My mind was full of quotes from dead men.
Everyone is a moon and has a dark side, which he never shows to anybody, said Mark Twain.
No matter how hard you fight the darkness, every light casts a shadow, and the closer you get to the light, the darker that shadow becomes, thought Plato.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before, wrote Edgar Allan Poe.
Their words flooded my mind instantly, almost as if they were trying to protect me, trying to block the words Theseus spoke from reaching me. Trying to keep me from giving in to this…this horror I felt rising inside me. But nothing could stop it, could stop his words from ripping through me.
“You took my memories…You killed me, Druella,” he said before his whole body collapsed into the arms of his brother, Ulrik, who grabbed on to him tightly. Even if Ulrik weren’t a vampire, his size alone would be enough to carry him on his own, which was why watching them all rush to Theseus’s side was so striking. They weren’t just trying to catch him. They were trying to protect him—from me.
It was clear from the look on everyone’s faces.
Rhea stood beside her mortal and immortal sons, her gray eyes boiling over with rage as she glared at me. Melora, Ulrik’s mate, who had linked arms with me just a few hours ago and called me sister, now looked as if I were not good enough to touch the same earth. Hinrik, Arsiein, and Atarah were like a wall around Theseus, the man who was supposed to be my mate, protecting him from me because…because apparently, I had hurt him, and I did not remember how or why. Why would I hurt someone I cared about? I didn’t understand. Theseus was good to me. I wasn’t sure about anything else, but I knew that fact. So, if I had hurt him, killed him, was I the wrong one? What—who was I?
A former Omeron witch turned vampire.
Everything I had seen, heard, and learned about the Omerons was their deep-seated hate for vampires and their unwavering desire to kill them. Before I was a vampire, I was one of them. So did I have that hate and desire to kill vampires before, too? The more I thought about it, the more my head and heart hurt.
They hurt a lot.
I should go. I need to go. That thought kept running through my mind.
“And where exactly do you think you shall go?”
I turned back to the only member of the Thorbørn family not protecting Theseus from me, Sigbjørn, the head of the Thorbørn family. The king of Ankeiros. He stood at the library table, dressed in a white linen tunic and dark trousers and his long Nordic hair and braids let down around his shoulders. He held on to the black and white composition book, or what he had explained was a grimoire—my grimoire, the thing that had caused my current misery. His tattooed hands flipped the empty pages, running over them as if there were something there to read.
“There is more here to read, young one,” he stated, reminding me of his mind-reading gift. “However, it has been enchanted and thus, hides itself. Come see it if you can unlock it, as you did the first page.”
“Father, because of the single page, Theseus—”
Only then did Sigbjørn lift his gaze from the pages in his hand to Arsiein, who stopped speaking immediately. A dangerous chill was suddenly in the air.
Sigbjørn shifted his stare to me, placed a small smile on his face, and stretched out his hands. “Come, young one, show me.”
I stood still.
Fear was in me because I did not understand. Why was he acting so differently from everyone else? Didn’t he hear Theseus? I had…I had hurt—no, I had killed Theseus, his son, a member of his family. He should be ripping me part. He should be locking me up or something.
“I would rather not be on the other side of Theseus’s rage once he awakens,” he said to me. “Even now as he dreams, he dreams only of you.”
I hung my head, that ache, that burning in my chest returning, and I shook my head. “I don’t…I do not understand. Why would I hurt him? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Which is why I wish to make sense of it.” He lifted the notebook for me to take, and now I think I feared it more than I feared him. What if I found out I was some—
“Blood-drinking monster?” Sigbjørn asked with a grin.
And for whatever reason, his indifference to the fact that Theseus was currently unconscious, wounded by whatever spell I had done and tried to undo, bothered me.
“How can you be so—relaxed!” I cried. “Obviously, something is wrong here. But your biggest concern should be Theseus! Whatever it is in that book is irrelevant! You should be locking me up, questioning me. At least, for God’s sake, glaring at me like your mate. I am—”
“Did Theseus tell you I killed my first mate and my second?” he questioned me at random, his head cocked to the side, his pure-green eyes watching me coldly. “The first thought to betray me, for she did not know the extent of my gift. The mere thought enraged me to such a point that I ripped her limb from limb and set her ablaze. The second, well, the second wife had a child who sought to kill Hinrik, and thus, I killed them both. I felt no guilt for either of them, for I had not loved them. In my long eternity, I have taken many lives, some for the good of my lands, others for the good of myself, and some for no good reason at all. Thus, had I believed you were my enemy or a true threat, Druella, you would have died at my hands before ever registering a thought.”
He stepped forward, giving me the book. “Whatever actions you took against Theseus, against all of us, I am certain it was not for harm. But should I, for the first time, be mistaken, you shall be dealt with swiftly. Does such action satisfy your desire for punishment?”
In a bizarre way, it did.
So, I took the book from his hands, staring at my name, my real name on the front in crayon—Druella Zirie Omeron. I flipped open the first page again, and the words were still there.
My name is Druella Zirie Omeron,
I am eight years old,
I am from Bymoor, Virginia.
My dad is Dovev Omeron.
My mom is Zirie Omeron.
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They are gone, so Uncle Axel takes care of me.
He teaches Simone and me magic.
Simone is my best friend.
We learn magic because we are witches.
I am a witch.
Witches protect witches from the monsters.
I will protect us from the monsters.
But all monsters aren’t monsters.