A Shade of Kiev 2(28)

Speechless, I was knocked breathless by her accusation. I didn’t have a chance to respond before she stepped off me and bounded away toward Matteo.

I staggered out onto the beach to see all the surviving vampires and werewolves fleeing toward the main ship. I caught up with Matteo just before he boarded.

“No! Matteo! Wait! I’m sorry! You don’t understand,” I yelled, my head feeling like it was splitting in two from the exertion.

He turned to face me, his chest heaving. His hair and face were wet with sweat, his shirt ripped and soaked with blood.

“There’s only one person who should be sorry,” he hissed through the night air as he gripped the ropes hanging from the side of the ship. “Me. For being fool enough to believe my sister’s killer could ever be redeemed.”

He climbed up the side of the ship and swung himself over the railing.

I watched helplessly as the ship sailed away, its shrinking silhouette gliding over the dark ocean.





Chapter 16: Mona





“I don’t want you seeing Rhys any more. Do you understand?”

I stared at my mother, my eyes wide with outrage.

“But he’s my best friend!” I spluttered.

“Mona, listen to your mother.” My father entered the room and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Rhys has been spending too much time with his aunt lately.”

“So what?”

“The council issued her a warning yesterday. She’s suspected of cursing her cousin to drown in the river.”

I stared at my mother.

“Do you understand what that means?” She gripped my shoulders and shook me. “She’s being suspected of breaking the most important law of The Sanctuary: harming another witch. Rumors are spreading that she is practicing forbidden magic! If they find her guilty, she’ll be exiled.”

“Well, all the better,” I argued. “If she’s gone, there’s no reason that I can’t continue seeing Rhys.”

“No. You’re not going to see that boy any more,” my father said sternly.

“How many times do I have to tell you? Rhys is nothing like his aunt.” I stamped my foot in frustration.

My parents glanced at each other.

“We’re not convinced of that.”

The next day, despite my attempts to persuade my parents otherwise, I didn’t go out to see Rhys at the usual time. From my window, I watched him calling up to me and kicking around stones while he waited. But I wasn’t allowed to even call out to him. I was to have no contact with him at all from then on.

When his aunt was convicted a few days later, my parents became even stricter. I was to stay in with my siblings. And I wasn’t allowed to even sit in the same classes as him.

It wasn’t until one evening when my parents had to go out to attend a meeting that I saw him again.

He climbed through my window.

“What happened?” he asked. “Why have you been ignoring me?”

I looked down at the floor in embarrassment.

“This is to do with my aunt, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

He sighed deeply and sat down on my bed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I want to see you,” I assured him. “But my parents won’t allow it.”

“You’re just going to do what your parents say?” He looked at me challengingly, one eyebrow raised, his head cocked to one side.

I stared at him and bit my lip.

“No,” I said finally.

“Then come with me.”

As I left with him that evening to take a walk down to the river, I rationalized to myself that my parents were wrong about him.

But that evening was the first time Rhys displayed his true colors to me. It was the first time I saw that dark fervor in his eyes. It was the first time I felt afraid in his company.

But being a headstrong young girl, I wasn’t going to back out of a challenge that easily.

Waiting for us down by the river was a group of other children our age, including Rhys’ siblings. It was the night they cursed our class teacher to die in her own bed. And we all watched until the final breath passed out of her.

“You don’t understand,” Rhys had said to me, his eyes gleaming in the firelight. “This isn’t about hurting people for amusement. This is about sacrifice for a greater cause.”

His words sounded strange coming from the mouth of a boy his age. Those words didn’t sound like his own. Those words sounded like his aunt’s.

“Our council calls this forbidden magic,” he continued. “They are hypocrites. If it weren’t for our Ancients pushing the boundaries of their magic, we wouldn’t be in the position we are today. We have lost a sinful number of abilities since their time. There was a time when our race could open up gates into other realms. Now we can hardly protect our own. We have frittered away all those thousands of years’ worth of knowledge and become lazy, enjoying the fruits of their hard labor. We’re a disgrace to our own kind. Our Ancients intended for us to use the knowledge they left for us in the Scrolls to continue their work. They wanted us to advance further, not—in the name of sanctuary—become lazy and lose everything they had worked for.”