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Sloane rolled his eyes at her answer and chuckled. “You have ten minutes.”
“For?”
“To be ready to go get breakfast.”
“And then we spar?” Tegan asked excitedly.
“Sure. When I am full of food,thenwe spar.” Sloane shook his head in exasperation.
“See you in nine minutes.” Tegan laughed as she closed the adjoining door. She hesitated, leaning against the door for a moment as her finger once more rubbed her lip. Firmly pushing the confusion of this morning and the Castor out of her mind, Tegan hurried to get ready for breakfast. She needed some normality and duties to keep her occupied.
The Castor wanted her to stay out of trouble. Didn’t he know they were in so much trouble that he asked the impossible?
Leonid had his back against the wall as he sat on the floor. He had found it, well, he thought he had. On the ceiling, two paces across and two paces down, was a small irregularity. He was convinced it was a lever or a button maybe? He needed more time to find out, but the presence in the Darkness was getting more and more persistent at turning up and watching him.
Or he was losing his mind?
Not unfathomable considering how long he had lived. They said that Vampyres lost reality as they started to decay, but he had never believed it. Given his wanderlust and Kateryna’s Court full of beautiful Vampyres, he had never actually witnessed the passing of one of the Made. His old Master had taken himself into solitude, and that was very much the way things were done in old Vampyre cultures. You died with dignity and respect. You did not become a burden on the ones you left behind. So, although his Master had told him what happened in the descent into madness, Leonid had never seen it with his own eyes.
However, they said you went mad first. He had adopted a female child and raised her as his own, then he had dealt with her through her teenage years, and he was prepared to handle any male suitors as well. Maybe his descent into madness happened eighteen years ago when he took the child as his own? Leonid snorted out a laugh as he thought of Tegan’s face at that thought. She would not be amused.
His smile faded. He missed his daughter. Leonid was happier in the newness of the New World, but his mannerisms and thought processes were still very much that of a Russian aristocrat. Which was preposterous. Leonid was no more an aristocrat than Tegan was. He was the son of a farmer, and yes, he knew which fork was correct at dinner, not that he ate, but he knew etiquette. He had taught Tegan, who would need to know which fork to use. Akrhyn were all considered equal, but there were the few who believed that they were more, and it was these Akrhyn that Leonid had prepared his daughter for. Her uncle was one of them. Celeste had not been like that, but Cornelius was the biggest pompous ass that Leonid had ever had the displeasure of meeting.
He shouldn’t have left her alone to deal with him. He felt a pang of guilt, which he pushed aside. Salem would make sure she was protected, and he would have insisted that she remain at the Headquarters. But still, Salem would have resented the way Leonid left her to deal with Cornelius. Leonid snorted disdainfully. Salem would forever resent that he kept her away from him, but he hoped that Celeste’s diaries would clear up any doubts that Leonid was not acting on his own selfish behalf. Well…Leonid smirked in the darkness.
Leonid pushed his hair back. He really should have kept a hair tie on him. He had lost his leather band when he was taken, and his hair lay limp against his skull. He needed to cleanse. He was, and felt, filthy. He looked up at the Darkness. He could feel the eyes watching him again. He had spoken to it a few times now, but he had received no answers.
He knew when it left him, for he could feel when it was gone. In those moments, he would race to his spot and search for the way out with his long nimble fingers. He never had long though. Ever since he had acknowledged the Darkness there with him, it had been coming back more frequently and staying longer. Whenever he opened the hatch—he sat perplexed for a moment. Was it a hatch? A door? A portal? He would know soon enough, he hoped, but his cynical musings reminded him he should be prepared for notwhenhe lifted the hatch, butif.
“Why do you not show yourself?” he asked the presence. He was unsure if it was the Darkness. He knew the Elders in the years of his youth believed the Darkness was a physical being. As light was a ray of sunshine on a rainy day, the Darkness was the shadow of smoke on the wind. Neither seemed like they could be corporeal, but the Ancients were said to be agents of the LightandDark. Did he have an Ancient looking at him now?
The thought was unnerving. It would not be Delfar, too kind and wise for such trickery. Velvore? He was known for his trickery and his affinity to lean too closely to the darker side of light. Too obvious? Harrian? The wrathful, vengeful Ancient whose fury could be tasted in the turning of the seasons. Why assume the Darkness was male? Arflyn was too gentle; the Mother would not approve. Brindlelay though, Delfar’s beloved? Leonid considered the five Ancients and their affinity for dark.
Or as he had always assumed and been taught, the Ancients were five agents against one strong force. And itwasstrong. It was the sliver of doubt that you were not good enough. The whisper that you would fail. The look from a peer that you were not their equal. Small steps of sadness that led to larger steps of dark thoughts, dark moods…dark actions.
The Drakhyn were not always so bloodthirsty. In days gone by when there were fewer of them, they would only strike when they were desperate, when their numbers were so small and they needed to procreate. They had never been known for keeping each other’s company, but theywereknown for keeping their child close and teaching it their ways.
But, were they born in Darkness, or were they merelylostin Darkness?
It was a question Leonid had asked himself many times, and it was a question many Akrhyn found unsettling. Most Akrhyn viewed Drakhyn as a plague that needed to be eliminated, not understood. Leonid’s mind drifted to the Lycan, Marcus. There was a time when Marcus and he had enjoyed the debate of the purpose and desires of Drakhyn. Until Marcus had lost his pack and his family. Hate blinded many a scholar’s eye to numerous possibilities.
Leonid had not intended to appear as if he were sympathising with the Drakhyn, but when Marcus turned his rampage of revenge to wider territories, he had stepped in to try and reason with him. Drakhyn were their enemy, but they were a necessity in a way also. Without them, what agents of evil would walk among them instead? There could be no light without the dark. Balance must always be maintained.
Marcus had scoffed at him and asked if Leonid really had just suggested “better the devil you know,” and although Leonid had not meant it to sound so blasé about the loss Marcus had suffered, he could not deny he had been hinting at it.
Their friendship was damaged beyond repair. In the years to pass, Leonid was sure that the friendship must have been fragile to start with to falter at such a hurdle. However, Tove had reminded him that Marcus and he had both lost their families to an enemy. Humans had killed Leonid’s family and entire village. Drunken marauders coming back from war who took their killing spree home with them as they passed through. The Sentinels too far removed from the village to hear the screams.
It had taken a long time for Leonid to view a human as any better than the butchers who killed his family. Marcus’s villains in his story were Drakhyn. A known enemy. One from which Akrhyn spent their lives protecting humans. Who had protected his family from humans? No one.
Leonid’s head snapped up, and he looked into the inky blackness of the room. A small smile toyed around his mouth.It was clever. He realised he was being manipulated and thank the Ancients for blessing him with intelligence, a gift that did not discriminate against being born poor.
“You are a clever beast,” Leonid spoke softly, although a shout would have had the same effect. “You sift through my memories to find weaknesses. Well, I have lived a long life, I am severely flawed.” Leonid placed his hands in his lap. “You are welcome to try me. I am ready.”
He cried out as a piercing pain shot through his head, and another pain stabbed him in the chest where his undead heart still fed off blood. He doubled over as the pain took him in the stomach. Gritting his teeth, Leonid raised his head and looked into the black. “That is all you have?”
His scream ripped from him as all the pain returned,everywhere. Hot white fire coursed through his body, his mind shying away from the intensity of the pain.It is not real. Was that his voice? He screamed again as his back arched off the floor from where he had fallen.It is not real, he heard again.
“This pain is not real,” Leonid bit out as his fangs descended slightly. Another wave of excruciating pain begged to differ, he realised.It cannot hurt you. “I would argue that point,” Leonid gasped out as he shook the pain away from his head.
