Slaying the Vampire Conqueror

by Carissa Broadbent

Arachessen were not supposed to mourn the things we gave up in the name of our goddess—Acaeja, the Weaver of Fates, the Keeper of the Unknown, the Mother of Sorcery. We could not mourn the eyesight, the autonomy, the pieces of our flesh carved away in sacrifice. And no, we could not mourn the sex, either.

Threadwhisper

When she spoke into my mind, I could sense a faint echo of the ocean wind as it caressed her face.

Threadwhispers were very useful. Communication that couldn’t be overheard, that could transcend sound the same way we transcended sight. It was a gift from the Weaver, one for which I was very grateful.

Decades later, I would not forget this moment. Exactly how it felt when they made landfall. Their magic sickened me, tainted and cursed, making the air taste so thickly of blood I nearly gagged on it.

Sisters of the Arachessen are trained extensively in the magic of every god. From the time we were children, we were exposed to all magics, even when our bodies protested, even when it burned us or broke us.

them the way that one feels the body warmth of another, all their threads connected to yours. All that, all at once, severed. The dead did not have threads.

It was strange how viscerally it reminded me of another distant memory, a memory I was no longer supposed to have, of how it felt to witness life snatched away in the unforgiving jaws of war.

Task? Who cared about that limp-dicked little nobleman now?

Damn sylina LOL

Even from this distance, I could sense his appearance through the threads—that he wore fine clothes, and even finer armor over them. His hair was long and reflected the moonlight, soaked in salty tendrils around his shoulders. And of course, there were the horns. Black as night, protruding from his upper forehead and curling back. They were like nothing I’d ever witnessed before. The product, surely, of some dark,

It was not a sacrifice. It was an exchange: Close your eyes, child, and you will see an entire world.

She was only seventeen. Loss still hit her deep. But then, I supposed it hit us all deep. We just learned how to cover the wounds with other things. Stitch it up with the threads of our next task.

Acaeja was the only exception—the only god who tolerated Nyaxia and the vampire society she had created.

Ascension, not death. Never death. Arachessen didn’t believe in death, only change. Just as the loss of our eyes didn’t mean the loss of sight, the loss of a heartbeat didn’t mean the loss of life.

“I see you,” she said. “Does it matter?” I replied. She let out a vicious laugh. “Probably not. Funny, how I spent my entire life peering into the future and never thought that my end would come at the hands of one of you fucking cultists. Well, I’m not one to fight fate.” Her lip curled. “But I will fight you.”

“You’d think that a child of your goddess would understand that the world looks awfully different depending on where you stand. Or maybe they took your eyes so you wouldn’t see that.”

I jumped a little, startled, as he touched my cheek, the rough pad brushing a strand of my hair behind my ear. “You’re lucky,” he said, “that I have a soft spot for caged birds.”

This close, I could sense his features more clearly. They were rigid and strong, as if carved out of stone, albeit imperfectly—his nose slightly crooked, as if it had been broken and poorly set once, his brow low over deep-set eyes, mouth thin and serious. The scent of snow was overwhelming.

“But hey, maybe you’ll be different. You’re just his type, actually.” “His type?” Erekkus leaned forward and gave me a conspiratorial smirk. He held out a finger with each word. “Beautiful. Mysterious. Dangerous. And an obvious, clear-as-the-fucking-moon mistake.”

Maybe I should have considered further that I had deliberately chosen to sabotage Atrius’s army before I’d insisted on marching with them.

The castle was garish and disgusting on the inside, cluttered and dirty, once-fine silks and furniture stained with blood and cum and wine. Aaves was only the most recent of a long string of warlords who ruled over this pile of shit—there were countless other men like him who fought among each other like dogs to sit on the prime seat. I hated men like this.

I hated men who used their power to gorge themselves. Hated men who thought it was acceptable to murder their own people as long as it gave them one more chance at hanging onto their golden toys.

I was wildly exposed for someone in the presence of an enemy, but this demanded my full focus. It was so far within him that I had to push a little further with every breath, like trying to walk against the brutal winds of a storm, hands shielding my face.

“Perhaps my appearance is unusual. But don’t worry about me. I know how to kill quietly.” At that, a flicker of a smirk. He leaned closer, and to my shock, his fingertips brushed the soft underside of my chin. “Hm,” he said. “To think I let such a dangerous creature sleep beside me every night.”

One whiff of that salty, sweat-thick air, one moment of those city sounds that had not changed in twenty years, and the past yanked me back to its side as if by a collar around my throat: You thought you escaped, but you will always be mine. Look at all these marks you cannot wash away.

didn’t move my hand from Atrius’s bare chest. Nor did I move when his hand slowly flattened against my cheek, fingers tangling in my hair, cradling my face. And when he came closer, closer until his breath mingled with mine, I let him. Even when the space between us disappeared entirely.

I started to turn away, but Atrius caught my wrist. A long moment of silence stretched out between us. He stared at me with those eyes that seemed to skewer right through me. And just when I thought he didn’t have anything to say at all, he spoke. Four words in Obitraen. “What did that mean?” I asked. He just shook his head and let me go. “Take care of your brother,” he murmured, and turned to the fire.

You make me ravenous. Those words buried in my soul. I felt the truth of them. Felt, somewhere innately, that he had said them to me once before—in Obitraen, the night he kissed me. And I understood it. The hunger for revenge, for salvation, for blood, for sex, for death, for life, for all the things we’d been denied. I felt it all. “Good,” I whispered. And the word was swallowed up between us as his mouth crashed against mine.

And then his lust crested in a sudden wave, washing us both away, and he was everywhere.

It’s a title that you deserve because you are a good leader. You are intelligent. You are compassionate. You know what the people of Glaea want and need. You have lived the lives of many here. And I know that if you were to be tasked with their well-being, you would advocate for the lives of these people until your dying breath. That makes you worthy of power, Vivi.” A wry twist of his lips. “And so damned few are.”

But there was no time to be afraid. I wanted to live long enough to see the Pythora King’s death. Or at least the death of this fucking lizard.

“There is no greater offering to a god than the acolyte of another,” I said.

Seconds for him to hold her back by her hair, letting all that blood pour over the altar, and lift his chin to the sky. “Goddess Nyaxia,” he screamed. “I give you this gift. An acolyte of Acaeja. The blood of a tyrant queen, and the crown of a White Pantheon kingdom. I spill this blood and claim this kingdom for you, my Mother of the Ravenous Dark, Nyaxia.” His voice cracked. Bathed in such intense light, no one else could see the single tear slide down his cheek. No one but me. He choked out, “My pact to you has been fulfilled.”

“So very terrified of that beating thing within your chest. That is the wrong enemy, child.”

Strange, how being so exposed can make a soul feel so very safe.