Chapter 5
Five
“What are you talking about?” Mina asked the weird sorcerer. She didn’t believe that he—a prisoner clearly in the grips of some kind of withdrawal—had worked with the Gaolers to capture her. Which meant he was insane.
Makes sense. She’d read that Sorceri were often paranoid and delusional. Even Bettina, her Uncle Trehan’s new sorceress Bride, had admitted the rumors about her kind were largely true.
“Did you use some kind of magic against me?” Mina demanded of this one. Normally she wouldn’t be able to speak to an unknown male, much less a half-dressed one, but he was a foe. She boldly scanned his muscle-packed build and the strange tattoos across his broad chest as she would size up someone in the yard.
He was nearly seven feet tall with longish, tangled black hair and what could only be road grime all over his sunken cheeks. A roughhewn metal cuff circled his wrist. His haggard appearance marred what might have been a jot of attractiveness. She thought he had amber-colored irises. Hard to tell since his eyes were so bloodshot.
I’m one to talk about reddened eyes.
“Did sorcery bring you to me? Or fate?” His laugh was a mean sound. “It doesn’t matter. My will has been done. You’ve been offered up for punishment, and I accept the tribute!”
“Explain yourself.”
“Mirceo Daciano is the reason I’m here. He and an accomplice breached my stronghold and turned me over to the Gaolers for gold.”
An accomplice? The sorcerer must be talking about Mirceo’s fated one, Caspion, who was a bounty hunter by trade. Had her brother, always ready for a lark, led a hunt with the demon?
“And then, all of a sudden, you arrived in Nightside—Mirceo’s bloodthirsty sister.”
This male had just assumed she’d been drinking from others. Typical paranoid sorcerer. She raised her chin. “Weakhold.”
“What?”
“If my brother plucked you from your ‘stronghold’ like a feather from the ground, it doesn’t sound so strong to me. Probably didn’t help that you were intoxicated. I’m pleased he got gold for your capture”—she tapped her chin with a considering look—“but I can’t see that he earned it.”
Face a mask of hate, Silt lurched closer. “I’m going to enjoy this. I vow to the Lore that I will kill Mirceo Daciano. And you’re the bait I’ll use to lure him in.”
Her lips parted. “Madman! You’re playing with forces you don’t understand. That’s an unbreakable vow.” Though her brother was more than a match for this sickened magician, a vow to the Lore could push Silt to supernatural heights of focus and lethality. And he could never stop until the deed was done.
Which meant Mina wouldn’t rest until she’d vanquished this sorcerer, removing the threat. She reached for her sword, grasping only air.
Silt didn’t seem to hear her. “Here you are, in my clutches. Here in hell, for me to torment. After I’ve meted revenge, maybe I’ll dine on you as you’ve dined on so many.”
Insane! When his palms glowed with unknown powers, aggression urged her, Attack! Logic dictated escape. She decided to split the difference. “Come and get me, Silt.”
He lunged for her. Mina sprinted left, quick as a blur.
When he unsteadily pivoted his big build, she sprang to the right. He lurched around to snatch her?—
She bounded up the cave wall. Shoving off for momentum, she twisted in midair to hit his knee with both of her boots.
Crack!
“Ahh! Leech!”
She darted away as he labored to grab her. “Too easy, sorcerer.” Like a hawk dive-bombing a blindfolded bear.
His palms sparked light, dampening her sense of victory. A Sorceri king meant he was an alpha among his kind. Until she figured out the extent of his abilities, she should probably run.
Whirling around, she sprinted out of the cave. All she had to do was make it to the lava field she’d spied. Despite his age, Silt could never match her speed through that maze of flames, not in his condition.
Limping after her on bare feet, he yelled, “I will catch you!”
She yelled back, “Better hope not!” She ran down a winding path flanked by charred boulders, swiftly putting distance between them. With each mile closer to that maze, the temperature increased, wind gusts carrying acrid heat.
As she sped over jagged terrain, Mina formulated four goals.
Evade the sorcerer’s immediate threat. Escape this place. Find a cure. Whenever the opportunity arises, kill Silt Harea. Once she had recovered her equilibrium here, she would strike, taking his long life.
Anything for her brother. Though Mirceo was arrogant at times, he was also steadfast and loving. He’d raised her, sacrificing everything to keep her safe within the perilous halls of Castle Dacia. Now she could finally return the favor.
As Mina ran, her mind turned to the past, to a night in the Castellan wing, when she’d been four and her brother had been sixteen. . . .
Mirceo tucked her into her warm bed, saying, “Sweet dreams, Mina.”
But she took his hand to stay him. “Wait. Brother, why do we have no parents?”
He tried for a smile, yet it didn’t reach his gray eyes. “You know why. They perished—our mother, just one year ago.” He’d sat on the side of Mina’s bed and smoothed her hair behind her ear. “We are the last of the House of Castellan.”
“But our parents were immortal and out of danger of falling ill. What could have killed them?” She had heard servants whisper that other members of the extended royal family had murdered them, leaving two orphans—the young scion of a once mighty house and the vampling princess.
Mirceo’s brows drew together as he tried to hide his sorrow. Voice gruff, he said, “We’ll talk more about our parents when you are older.”
Older. “Will we live to adulthood?” The servants had speculated against that possibility.
“Of course we will!” Mirceo pinned her gaze with his own, communicating his boundless love. “I will keep you safe. Little sister, I will always take care of you.”
Before she’d drifted off, Mina had asked him one last question that had clearly stumped him, one he’d left unanswered?—
Her recollection faded away once she reached the edge of the vast lava field. In the dark, the volcano and its rivers resembled a monster with burning veins; to survive in this place, she must reach its heart and then beyond.
Which path looked least deadly? The gusts cooled some of the lava to form a blackened skin, so a blocked path might yet open. But how thick was each skin? She toed a rock, and it crumbled to reveal a piping center.
She attempted her mist again but couldn’t produce even a wisp. When she needed her abilities most, the plague had stifled her mist, and this prison had bound her tracing.
The sorcerer limped into view, surprising her with his speed. The sweating brute must’ve run headlong after her. “You’re going to get killed out there.”
“Better than you dining on me. I’d rather burn to death.”
“I don’t know—we might’ve worked out something meaningful.”
Ugh. When he shifted on his feet, she said, “Poor sorcerer, did my brother not give you a chance to grab your boots? You must already be feeling the heat.”
Fury flashed in his bloodshot gaze. “I was raised to cross hot sand with my feet bare. Doesn’t mean I like to feel the burn. Do not enter that field.”
“Protective of your bait ?” His vow would compel him to keep her in sight. She’d heard horror stories about the type of oath he’d made. There was no way to reverse or resist it. Because of such a vow, Lothaire had nearly destroyed his queen’s soul.
The sorcerer said, “I know much about this realm. If you make it past these flames, you’ll meet the undead. Legions of them live here. You have no hope without me.” His palms flickered again. “ I might keep you alive for a time.”
“I run now, but I won’t always. Your vow means you’re a dead man. With luck, I’ll watch you fall to these flames.”
No more delaying. She turned from him to the labyrinth. Focus. Calm. Reason.
This was simply another world and another adventure. She hadn’t chosen this challenge, but she would meet it nonetheless.
She leapt down into a flaming gauntlet and reminded herself, All the worlds should fear me.
The vampire sprinted away from him so quickly that she must have fey blood. Explained the ears.
Before he had even decided to, Silt doggedly followed between runnels of lava flow. Every footfall was agony, and not just from the heat or his new knee injury. Withdrawal intensified with the force of a sandstorm.
Sweat dripped from his forehead to sting his eyes. He tasted the salt as he heaved air thick with smoke and sulfur. Rocks shredded the soles of his feet, blood trailing him in the soot.
How had he come to this? Stumbling about like a sickly human. Ironic. He’d sought out smoke for so long; now clouds of it seared his eyes and lungs.
But his need for revenge drove him to pursue her. Over eons, Silt had been an acolyte of retribution. Once harmed, one harmed in turn. Once tricked, one tricked. Spreading downward, that chain of pain forged on with iron certainty.
After he’d accepted that he would never have a family, the chain had begun to resemble ancestry to him, and he revered it. Mirceo Daciano and his sister were cursed to become new links.
No match for the vampire’s speed for now, Silt kept her in sight as she made steady headway. Unlike him, she was a study of focus as she dodged the red rapids. Whenever lava cornered her, she would pump her arms, gather more of that mind-blowing velocity, and vault across flames.
Though Silt had often been in life-threatening predicaments, he’d always brushed them off. Now anxiety filled him as he watched her. No wonder he’d only tried to quit opium once before. His hands shook, his heart pounding. And he couldn’t drag his gaze off that vampire.
As if she were the source of his tension.
Concentrate, Silt. He staggered up a rise; the crust cracked beneath one foot. Just before he sank to his calf in lava, he gave a yell and sprang forward. Back on firmer ground, he squinted to lock his sights on her once more.
This was the stupidest thing he’d ever done, other than breaking the laws of the Lore in the first place. Setting oneself up as a deity for mortals to worship had ensured punishment. How far from godhood I’ve fallen. . . .
The vampire suddenly jerked her head right, focusing on something.
Miles away, lava surrounded three other prisoners. They waved their arms and screamed for help as flames lapped at their boots. Their guises flickered from mortal to animal and back. Shifters. They’d probably preyed on humans to earn their way here.
Kosmina slowed, a smudge of soot on her face. Did she appear sympathetic toward the trio? More likely, she dreamed about their blood. At her age, she must be thirsty after these hours of exertion.
He called, “Your dinner’s about to be well-done!”
She flashed him a look of rancor. After a beat, she pressed on. As the shifters’ screams followed her, she stiffened but didn’t slow. . . .
For what must have been hours more, Silt labored his way onward. Sweat coated him, his body shedding toxins as his strength dwindled. Lucky breaks and near misses intermingled with misery.
At last the end was in sight, a sole path that led straight to high ground. Thank sand! Ahead of him, the princess closed in on their salvation, and he wasn’t too far behind.
Yet then a belch of lava pumped from the nearby volcano, cutting them off. She would be forced to run back in his direction, and he blocked her only path.
When she twirled around to face him, Silt opened his arms and sneered, “Come to sorcerer.”