I Am Forever (What Kills Me) Read online

  When she smiled, I noticed that her lips were pinkish orange and wet, like the flesh of a pink grapefruit.

  “The Divine looks well,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “The cleric said that the Divine has settled into her new quarters and enjoyed a relaxing evening with company.”

  It had been relaxing, except for Lucas’s coldness after our last conversation. I worried that he was still angry with me. I worried that at any moment he would leave.

  “Yes, the room is very comfortable.”

  “The Monarchy wanted the Divine to recuperate after the unfortunate event that transpired at the ceremony,” she said.

  I self-consciously brushed a stray curl behind my ear. “I never thanked you for protecting me.”

  Her eyebrows pulled up. “I have sworn an allegiance. My life belongs to the Divine, and my only purpose is to protect the Divine and the Monarchy.”

  “I’m sorry you were injured.”

  She smiled. “I’ve endured many wars before this one. This attack was a blink in time.”

  Would I feel like that one day? That all of this was but a blink. A single flap of a hummingbird’s wings. A drop of rain in a monsoon.

  “What happens to the senator?” I asked.

  “He is being interrogated. Eventually he will endure a public execution.”

  I pushed a disturbing image of the senator being tortured for information out of my mind.

  She continued, “The terrorists want to make this world a dangerous place for the Divine. But we will not let them restrict our freedom. Security around the palace and the Acropolis has been tightened. The Divine need not concern herself about movement around the premises. The Divine is free to move among the population, provided that the guards and soldiers are in accompaniment. As well, the Divine’s chaperone also serves as added security.”

  That’s why she made San my chaperone. He’s used to stopping swords with his body; she wants him to be my armor.

  “It is my hope that the Divine will continue to serve as a figure of power and strength.”

  “How can I do that?” I’m obviously not up for the job.

  “The terrorists abhor our way of life. Therefore we must continue living. We must not show fear or weakness. The Divine’s presence is requested at all of the Monarchy’s sacred rituals and ceremonies.”

  I thought she was going to tell me to lay low. To hide in my new room and swim in the fake lake. But she wanted me to be in the public eye. I was stupefied.

  “Does the Divine accept?”

  I thought of Lucas’s bitter words: “Maybe that isn’t your responsibility.”

  Maybe he’s worried that I can’t do it. And maybe he’s right.

  “The Divine is strong,” she said, addressing my hesitation. “She is our pillar.”

  I swallowed.

  “Will the Divine stand up for us?”

  I can do this. I must be able to do this. “I will,” I said.

  “Good,” she said. She sat so immobile and unblinking that when she suddenly bowed, it was like seeing a mannequin nod to life. “We have lost many children recently to war and we must strengthen our ranks. A chosen one will be blessed as a vampire. The creation ritual is this evening, and it will be a remarkable occasion to witness.”

  With that, she rose, her hand over her heart. Through the cutouts of the gazebo walls I saw my guards waiting.

  “Oh, okay,” I stood up. “I’ll see you soon then.”

  She responded with a bow.

  “One more thing, Empress? I’d like my friends to call me by my name, please. Would that be possible?”

  “We should address the Divine with the deference that she deserves.”

  “And I appreciate that, but—”

  Seriously, it’s totally weird.

  “—at least in private, I’d prefer that they use my name. Even ‘my lady’ is fine.”

  “Whatever the Divine wishes shall be.”

  The guards and soldiers walked me back to my room, surrounding me like planets orbiting a sun. It was odd not to speak to them, but they acted as if I wasn’t even there.

  The soldiers hung back and only the guards continued through the archway and into the lobby with me. I heard the sputter of a dying fire upstairs on the balcony and someone rustling sheets in a nearby room. I gathered my floor-length skirt and climbed the stairs. In the grass near the lake San was practicing martial arts with a wooden sword.

  I walked out onto the balcony, kicked off my slippers, and instead of using the stairs, I just stepped off the edge. The two-story free fall invigorated me, and the soft ground absorbed my landing.

  “Hey San!”

  He straightened up from a crouched position and then bowed, his sword pressed along his spine. “How is the Divine this morning?”

  “The Divine finds it super annoying that everyone is referring to her in the third person and wants it to stop.”

  “But it is the custom.”

  “No, it’s weird. I don’t like it and I’ve asked the Empress for an exemption on behalf of my friends—including hired friends.”

  “Well then, what would you like to be called?”

  “Just call me Zee.”

  San looked puzzled. “Like the letter Z?”

  “Yes. That’s what everyone calls me back home.”

  “A lady as venerated as you are deserves more than one letter,” he said with a smile. “I fear it would be improper for me to address you so informally.”

  “Okay—then what would make you feel more comfortable?”

  “What is your given name?”

  “Axelia.”

  “Like the fish?”

  “What?”

  “Axelia is a prehistoric species of fish.”

  In grade school the boys used to call me “Fish Face” because of this factoid, and because my eyes and lips seemed too big for my smallish, little-girl face.

  “Yes, like the fish,” I said flatly.

  “Well, I will call you Lady Axelia,” he said with a deep bend, putting his nose to his knees. “A beautiful name for the beautiful Divine.”

  “May I keep calling you San?”

  “You may call me whatever you desire, my lady.”

  Everyone was telling me to do what I wanted. Everyone except Lucas.

  “Where is Lucas?” I asked.

  “The swordsmith has turned in for the day to rest.”

  He’s probably just trying to avoid me.

  “Right, you guys sleep in the day.” I surveyed the dimly lit wooded landscape. “How do you know it’s daytime? Do vampires have a circadian rhythm to tell you that it’s morning?”

  “No, my lady. We have clocks.”

  I laughed. “Where? I’ve never seen one.”

  “They are around if you look. There’s one on the mantel over the fireplace.”

  “So why aren’t you sleeping then?”

  “Sleep is a waste of time.”

  “This coming from someone who has forever.”

  He smiled, deep indents forming in his cheeks. “When I was the war page, I helped the Aramatta train at dawn and into the day. A war page is not afforded the luxury of much rest, so I’ve learned to do without it. And you, my lady?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I don’t ever feel tired. And to be honest, the last time that I tried to sleep I had terrible nightmares.”

  “I used to have nightmares after I was first blessed. But they went away. I actually miss them because I don’t dream anymore. My father believed that only those with souls can dream, and perhaps vampires lose theirs over time.”

  “Do you miss your father?” I asked, mostly because the mention of San’s father made me miss my own.

  “Very much. It’s strange. The years have gone by in a blur, but I still remember my father’s face. He had this thick beard, and his mustache grew over his lips so that when he kissed your cheeks, it tickled.”

  I conjured up my parents’ faces to make sure I
still remembered the details. The sunspots speckling my mother’s round cheeks. The indents on the bridge of my father’s nose when he removes his glasses.

  “Did your father know that you became a vampire?” I said.

  “Oh yes, the Monarchy told him they were taking me. He wanted this for me. He wanted my life to have meaning and for me to have purpose.”

  “Did this second life give you meaning?”

  “Purpose maybe. But not meaning.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I’ve come to appreciate that the Monarchy assigns every vampire a role. To live forever without purpose would be intolerable. But did my duty as a war page make me feel an inner sense of worth? No.”

  “I’m sorry to hear.”

  “Don’t be sorry, my lady. You’ve given my life meaning. I live to protect you. Not because the Empress ordered it. But because you valued my life enough to defend me. No one has ever done that for me.”

  I smiled. “I appreciate that, San. But if I weren’t here, what would give you meaning?”

  He was silent.

  “Whoa, I apologize.” I put my hands up. “I’ve suddenly transformed into Doctor Femi and I’m psychoanalyzing you.”

  “And you, my lady, are the one with the bad dreams.”

  “If you had the kind of nightmares that I had, you wouldn’t miss them.”

  “If the stories are true, then the lady has braved unimaginable terrors to become the Divine.”

  I stand here so strong and brave. But when I close my eyes or let my guard down, I see my scars. They scream. They hurt. They terrify me.

  “I’ve been the target of swords a few times,” I said. “But that doesn’t compare to your days with the Aramatta. How can you stand to be stabbed and cut?”

  “It only hurts for a moment. Then wounds heal. It can be endured.”

  “Uh, I don’t ever want to endure being stabbed.”

  “My lady, you will never have to as long as I am around.”

  I grinned. “You know, if you train me like you trained the soldiers, then you wouldn’t have to protect me.”

  Maybe if I could fight, I could better protect everyone.

  “Train the lady to fight?”

  “Lucas has taught me a few things. It’s gotten me this far. Please, show me something that you teach the soldiers.”

  “I don’t think it would be prudent. My lady, you could injure yourself.”

  “Come on. Seriously, you could crash a car into me and I’d be fine. Trust me—that scenario has been put to the test.”

  “I’m not sure the lady would—”

  I cut him off. “What’s your favorite thing to teach the soldiers? Show me. I can take it, I swear.”

  I scissored my feet apart and I put my fists up. San tilted his head back and laughed. I loved the sound so much that I wanted to hear it again. I kicked a make-believe foe, forgetting that I was wearing an unforgiving skirt, and it tore. I also over-swung and lost my balance. I pressed the grass to push myself up.

  “No one saw that,” I said, dusting my hands off.

  “There’s no shame in falling, my lady. It’s about how quickly you get up that matters,” he said. “Actually, one of my first lessons is teaching the soldiers how to fall.”

  “Well, teach me how to fall.”

  He lifted his sword and put the rounded tip against my shoulder. “Are you positive?”

  “Yes.”

  He nudged me. “Let yourself go,” he said.

  I let myself tip backward and went sprawling as if I was swimming in the grass.

  “My lady, are you all right?” he asked, alarmed.

  Laughing, I rolled over twice, tangling my legs in my skirt. “How graceful was that?”

  He chuckled. “You absorbed the fall well.”

  I pulled the hem of my skirt over my ankles and stood up.

  “Okay. How could I have done better?”

  “This time, my lady, fall back but tuck your chin in to protect the back of your head. Curve your spine so that you roll backward and move with the flow of the fall.”

  I squatted and fell back, curling like a pill bug. My legs kicked over my head and the momentum rolled me over and back onto my feet.

  “Wonderful, my lady!”

  I stepped back onto my skirt and tripped. San offered me the end of his sword, wiggling it by my head as if he was trying to swab my ear. I pushed myself up from the ground. “What’s with this? Guys handing me weapons to hold instead of their hands,” I said, thinking of Taren and his scabbard.

  “As much as we would like to, holding your hand is against the rules.”

  “Right. I’ll have to talk to the Empress about that rule as well.”

  “At first chance, let me be the first to hold your hand.”

  “You might have to get in line.”

  We laughed. But my mirth was tempered by the fact that I worried about whether Lucas had a desire to be in that line.

  “Lady Axelia, step with your right foot and block,” San said, bringing his sword in front of his face.

  He had given me another wooden sword, a bokken, to shadow him. “Now move to the center and cut.”

  He drew a half moon with the edge of his curved bamboo blade. “Block. Cut. Block. Cut.”

  Uther waved at us from the balcony.

  “Thanks, San,” I said, handing him my bokken. “We’ll pick this up later?”

  “Of course.”

  I dragged my feet back to my room like a child being called into the house for bedtime.

  “Lady Axelia, you looked wonderful out there,” he said.

  “San is a good teacher,” I said, leaping up the stairs. “Hey, you called me by my name!”

  “I spoke to the Empress and then I heard the chaperone addressing you. If that is what you prefer in the privacy of your quarters, then I am happy to oblige.”

  “Thank you, Uther,” I said, taking a moist towel from a maid and daubing my face. “It’s daytime. Shouldn’t you be resting?”

  “Yes, my lady. I was helping the council of clerics prepare for tonight’s blessing. I am turning in shortly, but I wanted to show you something.”

  With my guards and soldiers in position, we moved through a maze of halls like a cell cluster drifting through arteries. Uther approached a set of brass doors, narrow like window shutters but twenty feet tall. He tapped the metal with one finger, lightly and quickly as if testing hot water. “This is one of my favorite places,” he said.

  He parted the doors and fusty air wafted at me.

  Whoa.

  Uther and I stood on an open bridge, under a vaulted ceiling. On either side of us were hundreds of shelving units arranged perpendicular to the walkway. Each unit rose at least two stories high, and sank two stories below us. I backed away from the edge.

  “This...is...awesome,” I said to Uther, whom I’d never seen smile so broadly.

  “There’s poetry, science, philosophy. The English-language texts are in this section.”

  He grabbed what appeared to be a gold door knocker on a unit and pulled it toward him. With a creaky groan the entire unit shifted like a sliding door. It bumped the next unit and both skated by me.

  “Would you like to try, my lady?”

  I bobbed my head and grabbed a unit. It moved as easily as a cereal box on a pantry shelf, and with a nudge it went barreling into the next unit with a crack. The unit continued on, knocking others like dominoes and sending books fluttering to the ground like leaves shaken out of a tree.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t worry yourself, my lady. The librarian will retrieve the books. Come, come. What would you like to read?”

  “Uh, what do you recommend?”

  “My favorite section is history.”

  He crossed the walkway and stepped off it. I thought he was climbing onto the shelves, but when I reached the spot where he’d disappeared, I saw that he’d stepped onto a ladder running parallel to the unit. He ki
cked himself away from the bridge and the ladder went sliding like a shower curtain. He dragged his fingers along the book spines, as if playing a glissando on piano keys. He plucked a book from the shelf, held it against his chest, and sailed back.

  Back on the bridge, he set the book down on a wooden table and spread his hands over the dark-brown leather cover as if he was pushing the wrinkles out of a sheet. He opened the book, the spine crackling as Uther unfolded the yellowed, wavy pages.

  “My sire wrote this,” he said. He touched the thick, bleeding script as if it was Braille. “This, my lady, will give you an idea of where your power comes from.”

  He flipped a page to reveal a simple, one-dimensional image of a twisted figure. It was naked, crouched with tangled limbs, and it wore some sort of head piece. Its dark, charcoal-lined almond eye was aimed at some prey off the page, while its forked tongue licked the air. Its claws clutched a spear and a shield.

  “The vampire empire began with seven gods. This is Vaharas, the hunter,” he said. He flipped the page. “Emera, the day walker.”

  I leaned in to examine the female posed with a circle drawn beside her head. “She walked in the sun?”

  “Yes, like you are able to, my lady. This is Jahl, the wise, and Surena, the seer.”

  “The seer,” I echoed.

  “She predicted the future. Her prophecies fill the Sacriva. She foretold your arrival.”

  Surena was depicted with a big third eye on her forehead. The eye had exaggerated spiky eyelashes like a Venus flytrap. Her other two eyes were closed.

  He turned the page to reveal a female with her palms open at her sides and squiggly lines emanating from her. “Jeya, the light.”

  “What did she do?”

  “We do not fully understand. The Sacriva described her power as the ability to shine light into dark recesses where one hides.” He traced the script under her image and read aloud: “‘The light reveals what is hidden...’”

  “Maybe she glows like a nightlight,” I joked.

  He kept reading. “‘...and what cannot be forgotten.’”

  On the next page was a squat figure. A boulder with a face and limbs. “Nim, the child,” he said. “Small but cunning, with skin as thick as armor.”

  At the next image, he straightened up. “Ashur, the strong.”

  The figure was devouring people. He had hands for feet, and all four hands were squeezing bloody severed heads or limbs. He was the only one of the seven gods shown with fangs; long and tusk-like, they curved over his chin.