Chapter 21
Twenty-One
“Divinity is a strong word,” Silt finally said, but he didn’t appear as confident—or scoffing—as before.
On unfamiliar footing, sorcerer? “And yet it’s not strong enough to do it justice.”
Lothaire had been right; Mina’s mission had tempered her feelings for the Gravewalker. But then Silt’s kiss had obliterated them. And the sorcerer was even less of a possibility for her!
“Wait a second . . . the Enemy of Old dispatched you—an innocent—on a ‘mission’ to observe the most raucous nymphs in the Lore?” Silt gave a laugh. “At least that vampire has a sense of humor.”
“You think he intended it as a joke?”
“Not a doubt in my mind. Immortals of a certain age find diversion where they can. I would know.”
Initially she’d feared the same. No longer. “Joke or not, I learned much.” Preconceptions about the nymphs had been overturned. Those females didn’t live for revelry and the indiscriminate taking of bedmates; they lived for their coven and bedded only the most skilled lovers.
Males who brought no pleasure to a nymph took no pleasure from one. Mina didn’t precisely know what “porn” was, but she’d heard more than one nymph telling a potential partner, “Don’t return until you cut out the porn and read some romance novels.” Those females knew what they wanted and set parameters.
They were also gifted spies, able to meld with many elements. They had an unmatched network for intelligence, and their wild fests harvested more.
From her observations, Mina had learned to value herself and the sharing of her body, and to never underestimate an unknown. She inwardly sighed. As everyone continued to do to her.
Was she underestimating this male? After all, what magic must he be using on her to affect her so deeply? She’d made a promise to herself to search for love and to honor it; at the earliest opportunity Mina had welcomed this rough sorcerer’s attentions.
If they hadn’t been interrupted, would she have surrendered everything to him? “I witnessed enough to discover that I want love from my future partner.”
“Love?” He all but spat the word. “Love can end. It can get twisted.”
“Then it wasn’t true to begin with.” She paused on the path. “Who hurt you, sorcerer? Who wounded you so badly that you never recovered from it?”
He stopped beside her. “No one. What are you going on about?”
“If only I could lie with such ease.” The rána was an effective teacher—and punisher. Since falsehoods were so rare in Dacia, the concept of them had always fascinated her.
“Nobody’s hurt me, because I don’t give anyone the chance to,” he said proudly, even as his golden eyes flickered with emotion. “Trusting another is like voluntarily wading into quicksand. You deserve to sink.”
She felt sorry for him. How lonely his existence must be. “We’ll have to agree to disagree. In the meantime, I remain a staunch believer.”
“Are you sharing all these thoughts with me because you still anticipate killing me?”
“Yes.” Plus, she remained unshackled by blushes and reticence. Here she was, conversing freely with an otherlander, as if she’d done so all her life. Bright side: she would never have known what this was like if she’d never caught the plague.
“You really are a piece of work, female.”
“You’re the villain here, sorcerer.” She started forward once more, and he followed.
When another quake rumbled, they fell silent, each lost in thought, even as they remained on alert for threats.
The path descended, widening. As the fog lifted, no dead end greeted them—the corridor opened up into a plain with a long lake of black water. Far on the horizon loomed a steep hill, covered with rocks. The food scents came from that direction.
The sky was a black dome scattershot with yellow lightning. The lake lay still as slate, reflecting the scene above. Those flashes of lightning reminded her of senses firing during a resurrection—such as her own—or the finale before dying. Was this realm coming into being or breathing its last?
As she studied the sky, she pondered whether she was indeed in N?x’s sights. Had the Valkyrie wanted her in this place? Mina did find it odd that the Gaolers had been in New Orleans on the very night she’d been clawed. Maybe Silt’s information wasn’t totally useless.
She peered over at him, feeling a tightness in her chest as she took in his strong profile. Fighting beside him with their lives on the line must have supercharged their chemistry, sending it tumbling into less . . . deniable.
He was handsome and focused, a world away from her initial impression of him. Maybe her attraction grew apace with his own metamorphosis. She rubbed her tongue over a fang for a shot of blood—his still spiced her own, and she almost moaned. He is inside me.
“We haven’t spotted any wendigos in this area,” he said in that deep voice. “Not a single stray bone. Why aren’t they following the same scent we are?”
Her survival instincts flared; thoughts of the past and the future grew muted. “Another imaginary line they won’t cross?”
“Probably.”
Yet again, she and Silt had likely stumbled onto a worse threat. Was some malign being using the food as a lure? “You mentioned that revenants and ghouls live here,” she said. “I’ve read a bit about both. But I thought revenants were corpses reanimated by sorcery.”
“Not here. The majority of Nightside’s revenants are born, not made. They get nourishment from snuffing life, and they’re brutally strong. A mystic told me she’d once seen a vision of a revenant attack. A single jabbing punch from one knocked an immortal’s head neatly off.”
The force that would take . . . “If the undead are born here, how do they multiply?”
“That mystic thought the ghouls reproduced like insects, in addition to an infected immortal here or there. Maybe the others do too.”
“Insects, is it?” Mina shuddered at the thought of spiders’ webs or egg sacs. “Ghouls usually move in large troops. That basilisk notwithstanding, why haven’t we seen any?”
“Luck?”
She laughed without humor. “You believe in that but not in love?”
He slid her a look, his eyes hinting at tangled secrets. “No one expects luck to last forever.”
With that, they continued on in silence, crossing the distance to that rocky rise. Side by side, she and Silt scaled the mound of stones.
Once they crested the top, Mina breathed in shock: “What sorcery is this?”
He bit out, “Exactly.”
At the top of the rocks, a marvel unfolded before Silt and Kosmina.
Past a valley filled with vineyards was a classical castle on an island, surrounded by a sea of boiling water. Torches illuminated the stately exterior in welcome, yet no bridge or ferry offered to take them across the water to reach it.
The sight of this wonder in such a wasteland sent him tumbling back in time to that momentous day when he’d been six. He’d followed a desert deer’s trail into the sands, far from home. Water pouch empty, he’d sworn that each hoof-marked dune he climbed would be his last. But he’d wanted to bag that game for his parents.
Picturing their relaxed smiles and the laughter that came only with a full belly, he’d pushed on with a mixture of excitement and wariness, kind of how he felt about this vampire.
Though he’d never caught that deer, he’d found an oasis filled with fruit trees. After he’d devoured his windfall and night had neared, he’d watched a wave of sand crest in front of the setting sun. In that moment, he’d first sensed his connection to it. I saw everything in the sand.
That oasis had been real; this wasn’t . Feeling the magic thick in the air, he murmured, “Behold the lair of a very powerful Sorceri.”
Kosmina faced him. “A good one or an evil one?”
“Odds lie with evil. Nature of the beast and such. And yet we’re still going there.”
“You said you give others of your kind a wide berth. Beware the Sorceri, remember?”
He had, even when fully empowered. Was he now to enter another one’s domain at his weakest? He traced the tattoos on his chest. Never again. And the easiest way to make a sorcerer give up his power was to threaten something he valued. He glanced at Kosmina, his asset. I know this well.
Still . . . “We have no choice but to investigate. The food is there.”
“We can’t leap over an expanse of water that wide.”
“He or she will probably test us before dispatching a ferry of some kind. Just stay on guard.”
She quirked a brow. “What if we fail the test?”
“We can vow to the Lore that we mean them no harm. And the only thing Sorceri like more than isolation is carousing. New faces will be welcome.” Novelty could revive a stale scene.
“Very well.” She squared her shoulders. “Let’s meet this Sorceri.”
“Stay close to me?—”
A pair of scents hit him simultaneously, two things that wanted to steal his life.
Behind them: the stench of revenants.
And from the castle: the vinegary spice of . . . dragon’s breath .