Shades of Grey

SALVO— JULY 1844

The following morning, I awoke before dawn in a flurry of anxious nerves. Forma, on the other hand, took significantly longer to rise.

“Come on, Forma,” I called as I pulled on my new black leather coat she had purchased with my new mask. “We’ve got to leave now.”

“Why do we have to leave so early?” she complained as she slowly rolled off her bed. “If you could see how dark it was, you be just as unwilling to travel.”

I laughed and pulled a knapsack of supplies over my shoulder.

“Come on,” I said, striding over to the door and carefully opening it. “I can’t travel alone. Are you going to let the blind girl get lost on her way to the Vampire City?”

“Good God, Grey, you wouldn’t get lost. Your sense of direction is better than mine, but fine, I’ll get up,” muttered Forma as she promptly stood and looped her arm through mine, drowsily leading me forward.

“Thank you, Forma,” I said in a teasing voice.

“Shut up,” she snapped as we approached the lobby. Forma then stopped and I heard her give a sharp intake of breath as I felt her muscles clench.

“What is it?” I asked.

“An obstacle,” Forma replied in a low whisper.

I then heard the distinctive clinking of golden earrings and the familiar stride that had woken me at the hospital. I sighed.

“Please don’t try to stop me,” I called strongly as Anesthia approached us. I heard her exhale curtly, as though I had taken the words directly from her mouth.

“I trust you’ve thought about what I said, then?”

There was a beat of silence as a terse irritation rose inside of me.

“Believe me Highness, I’ve thought about it many times over the last two years, but I’ve realised something.”

“And what is that?” asked Anesthia. I smiled, having given similar answers to the others who had asked me a very similar question.

“I cannot stop. I was born to Hunt and it is what I must do until the day that I die. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a very important and long overdue meeting with a Vanguard.”

I tugged on Forma’s arm and together we strode confidently out of the hotel and onto the deserted street where Forma and I both transformed into Graylight Dragons and took to the skies, flying boldly towards Vikka.