Page 115 of Vow of the Undead
Of course he could, because he’d connected us so that he could steal my soul.
My skin prickled. When he set me on the bed, I recoiled from his touch. “Get away from me.”
“Silver?”
“No.” I shook my head and scooted further onto the soft bed and away from him.
“I know what you want from me.”
Recognition shined in his eyes. He frowned and scrubbed a palm over his mouth. For too long he stood like that, absorbing what I said, acting helpless at the end of my bed.
“You found the lost history,” he said, his voice flat except for a quiver of worry. Staring at the edge of the bed, he didn’t meet my eyes.
“Some of it,” I said. “Enough of it.”
“I don’t want your soul.”
I said nothing. He didn’t deserve a response. I had no doubt he was here to convince me to kill the king. At least in that, we agreed.
Finally, he dared look at me. “I did. I’m still tempted at times, that’s the truth. You deserve that truth as much as it kills me to say it. I never intended to care for you. All I’d wanted was a soul before. When I told you that you’re my huntress, I meant it. You will destroy me too.”
I sat up and narrowed my eyes, keeping my glare steady on him. “And how does that work? When I stake you in the heart, my soul transfers to you?”
He shook his head. “No, Silver. I watched you sacrifice your blood at the altar. I watched you stand up to King Drakkar for your mother’s sake. You reminded me what itmeans to be truly honorable. Because of you, I see now that even if I took your soul, or anyone’s soul, it wouldn’t be the right way to go to Valhalla. I wouldn’t have earned it. You would have killed all the monsters, not me.”
Again, I said nothing, though I was tempted to ask what changed.
His thick hair clung to his forehead like he was a human exerting enough energy to sweat. Though I supposed monsters grew tired too.
All the rage I felt in the library returned tenfold. Instinctively, I slid out the pendant from my pocket and kept it tightly in my fist.
I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t, not after this betrayal.
The tears I shed for Silver dried sticky and tight on my cheeks. I sniffed and forced the emotion in my throat down, trying to keep my voice steady. “You lied to me. I can’t trust that you’re not still planning to take my soul. The runestones are the source of truth, our history, so I will trust when it calls you the king of monsters.”
His throat rippled in a slow swallow. “I did not lie.”
“You omitted the truth.”
“I said I’d made a mistake and that it consumes me?—”
“And now you want me to rectify it.” I stepped closer while raising the weapon to his throat, not pushing too deep into him but not relieving him either. “How much time have we spent discussing these trials, Kayn, and you failed to confess you pursued me for this purpose? This isn’t about human survival, like you said.”
“It is.”
“You’ve known me long enough now to know that I wanted the truth from the beginning. That you weren’t doing this for me and my people, but to rid yourself of your own guilt and climb your way to Valhalla, damning me to Hel’s underworld.”
Carefully, he nodded “You’re right.” His voice was woundtight. “I need your help to unmake me and release me from the guilt. The first witch made me. I was dying and she used her magic to suspend me between life and death so that she may siphon this immortality from me. There was no one else like me, and when she started to lose control of her magic, I knew I’d end up alone.” He cast his eyes down for a moment before dragging them up to meet my gaze again. “So I made them. I cursed hundreds of dying men and women to this existence so that I would not be alone. So that she could use them and turn me back. When she didn’t make me human again, I became enraged and turned more of those fallen in battle from human to vampire. I am their maker. I need you to unmake them before I persist for yet another generation, after these hundred years, ravaged with guilt.” A quiver placed his voice somewhere between desperation and grief.
My hands shook with the skipping of my heart. It pulsed once, then three times, pausing, then beating twice as fast again as if my heart was reacting to the single last word he’d said. The Gods knew my lingering illness worsened when my mind dwelled on guilt.
Kayn had created monsters, but he didn’t choose to become one. I had. Through each choice I made, starting twenty years ago, I slowly accepted the darkness within me.
And now with Kayn here, I actually had a chance to take down the king, to save my sister. Though it would never make up for what I did to her, it was the only thing that mattered now.
I would do whatever it took to free her, even though it’d never relieve me from the shame that twisted and stretched this soul I supposedly had.
But Kayn? He had no soul to twist, only hundreds of years of shame.
