When Greer had been young, Ruby had grimaced whenever she’d been around her, as though Greer smelled rotten. She’d thought the vampire hated her. Maybe she hated witches—or, more than likely, children. Now, she wasn’t so sure. She knew none of the men who’d raised her would have supported her like this, without questioning her judgement. With Levi or Alexius, she would have had to explain herself, wasting precious time. And Mikar would have simply locked her in her room.
Ruby took the syringe and shot its contents through Greer's honey skin, into her vein.
Greer almost immediately felt its effect. She had minutes, at most.
Greer started chanting the spells she'd always known, from the moment she'd opened her eyes. The spells had only been revealed to her because she was supposed to forbid anyone from using them.
Her head was burning, like a hundred ice daggers were stuck right inside her skull. She felt ready to explode. Blood trailed out of her nostrils as the witches of her clan fought her with a rage she hadn't quite expected, from beyond the veil of death.
She kept reciting the incantations all the same.
She owed it to Chloe. She even owed it to Eirikr.
Greer, shaking, bleeding, drained, chanted until the last of the spells had been lifted from Eirikr's prison.
He stumbled out of the dark doorway, stunning and terrible as a fallen angel, his confused gaze on her. He wore a loose pair of gray sweatpants low on his hips, and nothing at all on top, his finely-sculpted torso bare. Which didn’t lessen his devastatingly potent presence. “What is this?" His voice was darker than she remembered, each of his words sounding like a threat.
What could she even say? Chloe was dying, or dead. Chloe was dying or dead, because she'd saved Greer. Greer didn't know how to tell him, how to make him understand. There was no voicing this tragedy. There was no paying for the debt she owed Chloe. The only thing she could do was give Eirikr time to say goodbye.
Feeling her mind slip, she rushed words out of her mouth. "You have until I wake up. Maybe five, six hours..."
That was all she managed, before darkness swallowed her.
She fell on her feet, never hitting the ground, as both Ruby and Eirikr held her up.
Sacrifice
Each moment seemed to last an eternity in the cold, dark silence of the valley. Diana couldn’t bring herself to say anything, do anything, look at anyone.
She felt small, lost, alone. She’d been prepared for nothing of what had occurred tonight. Just moments ago, they’d been dancing and then lighting the bonfire now burning in the background. She couldn’t feel any of its heat on her skin.
A touch on her shoulder shocked her out of her stupor. She looked up and found Mikar, his hand on her shoulder.
Mikar, who’d made her dance like she’d always wanted to back in the day.
Mikar, who was ready to give up his life.
Diana wanted to shrug him off, bare her teeth at him, shout. She did none of these things, staring into the distance, and allowing his touch. For what it was worth, his hand was warm.
Sylvan came back with supplies within what could have been seconds or hours. She had no concept of time at the moment. Stepping away from Mikar’s comforting touch took more out of her than she would have liked to admit, but she did it, to inspect the contents of the duffel bag the slayer lay at her feet.
She managed a tentative smile up at him. He’d brought everything she asked for, except…
Before she could tell him he’d missed the dagger, he pulled one out of his white jacket, handing it to her, leather hilt first. The blade was pure silver. “Thank you.”
Her voice sounded wrong to her ears.
He shrugged, walking away in silence. She wasn’t the only one who daren’t disturb the stillness of the night.
Pocketing the weapon he’d handed her, Diana addressed Gwen. "I need a circle of water around the table, could you manage that?” She could have done it herself, but Diana didn’t want to move more than necessary, or overburden her mind with anything other than the terrifying prospect of what she was about to do.
Diana sat on the ground at the head of the table, close to Chloe's head, while Gwen lifted the water from the two-gallon jugs, moving her hands together gracefully, directing it to form a perfect circle. There was no more nonsense about her not being in control. Not tonight.
Diana checked the line. It'd work. Really, lake water would have done in a pinch, but given the spell she was about to attempt, she preferred simple, clean water without fish piss and Levi’s magic messing up the chemical balance. Not that tap water was much better, even in Oldcrest.
"What else?" Gwen asked, anxious to help.
“I need a pentagram inside the water line—with the salt.”
Another witch Diana hadn’t been introduced to approached. “I can do that,” she offered.
She got to her knees, and placed her hands palm down on the moss. An earth witch. Her craft was deft and precise as she emptied the contents of the bag of crystal salt, each grain dissolving on the valley floor. Instants later, they reappeared, formed into a perfect five-point star. It probably wasn’t her first go.
“Anything else?”
Diana nodded. “Elemental help from you witches would be great. I need one corner for each element—water in the north, earth in the south, air in the east, and fire in the west."
There were plenty of elemental practitioners tonight. Almost all the witches on the lakeside rushed to take the positions she indicated, several witches sitting outside the circle of water, waiting for her instruction. They were all wearing white, as though they’d been prepared for just such a ceremony all along.
Diana cleared her throat. "Whoever will take Chloe's place needs to enter the circle with me, on the other side.”
She couldn’t bring herself to look at either of the men who’d discussed their fates. Especially not Mikar.
She didn't know why, but that he'd so callously dismissed his life hurt her. She understood why Levi would do it, but Mikar? Did he love Chloe this much?
Apparently so.
She waited. Gwen's ice would hold for long enough for them to sort things out between them. Within its confines, Chloe’s state wouldn’t deteriorate. Her soul remained in this world, for now. Which meant that there was hope.
As long as the Fates didn’t interfere.
Her senses suddenly locating a threat, Diana twisted her upper back to look toward a fast-approaching shadow in the distance. It moved too swiftly, a blur in her vision. The humans probably didn’t even see or feel a thing at all.
Except for fear.
When the creature stopped advancing, coming to a halt mere feet away, Diana could only gape, astounded and petrified.
Although she'd never seen him in person, there was no mistaking this man. This…thing. Shirtless, his long hair tied in a single braid, dark at the roots and as light blond as Chloe’s hair at the tips, like it had been too long left to the caprices of sunlight, he was the image of a Viking warrior. If Vikings ever wore sweatpants. The anachronistic clothing did little to conceal his identity.
Diana couldn’t deny that he was incredibly handsome. And just as incredibly terrifying. His destructive, potent presence would have frozen her in place if his ire had been directed toward her. It wasn't. All his pain, despair and misery were focused on Chloe's ice coffin.
When Eirikr Primerius redirected his bright blue eyes to her, Diana bristled.
“You're a singer of hell.” His voice was barely over a whisper.
Diana bit her lip and nodded once.
"And you can bring my daughter back." His smooth voice broke.
Diana felt a tear along her cheek. Although her heart had been sinking since the moment Chloe had been hit, she knew this tear wasn’t for her. It was for Eirikr's harrowing sorrow, not hers.
His pain was a cold, empty void, greater even than Levi's. It felt like a real, living thing that might plunge the world into darkness, if left unattended.
"Not without a price."
Diana had always had the ability to give and take lives. It was her legacy, the power held by each Helsing elder since their ancestor had been turned. But in her entire life, she'd never made use of it. She'd never even been tempted. It wasn't worth it. Killing someone to take someone else's place? She hated the very idea. The survivor's pain and sorrow were too much to bear.
But this was Chloe. Soft, sweet, endearing, nosy Chloe, who'd only just started to live. Chloe, who was carrying another little life inside her.
She hadn’t even hesitated to start the preparation, knowing that there would be a volunteer ready to take her place. But the fact that someone would have to die for this had been eating at her. Until now.
Watching Eirikr’s suffering, Diana just knew that the trade was completely, utterly worth it, to him. He didn’t have a shred of regret or hesitation. He would do this, and he’d be glad of it. There would be no ghost haunting her conscience.
Eirikr stepped toward the circle, without any hesitation, without paying attention to anyone else, walking toward death like the warrior he was. Gladly.
"Wait.” Strangely, the protest hadn’t come from Levi. Diana lifted her head, trying to identify the speaker.
Not that it mattered: Eirikr ignored the voice and kept coming.
The woman screamed again. “No, wait, please!”
Diana had seen this woman a time or two. A brunette dressed in dark fighting gear, several knives on her belt. She didn't often wander to the hill, but she'd been at Alexius's wedding party, and a tea party, too.
This time, Eirikr spared her a glance.
Tris. Diana remembered her name now.
She was one of the few people wearing dark gear instead of a white celebration dress tonight. One of the huntsmen. As she was paying attention, Diana could see there was something else to her, beyond the facade of a mortal fighter. Something Diana hadn't seen in a long, long time.
Eirikr pinpointed it before Diana could. "A fledgling," he breathed, soft as wind.
Diana’s heart leaped in her chest.
She hadn’t seen it coming. If there had been a fledgling in Oldcrest, it would have stood to reason that she'd live on the hill, with the rest of them. Yet Tris was a born vampire—her scent, her aura, her eyes said as much.