Thank you for your awesome reviews, I hope I didn't miss anyone in the replies. The last couple of days have been amazing. My friend and I stumbled upon a great offer–just 38 Euros for a two-way trip to Luxembourg and we went for it! It was amazing. On one occasion we hiked for half a day through 4 or 5 villages and got a bit lost in the woods, which imo made it even more exciting haha. Luxembourg is stunning and the coolest thing is that not many people choose to visit it (especially before summer) so we didn't have to deal with swarms of tourists. People there are also unbelievably nice! We misread the opening dates for a museum but when the staff figured out that we travelled to their village especially to take a look, they opened it just for us! It's one of the most fun trips I've done to date :)
Selection, III
The vial feels cool under her palm and Eleazar's words continue to ring in her ears. Free yourself. Drain the queen. Rise, awaken and rule.
Around her, the wind still roars, tugging wildly at her hair and she hears Edward calling out from a distance. She can't make out his words but she knows what he will do. Before anyone can reach her, she twists the vial open and forces herself to swallow every drop. The venom is so sweet it turns her stomach, its aftertaste so bitter that she almost gags. Almost.
It is Edward's doing that she's stronger than Mike. Instead of expunging the obscenely rich liquid, her body begins the excruciating task of absorbing it. Already, she feels herself changing—her strength growing, snapping the steel threads anchoring her to obedience one by one.
Each severance cuts the raw nerves in her psyche, dragging her down in a spiral of agony until her mind drowns in the sensation.
She's free, she's in pain, and she hasn't forgotten what she intends to do.
"Isa!"
Her jumbled vision sees two of him running towards her, his outline blurred, but she doesn't want his help. If he touches her, she might not be strong enough to do what she must.
Despite the pain, her dormant strength has been freed and is within her grasp. She wraps the energy around herself, twisting with the tornado to disappear from the time void and into Volterra.
The stark white walls have always given her claustrophobia, the strength radiating from Lilith's mind fearsome. Now, they feel so fragile, fading and yielding at her slightest beckoning.
Marcus.
She feels the low tenor of his presence reverberating more strongly in response.
A sharp, stinging pain runs from her spine to her brain, paralysing her momentarily. Her transformation is incomplete, her body still absorbing the chemicals.
She doesn't have the luxury of displaying weakness. Drawing upon the century of experience she's had in concealing pain, she straightens her back, squares her shoulders and strides decisively through the curtain of gleaming beads, parting them with her mind, hearing the noisy rattle as the little balls knock into one another, announcing her presence.
She hears his breathing long before she sees his tall figure, his hands resting on the intricate parapet of the arched balcony.
"So you know."
Lilith's first Guide doesn't turn, his back and his neck vulnerable and exposed to her.
"I'm not here to kill you, Marcus."
He turns abruptly, his gaze impassive, waiting for her to state her purpose.
The pain chooses at that moment to sear, burning through her muscles, and it's only by will that she catches herself, hiding the agony and raising her chin. "I want to know if you're willing to take Edward's place as my Guide."
Her request is met with silence.
She knows she's capable of plucking the answer from his mind. But the male has saved her life more than once. And unlike the others, he has never harmed her. It was how she knew, the moment Eleazar revealed the truth, that Marcus is Lilith's original Guide. Not the apparent favourite Aro, but Marcus.
Isa steps forward, letting her fingers trail delicately along the railings. "What's wrong? Isn't this the very reason you've been courting me?"
Unexpectedly, Marcus's eyes flash. "Don't flatter yourself."
She doesn't take offense. "How else should I interpret your signals?"
Marcus's expression is cold.
"As an indication that you should finish your task with utmost haste."
"Do you have so little loyalty for Lilith that you want her dead so quickly?" Isa asks, disdainful.
"My loyalty, once given, is absolute," Marcus replies, his voice soft. "It always has been and will continue to remain so."
A flurry of images is offered up to her—memories—and she accepts.
They're human memories, the details not as sharp, the edges blurry.
Isa sees the profile of a young woman with dark hair and a gentle smile, humming to herself as she rocks a sleeping child in her arms.
"Didyme!"
The peace is shattered in that one moment, darkness prevailing as the memories in-between are hidden from her, the only other thing she experiences being the warm, sticky sensation of blood and grief.
The colours meld into one another, forming a new image.
It's Lilith, her power newly acquired, perched gracefully on the high walls of Volterra—previously midnight blue instead of white.
"I can return what you've lost, Marcus," she says. "But only after my reign. I don't trust anyone but you."
The titanium vial in her hand rolls down the roof, clattering as it hits the tiles before whistling downwards into the wet, muddy ground.
"Will you do me this last favour? Stay with me until the end of the cycle. I'll leave you be and feed from another."
Marcus sighs but acquiesces. "Very well. One cycle, that's as long as I can wait."
"I'll find a replacement earlier. I'll raze everything to the ground. Perhaps then they'll see what has become of their prophecy."
"Such madness is unbecoming of you," Marcus says, disapproving.
"What does it matter, if everything ends before it begins? If—"
The memories are retracted.
Isa returns to her sore corporeal body in Volterra and Marcus is leaning back against the parapet, the breeze tugging his hair and rattling the beaded curtains.
"I take it you know my answer."
Lilith's venom is fire, eating through Isa's heart and she folds her arms, resisting. "You helped me because you wanted me to end the reign. You used me."
"I merely hastened the process," Marcus says calmly. "If not you, then someone else. If not her, then someone else. Someone must—"
"There's no need to say anymore. I understand your point." Isa truly does. By chance or by purpose, she's the next sacrificial lamb to be paraded around as the figurehead they call queen—there's nothing she can do about it.
But she can do something for Edward and she's determined not to let him share her fate.