Sapphire Curse, page 14
part #1 of Rebels of the Realms Series
“Why are you interested in a man that’s dead?”
“Is he?”
Xavier went silent like he was waiting for an answer that was buried over a century in the past. He sighed, “I didn’t have time to be witty. I was street smart. I had to be to survive.”
“When were you mortal?”
“During the age of Napoleon,” he said, waving his fingers in the air to mock the grand sound of it.
Sitting up with eagerness, Darcy said, “That sounds like an adventure.”
He scoffed, “My mortal life was the prison of poverty. The royals couldn’t find enough ways to waste their riches. With no riches to speak of, my parents died early. I stole when I had to and found any work I could. Society called me a filthy criminal, but it made me that way. I had to break the laws or die following them.”
Darcy bit down on her lower lip and leaned toward the center of the couch. The door into this mystery in front of her had cracked open, and it bewitched her.
Xavier continued, “I joined a ship. It was the closest thing to freedom I knew to be on a sea that no man could control.” His head tipped back like the ocean air of France brushed it. “Before I could taste any flavor of my real freedom, war grew brutal. Traian came to profit. Moira was his purveyor of new soldiers. She found me in a scuffle after a few drinks and a game gone awry.”
Grinning, Darcy said, “You cheated.”
Not denying it, he shrugged and said, “There are many ways to win. I disappeared with their money. Moira found me in an alley.”
Candles flickered, pained as much as Xavier was by his memories.
“I don’t know why she offered the curse like I had a choice,” he said, softly like he didn’t want to remember the tease. “She pitched this wondrous life that could elude death.”
“Were you scared?”
“All I wanted was to be in control of my destiny—to be bound by nothing and no one.”
“But you would be. Traian could command you.”
“Moira said my allegiance to him would reap my freedom. I told her to meet me the next night, but I didn’t show. I didn’t trust the chains hidden in the fine print.”
“She found you anyway.”
“I didn’t know how her kind worked. I was sleeping on the ship without a threshold to protect me. Traian appeared and locked my fate in blood.” Resentment tightened his jaw and sharpened his brow.
She curled her fingers in hopes they might have some trick that could ease him. Then she tucked her hand under her thigh. There was no magic to heal his wounds. Gently, she asked, “Do you miss being human?”
“I’m quite fond of life in the dark. It took many years and some rule breaking to make a life I enjoy.”
“That seems like a good way to describe you. Not restricted by rules.”
“We’re all bound by something,” he said. He gagged, mocking her. “For you it’s doing good and saving lives.”
“Not exactly,” she said.
“Then what drives you?” The backs of his fingers grazed the very tip of his chin. His thumb traced the edge of his lower lip.
She chewed for a moment on nothing but her thoughts. She then answered, “I’m always searching.”
“For?”
“A reason to stop searching.”
He swallowed her reply, and it eased his muscles. He skimmed his fingers through his hair. He said, “You feel a great deal. Now I’m feeling it, so if you could lose that bleeding heart of yours for a few days, I’d appreciate it.”
She chuckled. It stirred him. He heard the warmth of it and felt it in his blood all at once.
Then the sweet sound abandoned him, and he went cold. He said, “This afternoon I shook.”
Darcy rubbed her hand up her arm to her elbow. The whole morning and afternoon had been stressful, but she knew it wasn’t the search for Traian that he had felt. She didn’t aim to tell him about that anyway. She admitted, “I did a spell that made me see something that brings me tears of woe.”
“What did you see?” he asked. Though his mind couldn’t create the same things, his body knew what hers had felt. Like he had earlier that day, he wanted to fall apart and let rain wash him away.
Her fingers fiddled in her lap. She said, “Someone I loved.”
Xavier inched closer. “You were scared of him?”
“Not of him,” she said. Her throat dried and tensed. “I hurt him on accident. He was teaching me about a spell.”
“He was a witch?”
She nodded. “He and his friend Chess thought I was too. I didn’t know at the time that when I use magic, I can obliterate a vessel.” She closed her eyes. Images flashed before her. There was more to the story, but it buried itself deep within her.
“Now you’re vexed,” he said, his chin trembling. He shook like a wet dog. “Damn. Is this what it feels like to be Winny?”
“I guess you’ve lost loved ones over the years.”
“According to you I’ve never loved anyone.”
“You said I was wrong.”
“I’ve been around a long time. I’ve had my share of pain.”
Darcy murmured, “Mercedes.”
Eyes closing to let the sound of the name ride through him, Xavier said, “She is the worst of my pain. Any that came after could barely scratch at it. I knew her before I was cursed. After I lost her, it was dangerous to get close to anyone.”
“Dangerous?”
“Clan above everything,” Xavier announced to the room with disgust. “Traian felt any connection to someone outside of the clan softened our loyalty.”
“Did it?”
“Mine was never firm to begin with, and I paid for it time and time again. If you want to know what happened when your heart left the clan for another, ask Thomas. It’s his story, not mine.”
Darcy pressed closer to Xavier. His muscles tightened all over. She said, “I still don’t feel like I know your story. You were a beast in the dark when I met you, and now you’re something else.”
He gently tossed his head. A few wet strands of his hair flipped away from his eyes. He said, “I’m still a beast. Trust me.”
“Would a beast come to check on me because I was scared?” she questioned. She closed the distance between them, stopping his breath the second she moved. “You came because you felt something.”
“Your fear,” he whispered.
“And that made your own,” she added. She reached up and brushed a trace of rain from his brow. A moan stirred in his chest. “I don’t think you’re a beast at all.”
“You’re an idiot,” he grumbled. It sounded more like a last attempt to drive a wedge between them than the truth. The wedge was as weak as his words.
Her hand slipped to the back of his neck, and she pressed even closer. Then he was gone from her grasp like she had been torn from a dream. Darcy found him standing in the doorway between the lit living room and the shadows of the foyer.
Xavier’s body slightly curled as he held his breath tightly in his chest like he had been guarding it for longer than his body could remember. “I need to return to the house,” he said. He couldn’t keep his eyes open to look at her. He shook his fist at his side.
Darcy stood, one foot on the floor and the other up on the couch. Crossing her arms at her chest, she said, “Did I upset you?”
“Not at all,” he said. He scraped his tongue over the rough patches that had dried on the roof of his mouth. His tongue searched for something to say to explain himself, but nothing sounded right. “I must leave.”
“I’m sorry if you didn’t want me to touch you,” she murmured.
Words clawed at his teeth. He would shred his tongue before he would let them escape. He battled them back, and they rumbled in his chest until he clung to his shirt to threaten them.
Darcy snatched his coat from the rack, nearly knocking over the antique. The mirror gave an eerie glow to Darcy’s riled reflection when another streak of lightning cut through the dark sky outside.
Xavier took the coat and held his hand there next to hers rather than retreat. He said, “I am not upset. Please believe me.”
“Then what are you?” she asked, short and cold.
He replied, “Terrified.”
Darcy waited for thunder to roll away before she said, “Are you going to disappear and never return?”
He shuddered. That truly petrified him. He said, “I can’t do that. Not until you turn me away.”
She rolled to her tiptoes as rain battled with the roof. There was a whistle somewhere, faint but clear. By the way Xavier weakly parted his lips with the tip of his tongue, it wasn’t clear if he wanted to stay or flee.
She said, “If you must go, I’ll say goodnight.” She offered her arms for a hug. He hesitated and examined the space between them. Then he melted enough to embrace her.
The scent of cinnamon nearly soothed her to sleep with her chin on his shoulder, but she couldn’t close her eyes. The mirror made sure of that. She felt Xavier’s arms around her. The scruff of his face grazed her cheek. She knew he was holding her only to say goodbye, but the mirror said otherwise.
In the corner of the glass there was a glimmer of unnatural golden light. There was no candle nearby to cast it that way. The light appeared again, this time like a thread across the top of the mirror.
The mirror showed Darcy’s head tipped back. Xavier’s fingers dug into Darcy like talons. Darcy in the mirror cried out in pain though there was no sound to match it. The reflection of Xavier turned and revealed his face. The glass gave a shine to the blood that dripped from the tips of his fangs. The reflection of Xavier grinned at the real Darcy, just the one corner of his lips. Then he drove his fangs back into her reflection.
14
When the sun died behind the trees after Darcy’s shift at the hospital, she changed into jeans and headed outside. If the last few days had been any indication, she knew Xavier wasn’t going to show up and question her poor choices. To be fair, her idea didn’t sound like a good one. If finding Traian before Yin could stop her from bringing him back, the end would justify the stupidity.
She knew Thomas was there because she could smell coffee even with Tanner out there smoking. He waited for Tanner to go back inside before he emerged from around the corner of the building, dressed in gray from head to toe as usual.
“Thank you for coming with me,” said Darcy. She wrapped a white scarf she found in one of Priscilla’s trunks around her neck. Her hat with bumblebee stripes was one her father had given her. She hummed the song about a bumblebee they used to sing.
“I could never let you do something so foolish alone,” Thomas teased. He didn’t have a scarf or hat or anything to keep him warm except for a thin, fitted gray coat.
Stuffing her hands into the pockets of her med school hoodie, Darcy said, “You sound like Xavier.”
“Starting the night with insults,” he teased.
The trail took them over a rusty bridge that crossed a narrow piece of a river. The water wasn’t deep, but it was peppered with rocks. Darcy glanced over the edge of the bridge. The water and rocks below were far enough away to nauseate her. Thomas wouldn’t even take a glance.
Thomas groaned, “Speaking of Xavier, let’s not mention our excursion to him.”
“You didn’t tell him you were meeting me?”
“That’s not the part that would rile him.”
“It’s the ‘you’re helping her be an idiot’ thing, right?”
“Precisely.”
“I don’t think he cares all that much what I do,” said Darcy, obviously bitter.
Thomas continued walking. There was a split in the trail. One way led to the cemetery, the other toward the ocean. Darcy checked her gut, not that it told her much. The only reason she had picked this trail to start their search was that she had heard a whistle out there before that seemed to come from the woods. She weighed the options in her mind and let the tingle of her bones lead the way. She chose the ocean.
After a few steps on the new path, Thomas sighed, “You don’t know Xavier well. Sometimes I wish I didn’t. Centuries with him have taught me that he goes after what he wants without question. If something tempts him, he hunts it, has it, and moves on.”
“You’re saying I don’t tempt him.”
“Do you want to?”
She laughed, once and exaggerated. “It’s good that I don’t. I’m not much for being hunted and eaten.”
Thomas glanced up at the sky and grinned like he and the stars peeking through the wisped clouds had an inside joke. Then he sighed, “But when it’s beyond wanting—when it calls to him like something he can’t refuse—it terrifies him.”
A fallen tree ended the trail. Darcy and Thomas climbed over it. They weren’t bound to forged paths.
Thomas said, “Tell me again what we’re looking for.”
Unsure of how to put it any other way, Darcy explained, “We’re looking for a tear between realms.”
“Forgive me, but I’m not familiar with what a tear would look like,” he said.
“There is magic that courses between realms like a barrier. I think I’ll be able to feel it. There are shallow tears all over. Elves made them to hide in. Some are deeper. Those are the ones we should worry about.”
“You know a good deal about this.”
“I read about it,” she said. She had been thumbing through Felicia’s book. The second she had read about these tears she knew she had encountered them. Out on the cliff with her mother. In her foyer with the mirror. They were everywhere. She was drawn to them or they to her.
“But you’re not a witch,” he said.
“I’m interesting.”
“Thank you.”
“For being interesting?” she laughed.
“For caring. You meet three monsters of the night, and you help us to stop our adversary as though we’re family.”
“My father died not too long ago,” said Darcy. She brushed her hand over the bumblebee hat and swore she could feel Carter’s hand instead. “The only family I can have now is the family I make.”
“Perhaps you would prefer a warmer sort,” said Thomas, leaning toward her. “We can’t come to summer afternoon picnics.”
Darcy giggled. They finally reached the edge of the woods and could see the waves that had been calling for them. The water was far away and far below with no easy path to reach it. Darcy wasn’t aiming to meet the water, neither by foot nor by falling.
“Tell me about the others,” said Darcy as she turned to walk a few yards away from the edge. She wasn’t keen on steep falls anymore. “The three of you and your maker. You’re only half of the Eternal Eight.”
“The more you know of our days in that clan the less you may want to know us,” Thomas warned. The moon was waning. There was enough of it and the stars still to show Thomas’ stone-cut face. He said, “There have been many of us. Our maker replaced them like we were merely broken cups.”
“How about the ones that were in your group when it ended?”
“Yin was Traian’s first sangora. She was a concubine to a Chinese emperor when Traian found her. He favored Yin because she is as insane as his maker.”
“She seemed a little odd,” said Darcy as she crossed her eyes.
He crossed his eyes as well, a rare playful moment. He said, “She wears blood around her neck she swears is from the first trial.”
“First trial?”
“Witches failed the first few times they tried to make a vampire.”
“Failed vampires,” said Darcy. She pursed her lips and tried to imagine the possibilities. “That can’t be pretty.”
He painted the picture. “The first result was uncontrollable, the thirst unquenchable. The tales say the thing was rabid, even less human than what I am.” His voice trailed, weakened by his self-loathing.
“What did they get wrong?” asked Darcy.
“Many call our condition the blood curse, but it’s actually a type of sapphire curse. They weren’t using the sapphires initially. When not bound, this curse creates a monster.”
“A sapphire cursed you?” she questioned, not quite believing a blue gem could be so powerful.
His voice dropped. He knew the power firsthand. He explained, “A sapphire curse is one in which the victim is consumed and controlled. For vampires, blood and night are how we live. We thrive on them. We are at their mercy.”
“There are other sapphire curses?”
He nodded. “They are not easy to create from what Winny tells me. It takes a very special sapphire and a great deal of sacrifice.”
Hands in her pockets, Darcy skipped to catch up with Thomas’ longer strides. She said, “Still have three vamps left to tell me about.”
“Next came Moira,” said Thomas. “Europe came to the colonies in droves. Traian and Yin followed for the buffet at sea. They dined on Moira’s mother and brother. Traian cursed her on her eighteenth birthday, and her first kill was her own father.”
There was a whistle. Darcy stopped moving until she realized it really was the wind skimming across the tree branches. She continued without explaining the pause. She asked, “Is she crazy too?”
“No,” he said, though the answer did not put him at ease. Yin alarmed him. Moira frightened him. “She’s vicious and calculated. Every move is planned three steps ahead. Add in her delight in watching others suffer, and she could rule the world.”
The path between the trees and the edge narrowed. Darcy stepped in front of Thomas to lead the way with the itch in her hands as her guide. Despite the distance, the scent of the ocean overpowered the trees right at Darcy’s fingertips.
“What about the rest?” asked Darcy.
“There was a belief more than a rule among vampires that a maker should have no more than two sangoras,” said Thomas.
“I’d say Traian crossed that line.”
“Over and over again,” Thomas scoffed. “There were a few others that didn’t make it to the end of our days. Then came Xavier. After a few more ghosts, eventually we got Abel.”
“Another loyalist,” said Darcy.
“He was not as loyal as Moira and Yin, but he would never break the bond of his maker,” said Thomas. He spoke of Abel with a tone like one would the high school quarterback jerk. “He didn’t want to worship Traian. He wanted to be him, so much that he gave up Winny despite their connection.”
