Impact Winter · Audible Originals

Episode 12. The Requiter

October 3, 2024·52 min·5 clips

Darcy unveils the Queen's hidden Arctic sanctum, forcing the team to embark on a perilous submarine journey.

The episode opens with Darcy journaling from a Portuguese coastal fort where Kershen has sheltered the group after their escape from Dubrovnik. Darcy and Cassian reconnect physically for the first time since Guernsey, addressing unspoken tension about intimacy after Darcy's blighter transformation. Kershen reveals she has known the Queen's location for 300 years, having extracted the information from a rebel leader in Xi'an who had tortured and killed Amsu, the Queen's builder, and obtained fragments of the stronghold's location. The Queen is entombed in a chamber carved into a mountain on a frozen Arctic fjord in Greenland, reachable only by submarine because the surrounding seas are choked with ice. Kershen explains the Arctic was chosen because the lack of winter sunlight allowed vampires to work continuously on its construction. When she previously attempted to approach the site, she encountered an unknown protective force more powerful than any anointed vampire, something she could feel but not see. Darcy reveals she has the Queen's memories of the stronghold's construction, further establishing the mystical connection between them. The group debates whether Darcy and the Queen may be two incarnations of the same ancient goddess, a destroyer and a protector. A dramatic subplot unfolds when Rook, a 1,600-year-old vampire and Hope's former maker, arrives at the fort with an axe, intending to kill Darcy in retribution for the death of his companion Fenua. Darcy lays down her sword and refuses to fight, betting that Rook is seeking death rather than revenge. Hope nearly intervenes with a crossbow but Darcy orders her to stand down, and the gambit succeeds as Rook breaks down. He subsequently joins the mission. Hope then proposes splitting the group: she, Rook, Felix, and two humans will stay behind to create a false trail for the Council while Darcy's team proceeds by submarine. Penelope wipes their memory of the destination to prevent the Council from extracting it. In a quieter thread, Lydia donates blood for the vampires and discovers her own blood tastes sour rather than sweet. She confides in Penelope that she briefly manifested fangs, raising the possibility that her earlier vampiric transformation left permanent changes. Penelope confirms Lydia still has a pulse and normal temperature but cannot explain what is happening. The episode ends with Darcy addressing the Queen directly in a journal entry, warning her that the cracks in her refuge are showing and that Darcy's growing alliance is coming for her.

As heard by us

A tense, intimate chapter where recovery, loyalty, and dread all share the same room.

Episode 12 is at its best in the aftermath. The narrator is still recovering from the sun after the flight from Dubrovnik, and the group is pinned down at a Portuguese fort on the Atlantic coast while Kirshen keeps the Queen's location to herself.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want dread, loyalty tests, and vampire politics under pressure while the queen stays out of reach.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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