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But it was just us two for the time being, and I bristled with fear. I knew well what she was capable of, but at least the wolves were safe. I had a faint hope that I would see Willow again, but only a faint one. Although Amara was angry with me, I didn’t think that she would kill me. This gave me a chance, a slight chance, but a chance nonetheless.
She turned to face me and cupped my face in her hands. I was taller than her, but this didn’t make her any less intimidating.
“Oh my sweet boy, what have they done to you?” she said as she kissed me on each cheek, looking dismayed.
“It was my choice,” I replied.
Her eye twitched. “You really rid yourself of the gift I gave you?”
“It was not a gift, it was a curse.”
She walked away from me and took her seat on the throne, laying her sword across her lap. The ruby gleamed as though it winked at me. “Even after all this time you still hold a grudge.”
“Vampires have long memories, you should know this.”
“Oh, I do Cassius, I do, and I have not forgotten what you did to me, to all of us. You turned on your own kind.”
“You were never my kind. I was just turned into this thing, and I could not let you go through with your plans. I could not let you conquer every world.”
She leaned back and looked unconcerned. “And where has that gotten you? By my estimation it allowed you to enjoy a few hundred years of solitude here, until you welcomed that wolf bitch into my castle.”
I flinched as she referred to Willow like that, but I managed to control myself, breathing through the anger. I couldn’t attack her. She’d slice through me like butter and it would all be over. If I ever hoped to see Willow again then I was going to have to be very careful indeed.
“I love her.”
Amara laughed as though anything I felt was a joke. “You know nothing of love Cassius. Vampires aren’t capable of love. We just hunger.”
“Then I hunger for her.”
“You debase yourself by admitting these feelings for her. She is a wolf, and now you have made yourself into something lesser than what you were. I am disgusted by you. There was a time when I was proud of you Cassius, when you were my greatest creation. But now you have gone and turned into this,” she looked at me with derision and opened her palm, gesturing towards me with her slender fingers.
“I’m sorry to have disappointed you,” I said dryly. She sighed and shook her head.
“Well, at least we are together again. The world is back to being balanced.”
“And what do you have planned?”
“I’m going to pick up from where I left off. It was very clever of you to steal the book by the way. It kept me occupied here while I could have been busy doing other things, but I wanted to bring you back so you can see that you cannot stop me. I am inevitable, and this future I have planned has been in the making for centuries. Did you really think you would be able to stop it?”
“I thought so. How did you like your banishment by the way?”
Amara scowled. “It was worse than death, and only my bitter hatred for you kept me from losing my mind. I was floating in that void without anything to distract me, just the same thoughts rolling around and around in this endless spiral, but I was not going to allow it to consume me. They used to call you the butcher, didn’t they? You’re much worse to your own kind.”
“Maybe so, but it needed to be done. This vision of conquest you had isn’t healthy Amara. You need to let people live their lives. All you’re doing is condemning people to misery. You’re making people suffer, just as you suffered once. You’re no better than the people who did this to you in the first place.”
“Don’t you dare compare me to them,” she hissed, leaning forward. Her hands were like claws as they gripped the arms of the throne, and strands of hair fell around her face. I saw a glimpse of the madness, the same madness that had made me doubt her plans before. It had only gotten worse over time. “All I wish to do is liberate people and give them the strength to protect themselves. I want to make them all powerful, for when we are vampires nobody can hurt us.”
“There was a time when I thought you might be saved Amara. There were times when I even questioned what I did, wondering if I should have tried to reason with you or persuade you that what you were doing was wrong. But I see that there is no changing your mind.”
“Why would I change when I am right? It is only a simple matter of time now before I raise an army and take my rightful place as queen of the vampires again. This castle shall be full as it once was, and from this throne I shall hold the entire cosmos in my hand.”
She spoke grandly, holding her hand out and then closing it into a fist, which was just about what she had planned for the world. I swallowed my fear, remembering what it was like to be around someone with such a deluded state of mind. The only problem was that she actually had the means and the drive to see her plans through to the end. And it was all my fault. I had missed something. I thought my plan had been flawless, but there was one chink in it, something I had not anticipated and I needed to know. It nagged and gnawed at me.
“Tell me then Amara, before you put this grand plan into action again, tell me how you came back.”
She wore a smug grin as she stared at me. “Did you really think I wasn’t going to have some plan in place to bring me back? You should have known me better than that Cassius, and it just goes to show how little you really know. You always did think you knew everything, but the truth is you only ever knew what I had taught you, and some things I had kept for myself.”
“So tell me now then. You’ve won, apparently, so what does it really matter?”
