Vampire Girl(44)

Kayla grins. "He did learn from the best. But I'm surprised he gave that to you. He's been working on it for a year."

I look at her, stunned. "A year? I can't accept this," I say, reaching to take it off.

She places a hand on mine to stop me. "You must. It would break his heart if you refused. He's quite taken with you. I think you remind him of his mother."

"What's she like?" I ask, realizing I know very little about him.

"She was beautiful, like you," she says. "Fae, of course. A slave. She was raped by a vampire and left for dead, pregnant with him. She died when he was a young child, though no one knows how. I suspect the vampire who attacked her came back to finish the job. He would have gone after the child too, but Daison was smart, clever. He hid until it was safe. I found him days later, his dead mother still in their home. That's when I took him in as my apprentice. I made up a story about him to cast off suspicion. He's a Shade, so he couldn't be enslaved, but it wouldn't have gone well for him if he'd been left to fend for himself, either."

My throat tightens at the story, and I fight a wave of sadness imagining what that poor boy has been through. "Did anyone catch the vampire who hurt his mother?"

Kayla laughs a bitter laugh. "No one ever looked for him. She was a slave. Property. Nothing."

I feel sick, struggling to think of what to say when we hear a scream from outside. Kayla and I run around the back of the forge, where Kayla keeps a wagon she loads up with weapons to deliver to Fen, or other customers as needed. Daison was meant to transfer the new supply of swords to the wagon, but something is wrong.

Another scream coming from behind the wagon, which looks off-centered, as if it's been knocked to the side.

Kayla and I rush around the wagon. Daison is trapped under a broken wheel, his body contorted in such a way that he doesn't even look human. His leg bent backwards at the knee. He is so pale, and his blood is seeping into the ground. Kayla screams at me, and I move to help lift the wagon off him, but it's full of steel swords, and I'm only human. Not strong enough to lift this. I bend down next to Daison, who is slipping in and out of consciousness. I brush the hair off his sweaty brow, my eyes flooding with tears. "You're okay, kid. We're going to get you out of this. Just hold my hand."

His hand, so cold and still, does not move in mine, and I fear we've already lost him.

Kayla curses under breath, as if arguing with herself about something. She seems to come to some kind of decision and bends down next to Daison, pulling out a pendant I've never seen before, tucked under her tunic. She holds the stone in her hand and mumbles words in a language I've never heard, but somehow feels familiar, like something from a dream I once had.

As she speaks, the wagon begins to lift off Daison, who is so still in my arms. I pull him out before the wagon falls, then watch in amazement as Kayla leans over him and rests her stone on his chest as she continues to chant.

A thick piece of wood sticks out of his abdomen. She pulls it out and straightens his twisted leg. He screams so loud I have to resist covering my ears.

But as Kayla continues to chant, his body begins to mend, and his breathing levels out. Color returns to his face.

"We must get him back to my house," she says, lifting the boy's body easily in her arms. I follow them as she moves quickly through the streets and into a cottage near a waterfall surrounded by trees and the mountains. It's more remote than the other houses. I follow them in, and she guides me to a small bedroom to the right where Daison usually sleeps. I turn down his bed and she lays him in it, then covers him up and says one more chant before ushering me out of the room.

Her cottage is small. She sleeps upstairs in a small room. Daison sleeps down here. There's a hearth with a fireplace and a pot hanging over it, a small kitchen packed with herbs and fresh food, and a living room with a few comfortable chairs and cushions on the floor. Kayla makes us both some tea and sits down in the chair next to me as we both stare at the fire.

"That was magic," I say.

She nods, sipping her tea. "And if you tell anyone what you saw, Daison and I will be executed."

"Fen would never do that!" I say, hoping I'm right.

"He would have no choice. And it doesn't matter. If he didn't someone else would. It is the way things are. My life, Arianna, is now in your hands." She looks over to Daison's bedroom door. "His life is now in your hands."





Chapter 10


SLAVE TO THE PAST


"I am the Prince of War. I do not 'lighten up'."

—Fenris Vane

Daison makes a remarkable recovery, and though it takes a few days, Kayla stops eyeing me with a worried frown, as if I might shout her secret from the rooftops at any moment.