Page 7 of Dhampira

A protest caught in my throat.

“I crossed the Feyline, as criminals sometimes do.” She looked past me, her gaze on the window over my shoulder. “Nocta is a place of wild, unrestrained magic. Its inhabitants are the same. I was…hunted.”

“By the werewolves?” I asked, goose bumps prickling on my arms. Everyone in Ghedda knew the stories of the wild hunts. Each autumn, without fail, a group of young men in Derryton lured friends into the woods and scared them senseless by howling and staging a chase.

Mama looked at me. “By your father.”

My chest tightened, and regret washed over my need for answers. But I’d opened the door. It was too late to close it. “Did he—?”

“He didn’t hurt me,” she said at once, her tone as firm as it had been when I’d refused vegetables or tried to delay bedtime as a child. “I did what I had to do, and it never came to that.”

The unsaid part hung in the air. My mother didn’t believe in ignorance. She’d told me in straightforward detail what happened between men and women when they shared a bed. I didn’t have to ask what she’d done to appease my father. But appeasement only went so far if an aggressor enjoyed inflicting pain.

I swallowed. “Would he have hurt you eventually?”

Her gaze was steady. “Does the ocean mean to batter the cliffs? On its own, magic isn’t good or evil. Like nature, it simply…is. And like nature, it will harm you if you get in its way. A wise woman builds her house away from the cliff’s edge.”

Unbidden, Cyprio’s words rose in my mind. No one is good or bad. They’re a hundred other things. Impatient. Charming. Violent.

Curious…like me.

A knot formed in my throat and it made my voice hoarse as I asked, “Did he know about me?”

My mother stepped forward, the black dress between us. She cupped her hands around my face and spoke in a low, fierce voice. “No, and he never can. Do you hear me? Dhampirs don’t come along often. Your ability to tolerate the sun is a unique power, and the vampires value power above everything. If you cross the Feyline, they’ll find you and use your gift to their benefit.”

It was the same warning she’d impressed upon me since I was a child. “Is my father still alive?”

She lowered her hands. “I don’t know, but I have no reason to think otherwise. He was a powerful nobleman in King Rasimir’s court.”

The vampire king’s name sent apprehension scrabbling down my spine. The young men of Derryton told one another tales of the werewolves’ hunts while they sat around campfires with ale in their hands and nervous laughter on their lips. But no one spoke of Rasimir in jest. The ruler of Nocta was known for his brutality. “Thank the gods for the sun” was a common saying in Ghedda, since the light kept Rasimir from taking over the human realm as he had Nocta. But I was a daywalker. I could move between the two realms with ease. On the other hand, I was only one dhampir. What use could Rasimir have for me?

Mama looked at the dress. “We should burn it.”

“What?” I gasped, clutching the bodice more tightly. “No.”

“It’s dangerous to keep it here. There are times when we’re both away from the cottage. All it takes is one busybody neighbor or determined peddler to uncover our secrets.”

I swallowed the urge to remind her that she’d dismissed Cyprio as a nonthreat. “You said it was worth a king’s ransom. We can’t destroy it.”

My mother frowned as she seemed to think it over. “Its value lies in the gems. We could remove them.”

I tipped my head down, my gaze on the glittering black stones. As the sunlight fell over them, the red centers appeared to dance like flames.

“Dragonstones,” my mother said softly. She brushed her fingers over a spray of gems and met my eyes. “Mined from the heart of a dragon. The gems are rare even in Nocta, now that the dragons have disappeared.”

Inexplicably, an ache shot through my chest. If my luck held, I’d never cross the Feyline. It was silly to mourn the loss of something I never would have seen anyway. But somehow, knowing a majestic creature no longer existed was a blow all the same.

“Maybe the dragons left with the elves,” I said. Legend told that the elves had once lived all through Nocta and Ghedda. Likewise, magic had thrived in both realms. The elves had pitied the humans forced to live as prey, so they created the Feyline and forced all magic into Nocta. But they didn’t anticipate that the concentration of magic would be thick enough to mute the sun and plunge Nocta into twilight. No longer subject to the sun’s whims, the vampires rose to power. They supplanted the elves, who withdrew to a plane accessible only to them.

Not everyone believed that story, and few cared to contemplate it. To most Gheddans, the Feyline was like the sky: It had always existed, and they were content to let it remain a mystery.

Mama offered a soft, sad smile. “Perhaps they did.” Her smile faded as she focused on the gown once more. “I’ll take it downstairs and remove the stones. I’ll put the rest on the burn pile.”

An image of the elegant gown shriveling next to our kitchen scraps sprang into my head. When I made no move to hand the dress over, Mama reached out and gently tugged a thick lock of dark hair that had spilled over my shoulder.

“It’s for the best, Corinthe. I was a fool to keep it. We have a nice life here. I know it can be boring at times, but having experienced adventure, I can wholeheartedly say that boring is better. It’s safe. And all I want—all I’ve ever wanted—is to keep you safe.”

I couldn’t argue with that. My mother had worked tirelessly to provide for us, grinding herbs until the candles burned to nothing and dawn crept over the horizon. Men from town had attempted to court her. But she’d turned them all away. She scraped and sacrificed, and she never complained. I’d never for a moment felt unloved or unwanted.