Initium (Nocte Trilogy #2.5)(12)

She called herself the daughter of death, and she wore her ring proudly.

That ring is mine now, And my son,

And his son,

And so on.



It is in the middle of the night when I open my eyes, and Richard is not in my room. The fireplace flickers and the flames lap at the stone, and I feel like I’ve been here before. My mother sits next to me and she rocks and rocks, her hands full of two bundles.

Two.

My eyes widen but my vision is blurry and I feel like I’m slip slip slipping.

“You must choose, Olivia,” she says, and her words twist and turn. “You must give something to get something.”

“I don’t understand,” I say woozily, and I think I’ve been drugged, or I’m crazy. The bundles in her lap squirm and cry, and tiny fists raise in the air.

“You do,” my mother says and she’s right, I think I do.

There are two, and I can’t keep them both. I’ve known that since I was small. I would dance the dance of Salome, and I would choose.

So it has been written,

So it shall be.

I close my eyes and open them, and then I point.

I choose.

My mother hands me one bundle, and takes the one I pointed at away, disappearing into the shadows. I think she hands it to Phillip, but I can’t make it out through the haze.

My heart rips into two and I can’t breathe, so I do the only thing I can do to survive. I put it out of my head, out of my mind, and I don’t focus on what will happen to it, or even wonder if it is a boy or a girl. I can’t think on it. I can’t I can’t I can’t.

Instead, I focus on the dark eyes staring up at me, The dark

Dark eyes

That are blacker than night.

“Your name is Adair,” I croon to him. “Adair DuBray. And you will avenge me, and you will be your father’s son.”

From the shadows, with his arms full of death, Phillip smiles.





* * *



The days pass and I waste away.

I dream of horrible things, terrible things, nightmarish things.

My mother comes to me often, and she begs my forgiveness. “It had to be done, Liv,” she tells me, and I hate her, I think. “I had to do it, my mother had to do it, your son will have to do it. We all have to choose, we all have to pay for the sins of our fathers.”

Of Salome.

I remember now, a final piece of Salome’s story. Her mother had pulled the strings that night, her mother had wanted John the Baptist’s head. She had used Salome’s wiles to get it. She had used her daughter, just as my mother has used me.

“Leave me,” I tell her, and when I dream that night, I scream, but no one listens, and no one cares.

My baby, my beautiful Adair, sleeps through the nights so peacefully and he grows and thrives, and has no idea what the world has become, or who he is, or who I am.

I rock him and sing to him, and when he sleeps, I scream.

Sanity is lost on me,

And I’m lost in an ocean.

Phillip doesn’t come to me anymore, and without him, I don’t understand the point. I miss him, he was my heart, and without him, I don’t want to live.

I manage to hang on, though. I eat a few bites every day for my son, because I have to protect him from this world, from the black beings that walk upon it.

Days still pass because the world still turns, and each day turns into a week, which turns into a month, which turns into a year.

It is when my son is three that I begin to have vivid dreams of the past, and of the future.

I dream of a hooded boy, and his eyes are as black as night, as black as Phillip’s, as black as my son’s.

I dream of blood.

I dream of treachery.

I dream of bad, terrible things.

I dream of treachery and betrayal and deceit.

I try to tell my mother, and the Savages, but no one listens, and they think I’m crazy and maybe I am.

Laura comes to visit me one day, and she holds Dare in her lap as he tugs at her fiery hair. “You have to be strong for him, Liv,” she tells me, and her eyes are sad and I instinctively know why.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” I ask in sorrow and she nods.

“I’m not safe here,” she tells me and I know it’s true and I cry. She holds my hand and when she leaves, I cry again, because I know I won’t see her again.

But I’m wrong.

I roam the halls that night,

Because I think everyone else is sleeping.

But I’m wrong.

I turn the corner quietly into the library, and what I see startles me into freezing, and I press my hand to my mouth.

Richard and Laura are on the floor in front of the fireplace, and the flames lap at the stones, and Laura’s red hair glows as Richard moves above her, sliding into her. Her hands are grasping his back and her knuckles are white, but she doesn’t fight him. Her pale legs are limp and she’s limp and Richard is like an animal ravaging her, but she doesn’t fight.

Her eyes meet mine and she’s not afraid.

She’s accepting her fate,

Like I must accept mine.

“One for one for one,” she whispers and she’s whispering to me, and no one can hear it but me.

Eleanor stands in the shadows, watching this unnatural, heinous thing, and my mother is with her, her hand on Eleanor’s arm. They are surrounded in a haze and is this a dream?