DOFAB#3

Chapter Seven

*A visual of what I picture Tristan's beast to look like in the flesh. Ain't it perfect X D

~ TRISTAN ~

Glass shatters. The geometric shards develop teeth as they bite back. The color of my soul drips onto the floor, joining the Black Waters of the Underworld flowing from the flipped-over altar.

"Tristan, contain yourself," my mother says, reassuring a shaking Izzy as they are corralled in the far corner.

"Where is it!" My shout intertwines with the roar of my shadow, a beast's whose jowls are snarling, the spiked, blade-like knobs of his spine rigid steel ready to be drenched in the liquid lifeforce he longs to splatter.

Whisps of demon spirit energy that creep and crawl all over these cellar walls scamper into the cracks of the stone as the spilled Spring of Evil ripples with the vibrations of my second outcry. This one a wordless demonic bellow, that rips my throat on the way out.

I shut my eyes, attempting to temper the trembling of a monster dangerously close to losing his newly found freedom. The egret pendant was supposed to have been the answer. But it gave me nothing. My mother's magic unable to call forth the memory once the egret wrapped my sword in leaves she trimmed from the willow.

"There is a limit to blood magic. It is not an all-seeing eye. It ceases to work if it encounters another form of magic." My mother stays stationed by Izzy's side.

The Black Waters of the Underworld retract from under her feet and the train of her dress. A gravitational pull has the Spring of Evil puddling back together, leaving the broken glass on the floor as it returns to its tipped-over home. As the waters fill the altar, the energy infused congeals until the liquid abyss has the strength to resurrect the altar onto its ordained pedestal.

A hissing snicker rides on the air streams of buzzing cicadas only I can hear, Haysha laughing at my failure. Without my sword, I am no second god. I'm a vampire with a nasty temper and hunger I cannot sate without my missing piece.

The willow's connection is no longer intact. The eevie, like the celestials and any vampires outside the Court of the Serpent, don't know my face. The ones that did have died out. Except one.

"What if I can get you the blood of another eevie? Surely, she will lead us to where the old hag remains hidden."

The willows connection may have been severed, but the egret knows more than she's letting on. My face was lost, yet my name lived on among them. A warning from the ones that wilted and expired, a vision the egret read from the flame. It's unclear how she came to know of me again, but I see the croon is up to something.

"And where would you find that?  An eevie hasn't been spotted since—"

"There's one at that school," I interrupt my mother. My lungs burn at the memory of her cinnamon-spiced lifeforce invading me, tempting me to slay her and face another thousand years in the hellmouth simply to have the pleasure of her on my tongue.

"At Nadora?" My mother forgoes her post by Izzy. She's never been one to fear me, even on my worst of days. But she's right to worry about the others that surround her. For an enraged beast is a beast with a thirst he can scarcely control.

"She was in the library, researching me. I thought the egret must have sent her to learn my face, but that can't be it. She's a student that goes there. I saw the student ID in her bag, Kinley Rylan would have been selected months before you approached the high court for my early release." I grip the stone altar, wondering if our Maker can see me through this portal that joins our world. One she will never breach thanks to the Order of the Veiled.

The Dark Prince had grown careless in his pursuit to build his garden of forbidden fruit in exchange for our Maker's freedom to walk the earth. Fruit that exploded when I ended his life. All except the massarra unbound, a new breed of being with frozen flesh. A feat that required the forfeiting of a massarra's soul and a pledge of their loyalty to the dark. No longer does a mortal have to risk their soul to achieve immortality, thanks to my mother's proficiency in the dark arts. We can gift it to them, temporarily or permanently. The founding principles on which Nadora college lures in mortals by the droves.

That's the thing with a world comprised of light and dark. Everyone will look the other way if you shove a neat, pretty little bow in front of their faces. They won't look past the silken ribbons to the box seeping blood underneath.

"Why would an eevie want to go to Nadora? They are already immortal," Mother asks, her ceremonial dress lackluster now that she's no longer carrying the ashes of her departed mate. A grand spectacle for the world to see.

What would the world think if they knew Queen Rakasha's bastard son was responsible? Would they take it in stride as my father? Another day, another death, a chink his son sliced in the leash Hayha fashioned him to wear.

"The why doesn't matter." I face my mother. Eyes narrowed as the beast that is my shadow grows larger, eclipsing me until he reaches the corner of the room Izzy's stuck to. "If I can get a sample of her blood, can you perform the blood spell to unlock her memories?"

"Blood memory spells are like pricking a star whose light has been dimmed. The egret's made of flickering light that wades in the shallows of night. But a star who shines as brightly as the angels' halos secrets cannot be unlocked from the vein of life."

"Speak plainly." I haven't the patience for riddles.

"The eevie, they are made up of two factions—the shieldmaidens of the willow and the temple priestesses of the flame," Izzy speaks up, a timid cat unsure if the beast shading her moonlight skin will descend upon her. "Like the egret, Thorne eevie possess both kinds of magic, dark and light. But a temple priestess burns of pure light like the angels. Your mother is saying that if this eevie is of Thorne, she may be pricked. If she isn't, then her blood is of no use."

When my mother first thrust Izzy into my life, I found it odd she would tolerate this sickly vampire, the antithesis of everything we fanged devils of darkness stand for. Perhaps Izzy isn't merely a distraction to quill my bloodlust with her unique chemistry. She's a companion willing to put up with my mother's crazy ramblings and cryptic riddles as Lucian, Nakasha, and I have never taken to her preferred delivery of speech. Direct, that is the vampiric way. Leave the lyrical sonnets to the angels.

"To corrupt the life force of Rien's flowers which grow from his temple spring is impossible. Even your father could not soil the emerald light that protects them."

Rien and his balance. So, he's gifted the Thorne eevie strength and speed akin to the vampires and angels, giving them the ability to fight with their foe with the magic that best suits the situation. Meanwhile, he's ensured his precious, weak-stemmed floralettes souls are incorruptible though their flesh is fragile.

She had to be a temple priestess. Blood divine, mouthwatering, and useless to me, her soul a fortress of Rien's making.

Where there is one springlet, there has to be another. Small flowers usually come in a bundle. This temple priestess may not know where my sword is, but she can lead me to an eevie who can. The eevie haven't lost my sword. Not if they held on to my name. One of them knows exactly where it is. Probably one of their big sister blossoms. And the best way to flood out an eevie of Thorne is to stay close to the smaller flowers they are also charged with protecting.

"Nakasha's mate, the exiled. She's the headmaster of Nadora," I say, the chill that resides in me giving way to the warmth of an eevie trapped beneath me. Hapless, Helpless. A worthy adversary ripe for deflowering. "Tell my sister to put in a call. Nadora is accepting a last-second register of another SN."

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Short chapter = a double update for you guys this week!

Nadora Day One is up next. Ya'll ready because I can 1000% tell you Kinley is not prepared to see her walking nightmare coming through those doors.