Chapter 18
Eighteen
The Wilds of Canada
Racing against the coming dawn, Lothaire and Kristoff sprinted along animal trails for what must have been a hundred miles, following the vague directions outlined in the wizard’s journal.
They passed the residents of the woods—elk, cougars, and, yes, bears—but not another Lorean or human. Kristoff struggled to keep up with his much faster half brother, would be damned before he asked to slow down.
Lothaire only did once they’d reached the base of a cliff wall. Quiet reigned here. No small creatures rustled, no night birds calling. Using his enhanced senses of smell and sight—honed over millennia—he investigated the area, stalking back and forth with a look of intrigue on his face.
Kristoff grudgingly followed. “What are you searching for? It’s not as if there will be a sign to mark the entrance.”
Lothaire dragged away some foliage from the cliff and pointed out an etched section on the sheer rock face. “Here.” He brushed away grit, revealing cryptic symbols carved into the stone. “Why, I believe it’s a sign marking an entrance!”
Kristoff scowled. “Then what does it say?”
“No idea.” Lothaire didn’t sound discouraged whatsoever.
“We need to find an expert who knows the language. We can return once the sun sets again.”
“I’m going to sleep.” Lothaire dropped to the ground and rested with his back against the rock.
“What are you talking about? Dawn approaches. We have no shelter.”
“I’ll wake before then.” His eyes closed.
As Kristoff paced, fingers of sunlight loomed over the cliff, soon to reach them. Part of him was tempted to let those rays scald Lothaire.
Closer . . . closer crept the light, a phantom’s hand ready to snatch a vampire’s long life.
For the sake of Furie, he said, “Wake, Lothaire.”
Nothing.
Kristoff wasn’t as sun-paranoid as some vampires—he’d met many who couldn’t even view a picture of it—but he also didn’t court unnecessary burns. Again it struck him: I can’t abandon my nemesis, even to his own insanity. “Wake now .”
Lothaire roused and traced to his feet. “That was a productive nap. I haven’t always been able to pull up memories at will, but I continue to evolve—to your detriment.”
With another glance at the growing dawn, Kristoff asked, “ How was it productive?”
“I once drank another vampire, a thirsty sort who was filled with memories. He had drunk a wizard who’d mind-melded with a Gaoler. Anyway, while I slept, I accessed that vampire’s memories of memories. It’s all very meta, but I know the Gaolers’ language now.” Of course he did. “You forbade your Forbearers to bite others, but you’re not truly a vampire until you consume another. You haven’t lived .”
Kristoff could scarcely imagine drinking a victim. Before his heart and sexual impulses had gone dormant in his thirties, he’d sought pleasure like a male who’d known he was on borrowed time. Yet he’d never been tempted to bite another.
Lothaire returned to the panel. As he deciphered the symbols, he absently said, “Stolen memories hold power. And not just mental. They fuel my physical strength too.”
As if a being his age needed help with strength. “You overindulged.”
“Yes. No one can be a reservoir for so many memories and not dance along the edge of the abyss.”
“How has your queen not gone mad after drinking from you?” Kristoff asked. “Shouldn’t she have harvested all of your memories?”
“When I used Dorada’s magical ring, I made a wish to ensure my Bride never took memories from my past, just my own going forward. Once she drinks from me again, she’ll be able to witness all of my bravery within Nightside.”
Comprehension hit. “You embarked on this trip to impress your Bride. You really are mad.” Lothaire had struck a devil’s bargain: power in exchange for lifelong madness. Would Kristoff have done the same if he’d had to contend with both Demestriu and Stefanovich?
“Only now realizing this?” Lothaire continued his translation. “The journaling wizard was right; this is indeed the portal to Nightside, the official entry into a mythic hellplane.” He read aloud: “Nightside, land of the forsaken, ruled by the dead. Woe to any be-lived who enter.”
“And how does this portal open?”
“The code to unlock these magics is . . . a puzzle.” He all but vibrated with anticipation. “One must crack the Lore’s most challenging puzzle, a conundrum that would baffle any creature short of a sphinx. Once begun, failure to solve it will bring”—his lips curled, revealing a flash of fang—“death.”
“Sounds ominous.”
Lothaire’s grin deepened. “Did I ever tell you about the time I drank a sphinx?”
Seven minutes later . . .
The portal to Nightside opened, the rock face disappearing, leaving air in the shape of a large door.
Lothaire demanded of Kristoff: “Admit it.”
Sharp shake of his head.
“Admit it. I’m that good.” Lothaire fogged and buffed his claws. “Yet you refuse to acknowledge how alike we are? Some people can’t take a compliment.” He strode through the portal without a care.
When Kristoff hesitated, Lothaire turned back. “Best hope I don’t perish—me, poor Furie’s only chance.”
With a muttered curse, Kristoff followed into some kind of cave. When the portal snapped closed behind them, leaving a seamless rock wall, he attempted to trace, but that ability must be bound here. “Congratulations, you insufferable ass. We’re trapped. And weaponless.” Their swords had disappeared. “How are we to save Mina if we’re imprisoned in this land of the forsaken with her?”
“It’ll come to me, I’m sure.” Lothaire found an opening out the cave and headed into the night. He lifted his face and inhaled. “I already have her scent. Ah, and another one? A sorcerer is likely with her. Well, that’s a bad break. Enchanters, right?”
Wouldn’t know.
“She might not know up from down when he gets through with her.” At Kristoff’s questioning look, Lothaire said, “I once played cards against the King of Lies. Took me a decade to right my mind after that.”
“How do you fight an enchanter?” Was Mina in even more danger?
“Depends on what his abilities are. All I know for certain is that Sorceri are not to be trusted. This way.” He strode onto a rocky path.
Kristoff trailed after him, surveying the area with a gimlet eye. Lava and misery. “I can’t believe I followed you into this place.”
Lothaire gestured around them. “I offer you an opportunity to learn about the Lore— this is the classroom —but you resist me.”
“Didn’t you say the same to Mina? That’s what got us into this situation.”
“You were raised by humans and lived among them for centuries. You’re just as sheltered as Mina is and equally in need of education.”
Born in Helvita, Kristoff had been smuggled out of the castle as a babe after his mother’s death. He knew little about her, piecing together that she’d been stricken with the plague following his birth and then executed.
If the same malady had befallen Mina, would her king kill her?
Lothaire continued, “I’m not greater than you because of my age and earned strength, or even because I’m part Dacian. I’m greater than you are because of all I know.”
“I started building my army hundreds of years ago. I’ve been immersed in this world.”
“Yes, but since then, immortals have worked together to keep you—and your army of turned mortals—in the dark. They don’t favor former humans.”
“Perhaps so, but three of my generals have wed Valkyries, and they are learning much.”
“Ah, the legendary Wroth brothers. But are those warlords passing on all they learn? If you think any one of them will choose you over the well-being of his fated Bride, you are laughably mistaken.”
“They would never lie to me.” Especially not the two oldest. Three hundred years ago, Kristoff had made them, dripping his blood into their mouths to revive their dying human bodies.
Lothaire continued forward and Kristoff kept pace, sensing information to be had. The Enemy of Old didn’t disappoint: “If Furie rises, she’ll likely sentence to death any Valkyrie who allies with a vampire. Those Wroth Brides will be fugitives from their own coven. Will your generals allow that? In your own power base, a family of warlords will be united by blood and steel against your female.” With clear glee, he said, “You need to look farther down the board, brother. And all gambits lead to one eventuality: the fall of your queen.”
His analysis was disturbingly on point. “You’ve said Furie will be my greatest asset, yet now you hint that she’ll be the dividing wedge in my army. So which is it?”
“I said she would be an asset if you could tame her. It all depends on what emerges from those depths. One way to find out. Sign my ledger.”
“I might as well sign Dorada’s.” The Queen of Evil had taken a page from Lothaire’s book—in fact, she now possessed Lothaire’s old ledger—and was supplementing it by making offers with her ring in exchange for a vow. “I could wish for Furie, my crown, and peace among my ranks.”
“You fought Dorada not long ago. If she deigned to bargain with you after that, would you pledge your future to a former mummy who chums around with wendigos?” Lothaire added, “And how do you think your Valkyrie Bride would feel about your being oathbound to a malevolent sorceress? Remind me: Aren’t the Valkyries the ‘good guys’?”
No one made a secret of Furie’s hatred for vampires. She would despise Kristoff doubly.
Though he’d never met her, he knew exactly what she would look like because he’d seen her identical twin, Cara the Fair.
Beautiful—in an eerie, lethal way.
Lothaire tapped his temple. “Starting to put together the bigger picture?” Knowing how trapped Kristoff was in every sense, Lothaire said, “Your Bride’s a Valkyrie born of a Fury. And more, she’s an arch-Fury , with wings of fire. Hunting evildoers is in her DNA.”
She’ll consider me an evildoer.
“When I last met her six decades ago, she nearly incinerated me with those wings in a fiery embrace, right before I chained her to the bottom of the ocean.” He sighed to the sky, “Good times,” and walked on without a care in the worlds.
Rage welling, Kristoff followed Lothaire, beginning to sweat in the increasingly hot air. They headed toward that plain of piping lava, the heat mirroring his inner turmoil as he seethed over his options.
Oathbound to one of two evil beings: Lothaire or Dorada.
Or let Furie continue to drown.
Unless . . . Kristoff narrowed his eyes on Lothaire’s back as he devised another alternative. What if I change the rules of the entire game?
The checkmate of them all. He found his lips curving. Yes, brother, maybe we are more alike than I’ll admit.