Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I raised my hands and backed up. I hadn’t yet caught my own breath—the adrenaline of the battle still pounded in my veins. And yet, there was something about having a sword shoved in your face by the most efficient killer you’ve ever met that immediately sobered a person.
“What did I do to deserve this?” I said.
“You lied to me.”
Atrius’s presence was impossible to read even at the best of times. Now, with my magic thoroughly exhausted, it was no use to even try.
“You got your victory,” I said.
“At a steep cost. This was not the right time to make this move.”
Ah, shit.
I forced down a strange tightness in my chest—nervousness, yes, but also an unexpectedly strong wave of guilt.
“You made it clear to me that you understood seering to be unpredictable,” I said. “Perhaps you avoided a greater bloodshed, or an all-out defeat, by acting when you did.”
“Tell me,” he said, “was the entire vision a fabrication, or just parts of it?”
“I risked my life to save your men. Would I do that if I was trying to sabotage you?”
He seemed unfazed. “If you were smart, then yes. ”
Weaver damn him.
“I have no interest in working for a man who doesn’t understand the nature of seering,” I scoffed. “To think I actually started to believe that you were more enlightened than the others. You’re just another self-absorbed king who wants to be told what he wants to hear.”
I had watched Atrius kill enough times by now to recognize the way he coiled, like a snake preparing to strike.
Weaver, I was going to die here if I didn’t come up with something, and fast. But then, he also hadn’t killed me yet. If he’d really been fully convinced of my dishonesty, he wouldn’t have bothered to allow me to talk.
He needed me. He knew it. He wanted me to give him something that would make him believe me.
Desperate, I reached for the threads, the sudden push greeting me with a stab of pain to the back of my head. Atrius’s presence was a wall, as always, but I followed the threads to him and pushed—pushed?—
Give me something, Weaver. Anything.
With enough force, sometimes an Arachessen could snag bits and pieces from a person’s past or future, like a difficult, highly-abridged, even-less-useful version of seering. Usually, it provided nothing useful. But I was desperate.
I pushed against Atrius’s presence and was greeted with a barrage of fragmented images and emotions.
Mountaintop night sky cold cold cold the prince isn’t moving blood on a blade wipe it with cloth the prophecy was a lie a sea of ash a sky of mist and ? —
“The prophecy,” I blurted out. “I know about the prophecy.”
Atrius’s shock actually showed in his face. Radiated from his presence. He lowered his sword a little in a way that seemed unintentional.
Then a sheet of cold rage fell over his gaze.
“What are you talking about?” he snarled.
I’d just made a huge mistake.
“You didn’t let me complete my Threadwalk,” I said, carefully. “You stopped me. Because you didn’t like the… grounds upon which I tread. ”
“Don’t seer about me.”
I raised my palms a little more. “I know. But because you stopped me, you didn’t get the full truth.”
His throat bobbed. He looked genuinely torn as to whether to kill me or not.
“What did you see about the prophecy?”
I smiled sweetly at him. “I’ll tell you if you promise not to kill me.”
“I don’t make those kinds of promises.”
“I’ll take a lowered sword.” I wanted that thing out of my face. It was still covered with the guts of Aaves’s goons. What an insulting way to die.
He ceded. Barely.
I leaned back against the wall.
“Tell me,” he demanded. His shoulders were heaving in a way that I suspected had nothing to do with the exertion of the last several hours, which didn’t seem to bother him until now.
I noted this carefully—this prophecy. The mountain. Nyaxia.
The prince.
All these things were very important to Atrius. The only times I had ever witnessed him upset were when they were mentioned.
That was useful.
“The truth?” I said, raising my palms in concession. “Maybe it’s a mistake telling you this, but what I know is vague. Only that it exists. I sensed it in my Threadwalk. After I saw… you. If you won’t take my head off for making that reference.”
Atrius didn’t take my head off, but he still looked like he was considering it.
“I know you have a greater mission,” I said quietly. “I know this is about more than just conquering for you. Even if not, I can’t offer you the specifics. Not without your cooperation.”
Weaver, I was pushing it. And yet, somehow, even as the words flowed over my lips, something deep inside me thought… perhaps they were true. There was more to this than Atrius was showing me.
His face shifted, revealing so little and so much—all but confirming my suspicions.
“What benefit do I have in lying to you, Atrius?” I murmured. “Either you kill me, or the Arachessen will. To be honest, I would prefer you do it.” My toe nudged one of the bodies on the ground. “At least you’re swift about it.”
“Only sometimes,” he said.
He was deep in thought, sword still hanging at his side—staring at me hard, like he was trying to take me apart.
I chanced taking a step closer. Tipped my chin, cocked my head. I had no big beautiful eyes to bat at him, but I knew the body language—curious, innocent, submissive.
“If you want to know more about this—this prophecy, I could Threadwalk again and?—”
“No.”
Just as swiftly as he’d drawn his sword, he sheathed it. The tension broke. He turned away. It was as if he’d never considered killing me at all.
“Go find Erekkus,” he said. “He’ll give you orders. We have plenty of work to do.”
Atrius did not rest before cementing his hold on Alka. He ordered a sweep of the towers, eliminating the last of Aaves’s men, who hid in the shadows, foolishly throwing themselves at Atrius’s warriors wielding frying pans or dinner knives. They were easy to root out.
I wasn’t sure what I expected Atrius to do once that was done—strip the capital for resources, perhaps, or set up his men in the civilian homes—but it wasn’t what he did.
I was with Erekkus, dragging away bodies from the first floor of the tower, when Atrius appeared on the balcony that overlooked the crumbling homes of Alka’s people. Everyone stopped their work, necks craning. Erekkus was pulled away by another soldier who said something in Obitraen to him.
“What’s going on?” I asked Erekkus, when he nodded and returned to our work.
“Atrius is addressing the people. They’re going to get everyone out of their houses to listen.”
Addressing the people? I couldn’t quite name why this was unbelievable to me—maybe it was because the idea of Atrius making a speech seemed absurd, or maybe it was shocking to me that the vampires considered the citizens of Alka people worth addressing at all.
“They’re going to terrify people. Everyone’s going to think they’re about to get rounded up and slaughtered.”
Erekkus shrugged. “Maybe. But they’re not.”
“Why not?”
He chuckled. “You’re not the first one to ask that question,” he muttered.
“Atrius doesn’t kill the civilians of the cities he conquers.”
I couldn’t quite tell if there was a question mark at the end of that or not.
“No. He doesn’t. Not one of them, if he can help it.”
I thought about Raeth.
If he can help it.
We hoisted another body over the edge of the ravine, to be burned in the pit below. It made a series of very unpleasant cracking noises on the way down.
“You’re surprised,” Erekkus said.
“He didn’t strike me as the forgiving type.”
Erekkus laughed, like I’d said something legitimately hilarious, the sound punctuated with a grunt of exertion.
CRACK , as another one of the bodies fell against the rocks.
“Why is that funny?” I asked. Despite myself, I was panting. These bastards were heavy.
“Atrius has an interesting moral code.”
“I’m just surprised, given?—”
“Given that we eat humans. Last one?”
He pointed to one final body, a silk-drenched old man with a clearly broken neck, and we crossed the room to drag it over.
“Yes,” I said.
“I’ll be honest, Sister, a lot of us do think we should be eating a whole lot better on this trip than we are. But—” Another grunt, as we hauled the body over the edge. CRACK . “—Everyone respects Atrius. And Atrius believes he can’t rule this kingdom while also eating its subjects, which, I begrudgingly have to say, does make sense.”
I stopped mid movement. My brows rose without my permission.
“ Rule ,” I repeated.
“Yes, rule ,” he muttered. “There’s more to go. Let’s get down there.”
Somehow, it had never occurred to me that Atrius’s ultimate intention was to rule Glaea—as in, actually govern it, its people included. I didn’t know why he wanted this kingdom, but it had never even crossed my mind that being a decent ruler to the humans that lived here was a possibility. I knew what life was like for humans in Obitraes—to say that humans were second-class was putting it kindly, despite some minimal protections. I imagined his intentions for the humans of Glaea were likely more of the same, at best. Anything otherwise was… confusing.
The citizens of Alka were, of course, as terrified as I’d predicted when Atrius’s soldiers shepherded them out of their homes and into the streets. But Atrius didn’t keep them long. His speech was brief and straightforward.
“People of Alka,” he said, voice calm despite its booming volume over the Alkan skyline. “Your king is dead. I claim this city-state in the name of the House of Blood of Obitraes, in the name of our Dark Mother, Nyaxia.”
I stiffened. It was the first time I’d heard Atrius mention Nyaxia directly. Yet he didn’t dwell—his voice remained flat and matter-of-fact. He was no charismatic orator.
“You may be frightened for your lives and those of your families,” he went on. “Do not be. We will not harm you. We are your protectors, not your enemies. We do not tolerate violence against us, but otherwise you will not be injured or punished. You will not be removed from your homes. You will not have your possessions taken from you. You have no need to be afraid.”
The Alkans were, of course, very afraid. It didn’t really do much good to be reassured by a blood-soaked vampire warrior with horns.
But Atrius seemed to think that his deed was done. He stepped away from the balcony after that—no grand finale, no inspiring words of wisdom, no great declaration of victory. It was almost funny how little fanfare there was.
That was that. Atrius returned to the castle, the soldiers ushered people back to their homes, and the night wore on.
Discarding the bodies of the warlords in the castle was easy. Finding those of all Atrius’s lost warriors was much more difficult. When the tide went out again the next night, Atrius sent men through the tunnels in an attempt to drag out the bodies of those who had drowned during the invasion. The remains were laid just beyond the boundary of Alka’s rocky inner city, where Atrius’s army had set up their camps.
There were many of them. I watched the lines of bodies grow, though I found myself looking for every excuse to be away from the fields where they were being kept.
Later that night, nearing dawn, Atrius’s men gathered along the rocky shore. We lined up along the cliffs before the bodies, each wrapped in scraps of fabric that had been dyed deep red in messy buckets of makeshift stain. Only Atrius stepped closer to them. He was silent. We were silent. No one breathed. No one spoke.
Atrius’s presence was still—and yet, when I pressed closer to it, reaching for what lay beyond that wall, I felt such deep, mournful sadness.
I drew away fast after that, like a finger from a flame, surprised by the intensity of what I’d just felt.
Atrius showed none of it. He walked along the line of bodies. One pass, then two, then three. And finally, he turned around, and Erekkus handed him a torch. The wrappings had been drenched in accelerant—the bodies took to flame quickly as Atrius knelt before each one, offering them a sendoff in the fire. And then he stepped back and he watched them burn.
For a long time, we all watched.
An hour later, the soldiers began to disperse, solemnly turning away and returning to their duties. Then more and more trickled away, until Erekkus did, too, nudging me along with him. Dawn was near. They had to return to their tents.
Only Atrius remained.
He stood there alone before that wall of fire until dawn kissed the horizon, and only then, reluctantly, did he turn away.