Thanks to everyone for the lovely reviews and I’m sorry I didn’t give individual replies. I’m sick with my second cold this summer (what a bummer) and I’m not feeling very productive or motivated.

However, here is the next chapter. Hopefully some questions will be answered and perhaps more questions will be formed. I will say this, though: Babba Yanna did teach Daphne something, although not in the traditional sense. If you think about it, the most important thing she learned from Yanna was that if tried hard enough she could do some amazing things (having some pretty strong magic helped, too, of course).

I hope that helps!

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18 Dawn Breaks

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I released a shaky breath. My whole body felt like jelly, but my head especially felt as though it had been put through a mixer.

Greyson pulled his hand from mine and shook off the useless bit of metal. Then he yanked me forward by the wrist, inspecting the unharmed exterior of my hand. Inside, my fingers felt a bit tingly.

“How did you do that?” he demanded, almost accusingly.

I stared at him wide eyed. “I – uh – I used magic?” I offered uselessly, because I was just as stunned as he. I wiggled my fingers a bit, hoping that the motion would make him release my wrist.

He shook his head in disbelief. “No, no, that’s impossible.”

I frowned and pulled my hand back. He released it almost unwillingly.

“Nothing is impossible, Greyson,” I stated, almost snootily.

His eyes flashed to mine. “Those shackles were wrought from metal mined over a thousand years before I even existed. They were moulded with magic and fixed with enough charms, spells and curses to keep the most powerful of beings captive,” he hissed and his fangs seemed to lengthen. “I have seen sorcerers a hundred years older than you waste away in these chains. I had watched beasts that no longer roam this earth die in these chains. And never once have they faltered – never once have they even weakened.”

My heart was in my throat as he finished. I tried to swallow it down. “Maybe they have…weakened, that is,” I barely managed to whisper. I curled my hand into a fist because it was still tingling. My muscles felt weak.

Greyson seemed to be trying to get a hold of himself. He closed his eyes for a long moment and I watched with fascination as his fangs shortened. He inhaled deeply before looking at me again.

“Who was the witch who helped you?” he asked, seeming to have overcome his moment of incredulity.

“She calls herself Babba Yanna,” I said.

He stiffened. “The trading witch?”

“That’s what they seem to call her,” I replied weakly.

“You made a deal with the trading witch?” he asked, almost too calmly.

I nodded, not wanting to speak because my head felt very fuzzy.

“Do you know why they call her the trading witch?” he asked lowly.

“Yes,” I muttered shortly. A sickening tremble twisted its way through my insides, and for a moment I thought I might throw up.

Greyson continued in a steely voice. “And what did she trade in exchange for helping you? The necklace, of course, that is obvious. But what else? Your magic? Ten years from your life? A piece of your soul?”

I shook my head and swallowed down the nausea. “No, nothing important. I promise.”

But he insisted. “What?”

“Nothing!” I snapped, and then immediately clapped a hand over my mouth. My vision wavered for a moment and my neck felt too hot.

Greyson’s hands were on my shoulders, pushing me back onto the floor. He leaned over me, pressing his freed hand to the fabric covering my stomach and spreading his fingers out. The nausea abated slowly with his touch.

“You’re doing that thing again,” I murmured weakly, staring up at him.

“Yes,” he replied shortly.

I exhaled deeply with relieved content and closed my eyes for a moment. When he had removed his hand and I felt relatively normal again, I said, “I think I can try the other one now.”

“Absolutely not,” Greyson said.

I opened my eyes and peered up at him. “Why not?” I asked, but not petulantly. Mostly with curiosity.

He hung over me a moment longer before slowly lowering himself to the ground at my side. His shoulder touched mine. We both stared up into the darkness.

“What would we do, if you managed to free me?” he asked calmly. Rationally.

I pursed my lips for a moment. “We’d escape,” I said finally. Stubbornly.

“It’s daylight outside,” he reminded me.

“We’d wait until dark.”

“When the Queen is awake?”

I huffed. “We’d do it before sundown, then, and I’d find a way to cover you.”

“And Osias?” he asked.

“I’d magic him.”

“Would you?” He almost sounded amused.

“Yes.”

“And the door?” he prompted. “It can only be opened with a key.”

“The cuffs can only be opened with a key,” I countered.

“You think you can undo the cuff and open the door, escape Osias’s notice and then escape with me in broad daylight?” he asked, and this time I could hear the joking in his voice. “May I remind you I have no clothes?”

“Stop it,” I ground out.

“What?”

“Stop ruining it,” I told him. I sounded like a child.

He chuckled. “How am I ruining it?”

“By laughing!” I shouted. “By making a joke of it!” I turned my head to glare at him. “This isn’t a joke, Greyson!”

He stared right back at me. “What am I ruining? Your delusional plans of escape?”

I bristled angrily. “Will we just wait to die, then?”

“We will wait until dawn,” he replied simply.

“You mean, until they come for us,” I snarked.

He leaned in closer to me then, until our noses were touching and his eyes bore into mine. “As long as I am alive, they will not harm you. I promise that.”

A shiver ran through me. My heart gave a nervous thump and I had to blink away from his gaze. “How can you promise something like that?” I asked.

With his free hand, Greyson grasped my cheek and forced me to look at him.

“I mean it.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. There was a giant twisting ball of live emotion wound up in my chest. It was making the backs of my eyes sting.

“Daphne,” he said lowly. His thumb stroked gently along my cheek.

I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat and was thankful my eyes were closed because my eyes were tearing over. For one brief moment I thought I might burst apart the pressure inside me was so great. Something was aching to get free, and I opened my mouth to try and vocalize it.

“Greyson,” I began.

He was silent, so I warred with my tongue and continued.

“How…why did you leave? That night, why did you leave?” I asked. I refused to open my eyes, afraid of what I might see. It seemed like an age before I heard him speak.

“One thing you must understand about us, Daphne, is that we must obey when our sire summons us. That is part of the reason that I prefer to remain hidden, or never stay in one place. My mother, the Queen, is my sire. I cannot disobey her.”

I opened my eyes to peek a Greyson, who was not looking at me, but past me at some point in the darkness.

“You had no choice but to leave?” I said, both dread and calm mixing inside me.

“Just like I cannot leave this place. I am bound by more than just chains and walls, Daphne,” he said.

The dread won out over the calm. “Then how can we leave?”

His grey eyes met mine, and they were flat. “It is unlikely that I will be able to leave.”

I swallowed the sickness rising up in my throat. “I’m not going anywhere without you,” I said, and my voice cracked.

“That’s exactly what she wants,” he said lowly. “She counted on me to bring you here, she counted on your compassion to want to save me, and now she’s managed to reel you back in again.”

Unable to stay still, I sat up and stared angrily into the darkness. I felt Greyson move to sit beside me, but I ignored him.

“I don’t care what you think,” I said then, petulantly. “I won’t leave.”

“I left you, did I not?” he reminded me, his tone neutral.

I gave him a sharp look, daring him to say it again. “That wasn’t your choice, and anyways, nothing you can say is going to change my mind,” I argued.

“I want you to leave,” he said, almost abruptly.

I looked over at him again, my eyes narrowed. “And I want to stay,” I countered.

“I want you to leave when you have the chance,” he said again. “I’m not worth you staying.”

I refused to answer.

“If the Queen gets what she wants…I couldn’t imagine anything worse – certainly not my own death. And you are willing to help her, just to stay with me?” he asked.

“She won’t get it,” I snapped back. “I wouldn’t know how to lift a curse even if I had the magic to do it.”

Greyson paused, processing my words. I hoped that he’d had enough of trying to convince me and would let it go. But then, “She’ll kill both of us.”

“So be it,” I said, turning and glaring at him.

He sat, mirroring my pose, a look of intense determination on his face.

“Daphne,” he said, in that voice.

“Stop it!” I shouted back, snapping. “Stop doing this! Stop trying to convince me to leave!” I stood up quickly, my anger making me restless. I walked away from him, to the line of the light and stared into the darkness. “It’s not going to work, Greyson, so just stop.”

I didn’t even hear him move, but then next moment he was standing right behind me.

“Is it selfish of me?” he asked softly.

I clenched my teeth and refused to respond.

“Daphne? Is it selfish of me to want you to live?”

I wanted to be furious. I really did. I wanted to scream and shout and say yes! But everything just seemed to drain out of me and I suddenly felt exhausted, so tired that I just wanted to lie down and sleep.

“I think we’re both selfish,” I said finally, still staring into the darkness.

But that wasn’t it. I knew it. He may have been selfish – or claimed to be. But I was something else. My emotion was stronger, I knew it. And I was afraid to put a name to it. Not now.

His hands touched my shoulders and I wavered for a moment before giving in and leaning back against him. His arms wrapped me up in an embrace that melted away all the conflict inside me. Then he was scooping me up into his arms and walking back to the centre of the circle of light.

My eyes were already drooping closed as he sat back against the wall. He shifted me so I sat with my back against his chest and I felt his chin rest atop my head and his hands rest across my stomach.

I wanted dearly to close my eyes, but my gaze was fixated on the remaining shackle. If I just moved my hand to cover his…

I was out before I could think anymore.

--

Greyson was running his fingers through the rat’s nest of my hair, and when I opened my eyes it was to see complete darkness.

My lantern had finally been extinguished. It occurred to me that I must have been sleeping for a long time. Then it occurred to me that it must have been Greyson’s doing. Part of me was angry. It was stolen time. I could have spent it with him instead of asleep with him. I could have talked to him and told him so many things…

“Dawn will come soon,” he spoke as if knowing I was awake.

Every joyful thought inside me plummeted. “How do you know?” I asked.

“All vampires know when the sun rises and sets,” he said shortly.

I supposed that made sense.

Greyson moved then, shifting me and slipping out from behind me. “They are coming,” he said shortly, and I felt his hands on my arms, pulling me up. “You must stand up and show no weakness.”

I stood, albeit a bit wobbly. Now there was no time to vent my anger, no time to tell him all the things I wanted to say.

“I shouldn’t have taken so much blood…” he said, just a voice in the darkness.

“It’s alright,” I said, “I can stand.”

His hands ghosted over my arms. “Good. Now, you must act as if I am still starving. They must not know that I have taken blood. They won’t pay attention to me if they think I am still weak.” His hands went to me hair, and he was pulling it from it’s elastic. “You must keep your neck covered.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

He hushed me, fingers ghosting over my lips a moment before I heard an odd noise – a clicking of keys in a lock. I turned around just in time to see a crack of light – a door – open about twenty feet away from me. It opened wide, and a figure holding a torch stepped through the door.

The cell was suddenly illuminated, and I was momentarily distracted by the sight of the chiselled, cavernous rock walls and ceiling.

“Miss Holland, can we trust you to come peacefully?” a voice asked.

I looked, and there were two figures standing in the cell now. Osias and a vampire who I just barely recognized, who held the torch. Their intrusion in this space, our space, made me realize that this was the end. Even in this cell, I couldn’t escape from reality. Not for very long, anyway.

“Yes,” I said finally.

“Good,” said the vampire. “Come forward.”

I hesitated for a moment. Greyson was behind me and I didn’t want to leave him.

I walked forward slowly, until I was close enough to see the glinting black eyes of the vampire. I wondered how I must look to them, so dishevelled and dirty.

Osias spoke. “You understand that any purposeful obstruction or hindrance on your part will result in Greyson’s death?”

I swallowed. “Y-yes.”

Osias nodded, then looked at the vampire, who acknowledged the stare with a nod of his own. He gave the torch to Osias and moved forward, past me. I turned and watched him as he went to Greyson, who was sitting and leaning heavily against the wall. The vampire crouched over him with keys in his hand.

I wanted to move, to do something. I wanted to tell him not to touch Greyson. I felt a tingling fear grip my insides.

Then the vampire laughed.

I started, and then recoiled slightly as the vampire held up the melted and discarded cuff link for us to see.

Osias threw me a dark look, but I ignored it. The vampire had Greyson by the arm now and was pulling him up. Greyson stumbled slightly, his head lolling, and dragged his feet with a hiss, but allowed himself to be pulled.

“Our Queen chose well!” he exclaimed with a strange glint in his eyes as he looked at me.

Osias hummed and nodded, then took my wrist and began to pull me from the cell. The corridor was bright and there were more vampire waiting outside. Five, to be exact, each wearing long black cloaks tied at the neck. When I turned back to look at Greyson, the vampire who was hold him was also clad in a similar cloak.

They didn’t speak, but surrounded us silently, like a procession of guards. Another grabbed hold of Greyson’s other arm, and he hung between them like a limp doll.

“Come along, Miss Holland,” Osias said, tugging on my arm, “The Queen is waiting.”

His words, while sending a chill down my spine, offered me a strange sort of comfort. This was what I had been waiting for, agonizing over, for so long. The time had finally come and as our congregation moved through the twisted corridor I realized I could feel relief hidden underneath the blanket of anxiety inside me.

The corridor broke away into the now familiar cavernous domed room. It’s polished black floors gleamed red and orange with the light of multiple torches. I felt myself hesitate as Osias pulled me further into the cavern.

The Queen sat on her throne, her childlike beauty partially obscured by the hood of the cloak she, too, wore. Her blood red eyes were fixed on nothing in particular.

“Welcome,” she spoke. Her voice was soft but it carried throughout the room. Her eyes focused on me for a brief moment, “Welcome, and allow me to introduce my loyal subjects.”

There was curious noise. A moment later I realized it was the sound of vampires. I had always thought that they could move without any sound. But the sound of hundreds…it was unmistakable. They materialized like ghosts out of the shadows, their dark cloaks creating an anonymous identity. They spilled smoothly into the cavern, forming a large ring around the circumference of the room and leaving the middle space where we stood bare and empty. We were trapped.

“Come forward,” the Queen ordered.

My legs felt paralyzed by the gaze of so many eyes, but I was pushed forward by the shoulders until I stood directly before the Queen. She was flanked by two large males, their faces hidden by hoods.

I started as Greyson’s naked body was thrown down beside me. He groaned and shifted slightly, but otherwise did not move. The vampires surrounding us were so damned quiet. My breathing was too loud.

I wanted nothing more than to sit down beside Greyson, rest my eyes, and forget where I was.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Daphne Holland,” said the Queen. My eyes snapped to hers. She’d pushed back her hood and her ruby red eyes bored into mine. “And my son, too. I’m very glad you are both here on this fine morning.”

I dared not look away.

“Daphne Holland,” she said my name and I heard it echo a thousand times over in my head. “For the sake of everyone present I will recount the terms of our deal. Please, feel free to speak up at any time.” A smile curled on her perfect lips and I couldn’t look away.

She addressed her circle, standing from her seat but somehow still managing to tower over all of us. “This day’s event has been building since the very dawn of our kind, since the original curse was laid upon our ancestor, sentencing him to an eternity of darkness. Today, we are not gathered to see the end of this curse, but to witness a new beginning.” She waited for a moment in silence, her eyes raking every inch of the room before she continued. I felt myself hanging onto her words.

“It is unfortunate that today cannot be witnessed by more. In the past years our numbers have been dwindled to their lowest in centuries. It seems that we cannot overcome those who wish to destroy us…a problem I anticipate will soon be solved,” she said, and then looked at me.

“We have with us today a sorceress who has vowed to lend her powers,” she said, and moved towards me. My head felt slightly fuzzy, and I watched her through lethargic eyes. “Daphne Holland is of the Old Blooded Hollands with Old Magic running through her veins.” She stopped several feet away and paused. I wanted to move closer.

“In exchange for the life of my traitorous son, Greyson” she cast a sneering glance at his form on the floor, “Daphne is willing to end the curse that threatens to stifle our race – the curse that cripples us. She will be a part of our new beginning, a new beginning that will start in sunlight.”

The Queen of vampires held out her hand for me to take.

Daphne, said a familiar voice in my head.

I ignored it and reached out to the Queen.

She is dazzling you, warned the voice.

My warm fingers touched the Queen’s and she closed her cold hand around mine. Her grip was firm.

Daphne, don’t allow her to control you!

I looked into the Queen’s eyes and saw endless realms of possibility. I could stare into them for hours and she would tell me the secrets of the world.

DAPHNE!

Suddenly, the Queen blinked, her eyes darting away from mine to look past me. I felt something lift off of my shoulders and awareness sank back into me. Somewhat startled, I turned to see Greyson snarling and struggling, his body pressed into the floor with several vampires pinning him in place. My heart gave a leap.

“Silly boy,” said the Queen, vying for my attention.

I whirled back to stare at her, unbelieving that she had managed to dazzle me like that.

“For Greyson, my dear,” said the Queen, and my hand was in her grip again. I didn’t know how, but I felt an infinite strength lying just beneath her skin.

Don’t let her control you, Greyson said to me, and I wished I could speak back.

“For Greyson,” she repeated, her eyes serious.

I had no choice but to nod my assent.

The Queen tugged at me, leading me to the centre of the room until we stood over a symbol carved into the stones under our feet. We were watched by hundreds of eyes; I felt the weight of their stares and it made my knees weak.

“This is the sun spot,” said the Queen, her hand cold over mine. I tried to focus on the symbol – a circle with lines protruding from one side.

“It is a place reserved for punishment, but after today, it will be a place of triumph, and I will stand in the sun for the first time in five millennia.”

Then, to my utmost shock, she began to undress. Or, more accurately, she shed the cloak and wore nothing underneath. She was left naked, her skin flawless and pale, her breasts perfectly round and not a glimpse of hair on her body. She took my hand once more and I was repulsed by the touch.

Although the cavern was silent, I could feel an unspoken excitement build. The energy around us was high and it made me feel sick to my stomach.

Then the Queen gave me a predatory smile and said, “Whenever you are ready, my dear.”

I stared. My stomach felt as though I was falling. In a sense I was. I was falling down the rabbit hole, down down. This land beneath the earth was no so much filled with wonder than with horror. Fear and horror.

I did nothing for a long moment, mostly because I wasn’t sure what to do. Her hand was still in mine and I could feel eyes pressing in on me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate. I tried to ignore where I was, what I was doing. I tried to ignore what I was.

But there it was, beneath the surface of the icy cold hand grasping me. I could only feel it at first, like seeing something out of the corner of your eye. But then I found myself sinking, automatically, where I could sense the darkness inside her. Just below the surface of her skin was the scent of tainted magic, magic so dark and old that I hardly recognized it at first.

It recognized me. And more than that, it was disturbingly familiar.

I remembered my last meeting with the Queen and our exchange of blood. A muted sense of horror washed through me at the realization – she had given me a small bit of the dark magic that ran through her. Perhaps unintentionally, but it had happened nonetheless.

Behind my eyelids I saw it stir like a great beast awakening from a nap; it stretched and yawned and acknowledged me with a tendril of magic that ran down my spine like crushed ice.

Then I realized that I was not seeing it behind my eyelids – I was looking into a different awareness – a void – a place separate from physical forms. It was drawing me deeper, although into what I did not know.

And we were both waiting – for me, possibly. If magic had impatience I could sense it, and without any sort of warning I was pulled forward, my body left behind as I went head first into the void.

Doubt. Panic. They speared through me.

It was an frightening thing, being without feet rooting me to the ground. I drifted like a cloud – a mist. I could feel but I could also feel. I was nothing but consciousness now, and I lay bare before the Old Magic within the Queen, and it lay bare before me.

Doubt. Panic. I was just a witch. I was the estranged daughter. I didn’t believe in me. No one believed in me.

The dark magic was not comforting. It wasn’t capable. But I felt it reach out to me with something like understanding – it touched me and I was reeled in again, into something different this time.

It showed me, and although I didn’t have eyes and neither did it, I could almost see it. And though I had no ears I could almost hear it. I was communicating, although I wasn’t sure how, with the curse.

Singular. There was only one, and it was old. As old as the Queen. It had been young once, when it had first been created as an act of malicious revenge. Because of that, it would never be good magic. It would always hinder and harm because that was all it knew.

It was tired. It had been stretched and pulled and separated into a thousand different forms. It had been passed on by thousands of nights and died by thousands of sunrises. Yet as time wore on it did not weaken. It grew stronger. Every bite made it that much more powerful, but it was tired.

It was tired of the resentment it felt so strong in every body it inhabited. It would change things. Magic as old as it had a right to decide for itself, did it not? It had just been waiting for the right time. The right person.

It understood why I was there. That was the most frightening of all it showed me. It knew. It had a conscious mind. An awareness that had been developed with thousands of years.

It was a collective conscious. All at once, it revealed itself to me in every individual in the room. It overwhelmed and surrounded me. Yet it did not feel threatened by my presence as I felt threatened by it.

It understood, after all. Perhaps not in the way a human would, but it understood the ethics of my situation. It understood everything about me. It pulled me open and examined every secret and thought and dream that I had. It seeped into my mind and mingled with my thoughts, and that was almost painful in its raw and direct infiltration.

Panic.

It connected with my magic – the first touch was a spark that shocked through my very being. It didn’t stop. It engulfed me, pushing everything human aspect about me aside until I didn’t feel anything except it’s intentions. For one tiny moment I saw everything, and then I understood.

Then it disconnected from me, pulling me back and out of that place where I as person did not exist. I was thrown back into my body. And then I felt nothing at all.

I opened my eyes feeling like I had been under for a hundred years, but I knew that no more than a few minutes could have passed.

The Queen was still holding my hand, I noted with a cotton filled brain. In an action that didn’t feel like my own, I slipped my hand from hers and felt a strong pull of magic between our skin, slipping from her and travelling into me. Uncomfortable, cold ice travelling up my veins.

I blinked and looked at the Queen. Her red eyes were on fire. “I feel curiously light.”

“Yes,” I said in response to her unspoken question, yet my voice sounded far away to my ears.

The Queen smiled, a genuine and triumphant smile. “You will be a great asset to my court, human,” she said.

Startled, I moved back, but she caught my by the shoulders and held me in place. Her grip was as strong as steel.

“You will stand with me and watch the magnificence of your work,” she said, and then lifted her face and closed her eyes. “I want to feel Ra shine on me so I can mock him once again!”

I stared at her. There was dread in my stomach but I couldn’t move. My eyes scanned through the cavern – Greyson knelt just inside the circle, his arms restrained. His eyes bore into mine.

Then darkness fell. All the torches in the room were simultaneously extinguished.

A hushed silence fell in the room, until I could hear only my uneven breathing and feel the heavy weight of the vampire Queen’s hands holding me in place. I could feel her excitement fill the space around us.

A grating crack from above caused me to start.

“Stand with me, human,” rasped the Queen, her nails digging into me. It didn’t matter, I was frozen in place by my own fear.

The light hit me first, so suddenly I flinched. It was warm and cool at the same time and I squinted up at it.

At first I thought it was the moon – the crescent of light hovering in the dark abyss above us. But then I saw it move, shift. A waxing gibbous – I realized it was a circular hole in the roof of the cavern. It inched open with every passing second.

There was that moment – that split second moment in which I locked eyes with the woman in front of me and saw the tiniest sliver of fear, and then her pale visage was illuminated as the light of day spilled into the room on onto the Queen and I.

I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting.

The sight of the vampire Queen bathed in full sunlight was not so much a surprise as a moment of clarity for me. In my mind’s eye I saw the image of a girl hidden in the darkness, hiding while aware that her entire village was burning in the sun outside. Aware that the beast who had started it all was nothing but ash and rubble. She had felt a sense of joy.

Then she – The Queen – laughed. The sound in itself was one of joy, but the sight of her fangs glinting in the light was chilling. It echoed in the cavern full of stunned silence.

She released me, holding her hands up and stretching into the light, lifting her face and closing her eyes and laughing.

And I watched as a single tendril of smoke lifted off her fingertips. Perhaps I was the only one close enough to truly see it.

The Queen felt it. She froze, still as a statue.

I wanted to take a step back but the sunlight was safe. So I was still as I watched the smoke rise off her silvery hair.

She turned to me, then. I couldn’t for the world understand what exactly went through her mind. Fear. Anger, perhaps. I was paralyzed by her red eyes and the years of waiting and longing that I saw behind them. She, who was responsible for creating all her kind, knew it was over.

She lunged.

I couldn’t move, not even as her slender fingers grasped my back and dug through the material of my sweater – not even as I felt the hiss of burning hot breath on my skin or the piercing bite of her fangs as they ripped into my flesh.

It was too late, though. Not even drinking from an Old Blood like myself would help her.

I didn’t exactly feel it happen, but I felt her fall away from me – crumble away – her grip loosening and dissolving. I smelled the burning of flesh and bone, and when my clouded vision returned I was standing over a heap of dusty fabric, faced with a hundred bloodthirsty eyes.

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