The Den of Shadows Quartet - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [11]
“Look hard, Risika,” a voice behind me said. “Remember it well, for soon it will fade.”
I spun toward the voice. Everything about the speaker was black, from her hair and eyes to her clothing, everything but her unnaturally fair skin. My first thought was witch. It came from some vague recollection of my past life, though I did not know what that life had held.
My next thought was Ather. I remembered her — I remembered the dark halo her hair formed around her pale skin, and I remembered her icy laugh.
A scene flashed through my mind. Once again I remembered my death, but now I remembered before that — Aubrey, sheathing the knife that had just taken a life. Whose life? I did not know and was not sure I wanted to.
“Why have you brought me here?” I demanded. “What have you done to me?”
“Come, now,” Ather told me. “Surely you can figure it out. Look at my reflection — look well. Then tell me what I have done to you.”
I obeyed her command and turned back to the mirror. I could barely see her reflection. In the glass her form was so faint that her black hair appeared as little more than pale smoke.
“Now look at your own reflection,” she told me.
I did. Once again I looked at the figure in the mirror, wondering if she could truly be me. I had a picture of myself in my mind, and it was not the same as the one I was seeing; though very close, perhaps, it was still very wrong.
“Who am I?” I asked, turning back to her. I truly did not know.
“You do not remember your life?”
“No.” Ather smiled as I responded. A cold smile — if a snake could smile, it would smile as she did.
“I thought so,” she answered. “Your memory will, sadly, return later, but for now …” She trailed off with a shrug, as if it did not matter.
“Who am I?” I demanded. “Answer me.” I was angry, but her nonchalance was not the only reason. My mind had been spinning since I awoke. The sensation had been faint at first, but now the edges of my vision were beginning to go red.
“Why?” she responded. “Who you were no longer matters. You are Risika, of Silver’s bloodline.”
“And who is Risika?” I pressed, trying to ignore the painful shiver that wracked my body. “What is she?”
“She is — you are — a vampire,” Ather told me. The information took a moment to reach my mind. I knew words like witch and Devil. This one was foreign. From somewhere, some memory I could not quite see, I heard someone say, “There are creatures out there that would damn you if they could, simply for spite.”
Surely Ather was one of those creatures the speaker had been talking about. And Aubrey — I remembered him as well. Once again I saw him sheathing his knife, but still I could not remember why he had taken it out.
“You have made me into —” I broke off.
“Do you know I can read your mind like a book?” Ather said, laughing. “You are young now, still partially human. You will quickly learn to shield your thoughts, perhaps even from me. You are strong, even now. He warned me you would be. Was he afraid you would be too strong for me to control?”
I did not say anything, hardly understanding what Ather said. My head was spinning as if I had hit it on something, and I was having difficulty focusing on anything.
Ather paused, looking at me, and then smiled. When she did, I could see pale fangs, and I repressed another shiver. “Come, child,” she told me. “You need to hunt before your body destroys itself.”
Hunt. The word sent dread through me. It reminded me of wolves and cougars, animals who stalked their prey in the forest. Blood soaking into the ground. So much blood …
Now I wanted that blood. I could see the scarlet death in my mind. Surely the blood was warm and sweet and —
What was happening to me? These thoughts were not mine, were they?
“Come, Risika,” Ather snapped. “The pain will worsen until you either feed or go mad from it.”
“No.” I said the word solidly without reluctance, despite the way I felt. I was burning, and there