My heart dropped into my stomach and I felt the ground moving beneath me. My knees buckled and I nearly crumpled to the floor, but Nico quickly swept his arm around my waist and prevented my fall. He held on tightly and said, "I know it's not what you wanted to hear- but this is what you need to hear. If you don't help Luc then Louis will take extreme measures to make sure that he never hurts another living being."

"But why- it doesn't make sense," I managed weakly, "Luc is his brother."

"Louis is King and as King he has to put his realm first. Louis has to make choices based on the wellbeing of the court, why do you think he married Henrietta? Louis could have followed Celia into the afterlife but he didn't. Without Louis there were only two male heirs left and neither of them were fit to rule, Casper was in prison and Luc was barely able to control the darkness inside him. So Louis put aside his own personal misery for the benefit of the crown. He married a woman he hated so that she would be able to give him the heirs he needed to ensure the survival of the crown. Louis makes choices based on what is best for the crown, not what is best for him even if it means killing his own brother." Nico said.

I shook my head in disbelief, "This is too much... it is too extreme. Why does Luc have to die? Why is the crown so important that people have to die to protect it?" I snapped.

"Because you do not know what it is like to live in a power vacuum where there is no crown to enforce order or peace," Nico said impatiently. "Do you really want to know how I learned to sneak about without being heard? The answer is I had no choice. I grew up in the vacuum between the fall of the old empire and the rise of the new empire, where there were no Kings. All there was were the War Lords who fought amongst each other, destroying whoever and whatever got in their way, whether it was another war lord, their army, a city, a town... a family."

Nico stopped and squeezed his eyes shut and took a breath. It seemed liked his was willing away a bad memory or painful flash back because his face tense with an expression close to pain and grief. He took a moment then opened his eyes and looked at me and said, "You have no idea about the world- you're just a child."

The way he called me a 'child' was done in a way which implied no insult but instead a kind of jealously. The only way I could describe it was as if Nico envied the innocence I possessed and he had lost. He turned away from me and continued, "Vampires can only live peacefully under strong royal dynasties. A strong royal family can ensure centuries if not a millennia of peace and stability. Before the old empire fell the whole of North and Central America had been ruled over by a great Mayan empress for over a thousand years."

"I still don't understand why Luc has to die if I fail- I mean if Luc was a danger then couldn't the guards contain him like Casper or something?" I asked.

"It would be too much of a risk. Luc's condition is rare. There have only ever been two vampires prior to him who were afflicted with this condition. The first you know about which is Queen Rhoda who was able to control the darkness with the help of the King. The second person is someone you don't know a Prince called Tuta, Tuta the Terrible. Prince Tuta was Queen Rhoda's uncle and he earned his name seven hundred years ago when he succumbed to the darkness and destroyed an entire city. According to reports the earth split in two and the city was swallowed up by the ground, killing everyone including Tuta and his mother the Great Empress. In a single night Tuta not only destroyed a city but caused the fall of the longest running vampire empire in history. The only person to survive Prince Tuta's rampage was his sister, Luc's Grandmother who was still a child at the time. She survived and lived on to tell the story." Nico explained.

"Luc would never do that... Luc isn't like that," I argued, "Didn't this Prince Tuta have a mate or something- maybe that was the reason he snapped."

Nico shook his head, "Tuta had a mate and three children. Luc's grandmother said that after Tuta had turned dark he had sought out his mate and children and murdered them."

My mouth went dry and I whispered unsteadily, "Tuta murdered his own mate and kids?"

Nico nodded, "Tuta killed all his family except his sister."

I raised my hand unable to listen to another word. My stomach was churning and I was unable to concentrate. My heart was screaming 'Luc would never hurt us like that' but my mind was not as nearly convinced. The darkness that existed inside Luc was the same that existed inside Tuta and that meant Luc could turn on me.

"I know probably shouldn't have told you that," Nico said placing a hand on my shoulder.

I shrugged his hand off of me immediately like it was burning my skin and swayed unsteadily on my feet. The ground beneath my feet felt like it was rolling and across the way I heard a voice calling to me, "Mia?"

I looked up and saw Luc striding towards me but his face kept blurring in and out of focus. Strange white lights began to dance across my vision and suddenly my legs and arms felt like dead weights. I tried to move but instead saw the ground rushing towards me. Luc shouted my name and the world around me turned black.