessa would get along.

“You should get a fish tank,” I tell her absently. “My new roommate says?—”

“No,” Cora interrupts. Her voice is harsher than I expect, but her attention remains on my hands. “No fish. ”

No fish. Got it.

I sit in silence for as long as I can bear. Truthfully, it’s not long.

“Maybe it’s just not going to happen. Maybe Sebastian doesn’t need me like he thought. Did you ever think of that? He probably needs some other witch. I might not be a witch at all, you know?—”

“You are the last Pruce,” she says.

I don’t know what that means, and she must gauge that from my expression. Her dark eyes flicker over my face. She frowns as she rotates my hands again.

“What has Sebastian told you of the curse? Of why he needs you?”

“He’s told me nothing,” I say. I grit the words through my teeth. “He’s only said that he needs me. And then he knocked out—or killed, I don’t even know—my roommate and my landlord. He dragged me here and locked me?—”

“Enough,” she interrupts. Her eyes meet mine again, and rather than echoing my frustration, she looks bored. “You are ridiculously loud.”

“So I’ve been told,” I say, slumping against the couch. It’s black velvet and comfier than it looked. Far better than the dingy bed in my cell. “But I’m not going to apologize. I’m completely in the dark here. Held against my will. Called horrible names. Threatened?—”

“Too. Loud,” Cora snaps. She drops my hands, but rather than going back behind the couch, she sits beside me. “If you promise to stop talking for five fucking minutes, I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

I seal my lips, terrified she’ll take it back if I so much as say yes .

“You are the last Pruce, the last descendant,” she says. She holds her hand over the back of the couch and bends two fingers. Without so much as turning her head, she beckons to something unseen. I follow the movement, eyes widening as a steaming mug floats across the room.

It bobs through the air, never spilling a drop, and lands in Cora’s palm. I stare, mouth gaping, as she takes a sip. It takes every ounce of my self-control to keep from blurting the thoughts in my head.

That teacup just floated!

You just moved a teacup with your mind!

That was magic! You just did real, actual magic. And I saw it!

Cora watches me as she places the mug on her short coffee table, as if expecting me to break. A test, I decide.

When I stay quiet, she settles against the couch.

“The Echo is a vast and wild place,” she says. “There are many peoples here, not just witches and vampires. There are different realms and laws and species. Twenty years ago, Sebastian—King of the Vampires—ruled over it all. He’d grown reckless with power though. Eventually, he paid the price.”

Cora grabs her mug from the coffee table, using her hands this time. She takes a long sip. The grassy tea permeates the air, almost strong enough to conceal the smell of rotting plants.

“Back then, your father led the witches,” she says.

“He was the last of the Pruce bloodline, a powerful and respectable family. Despite his refusal to have an heir, most people loved him. It was only the council, particularly Madam Lyrie, who couldn’t stand him.

She was the one who took over after his death.

When she told the story of what had happened, she claimed your father sacrificed himself to protect the Echo.

I always doubted that. The fact you’re here, that you exist , proves I was right. ”

“How would my father dying—” I clap a hand over my mouth, stopping myself. “Oops. Sorry.”

Cora studies me silently. Just when I’m sure she’s going to revoke my story privileges, she continues.

“Madam Lyrie was desperate to punish Sebastian and his kind,” she says.

“She and the council cursed them to burn in the sun, and they used a blood seal to make it unbreakable. As the last of his line, your father was the obvious choice. Without Pruce blood, the sun curse could not be broken. And without a living Pruce…”

I swallow, staring at the dying plants, rather than Cora. I barely remember my father, but tears still sting the corners of my eyes. I don’t want to imagine it. I don’t want to believe it’s possible.

Is that what’s going to happen to me?

“Sebastian’s mighty empire fell in a matter of days,” Cora continues. “All the power, the success he’d found, collapsed. And until you arrived in Aberlena, I thought he would never get it back.”

I force myself to keep quiet, if only because I want more. I want to know every detail, every secret this place keeps about my father. About me.

“You can ask,” she says.

I look at her, shaking my head softly. For once, I don’t have anything to say. I’m not sure what to ask, where to start.

“You are the only one who can break the curse, Grace,” Cora says. “Sebastian won’t release you until it’s done. Whether that’s months or years, you won’t be set free until the vampires are.”

My mind whirls, each thought flashing too quickly to make sense of them.

I’m straining for logic, for hope, for a plan and coming up empty.

I’m only staring, realizing what a mistake I made by coming to Aberlena.

Promising myself that if I can get back there, I’m taking the first flight to New York.

“You can’t run,” she says. I jerk my chin to look at her. Before I can ask if she’s read my mind, she levels me with a look. “If you run, the witches might be the ones to find you next. They’ll kill you faster than they killed your father. Understand?”

I force myself to nod, even as the words refuse to take meaning in my brain.

It’s too much, this is all?—

“I’ll call for Sebastian,” she says. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”