13: Will You Hear My Story?

Jeremy stared down at the unconscious but breathing Nova laying suddenly on her bed. As soon as they had heard the 'thud' Zina and he ran to the other end of the hall and found her there. For once she actually looked remotely peaceful. "That's… that's really Nova? We just zapped her here from Whitmore?"

Zina nodded as she approached her sleeping sister with relief lightly on her face. With her delicate, slender fingers she took out the clips and let Nova's hair fall onto the plush pillow beneath her head. A small ache bubbled in her chest as she gently touched the ends of her sister's hair. Sure, Zina had cut a few inches off of her own after she was resurrected, but never shorter than her shoulder blades. Even without her emotions Zina couldn't imagine how Nova had to feel somewhere at least about losing so much of her beautiful hair. The ends of what were left were frayed and split, barely caressing over her shoulders. Strangely enough, for once in their lives, Zina felt no spite or animosity towards her older sister. She understood. She could actually feel her own humanity. If only Nova could have hers… Zina almost wondered if they could actually be sisters.

"Thank you, Jeremy," she told him softly. "I wouldn't have been able to do this if it wasn't for your help."

"What exactly did we do though? How can you do magic if you're a vampire? Let alone magic that strong. I don't even think Bonnie could do something like that."

"Because it's not witches' magic, Jeremy." There was a brokenness in her dark eyes when she finally looked up at him. "It's much stronger than that. And I honestly should not have been able to do it."

"Then how were you able to? I know it doesn't seem like it, Zina, since we're always trying to fight each other and whatnot," they both smiled a little, "but you're not so bad. I think you were the way you were on the Other Side only because of everything that happened to you and how long you'd been there." Her eyes widened slowly with each word. "Since you've been alive again you're actually not that awful. You're almost, kind of, a friend."

A friend? Zina thought. The only friend I'd ever had was Katerina… and where is she now?

Finally, the ravenette sighed. "Vasiles… we can touch upon a certain kind of magic per se, but it's not the simple give-and-take of nature based witch magic. When Qetsiyah created the immortality elixirs and defied nature, it and she created the Other Side. When Remiel began her descent upon Earth and humanity creating our lineage, she cut open a pit into Oblivion. It takes a great trial for one of us to even dip a finger into Oblivion and so much as graze its power, but when we do… it leaves a bit of itself within. It latches onto the part that was already there to anchor us to it, but with the Other Side in the middle that acts as our supernatural purgatory. Which, by the way, actually exists. A story for another time though. The Other Side keeps us as we are on an unchanging plane. Without it we would be subjected to Oblivion for eternity. I have felt my anchor to Oblivion which is what gives me my psychic abilities, but without having ever gone through my own trial I have no direct access to Oblivion."

Jeremy's eyes had widened with deep processing. Every time they seemed to get an understanding of one supernatural thing, five more much worse would storm the field. "Then what allowed you to do that spell to bring Nova here? There's no way it was just channeling me."

"It wasn't… because I wasn't just channeling you."

"Who else could you have been channeling…?"

A deep sorrow filled her black eyes. She knew he would not like the answer. "Lucifer."

"You're a fool not to run," Nadia told Katherine. "Silas will find you."

"Or he won't." The elder vampire shrugged. "You're the one who said it - I'm pretty good at dodging the diabolical ones. Besides, Silas doesn't need me until he figures out how to destroy the Other Side. If he cures himself before then, he goes back to being a witch. He dies as a witch, well…" She mixed some tea. "Then he's stuck in supernatural purgatory. There's just been one outstanding question that's just been nagging at me for the last five hundred years. Where were you in 1498?"

Nadia was confused as she sat on the edge of the motel bed. "I don't know, I was eight. Why?"

"Because by 1498 I'd escaped, ditched the people that were chasing me, and found my way back to Bulgaria. I searched every village, every cottage, but I couldn't find you."

"You… you went back?"

"Yes, Nadia. I went back for you." She turned and handed her daughter the cup of tea. "Someone very sweet and very stupid gave their life so I could."

"Who would do such a thing?"

Katherine poured herself a cup of tea and sat in a chair across from Nadia. Her expression was unreadable, but it was difficult to mask the pain beneath. "Her name was Valora Vasile."

"Another Vasile?" The younger Bulgarian exclaimed.

She nodded. "After I had you and I was exiled, I found myself in England. Valora found me and offered me to stay with her family in the countryside. Her mother was a healer; she could tell immediately that I had recently had a child and so they took me in and helped me. Valora… she was genuine, and lighthearted. We actually became friends. We were at the town market getting things for dinner in 1492 when we met Trevor. He invited us and her parents to a beautiful gala in the city. Valora's parents even used some money they had been saving so we could all look nice for an evening."

There was a growing sorrow on her face as she continued. "It was amazing at first. I honestly never thought I would ever see Valora so free. We spent time dancing which caused us to lose her parents. She went to look for them and Klaus found me. When I heard her scream I didn't even excuse myself, I just ran. Daciana had murdered Valora's parents and was trying to kill her in the garden."

Nadia's eyes were wide. She nearly choked on her sip of tea. "Why would she do such a thing? They were merely innocent humans, were they not?"

"They were, but they were still Vasiles. And Daciana swore vengeance against all Vasiles. Valora had tried to run, but Daciana was an Original. When I ran out, I saw Valora do… something. To this day I'm still not sure, but it caused Daciana pain enough for us to run. She had always secretly researched dark things that I paid no mind to until then. We fled with Trevor's help who brought us to Rose. But I had the moonstone and she wasn't trying to be on Klaus' hit list next so Valora and I got locked up to await Klaus and Daciana. That was when Valora came up with my escape.
"She took a small dagger from beneath her sleeve that she had stolen from Daciana and told me to stab myself with it. She would call for Rose who would give me her blood to heal me, then I would kill myself to turn and use Valora's blood to complete transition and escape. I insisted there had to be another way out like whatever she had done to Daciana, but she just couldn't do it again. I wondered why she wouldn't just turn with me then, and her reply still haunts me to this very day."

"What had she said…?"

"'Because you need human blood to complete transition, and there truly is no hope for my family. We are monsters.""

"If a Vasile helped you escape Klaus, and you adopted another from Romania, why did you try to murder Siya and Zarya Vasile then?"

Katherine gave a single, dry, humorless laugh. "I've always had an odd relationship with the Vasile clan. When I returned to Bulgaria and couldn't find you, I instead found a faction of Vasiles trying to take the land since Klaus and Daciana had murdered everyone prior. It enraged me, so I murdered everyone I could. In the beginning of spring in 1841 I was coming into Romania when I got a strange letter by means of an all black Procellariidae."

"Those are decently common in Romania, but not an entirely black one that knows how to deliver letters. Usually they reside closer to bodies of water."

"Yes they do. And do you know where Vasile castle is in Bucharest?" Nadia shook her head. "In the forests beside Lacul Morii, the largest lake in Bucharest. Turns out a handful of all black Procellariidae were the companions of Alina Vasile who had told me a sad tale of her husband and his family compelling her life and becoming pregnant with a set of Cursed Twins. She made the contingency of Zina being given away for fear that the Mihais would abuse the curse and her children. She told me explicitly where the infant would be in Romania, the name Alina hoped she would have, and the ruby bracelet destined for the child. She begged I would care for her child just enough to allow Zina to live. I had already been forced to lose my own child; somehow I just couldn't subject another mother to that kind of pain."

Nadia was beyond stunned. While she tried to process all of that, something else still nagged her. "Then… then how could you bring yourself to watch a car with a mother and her young daughter go over a bridge and into water they could not survive?"

Katherine's countenance had become rigid and solemn. She thought for a long moment about her actual reason that never once had she spoken aloud. "Because… because it had to be done, Nadia. Remiel had found Siya and Zarya; she was closing in. Siya may have been able to tell her to fuck off, but Zarya would have been too impressionable and for Zarya to be Remiel's vessel is too dangerous."

Nadia set the cup down and rubbed her face tiredly. "I just don't understand. I… I can't. How did you know about Remiel finding them? How did you even know about them to begin with? Just… why?"

Heaving a heavy sigh, the brunette finally admitted the long buried truth. "Zina used to get nightmares, mostly when she was pregnant with Katia. She was psychic growing a dhampir baby so they were visions. We never knew exactly who the girl was, so I looked into it myself later. In one set, Remiel had Zarya for a vessel. The Earth was consumed by shadows and blood and fire. There was no surviving if you did not yield to Remiel. She was untamed mass destruction until there was literally nothing left. Not even a single other Vasile or so much as a freaking leaf."

"And in the other set of visions…?"

"Zarya had the power to kill Remiel. Her power was in check, as great as it was. She was… content. She did what she had to do to survive. I knew what path she needed to be put on if we were to avoid her becoming Remiel's vessel and incinerating the galaxy."

"What path was that, aside from going over a bridge as a child?"

"She had to, Nadia!" Katherine's voice rose with defensiveness. "Believe it or not, I hadn't wanted to but I knew she would be fine. I knew she would be back."

"How could you possibly know such a thing?"

"Zarya had to go to him. He's the only way Remiel can't touch her. Ever."

"Who?" The younger Bulgarian vampire stressed.

"Lucifer."

"What the hell have you done?!" Zina exclaimed when she made her way downstairs. Damon and Elena stood over a couch where a dried-up Silas laid.

Damon's brow quirked upwards. "What the hell have you and your mischievous sister been up to? I took my eyes off of Nova for fifteen minutes and she's gone with a text from you saying she was here."

"She is here. She's upstairs asleep on her bed. Remiel was at your foolish dance anticipating Nova's being there."

"How… how would you have known?" Elena asked.

Zina rolled her eyes. "Psychic, duh? So you're welcome. Now what the hell is this?" She gestured to Silas.

Damon smirked. "Well, the only way for Silas to trade in his life for Bonnie's is if he's a witch."

"But the only way for him to become a witch again is with the cure."

"Yep." A knock sounded on the front door suddenly, prompting both women to look up at him. While Elena looked mildly more confused, the pieces were coming together for Zina. "Now, who could that be?" He grinned and went to the door.

"What's so urgent? I am on the run," came Katherine's voice as she waltzed in. "Don't exactly have time for a pit stop."

Zina's eyes widened while they looked between Silas and Katherine. She was so busy assuming they had successfully killed Silas that she didn't even consider the other option. Zina's heart raced a little in her chest; it was only a matter of time then before they were able to resurrect Bonnie. Sure, she had a possible way of getting Katia back, but was she really able to let herself let them get Bonnie Bennett back? Without Bonnie they would be down a witch, but Zina and Katia could easily fill that spot. Perhaps it was time for Zina to attempt the trial of Oblivion for herself.

"Damon, no," Katherine pleaded when she finally realized. She took a quick step back and looked to Zina. "Zina, help me!"

Damon looked to the raven haired Romanian curiously. Would she try something to protect Katherine? Her black eyes looked around at the four with deep contemplation. She wore Lucifer's talisman completely unnoticed around her neck with the actual pendant resting beneath her white lace shirt. It gave an icy burn against the flesh of her chest and she pursed her lips staring Katherine in the eye.

"My daughter is dead, Katerina," her voice shook for only a moment. Damon noticed then the way the Romanian accent presented itself in the emotion of her tone just as it would with Nova.

"And them letting Silas suck me dry to become a witch again is not going to bring her back!" Katherine argued with panic.

The Bulgarian realized then that it was not sorrow lingering in her progeny's dark eyes over the loss of her daughter. There was a dark determination. She had something planned already, but why was Zina willing to let Katherine die for it? Her eyes widened when she realized. Damon used his speed and strength to grab her and drag her towards Silas. "Zina Arete what the hell have you done?!" She exclaimed just before Damon held her down for Silas to feed.

Slowly, as life began to fill Silas, Zina backed up to the stairs before sprinting up them. She hastily shook her sister awake and tossed clothes at her. "I guess we're doing the spell now."

"And why would that be?" Nova questioned as she used her speed to change.

"Because Silas is about to suck the life out of Katherine."

The elder twin's brow arched curiously. "So what? Aside from the fact that he's doing me a favor."

Just the way Zina looked back at her sister, Nova knew.

"At the time of opening the rift someone of great sacrifice must die so Katia can step through."