P. Cast: Revealed

What Neferet learned was her own story. A Tsi Sgili lived apart from her tribe. They were powerful and delighted in death. They fed on death. They could kill with their minds. That was the ane li sgi the old woman had thought of just before her death—death caused by the mind of a powerful being.

The old woman’s Cherokee husband had inadvertently taught Neferet how to use her gift more fully. He had been less brave than his wife. Thinking to save himself he had opened himself to Neferet. Through the memories he willingly shared with her, Neferet learned much more about the Tsi Sgili. She fed from the tribal stories he had in his memory and discovered it was possible to slide into a mind and stop the beating of a heart while she fed on her victim’s thoughts, energy, power until he was drained dry. Draining the body of energy was so much more satisfying than simply draining it of blood. And so much more effective.

As Neferet had grown in power, so too had her dreams of the winged immortal, Kalona. He made love to her as she slept. Not as her inadequate human or vampyre lovers had attempted. Kalona had taken possession of her body and used pain for pleasure, and pleasure for pain.

All the while his whispers painted pictures of a future where they ruled as gods on earth and ushered in a new age of vampyre enlightenment. Where she was his Goddess and he her adoring, powerful, seductive Consort.

“But first you must free me,” he had said as his cold fire had deliciously scorched her body. “Follow the song to Tulsa, and there you will complete the prophecy and find the means to free me!”

Neferet had listened to him. Oh, but she had found so much more than the means to free him. She had discovered the means to free herself!

She did not fully understand until she had taken possession of her own House of Night in Tulsa. There was power in that land that had resonated within her. It was there in 1927, and it had remained there after the turn of the twenty-first century.

The red earth had drawn her with its ancient power, but it was the death of her first fledgling that had truly set her fate.

Neferet had, of course, witnessed the death of many fledglings before she became High Priestess of Tulsa’s House of Night. She had often been summoned to soothe a dying fledgling’s passage with the gift of her touch. Neferet was revered for her ability to calm a fledgling who was rejecting the Change. Not one vampyre ever guessed that she took as much as she gave. The fledglings knew it, though. In their last moments, as Neferet held them in her arms, they knew she fed from their energy. Of course by that time they were beyond the ability to share that knowledge with anyone else.

So when the young fourth former who had named herself Crystal began to cough out her life’s blood in the middle of Lenobia’s first equestrian class at the new Tulsa House of Night, Neferet was immediately called for—not just because she was their High Priestess, but because she had been known far and wide to be able to soothe the pain of the dying.

“Move aside! Make room! Lenobia, take the fledglings to the field house and have Dragon Lankford bring Warriors and a gurney for the child,” Neferet had commanded as she’d rushed into the stables. Then she had turned her attention to Crystal. The fledgling had crumpled to the sand and dirt floor of the arena, convulsing and bleeding from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

Neferet paid no heed to the blood and mud. She’d pulled the fledgling into her arms, soothing with her magickal touch as she began to slide into Crystal’s mind and to absorb her waning life energy. Neferet had been prepared for the surge of power that came with the absorption of life force. She had not been prepared for the pure and delightful gift that came with the death of her first fledgling.

In her den Neferet’s body trembled in the pleasure of reliving that powerful moment.

Crystal had stared up at her through blood-soaked eyes. “No!” she’d coughed and gasped and managed to cry, “I’m not ready to die!”

“Of course you are, my dear. It is time. I am here.”

“Won’t leave me?” the child had sobbed.

“ You won’t leave me, ” Neferet had whispered as she took Crystal’s mind.

The fledgling’s life force cascaded into Neferet. So pure, so strong, so sweet, that it was as if the fledgling hadn’t been dying at all, but had instead been transformed into a being of light and power that would now live within Neferet.

Neferet had bowed over the dying girl’s body reverently, accepting this new gift that came to her with the Tulsa House of Night.

The Warriors had believed that Neferet had been overcome by emotion at the death of the first fledgling at her own House of Night, and that is why she had been found bowing over Crystal’s body, sobbing hysterically.

They hadn’t understood Neferet’s tears had been of joy—that her sobs were because she’d finally recognized her destiny. Queen Tsi Sgili was a modest title. She should truly be called Goddess Tsi Sgili, for she had become immortal and would one day take her place among the gods and be worshipped as such!

Her gift had not been finished there, though. Even before Neferet had fulfilled the Cherokee prophecy and freed Kalona, the fledglings in her House of Night had begun a metamorphosis along with her.

Neferet’s body twitched. Her breathing quickened as she moved up through the layers of unconsciousness and the realms of time.

Fledglings who died at her House of Night were reborn anew, bound to her through Darkness and blood. Neferet believed she had birthed a new kind of army, along with a new breed of vampyre. These new creatures would protect and serve her when she and her Consort ruled the new age of vampyres.

Then Zoey Redbird had been Marked, and what followed was one misstep after another—one irritation atop another—one defeat after another. Neferet hated that fledgling and her mutinous friends with a passion that overshadowed all of her other passions.

Zoey Redbird was the reason Neferet hid in a den, clothed only in Darkness and blood.

A goddess should not be plagued with such an annoyance! A goddess should not be hindered in her divine destiny!

As if in response to her tumultuous emotions, the sky outside her den growled with thunder and lightning struck, cracking the earth with a force that rippled through Neferet’s skin.

Neferet, Queen Tsi Sgili, opened her eyes.

“I have been such a fool! I am an immortal. No one can dim my majesty unless I allow it. I shall no longer allow it! World, prepare to worship me!”

Thunder and lightning applauded Neferet and rain caressed her as she prepared to step from her den of hiding out into a future, newborn, ready to embrace her destiny.

Zoey

At first I didn’t know where I was going. I just needed to get the hell out. I slipped through the hidden door in the wall and cut around the south side of the school until I ran into Utica Street. I glanced to my right, considering. Utica Square was just down the street. It was Sunday morning, but Starbucks would probably be open. I could get one of those fudge cappa-frappa-whatevers that had a bazillion calories in it and sit outside and try to figure out what had happened to my life.

No. I didn’t want to see people. I didn’t want to talk to people. I didn’t want to have to deal with the looks my tattoos would get from people.

I didn’t want to deal with anything or anyone.

Thunder rumbled in the distance and I glanced up at the darkening sky.

“Go ahead. Rain on me. I don’t care. My day can’t get much crappier.” I was talking to myself as I crossed the street.