Origins

"But how …"

"Notice your ring." Emily tapped my hand. On my ring finger was a gleaming lapis-lazuli stone, inset in silver. "It’s a remedy and a protection. inset in silver. "It’s a remedy and a protection. Katherine had me make it for you the night she marked you."

"Marked me," I repeated dumbly, once again touching my neck, then allowing my fingers to drop to the smooth stone of the ring.

"Marked you to be like her. Y ou’re almost a vampire, Stefan. Y ou’re well into the transformation," Emily said, as if she were a doctor diagnosing a patient with a terminal illness.

I nodded as if I understood what Emily was saying, even though it might as well have been a completely different language. Transformation?

"Who found me?" I asked, starting with the question I cared least about.

"I did. After the shots were fired on you and your brother, everyone ran. The house burned down. People died. Not just vampires." Emily shook her head, her face deeply troubled. "They brought all the vampires to the church and burned them there. Including her," Emily said, her tone impossible to comprehend.

"Did she make me a vampire, then?" I asked, touching my neck.

"Y But in order to complete the transition,

es. you must feed. It’s a choice you have to make. Katherine had the power of destruction and death, but even she had to allow her victims that choice."

"She killed Rosalyn." I knew it in the same way I’d known Damon loved Katherine. It was as if a cloud had lifted, only to reveal more blackness.

"She did," Emily said, her face inscrutable. "But that has nothing to do with what happens. If you choose, you can feed and complete the transition, or let yourself …"

"Die?"

Emily nodded.

I didn’t want to feed. I didn’t want Katherine’s blood inside me. All I wanted was to go back several months, before I’d ever heard the name Katherine Pierce. My heart twisted in agony for all I’d lost. But there was someone who’d lost more.

As if she’d read my mind, Emily helped me to my feet. She was tiny, but strong. I stood up and shakily walked outside.

"Brother!" I called. Damon turned, his eyes shining. The water reflected the rising sun, and smoke billowed through the trees in the distance. But the clearing was eerily quiet and peaceful, harkening back to an earlier, simpler time.

Damon didn’t answer. And before I even realized what I was doing, I walked to the edge of the water. Without bothering to take off my clothes, I dove in. I came up for air and breathed out, but my mind still felt dark and dirty.

Damon stared down at me from the water’s edge. "The church burned. Katherine was inside," he said tonelessly.

"Y I didn’t feel satisfaction or sadness. I just

es." felt deep, deep sorrow. For myself, for Damon, for felt deep, deep sorrow. For myself, for Damon, for Rosalyn, for everyone who’d gotten caught in this web of destruction. Father had been right. There were demons who walked the earth, and if you didn’t fight them, then you became one.

"Do you know what we are?" Damon asked bitterly.

We locked eyes, and instantly I realized that I didn’t want to live like Katherine. I didn’t want to see the sunlight only with the aid of the ring on my finger. I didn’t want to always gaze at a human’s neck as if contemplating my next feeding. I didn’t want to live forever.

I ducked down under the surface of the water and opened my eyes. The pond was dark and cool, just like the shack. If this was what death was, it wasn’t bad. It was peaceful. Quiet. There was no passion, but also no danger.

I surfaced and pushed my hair off my face, my borrowed clothes hanging off my soaked limbs. Even though I knew what my fate was, I felt remarkably alive. "Then I’ll die."

Damon nodded, his eyes dull and listless. "There’s no life without Katherine."

I climbed out of the water and hugged my brother. His body felt warm, real. Damon briefly returned my embrace, then hugged his knees again, his gaze fixed on a spot far away from the water’s edge.

"I want it done," Damon said, standing up and walking farther away toward the quarry. I watched his retreating back, remembering the time when I was eight or nine that my father and I had gone buck hunting. It was right after my mother had died, and while Damon had immersed himself in schoolboy antics like gambling and riding horses, I’d clung to my father. One day, to cheer me up, Father took me to the woods with our rifles.

We’d spent over an hour tracking a buck. Father and I headed deeper and deeper into the forest, watching the animal’s every move. Finally, we were in a spot where we saw the buck bowing down, eating from a berry bush.

"Shoot," Father murmured, guiding my rifle over my shoulder. I trembled as I kept my eye on the deer and reached for the trigger. But at the moment I released the trigger, a baby deer scampered into the field. The buck sprinted away, and the bullet hit the fawn in the belly. Its wobbly legs crumpled beneath it, and it fell to the ground.

I’d run to try to help it, but Father had stopped me, holding on to my shoulder.

"Animals know when it’s time to die. Let’s at least allow it the peace to do it alone," Father said, forcibly marching me away. I’d wailed, but he was relentless. Now, watching Damon, I understood. Damon was the same way.

"Good-bye, brother," I whispered.

Chapter 30

Though Damon wanted to die alone, I had unfinished business to attend to. I made my way from the quarry and began to walk back to the estate. The woods smelled like smoke, and the leaves were starting to turn. They crunched under the worn boots I had on my feet, and I remembered all the times Damon and I had played hide-and-seek as children. I wondered if he had any regrets, or if he felt as empty as I did. I wondered if we’d see each other in Heaven, being as we were. I walked toward the house. The carriage house was charred and burned, its beams exposed like a skeleton. Several of the statues around the labyrinth were broken, and torches and debris littered the once-lush lawn. But the porch light at the main house was on, and a buggy stood at attention beneath the portico.