Chapter 52
Fifty-Two
Castle Dacia
Intervention, vampire-style.
The goal: getting Mina to drink.
And maybe to sleep.
All her family and friends had gathered at sunset in Dacia’s court to “talk some sense into her”—because they’d failed to do so in their succession of one-on-one visits with her over the last week.
Lothaire and Ellie sat upon their thrones decorated with gilded skulls. Mirceo and Caspion leaned against the edge of the dais. Her uncles Stelian, Viktor, and Trehan, with his sorceress mate Bettina, stood nearby. Beside Ellie’s throne, Balery looked on with a pensive expression.
The one person missing was Kristoff. He’d believed his presence would be an intrusion, but Mina also thought he was even more preoccupied with Furie than usual.
Caspion’s hand had finished regenerating. Lothaire’s leg had. A bandage still circled Mirceo’s neck, but at least he’d regenerated enough to leave his bed.
Mina had fully recovered from her illnesses. Balery had tested her blood and believed she was now immune to both the plague and ghoul toxin.
Yet my heart remains broken. Worry for Mirceo, Caspion, and even Adham fogged her brain, but she knew she was forgetting something critical. If she could just rest her eyes for a moment, she could figure it out. She hadn’t slept since she’d returned.
Lothaire intoned, “We’ve called you here this eve because some people are concerned about you.”
Mina gazed from face to face, taking in her loving uncles: steady yet fierce Trehan, combative Viktor, and hidden-depths Stelian, who sipped his bloodmead flask. Their love for her united these disparate beings. Looking at them now, she could scarcely believe that their lines had warred for centuries.
“I decreed them not to be concerned,” Lothaire added, “but they persist—like your obvious feelings for the sorcerer.”
All eyes on me. Mina was back at the very place where her shyness had taken root in her youth. Her king’s words echoed in her mind.
. . . s o socially inept . . . in my court . . . pains me.
A thousand visits here in the past had given her no hint of this coming night—the night she would stand before all her loved ones with her heart a bloody mess and her emotions in ruins.
Now that the plague no longer bolstered Mina, her shyness should reappear in the fertile ground that had once made it thrive.
In a pained voice, her brother said, “I still don’t understand how you fell for someone who was sworn to kill me.” When Mirceo rubbed his throat, Caspion’s eyes flickered black with feeling, still haunted by how close he’d come to losing his newly found mate. Despite Mirceo’s incredible recovery rate, the demon flinched every time her brother adjusted his bandage.
Mina had shared Caspion’s vigil over Mirceo, had bonded for life to her brother-by-fate. She’d once asked Mirceo who would take care of him, and she had taken it upon herself to do so; the two of them hadn’t known that in a different world, a young demon had already been born to fulfill such a sacred duty.
Lothaire rubbed his own throat and muttered, “I know that feeling, boy.” Ellie patted his hand sympathetically, though she had been the one who’d nearly beheaded him during their courtship. That had been an accident; Adham’s strike hadn’t been.
Mina had already been over this with Mirceo, but she quietly said, “Adham told me he had the ability to break vows.”
Muffled groans all around.
“The enchanter lied about being able to lie?” Mirceo said. “Sounds legit.”
With a laugh, Lothaire told her, “You got duped. It happens to the best of us Dacians. Literally, the best of us—me. A goddess of vampires played me for a fool. But fortunately I was not in love with her whatsoever.”
Through her haze, Mina had tried to analyze every interaction, every word, every smile between her and the sorcerer. “You and Kristoff saw how Adham fought to reach me. Why doubt his devotion? Kristoff doesn’t.” As he’d absently said, “The Sandman loves you. Something else is at work.”
What could explain Adham’s actions? If Mina could only think . . .
Caspion gently asked, “Did Silt tell you he loved you?”
Adham. “Well, not precisely. But he said other things just as heartfelt, and he followed me to the hive, against all odds.”
Expression sympathetic, Ellie said, “Didn’t others go there too? When they all realized Nightside was dying?”
Mina admitted, “That’s true.” Though Enti had planned for Adham to stay and for Nightside to stabilize, the wily sorceress had prepared for other outcomes. She’d even attempted to make a scythe—for a Dacian swordswoman to clear a path through the hive so others could follow. Mina didn’t blame her. All’s fair in love and Lore. “But the fact remains that Adham and I are mated.”
Lothaire said, “I have it on good authority that Sorceri don’t have mates.”
“I beg your pardon?” Bettina stiffened beside Trehan, who took her hand.
Lothaire waved negligently in their direction.
Caspion, Bettina’s childhood friend, flashed her a look of sympathy.
This court was never going to believe Mina. The stout case against the King of Sand—including his past behavior with her and for the millennia before her—provided only one conclusion: a serial deceiver had repeatedly deceived her. Worse, he’d done exactly what he’d sworn to do from the beginning.
Hurt Mirceo to get revenge.
Her best guess was that he’d lied about being able to break a vow to the Lore and had meant to confess later. Maybe he hadn’t grasped how much control that vow would have over him. At his age, though?
Those rash words, said in the rage of his withdrawal, would curse them for the rest of their lives. One single instant—a spur of the moment—really had been like a metal spur jolting him into an action from which there was no known return.
Unless he was actually evil and had played her.
As soon as those doubts rose, she recalled the adoration in his eyes when he’d made love to her. She couldn’t have reached divinity on her own—and she hadn’t mistaken that destination. Mina softly said, “If we’re not mates, then why was he going to sacrifice his root power to Dorada? To become an Inferi for me?” Kristoff had told her about Adham’s plan.
At the rim of his flask, Stelian muttered, “That’s what he said . What he did was dissect my nephew’s neck.”
Actions spoke louder than words with this group. Mina could reveal all the sentiments that made her believe in Adham, but her family would never get past Mirceo’s head hanging on by a thread. Can I blame them?
“You look like you’re about to drop,” Balery said, not looking much better after her extended efforts to find Lothaire, Kristoff, and Mina. At great personal cost, this oracle had rolled her bones over and over for weeks, until she’d been able to direct Mirceo and Caspion to that exit from Nightside. “You need to drink.”
Mina didn’t want to dilute Adham’s blood. He’s inside me. She’d taken him into her, and they’d become one body, one blood. Though she no longer had the plague, her hunger for him proved unrelenting.
“And I can give you something to help you sleep,” Balery said, brows drawn over her doe-brown gaze. “Or are you worried about dreaming the sorcerer’s memories?”
“She should be worried!” Mirceo exclaimed. “I still can’t believe you drank straight from Silt Harea. Do you know how old he is, how many memories he’s transferred to you? Your eyes might still go red.”
Mina muttered, “You’re one to talk about drinking straight from another.”
His cheeks flushed, and Caspion pulled up his collar. With sudden interest, Trehan and Bettina both studied the ceiling. Lothaire and Ellie shared a smile. Seemed more than one Dacian practiced this “deviancy.”
Viktor sighed. “Degenerates.”
Stelian raised his flask. “Cheers to them.”
Mina said, “I might not even see his memories.”
Stelian took a swig. “One way to find out, niece. Face the coming onslaught with your usual bravery. You can’t stay awake forever.”
Ellie added, “Sweetie, this anvil’s gotta drop.”
Mina knew that, but . . . “If Adham attacked Mirceo because he was bound by a vow he barely remembered making in the first place, it will break me. If he wasn’t bound by a vow, it will break me.” Either way, she could never be with him again.
Yet wasn’t there another alternative she couldn’t quite put her finger on? She needed to think!
“You still want him?” Mirceo pointed to his injury and said, “I would shake my head with consternation, but it still might fall off!”
She winced.
“If you witnessed Silt as we did during his capture, you would not feel this way.” He looked at Caspion. “Tell her.”
The demon ran a hand through his shaggy blond hair between his horns, then reluctantly said, “It was a scene. Even by our former standards of . . . high-living.”
“As you two have changed, so has he.” Or he had . Maybe.
“He nearly killed me. He screamed that he was going to do it!” Mirceo cleared his regenerating throat. “He told you he’d torture you to get to me. Why won’t you believe he’s evil?”
Because he made me a rose. For what reason would he have created that token for her other than love? Which meant he was suffering somewhere right now from what he’d done. “I know in my heart he’s not.”
Mirceo blew out a breath. “When your arm got clawed, I felt it. I feared you had the plague the whole time we were searching for you.” He and Caspion had worked tirelessly to find her, never giving up. “But you beat it on your own. And then you beat ghoul contagion! Why can’t you defeat these feelings?”
Gazing at her boots, she said, “Because I wanted to defeat those other things.”
Sounding as if she’d struck him, he said, “Talk about a loyalty conflict. You’re so innocent that you can’t understand what he is. He was only using you. That’s what his kind does.”
“I’m not innocent. And I wasn’t used,” she murmured, but no one seemed to be listening.
Caspion said, “Even now Harea is out there hunting both Mirceo and Mina, like some killing machine.” According to the demon’s bounty hunter network, Adham searched for Dacia, spending a fortune on spies and informants. If the kingdom hadn’t been mystically hidden, he might already have found it.
Lothaire sat back in his throne. “Hag, what do your bones say?”
“I can’t get a read on him,” she answered. “He’s empowered as never before, using his sand to travel, and such a constant sorcery outlay cloaks him from my sight.”
That would explain how Adham had escaped so quickly from that cliff. By the time Dacian sentries had arrived to apprehend him and guard the opening to Nightside, Adham had already vanished.
“You’re no N?x, are you?” Lothaire said, earning a glare from everyone in the court. “So two options exist: either the sorcerer is bound by a vow he didn’t mean to make—which I can empathize with—or he’s evil and bent on revenge. Which I can also empathize with. But in the end, his motives don’t matter. The sorcerer won’t stop targeting Mirceo, so I hereby decree Silt Harea’s death.”
Mina jerked her head up with a gasp. “You would kill my fated one, Uncle? As I told everyone, a siren sang for him, and she had no effect on him. He and I are mated.”
“Did you see the siren do it?” Caspion asked. “Or did he tell you that happened?”
“I . . . didn’t actually see it.”
Groans.
Lothaire said, “Did I ever tell you about playing poker against the King of Lies? You can’t trust Sorceri.”
Bettina put a hand on her hip. “I’m standing right here.” Trehan’s gaze darkened.
As if she hadn’t spoken, Lothaire continued, “One thing I know for certain: a sorcerer assassination is a splendid spectacle. You never know what you’re going to get with those fonts of magic. Kind of like different fireworks. Most go boom.”
Bettina rolled her eyes behind her Sorceri mask. “Still right here.”
Trehan cast Lothaire a warning look and protectively drew his Bride against his side. “Watch yourself, Enemy of Old.”
“Often. My reflection entrances even me.”
Dizziness swept over Mina, and she pitched on her feet. Exhaustion and grief had undermined her logic almost as much as the plague had promised to. Maybe she should sleep so she could regain it. “Adham made the vow to me. Why can’t I release him from it? That can happen under certain conditions, right?”
Lothaire, an expert with these vows, said, “If he vowed to do your wishes by killing Mirceo, then you could.”
“What about searching the worlds for a way to break such an oath?”
Lothaire’s low-level amusement faded. “You think I didn’t try that, girl? You believe I simply failed to come up with that idea when my Bride’s soul was on the line? I had no option other than facing dawn and incinerating myself—which I tried to do. To answer your next question, no, not even Dorada’s ring could relieve me of that vow.”
Ellie reached over to pet his arm until the tense line of his jaw eased.
Caspion said, “Mina and Mirceo won’t be safe from a sorcerer with that much power. He must be taken out. I volunteer to do it.” Caspion was a death demon and a hunter; Mina took his words very seriously.
“Then it’s settled,” Lothaire said as she gaped. “Caspion will kill the Sandman. Let me know when you close in.” He rubbed his hands with relish. “I do love a good sorcerer decapitation.”
Bettina bit out, “Must you?”
Mirceo frowned at Caspion. “Wait a second— I want to take his head. None of this would have happened if not for my initial recklessness with Harea’s bounty.”
The demon answered, “Not a chance, leechling.”
Viktor’s hand already hovered over the hilt of his sword. “I’ll do it.”
Trehan said, “I am the leader of the House of Shadow. It’s my job to assassinate threats to the royal family.”
“Correction: it was your job, Trey,” said Viktor, the head of the equally powerful House of War. “Now that you’re busy running the kingdom you share with Betinna, I’ve been stepping into your position.”
“ Mina should do it,” Stelian interjected. “She’ll never get over him otherwise.”
Warming to that idea, Viktor said, “Yes. She could strike from her mist, and that cretin would never see it coming. Not as valorous as battle, but it would get the job done.”
As they blithely discussed Mina assassinating Adham, she felt as if she’d been caught in quicksand again, screaming into the void. . . .
“This is my little sister we’re talking about. It’s not happening, not on my life,” Mirceo said with all the arrogance of a Dacian prince. “The sorcerer is mine to kill. I started all this madness with Silt’s capture.”
Ellie snapped her fingers. “Capture—now, that right there’s a good idea. Let’s nab him instead of droppin’ him. We can always kill him.”
Lothaire scratched his chin thoughtfully. “As good a point as ever.”
But having lit on the idea of a murder, the majority in this court had no interest in anything less. They all argued their positions—at the same time.
Mina gazed from one face to the next. She should feel lucky that so many loved her enough to care about her future. Yet they all treated her like she was the same princess—the old Mina—who would welcome their guidance, squeak her compliance, and surrender her will.
Surrender my will. The fuck?
Yes, her shyness should have rebounded in the fertile ground of this court. But she refused it. In its place bloomed something different, something like a desert rose boldly spreading her stalks across the dunes and winking at the sun.
The new Mina yelled, “Everyone, enough!” Her outburst startled them into silence, all except for Lothaire.
With a sigh, he muttered, “Finally.”
“I am not innocent. I have not been duped.” Blooming, blooming . “And when I tell you Adham’s my mate and that he loves me—I mean it.” She addressed Mirceo: “Is it so ridiculous to believe the sorcerer lost his heart to me? Do I have no merits that might have earned his love?”
Eyes wide, Mirceo hastily said, “Of course you do, my precious sister! He just might not have had the sense to appreciate them.”
Clapping her hands after each word, she snapped, “My—merits—are—undeniable.”
Double takes all around.
As Mina said these words, she knew them to be true. Her rána burned not at all. “No one’s going to kill my mate. I’m going to save him. Somehow . . .” She trailed off as her mind fired with logic at last, and that third alternative hit her with the force of a geyser: Beware the Sorceri. She turned to Caspion. “When your sources reported back on Adham’s movements, did they mention anything unusual about his appearance?”
The demon frowned. “Yeah. Actually they did.”
She cast her mind back to that night when Adham had told her he didn’t have to kill her brother. She’d been so overjoyed that she’d barely registered all his words—or his other vow. He hadn’t been bound by it then, but he was now. So what had changed?
Mina’s fatigue disappeared, her thoughts sharpening as another mission took hold of her mind. She told the court, “I know what happened to Adham. And I know how to get him back.”