“Silence.” The voice sliced through my protests. “You have heard what your task is.”
“Can I just see him?” I begged. “Please, just let me see him. I promise I will—”
“You have heard my terms, Julie Duan,” the voice said, and then the chilling presence left me.
I sank to my knees on the sharp rocks. I breathed heavily, my mind working furiously as to where the Elder could possibly be keeping my love. Although I’d spent what felt like an age in this barren wasteland, I still didn’t know it well. Hans and I were usually kept in our quarters in the mountain and we didn’t often venture out except on the Elders’ bidding.
In spite of my weak limbs screaming for blood, I spent the next three days roaming about the landscape, desperately trying to discover the hidden chamber. Being unsuccessful, I was forced to go to the shore and feed myself with the blood of sea animals before resuming my mission with more strength. I was so determined to find it, I searched for an entire month.
When I still didn’t find him, I lost hope that I ever would. Indeed, as the Elder said, the chamber was hidden so well that I would never find it no matter how long I searched for it. And so, my heart weighed down by the Elder’s prophecy, I left that island on a rickety boat I found abandoned on the shoreline. It had a tiny covering over it to keep the sun from burning too severely into my skin, and I set off, drifting out into the ocean.
Eighteen years. The word played over and over in my head like a nightmare. How could my love even be alive by then without blood? That was my foremost concern. Although eighteen years was a horrific amount of time for me to be away from my soulmate, we were, after all, vampires. Immortals. In the grand scheme of things, eighteen years was but a blip in time. And if I managed to free him then we could be reunited again. It was the thought of Hans starving that sent me into a panic. During my search of the mountains, I had screamed at the Elder countless times to at least allow me to bring blood for Hans. But the Elder never returned.
I had no choice but to pray to the heavens and hope that somehow, Hans would survive.
I ended up reaching The Tavern and stayed there for a while. It was on that island that I happened to come across Hans’ siblings. Unlike Hans and me, they hadn’t been chosen to go to Cruor. They had remained in the coven in China, but since the Elders had been forced back through the gates, his siblings had been freed from the coven and found a gate leading into the supernatural realm, where they had become wanderers.
I told them everything that had happened to their brother and they shared in my devastation. As painful as my longing for Hans was, his siblings gave me strength. We stuck together from then on, trying to survive, keep each other safe as we waited for the years to pass. I returned to Cruor on a regular basis, clambering over rocks, just in case that human boy had turned into a vampire sooner and we could complete the task earlier. I was sure that the Elder would sense my presence and inform me. But even though I spent days at a time in that desolate land, giving the Elders ample opportunity to connect with me, none did. So I could only assume that eighteen years would indeed be the time that we all had to wait to see Hans again.
His siblings also had no idea how he was going to survive without blood, or if that was even possible for a vampire. We asked others also, but nobody seemed to know what truly happened to a vampire when they starved, how long they could survive, and if they ever died from starvation. I guessed that vampires never went that long without blood. They always found a way to get it somehow—by murdering either a human or animal.
And so we waited. And waited. Until finally, as the eighteenth year was on the cusp of arriving, while I paid my routine visit to Cruor, the same Elder spoke to me. I’d never thought that his frightening voice could be such a welcome sound, but relief washed over me as his hiss met my ears.
“You have been patient, girl,” he said. “And soon you will be rewarded. The time has come. The human boy has been turned and is closer to reaching us now than ever before. Go and wait in The Tavern, and keep an eye out for him.”
The Elder gave me a description of Benjamin Novak’s physical appearance, and warned me that he was stronger than most vampires. He also told me that he was being accompanied by two jinn—creatures I had thought were merely a myth. Other than that, he didn’t offer advice as to how I was going to pull this off. I guessed figuring this out was part of earning my right to see Hans again.
I hurried back toward the ship where Hans’ siblings waited for me. We left Cruor and sped toward The Tavern. The only thing on my mind was Hans. How he had been keeping all these years. How it would feel to touch him once again.