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  "A clan? But of course, you consider yourselves family, do you not?" She frowned as he nodded, eyes turning almost black as they narrowed. "Tell me, if you can, about your father. How did he become strigoi?"

  "My father?" It was his turn to frown at her strange request. Was there a reason not to answer? If she'd been here as long as Ștefan said, then she must know the truth by now. Was she using the question as some sort of test? Did she think he lied? Herald shrugged. Perhaps that question was best left unvoiced, and if she believed he spoke untruthfully, then what should he care? "Ștefan began life as a... servant's child in this very castle."

  Did his father realise how lucky he'd been? Herald would give anything to have the privilege of being born to a loving mother and live in the safety of a home. He clung to the idea that, with the fortress guarding the valley's only entrance, his family possessed a shaky resemblance to a home, if not a safe one. But he did regret not having the chance to know his mother. Even if Ruxandra had survived his father's anger, she would've been long dead before Herald's release from Hell.

  "I guess he lived a normal life, and, like many of his peers, he fell in love with the local lord's daughter." Herald's mother. "His feelings grew every time he saw her." Which, seeing that his father had served in the castle alongside his parents, must have been often. "Then it turned into an obsession."

  How different a fate would've been in store for them if Herald's parents had not met? His mother most certainly would've lived longer, a few more decades at least. I wouldn't exist. None of his siblings would. And the valley, the surrounding villages, would be safe. So many dead because of his father.

  "Did she feel the same way?" How alive the angel's face became. And her stormy-grey gown lightened, resembling an ashen raincloud.

  It'd been so long since anyone had spoken of his mother or the act that had created him. He couldn't help but continue. Someone other than him and his father had to know. "She did, in a fashion, I suppose. Perhaps not as keenly as he." Ruxandra likely considered it more of a friendship since Ștefan was so beneath her.

  Even that little show of affection must've been too much for her father, the lord, because he had her betrothed before she turned sixteen. The thought of how young his mother had been wasn't something he dwelled on for long. It always made him a little sick.

  "My father struck a deal with the lord. He was to procure enough riches befitting her status before her intended arrived." A foreign lord's son, young and rich. And a coward. Had his father not said the man fled whilst his guards died? "If he could do this, then my father would be allowed to marry her."

  "And he couldn't," she said, "which made him choose to give up his soul and become strigoi."

  He grinned at her smugness. Yes, he could see how she'd come to that conclusion. How a lesser man would give up all for nothing. But his father was not one of those men. "No." Herald fought to keep his voice even. "He was successful and they married. It only began to go wrong when his wife discovered how he'd gotten the money." He held her gaze. "My father sold his soul so he could get those riches." Just so he could have the woman he loved. "When she learnt what he'd become..." A monster. A demon. Had they ever met, she would've called Herald by the same names. "...she refused him and, in his anger, he killed her."

  Herald raked his sun-browned fingers, the scar of his greatest failure, through his hair. "My kind are created when strigoi couple or feed. I don't know how, please do not ask, I just know it to be so." The precise process of how they came to be was murky beyond the connection to feeding or sex and infants appearing in Hell. Perhaps it had to do with where the strigoi's spirit resided. Or the lack of it. Either way, Herald had long since come to accept that he would never know. "My brother and I were the first of our family. We came to be almost instantaneously." Created so close together that the peculiar Minders who'd raised them to adulthood were never entirely sure which babe had come first. "One of us as they coupled on their wedding night..."

  "And the other—" She'd come to the conclusion of the second born's creation, he could see it in her eyes and the sympathy such knowledge brought.

  He didn't want her pity. His kind didn't deserve it. "They believe it was me who was made when my father sank his fangs into his beloved wife and drained the life from her." As children, they'd learned of their creation. Of how their father resided happily enough in the mortal realm whilst they were confined to some obscure pocket dimension along with all the others of their kind.

  Herald had been created through death and Harbinger—though they'd not any names back then—his dear brother had been made in love. Tears welled in his eyes at the thought. He dashed them aside. How he'd hated his brother for it. Had wished it were him who'd been born first.

  "Children cannot be blamed for being what they are," the angel murmured. Bird-like, her head cocked to one side. "You are different than the others sent here. I can usually sense the smallest amount of iniquity in a person." Blue-grey eyes peered at him, boring in to strip him bare. The look changed, no doubt mimicking the considering expression he'd originally given her. "Are you a dhampir?"

  Herald laughed. "No." Granted, there were similarities between his kind and dhampir. But whilst they were both issues of strigoi and human couplings, he, along with all his siblings, came straight out of Hell, whereas dhampir were of this realm. They were born, a claim he couldn't make, and they could touch the sunlight.

  But there hadn't been a dhampir in these parts for nigh on seven hundred years. His father had seen to that, preying exclusively on the so-called hunters for decades. The last issue—born through the bite, as his brother loved to put it, even if fangs weren't involved—had been slain in a raid on the nearby village centuries ago. "We are not so lucky to have such a choice." How he wished it were possible, to accept or reject being a monster, to have the ability of their fathers yet not the urge to feast upon the same prey. And the freedom to survive on something other than blood.

  "So you are demons," she said, savage delight coating the words as if she desired him to be an otherworldly beast like his father.

  "We are known as unborns. Strigoi spawn, if you prefer. And yes, we consider ourselves damned. Let's leave it at that." The reminder of his spiritual situation left an unpleasant taste in his mouth. Could it be possible for an unborn—providing they lived a sinless life—to be granted entry into Heaven? After all, he wasn't dead and he had a soul. But then again, he'd never been a part of this world. He wasn't even meant to be in it.

  When it came down to it, he wasn't meant to be at all.

  Herald knew all too well what awaited him upon death. Hell held little secrets for someone who'd spent the first two hundred years of his life there. He only wished that whoever finally killed him did it by decapitation, for becoming strigoi was something he wanted to avoid.

  "Wait." Neither his father nor his half-sister had mentioned her having the ability to reach beyond the crystal. "You can sense me?" That sounded dangerous. What if she were capable of doing more than just sensing?

  "Only if I concentrate on a person," she said, her pink lips made full by her pout. "Even then it's rather difficult to discern much."

  Relief eased the tightening in his chest. If it was an effort to do such a small thing, then it undoubtedly meant she couldn't do anything else. Or did it? He could ask her what she was capable of. Whether she'd reply truthfully or not was another matter. "How did my father trap you?"

  "It was quite simple really." The loathing in her voice dissipated, becoming subdued, almost resentful. He hadn't even known that angels could feel such emotion. "He opened those." She waved a hand at the shuttered windows. "And my curiosity, my foolishness, did the rest."

  "Surely you must've realised."

  "I thought I could escape." She smiled at the top of the crystal. "I deserve this for being so prideful in my abilities."

  He sat on the floor, back against the wall. The cold would be slow in seeping through his thick leathers, but still... a b
ed would've been welcome. "You could leave." Unbuckling his sword belt to rest on the floor before him, he unsheathed his dagger and set it on his thigh. "My deal still stands."

  She offered only silence, the icy quiet stretching on for some time until it grew uncomfortable.

  Herald stretched, his abrupt yawn breaking the silence. Riding down from the fortress had taken up most of the night before. He'd spent the whole day awake, something he didn't usually do. However much he longed to remain alert, to do his duty and guard the angel, sleep called to him.

  The boards underneath him creaked as he lay down. The uncomfortable position would hopefully keep him from falling into too deep a sleep. With his head pillowed on an arm, he closed his eyes.

  Chapter Six

  This was a land of perpetual twilight. Dim light shone from the very stone, a part of the shadows yet throwing none. It came from the walls, the ceiling, even the floor, and gave off a red glow. Whether the colour was from the rock or the light, he didn't know, but, like everything else in this realm, it reminded him of blood. Of death. It made him hungry and weary all at once.

  This would be his and his brother's two-hundredth year here. Together, they'd walked this land as far as they could risk it. All there was to be found was rock and more rock. If there'd been a plant, or a single seed, he thought there would be hope of other life. Of a better life.

  But no, there was just the red stone. The only reality in this realm. Everything turned to stone in the end. Mixed with blood and sweat, dust became dirt. Dirt compacted underfoot and dried in the heat, hardening into stone. As long as he didn't dwell on where the dust came from, it was a fact he could live with.

  "Are you hungry? I'm hungry."

  He tore his gaze from the high ceiling to frown at his brother. They were the only two left of those their strigoi father had sired over the centuries. The rest had all succumbed to other families, pulled down in battles by the stronger clans. Fed upon and left to decay until they became naught but dust. More fuel for the stone.

  His family did the same to others, draining the life from weaker clans. Feasting on their own kind like animals just to survive. Nothing down here lived long if it didn't fight for existence.

  "Right now, I could go for a nice red-head with green eyes." His brother didn't face him, preferring to stare out at the people nearby, but even in his voice, the lopsided smile was unmistakeable. "Or maybe a pretty blonde like one of those right there."

  He scanned the mob of dark-haired people walking about in their close-knit, familial herds. Each step taken was wary. Each person knowing a wrong move could easily turn into the precursor of their demise. There wasn't much fighting to be had here. Not at the entrance to the Haven. Many of the older clans held to the unspoken truce. Sometimes, it was all that kept a family alive.

  A group of fair-haired women appeared through a break in the crowd. As one, they swaggered past the other clans, their drawn swords mirroring the red light. "A Saxon?" Trust his brother to seek the dangerous route. "You can't even speak their language." He shook his head. "She'd be feeding on you in a heartbeat."

  "If I could just get her away from her brothers for a moment, then maybe..."

  He eyed the women. They seemed familiar. He'd heard of a family who shunned the thought of having men at their side, even their own kin, and fed on nothing else. Could it be? He peered at the group and could see no men amongst their ranks. "I believe they've only sisters in that particular clan." Grabbing his brother's broader shoulders, he forced his sibling to focus on him. "And they feed on any man who nears them, even their own kin." No wonder the other clans parted at their coming.

  "Sounds as if the little Amazons need a strong man to tame them." His brother's blue eyes narrowed at the spectre of a challenge.

  "Fool," he muttered, shoving his brother back against the wall. Two centuries and his brother still had not gained any sense. And he is meant to be the elder. By a few seconds, granted, but still... was wisdom not meant to come with age? "We fed just this morning. Why would you even want to get that close to them?"

  "Has it never crossed your mind that women have more uses than just being food?" His brother's eyes lit with a craving he'd often seen just before his brother made off with one of their sisters. His brother leant over, put an arm round his shoulder and hugged him tight. "I love you dearly, brother. You know I would give my life to spare yours, but I've never been that way inclined toward men, even if you are."

  He grimaced and pushed his brother away. "I am not, brother!" It'd been a century and a half, perhaps even longer, since he'd last had any such ideas towards women. Now his flesh crawled at the thought of intimacy. He'd come close to death upon attempting it. Still bore the scars of his failed encounter with a tempting young woman of another clan.

  Being unable to avoid witnessing the carnal acts of his siblings, he knew it to be a pleasurable experience. Yet he still could not bring himself to lay with them and had learnt the hard way that the risks of death by a preying woman from another family far outweighed any gain to be had there. "To attempt such a thing with those women would be foolishness," he muttered.

  "No, sitting here is foolish." His brother nodded at the doorway a few strides away, the only break in the monotonous red of the wall. Beyond the age-hardened, wooden door were rooms upon rooms of their young kin. Each unborn in this level of Hell had started off in there. All of them nursed and trained by the ever-mysterious Minders, the people they could only see on the edge of their vision. "There hasn't been another sibling for sixty-nine years. Why do you insist on us coming here to wait when you know as well as I that no one is going to appear?"

  It felt like a millennium ago since he'd walked through that doorway with his full-blooded brother and a handful of other half-siblings at his side. After decades of endless battle here, he longed to be allowed entry into the Haven once more. The battles between families didn't exist in there and the few feet surrounding the entrance was the only place from which kin could be retrieved. Clans would trek for days to be here for their annual chance to greet and protect their newest brother or sister.

  Except we've been two for so long. He sighed, wishing he had an answer his brother would accept. After two centuries, they should've been plentiful and feared like the clan of Saxon women. Why did no more family join them? Their father hadn't died. They would've known, would've felt the tie sever.

  "At least it gives us a chance to rest." One day a year for the chance to sit and regain their strength without worrying about being attacked.

  His brother grunted in disagreement. Eager for the fight, sometimes a bit overeager, he'd never been the type to stay still for long. Having to wait a whole day for the slim chance of seeing another sibling surely chafed at him.

  It couldn't be helped. They needed to stay in case there would be a sibling this time. Someone young, barely out of their teens, and far too inexperienced to survive without the aid of those seasoned to this way of life. Like us. A lone clan member wouldn't live a day out here, not when his brother and himself first set foot into this merciless realm with a good two dozen siblings at their side. They'd lost a third of their number within their first week.

  A gong sounded from somewhere on the other side of the wall they leant against. He wasn't certain how they managed to tell the difference, for the light never altered, but the day had drawn to an end. He had a sour feeling his brother would be right yet again and there would be no others joining them today.

  With their waiting time over, they'd be given only a few minutes to leave before the forces keeping this area safe shifted to shunt them out. He brushed the dust from his hands onto his trousers. The pale leather was smooth under his fingers. And thin. Had been for years. He'd need to procure a replacement pair soon. One of the younger clans near the western sector had looked promising. The men slender like himself.

  "Well, brother, it appears word has gotten round that we are few."

  His heart grew cold as he followed his b
rother's gaze. Before them stood a good hundred or so people. "There has to be at least six families." The way they stood, separate but with the same goal. They surrounded the Haven with weapons drawn. Their faces expectant. Hungry. But the unspoken truce. No, there was a reason it was unspoken. So it could be ignored. And they were tempting targets.

  "I make out eight distinct clans. Looks like today we die." Gone was his brother's gaiety and mock-sulking, banished by the presence of an impending skirmish, though he was far from grim. "Get up, brother. We may not be able to win, but don't die without taking some of them with us." His brother had already stood and drawn his sword, the long blade gleaming in the ruddy light.

  Slipping his own sword from the remains of his scabbard, he stood beside his brother. His stance wasn't nearly as threatening nor the blade of his sword as long, but it had become common knowledge that they were a deadly pair when allowed to fight side-by-side. Such union was the sole reason they still lived after the mass slaughter of their clan.

  In his peripheral vision, he spotted a strange ball of light. Like a flame, the floating sphere glowed yellow at the heart and red at the edges, and yet, it didn't flicker. The orb hovered close to them before flattening into a thin disc. It spun, widening until it was big enough to fit a small man.

  He nudged his brother, alerting him to this new possible threat. "It looks almost like a portal," he muttered. He'd heard the rumours of other, stronger, demons raiding their pathetic realm. Some of the tales spoke of the creatures using doorways such as this. Is that what this is? None of those portals had ever been described as being brightly lit as the one before them. And no story had spoken of a portal ever opening inside the Haven before. Perhaps their aim grows sharper. What better place to hunt than a section known for young and tender weaklings?

  "A portal? Then get in," his brother commanded, shoving him close to the still-widening disc.

  Nearer, he could see the edges wobble. "But—" He stepped back, putting his brother between him and the portal. "We don't know where it leads." He'd never had the misfortune to see an invading demon. Nor did he ever hope to. The stories were enough and what he heard didn't leave much hope of them surviving for long in the demons’ realms. "We could be jumping right into a cooking pot."