Her Sweetest Downfall Part 5

"Yes," he said. "I think."

Lenore scowled. "What do you mean, you think?"

"It should. However, I've never done this before."

She sat on the floor in front of the pot. Ophelia kept her place on the edge of the cot by the window, warily eyeing Ethan as he produced an English trade knife, not much unlike her father's knife-the one with the st.u.r.dy wood handle and the strong steel blade.

Ethan closed his eyes and dragged the blade across the inside of his palm. He squeezed his hand over the pot, dripping blood on the herbs.

"Do vita donum cruoris voluntas," he chanted. The blood kept coming, and Ophelia's stomach turned, her heart thundering in her chest. "Do vita donum cruoris voluntas."

Ophelia's mother had spoken Latin; Ethan was chanting that he was giving his blood willingly. The red liquid continued to run down his fingers and into the bowl. So much blood. Why wasn't he stopping? His hand shook and his skin paled. As the blood flowed, Ethan stumbled forward where he kneeled, and had to catch himself on an arm that seemed to quiver under his own weight.

When Ophelia was about to intervene, Ethan finally stopped, clutching his other hand over the bleeding wound. She hurried over to the fireplace and grabbed the bowl of Cruor blood he'd used to help her earlier. She grabbed his hand and was about to try to heal the wound, but Ethan pulled free.

"It won't work," he said.

Using his knife, he cut a strip of fabric from one of the sheets and wrapped it three times around his palm. Ophelia tied the ends in a tight knot at the back of his hand. Why was Lenore just sitting there? Didn't she care? Ethan was doing this for her, too, and she just sat there wide-eyed and staring.

"I'm okay, Ophelia," Ethan said, touching her forearm.

Instead of returning to the bed, Ophelia sat at his side, glaring at the dark-haired woman on the other side of the pot. Ethan stirred the mixture with a ladle and continued with the second chant.

"Feras praesidium ab sol." At his side lay a small disk with the mark of the Sun G.o.ddess riding on her chariot. He grasped the chain and lowered the charm into the mixture as he continued his chant-the chant to infuse the herbs and Ankou blood with protection from the sun.

Outside, the wind pressed against the cabin, creaking the wooden walls and rattling the windows. The sky flashed, and the weight of a storm permeated the air inside the cabin-moist, heavy, cold. Ophelia's skin p.r.i.c.kled, and she opened her mouth to speak, but she could find no words. Ethan and Lenore's attention stayed on the ritual, as though nothing unusual were happening, and unease tingled in Ophelia's lungs.

The door blew open, and a dead raven thudded on the doorstep. Ophelia jumped up and stepped back, the ominous feeling rushing into her stomach like dry sand.

"Stop," she said. "Something's wrong."

Ethan continued, a golden-white glow emanating from his skin.

"Ethan!" Ophelia grabbed his shoulder. The heat of his flesh burned her fingers, and she snapped her hand away. "Stop it. Stop, please."

He ladled the mixture into a cup and handed it to Lenore, who immediately began to drink as his chanting carried on. The ground trembled and everything around them rattled-the plates and cups in the cabinets, the cot against the floor, the pot between them.

When Lenore finished, she put the necklace around her neck and closed her eyes. A grimace overtook her features, and she grabbed her stomach.

"What 'ave ye done?"

Ethan shook his head, his gaze focused on nothing in particular. Finally, with another shake of his head, his gaze settled on Ophelia's with renewed clarity. "It's all right. She's changing, that is all. You will still need to undergo your own transformation, but Lenore cannot feed from you in her current state. She won't be able to control her urges."

Unable to control her urges? She keeled over and clutched her stomach, gasping for air, her face contorted in agony.

"What's going on?" Ophelia demanded.

He shook his head. "Not now."

She curled her fists at her side. Her heart pounded in her chest and anger churned her stomach. Something had overcome her, some outside pressure that seemed to tear every hidden emotion and doubt from her gut and force it to the surface. Her mind swam beneath the sudden confusion.

"What's in it for ye?" she demanded. "Tell me! Tell me why ye need me to do this so badly."

"Ophelia . . . I've told you this already. It is not for me. For me, I would never ask this of you. It is my duty to guide you toward your destiny, and it is your destiny to join the Maltorim. If either of us fails, the world as we know it will someday end, and everyone will suffer for it."

Lenore sputtered a cough, and Ophelia realized she was trying to laugh. The young Cruor wheezed, holding her hand tighter to her gut.

"If we don't obey our callings, the human race will one day become extinct. I will lose everyone I've ever loved, including-" His jaw clenched. "You have to-"

She wanted to push away her unreasonable emotions but her words betrayed her.

"That's what this is about?" She glared at him. "About ye? About who ye will lose? What about me? Who is it ye are so afraid of losing?"

"Now?" he asked wearily. "You, Ophelia. This is not just about me. The mark of the serpent will kill you if you don't do as you are called. Maybe, somehow, the Universe might find someone to replace you on your journey if you don' survive. But, to me, you cannot be replaced."

The sentiment slammed into Ophelia, but she couldn't talk to him about this with Lenore writhing on the ground and all the ruckus in the room that he seemed to so easily ignore.

Ophelia looked again to the open door, to the dead bird, then up to the horizon. The sun was just about to break day. Ethan should have moved to shut the door, or cover the windows, but his silence thrummed at the back of her head.

In the distance, her mother was standing in the tall gra.s.s.

Damascus, 1808 Ophelia stepped outside, squinting into the distance. Images of her childhood flashed through her mind: her mother tending to her skinned knees, her mother's lips on her hairline as she burned with fever, her mother telling stories while they sat knitting by the fire, and those gentle, wordless corrections each time Ophelia's needles faltered.

The whole world seemed to be still at that moment, weightless, drenched in the early-morning haze. Tears burned her eyes and blurred her vision. Her mother was still alive. Ophelia's heart thundered.

Ethan walked up behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder. "That's not your mother."

She turned. There were sheets now on the window. Lenore's hair, damp with sweat, coiled against the cot's pillow like dead river-snakes. Ophelia forced her gaze to Ethan, unwilling to allow any sympathies for the Cruor-girl to play over her heart.

"I'd know my mother if I saw 'er," she said. "And that is 'er."

"It's a shifter, Ophelia."

"Shifters cannot take the form of a 'uman." Wasn't that how the stories had gone?

"Times are changing."

"It is my mother," Ophelia persisted.

It was her, wasn't it? It had to be. Ophelia needed, more than anything, to believe this. This was the hope she'd held on to, the hope that kept her alive. Ethan could be right . . . but he could also be wrong. She couldn't risk not finding out for sure.

The sun was rising fast on the horizon. Its rays stretched across the field, illuminating Ethan's translucent Ankou wings. The black veins shimmered out past his shoulders and nearly all the way down to his ankles. He stepped back into the shadows.

"Please, Ophelia. Come inside."

As Ophelia started to pull the door closed, she kept her eyes to the floor, unable to settle her gaze on Ethan's furrowed brow and pleading eyes. "I must go to her."

The door clicked shut.

Though she feared Ethan was right, she would never forgive herself if she didn't take the chance. She could follow cautiously, get close enough to at least find out for sure. She needed to do this. Her mother-if it was her-might have answers. For starters, how had her mother gotten here? How could she have known where Ophelia was? Why come to her now?

Older questions-ones that had driven Ophelia's very existence in recent years-overwhelmed the newer ones. Where had her mother been all this time? Who killed Ophelia's father? Would her mother know a way to stop the burn of the serpent's mark without joining the darkness of the Cruor?

That was the idea that carried her forward, moving her through the field of tall gra.s.s. She could not have stayed back even if she'd wanted to.

The skirt of her mother's dress brushed the blades of the meadow in the breeze. She smiled softly and gave a gentle wave. Ophelia lifted her skirts and set off, at first walking. But as she got closer, as her certainty grew that it was her mother, she picked up her pace. She walked faster and faster until she was running across the field, until she neared the forest, neared the small grove along the edges that sprouted olive and lemon trees from the ground.

Her mother turned and started to walk away.

Why would she come all this way to leave me now? What stopped her from coming to the cabin?

Somewhere deep in Ophelia's gut came the urge to dart back to the cabin. But a voice, too much like her own, prodded at her mind. Don't let fear stand in your way. As much as she wanted to, she could not defy that voice. Ophelia could not turn back now.

"Wait!" she called.

Her mother walked into the grove and didn't turn back. The trees obstructed Ophelia's view.

Didn't she see Ophelia trying to catch up? Was she trying to show her something? Had the time away somehow . . . changed . . . her mother? If her mother needed help and Ophelia gave up now, she would never forgive herself. She ran harder until she breached the woods. Her mother's silhouette glided between the trees.

"Mother?"

The woman looked over her shoulder with a smile, but continued on her path.

Ophelia was compelled to chase. Dread, fear, warning-all these things washed through her, but a small flicker of hope with a mind all its own pushed her onward. Twenty meters into the woods, she caught up with the woman and found her leaning against a tree, crying.

"Why didn't ye wait for me?"

As Ophelia approached, her mother sobbed harder. With her heart in her throat, Ophelia gently rested her hand on her mother's back. The woman turned around, grinning, laughing, and Ophelia stepped back. Her heart sank into her stomach, cold as ice and heavy with dread.

A man's voice cackled from her mother's mouth.

The woman's thin nose stretched, and her lips peeled back to reveal pink gums and blocky teeth. Every feature contorted until there was no trace of her mother's face remaining in the man's features. His shoulders broadened, and Ophelia gaze locked on his as his height stretched to tower a good head above her own.

"Robert." Ophelia could barely choke out his name. In the shadows, his strawberry-blond hair was more auburn, but she was certain it was him.

"Lovely to see you, too," Lady Katrina's brother replied. He grabbed her hand and kissed it roughly. "You're just as foolish as your father."

Ophelia snapped her hand back. "What do ye know about my father?"

Robert laughed. "Come now. Isn't the 'what' the whole reason you came to work for my sister in the first place? I'll save you the effort, fair Ophelia. There's nothing more to find."

"Ye killed 'er."

"The honor was not mine." Robert's grin stretched tighter. "Your father, however, proved to be quite the problem following her death. You really should have learned something from him. It's best to mind your own business."

"And what business is my family to ye?"

"Your mother was an abomination," said the man who had traveled all the way here in the time only an Ankou could have. A man who then shifted before Ophelia's very eyes. Did that not make him a dual-breed himself?

"Curious choice of words," Ophelia said, her voice shaking. "Ye are every bit a mutt as she."

His lips pursed. His brow furled over glowering eyes. "I agree with the Maltorim's orders. The impure are the real danger, to the humans and to the elemental races."

The boiling in her stomach rose to her chest. She chewed on her cheek and swallowed hard to hold her anger down.

"If there is blame to place, it's with the man who brought you here." Robert flicked a blade from its sheath in his pocket. The sun glinted off the steel as he shuffled toward her. "I would have liked to keep you, of course, but I must honor my duties."

"And she must honor hers." The voice came from behind Ophelia, sharp and yet feminine.

Lenore.

In one swift blurring arch of color, Lenore lunged at Robert and pinned him to the ground, digging her nails into his wrists until he dropped the blade. But Robert shifted again, his form growing too large for Lenore to keep a good grip. His clothes tore and fell from his body. Stripes ripped across his back, arms, and legs, and hair burst through the skin on his face. His skull and jaw distorted, his features more feline than man.

A tiger now stood before Ophelia and Lenore, teeth bared. A low growl rumbled from his chest as he backed away, fear flickering in his eyes before he turned and bounded off through the woods.

Gone. Just like that. She peered around, expecting to see a flash of him the underbrush or bounding toward them once again.

Lenore turned toward Ophelia, her fangs still fully extended, puffing out her mouth. "You all right?"

"Yes." Ophelia couldn't stop shaking. A heavy breeze rushed a fresh waft of lemon and olive toward her, and she nearly gagged on the scent as she tried to fight back her tears. "No. I-I don't know."

The young Cruor's fangs retracted with a snap. "He's been injured. He won't fight me like that, not unless he's a d.a.m.n fool."

"Sure is," Ophelia muttered, and Lenore laughed.

The humor didn't reach Ophelia though. She couldn't shake the feeling he was still watching, waiting for an opportunity to attack. Lenore, however, seemed at ease.

"He hates himself, you know." Her expression relaxed into something more human. "He couldn't control his shifting. He couldn't fight becoming something he didn't wish to be."

"That's why 'e ran off?" Ophelia asked. "Instead of . . . of . . . "

"Are you disappointed?" Lenore arched her eyebrow, smirking. How could she be so candid at a time like this? She nodded toward the path. "Come. Let's get you back to the cabin."

Once Ophelia was certain they were safe, new concerns tumbled into her mind. Ethan has been right. It hadn't been her mother. How had Ophelia been fooled, but Ethan had known? And if Robert was one of the Strigoi, how many secrets had her mother kept?

Her mother had always said that the Strigoi were honorable, but clearly Robert was not. Had her mother told her those stories in hopes of preparing Ophelia, should she ever be pulled into this world? If so, why hadn't she been completely forthright?

Perhaps Mother had hoped it would never really come to this.

Now she would never know, and she needed to accept it was no longer safe for her to entertain her childish fantasies of reuniting with her mother. Her mother gone. Truly and forever.

Ophelia had always thought accepting her mother's death would end all purpose in her life. That, without her mother, there would be nothing worth living for. Ethan changed all that. Ophelia would go through with the transformation and live her life with this new purpose of helping some girl she didn't know. She would do it in memory of those she had loved-those who had been stolen from this world far too soon.

Damascus, 1808 After promising to return in the evening to prepare for Ophelia's transformation, Lenore left for the day. When the cabin door fell shut behind the Cruor, Ophelia turned to Ethan, her hurt and anger rushing through her in a violent upsurge.

"Why?" She lunged toward him and pounded her fist against his chest. "Why didn't ye tell me it was him?"

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer. Ophelia still pushed, wishing to get away from him and to hurt him at the same time.