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Emotions painted the blood. Happiness. Anger. Sorrow. Lust. Each gave off its own energy.
Humans were not good at taming their feelings. They felt everything so rudely, right out in the open, with no awareness of how their reactions might affect those with finer senses.
The only time a member of the Sanasrothian Court gave off any scent at all was after they had fed, when the spark of life that lingered in their victim’s blood still echoed with the emotions they had felt as they died. Like the faintest trace of perfume that lingered after a hug.
“They’re going to… destroy her, you know? It has already… been seen. This court will… fall… with her inside it.”
And he could have his reasons, so long as none of them involved him harboring any sort of hope that Saeris was going to confess her undying love for him. That wasn’t happening.
When sunlight could kill, a window could be a death sentence;
“What do you think I’m doing?” I snarled. “I’m saving the fucking fox!”
“And the day you save me on a battlefield, I’ll put on a dress and dance a fucking jig.”
“Don’t you know? There isn’t much I wouldn’t sacrifice to make you happy, Osha. A little healing magic is the least of it.”
“Oh no,” I muttered softly. “I still think he’d made a great hat.”
“I’m not here by anyone’s good graces. I’m here because my mate is here. Where she goes, I go. And if any more of your brethren feel like taking a swing at me, then believe me, I’m all for it. I’ve waited an age to find myself in the same room as these supercilious pricks.”
We already discovered I was immune to the effects of both silver and iron. Perhaps it was that I wasn’t entirely one thing—neither wholly vampire nor Fae. Perhaps it was that I was an Alchemist on top of everything else, and I still had an affinity for metals. Either way, I was grateful for the advantage.
“Your father was felled by his own hubris. He was too arrogant. He believed himself invincible, and I had the pleasure of showing him otherwise. A god sword will make worm food out of any of us, no matter who wields it. But, regardless,” I called in a clear voice. “I am no child. My name is Saeris Fane, and I am your queen.”
You can own your fantasies with me, Little Osha. There is nothing in this realm or the next that I won’t give to you if you desire it. All you ever need do is ask.
The darkness had swept away, revealing sumptuous furnishings, and paintings hanging from the walls, and sprays of night-blooming flowers in tall vases, throughout the hall. Suddenly, crushingly, the Hall of Tears had become beautiful.
part of the curse of their court. You can thank Malcolm’s paranoia for that. Any vampire born of his line must obey the Sanasrothian crown. Now that the crown sits on Saeris’s head and she’s forbidden them from harming her, she’s basically untouchable. She doesn’t need protecting. They have to follow the edicts. They can’t hurt her. They can’t hurt you. And not only that, but she decommissioned the fucking horde, Fisher.”
“They’re siphoning from us. If they take the Angel’s Breath…” It didn’t even bear thinking about. Would it make them stronger still?
It’s hard to concentrate on camp logistics when I can smell you across the room, though, Osha.
Be under no illusion, Little Osha. You are all I can smell.
“You know I would marry you,” he rushed out. “You must know that I want to.”
I could never imagine the kind of love I would need to feel to choose that path for myself. But now I don’t need to imagine. Now I can’t think of anything I want to do more. Marrying you would be…” He shook his head, his eyes searching my face.
“A Fae wedding ceremony is extremely sacred. It is the greatest commitment two lovers can undertake in Yvelia. Not because they swear to love and honor each other for all their days. Not because they give each other their hearts, either. It’s sacred because they give each other their names. Their true names. And I can give you everything else, Osha. But I can’t give you that.”
true name is impossible, then—” “I don’t know it,” he whispered. “I’ve never known it. We usually receive our true names on our fourteenth birthdays, and my mother—” He blinked. “Well, she died before I turned fourteen. And my father was already gone. So…”
“She really did like drawing you. But you see, that’s why I wasn’t forthright about it before. We can’t get married because I don’t have a true name to trade.”
“I love you, and nothing else matters beyond that. Wherever you are, I’ll beg the gods and all the fates to let me be there, too,” I whispered.
“There are too many pricked ears in this godscursed manor,” he groaned. “They aren’t going to like what they hear over the next few hours.”
“I don’t crave the attention of the sun. The snowcapped mountains, the forest, the frozen river… those places are my home. You are home.”
“I despise the gods, Saeris. I’m Oath Bound by this land and the blood of kings. I swore I would never offer up a word of gratitude to them again, but you have made a liar of me. You’re a gift that cannot be ignored. My heart…”
“I’ve killed more people than I can count. I lost the parts of myself that knew how to feel anything other than pain and sorrow centuries ago. But for better or worse, you have brought me back to life.”
Take me. Claim me. Fuck me. Own me.
“You taste like the end of the fucking world,” he purred. “Just kill me and be done with it. Nothing will ever be better than this.”
“You’re much stronger than you used to be,” he mused. “But I’m still stronger, Little Osha.”
“Are you particularly attached to those clothes, Osha?” “Yes!” I laughed, trying to pull my hands free. He was right, I was stronger now, but he was always going to be stronger. And he had gravity on his side, too. “Then I apologize,”
“You are the single most stunning thing I have ever seen, Saeris.”
“Come now, Osha. Where else would an acolyte kneel to worship but at the altar of his god?”
“Thaaat’s it. Good girl. Ride it out.”
“I told you once that I was disappointed by how breakable humans were. Remember?” Oh, I remembered. “You’re not human anymore, Saeris. Think you can keep up with me now?”
“Because I am pleased with myself. Because I’m the luckiest bastard alive. And because you look like you’ve just been thoroughly fucked.”
“Let me ask you this,” I said. “Aside from the decision he made to join Malcolm, what would you have done in his shoes? That night outside the gates of Ajun. Foley was his friend, too, once. If you’d found me there, lying in the snow, my neck broken, dying… what would you have done?”
“Ed-Edina,” the thing stuttered. “Edina. Edina. I am Edina.”
“Sm-small,” she wheezed. “But thick. Blue. There is a butterfly…” “A butterfly? On the cover?”
“The stars…” Edina’s eyes rolled back into her head. “Hey!” “Hundreds and… hundreds of… stars.”
“Find it. But do not tell him about it. I mean it. It’s important. He can’t know about the book. Only you. Do you understand?”
“Thank you. Make sure he knows how much I loved him, Saeris,”
“At the end, make sure he knows that I’d do it all again.”
“Sealed them? What does that mean? I don’t understand.” “An Alchemist must seal her runes,”
“Seal them, Saeris. If you do not…” “What? What’ll happen if I don’t?”
“Why were you calling my mother’s name?”
“Zareth showed me this tree,” I explained. “There were thousands of leaves on its branches. He said that each leaf represented a realm occupied by countless living beings. Some of the leaves withered and fell as we spoke. He said that those realms were infected by a rot spreading throughout the universe. Whole branches of the tree were blackened and dying. Zareth said that it meant the end. Of everything. Of all realms. That the other gods wanted to wipe the slate clean and start over again, rebuilding the universe from scratch. But he had refused.”
I didn’t know your name. I didn’t see your face. But I knew, Osha. My soul recognized a flicker of itself burning inside someone else and it knew.
