Page 87 of We Were Eternal Once

So cold.

I shake her once. Twice. I press my ear to her chest, waiting for the sound of her breath, of her heart.

Nothing.

“Zora,” I say, my voice a strained whisper. I try again, louder this time so that she might hear me. “Zora.”

She doesn’t blink or breathe or flinch. Of course not, she is dead. I push the word away, because it can’t be true.

“Zora! Zora!” I yell, shaking her. Her stiff body barely moved, her muscles keeping her rigid. She’s been dead for hours, since well before the sun went down. Had she come down here to wait for me during daylight, only to be ambushed by robbers? Had I caused her death by putting her in danger, meeting some place like this?

I gather her head into my lap. Her neck does not move to allow it, so I bend it myself, sobbing as the bones in her neck crack and her tissue becomes pliable. I sob and shake and rock her, my fingers pressing into her shoulders, her chest, her face.

She does not move, she does not stir.

“Wait, I’ve an idea,” I tell her. I bite into the flesh of my wrist, bringing it to her mouth. Her jaw is clamped shut, not allowing her lips to part to take my blood. I squeeze her jaw until it pops, until the flesh and the bones break enough for me to pry her mouth open. She will heal. It will hurt, but she would heal.

I trickle my blood into her mouth, slowly at first, then quicker. I slash the vessel in my wrist with my teeth, trying to open it more to give her more blood. After a few drops of blood my wrist heals, and I curse and do it again and again and again. Any droplet I can force between her lips I did, tilting her head to let it drop down her throat. I rub her throat, I press my fingers into it to try to move my blood into her.

“Wake up, Zora,” I say, rubbing her throat.

My fingers graze something at her neck.

Two puncture wounds. Bite marks, right over the major vessel along the side of her neck.

Caterina. That fucking bitch. How dare she? It was one thing to corner me, to warn me about Zora. It was another thing to kill her. It wasn’t her right! Zora was my friend. She’d betrayed me, not her. Who did she think she was to intervene like this, to take Zora’s life?

Did she do it last night? Zora was so stiff, so cold. She must have found her after she left the tunnels and chased her back down here. Or perhaps Zora led her down here, thinking it was me? No—it was impossible to trick Zora. She was immune to compulsion, and I did not think Caterina even knew how to do it.

I would find Caterina and I would kill her.

After I rouse Zora. She just needs to swallow some of my blood. She’d been drained, she’d died, and now it was time to come back to life.

I did not know if it mattered more who drained her or who fed her. Would she be Caterina’s creation, with her yellow eyes? Or mine, red-eyed with the gift of compulsion?

I would find out when she rose.

I continue like this, dropping bits of my blood into her mouth, speaking to her all the while. I remember you speaking to me as you fed me, reassuring me as my heart slowed to a stop.

“It won’t be much longer now,” I tell her. “There is much of the world we will see once you wake. Have I told you of my homeland? Of Greece? I have not returned since I was made, perhaps it is time. I wonder if my temple still stands, where I was once a mouse amongst the statues. I will tell you all about that, though, when you wake.

“And then there is Rome. It was once the largest empire, a fantastical land ruled by emperors that came and went like the seasons. They conquered and destroyed, but also built and learned. They once held Alexandria—yes, that Alexandria, with the famed library. I saw it, not at its peak, but very near so. I will tell you more when you wake.

“And I will show you my creator. She does not know I am here, she does not know I intend to create you. She is very old, one of the original of my kind. Our kind, Zora. Once you wake, you will be one of us. She is my greatest love, though we are at odds as of now. Perhaps this will fix it. We will find out, when you wake.”

Through it her eyes remain glassy and unseeing, staring at the limestone ceiling above us, at the cross still embedded in the wall. If I had only listened to her the night before, things would have been different. I could have made her, and then there was nothing Caterina could have done. Zora would have been my creation and no longer a threat to her or the others of Le Sang Bleu.

But now…

No. No. It is too soon. The change takes time, doesn’t it? I don’t recall how long it was from when I died to when I rose, but it was endless. Days, perhaps?

I will wait, then.

I summon one of the human men to us and slit his throat, emptying him into her mouth. The blood bubbles back up, overflowing and painting her chin and my arms. It turns the silver chain of my bracelet red, just like the stones. I hold her jaw shut and rub her throat, careful to avoid the bite at her neck.

Still, she does not wake.

The sun rose and set once more, but its pull was a minor scrape against my skin. A mosquito buzzing about my head, nothing more. I swat away the rise and fall of the sun and focused only on Zora waking.