Page 55 of Lux

But I will wait her out.

For I am a vamryre, and all I have is time.

CHAPTER 20

Niamh

Oh dear, I have done it now. The ultimate sin. A bloody sin.

I enjoyed it. Killed and killed. I killed and…

It was fun for me. To watch him struggle and wriggle. To watch him gasp and writhe in pain. That man was evil. That creature was sinful.

He deserved to die.

But did he?

What haunts me is the fact that I don't know. I can’t know. There are so many memories and truths beyond my reach. Things denied to me, both my fate and other actors. My own mother—her visage, her memory, the sound of her voice—was denied to me.

My father, too. My father, who may have been a monster of a creature, broken and vile. He may have preyed upon poor Aurelia and taught her a ‘lesson’ she would never forget. I wasnot conceived in duty or even in love—but act. Violence. A twisted, cruel act.

It is what I deserve.

A fitting beginning to the life I so wretchedly deserve.

But…

There is a small matter of reliving the murder I am supposed to have committed. I see him writhing. I see sharp beaks and claws snapping and biting. But I hear him too, his voice very much alive.

You little bitch!

I’ll gut you!

Tear to you little pieces!

You think you can find her, that fae bitch? She’s already dead…

Then I said something. To him. To them—the creatures carrying out that massacre for me. I said…

I can’t remember.

They spoke to me in return, little voices whispering into my skull. They said “We do this for you, sister. We will bite, rip and tear. We will stop?—"

Wait.

I told them to stop. I think. I told them to stop so that I could stand over him, bloody Cyrus, bleeding and broken on the floor of his tent. I crouched down low on top of him. I reached for his throat. I demanded.

“Tell me…”

Something.

Tell me something! I screamed at him. Demanded.

Then the world went dark. Blank. Just like that I can’t remember anything else. What I asked him. What I said.

I only remember the voices, quiet and cowed.We will stay with you, sister. Hide within you. We will be good to you, mistress. Oh good, yes.

The jackdaws. They go by that name, but it isn't really theirs. In the past, they were something else. Virile and living. Something called…

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