Chapter 30
Thirty
“Fuck sand.” Silt exhaled a frustrated breath, returning his new grains to the pouch on his belt.
Enti had gifted him pure quartz the other night, and he’d spent these last three “days”—or whatever this time period might be—alone in his room, training with it like some absurd Sorceri monk.
Training. Almost as if he were leaving.
Which he was not.
So why had he made Enti promise to alert him if Kosmina left? Why would it matter if the princess departed on a whisper?
He had no answers, his mental state worse than when he’d smoked himself into oblivion. Despite practicing with his favorite medium, he hadn’t reconnected to it, unable to think of anything but that vampire.
He’d kept looking at his palm. Replaying the feel of Kosmina. Her taste .
Silt couldn’t escape her, not even in sleep. Whenever he managed to doze off, he’d been visited by feverish reveries of her feeding from him. More than once, his dreams had turned wet—he’d awakened to his own groans as hot semen had spurted over his torso.
Only one thing to do: convince the princess to stay here with him for a time. He could bed her and get her out of his system. She was a novelty; all novelties lost luster eventually.
He headed to her room, determined. His crude attempt at seduction the other night had only gotten him so far. He was no charmer—unusual for a sorcerer—but females weren’t immune to him. He could close this one. And if she still proved ungettable, he had a card to play.
He raised his hand to knock but hesitated. All was quiet. Was she resting or downstairs among the libertines? Hastening to the stairs, he ignored the ongoing orgy on the steps, though they reached for him and moaned his name.
Looks uncomfortable to me. They reminded him of the quicksand traps he used to position on well-trod paths, ever ready to snare the unwary.
He passed the manic gambling in the dens and the decadent spreads of confections. Immortals gobbled up food as if it were about to run out. Gorging, gambling, and orgies—were these the dreams of demons and shifters? He supposed so.
He didn’t find the princess in his search of the castle. A young vampire like her would probably be asleep now, during this “day.” So he meandered to an unoccupied balcony, in no mood for other company. Gazing out over the boiling sea, he prickled with misery.
Sober. Antsy from the smoke that clung to every corner of this place. Halfway hard for a vampire he hadn’t seen in days.
The princess I’m obsessed with, who haunts even my dreams.
Without his usual shroud of dragon’s breath, his thoughts were too piercing, and all of them centered on Kosmina. Time passed—he had no idea how much without a moon, a sun, or stars. Still no sign of her.
Though everything in his demeanor said back off , Enti and Pearl approached him at the railing. The sorceress looked tired. “We despaired of seeing you again. You and the vampire both cloistered yourselves. Antisocial, if you ask me.”
“She hasn’t been down?”
“No, she’s been taking blood in her room and getting updates on the weapon there.” In a conspiratorial tone, Enti said, “Our princess isn’t a fan of some of the more lascivious scenes on display. That first morning, she questioned our guests about the realm and the Gaolers, but few were sober enough to give her any information. Or they were only interested in sleeping with her, making her promises in exchange for a place in her bed.”
He cast a murderous glance in the direction of the banquet hall, wondering which ones had propositioned her. The stair orgy alone . . .
“Now, now, sorcerer,” Pearl said with a laugh. “Remember, no violence is allowed in the castle.” At his look, she said, “I don’t have to be a mind reader to interpret that scowl.”
“No violence planned.” Liar.
Enti waved to a nearby table. “Sit for a moment?”
No, he didn’t want company, but he also didn’t want to cross this female unnecessarily. Silt had doubts about her, like a vague memory that wouldn’t surface. So he sank down into a chair. “What?”
“I feel like I’m failing in my duty as a hostess.” Enti signaled to a passing wine bearer, who hastened over with a bottle and three goblets. The buxom female poured, failing to elicit more than an indifferent glance from Silt before she sashayed away.
This clearly puzzled Enti. “I’m supposed to make your dreams come true, yet I know you’re more unhappy than you’ve ever been. Your pacing would have worn a hole in the carpet of your room had I not used sorcery to repair it,” she added pointedly.
Even after his parents’ treachery, he hadn’t been this miserable. Revenge whispered, Because I gave you hope . Will you abandon me?
Enti’s eyes appeared to swirl as she read his mind. “Have you set aside your quest for vengeance?”
To break the hallowed chain of pain? “It’s complicated.” His answer of the week.
Revenge had made him chase Kosmina across Nightside. It’d spurred him to barrel headlong into a pack of wendigos and made him fight to save her from drowning.
But what if it hadn’t been revenge? Chills erupted over his skin. What if all along it was . . . some kind of connection?
“Have you changed your mind as well about going with her?” Enti asked.
No matter how much Kosmina affected him, she wouldn’t be worth dying over. “I’ll never follow her into that hive.”
Relief flickered over Enti’s expression. “Yes, I can see that now. Sometimes reading you is difficult.” She tapped her temple and said, “Everything inside that head of yours seems conflicted.”
Apparently. Self-reflection must not be his strong suit—he felt unpracticed with it. The investigation into Silt Harea continued.
Pearl sipped her wine. “You just need to bed that vampire to get her out of your mind. But you had better hurry. She will likely leave tomorrow.”
He glanced over at Enti. “You finished the weapon?” Then the princess might have a shot.
“No. I failed to create it. It’s not in my wheelhouse.”
Pearl said, “She set our room on fire last night. Xodin had to use his wings to put it out. After that, we made her call it quits.”
Enti raised her palms and shrugged. “I’m going to tell Kosmina after dinner.”
The princess had dreamed it; Enti should be able to will it into being. Unless the sorceress was weakening?
He considered making a play for her tempting sorcery, but she would detect his plans before he ever got a chance to strike. “Aside from that weapon, is there anything else that can neutralize a primordial’s blood?”
Enti nodded. “In theory, the magic of an entire coven of witches should do it. Nightside is one coven short. Without a weapon or witches, I think one’s best bet is never to fight a primordial. Evasion is the only hope.”
“Let me inform Kosmina about the scythe in a few days. If she asks, tell her you’re still working on it.”
“To give you time to seduce her?” Enti adjusted her mask. “That sits ill with me. The princess doesn’t have much time left. When I said she could last for years more, I hadn’t considered her young age. She will succumb quickly.”
Bile rose in his throat. “In a year? A month?”
“Days. Already her eyes are reddening more, and her aggression is getting worse. Though her chance is billions to one against the primordial, she has zero chance against her illness. I will have to exile her soon. She’ll become a threat, and I take very seriously my promise of a haven here.”
“Your powers can’t help her retain lucidity?”
“Maybe outside this realm I could attempt to stabilize her, but not here.” Seeming dispirited by this, Enti slid his goblet closer to him. “Things fall apart, don’t they?”
“Without fail.” Tempted by the drink, he mined for fortitude—actually coming up with some. This surprised him considering their topic of discussion. He pressed the goblet away. “Have you ever heard of a cure? She’s considering Dorada’s ring.”
“Assuming Kosmina escaped, the ring could save her. Yet bargaining with that sorceress would be as good as a death sentence.”
“Why?”
Enti shared a look with Pearl then leaned in. “When Xodin arrived, he brought news from the Lore that Dorada had risen and was amassing an army. Sorcerer, this is the prophesy. She’s going to use all her new oathbound soldiers to attack against her ages-old foe Morgana. It will happen this Accession. Thank gold we’ll be safe here!”
“Sand almighty.” Morgana was the Queen of Sorceri in two senses. She was their monarch, and her power was to control all Sorceri. All of them except for Dorada. Those two colossal powers had been prophesied to destroy the mortal realm, ushering in an apocalypse.
“And apparently Morgana has harvested even more powers of late,” Enti continued. “Anyone sent to fight her will be annihilated like cannon-fodder.”
Pearl adjusted the modulator at her throat and said, “If the ring is the princess’s hope, will you tell her about Dorada? Maybe right after you tell her no magical scythe is coming?”
Demolishing all her hopes. “I’ll come clean about everything when I find the right moment.”
Enti said, “If she drinks from your flesh, she could see us discussing this very plot.”
“I won’t let her.”
“That might prove difficult, considering you’ve repeatedly dreamed about it.” The glimmer in her eyes told him she’d seen his memories of ejaculating all over himself. Fantastic. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Silt. You’re a hedonist faced with a new temptation. Our kind don’t change.”
Yet he hadn’t always been a hedonist. As the years had come and gone, he’d hunted and built strongholds. He’d warred and meted retribution. He’d made mistakes and tried to learn. So many interminable years. “I can handle it.”
Enti gazed deeply into his eyes. “And once she’s gone, you’ll enjoy all we have to offer here.”
It wasn’t a question, but he said, “Exactly.” Once Kosmina was gone, she’d be . . . gone. He recalled how he’d felt holding her lifeless body—that incomprehensible loss. His leg jogged beneath the table, his palms flickering erratically. He clenched his fists to conceal the light.
I stay. I surrender revenge. The vampire dies out there alone.
She was doomed anyway!
“Very well.” Enti quaffed her wine. “You and I will keep her hopes alive, while allowing her to deteriorate—so that you can sleep with her and then cast her off like so many women before.”
Pearl looked shocked by Enti’s words. “Castle Vitis is all about merriment and sport, isn’t it? Let the sorcerer have his.”
Yes. I want what I want, and damn the consequences.
“You’re right.” Enti adjusted her mask yet again. “The merriment of many over the gloom of the few.”
Undercurrents passed between the two females.
“What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”
Pearl said, “If you want the princess, you’d better hurry. She isn’t alone.”