Page 47 of King of the Damned
“No,” I whisper to myself. I don’t know what to do. I’ve always relied on my magic in dire situations. I don’t know how to help her.
I press my palms to my eyes, trying to think of what to do–and then it occurs to me that there may only be one option.
Quickly, I conjure a knife in my hand and slice open my palm. On the floor of my room, I use my blood to vaguely create the shape of an eight-pointed star. In the center, I place both of the Bloodstones, and then I kneel and place my forehead to the cold marble floor.
I recite an ancient language that’s long been forgotten. The air in the room seems to shift, and I feel an evil presence standing over me.
I raise my head slightly, but a force keeps it down.
A husky female voice that rumbles through my bones snarls at me.
“I have not permitted you to look upon me,” it says. My desperate pleas that I have lined up in my throat die there, and I wait for permission to speak.
Before me, I have summonedthe one.
Eternity. Goddess of Magic and Misery.
“It has been a long time since I have been summoned to this plane,” she says. I keep my eyes downward and my lips tight. “There are few who know how to do so. Even fewer are foolish enough to try.” She pauses for a moment, and subtly I raise my eyes to just barely catch the Goddess looking to Adelasia. I cannot make out her face or any of her features. I can only see the glimmering black robe she wears, identical to the ones the Priestesses wear.
“You wish to bargain,” she finally says, and then she walks to Adelasia’s bedside. With Eternity’s back turned, I lift my head to watch her stroke Adelasia’s cheek. Then she lowers her veil over her head and turns to me. “She is destined for the grave.”
“Can you save her?” I ask quietly.
Eternity snickers and then approaches me. She stands at about Adelasia’s height, the eight-pointed crown of black crystals sitting heavy atop her head, reaching upward like claws.
“Perhaps,” she whispers. “But tell me, Kaius Voroninov, is that truly what you want?”
Her voice enters my ear in a sensual way, and then she summons a mirror in front of us. In the reflection, I see an apparition of Adelasia standing next to Eternity, my body nowhere to be found.
“I think in your heart lies another desire,” she hisses. “After all these years of waiting, don’t you wonder what that looks like?” Adelasia’s ghost fades from the mirror, and in her place–a man.
He has dark hair and bright green eyes–a familiar and handsome smirk on his lips.
It’s not until Eternity raises a hand and strokes my cheek with her fingers and I watch as she does the same thing in the mirror that I realize who this man is.
Me.
Or at least who I used to be, a thousand years ago.
I open my mouth and find no fangs in my reflection, and before I get a chance to close my mouth, the reflection morphs into me again–only this time in the present.
And for the first time, I’m allowed to see truly what a monster I have become. My red eyes are not inviting. My white hair stands out harshly from my skin. The handsome smirk I had previously has been washed away by a permanent frown and an unmovable furrow in my brow.
I close my eyes and turn my head away from the mirror. Eternity laughs into my ear, mocking my disdain for myself.
“I’ve been watching you for a long time, Son of Crows. How fragile you are to give up one desire for another so easily. I can save the girl…but what is it you will offer me in return?”
“Anything,” I answer absolutely. “You can have anything you want…just don’t take her from me. Please.”
“Anything?” she repeats curiously. “Have some dignity; I do not find pleasure in watching you beg. How much is her human soul worth to you?”
“Everything.”
“A soul for a soul, then?” she offers. “One of my choosing.”
“You can have a thousand souls if you wish. Just not hers.”
“Careful,” she warns, “Desperation is not a bargaining tool.”
