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“Come,” she said again, beckoning. Something about her voice mesmerized me.
I found myself wanting to go to her and stopped. Under my mask, I’d broken into a sweat. It took great effort not to glance her way. Because I wanted to look…how I longed to look, to catch just one glimpse. To see her.
The guys, though, they didn’t fight it. They swarmed her. I’d cursed them as they’d come in the room, but I was thankful now, hidden in the crush of bodies.
“Gather to me as we celebrate with this night of fire and life. ” Something in that powerful voice resonated, calling to me. But I forced myself to stare blindly forward. I couldn’t catch her eye. There was no leaving now—I was stuck here. “Be here, with me,” she ordered. “Celebrate with me. ” Did she sense that not all eyes were upon her? Her voice got richer, deeper, as she intoned, “Look upon me. ”
I couldn’t fight it any longer. My eyes were drawn to her—I couldn’t not look. My eyes drank her in. She was not at all what I’d expected. She was magnetic. Breathtaking.
She was also a petite, white-haired girl, looking no older than fourteen.
I knew not to trust my eyes. This Sonja had been born hundreds of years ago. I felt it. Felt her power. It thrummed through the room. This was the one who wanted me, delivered by Alcántara like I was a take-out meal. This was Sonja, who’d carved the runes. Sonja, ruler of vampires.
Did that mean she was Vampire? Could women be vampires?
Her robe was a deep crimson, made of a fabric so fine, firelight danced across it, rippling along her body like she was made of the fire itself. She was irresistible. A lodestone at the front of the room. She was the pulse of the keep.
“Who among you knows the misericordia?” She raised her arms, and her sleeves fell back, revealing pale, thin arms and a dagger clutched in her hand. “Behold. ” She held a dagger aloft. It was long and thin, its blade a delicate thing. “Behold the blade. ”
I beheld, all right. I also beheld dozens of Trainees shuffling into the room, blocking off my exit as they did.
The guys began to chant, sonorous and rhythmic, in time with the drums. The sounds coalesced, their meaning becoming clear. Sonja.
Panic swelled in me as boys’ bodies jostled me. I stood tall. Tried to project an air of guy-ness.
They chanted for her, and I had to bite my tongue not to be swept in. The smoke was affecting me again, and I panted in several quick breaths. But it was Sonja’s hypnotic power that was the greatest threat of all. I focused on the strange disconnect between that deep intoning voice and her diminutive child’s body. It helped me regain some of my wits.
“Misericordia,” she repeated, and the room fell instantly silent. “It comes from misereri, to pity. And cordis. ” She touched a hand to her breast. “The heart. ” She paused long enough in the silent room that I began to freak out someone might hear my own galloping pulse. “This is the giver of mercy,” she said finally, easing the dagger back down. With every movement, firelight caught and shimmered along the fine blade. “It was used by knights of old to give a quick and merciful death to their foes. ”
She extended Frost’s hands up to the top of the table, then ran her fingers down my roommate’s arm slowly, almost sensually. “The misericordia delivers one final gift,” she purred. “A good death. ”
A good death…what a stupid Viking thing to say.
She gazed at the misericordia. “This blade is fine enough to pierce armor. Precise enough to pierce the heart at a single stroke. ”
Or to stake vampires, I thought savagely.
I hung back as much as I could, terrified now. I couldn’t stay. But I couldn’t leave either. I was utterly enthralled, desperately curious. And anyway, leaving would draw too much attention. I could only hope this ritual didn’t involve removing one’s mask, because then I’d really be toast.
“This very blade was the weapon of the first Initiate,” Sonja continued. “The first Acari fought with this. Died by this. She gave her heart so that you could have an immortal body. ”
An immortal body, but what of the soul? Did the vampires sacrifice that in addition to innocent girls?
Sonja placed the tip of the blade at Frost’s armpit and rolled her eyes back in her head. She began to chant, repeating an Icelandic word I recognized. Epli…epli…epli…
Apple.
A conversation shot into my head—ironically, it was an argument I’d had with Frost. Ever since she’d seen the runes I’d transcribed—the runes she’d accused of being incorrect—she’d taken every opportunity to mock me about them.
“A girl ruling vampires,” she’d jeered. “As if. ”
“What do you mean as if? Who wouldn’t want to be Vampire?”
Her expression was pure scorn. “As if women could have such power. ”
That set my hackles up. Why couldn’t women be powerful? “There were powerful goddesses in your precious Poetic Edda,” I said. “Like…like Idun. ” I’d remembered the name then—it was fresh in my mind from a chapter we’d just covered in Dag’s class. Idun was a goddess in the Norse pantheon, who’d kept apples and was eternally youthful.
“Actually, Idun”—she’d used an elaborate accent to pronounce it the correct Iðunn—“appears primarily in the Prose Edda, not the Poetic. ”
