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I allowed my words to settle over her. Myrinn’s face twisted from emotion to emotion. Disbelief to horror. Shock to disgust. The expression she settled on turned her mouth into a small O-shape and colour drained from her cheeks.
One word escaped above the rest. “Why?”
“It kept me alive. Without the blood, I will die.”
Myrinn shook her head, huffing out an exhausted breath as though she had heard enough. “You are not dying, Arlo. This is just…”
“I am dying, and I do not care if you wish to believe me or not because it is true.” I waved my fist before her, letting the minor cuts that broken vial had made across my palm deepen and sting. “This was all that was keeping me from falling to the same fucking sickness that killed my parents. Years I have hunted vampires. Drained them of the very thing they desire from us, then using it for my gain. All to stay alive. To ensure I did not leave my sister in our world alone…”
I pinched my eyes closed as my throat constricted. The pressure of my truth was too much to bear. All this time I had held it all in and refused to let anyone know I hid from death.
But death found me and snatched me from my world. He kept me locked away from my family and now I would never return home. I would truly die here. Except it was not only Auriol I felt guilty for leaving behind. Faenir would lose me too.
“Arlo.” Myrinn wrapped her arms around me, and I crumbled within them; my face pressed to her shoulder as I opened the floodgates. “I am sorry… I am so sorry.”
There were no questions. No prodding and poking to find out more. There was simply Myrinn, and she held me up with caring hands as she embraced my secret as her own.
“You can’t tell him, Myrinn,” I said through heavy sobs.
“It is not my secret to share. Your truth is safe with me.”
She held me as a mother would, swaddling me against her. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine that it was my mum. Years had gone by since I had last felt the support of another in such a way.
“Does your sister know?” Myrinn asked finally.
I retreated from her embrace and tried to sit up on my own. Although my eyes still leaked, my breathing calmed at the mention of Auriol. “No.”
Myrinn chewed on her lip as she lost herself in thought. “How long have you sustained yourself with vampire blood? Our kind only know of the creatures from what we have learned by watching… I cannot imagine how something derived from the undead can keep you alive.”
“Before my father died, he had told me a story that was brought to Tithe by one of its founders. An old woman brought tales about vampire blood and its benefits. No one believed her. They condemned her as a powerless witch. No one wished to listen to someone crazed enough to suggest such a thing. When my father had told me this tale, I had dismissed it just like the old patrons of Tithe had… but I became desperate after he passed when I showed symptoms of the same disease that took them both. I had promised them to never leave Auriol. She was still so young and when the spots of blood smudged across my hand as I coughed, I knew what it meant. I couldn’t leave her…”
Myrinn placed a hand on my knee to remind me she was here with me. Her touch grounded me from the overwhelming pull of my story, one I never imagined telling.
“Desperate people are forced to do desperate things. Father’s story lingered with me. My options were die trying to fix myself or die anyway. I fought.”
“You went hunting for death, hoping to find life.”
Hearing it aloud broke me. I nodded, confirming what Myrinn had to say as truth.
“My first kill was the hardest. I was sloppy and unprepared. I spent most of my energy breaking out beneath the wall your Queen created. The vampire was practically waiting for me on the other side. I was badly injured by the time I had hacked the creature to death. I drank my fill that night. Fresh wounds healed, and the sickness retreated like a scorned mutt. I never stopped going after that.”
Myrinn listened in stunned silence, not once interrupting me as I told my story. Only when I finished speaking did she take a hulking breath in and spoke. “The wall should be impassable. Queen Claria erected it around Tithe to protect your kind from being picked off by the very creatures you have hunted. If you have been able to break free without the Watchers or Claria noticing a tear in her power, then there is no saying how truly weakened she is becoming.” Myrinn took my hands into hers and squeezed. “Do you think the blood that you have been taking is what prevents Faenir’s touch from harming you?”
I had not thought of it but hearing her ask it made sense. “We will soon find out, I suppose. When the dregs of the last vial I took wear off, my body will fall back into death’s grip. Perhaps Faenir will kill me before the sickness in my body finally has its chance to catch up.”
Concern spilled across Myrinn’s bright gaze. It was hard to watch the pain deepen the lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. “You must tell him.”
“No,” I snapped, urgency clear in my tone and wide eyes. “He can’t know.”
“Why?”
“Because he will lose the only thing that he has ever wanted. That would break him… I cannot bear the thought of watching him know he is losing me… selfishly I cannot handle that. I have been there before with my parents, trapped in the grasp of impending doom… there is nothing more destructive.”
Myrinn winced as she replied, “So you would rather he found out when the inevitable occurs? At least prepare him, Arlo. For the sake of Evelina.”
I could not explain further why I did not wish Faenir to know. Perhaps I couldn’t answer because I did not know myself.
“I wish to help him whilst I have the time left.”
