A Dawn of Strength (A Shade of Vampire #14)(54)

Careful to contain my emotions, I stood up and walked over to the window. I placed my palms flat against the glass panes and gazed out at the snowy peaks surrounding us.

We had come so close to taking hold of The Shade. As we’d neared those mountains, I’d already been mentally preparing for the first ritual we would perform that night. To have it all taken away so quickly had been a shock to all of us.

Yet I didn’t even allow the thought to enter my head that we’d failed. I couldn’t. Lilith was hanging on to life by a thread. Allowing her to slip away before the blood rites were complete would be worse than committing suicide—we’d not only be condemning ourselves to a life of fruitless effort, but our kind’s future generations would continue to degenerate under The Sanctuary’s complacent and inept leadership. I could already imagine a time not far away from now when witches would become slaves to more powerful races. Our magic—a sacred gift to be revered, and the only thing that gave us our identity—would dilute to such a state that it would be merely used for mundane chores, or perhaps for entertainment.

Feeling the heat rise in my body, I turned to face Julisse, who was still gazing down upon Arielle’s face.

“We might be suffering now,” I said, stepping round the corpse and gripping Julisse’s arm. “But never forget. The sacrifices we make now will benefit generations to come. Arielle, Celice, and all those we’ve lost will be honored as martyrs in time.”

“I know they will be, brother,” she replied, her voice hoarse.

“There will be time for mourning our sister later. Now, we need to change course. Any witch with palms intact has exactly one hour to rest. After that, we all head to the nearest, most densely populated human shore.”

Julisse’s eyes widened. “What are you thinking?” she whispered.

“What we now lack in the variation of blood found in The Shade, we must make up for in quantity of human blood. And quickly.”

“But the number of humans we’d be talking about… there’s no way we could gather any number close to that in a short period of time without being detected.”

I breathed out impatiently. “Did Isolde not tell you about the Novak boy?”

“The Novak boy?”

“He’s already broken the code. It’s only a matter of time now before others follow suit… We might as well be the first to get in line.”