Chapter 20
The silence following Rhen’s departure lingered over the main room like smoke trapped beneath a ceiling beam. It no longer choked them, but it remained thick enough to press against their shoulders and settle at the backs of their throats.
The fire shifted inside the hearth, and the small sound seemed disproportionately loud in a room occupied by males who had no idea what to do with grief.
Cole continued staring at the empty doorway.
“Do you think he is right?”
Dax looked toward him.
“About which part?”
“Do you think they will come for Norse?”
Malakai answered without hesitation, his hands moving where both brothers could see.
They would be foolish not to try if they believe the prophecy.
“It is real,” Dax said.
Cole and Malakai looked toward him, not because they disagreed, but because certainty had become rare inside the stronghold.
Dax met their gaze.
“Leena believed it. She understood what Norse represented before he was born.”
His voice tightened around her name, but he continued.
“The heretics will not ignore a child who could change the balance of every bloodline in the city.”
Cole rolled the blood bottle between his hands.
“Then what do we do? Place guards outside every room and hide him until he is old enough to defend himself?”
Malakai signed, We begin by tracing the message. Someone knew where to send the courier and how to compel him strongly enough to make him walk to the gate.
Dax nodded.
“We examine the paper and seal, reconstruct the courier’s route, and identify anyone who saw him before he reached the private road. Somebody chose that human for a reason.”
“And if the trail ends?” Cole asked.
Dax’s expression sharpened.
“Then we work outward from every known heretic safehouse until someone gives us a name.”
Malakai watched him.
Burning the city will not make Norse safer.
“No,” Dax agreed. “But making the sender believe we are afraid will not help either.”
Cole placed the bottle on the mantel.
“We start carefully, then.”
Dax glanced at the blood drying across his fingers and remembered the wary woman waiting inside the eastern guest suite.
“I need to check on Veya.”
Cole’s eyebrows rose.
“Again?”
“She has been locked in a room with Rhen as her only reliable source of information. That is enough to make anyone unstable.”
A trace of reluctant agreement moved across Cole’s face.
Malakai signed, Do not let her wander near Norse.
“I won’t.”
Dax left the main room and returned to the eastern guest suite.
He knocked and waited until Veya answered.
“Who is it?”
“Dax.”
The latch moved after a pause.
Veya opened the door only far enough to look at him.
Her eyes were clearer after the blood, although exhaustion remained visible beneath them.
“What happened?”
“Nothing you need to worry about tonight.”
“That usually means something terrible happened.”
“In this house, that is a reasonable assumption.”
Veya studied him.
Dax indicated the corridor behind him.
“You said you needed to move. I can take you for a supervised walk, provided you agree not to run, attack anyone, or insult the king.”
“Those are very specific conditions.”
“We learn through experience.”
Her gaze narrowed.
“Is Rhen here?”
“No.”
Veya opened the door wider.
“Then yes.”
Dax stepped aside and allowed her to enter the corridor first.
She wore the same oversized sweatshirt and moved carefully over the cold floor with bare feet. Her balance had improved, but Dax stayed half a step beside her without crowding or attempting to guide her physically.
The stronghold stretched around them in Gothic arches, carved wooden panels, and flickering sconces whose light moved across old portraits. The building had been designed to intimidate, yet grief had transformed it into something quieter and heavier.
Veya looked along the corridor.
“I remember this part.”
“The corridor?”
“Sule holding the baby. Rhen appearing behind me and dragging me back before I made everything worse.”
“He did not drag you very far. He dematerialized.”
“That was not an improvement.”
Dax’s mouth moved.
“No. I imagine it wasn’t.”
They turned into a narrower passage.
A door stood partly open at the far end, allowing warm light to spill across the stone.
Dax heard the low murmur of a male voice and raised one hand, signaling Veya to stop.
She followed his gaze through the narrow opening.
The nursery glowed beneath the soft light of an antique chandelier. Dark wooden furniture and heavy curtains softened the room, separating it from the colder architecture beyond.
Rhen sat in a velvet chair beside the crib with Norse cradled against his chest.
The newborn rested inside a navy blanket, his body impossibly small within Rhen’s arms. One of Rhen’s hands supported his head while the other lay carefully across his back.
The sight held Veya motionless.
Rhen’s face carried none of the predatory emptiness he showed her. Grief had stripped the mask away, leaving him haunted and exhausted.
His thumb moved gently across Norse’s cheek.
“I tried,” Rhen murmured. “Gods know I tried, but she still left us.”
Veya looked toward Dax.
He touched one finger to his lips and guided her back from the doorway without touching her.
Inside the nursery, Rhen continued speaking.
“You have her eyes. Do not let anyone take that from you.”
A long silence followed.
“You will not remember her voice,” he said eventually, his own voice roughening. “But I will. I’ll tell you about it when you are old enough to understand.”
Dax encouraged Veya farther along the corridor until the nursery light disappeared behind them.
Neither spoke until they had turned another corner.
“You were not supposed to see that,” Dax said.
“I won’t tell him.”
“That would be wise.”
Veya looked back toward the nursery.
“I didn’t think he could feel anything.”
Dax’s expression tightened.
“Leena was the only person who could reach him without asking him to become someone else. She believed there was still humanity inside him when the rest of us had stopped looking for it.”
“And the baby?”
“He is Leena’s son.”
The answer seemed sufficient.
Dax led Veya toward the enclosed garden within the inner grounds. He opened the wrought-iron gate and waited while she stepped through.
Autumn had begun moving across the garden, turning the ivy copper and drawing mist between the hedges. Tangled roses and moonflowers climbed around iron arches, while lanterns hung from branches and glowed faintly above winding stone paths. Benches sat partly hidden among hydrangeas and herbs.
The garden was not perfectly ordered, but it was intensely alive.
Veya stopped.
“What is this place?”
“Leena’s garden. She planted it and called it her sanctuary.”
Veya moved slowly along the damp path.
“She made all of this?”
“She did.”
Dax led her to a moss-covered bench and wiped the damp surface with his sleeve before sitting at one end. Veya took the other, leaving space between them.
For a while, they listened to the wind passing through the lavender.
“What was she like?” Veya asked.
Dax looked toward the dark canopy.
“She was kind, funny, and far fiercer than anyone expected. She rarely raised her voice, but everyone listened when she spoke.”
“Sule loved her.”
“With everything he had.”
Veya lowered her gaze.
“And Rhen?”
Dax considered the question before answering.
“Leena was the only person who believed Rhen still possessed humanity. She never lied to comfort him, never pretended he was harmless, and never asked him to soften. She simply saw him clearly.”
“He loved her.”
It was not phrased as a question.
Dax looked into the mist.
“Yes.”
Veya waited.
“He never acted upon it,” Dax continued. “He would never have betrayed Sule or asked Leena for anything she had not freely given. His loyalty to both of them was absolute.”
“Did she know?”
“She knew he loved her. The clan knew. It was never discussed because there was nothing to discuss.”
Veya’s expression shifted.
“Then why did he save me?”
Dax shook his head.
“None of us knows. Rhen may not understand the decision himself.”
“He said I was dying.”
“You were.”
“That explains when he did it, not why.”
“No,” Dax said. “It does not.”
Veya looked across the tangled garden.
“Could the tether have been deliberate?”
“Rhen hates any connection he cannot control. As far as we know, the tether was a consequence of giving you his blood, not the purpose.”
Her arms tightened around herself.
“What exactly did his blood do?”
Dax leaned back against the bench.
“There are vampires born through bloodlines and vampires made from humans. A made vampire is created when vampire blood takes hold inside a dying human body. The transformation rebuilds what it can, but not every body survives the process.”
Veya looked down at her pale hands.
“And I did.”
“Yes.”
“Did Rhen know I would?”
“He knew there was a chance. I doubt he knew anything with certainty on that road.”
She remained quiet for a moment.
“What are you?”
“Rhen, Cole, Malakai, and I belong to Sule’s original sired line. His blood created us directly.”
“So you were human once?”
Dax’s expression suggested a longer answer than he intended to give.
“Once.”
“And Norse?”
“Norse is different. He is Sule and Leena’s naturally born son, the first child born directly from Sule’s line.”
“The prophecy.”
Dax nodded.
“If the prophecy is true, Norse may one day continue a pure bloodline powerful enough to alter the balance between the clans.”
“That is why the heretics want him dead.”
“They fear what he may become long before he is capable of becoming it.”
Veya drew in a slow, habitual breath.
“Leena must have been terrified.”
“She was, although she rarely allowed fear to choose for her.”
Veya looked around the garden again, taking in the lanterns, climbing roses, herbs, and winding paths that had survived their creator.
“She must have been incredible.”
“She was.”
Something in Dax’s voice fractured briefly before he brought it under control.
Veya watched the plants moving through the mist.
Leena had not merely occupied the stronghold. She had shaped it, leaving pieces of herself inside the child sleeping upstairs, the king who could not release her, the Charon whispering promises in a nursery, and the garden continuing to grow despite her absence.
Veya understood then that Leena was not merely gone.
She remained everywhere.