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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.
A vampire would go up like a pile of dry kindling if it encountered flame.
“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.
“What do you think I’m doing?” I snarled. “I’m saving the fucking fox!”
He’d left the safety of Cahlish. For her. He’d climbed the mountain. For her. He’d snuck through Irrín and crossed the river. For her. And now he was being chased across the dead fields of Sanasroth by a horde of feeders.
“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.”
“Well, I suppose if no one else is going to say it, then I will. You look downright fuckable, Saeris Fane.”
There were counterweights, perhaps. Different sides to the same coin? But also different currencies. Vampire. Fae. Maker. Mate.
Most couples flirted by making eyes at each other or complimenting each other’s outfits. We did it by discussing how best to murder our enemies.
“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.”
“The Hazrax’s magic is shrouded in mystery. No one here knows what it’s capable of… but whatever magic or power it showed to Malcolm scared him enough to allow it to stay.”
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.
He never flaunted his magic, but the male was powerful. Even before he’d transitioned, Tal had been able to manipulate most liquids. All liquids, in fact, apart from quicksilver. Blood was a liquid… and right now, he was boiling the blood in the high bloods’ veins.
“Funny you mention balls. Ask him how his are.”
His grandfather was one of the last Alchemists. Foley knows more than anyone else about Alchemical magics and practices.
It struck me, as I watched him, his shoulders hitching up and down as he glared back at me, that the only time I had ever seen Renfis angry was because of Taladaius. In some ways, he was right about him. But in all the ways that really mattered, he was not.
This is Madra’s doing. This… is how the rot got here in the first place.”
“The length of a warrior’s hair is directly related to their skill in battle. Mine was longer than Ren’s and Lorreth’s put together. I would never have cut it to look… edgy.”
“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.”
“Come now, Osha. Where else would an acolyte kneel to worship but at the altar of his god?”
And this was what it all boiled down to: the night when Taladaius should have joined our brotherhood and foolishly chose death instead.
“Ed-Edina,” the thing stuttered. “Edina. Edina. I am Edina.” The name was so familiar to me. I’d heard someone speak it recently, hadn’t I? Seen it written down somewhere. “What are you doing to Layne?” I demanded. “Release her body. Let her wake up.”
“They told you. About the rot,” she said in a clear voice. “They told you it would come. It’s here, now. You must find the book in order to stop it. Without it, the decay will spread until it swallows this realm and millions more with it. I have seen it, Saeris. Find the book. Stop the spread. It’s the only way.”
Carrion had already been in the library, lounging on a plush sofa by the fire and reading a book when we’d arrived. He hadn’t moved an inch.
He’d been buried in his book ever since.
“What’s Nevercross?” Iseabail herself answered the question. “It’s our political seat,” she said, in her soft, lilting accent. “A city unlike any other. Our buildings have stood for millennia, protected from the outside world. We school our children there. We heal the sick there.” “And your histories are kept there,” Fisher added. “In the catacombs below the city.”
“More feeders?” Lorreth shook his head. “The rot. It infected them somehow. The same way it must have infected the feeders. It took them in an hour. Two at most. The other fighters had to put them down. Their friends. Family. It wasn’t good. There’s a trail of bodies from the war camp all the way into the foothills.” “And where those bodies lay, the rot spreads and multiplies,” Ren said. “It claims any vegetation. Any creature, living or dead. It travels over snow and scorched ground without issue. We’ve yet to figure out a way to stop it.”
“Our deities aren’t myths, Lorreth. They’ve always been here, and their will cannot be questioned. If we don’t obey them, the consequences—”
math. How long had I been in Yvelia now? It felt like a long, long time, but… gods, I had no clue. I’d been here long enough, though. I’d missed my own birthday. I was twenty-five now. Carrion turned his attention back to his book. “Don’t worry, Fane. We’ll have a big birthday party just as soon as people stop dying all over the place.” “I don’t want a party.”
Lorreth shot Carrion a smirk. “Only Faelings have birthday parties, y’know. We stop celebrating that kind of stuff when we turn fourteen. What are you now, seventeen hundred years old?” “Watch your tongue, old man. I’m not ancient like the rest of you,” Carrion snorted, turning a page. “I’m only one thousand and ninety-six, thank you very much.”
“Fuck you, Lorreth.” He made a face. “You kiss my commander with that mouth?” “I’ve done far worse than kiss him with it.”
My tavern floor? This place belonged to Taladaius?
“Saeris. I’m going to let you off because you’re new to all of this, but a vampire can’t lie to its maker. A blue aura comes off you when you try. The stronger the aura, the bigger the lie, and right now, you’re lighting up my office like a torch. But even if you weren’t, I can feel that you’re in pain. A lot of pain. Tell me what’s going on.”
But I mean… there are plenty of shades in this realm. They’re echoes. Trapped memories a person leaves behind when they die. It often signifies a horrific death, but at least the person’s soul moves on. Shades aren’t capable of thought, though. They can’t have conversations with people.”
“So that means that the entity that puppeted Everlayne’s body wasn’t an echo of Fisher’s mother. It was Fisher’s mother.” “No, that can’t be the case. That would mean that her soul has been here ever since she died. Trapped.”
“She wouldn’t have been tethered to anyone on this side of the veil, which means that she stayed by sheer force of will alone. And that…” He slowly shook his head. “I don’t know what that would have done to a person’s soul, but it wouldn’t have been good. It would have been torture.”
Would it offend you very badly”—he winced—“if I publicly disavowed you and severed our bond?”
There were long years of history between the vampire sitting opposite me and the members of the Lupo Proelia. The air was thick with tension whenever anyone even mentioned his name back at Cahlish. There was so much I didn’t know when it came to their relationship with Taladaius, but at the end of the day, I could only go by my own experiences with him.
I had no business chasing vault breakers through the streets of Zilvaren. And clearly that was who this Vorath Shah was. But I followed Carrion all the same, because the vault breaker Vorath Shah hadn’t been looking at Carrion when he’d bolted. The stranger had been looking right at me.
“My memory is as sharp as yours and then some, wraith. I know exactly to whom I speak. King Killer. Day’s End. The Last Tide. Namebreaker—”
“My father was a patron of the Alchemists. He supported their crafts. Nurtured them. Where others saw only danger, Malcolm of Sanasroth saw power.”
“Even a queen must pay her debts, Your Highness. Especially a queen.”
From the mad excitement on Vorath Shah’s face, I knew that whatever he was about to say was going to be bad. “His holy name is Joshin. Lord of the Desert. King of the Dark Dream.”
“Scorpions, Carrion. That is the sound of a million fucking scorpions.”
“He broke your edict because he isn’t bound by it,” a voice said from the library’s entrance. It was Lorreth.
“Because, no matter what.…” Lorreth said under his breath.
