Karen Chance - Midnight's Daughter

I fell to my knees, trying to ride out the sensations, bracing myself against the rough wood of the floor. It was not a good move. Under my hands, the old boards came alive. It felt like I was sinking into them, able to sense for a moment what it was like to be a tree. Only, with my usual luck, I was lying on a section that had been struck by a bolt of lightning before being cut. And I felt it, knew the way it had spread like liquid fire through the tree, searing living tissue into dying, charred cinders…

Louis-Cesare pulled my shaking body against his chest: one arm around my waist, the other in my hair, tucking my head protectively under his chin. It didn’t help. Along with the writhing, boiling mist of power came memories. I couldn’t even start to comprehend all the images that rushed into my mind. Unlike the tree’s one searing impression, this was centuries of love and hate, triumph and loss, dreams attained and hopes dashed and, beyond everything else, the feeling of being bereft, abandoned, lonely. Or maybe those were just the memories that made the most sense to me, that my mind could most easily process. The energy storm raged around us, but I could barely see it anymore. Vivid pictures slid across my vision, scenes captured once by another pair of eyes; then the world streamed away into brightness.

A little child with golden curls tottered on unsteady legs toward a richly dressed woman in embroidered satin. She picked him up with a delighted laugh. “My little Caesar. Someday, you will outdo your namesake!” Other images in the fast-moving stream showed the boy listening, day after day, for the sound of horses’ hooves on a dirt path that would announce her return visit. A visit that never happened from a mother who had prudently forgotten he ever existed. Because he hadn’t fulfilled the prophecy—he hadn’t ruled, imprisoned instead by a brother he had never met.

A new scene, a pair of turquoise eyes in the darkness, a gasping breath that forced air into lungs that had lain unused for days. An elegant, pale hand on his brow, feeling hot next to his chill, smoothing tumbled auburn curls out of his eyes. A slow understanding dawning of his new state, disbelief giving way to hope of belonging, of acceptance, of finding in death what had eluded him in life. Only to discover that this new father wanted him no more than the old. Memories of tracking him across the continent, of finding him repeatedly, only to see him turn away again and again.

I jerked away from Louis-Cesare, hoping the loss of contact would also stop the flood of memory. But it didn’t seem to help. The pale body was still limned in fire, but the power was fading fast, withdrawing back into him, becoming part of him again. Yet the memories didn’t go with it. They soaked into my skin, saturated my mind, bearing down on me with the weight of centuries.

The wood shuddered beneath us, the power that had spilled into me also shaking the overburdened catwalk. I had a moment’s lurch of dizzying vertigo as we slid sideways, toward the hellish pit the winery had become. But I couldn’t seem to move, could barely breathe, as Louis-Cesare’s memories melded with my own.

Another century, a pair of flashing hazel eyes, a brief, heady affair, only to have her taken from us. Tracking her through the streets of Paris, to an old door, pulpy with rot, that hid far worse decay inside. Finding Jonathan, a mage who hid centuries of cunning behind a boyish face. He’d prolonged his life by seeking out the unprotected, by stealing the power that flowed through their veins. Christine should have been protected from such as him, by the one who said he loved her, yet had allowed this to happen.

We made the bargain, agreed to return, to become a victim once more for her sake. We took her to safety, only to learn that the doctor’s couldn’t save her, that we had arrived too late and failed once again. Making the decision to change her to save her, only to see the horror when she awoke and realized what she was. What we were. Monster, she called us, and damned and wicked, before fleeing into the night, leaving us behind.

Louis-Cesare caught me as I started to tumble over the edge. He had a one-armed grip on the last support beam still clinging to the wall and the other hand grabbed my wrist. But the strain on his face was evident; he’d lost too much blood to hold for long. I tried to climb up his body to get a hand on the beam myself, but another wave of memory crashed into me.

Going back to Jonathan almost felt right. Perhaps the jailers had spoken truth when they whispered in our ear—it was all we were good for. We’d believed it, even when the blistering agony of a blade thrust through our back stuttered up our spine. We’d looked down to see a blood-slick blade sliding back inside our chest as a hand shoved between our shoulder blades, drawing it back out. We watched the pulsing arc shimmering in midair, like a spill of rubies, until the mage sang to it and it dissolved like smoke. We’d believed, because night after night, the torture continued. And night after night, no one came.

Until a voice out of the darkness, shrill with fear. Until a lone figure stood over us like a wolf protecting its young, snarling with a rage and possessiveness that was close to demonic, until the mages ran. Until Radu took us away, hid us while we recovered—and then left us once again.

“Dorina!” Louis-Cesare’s voice cut through the fog, and I gulped in a deep breath of hot air. I met eyes full of pain, but not enough. Not nearly enough. I stared at him, dumbfounded. The wine had worn off; he didn’t know what I’d seen. “I can’t hold you!”

I nodded, head swimming, trying to work against the effects of the disorientation sphere and the distraction of the memories. My brain kept giving orders, but my limbs were slow to carry them out, and my eyes didn’t seem to want to focus. And then it didn’t matter. With a crack like a gunshot, the beam tore away from the wall and we tumbled into the flames below.

We hit the bottom with a jarring shudder and a splash. The small section of the catwalk somehow held together, but didn’t serve as much protection. It caught fire immediately, turning into a jagged square of flame as wine gushed over the dried boards. I stared around frantically, looking for a spot anywhere that wasn’t already burning. I didn’t see one. Then Louis-Cesare grabbed me around the waist and jumped, straight into the middle of shin-deep burning liquid.

“Are you crazy?!” He ignored me, spinning us toward the tunnel through knee-deep flames. They licked at my legs, hot and bright and hungry, but for some reason, I didn’t feel the burn. Shock, I thought distantly as Louis-Cesare made a final jump that landed us both in the dark, barrel-lined hallway leading to Radu’s cellar.

He sat me down, leaning heavily against the wall for support, his disordered mane obscuring his face. I grabbed him, my hands batting at flames that I only slowly realized didn’t exist. He looked like ten kinds of death, but for some reason, he wasn’t burning. “What did you do?” I demanded, willing my knees not to collapse.

“I used a huge amount of power to shield us for a few seconds,” Louis-Cesare said shakily. “I trust we won’t need it again. It has left me… somewhat weak.”

“But alive.” I still couldn’t believe it.

Louis-Cesare slowly pulled himself into a half-standing position against the side of the winery. “What? Did you think one little mage was going to do me in?” He swallowed hard. “Hell, that was just a warm-up.”

I stared at him. A joke. Louis-Cesare had made a joke. The very thought left me dizzy.

And then the barrels started to explode. The ones closest to the inferno of the winery tore apart with the sound of a dozen cannons going off, raining wine and sharp bits of wood all around us. Louis-Cesare pushed me into the wall, shielding me with his body until I kneed him in the groin. “Wood!” I screamed into his outraged face, yanking out a sliver that had embedded itself in his shoulder, and waving it under his nose. Every time one of those barrels went off, it threw out the equivalent of a hundred or so flying stakes.