Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
At least we fled in the right direction.
After leaving the temple, we were only a few days travel from Estrys.
Our detour had been so bizarre, such a strange hazy little pocket of reality, that it felt odd to shift my thoughts back to god slaying and divine weaponry once we left.
It was actually a bit embarrassing that I’d gone the entire detour without thinking about our task at all—a stark change from its near constant presence in my thoughts.
Now, Septimus and I returned to our journey with renewed verve.
Once we went to Estrys and got the harp Septimus had hidden there, we would be ready to go after Kajmar.
Septimus seemed especially eager. He had mentioned that he had many friends in Estrys, and I wondered if he was rejuvenated at the prospect of visiting them.
The man was practically cheerful, which was strange to witness.
Neither of us acknowledged what had happened at the pleasure temple again.
But it still seemed impossible to ignore that something had changed.
We now traveled together on our single horse, Septimus behind me and his arms folded around mine.
I had to admit, there was something uncomfortably pleasant about those days, sharing our single horse, chatting as we traveled deeper and deeper into the silver-dipped mountains beneath the velvet sky.
It was a completely different kind of intimacy than what we’d taunted each other with in the back halls of the pleasure temple.
There was no flirtation, not even the faintest innuendo of sex, and yet, I was so painfully aware of his proximity.
When he told me stories about vampire lore or mythological feats, so close his voice shivered over the shell of my ear, I wanted to lick the sound from his skin like honey.
This was more dangerous. If we had taken each other in the pleasure house, that would have been simple. A bad decision one could wave away to drunkenness or horniness or any other mortal weakness.
Instead, this was insidious. A slow, warm smolder rather than a wild blaze. Something had changed, even if we didn’t mention it. Even Zefiah noticed. Once, a day into our travel, she asked me, {What happened, between you?}
Nothing happened, I told her.
{I can tell when you are lying to me, Kyrene.}
She was a part of my soul. So I gave her the best truth I could: There are some things you probably do not want to know, Zef.
After a beat, she conceded, {This is true.}
She didn’t even know how true it was. I tried to imagine Zefiah’s reaction if I told her the things Septimus and I had said to each other. Or that I was ready to fuck some stranger solely so I could watch him watching me.
Gods above. She already judged me enough.
Still, though Septimus and I did not acknowledge what had changed, I knew it was never far from our minds.
He held himself in just the right way as we rode that made me certain he was very conscious of every place our bodies touched.
And sometimes, when we talked and I could feel his breath against my skin, his words would get slower, as if he was fighting distraction.
I knew it, because I was, too.
Even so, distraction wasn’t distraction enough.
The nightmares still chased me. One night, I woke lashing out against someone shaking my shoulders.
My jaw hurt, as if I’d clenched it so hard in a blind rage that my teeth were on the edge of cracking.
My cry was still aching in my throat, raw and feral.
The nightmares, as they always did, took too long to fade. I blinked away the images of my bloody fingertips and mutilated bodies to see Septimus crouching beside me, rummaging in his pack, giving me a far too casual look over his shoulder.
“Apologies,” he said. “I was just rearranging the luggage.”
It was such a pitiful excuse. Our “luggage” was a single leather bag, and there was no “rearranging” that would involve him shaking me by the shoulders. A strange mix of gratefulness and embarrassment warred in my chest. I touched my cheek and was ashamed to find it wet.
I ducked my head as I swiped the tear away. I opened my mouth, intending to dispense something dismissive and calm, something that would allow me to reclaim my dignity. But the images of Valentina’s body still danced in the dark, and my throat was tight.
I was grateful when Septimus spoke before I could.
“Perhaps you should read,” he said. “I find it helps, when I can’t sleep.”
He held out a beaten-up book to me. I swallowed an unexpected lump in my throat—it was such a surprising, mundane kindness—and looked away.
“I can’t read Obitraen very well,” I said.
A pause. “Ah.” I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, then glanced up to see him sitting on the ground beside me, legs crossed, book open.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He looked at me like this was a ridiculous question. “Reading to you. Obviously.”
My chest drew suddenly tight, unexpected and unpleasant. I wanted to protest, but Septimus’s voice was already drowning out my unspoken argument.
“ ‘It was cold and rainy on the eve the Duchess Theodora met the man who would one day throw her staid life into disarray,’ ” he read, “ ‘But the moment she locked eyes with the rogue Royce Arquin, she did not even care—’ ”
I choked a laugh. “You’re joking,” I blurted out. “You’ve got to be joking.”
He blinked at me. “Why?”
“A romance? It’s actually a romance?”
“Some might call the incredulity in your voice rude.”
“You’re a Bloodborn prince, for gods’ sake.”
“And? Bloodborn princes can’t appreciate the heartwarming tales of two flawed mortals finding love? Don’t impose limits upon me, Vindica Ultis.”
I stared at him, lips parted, actually speechless.
His eyes lowered to the page again. “Don’t worry,” he said. “There is indeed sex in it, but you’ll have to be patient.”
Then he added, more softly, “We all have bad dreams, lyri. I prefer to replace mine with better endings, even if books are the only place left to find them.”
A lump rose in my throat. He didn’t look up from the book, and I was grateful for it, because I knew he’d see more on my face than I wanted him to.
He began reading again. I let myself lay back and stared at the stars. And I let his words, melodic and lush, paint tales into the sky. I let them cradle me all the way to sleep, where I did not dream at all.
The next morning, I awoke to find Septimus asleep in the dirt beside me, book on his chest, as if he’d fallen asleep mid-sentence, one hand reaching toward mine.
We didn’t speak of it. Zefiah was right. Sometimes, denial was preferable to the truth. And so Septimus and I soldiered on, content to remain safely encased in ours.
But every night, he read to me. And the nightmares, mercifully, did not return.
“I didn’t think there was anything at all this far north,” I remarked one night as we rode. We were, by Septimus’s estimation, nearly there, and my tailbone was ready to be done traveling.
“Most don’t,” Septimus said. “That was why Estrys was founded, initially. To have a place beyond the bounds of the House of Blood that was so remote it would never be disturbed. Turned out it was also a convenient place to hold items that needed to be kept from prying eyes.”
“I’m starting to think that I’m just another addition to your collection of dangerous divine contraband.”
He chuckled. The vibration ran up my spine, where his chest pressed against it.
“You, Kyrene, are the most dangerous piece of contraband in the whole collection.”
{Oh, for gods’ sake,} Zefiah muttered. {You are not ‘dangerous contraband.’ You are an explosive.}
I won’t argue with that.
“You said the city was founded a hundred years ago,” I said. “How old are you?”
“About that old.”
“So you are merely the latest in a long line of magical contraband collectors.”
A beat of hesitation.
“My brother Gaius founded Estrys,” he said at last. “He was passionate about it. Many of his closest friends, and mine, by extension, now live there.”
“You have a brother?”
I searched my mind for what I knew of the politics of the House of Blood.
Septimus was a well-known figure, traveling around Obitraes and the human kingdoms alike doing the bidding of the king and queen.
I’d never heard any mention of siblings, but then, most humans didn’t hear much of the intricacies of the vampire kingdoms.
“I’m the seventh prince of the House of Blood,” he said. “I had many brothers.”
Had. Ah.
“But you’re the heir,” I said, already piecing together what this meant.
“Yes. My older brothers are all dead. I do have one sister though. She’ll outlive us all, probably.”
“I didn’t know vampires had that many children.”
It was a common rhetoric about vampires—that they didn’t reproduce often, and when they did, it was with a high mortality rate. Humanity’s greatest advantage was our ability to replenish our numbers easily.
“They usually don’t.” Septimus’s voice was slightly strained.
{His parents likely killed his brothers,} Zefiah said. {It is what their kind do to their offspring.}
Perhaps I didn’t quite turn my head fast enough to hide my grimace, because he leaned forward to peer at me, a tight, wry smirk at one corner of his mouth.
“What?”
“What?”
“What did your sword tell you?”
I shot him a surprised glance over my shoulder, and he chuckled.
“You make it obvious when she’s talking to you. And I know how chatty god-forged objects can be.”
Gods. I needed to work on controlling my face. But my curiosity outweighed my tact, so I told him the truth.
“She asked whether your parents killed your other brothers.”
He barked a startled laugh. “My, that’s dark.”
“It’s what vampires do, isn’t it?” Everyone knew it, even in the human nations. That vampires often maimed or murdered their own offspring.
“Some. Yes. It can be practical. Children are quite a liability when power is inherited and lives last for five hundred years or more.”
His voice was sour with disgust, which surprised me.
“You seem disapproving,” I said.
“It’s a Nightborn and Shadowborn practice. Nightborn, especially.”
“And what, the Bloodborn have nice little happy families?”
A beat of silence. Then, “Bloodborn are cursed. We do not get to live for five hundred years. Getting the privilege to continue your line is an asset, not a liability.”
It was rare that Septimus mentioned the Bloodborn curse. The words were hard and cold. I turned, just enough to meet his eyes, which he narrowed at me.
“What?” he said.
“Are you ever going to tell me more about this mysterious curse, or just keep alluding ominously to it?”
I was expecting a teasing non-answer. But his expression stilled. His gaze slipped to the horizon.
“I have a question for you,” he said. “You told me you were at Vostis for the battle of the Citadel of the Destined Dawn—”
My smile disappeared. I faced forward. “It wasn’t a battle. It was a massacre.”
“—and the Vindica Ultis first began appearing shortly after. So how did you get Shiket to bestow Zefiah to you?”
Zefiah’s light flared, burning against my thigh. She said nothing. I said nothing.
“You must have been young,” he mused, as if to himself. “Perhaps only—”
“Seventeen,” I said.
“Seventeen. So, what did Shiket see in you? She had the greatest warriors at her disposal. And yet you were the one to become the first Vindica Ultis in centuries. For all my research about you, I never have been able to answer that question.”
A lump of unspoken words, the ugly truth, pulled tight in my stomach.
Even Zefiah, in this prime opportunity to warn me against my brash impulses, was silent.
I wondered if she, too, was thinking about the first terrible night that we met.
A night that had changed my entire life—a night that had given me a life—and yet, one that I never allowed to cross my thoughts.
I got the impression that Septimus knew that. That this was payback for asking questions about his own dark secrets.
I turned my head just enough to meet his stare. It was truly night, now. The stars were bright, and they reflected in Septimus’s eyes. The ring of red around his iris had never faded. A few threads of crimson still reached mournfully to their center.
“What do you think she saw in me?” I said.
A shadow passed over his face.
“That is the peculiar thing, Kyrene,” he murmured. “I know what I see when I look at you. But none of those qualities, admirable as they are, are ones typically appreciated by the gods.”
I faced forward, though it didn’t feel like much of an escape with Septimus’s chest still against my back, his arms around me.
“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I said lightly. Then, when my eyes trailed up to the horizon, I let out an exhale of relief and pointed, grateful to change the subject. “Is that it?”
The peaks, newly visible with our turn in the road, rose from between sheets of stone.
Glimpses of crimson spires tipped with gold reached into the sky.
It really was an interestingly positioned city.
It seemed shockingly close for something that we hadn’t been able to see until just now, as if it had been masked by magic from the eye until you were at its doorstep.
“It is.” Septimus’s voice was uncharacteristically light. He urged our poor, exhausted horse a little faster. That was how eager he seemed to meet a friendly face. Eager enough, at least, to let the subject drop, for which I was grateful.
But the relief, it turned out, was short-lived. It did not take long before we realized that something was very, very wrong.