Chapter 7
Seven
Dacia
When Lothaire moved a piece on one of the four-dimensional chessboards before him, Kristoff sensed his impending loss.
Again.
“We’ve been playing nightly for months,” he said. “How much longer will we do this?” Lothaire had information he needed but wouldn’t give it until Kristoff beat him in three successive games.
“Until I bore of defeating you.” Lothaire’s red gaze gleamed in the lamplight of the villa balcony.
Kristoff had always longed for family; his half brother left much to be desired. He stared at the pieces, hating the sight of them. Every night the two played, Lothaire delighted in saying “Checkmate” over and over.
If Kristoff ever managed to sleep during the day, he dreamed of his losses, that word exploding in his head.
Still. Something told him tonight would be different. For the first time in months, he felt the call of fate. Could destiny find him in a hidden kingdom?
Or will I win at last?
Maybe he would reach his limit and attack the much stronger Lothaire. Then Kristoff would be dead—the ultimate call of fate.
Lothaire sipped his bloodmead from a crystal goblet. “But then, I don’t bore easily.” Playing with others’ lives amused him.
Kristoff bit out, “You truly are a son of a bitch.”
“Careful, brother. No one calls my mother, the great Princess Ivana, a bitch. You get one warning.”
The heir to the Dacian throne, Ivana had left this realm behind after losing her heart to Stefanovich, Lothaire and Kristoff’s father, the king of the Vampire Horde. Lothaire’s early childhood had been spent in the shadow of Stefanovich, whom he would eventually murder, and their uncle Demestriu, who would steal the throne after that assassination. With family like this . . . “And if I’m not careful, then what? You’ll finally execute me?” He didn’t only lose at chess; he was losing patience with these games. At first, Kristoff had attempted to manipulate him, as Lothaire did with the complex puzzles he enjoyed solving, but his half brother was uncannily brilliant.
“Do recall that you are free to leave your castle-view villa at any time.” Though he’d initially abducted Kristoff, Lothaire had since offered freedom.
But should Kristoff leave, Dacia’s mystical boundary would prevent an otherlander like him from returning. “You know I’ll never forfeit my access to you.”
An oracle had revealed that Furie—the half-Fury, half-Valkyrie queen of the Valkyries—was Kristoff’s Bride. But Lothaire, on Demestriu’s royal order, had chained her to the bottom of the ocean more than half a century ago.
Only Demestriu and Lothaire had known that location; Demestriu had since perished. “Tell me where Furie is, and then you can set off to rescue your missing niece.” Kosmina, the painfully shy swordswoman, had always been kind to Kristoff.
Lothaire waved that away. “She’s more of a distant cousin. She only calls me uncle because she adores me.” He sighed. “More and more Loreans foolishly do.”
“A member of your family is in jeopardy.” Rumors of a red-eyed female vampire in New Orleans had reached even this realm, along with suspicions that the Gaolers had taken her. “You behave as if you’re all-powerful, yet you won’t undertake a search?”
Lothaire grandly said, “I did post a reward for her. And more, I will actually pay it. Does that count for nothing? In any case, all her other uncles are out searching. And Mirspion makes strides to find her.” Mirceo and Caspion? “Their forays against the Gaolers aren’t un inspired, their ideas un sound. They might rescue her.”
Kristoff had heard of the new pair’s exploits. Not for the first time, he wished for such a family bond. He hesitated, then positioned his rook.
Lothaire chuckled. “You won’t save your Bride with moves like that.”
Kristoff’s claws bit into his palms until blood dripped. His destined Bride, the one who would awaken his dormant vampire heart, currently drowned somewhere. For six decades, she’d died, only for her immortality to resurrect her.
The urge to attack Lothaire burned inside him, but immortals grew more powerful with each passing year. Kristoff wasn’t even a third of his half brother’s age. If he snapped, then both he and Furie would be lost forever.
“I scent your blood.” Lothaire’s amusement deepened. “You’re not deficient intellectually. You simply can’t concentrate. Playing you isn’t even sporting. Luckily, I’m not sporting.” He moved a piece, his strategy unfathomable.
“Why are you doing this to me? I would have welcomed a brother.”
“We are each an obstacle to the other. I will never give up the fight for our father’s crown, and neither will you. Even though the Horde wants neither of us.”
Lothaire was illegitimate, and Kristoff had forbidden his clear-eyed Forbearer army to take blood straight from the flesh. He didn’t hold the vampiric Thirst sacred, so the Horde refused to accept him.
Lothaire considered the boards, absently saying, “Their wants won’t matter when I use the Dacian army to subjugate them.”
“This mythical place isn’t enough for you?” After Lothaire’s mother had been assassinated—the details of which were vague—this great kingdom had descended into deadly intrigues for the crown. Three millennia later, the remaining Dacian royals had sought out Lothaire to rule and quash those feuds. “To service your greed, you must have my crown as well?”
“No, it isn’t, and yes, I must.”
“Then why keep me alive?”
“I can always murder my foes, but I can’t ever bring them back,” Lothaire said, sounding deceptively reasonable. “And you interest me. You needed an army, so you created one, stalking mortal battlefields to turn dying soldiers into vampires.” That was how Kristoff had earned the moniker of Gravewalker. “I’ve seen less impressive stunts.” The closest Lothaire would ever come to a compliment.
“I assembled an army of vampires, and you assembled one of memories.”
Lothaire inclined his head. Seeking knowledge, he’d drunk everyone from wizards to warriors, storing their experiences. “But you lack a killer’s instinct. Probably just as well, since I could see you turning into a brutal despot like our father. That’s why it’s in my best interest to keep you from Furie, a warrior with a supreme killer instinct. Should you be able to tame her— questionable—she would be your greatest asset. Just as Lizvetta is mine.” Elizabeth, his queen, was a former mortal, turned into a vampire with a wishgiver ring.
Having been raised by humans himself, Kristoff was partial to her. During their first real meeting, she’d clapped him on the back and said, “Hey, you, we’re gonna be fast friends, just you wait. And call me Ellie! Everybody does, except for this chucklehead.” She’d hiked a thumb at Lothaire, who’d appeared charmed.
The kindly new vampire had promised to use all her influence with Lothaire to help him. “Are you implying that you tamed Ellie?”
“My spirited queen? Heavens forfend. There’s no taming such a force. Even now we are at odds, and I fear she will wear me down. . . .”
Perhaps Ellie’s efforts were paying off!
“She talks of offspring.”
Disguising his disappointment, Kristoff asked, “Would that be so bad?”
“I am concerned about her safety. She is a newly minted vampire, transformed by unusual means. We simply can’t know what might happen.”
Lothaire was a true enigma. Just when Kristoff deemed him the most selfish narcissist in the Lore, he would reveal a different side to himself.
“And I don’t want to share Lizvetta with some mewling brat. All her attention and focus should be on me . Everyone’s focus should be.”
Kristoff exhaled. No. Just a selfish narcissist. He made another move, which earned him an eye roll from Lothaire.
“ Clearly your best bet is to sign my new ledger.” Lothaire was infamous for assisting Loreans in dire circumstances—for a price. He coerced them to sign his ledger with a vow to do anything he desired.
“The first thing you’ll demand of me is to relinquish my crown!”
“Yes. But your greed demands you get the crown and the girl. Alas, your chess ability doesn’t support your aspirations.”
The Horde crown was Kristoff’s birthright. Furie too was his by right. “You expect me to sell my soul to you.”
“I do. And should you ever make this sacrifice for your mate, perhaps I’ll refrain from telling her that I offered to help you months ago, all for a mere signature. How many times has she died and revived since then? Her Fury blood feeds on retribution. Tell me, little brother, each time she resurrects, do you think she dreams of air? Or fire ?” Lothaire moved his queen. “Ah, and there’s the scent of blood again.”
“I couldn’t hate you more.”
“Because you know I’m right. As much as it pains me to say this, we are alike in some ways.”
Kristoff sat back in his chair. “We are nothing alike.”
“You’ll see. One day, you’ll see it. Now, back to the game.”
Choking down outrage, he countered Lothaire’s move. A grandfather clock ticked somewhere in the villa as they plied gambits. Out in the kingdom, blood fountains bubbled. A dog barked. A babe woke from slumber with a cry.
Concentrate, Kristoff. He’d stumbled onto a potential play. Was a win to happen at last? They traded more moves. “I will defeat you.”
“Perhaps.” Lothaire repositioned his queen. “But not tonight. Checkmate .”
That word.
Kristoff’s vision swarmed. He’d wondered how long he could go before he attacked Lothaire in a blind rage. Tonight. I made it till now. The call of fate was murder.
He tensed to vault over the table?—
“Look at you two,” a female said as she sauntered onto the balcony. “The very picture of brotherly love.”
Kristoff inhaled for control, because N?x the Ever-Knowing had just waltzed into Lothaire’s mystically protected kingdom.
The oldest Valkyrie and most powerful oracle alive carried a fluttering bat and a satchel that was bigger than she was. Fresh blood covered her. She was barefoot, her mane of tangled hair sticking out on end. As she gazed fondly at Lothaire and Kristoff, her amber eyes flickered silver with emotion—and more than a touch of madness.
Lothaire raised his brows at her appearance. “What have you gotten into now, Phen?x?”
“ Havoc ,” she breathed, “wrought with a cheery smile and a Garfield plushie. Everything for the coming LoreWar this Accession.” Grunting with effort, she hoisted her bag and dumped what looked like a massive heart onto the chess table. Thump . “That needs to air out.” The heart sparked with tiny flames and appeared iridescent in the lamplight.
When its weight collapsed the table, she shrugged and addressed the bat: “Bertil, do not let me forget that organ. The fate of all the worlds depends on it.”
Bertil screeched, then proceeded to suck blood from her drenched T-shirt. It read: Total Eclipse.
“Where did you get the heart, Valkyrie?” Lothaire asked, as if inquiring about a new accessory. “Looks like a dragon’s to me.”
“We stole it, during a rumble at a drive-in. Backed by allies, I struck a decisive blow to our enemy the M?ri?r. Everyone says I’m too loopy to be an effective leader. Everyone says I’m past my prime, but I showed th—oh my gods, Lothaire, what is a giant heart doing on this balcony? Yuck! Isn’t that a health-code violation? You need to throw it away.”
Lothaire gazed at her with surprising tenderness. “We’ll get you cleaned up and rested, Phen?x,” he crooned. “It must be naptime.”
“Naptime? Who has time? What is time? The one-eyed sorcerer waits for no soothsayer. I have no time for time.”
Kristoff grated, “Your sister Furie is certainly out of it.” This Valkyrie must know where she was. Yet N?x had once told Kristoff that he was meant to find and save her.
Now that Demestriu had been eliminated by an unlikely assassin, Kristoff’s only leads were this crazed Valkyrie or his equally crazed half brother.
She frowned at Kristoff, her gaze gone distant. “I’m sure I saw Furie just a minute ago. Surely.”
When he parted his lips to grill her, Lothaire snapped, “Not now, Gravewalker.”
N?x blinked back to the present. “I can’t stay long. I’m only here for a quick delivery”—she pulled from her back pocket a leather-bound journal that reeked of witchcraft—“of stolen goods.”