Blood Covenant

I checked the inscription again, finding midnight written beside it. I glanced at Damien’s wristwatch: twenty minutes to twelve.

He put the lantern beside the calendar. Behind its glass face, a thin red line had almost reached the end of a numbered scale.

“Three hundred years,” he said. “I’ve been replacing parts for six months because the island’s boundary kept getting weaker.”

I followed the engraving around the silver disc. The letters continued on a sheet of thick parchment hinged beneath it, sheltered from the damp. I lifted it carefully, expecting the weight of an ordinary page, and adjusted my grip accordingly.

The covenant named the two people above the door. Neither title stood higher than the other.

There had been attacks, reprisals and armies gathering on the human shore. The Founder had accepted the island as sanctuary for the clans; the human ruler had agreed to keep his people beyond its boundary, and the seal had hidden the knowledge that would have brought them back in search of vengeance.

My childhood histories called it a retreat by an inferior species. I read the next line with my thumb resting beside the human signature.

“The memories were supposed to return.”

Damien came to stand beside me.

“On renewal, the knowledge returns to every living human,” I read. “The first peace, and the oath that continues it.”

They would remember. Somewhere beyond the water were people who would wake knowing what had been kept from them, while I had spent my whole life wishing I knew nothing about this place at all.

Below that were the provisions for the keepers: the human witness could depart freely, not be confined or converted against their will, and could register other humans beneath the same protection. The clans’ founding blood-oaths enforced those rights.

The register beside the sheet was empty. There had been no human witness to enter the names Sarah had been afraid to tell me.

“It needs two keepers,” I said. “Both must agree to renew the covenant.”

Damien’s gaze moved to the second basin.

“Then we do it together.”

He spoke quickly, already reaching for the edge of the disc. I had heard that certainty from men arranging where I would sit, whom I would receive, and when I might be excused.

“Give me the ring,” I demanded.

He stopped.

“Lucy, we have less than twenty minutes.”

“You said when we reach the seal.”

I hated having to remind him. In the pump room, I had almost believed we could continue speaking as we had done beside the broken gate; now I was back to haggling over the exact words of an agreement.

He looked towards the inscription beneath my hand.

“Neither keeper may force the other to swear,” I read. “You can’t promise me freedom afterwards and expect that to count as a voluntary oath.”

“I’m trying to keep you alive.”

“I know.”

That was why it was difficult to stay angry in the useful, straightforward way I had done upstairs. I could still feel his hand at my waist, and I wanted him to understand without me having to explain any more.

The outer passage door struck the wall.

Owen entered with two guards. He studied the opened chamber, the blood on my palm and the basin beneath my hand. Damien moved away from the disc to stand between us.

“So,” my uncle said. “Vivienne did leave something for me to clear up after all.”

I put the parchment down before he could see it shaking.

“Did you know?” I asked.

His attention settled on my uncovered hand.

“Sarah always had an objection when I asked to see you as a child. A fever. Your mother’s instructions.” He looked towards the empty register. “I should have had that woman removed.”

“You knew about tonight,” Damien said. “The fleet at the docks. Those aren’t supply vessels.”

There were drops of rain on my uncle’s sleeve, even though the passages we had crossed were mostly dry.

“Our cattle have sustained us quite long enough,” Owen said. “Their descendants have forgotten everything useful about us. By the time they remember, the first ships will have already landed.”

He meant the humans.

I had heard guests use the word before, over warmed cups of blood, but none of them had ever been looking directly at me.

“Renew the covenant,” Damien said, looking towards me. “We can still prevent this.”

Owen ignored him.

“Take my niece out of here.”

One guard began to draw his sword. Damien caught the man’s wrist and drove him back into the doorway, where the second guard had to stop to avoid striking his companion.

I backed against the stone, and the vial in my garter pouch pressed painfully into my thigh.

“Lucy!”

Damien had his own sword out now. He blocked the passage while he pulled the signet from his finger with his injured hand.

It landed beside my hand on the ledge.

“The pump room. Left stair. Take the map.”

“What about—”

“Go!”

He pushed the folded paper towards me and turned back as Owen forced his way past the guards.

There was no time to ask any questions. I took the ring and went through the low side arch marked on the map, returning to the pump room by a short passage above the water.

At the stairs, I checked the map again. I wanted to be certain before I went down, although I could hear the sea below and knew perfectly well where it went.

The gate accepted his signet. I had to turn it twice, then pull against the weight of the iron. Cold rain blew through the opening.

The boat was there.

I stepped aboard, testing its movement before putting down my other foot. The fuel gauge was full, and a coat hung beside the little wheel. I touched the sleeve, relieved by the thought that somebody had anticipated being cold.

I pulled the starting lever towards me. The engine coughed, then settled into a steady vibration beneath my feet. Beyond the docks, the outer buoy showed a red light through the shroud.

There would be difficulties on the other shore, and perhaps nobody would want me there either, but the boat was real, and the gate stood open behind me.

I put the signet into my pocket.

Damien had expected me to take it. I remembered how he had thrown it down without making me promise anything, with my uncle coming towards him and the bandage already dark around his hand.

I had left the end of the bandage tucked beneath his thumb. It would loosen if he kept using his sword.

My foot remained on the edge of the boat while I tried to think beyond that small, stupid concern. I wanted him to have someone there when it came undone. I wanted to hear the bird he had kept in a drawer. I wanted to see whether he would still offer me his hand when I didn’t need any help.

In the chamber was a register where a mother could put a living child’s name. Sarah had spent years teaching me how to avoid being put in any register at all.

If I left, Damien couldn’t renew the covenant. I would be leaving him to face my uncle alone, and giving up the chance to put those children’s names where mine should have been.

He had already been bleeding when I left. What was happening to him while I stood here?

I stopped the engine before stepping back onto the docks. The gate stayed open while I climbed the stairs.

By the time I reached the side arch, Damien had been driven back against the ledge. Blood darkened his shirt below the waistcoat. One guard lay beside the doorway, and the other was struggling to lift an iron gate Owen had pulled down behind him.

Owen had left his own men outside to finish it himself.

He heard my shoes on the stone and turned. I pushed the heavy door hard as he reached it. Its edge struck his forearm, and I slipped behind the ledge while he shoved it aside.

“Damien!”

He looked at me as though he had misheard. I reached the human basin and unwound my handkerchief. The little cut had almost closed. I pressed it against the edge of the needle set in the rim.

“I want to do this,” I said. “With you.”

He put down his sword. When he held his injured hand over the other basin, I reached across and steadied his wrist.

The first stroke of midnight sounded above us.

The words lay beneath our hands. I began to say them, and after the first few syllables his voice joined mine.

“I give my name freely to this covenant. I will keep the peace of these shores and uphold the liberty of its witnesses. I claim no ownership of the hand beside mine.”

Owen reached across the ledge.

The light caught him with his sword raised. His arm jerked back, dragging the blade out of reach; beneath his cuff, the mark of our clan burned white. He fell against the stone, trying to close fingers that would no longer obey him.

The oath continued beneath my palm. I spoke my name; Damien spoke his, and the two basins emptied into the disc.

For a moment I tasted smoke.

A street opened around me, although my feet still stood on the stone floor. I saw a woman holding a torn white flag outside a chapel and a vampire putting down his weapon before walking towards her. There were bodies covered along the wall. Someone was crying close by, too tired to make much sound.

The memory belonged to the human witness who had stood at that meeting. I knew it with the same certainty that I knew the shape of Sarah’s handwriting.

Other recollections followed: the ships leaving the mainland, the first stones laid on the island, the two rulers bending over this disc while people waited outside to learn the outcome.

Then the vision opened outward.

I felt it pass through the living blood within me and continue beyond the shore, meeting countless others, too many others to distinguish. With it went our names and the oath we had just made.

Humanity remembered.

The chamber returned abruptly. Damien caught my elbow as I swayed, and I held his sleeve until the floor seemed steady again.

Somewhere below us, the harbour chains began to rise. The sound travelled through the stone in long, heavy strikes.

Owen remained beside the ledge. The oath he cited whenever he took his seat on the council held his dominant arm against the stone. He tried to lift it once more, and I stayed where I was until his arm gave out.

The guard outside the iron gate stopped struggling. He had seen the marks flare on our wrists.

“Open it,” Damien ordered. “Your lord needs escorting upstairs.”

It took a little time for the man to obey.

By the time we reached the ballroom, the blood-testing instruments were chiming. The blood in their coils had answered to the same authority, and the clerks were staring at the two new symbols on their dials.

I carried the silver disc, and Damien had the parchment beneath his arm, leaning more heavily against the banister than he would like to admit.

My uncle tried to speak as the guards brought him through the doorway.

“My niece is—”

“Human,” I said.

The nearest guests drew back. I resisted the old impulse to cover my hand and placed it beside the human mark on the disc instead.

“My name is Lucy Hale. The covenant is renewed.”

Damien laid the sheet of parchment on the clerk’s table. The man bent over its seals, then slowly took off his spectacles.

There would be questions.

The steward was already asking about the ships, and someone had sent for the other councillors. I stayed until Owen was taken away and the clerk entered my name into the protected register, insisting on seeing the page before I moved.

I took Damien into a window recess and made him sit down.

“You need blood,” I said.

“I’ve sent for it.”

“And something for your side?”

“Lucy.”

I stopped unfastening the buttons of his waistcoat. His hand rested lightly over mine.

“Sit here.”

There was room beside him. I sat close enough that our shoulders touched, and for several minutes we watched people cross the ballroom without speaking.

When the footman brought the blood, his hand was wrapped in clean linen. He left a cup of tea beside me and withdrew before I could thank him.

Damien drank slowly. Some colour returned to his face, and the tension in his hand eased beneath my fingers.

“Did you think I would come back?” I asked.

“No,” he said, putting the cup down. “But I wanted you to stay.”

I waited, but that seemed to be all he could say. It was enough to make me turn towards him.

“You frightened me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m still angry about it.”

He nodded. He didn’t mention the gate, or his injury, or anything else he might have expected me to weigh against it.

I touched the nick beneath his chin, taking longer than I needed to. He watched me, and this time I could choose what to do with the space between us.

I kissed him.

The first touch was uncertain enough that I almost withdrew, but his uninjured hand settled against my cheek, and I went closer, carefully avoiding his side.

When I drew back, he rested his forehead against mine. I could feel him trying to find something to say.

“I’d like to see the birds,” I told him.

He closed his eyes briefly.

“All right.”

Beyond the curtains, the musicians had begun putting their instruments away. Damien asked whether they could manage one more dance; the violinist glanced at the clerk and then raised his bow.

I checked the vial before we stood. Its stopper was secure. I wrapped it in Sarah’s cloth and put it back, with the stain folded carefully inside.

Damien offered his hand.

I left my gloves on the windowsill and closed my fingers around his.