“That doesn’t concern you.”
“On the contrary. Anything of interest to you does.”
I swear and try to fight him off, but his grip is impossible to break.
“Raul!” Mother gasps his name. “Eleira—you must get Eleira to me! If Victoria dies, and the connection still exists between their minds, there’s nothing I’ll be able to do. Hurry! Forget about him!”
Raul casts one last look at me… and shoves off. He runs for the door of the second silver cell. The empty one, with nobody inside.
I don’t have time to contemplate his irrational behavior. Glorious triumph seizes me as I hold the staff in both hands. With this I will be vindicated, with this I will be redeemed in my Father’s eyes.
A maddened sort of laughter takes hold. With this staff in hand—
I don’t get to finish my thought. The amulet around my neck quivers with sudden energy. A surge of power explodes out from it and runs through my body.
“YES, BOY!” The Ancient roars in my mind. “YES, YOU HAVE GIVEN IT TO ME. YES, YES, YES!”
The power concentrates in my fingertips and flows into the staff. I lose all sense of self as The Ancient takes control of my body. I feel him in my head, in my limbs, I hear his snarling, zealous, depraved euphoria spoken in a language I do not know.
Suddenly, all the power from the amulet surges into the staff. A light brighter than anything I’ve seen explodes outward from it. Mother, in shock, cries out, “No!”
The light swells and then constricts. It concentrates into a point at the staff’s top.
Still unable to control my body, I thrust the tip down, straight into the floor.
A sound like thunder crashing comes from the spot I struck. And all the light, all the energy, all the magic, all of The Ancient’s hate surges down into the stone, into the very marrow of the castle. My body starts to convulse, but still I cannot do anything. I cannot let go. It feels like I’m being burned alive, burned from the inside, the power raging through me is so foreign and great.
In a wink it cuts out. For a second all is still. I recover from my daze and hurl both amulet and staff away.
But then the ground starts to shake.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
ELEIRA
A deep-set, heavy male voice pitches through the darkness.
“WAKE, ELEIRA. WAKE, YOU ARE NEEDED. WAKE!”
The final scream jerks me to my senses. I open my eyes, feeling the phantom after-effects of the lashing pain that raced through my head after the connection with Victoria broke.
I roll over with a groan. I steady both hands against the floor, start to push myself up—
A terrible shaking takes the room.
I’m on my feet quickly. Not another earthquake, I think. But then I sense a great effluence of power coming from the other side of the door. Enormous power, terrible power, enough magical energy to make me instantly afraid.
There comes a sound like glass breaking. A giant, splintering fissure races across the floor. I jump away, and wobble when I inadvertently land in a place where the silver’s power is amplified.
For a moment, all is still. And then the fissure breaks—and the whole floor gives way from under me.
I scream as I fly down with the rubble. All the silver artifacts rain down with me. I hit the story below. Great rocks come crashing down from the ceiling as it caves in from above. I shield my head with my hands, knowing if one of those slabs lands on my I’ll be done for, vampire or not.
Then the breaking stops. Everything goes still, still and eerily silent. I open my eyes hesitantly, amazed that I wasn’t hit.
And there, in front of me, picking themselves up from the dust, are Raul, Smithson, James, Victoria, and the Queen.
They all look as dazed as I feel. Except for Victoria, who is unconscious. I gasp when I see the awful wounds on her body.
The reunion lasts no longer than the second it takes to make eye contact. Another deep groan takes the castle. The floor we’re standing on pitches in on itself and collapses down.
I scream again as I’m sent throttling through the air.
We crash from one level to the next. The entire castle starts to collapse inward, as if a great gaping hole has been opened in the earth beneath its core.
My body strikes one hard surface after the next. I’m bounced around like a ragdoll. Down, down, down I continue to fall, as the Queen’s castle crumbles around me.
We hit the ground floor and stop. The reprieve lasts barely a second. Another massive roar comes from beneath the earth. A gaping hole opens in the middle of the castle floor.
All of us go screaming down.
It all happens so fast. I’m tossed this way and that in the landslide, rebounding off rocks and objects I cannot even see. The fall into the earth takes eternity. If this ever ends, I swear—