Yasmine Galenorn - Night's End

“It’s only dangerous if you let it overpower you. You have to be the one in control. I’m not afraid, because I’m already dead. There’s nothing behind there that can hurt me.” Violet’s logic made terrible sense, but it didn’t do much for me.

“But I’m not dead yet—what’s there can hurt me.”

She laughed then, both at me and with me. “Silly goose! You’re not even born yet. Come to think about it, I’m not even born yet. How can something from the past hurt us when we aren’t even alive?”

Her logic made an odd sense. I tried to work my head around it. When I touched lightly on the thought, I knew she was right. We were traveling into the past. How could the past hurt us when we were mere flickers of what might be? But when I tried to reason it out, to wrap my mind around the concept, I lost all sense of reality, and everything became a blur. I decided to take Violet’s advice.

“Okay, then. I guess we just go in. Do you know what I’m looking for? I seem to have lost my memory.”

Violet shook her head. “No, but you’ll know when you find it. That’s how these things work, right? Otherwise, why would you be here?”

Pausing, I mulled over her words. “Seems good to me. Let’s go then.” And with that I put my hand on the shadow-cloistered door and opened it. And as Violet and I went tumbling into a world of snow and ice and silvery spiderlike beings, she blended into me and became a part of my heart and soul.

Inhaling deeply, I opened my eyes and realized I was seeing through someone else’s body. And yet, the body felt incredibly familiar. I wasn’t sure who I was, or why I was here—wherever here was—but there was something I was searching for, and I could only discover it in this place, in this time. The memory of a song lingered, and the memory of a voice guiding me down a long hallway encased in mist, and there was the whisper of a little girl echoing in my head, but other than that, I had no clue as to what I was about or where I was.

I looked around. I was standing outside a hillock—a Barrow of sorts, and it was covered in deep snows. The trees surrounding it were weighed down with heavy blankets of white, their branches frozen to the ground. The air was clear, so clear it hurt my lungs, and the sky was that pale eggshell blue of dawn, but a storm was coming in—I could feel it in my bones. The energy of the storm was bringing heavy snow and snow-lightning, and it promised a renewal, recharging with its fury.

As I spread my arms wide, welcoming the coming fury, my stomach rumbled, and I realized that I was aching, so thirsty and hungry I was. A cunning swelled up, a desire to seek, to chase, to hunt, and I cast my eye around for possible prey. As I scouted out, following a faint scent that I caught on the wind, I saw him. He was tall and lean, and his clothing was barely enough to keep him from turning blue.

I squirmed as I stood there, and when I looked down, I realized I was naked—or nearly. A gossamer gown, silver threads loosely woven in a lacework pattern, hung lightly from my shoulders, but I could see through it the weave was so loose. My breasts, my stomach, my legs—my entire body was faintly cerulean, and with wonder, I ran my tongue over my teeth, feeling their razor-sharp edges pierce the flesh. Drops of blood welled up on my tongue, and their salty, metallic tang increased my hunger.

I lowered myself behind a nearby bush, as the man began to come my way. He hadn’t seen me yet, and I had the feeling that if he knew I was here, he’d be running. All the more reason to be patient—to lie in wait like the snow weavers my mother kept as pets.

My mother? The image of a tall queen rose up, stretching over the sky, blotting out the morning light. Thinly jointed, with angular eyes and a pale, dangerous beauty, her visage was imprinted on my heart, and I realized I loved her with a passion. She was my everything. She was my all, my role model, my goddess. And I was her beloved daughter.

Cherish. That was my name. I was Cherish—and I was my mother’s daughter in every way.

Well, almost every way. The voice inside annoyed me, and I tried to push it away, but it wasn’t so easily silenced. You know I’m right. You know that you have something your mother doesn’t, and that something might someday be her downfall when you rise up to take your rightful place as her heir to the throne.

A flash of anger raced through me.

“I’m no traitor. I will never betray my mother. If the throne comes to me, it will be through her choice—not mine.” My whisper barely touched the wind, but the slipstream caught it, carrying it deep onto the currents racing around the world.

You have no choice. Destiny will out. The strong always overcome the weak. It’s evolution. It’s what created your mother in the first place.

“Hush.” I shoved the thoughts aside as my prey neared the bush. He paused, and I realized he had sensed something was wrong. Maybe he heard my whisper, maybe he caught my scent. Whatever the case, there was no time to waste. I leaped out, landing in front of him, in a crouch.

He took one look at me and screamed, turning to flee. As I began to change, morphing into my beast, I reveled in the power of my jaws, of the bones shifting and lengthening. My head grew, my jaws transformed into a death vise, and I let out a laugh while I still could, from deep in my belly. A laugh of joy, pure and wallowing in the pain that I knew would follow.

My stomach rumbled, the hunger pushing me on, the lust for his blood and bone and life force so strong that there was nothing more in the world. The only thing that existed was my desire—and nothing, no plea for mercy, no stray thought, could assuage the hunger. Nothing except the feel of his gristle in my mouth, of the hot blood sliding down my throat. I lunged, jaws agape, and his screams punctuated the birdsong echoing through the early morning.

Later, satiated with a full belly, I used the snow to clean myself off. The hunger was at bay for now, and it was time to go home. My mother was waiting for me. There was something she had wanted to discuss with me earlier, but I’d blown her off in exchange for a little time outside by myself. Sometimes the din in the Barrow seemed overwhelming, and I had to get away from the noise.

I headed into the Barrow, ignoring the milling throng of our people. They were all descended from my mother, in a way. Myst had given birth to our race; the first ones were turned by her after the mad vampire had come up with his scheme. But he’d been weak, and my mother had grown stronger than he.

Once she told me that, after the turning, she’d realized he could never be her match, and so he became her enemy. And now, all vampires—the true vampires—were our foes. We were the rightful heirs to their lineage, we’d evolved far beyond their archaic powers, but they wouldn’t accept that we were the next step in their evolution, and so we were always at war with them.

They didn’t know we’d journeyed to this new land, though. Myst had kept it a secret, leaving some of our people behind to build a community in the old world, even as we’d discovered the vast, unspoiled wilderness here. There was room here, room in which to spread and breed.

Our kind reproduced slowly—and painfully. Mothers sometimes died in childbirth, their children ripping their way out of the womb. But I hadn’t done so to my mother. I’d come into the world easy enough, though who my father was remained a mystery and always would. It didn’t matter, though. I was Myst’s daughter, heir to the Indigo Court, and I would help her reach out and take control of this land. Together, we would build an empire of blood and bone.