Chapter 17 #2
“And I need…” Here it was clearly harder to say, but Caemorn forced it out, “And I need them. To be those things to Balthazar and to have the others… as friends. The laughter. The warmth…” Here Caemorn’s lips writhed back from his teeth as if it hurt to say these things or admit them to anyone, including himself.
“Accepted. I am accepted. And I wish Christian and Julian to embrace their Kaly gifts. Not to feel freakish. Most Kaly are chosen for their dispassion. Their ability to ignore what others think and feel. But Balthazar desperately cares what others think. He knows all they believe about him. And the boys are…” Caemorn swallowed, “They are strong, but fragile, too. The Kaly gift can be troubling. But I am intent on them not fearing it.”
“And you’re doing that as well,” Ryder assured him.
This was the most he had ever heard Caemorn say about himself or his motives. These were people close to his heart. He was sharing this with Ryder. It was hard to see the connection now between Caemorn and Kaly. Between Caemorn and Roan.
“Yes.” But then Caemorn was focused. “You said you believe they are in the catacombs.”
“I think they might be using an old entrance that leads from outside of the walls to Daemon’s tomb,” Ryder said then stopped.
“Daemon being there obscured anyone noticing that Nightvallen had been breached. I missed Roan even being there because of it. But now, of course, Daemon is not there, but we all avoid it.”
“So it leads into the city and–”
“Into the Kaly Palace,” Ryder said carefully. “I thought you would have known. There’s supposedly a direct… What? Clearly, I’ve hidden the ball from you this time.”
Caemorn’s head had snapped in the direction of his palace. “I know where they are.”
“In your palace?” Ryder said it but that was impossible. He would know if anyone was in his palace and Caemorn was doubly as careful as he was.
But Roan is him so…
“No, there is a space right behind a wall that... We must get there.” Caemorn cocked his head. “I do not hear Balthazar in my mind. He is silent. He is never silent.”
Ryder couldn’t help but wonder if Balthazar was constantly prattling on to Caemorn about everyday things. He’d likely been telling him about what was happening with Grayson and the others. Now he was silent? Ryder’s heart dropped into his feet.
“We must get to Daemon’s tomb,” Caemorn said. “I had hoped to have Wyverns take us–”
“We don’t need them.” Ryder offered his hand to Caemorn even as his stomach fell to join his heart in his feet at the thought of where they were going. “Trust me?”
Caemorn lifted an eyebrow, but nodded.
And then Ryder shifted. First, into a being very like Tarn and Farun, but more massive with a black pelt and silver eyes.
He scooped Caemorn off of Neboa–the horse let out a shrill whinny of fright–and he leap-climbed up the wall of Nightvallen with Caemorn under one arm.
Tarn and Farun let out howls and started climbing after them.
There was a hunt! Something to chase! Something to kill! Something to eat!
The howls and his shift were heard and felt by his Bloodline.
He could imagine them lifting their heads up into the air, sniffing, as nightshine rolled through their silver eyes.
He couldn’t communicate in complex thoughts to them like Balthazar, but he realized he truly was connected with them all.
He was able to send two commands. For Siban and Demos to converge upon him and for the rest of the pack to continue their patrols around Nightvallen.
All were on high alert now. Small noises that had seemed like the rustle of trees in the night wind would be checked.
A stray scent that didn’t belong would be investigated.
And they would be prepared for danger at every turn.
Once Ryder and Caemorn reached the top, Ryder shifted once more into his unkindness of ravens’ form. But he didn’t release the Kaly Vampire. Instead, Caemorn was born aloft by the ravens as he flew them to the gold-domed building they had all assiduously avoided.
Ryder could claim that he had not known who he was when he originally came to Nightvallen. Daemon’s tomb was but a historical oddity, nothing that he was connected to. But now he knew quite a bit differently.
Caemorn stood within the unkindness without bobbing or swaying at all. Ryder could feel his intense concentration on the gold dome. Ryder’s many eyes showed his snapshots of it and all around it.
The square it was in was empty. There were no Vampires circling its glass walls or peering in at the empty stone altar where Daemon had laid for so long.
Unlike the rest of Nightvallen which was alive with people, lights, color, sights, sounds and smells, there was a sepulchral silence and feel to the whole place.
Caemorn pointed to where they should set down. Ryder dove down. Caemorn stepped out of the unkindness again without a bobble. Ryder became his human form and the cloak of many feathers covered his shoulders.
“I wore this the night I died,” Ryder whispered, unwilling to lift his voice.
Caemorn surprised him by placing a hand on his shoulder. “Death is not the end. There is no terror in it. I am here.”
Ryder nodded after a moment. He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
“I think that the entrance to the Kaly Palace is within the tomb itself. That was where the other tunnel opened up from,” Ryder explained. “There was a large ruby–the size of a pigeon’s egg–that Legion used to open the passageway.”
“There will be something similar to get into the passage to my palace. I am certain as well it will be inside the tomb. I designed it,” Caemorn added that last bit after a moment.
“Oh… well, that makes sense,” Ryder said.
The two of them padded towards the tomb.
The glass doors were open as they had been when Julian and Daemon had stepped out of them just a few months ago.
The walls were also glass. It gave the impression of lightness with the golden dome seeming to float above it all.
But it was the marble slab within that drew the attention.
“He’s there!” Ryder gasped and staggered forward. The memory threatened to overcome him again. Daemon, so close. Daemon, his king. Daemon, the one he had abandoned. Daemon who would make it all right again. “Daemon–”
“No!” Caemorn hissed and put an arm over his chest. “Daemon is not there. He is safe in his palace!”
And the figure was not stone as Daemon had been when he was in stasis. The wind caused the cloak to flutter. Ryder surged forward again, but Caemorn’s arm kept him in place.
“Who is that? Who is it?” Ryder growled.
The fact that someone was inside Daemon’s tomb had him wanting to break them. How dare they violate that sacred space? How dare they think of going inside?
“Legion?” Caemorn asked.
Ryder gave a mirthless laugh. “No, they are much bigger and never turn to their human form in the Ever Dark.”
“Could they not have done so just this one time?” Caemorn persisted.
Ryder drew in a deep breath. His nostrils flared.
Cold stone. The metallic bite of blood. The faint reek of rot.
Legion was nearby or had been. But it was not the figure on the altar.
The figure smelled strangely leafy. It reminded him of vegetation that was revealed after the winter snows had left.
Matted and half gone, brown and slimy, but still there.
“They’re dead, Caemorn,” Ryder said. “No heartbeat. No breathing. Not a Vampire. Just dead, but… I don’t recognize the scent.”
He thought of the human he and Julian had found by the stream.
Was it merely another Blood Slave that the Sect had brought with them to the Ever Dark and left their corpse behind?
Leaving it like this on Daemon’s resting place was an insult to them.
It likely meant that Legion and maybe even Roan had been here, but had fled.
But what tipped them off that we would come here.
“Being a corpse does not mean it isn’t dangerous,” Caemorn reminded him.
Realizing that a corpse in a Kaly Vampire’s hands could do a lot of damage, Ryder stopped pressing against Caemorn’s restrictive arm.
“Let me handle this,” Caemorn said.
The Kaly Vampire drew out one of the soul gems from an inner pocket.
It was a green one that glittered under the twin moons.
Caemorn held it out to the corpse at full arm’s length.
There was a breath or perhaps a word spoken, but so low that not even Ryder could hear what Caemorn said.
That breath went past the gem, across the plaza, up the few steps and through the door into the tomb.
Nothing happened.
Ryder looked at Caemorn. Perhaps that was the point.
Nothing happened, because it wasn’t dangerous.
But the frown lines on Caemorn’s face told him that wasn’t true.
Ryder opened his mouth to ask what was wrong when he heard the excited voices coming from one of the nearby streets.
The sounds of dozens of heartbeats and the smell of fresh blood had Ryder’s teeth aching.
Students. Lots of them. Coming here.
What the hell is going on?
“It’s there! Look! Look! Just like he said!” A woman gasped.
“Oh, wow! It’s so cool! The treasure’s inside?” Another woman asked.
“Of course, it is! Look at all that gold on the dome!” A man chortled.
“Let’s go!”
“We have to go!”
“Yes! We’re going to win!”
Ryder stared at Caemorn who was looking at the corpse with consternation.
“It will not obey… oh, no… no… no!” Caemorn gasped as his silver eyes went wide. He grasped Ryder’s shoulders. “We have to keep the students away! We need to keep them–”
The students poured out of the one street, eyes bright with excitement and a sort of vacantness, as they ran towards the tomb.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ryder saw the cloak around the corpse start to move.
But it wasn’t from the corpse rising off the altar, but instead the corpse was…
bloating. Expanding. It grew larger and larger and larger.
And then it popped.
Things–chittering and many-legged-burst from the exploded corpse and started to stream out of the tomb towards the students while the students–smiling and gleeful–ran right towards them.
“Gold! Gold! Look at all the coins!” A woman shrieked.
Roan is a Kaly Vampire. Oh, no…