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And somehow, looking at the sheer size of the thing, of the freaking fortress he’d had to build to imprison her, I felt my anger at him evaporating. I might resent him for not telling me, for not giving me the choice, but for once, I understood. He’d said he’d been worried that telling me might weaken the separation, and that he wouldn’t be able to compensate. I didn’t doubt it.
I didn’t know how he’d built the damned thing at all.
I glanced up at the walls for a split second as I slipped into the gap. I couldn’t spare more than that, not and keep an eye out for ambush. But I didn’t need to. The size of them, the sheer weight, rose up around me, more massive even than I’d realized, towering over my head like cliffs and disappearing into the distance like a ravine.
There was no end in sight, the mist hiding everything more than ten, twelve yards ahead. But it didn’t matter. The cost in power, the only real coin of the vampire world, for what I could see must have been…
God. It must have been staggering.
No way had he done it all at once. Mircea had been on the fast track to master status, fueled by intelligence, ambition and sheer, unrestrained rage at a life that had been anything but fair. But no new master had done this, either.
Or even an old one. Not all at once. It must have taken years—centuries—of pouring strength into me. Of pushing back the power of a creature only a few decades younger than he, a trivial amount in vampire terms. Of constantly monitoring and adding to the protection he had built up, stone by stone, inch by inch, always knowing that one mistake might free her.
And destroy me.
The fog was thicker here, trapped between the sides of the rift, puddling in the middle to the point that it was almost exactly at eye level. Tendrils brushed my cheeks and curled around my face, making it hard to see, and the muffling quality wasn’t helping my hearing, either. But I was finding it hard to concentrate on the danger.
I was too busy concentrating on something else.
Why had he done this? It made no sense. No master vampire wasted that kind of power, particularly not when young and vulnerable. He’d said it, and I had no reason to doubt him: other vampires had been trying to add him to their collections. And why not? Such mental gifts were rare. Coupled with his looks and charm and name…he would have made an ornament to any court. It must have been a constant struggle to stay independent, to remain outside their grasp, to maintain a sense of self instead of being subsumed into someone else’s ambitions, someone else’s needs.
So why waste power that he needed so badly?
Why waste it on me?
“Dory!”
I heard something through
the mist, but it was faint, like a distant echo. Or possibly not there at all. The ravine trapped sound, diverted it, made it seem like it was coming from every direction at once. And the mist was getting thicker, almost like it was pushing back at me, trying to close my path.
“Stop fighting me!”
The voice came again, but it didn’t make sense.
“I’m not fighting you,” I murmured. And I wasn’t. I wasn’t doing anything, my mind reeling with fear and confusion and…and something else.
Something impossible.
But there was no other explanation. I had been a child, and one rapidly approaching insanity at that. I couldn’t have helped him. I couldn’t have been anything but a drain. He should have left me, should have done what any other master would have and cut me loose. Or followed the advice of those so-called specialists and humanely put me down before I tipped over the edge entirely.
But he hadn’t.
And try as I might, I could come up with only one explanation for that.
I ran a hand over the smooth, fleshy texture of the wall. It was already healing the damage, even if it couldn’t close the gap. And somehow, it didn’t seem so horrible anymore. Didn’t seem horrible at all, in fact.
Slick and warm, it felt like what it was: a healing scar. Not that I had a lot of experience with those. Dhampirs didn’t scar, for the same reason that we couldn’t get tattoos or piercings or so many other things. Our healing abilities wiped them away, erasing them off our skin in a matter of days or weeks, as if they’d never existed at all. Leaving only fresh, new skin behind.
But the mind didn’t heal like that. The skin might forget, but the mind…remembered. To the point that sometimes it felt like my head was full of scars. Others couldn’t see them, but I could.
And every time I got too close to someone, I tripped over one.
The fog was thicker now, cloying, choking. Not mist anymore, not even really like gas. More like waterlogged sheets slapping me wetly across the face, as if I were trying to push through a field of soggy laundry. And serving as the perfect backdrop for dozens of images.
They appeared out of the fog, just the barest of flickers at first, and then more and more, crowding around on all sides. Most were unfamiliar, although it was hard to tell. They looked like flashes of old silent movies projected onto sheets that were blowing erratically in the wind. I saw a glimpse of a ballroom, of huge gowns spinning against flashing mirrors; I saw burnt tree limbs silhouetted against a ridge littered with bodies; I saw faces, so many faces.
And then I saw something I didn’t recognize at all, but that drew me forward like a hand. It wasn’t the most dramatic scene. It was actually one of the more plebeian. Just a room with stucco walls and flaking paint, and a large window open to the night.
