Chapter 39

Erick

“Erick!” Both Kendrick and my mother were by my side as I teleported back to the throne room of the castle.
“Oh God, Erick! You’re freezing!” Mother knelt down next to my slouched form on the floor.
“We don’t have time, Kendrick. We must leave right now,” I told him while gathering my strength to get up again. “Emiel, you’re coming too.”
“Me?” Emiel asked, eyes wide in surprise.
“Yes.” I made that conscious decision moments ago. “You’ve been their bitch for long enough. You just might come in handy.”
“But Erick, we still don’t know the location of Aaron’s hideout,” Kendrick pointed out.
“I might be able to help with that.”
“Erick, take the guards—”
“We can’t, Father. If we take the guards, we’ll have to travel by road, and we can’t afford to lose that much time. I’ll teleport in with Emiel and Kendrick, and we’ll bring Alina back home,” I said out loud for everyone to hear. “Mother, are you sure about the location?”
“Yes. I cannot believe the Cain clan’s ancestry slipped my mind, but I’m sure of it now,” Mother said. “Kendrick told me about the information you got from Merida. That temple was built in honour of Tuhin, so if my guess is right, the clan is planning to awaken him there. But going there unarmed? That’s the height of foolishness, son!”
“We don’t have time to gather an army. Time’s running out. Kendrick, Emiel,” I called them towards me as I strapped the Arctic Blade on my back.
Once they both had a firm hold on my arms, I took the image of the temple from my mother’s mind to establish a telepathic lock to teleport to. Since we have a special bond as mother and son, I didn’t have to feed her my blood to establish the link. A second later, we were standing outside a huge ancient temple carved out of a huge stone located at the base of a mountain.
Letting go of their arms, I took a step forward. Kendrick instantly pulled me back.
“Wait! This whole place is rigged with traps. If we take one wrong step, it’ll alert the mage inside the temple,” Ken whispered to us.
“A mage? Emiel, did you know about this?”
“Yes, but...” Emiel looked down at his boots.
“Erick.” Ken placed a hand on my shoulder to stop me from acting on my anger. “He can’t talk. It’s probably because of the mage’s spell. That’s why he kept bleeding from his ears the first time he spoke Aaron’s name.”
“Then what do you suggest we do, Kendrick? Every second we waste, time keeps running out for Alina. Her transition will be ending soon, and she should be extremely weak at this moment. She’ll be the perfect vessel.” I balled my hands into fists. The sense of helplessness was eating me from the inside out.
“Wait… I have an idea,” Ken said suddenly. “Emiel is under the mage’s spell, which means the magic inside him is a part of the same magic used to surround this place.”
My eyes widened at what Kendrick was implying.
“Ken, no! I’m not leaving Alina’s life in his hands!” I spoke through gritted teeth.
“There’s no other choice, Erick,” Kendrick said calmly. “He can go in undetected without alerting the mage. All he needs to do is knock them out. Emiel, can you do that?”
“Yes.” Emiel nodded at Ken before turning towards me. “I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you. I know that I don’t deserve to call you my brother, but I promise you this much, I’ll do anything I can to get your Alina back.”
No, I wasn’t convinced. After twenty-five years of hating him, of believing that he’s my enemy, I couldn’t suddenly start assuming that he would work things out. Then again, desperate times call for desperate measures.
“Go.”
Emiel ran ahead towards the temple at vampire speed.

****

Emiel

I stopped just in front of the temple, knowing perfectly well where the shield is supposed to be.
According to Kendrick, I can go in undetected, but I was still afraid. In front of me, the sacred temple stood like a giant demon, its aura ominous and its smell pungent of death and decay. I already knew that this smell came from the dead and decaying bodies that lay inside the temple. Tuhin, the ancient mage of great power, had eaten their hearts and thrown the corpses away like worthless garbage, snuffing out thousands of lives without second thought. However, I couldn’t tell my brother any of this for the spell that mage casted over me gave me a shock every time I tried to speak about it. Saying Aaron’s name nearly caused my brain to explode.
The first time I was brought here by Aaron, I was nine. He showed me the grotesque monster that was barely hanging on to life by muscles and tendons and told me that Alina was to be the vessel that will contain this monster’s soul. His biggest threat has been Erick and still is. I had to become a puppet in order for them to carry out their vendetta against my brother.
I raised my hand towards the shield and was relieved when my hand easily passed through the air without being deflected back. Confidently, I took a step forward, then another… and I was securely inside the shield. I dashed forward with my vampire speed. The inside of the temple was like a maze, but I’d been here enough times to know where I was going.
The stench of blood and bodies got stronger with each step I took. Tuhin must have fed recently. I turned left to a hallway where I knew the mercenary soldiers were stationed and went further into another hallway where several rooms were built for those who travelled long distances to visit the grave. In fact, this whole temple was just that, Tuhin’s graveyard. Which was why it was so easy to conceal Tuhin’s awakening from the rest of the world.
I came to a halt in front of the door that held the quarters and pushed the door open with all my might. The door creaked open with a sharp noise enough to alert the Cain mage. I flinched. The mercenaries might think of the noise as unimportant since they only acted when ordered by Aaron, but she would be able to tell the difference.
“Erick?”
The voice was soft, hoarse, and very, very tired.
“No, it’s me.” I shut the door behind me, leaving the room at the mercy of a couple candles that were the only source of illumination. “You should be asleep.”
“Do you think sleeping is something I should be doing right now?” She sat up from the cot she’d been laid on. “I saw Tuhin and have been throwing up ever since. Is Erick with you?”
“He’s outside the temple. There’s a barrier around this temple that only I could cross.” I reached out and helped her sit on the cot. Her skin felt icy cold to the touch. “He’ll be coming soon.”
The sound of footsteps outside the room made me stop. She was here, and she wasn’t alone. I gestured for Alina to stay quite while I hid behind the door. It opened a second later.
“Hiding behind the door, little one? Come on out. We need to have a long chat before I present you to the master.”
“Isel.” I came out from behind the door but didn’t step outside. “I managed to get out alive.”
Her long brown hair was pulled up into a ponytail and her eerie silver green eyes highlighted her heart-shaped face. Isel Cain was the strongest mage produced by her clan, second only to her ancestor, Tuhin. Although she looked twenty-five, she was over four hundred years old, making her an immortal.
“Lies!” Her voice turned venomous as her face contoured in anger. “You brought the prince with you! Now tell me where he is, or I’ll burn you from the inside out!”
When I left Erick and Kendrick outside the temple, they were in plain sight with nothing to hide them for miles. If Isel couldn’t find them, then it had to mean that they were under a cloaking spell.
Suddenly, a searing pain bloomed in my abdomen. I fell to the floor screaming and clutching my stomach. Isel was making good of her promise of burning me from my insides.
“Emiel!” I was aware of Alina kneeling down beside me and putting her arms around my shoulders, but the pain kept on intensifying.
“Stop!” I screamed when the pain became unbearable. “I’ll t-tell you. ”
The burning sensation stopped, but the pain remained. Vampires weren’t as good at healing burns as we were at healing cuts. This burn will drag me down considerably. Withstanding the pain from the burn, I stood up from the floor, and Alina did the same behind me. I raised my hands in surrender. “I’ll tell you where Erick is.”
“Good.” Isel flashed a victorious smile.
“Emiel, don’t, please.” Alina begged from behind me.
“Erick is,” I said and instantly used my speed to move forward and snap Isel’s neck, “right behind you.”
Erick and Kendrick appeared out of thin air right behind the mercenaries as soon as Isel’s body hit the ground. Erick used the icy sword in his hands to cut through the bodies of the vampires who stood in front of me and left them in pieces on the floor.
“Is this her?” Kendrick asked, pointing towards Isel as Erick pushed past me to Alina.
“Yes. Her name is Isel Cain, and she’s over four hundred years old. She’s very powerful. She won’t stay like this for long.” I informed Kendrick as I clutched my stomach, the pain getting worse. She must’ve burned through my kidneys and intestine.
“Alright, we need to—”
Kendrick wasn’t able to finish his sentence as the ground rumbled beneath our feet and the entire temple shook with powerful tremors.

****

Alina

“Erick!” I ran into his arms as soon as he pushed past Emiel and came towards me. “Where have you been? What took you so long? I’ve been so scared.”
“I’m so sorry.” He wrapped his arms around me tightly. “If only I listened to you about Emiel, any of this wouldn’t have happened. I let my hatred blind me.”
I shook my head. “It’s not your fault. Aaron wants me to be Tuhin’s vessel, and he won’t stop until he has me. Erick, we need to stop Tuhin. He wants to kill the Royal Family. He wants the throne.”
“I know, we guessed that mu—”
The ground rumbled under our feet. It felt like an earthquake. The walls began to crack from the force of the vibrations. Dust and chips from the walls began to fall off all around us, making it impossible to breathe.
“What’s going on?” I yelled over the rumbling noises.
“It must be the Ancient. He must be pretty pissed off right now.” It was Kendrick who answered. “Hurry, we need to get out of here before the temple collapses!”
“Kendrick! She’s gone!” Emiel yelled. “Isel’s gone!”
We all looked down at once, only to find the spot where the mage had been lying empty.
“She must have used the tremor as a distraction to escape. Come on, we need to go too.” Kendrick led us out the door and into the hallway. Emiel took the lead once we were outside the quarters, but he was limping. Whatever Isel did to him must have been really serious. Did she really deliver on her threat?
“Erick, Emiel’s hurt,” I told Erick as he helped me navigate through the hallways. “We need to get him some help.”
“Stop!” Kendrick shouted all of a sudden.
It didn’t take us long to know why.
The walls crumbled all around us with a tremendous sound that made my ears bleed. I clutched them with my hand to deafen the sound, but my ears were still too sensitive from my transition.
Then there was a gust of wind that carried with it the stench of death and decay. It blew past us in every direction and rose up into the air. It was black and contained the rotten, heartless bodies of the vampires Tuhin has devoured.
Suddenly, my pendant began to glow an eerie blue, and a sound of chanting was heard. We were trapped from all sides.