Vampires Realm Prophecy 01 - Child of Light

her. Prophecy’s eyes immediately moved to them and the slim silver tube that Mia was carefully carrying. She went to move but stopped herself. She was shaking inside, trembling. She glanced at Valentine, wanting him to do what she didn’t have the courage to. He nodded, walked past her and took the tube from Mia’s hands. He unclipped the lid and she stopped breathing when he gently removed its contents, sliding the rolled parchment out with his little finger.
    He slowly opened it and stared at its contents. She didn’t know what kind of reaction she’d expected, but his deadpan expression clearly wasn’t it. She rushed forwards, peering over his shoulder at the scroll.
    The dark red ink looked like nothing more than scratches made at varying angles. It was no wonder it had taken the vampires a decade to decipher it originally. She couldn’t make sense of it at all.
    “It is written in cuneiform,” Valentine said.
    Her gaze met his and she frowned. “Can you read it?”
    He shook his head and a hint of apology entered his eyes. “It could take years to translate this.”
    He carefully rolled it up and slid it back into the intricately carved silver holder. Prophecy stared at it and found herself wanting to touch it. She wanted to feel the weight of it in her hand so she could measure it against the weight of the burden it had placed on her shoulders. She glanced at Valentine again. It wasn’t all on her shoulders. He was carrying a lot for her. She knew that. She wasn’t blind. Since leaving Prague, he had done most of the work, including the fighting. Sometimes it felt as though she was along for the ride, a passenger in his adventure. It was time that changed. She couldn’t continue letting him take care of every scrape that they found themselves in, or find every contact that might have information for them. This was her fate, her life. It was time she took command of it.
    “We have to take this to Mathias,” he said.
    She grabbed hold of the slim metal case and felt as though she was finally taking hold of her destiny. It was so light, so strangely light when compared to the gravity of what it contained, and it was so small, barely six inches long.
    “There isn’t time,” she said. “We must go to the castle like Elena said. Mathias won’t have time to decipher this and we won’t have time to get the second half before this war begins.”
    Valentine gave her a look that said he wasn’t so sure but she stood firm, showing him how resolute she was. She wasn’t going to travel all the way back to England now, not when they were so close to the final battle. Seeing the language the scroll was written in had forced her to react, and she was going to do exactly as her heart commanded.
    She was going to war.
    She was going to save the world.
    No matter what the scroll said.
    That was her destiny.

Chapter 31
    Valentine stared at Prophecy, taking in the serene look that sleep had given to her. She was lying on a chaise lounge, her hands resting on her stomach and her dark hair flowing around her shoulders. She looked like a corpse. In some people’s eyes, she was. Humans always saw vampires as reanimated corpses. He’d never really figured out why. The demon didn’t inhabit the body; it was a part of it. What humans saw as the demon inside him, was just him. They believed that any human emotion felt by a demon such as himself must be the human side that had existed before death by a vampire’s kiss. There was no boundary between human and demon. His human side was dead, reincorporated into the demon that he’d now become. Although he was a demon, there was a more animalistic side of him, one that all vampires held deep inside. When released, it was this side of him that altered his appearance. It was the instinct deep inside that made him want to change and whispered words to him about killing and blood, and words about Prophecy. Vampires were the same as werewolves and other shape shifters—a demon with another side, one that changed their appearance and unleashed a basic instinct to kill. They were always a demon though and never the human they appeared to be.
    The exchange of blood hadn’t infected him with a virus-like creature. It had merely mutated his DNA and given him life after death. There was nothing human about him, not any more. His memories were the only evidence of his life. Everything he felt were his feelings, not some lingering human emotion. He wasn’t human. No shred