There were no lights at all, and I welcomed the darkness, finding comfort in it.
The carriage took us to a palace made truly of marble, and not the weak pretence of stone that the humans of Chicago had created for their fair.
As we drove through the gate in the thick, high walls, a woman met me on the front stairs. She, too, had a sapphire crescent tattoo in the middle of her forehead, and markings surrounding it. She waved joyously, but when the carriage stopped and the vampyre Tracker had to lift me from within, she hurried to me. She shared a long look with the other vampyre before turning her mesmerizing gaze on me. She touched my face gently and said, “Emily, I am your mentor, Cordelia. You are safe here. No man will ever harm you again.”
Then she took me to a sumptuous private infirmary, bathed and bandaged my body, and bade me to drink wine laced with something warm and metallic tasting.
I still sip on the dark drink as I write. My body aches, but my mind is my own again. And I find, as always, I am learning …
May 8th, 1893
I am not mad.
The horrible events that befell me and that are recorded in these pages did not happen because of hysteria or paranoia.
The horrible events that befell me happened because, as a young human girl, I had no control over my own life. Envious women condemned me. A weak man rejected me. A monster abused me. All because I lacked the power to affect my own fate.
Whatever this new life as a fledgling and, I can only hope, a fully Changed vampyre brings me, I make one promise to myself: I will never allow anyone to gain control over me again. No matter the cost—I will choose my own fate.
That is why last night I killed him. He used and abused me. When he did that he had full control over me. I had to kill him to regain that control. No one will ever harm me without suffering equal or more in return. I pretend to Cordelia and the School Council that I hadn’t intended to kill him, that he had forced me into it, but that is not the truth. Here in these final pages of my journal, I will tell only the truth.
And then the truth will be buried with this book, and with it I bury my past.
Even my mentor, Cordelia, a High Priestess who has power and beauty in equal measure, and who has been in the service of the Goddess of Night, Nyx, for almost two centuries, does not understand my need to balance the scales of my life. The night after I’d been Marked and entered the House of Night, I’d left the infirmary and she’d shown me to my new bedchamber—a beautiful, spacious room that, because of my wounded body, I had to myself. There she tried to talk with me about him.
“Emily, what that man did to you was abominable. I want you to listen closely to me. You are in no way to blame for the violence he did to you,” she’d said.
“I don’t believe that’s how he and his friends would see it,” I’d said.
“Human law and vampyre law are not one in the same. Humans have no jurisdiction over us.”
“Why?” I’d asked.
“Because humans and vampyres are not the same. There are, indeed, more of them than us, but we few hold greater wealth and power as individuals than they can ever hope to attain. We are stronger, smarter, more talented, and more beautiful. Without vampyres, their world would be nothing more than a snuffed candle.”
“But, what if he comes after me?”
“He will be stopped. That man will never harm you again. You have my oath on that.” Cordelia hadn’t raised her voice, but I could feel the power of the anger in her words brush across my skin, and I believed her.
“But what if I want to go after him?”
“To what end?”
“To make him pay for what he did to me!”
Cordelia had sighed. “Emily, we cannot imprison him any more than he can apprehend one of us.”
“I don’t want him imprisoned!” I’d shouted.
“What is it you want?”
I’d almost admitted the truth to her, but there was something about her serene gaze and the honesty in her beautiful face that stayed my words. I hadn’t made my choice yet, but instinct told me to keep my deepest thoughts and desires to myself, and that is exactly what I did.
“I want him to admit he is a monster, and that what he did to me was wrong,” I’d said instead.
“And you think that would help you heal?”
“Yes.”
“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 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
