Blood of Eden
CHAPTER TWELVE
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“So the child is alive then?” Leviath asks, his voice fading along with the image of his shadowed handsome face with terrible, hungry blood red eyes.
A servant, whose face is unclear amidst the darkness beneath his hood, replies thickly, “She is dying, milord…I interfered—“
Leviath is quite annoyed, and he interrupts impatiently, “Why Vladislov? You know the laws. You’ve probably screwed things up by doing so—“
“Milord, you would not want to take a defiled human as your wife,” he suggests, letting his sentence fall to a silence between them for Leviath to contemplate what he is saying.
After a moment, Leviath shifts on the ancient throne and thoughtfully rubs his eyes with his left hand. “I see,” he says apprehensively. “Then for your intensions we shall pretend it never happened. Did they leave her be? You protected her successfully?”
“There is something, perhaps because of me…sir, she isn’t normal. Her physicality changed. She was like us when I took her mind—because of it.”
“Understandable except she isn’t infected,” Leviath nods thoughtfully. “A carrier is rare indeed…That should at least slightly please the Elders. She isn’t likely to be the Blood of Eden, though, if she is dying as you say.”
The scene fades.
Matthias nears the unconscious body of the wounded, beaten, beautiful Shayda, disgusted with the Pyrae’s hatred shown to her, one of their own people. Fear still grips his heart, but more than fear, sadness has overtaken him, and his throat is tight, tears of shame of her people—hatred of htem—now more intense than he ever thought possible, that they could do such brutality.
They brought her here and their queen must have ordered her to be redressed since her own soldiers’ attire was torn to shreds and covered in blood and filth. Her wounds were not tended to, though at least half-heartedly cleaned so there wasn’t as much dirt and blood. Still, though, she was still filthy and blood-ridden.
“I am so sorry this has become of you,” he thinks aloud, yet not even really understanding how he can feel for his greatest, most-feared enemy. How fragile and frail she seems, sad even in her sleeping unconsciousness. She’s like some goddess, a fallen and hated beauty overturned by her own people and trampled upon when all she has done is shown nothing but loyal, forgiving love and service to her people, service which is being willing to give away her life, that she may die in battle, that her blood may be shed as the countless before her…
He shakes his head so bitterly and sadly whispering aloud, “My greatest enemy…”
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Chains upon his wrists, cold, shivering, alone…darkness. She can’t be dead, I feel her…Hunger…
Darkness, nothing but an unending darkness, and I am unaware. My senses are useless because I cannot hear, I cannot see or feel, or think, or even smell or taste. I am Nothingess, opaque shadows having taken me over…Nothingness. Cold within even my very soul…
He weeps, covering his eyes with his hands. How long have I been here? What has happened?—
She gasps and starts to scream but suddenly Matthias reaches out and places his hands over her mouth, looking about frantically for a moment before returning his icy blue gaze upon her fiery blooded eyes. She struggles to remove his hands, but with her hands having gaping holes in them, and with all her bruises and cuts and scratches, she is unable to do much at all. Tears flood her eyes as she stop in realization that whatever his intentions are, he will surely succeed…
“…Marie…Marie,” a voice taunts me. I feel a presence, but it’s so deep and is seductive. It dissolves into nothing, having been nothing more than a glance of a faint glimmer of consciousness to some degree.
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She feels the pain slice into her arm as the poisoned blade makes deep contact with skin, and she falls after the clean wound over her neck disappears and the one on her arm tries to, but the Akrie poison in it attacks her strength and senses. The fire of the wound, the burning, searing pain…It hurts so badly…Can’t breathe…
Matthias saw when she feel, and he’s coming. He knows what he completely wishes were a lie. She’s been poisoned and now she’ll die if she’s not already dead.
No…
He rushes to her side and frantically calls her name gently, “Aidenn. Aidenn, please…” He realizes she is breathing lightly.
She has no armor and no weapons on now. She threw them down and spat upon them in the middle of this battle when she’d discovered power under her rage, that she is Elokhai, a ghost child, and Rojan, the honorable vampire blood kind who attack no one and broke away from the Rojan-Pyr Empire so long ago when this war began. She’s through trying to kill until she’s killed just to serve her people because they hate her and want her to die…
A tear falls from his now reddened eyes, and he says weakly, grievously, “I begged you would not come…”
“Marian,” the presence calls again. There is a slight caress upon my cheek, though it seems almost as if it never happened. I am able to react; my face twitches a hint of a frown, though my eyes are closed. My hand also twitches but then stops, suddenly jerking into a tightly clenched fist, but then falling to nothing again.
A voice whispers in my ear, yet so far from me, “Please wake Marian—so that I may speak with you.” yet he doesn’t know how aware I’ll be if at all aware, or if I’ll even be responsive.
I reflect every hint of emotion or essence he has, as would a mirror; it bleeds into me. Anyone that comes around me transfers his or her thoughts or emotions into my mind, but I am not aware of it. it simply comes and goes, as would waves. They come near, it is pushed into me, and when they leave, the tides fall. Yet deep within my consciousness, I feel these things and unclearly comprehend them weakly. I am helpless to block anything out.
Upon his words, my eyes immediately open, staring up, unblinking, soullessly, as if I’m dead with open eyes. But I speak, though quietly. It doesn’t seem to come directly from me, but I know only that my soul speaks, not my consciousness. It seems only a breath of light air, almost nonexistent, “What is upon your mind that you so wish to speak with me, that you try to rouse my soul? And tell me who you really are. Your name. Not that you’re Octavius, because it is not true.”
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My eyes are staring lifelessly into his, and my voice is haunted as I continue, “I am near death, so you should know you cannot truly wake me.”
There is sadness within his red eyes. “I know,” he says, “and I’m sorry. I wish it were in my power to wake you, but this is all I can do, is let your soul speak for you. As for your question, my name isn’t really Octavius. I am Leviath, son of the Dark King, Dante, son of the new Old King from the other world, the father of Livier kind…”
“Why, majesty, would you wish to wake me? You have no heart.”
He reaches and gently brushes his thumb over my lips, which is sort of numb, and says, “In the sense of emotions, in most instances I am careless and cold and cruel. But in the sense of desire, my heart exists quite strongly, especially around you.” He smiles slightly. “My search is not going well. i…I have a mind of simply using her power if I find her. I’ll have to make her my wife, but I promise you I’d kill her—and take you.”
I realize that now I am standing, and he is standing before me. He is very close; yet I feel no fear, no want, not hate…Nothing. I am like an ages old oak, living, yet another force moves me, a deep secret borne into my soul. But I feel what he feels almost too strongly, and is lust is becoming stronger.
He tells me quietly, “You are what I wish for in terms of beauty. I would wish for you to be my wife, even if you are human now. You would be my Queen, and hopefully,” he looks down and touches my stomach with the back of his hand and then looks up at me again, “if I am blessed, the mother of my child…”
For several moments, he tries to read my eyes, what I might feel or think, but it’s hopeless because I am not myself. All he can see is emptiness, and perhaps feels the darkness that arises from my own soul. At last he speaks, “You…you’re like a mirror rather than a person when you’re like this. It saddens me. You let the emotions or feelings of those around you flood into you, but…it’s not you. You’re not really here.”
I reply, “I know this already.” For the first time, my accent is American again.
He is slightly surprised, but dismisses it easily, “Yes…but in all seriousness, what is your answer if I ask that you would be my Queen and I promised I would be gentle with you?”
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“I have no say in the matter,” I reply. “You would let me choose yes or would force me. My soul may speak a dark power that draws you to me, but it is my heritage and not my wish. I love no one now. My answer is leave me, do not return. But I know you will defy that demand. I tell you now; I have no wish of being the mother to your children. You will have none by me.”
“You opinion is as strong as your wise observance,” he says bitterly, though he smiles. “You are quite smart, even in your present state…I will return to you later.”
He backs away from me, but tells me as the shadows rise, “You could learn to love me and I could learn to love from you.”
“Not without a heart,” I whisper as he fades into the darkness. “Not without a soul…not with evil.”
I return to other visions, this one having been the longest, clearest one. They never stop, never tire; they keep coming endlessly, tiny bits of unknown things whether real or unreal, all somehow related, though through some ancient secret I have never known.
The time for me to either wake or die draws nearer with each passing moment. Soon. It shall be soon.
At last, though, I know who he really is.
Blood of Eden Chapters
