Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
WE DIDN’T DARE STOP to plan our next moves until the sun had risen, and we were well out of sight of the palace.
After Enrique drew up to a grassy patch where the horses could graze, the four of us crammed into the back of the carriage to take stock of our situation.
Raleigh sat in the furthest corner, broken leg stretched ahead of him, bound against a makeshift splint he’d shown me how to improvise.
I tried to forget the feeling of the bone healing itself under my fingers as I worked.
It would be completely healed in a matter of hours, but it would sap energy from him that I feared he couldn’t spare.
None of us were under any illusion that the Queen would let us go peacefully.
No matter how much Enrique insisted he’d only lit the spark that had been smouldering for decades, we knew that as far as the Queen was concerned, he had turned her court against her.
Moira had killed a significant number of the people she called family.
Unbeknownst to the others, I had Raleigh’s blood in my pocket, and with it her hold over her favourite pet.
And at the centre of it was Raleigh, the man who’d started it all.
The fact we survived as long as dawn gave everyone a glimmer of hope.
If the Queen had given chase in the night she would have caught us in moments – even I could probably outrun a carriage as heavy as ours – but she was trapped in her palace, fighting a force of her own people, and it had bought us the time we needed.
‘She’ll win,’ Raleigh said.
‘We don’t know that,’ Enrique said.
‘You can’t plan a successful coup in an hour while sitting in a driveway,’ Raleigh said. ‘Even if what you did manage was remarkable.’
‘I’ve told you a million times, they’ve been planning a coup for years. I only came up with the plan to get you out.’
Raleigh scoffed. ‘Why would they plan something so reckless?’
‘When you left court, everyone thought you were still part of the inner circle,’ Enrique said. ‘They saw you leaving as a crack in her control, and you became a symbol for their resistance. Why do you think she was so desperate to get you back?’
Raleigh picked at a chip in his coffin. ‘I left them there to die,’ he muttered.
‘They would have fought anyway. Your rescue was just the trigger.’
‘So what now?’ Moira slurred. She was slumped in Raleigh’s coffin, barely able to keep her eyes open. I’d bound her throat with a bandage Raleigh fashioned from one of my petticoats, but it had almost bled through.
‘I have to return to Rostenburg,’ Raleigh said.
‘You bloody well don’t,’ Moira said. She tried to lift herself but fell back in defeat. ‘If the Queen lives, that will be the first place she’ll look for you.’
‘Exactly,’ Raleigh said. ‘And if I’m not there to fight her, she’ll kill my people in my place.
’ His resolve was oddly comforting. Fight her, he’d said.
For the first time it didn’t feel like he was planning to die.
But then he ruined the moment by adding, ‘The rest of you don’t have to come with me. ’
‘We’re staying together,’ I said before anyone else could. ‘She’ll hunt us all down eventually anyway. If we stay together, we have a chance to win.’
To my surprise, Raleigh had no retort. We’d already survived this long. Why couldn’t we do so again?
Our chances would be better if we reached the castle before the Queen.
Centuries ago Castle Rostenburg had been built as a stronghold for times of war – it was only in the medieval period that the royal family made it their place of residence.
I didn’t think for a moment that the ancient battlements would hold against an army of vampires, but I let Raleigh distract himself with plans once Enrique began to drive again, and tried to keep hopeful even after those plans involved walling ourselves in Raleigh’s tower.
We travelled for three days and nights without stopping, barely speaking, only taking brief moments of sleep between shifts at the reins.
Raleigh drove at night, urging the horses to push themselves harder than was safe.
When I caught him trying to hypnotise away their fatigue, I made him switch them out.
Moira spent two days asleep. Every morning and evening Raleigh changed her bandage and searched for signs of infection.
I watched him one evening as he worked, scouring his features for signs the blood affected him.
He seemed remarkably under control, though with each day that passed I knew that control must be weakening.
‘What will happen if the wound becomes infected?’ I asked, when I was sure she was asleep.
Raleigh took his time in replying. ‘Do you think she’d ever forgive me if I saved her on the brink of death?’
My stomach dropped when I realised what he meant.
Moira was formidable enough as a human; I couldn’t imagine her limitless strength as a vampire.
Perhaps she would be strong enough to turn the tide.
Would she want that? Raleigh and Moira’s bond ran deep.
If she wanted eternal youth, I imagine Raleigh would have offered it years ago.
But giving up her humanity could save us all.
It was an option for both of us.
‘For what it’s worth,’ I sounded out, ‘if I was ever in her position I’d want you to save me.’
Raleigh blustered. ‘Don’t make me picture that!’
‘Well, it’s worth mentioning, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘We’re not safe yet. I don’t want you to have to make that decision if the Queen catches up with us, and I certainly don’t want you to make the wrong decision. I want to live, no matter what.’
‘This isn’t life,’ he reminded me.
‘So you would rather die?’ I asked. ‘If there was no cure, and your choice was to die now or continue like this for eternity, which would you choose?’
He sighed softly. ‘Of course I’d rather this,’ he said.
‘If Moira and I traded places, I’d be begging her to change me.
Even if we wound back the clock to when I was human and I knew everything that was to come, I’d still go through it all again if it meant I didn’t have to die.
The best of life makes the worst worth living.
’ His eyes met mine. ‘I understand that now.’
I couldn’t think of an answer quickly enough. My chest began to burn. Raleigh huffed. ‘Never mind. There’s no sign of infection. Don’t tell her I suggested it, all right?’
Moira started eating again on the third day.
Not that there was much to share with her.
Food consisted of salted meat, ship biscuits and whatever other scraps we could scrounge.
I longed for the stews and roasts from the guesthouses we’d stopped at on the way to the palace, but our meagre supplies were still more than what I’d survived on in Orlfen.
Raleigh ate nothing at all.
There were postal stations along the route where we could stop briefly to replenish supplies.
Most were happy to swap out the horses for a hefty fee – a bribe that grew heftier with each station as the quality of our horses decreased.
But not every station was so obliging. By the end of the third day I started turning a blind eye to Raleigh bewitching the horses.
Nothing would help us outrun a vampire, but every mile we managed to crawl closer to Castle Rostenburg was a mile closer to safety.
We reached the border of Rostenburg by the evening of the fourth day.
Moira was well enough by then that she insisted on driving, though I kept close to her side in case she toppled sideways off the carriage.
The roads became worse as we crossed the border and any postal stations we met had no horses to spare.
They were poorly funded, struggling enough to maintain the horses they did have thanks to their useless bloody prince and his inability to lead.
If we continued on we risked killing the horses, and without horses we were as good as dead ourselves.
We found an inn a half-day from Triz that had space enough in the stables, though they only had two rooms available.
The innkeeper studied our party, clearly trying to decipher our relationships, before handing both keys to Raleigh and leaving us to decide among ourselves.
I wondered if she recognised him. She didn’t address him properly, or treat him any differently from the rest of us, but there was a wariness to her expression I recognised well.
‘All right,’ Raleigh said once we had regrouped. ‘We have one room upstairs and one down here. Moira and Clara can take one, Enrique and I can take the other.’
This sounded reasonable, until Enrique surprised us all by saying, ‘Absolutely not.’
Raleigh dropped his shoulders and groaned. ‘Enrique, please don’t be difficult.’
‘You’ve paired the humans together. If anyone catches up with us, you and I will hear them first. If we want to increase our chances of survival, we need to split up. The happy couple can sleep together.’ He plucked one of the keys from Raleigh’s hand. ‘And Moira and I can look after ourselves.’
Ordinarily I would have protested, but my lack of sleep had caught up with me. I’d sleep like the dead tonight, and without Raleigh to stand watch, I would probably join them.
‘Clara’s safer with Moira than she is with me,’ Raleigh said. His cheekbones were hollow, the shadows under his eyes darker than ever. Enrique might not have noticed, but I had. And from the way Moira caught my eye, she had too.
On our way to the court Raleigh had nearly lost himself after five days without blood.
That was almost a week ago. Under normal circumstances he would be starving, but his body had pieced a broken leg back together in that time.
He was balanced precariously on the edge of breaking point, only a gust away from falling.
And this time he didn’t have Lukas to rely on.
I took a breath and steadied my resolve. I had to convince him to feed. One way or another. ‘Enrique’s right,’ I said to Raleigh, taking his key from him. ‘We’ll take one room, they can take the other.’
Moira opened her mouth to protest. I held her stare. She clenched her fist and said nothing.
The three of us who could eat ate downstairs in the tavern while Raleigh sulked upstairs, feigning illness.
It was a dreary meal. We could barely string together two sentences through our fatigue, but we needed something more sustaining than salt beef.
The other guests kept stealing glances at us, me in my tattered finery, Moira’s dress crusted with blood.
I didn’t want to eat. Each mouthful reminded me that there was a vampire waiting upstairs who hadn’t fed for nearly a week.
Every moment I lingered here was another moment he crept closer to madness.
That knowledge was the only thing that forced me to keep pushing each mouthful of stew past my lips. I needed all my strength for tonight.
As we parted, Moira stopped me, letting Enrique carry on ahead. I knew before she opened her mouth what she was going to say. ‘Raleigh is starving.’
‘I know,’ I said.
No matter what he said, Raleigh could feed without killing. Moira was proof enough of that. Sick as she was, Mother had survived Raleigh’s first visit. It wasn’t without risk, but if he could feed safely he wouldn’t be starving. He would feed on someone tonight; I would make sure of it.
Even if that person was me.
As if reading my thoughts, Moira touched the bandage on her neck. ‘Don’t.’
‘There’s no other choice.’
‘Convince him to kill one of the guests.’
‘I can’t,’ I said, aghast at the suggestion. And I meant it, both morally and literally. Raleigh was so stubborn I didn’t think any of us would be able to convince him to break his moral code. Otherwise he wouldn’t have needed convincing; he would have fed on his own.
Moira screwed her face up, trying not to cause a scene, as she fell apart in front of me. I shouldn’t have spoken to her about this. Not after she nearly died this same way. I’d seen the toll a brief bite had taken, the toll it was still taking. I knew the risks, but I had to try.
‘Don’t let him take too much,’ she said at last. ‘If he does …’ She sighed. ‘Well, you’ve seen what happens. You have your silver. Don’t hesitate to use it.’
‘You’re not going to stop me?’ I asked, surprised.
Moira sighed. ‘His pride could kill us all. Your stubbornness might be the only thing strong enough to fight it.’
I didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended. Instead, I squeezed Moira’s arm. ‘Thank you,’ I said gently.
‘Don’t die.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘I’m serious,’ Moira said. ‘If you die, I will kill him.’
And this time I knew she meant it.