Page 86 of Lux

“Scry?” Caspian is at my side instantly.

“Don’t worry, darling,” Altaris remarks. “It is a simple procedure. Dinara will only tell me any information that could be of use toward discerning her heritage, nothing more. No grisly, boring details about anything else. Just the important bits.”

Important bits. I can’t help thinking, as Dinara moves to stand beside me, that there is another descriptor Altaris left out. He wants to know what happened at the circus. If I killed Cyrus, the ringmaster. If I am a danger to them all.

My heart races. I feel a wave of bile creeping up my throat. “I don’t… I don’t want?—”

“Just relax, darling.” Dinara takes one of my hands and the suggestion suddenly lands with the weight of an army of Lord Masters, urging the same. Relax. Relent. It will be okay.

For I am happy and calm. There is no danger here. No risk.

Other than a sharp, sudden tearing agony that threatens to rip my skull in two. I can’t scream. I can’t even flinch or react. In a sudden wave of darkness, the neat, orderly office vanishes. I’m in a dark, cold space. A woman is screaming, and screaming…

A child is crying. A baby, with pale skin, dark hair, and haunting black eyes. Yet, that is not all she was born with. Extending from her naked body, glistening, and trembling with effort, are two black structures, made of thin, glistening flesh. Wings.

The poor baby seems tormented as they unfurl from her and extend beside her. They are so large on her tiny frame. Enormous, but beautiful, more than capable of sustaining flight…

The vision drifts and suddenly, I’m standing over a woman’s shoulder. Her back is to me, her face and features obscured. It’s as though a black shadow covers everything about her. Except her voice. I can hear it clearly.

“Don’t cry, little one. Don’t cry,” she whispers. Then she adjusts the baby resting on her lap, cradling the infant so it lies on its stomach, its dry, fully extended wings now visible. In the other hand, she raises a knife…

Another shift. I’m wandering a winding corridor. Running. Chasing something. Someone. They’re drawing nearer, nearer… I round a corner, and they are gone.

I’m in the archives, standing before a row of books. A boy speaks to me, his voice radiating arrogance and confidence. “I can teach you to read them,” he claims. “They say you cannot learn. You are too simple, but I am smart enough to teach you…”

A series of scenes pass in a frantic, overwhelming rush. Countless visits with the Lord Master. The biting of the blade against my lower back. Cutting. Hurting. Bleeding.

Then Caspian…

He is a bright light in this shadow of memory. From the moment I saw him, that was clear. He was a flame, meant to sear and burn. He tore my world to shreds, but it was a welcomed destruction. A necessary one.

We entered the mortal realm.

We avoided his brethren.

Met Altaris.

Then the museum.

The chaos.

The running.

Cyrus.

Sudden quiet. Like a truck screeching to a halt, the world goes silent, fixated on this one moment: Cyrus looming above me with murderous intent. His jackdaws attacked me—only I’m not seeing it from my own point of view, huddled on the ground.

I view it all from above. I see a thing, a gangly creature resembling me, lying in a pool of blood. Her wounds are numerous, her life hanging on by a thread. She doesn’t scream, though she knows it could bring salvation. She doesn’t want to. She would rather die.

Because to do so would put Caspian in danger…

Because Cyrus the ringmaster, was not a ringmaster at all. A monster lurked inside him, puppeting the mundane’s body as though it dangled from a string. It waited until that moment to reveal itself.

To strike.

For it was a monster, who sustained itself not on selling or buying creatures. Not on violating fae. On pure blood. Rare blood.

It was a vamryre, but a strange one. Demented. Wrong. It reeked of a cloying, horrific stench of decay and when it opened its mouth, its fangs were elongated. Extended.

---