Mark of Betrayal (Dark Secrets #3)(48)
Author: A.M. Hudson

“Anyway, right now, it’s not Amara’s battle with Drake you need to prepare her for, Mike,” Morgaine said. “It’s the Walk of Faith.”

“What’s the Walk of faith?” I asked, and everyone groaned.

Mike swallowed.

“You didn’t tell her?” Morgaine looked right at him.

“I…I was going to.” He scratched the back of his neck.

“What is it?”

“In order to seal your oath, you must prove your worth,” Morgaine said. “This is the right of passage Arthur mentioned.”

“A walk is a right of passage?”

“Yes, see, to prove you have the courage and strength to rule, you will take the path of treachery, walk darkness in isolation, to find hope and bring it back to your people.”

“How do you find hope? It’s not a thing; a stick, a pebble, a—”

“It’s a metaphor,” Morgaine said. “Basically, by doing the walk you’re finding the hope—or whatever.”

“Oh. Okay, so I have to walk. What’s the big deal?”

“You start it after you swear your oath—a part of the ceremony that will weaken you, both physically and spiritually,” Moustache Man said.

“Yes, and you must leave the border of the forest before dawn.”

“Why before dawn?”

“Because if you don’t, a; you will be trapped in there for eternity.”

I rolled my eyes.

“And b; you will have failed your people. You will not be crowned as queen.”

“Oh.” I looked down at my plate. “So, I just wander around the forest for the night, that’s it?”

“It won’t be that simple, my lady,” Arthur said. “It will be pitch black, you will be exhausted, burning from your markings and—”

“There are…things in the forest,” Portly Woman interrupted. “Only myths and stories have been told of the dangers you must face and the fears you must overcome to prove your worth, but even those are enough to see brave men run.”

“Yeah, or it’s just a forest and she draws pictures in the dirt with a stick for the night and walks up the hill as the sun starts to show,” Eric said.

“Well—” Morgaine folded her napkin. “We’ve no way of knowing. Not one who entered that forest after making an oath ever came out—except Lilith.”

“There were others?”

“Yes, but they were not proved to be Lilithians.”

“Why?”

“There was no way of proving it.”

“Why?” I said, sure it was becoming my new favourite word. “It’s easy enough to prove—just give them a vampire for lunch and see if he dies from the bite.”

“And where do you propose we’d have gotten one of those?” someone else asked. “Do you think Drake would just hand one over—let us kill it? If he knew those of us who weren’t imprisoned in the cells were searching for a pure blood all these centuries, he’d have had us all beheaded.”

I touched my hand to my collarbones; to the place I could only pretend I had my locket. “Okay, so, this Walk of Faith is quite possibly fatal?”

“Possibly,” Morgaine said, issuing a stern glare down the table. “But not likely.”

“You don’t have to do this, baby.” Mike reached across and rubbed my shoulder blade.

“Yes, I do.”

“No. You don’t. This is your life, Ara, if you don’t want to—”

“Look, Mike, disagreeable obligations don’t relieve a princess of her duties—you of all people would be the first to tell me that.” I looked around the table. “This changes nothing.”

Everyone looked at their dinner, except Arthur, who bowed his head to me and smiled. Mike sat back, but his face burned pink with rage and his eyes fixed to one spot on his plate.

“I say we set a date for the coronation at the House meeting tomorrow.”

“No. It will be discussed between the Private Council first,” Mike said.

“It should be an event determined and agreed on by all, not just those who—”

“That’s enough.” I stopped it before it started. “I am officially ruling that no one talks politics or battle tactics at the table for the rest of the night. I am so sick of these arguments.”

“Here, here.” Arthur rapped his knuckles on the table and dug a fork into his dinner.

Slowly, everyone went about their meals, and quiet conversations around the table made for a very pleasant evening. Until Eric mentioned le Château de la Mort.

“Elysium!” Arthur slammed his napkin on the table; I glanced up, shocked.

“I’m sorry, Councilman. I meant no disrespect.” Eric looked into his plate.

“Let it be known—” Arthur pointed at each person along the table, “—this is the last time anyone will call my home such a name.”

“Whoa, hang on.” I frowned across at him. “Isn’t that what it’s called?”

“No.” He took his napkin up again and flipped it into his lap. “It’s not.”

“It’s a nickname,” Morgaine said.

“But that’s what David always called it, too.”

“Did he now?” Arthur’s eyes narrowed.

“Urm…uh, maybe it wasn’t him who called it that.” I didn’t want to get him in trouble when he ‘came back to life.’ “So, what’s it really called?”

“Le Château Elysium.”

“Elysium? Is that like the gardens in the rivers of the Underworld—in Greek Mythology?”

“Yes.” Arthur gave Eric a sideways glance. “When the castle was built by my ancestor—”

“Your ancestor?” I screeched, then gulped it all back in. “I mean…sorry. Continue…”

“Yes,” Arthur said, letting out a breath through his nostrils. “The castle was commissioned by a man named John Philippe Knight—built as a home, a sanctuary—a place to end all journeys. And so, he named it after the place he believed to be the afterlife.”

“So, why do they call it the Castle of Death?”

“Of the Dead,” Eric corrected, becoming smaller beside Arthur.

“Because—” Arthur turned his head slowly to look away from Eric. “Being that, in Greek Mythology, Elysium is a place the dead go and, over the centuries many deaths occurred at the castle, vampires have quite amused themselves with this heinous nickname.”