Neferet's Curse (House of Night Novellas #3)(41)

“Emily, I tell you truly that I believe you have a unique power waiting to form within you. I sensed it when first I saw you. I feel that our Goddess has great gifts prepared for you. You could be a major force for good, especially as you have been wounded so viciously by evil, but you must choose to heal and to release the evil done to you, to let it die with your old life.”

“So he will never pay for what he did to me.” I hadn’t framed the words as a question, but she’d answered.

“Perhaps not in this lifetime. That is no longer your concern. Daughter, one thing I have learned during the past two centuries is that the need for retribution is a curse, because it is impossible to attain. No two people, human or vampyre, will ever love, hate, suffer, or forgive in the same way. So, an insatiable need for retribution and vengeance becomes a poison that will taint your life and destroy your soul.” She’d touched my arm and continued more gently. “It may help if you follow the tradition of countless fledglings before you and choose a new name to symbolize your new life.”

“I will consider it,” I’d said. “And I will also try to forget him.”

I didn’t have to consider long. I knew what name I wanted to carry into my new life.

I have tried to forget him. When I look in the mirror and see the bruises that purple my white flesh, I remember him. When I ache and bleed from the most private parts of my body, I remember him. When I wake screaming, my voice hoarse from reliving the nightmare of what he did to me, I remember him.

So he had to die. If I am to be cursed by my need for retribution and vengeance, then so be it.

* * *

I waited one week. It took that long for my body to recover. And recover, I did. I had been Marked for only seven days, yet already I was stronger than a human female. My fingernails had hardened and lengthened. My hair was thicker, fuller, longer than before. Even my emerald eyes were beginning to change.

I overheard one of the Sons of Erebus, the Warriors whose sole duty it was to protect fledglings and female vampyres, say that my eyes were becoming the most fascinating emeralds he’d ever gazed upon.

I liked what I was becoming, which made me even more determined to rid myself of my past.

It hadn’t been difficult to leave the House of Night. I was not a prisoner. I was a student, respected and appreciated for my beauty and for what Cordelia called my potential. As students we had access to a fleet of carriages and more bicycles than were owned by the entire membership of the Hermes Club. We could leave the campus whenever we wished. I was afforded almost unlimited freedom. The only caveat was that we use a makeup paste to cover the outlined crescent moons in the center of our foreheads, and to dress modestly as to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible.

My dress had been modest. Though it was elegantly made of fine linen, it was dove gray in color, high-necked, and unadorned. Without touching me, one would not know how expensive it was—and no one was going to be allowed to touch me.

My hooded cloak easily concealed the only immodest part of my ensemble—Alice Wheiler’s pearls. My choice to restrand and wear them that night had been premeditated. The idea to do so had come to me as I sat in my new garden and waited for my body to repair itself.

The House of Night is a school, but it is an unusual one. Classes are held only at night. Students and our professors and mentors, priestesses and warriors, sleep during the day, safe behind thick marble walls, which have been heavily enforced with an otherworldly magick that draws strength from the night, the moon, and the goddess who reigns over us all.

Cordelia had explained to me that I would be excused from classes until my body was fully healed, but then I would join the other fledglings and be immersed in a fascinating curriculum, which would grow and continue over the next four years, culminating in one of two things: my Change to full vampyre or my death.

The only death that concerned me was his.

As I gained strength and wellness, I explored the palatial House of Night and the grounds that were encircled by a white marble wall. I’d thought the gardens of Wheiler House beautiful, and though I would never forget my willow, my fountain, and the comfort I found within the shadows there, after seeing the vampyres’ gardens all others would pale in comparison.

The House of Night gardens had been created to be fully enjoyed only after the sun set. Night blooming jasmine, moon flowers, evening primrose, and lilies opened to the moon and released a fragrance that was sweet and satisfying, and stretched on for acres and acres. Dozens of fountains and statuary were situated throughout the grounds, each of them illustrating a different version of the Goddess, Nyx.

I’d searched and easily found a willow tree that curtained an area not far from a particularly beautiful marble statue of the Goddess, arms raised, lush body unashamedly naked. Under my new willow, I also found the familiar darkness and the shadows that soothed my battered body and spirit.

It was there that I sat, cross-legged on a carpet of moss, and poured the pearls from Alice Wheiler’s broken necklace onto a dark cloth. Then, surrounded by concealing, comforting shadows, I took a wire, thin as a hair, and built a new necklace from the remains of the old one. This one was not to be triple-stranded and elegant. This one was going to be one long circle of pearls—very much like a noose.

Cordelia had been confused when I’d asked for the wire, the stringing needle, the crimpers and scissors. When I explained I wanted to make my old mother’s necklace anew, just as I was making my life anew, she had given me the supplies I needed, but I could tell by her countenance that she did not approve.