Page 77 of A Heart Of Bitter Poison
I stagger into the room and fall to my knees at the altar. My hand shakes as I caress the cool skin of a familiar cheek. It might be a little late, but just like Aloros promised, I weep.
“Aglaope of Anthemoessa will live again.”
CHAPTER29
She looks just as she did from my memory, not as she must have been in the Shadow Realm. Long, straight black hair that falls like glossy silk across her shoulders. Olive skin, so cool beneath my touch. The sharp features of her proud and intimidating beauty are just the same as centuries ago. I take her hand and raise it to my lips, laying a kiss to the network of silent veins beneath her skin.
“How?” I ask. There are a thousand questions vying for attention in my mind, but it’s the only one I can get out. “How is she here?”
“Your demon, of course,” Aloros says, rounding the altar to stop on the other side so he can observe my tear-streaked face. “It caused quite the stir within House Esagila when he showed up carrying a soul into the Realm of Light, as one might imagine.”
My gaze bounces between my sister and Aloros, questions heavy in my expression.
“He… what?”
Aloros gives me a pitying look. “A wretched picture he made, still soaking wet from swimming through the Bay of Souls to retrieve Aglaope of Anthemoessa. He was a steaming mess. His demon blood smoldered beneath his skin here in our realm.” Aloros crinkles his nose. “It would have been distasteful, if it were not such a fascinating turn of events. If he did not need to fulfill his purpose in the Shadow Realm, he surely would have been offered ascension to the Realm of Light for such an act of selfless love.”
My mouth gapes like a drowning fish. I look over the body of my sister like I’m seeing her for the very first time. But really, it’s not her I think I’m seeing anew. I turn my gaze back up to Aloros with something that feels like desperate confusion in my skin.
“Why? Why would he bring her here?”
Aloros looks at me with a faint smile and a softness in his eyes, the first true moment of empathy I’ve seen from him. “He explained all that happened with the werewolf, that your transformation had started but was not complete. He was determined to free you before the Shadow Realm could finish the process and asked for us to offer safe haven and protection if you chose to remain in our realm. But he did not want you to be alone here if you wished to stay. He said there was little you would want more than for Aglaope of Anthemoessa to be restored. And the witch, Ediye. She is granted passage to House Esagila at will.”
My heart is erupting from my chest in furious beats. My head swirls as though my brain is scouring my skull.
“In exchange for what?” I ask, squinting up at him through my pain.
“Ashen of House Urbigu agreed to take up the position of Master of War, offered by his Council. And now he will use his new power and access to take control of the Shadow Realm. He will destroy Eshkar and the Witch Reaper Imogen, and then will instill a new order and fight alongside us to end the tyranny that seeks to undo the three realms.”
I press my fingers to my temples and try to squeeze the pain from my head. “Tyranny?..”
Aloros looks down at my sister for a long moment before turning his serious expression back to me. “We forget our purpose. The Shadow Realm, to deliver merciful justice. The Realm of Light, to deliver rightful salvation. The Living Realm, to challenge the soul and offer the hope of another path. Some of us succumb to whispers of what we could take from one another. And all the while the Nephilim ready to take from us all. Unless we unite. Unless we fight back. A war is coming, and it is not the one you think.”
I stare at Aloros for a long moment as I process every word. It feels like the veil of the universe is being pulled from my eyes, but I can’t make sense of anything I see. Confusion ignites the hurt that still lives within me, those memories of betrayal that stack up like blocks to keep me submerged in a hurt that never ends. “So you need to unite the realms to fight the… Nephilim… and you think the Reaper will keep his word to you? That he won’t betray you when he takes control of the Shadow Realm?.. ”
Aloros laughs. “Yes, vampire. I believe he will keep his word, but not because of me. He is unique among his kind. And he is… motivated.”
I look down at my trembling hands and try to make sense of this madness. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more upside down in my life. Aglaope, lying before me as beautiful and serene as I remember her from centuries ago… The Reaper, who brought her here and then struck an impossible deal with his enemy… And an angel who’s now laughing at my naïveté, his razor sharp plumage scraping across the floor as he rounds the altar to stop at my side.
“The demon says that you have become part Seer. Yet, it seems you have chosen blindness. Let me help you witness what you have missed,” Aloros says as he lays a hand on my forehead. In the sudden warmth of his touch, I am transported.
Time seems to unravel in the filaments of light that possess my vision. Every conversation, every whispered admission between the demon and me seems to unspool and dance around me. They are distilled until they are as clear and powerful as poison.
You know only a fraction of what you think you know, vampire.
I love you, my vampire. No matter how you change, or what you lose, or what you gain.
I have faith in you.
I blink and I see Ashen in the Shadow Realm, lying naked on a black stone altar in a cavernous room lit only by torches, just like my last vision of him that I tried to push away. He opens his eyes and blinks twice as though confused, then jolts upright, cursing with some kind of urgency. He’s about to get off the altar when Ember steps out of the shadows and tosses him a black silk robe. She’s flanked by three other reapers with their swords drawn.
“Hello, dear brother.”
He says nothing, only watches her with suspicion as he pushes his arms though the long sleeves of the robe.
“Seems like your vampire is in a bit of a pickle. Semyon Abdulov has taken her.”
Ashen draws in a sharp breath and surges forward off the altar. “I have to get her out-“
