Chapter 33
Fire danced across his cheek, tiny flames licking at his skin. Will opened his eyes with effort, but his mind followed him only slowly back into consciousness. He felt the dried blood crusting his right eye, tasted it at the corner of his mouth, and all at once, his memories returned.
Panic flooded him. He tried to tear himself free from whatever held him, but heard only the clatter of chains. His arms were spread above his head, an iron cuff locked around each wrist, and the tips of his toes barely brushed the floor.
A whimper escaped him, and tears rose into his eyes.
But he was still alive, and as far as he could tell, otherwise unharmed.
The vampire had stripped him, and now he felt the frost gnawing at his skin.
Something heavy encircled his throat—he had not noticed it at first. When he tried to rest his head against his arm, needles drove into his neck.
The vampire had fastened Saint’s collar around him.
Saint.
Again, he strained against the chains, but they did not yield, their sharp edges biting deeper into his skin.
With slow breaths that only brought more cold into his lungs, he forced back the panic and listened, though he held no hope that Saint was still alive.
Sounds drifted through the open door to the stairwell, at first too indistinct for Will to understand. Then he went pale. They were no longer screams, only the desperate, broken, pain-ravaged whimpers of someone who had given up.
Saint was still alive.
But Will wished him dead.
His dinner rose into his throat, his stomach convulsing, but he could not vomit in this position. Acid burned his throat, tears ran over his cheeks, and he wanted nothing more than to stop hearing.
They left him hanging there until the last cries died with the dawn.
Saint had made it.
He could rest.
Will’s gaze remained fixed on the milky windows and the blue beyond them. Once day broke and the vampires disappeared, he could scream. Someone would come. Perhaps fishermen would return with their catch.
“Hope.”
The mocking word made Will flinch. The vampire strolled into the room, walking more upright than the others of his kind. Torn trousers hung from his bony hips, skin as thin as papyrus stretched over his bones, and his head was bald.
“You can speak,” Will managed. His throat was dry, his mind unwilling to form words, but he saw no way out except to beg, and even that seemed hopeless.
“Hmm… Words.” The vampire carefully ran his fingers over his face as though feeling his cheekbones for the first time. “They are returning… slowly.”
A moment later, he stood before Will and sank his teeth into his shoulder. It happened so quickly that Will had no chance to brace himself. Pain exploded through his body, and the vampire drank from him greedily.
Its tongue licked across Will’s wound, and sharp teeth drove deeper into the flesh. But the pain began to fade, his eyelids growing heavy, and he remembered the venom Saint had told him about. It paralyzed and numbed him, making him compliant for the vampire.
“You are a miracle. Your blood is like…” The vampire shook his head.
“I lack the words.” He stroked Will’s chest, but his thoughts wandered, his red eyes turning clouded.
The vampire’s gestures, the little movements—how he scratched his chin as though a beard had once grown there—were disturbingly human.
“Keep me alive, and you will have more of my blood.” For one moment, raw survival instinct made Will forget how terrible such a fate might be. But he wanted to survive. He wanted to be rescued. He only had to endure until sunrise.
“Why are you so different?” the vampire asked, and when he tilted his head, he became entirely animal again. A predator crouched over its prey.
“I have a god inside me.” Will saw no reason to lie. “The Albatross.”
The vampire’s eyes narrowed. “I know that name.”
For a moment, Will forgot that he was a prisoner, a man condemned to execution. “From where?”
The vampire thought, then shook his head. “I do not remember. Blood. I need more blood.”
There was nothing Will could do to stop him. The vampire sank his teeth into Will’s upper arm, and he screamed in pain. His hands clenched into fists, the restraints eating into his flesh. The muscles in his arms cramped, his toes brushing uselessly against the floor.
“Let me down,” he whimpered.
“Those are your friend’s restraints. Do you not like them?” With a mocking laugh, the vampire pulled its lips away, and moments later, Will felt the venom clot the blood in the wound.
“Please, it hurts so much!” He did not care. He would plead and beg.
“What is a boy like you doing in this city?” the vampire asked instead. “You are not a hunter. You are not one of its residents. You are too deep in the harbor district for a dare.”
Now it was Will who laughed wearily. “We were looking for someone like you—an elder.”
“For your perverse games? I remember. They had those in my time as well. At court, vampires were drenched in blood and set upon one another.”
“No. I only have questions.” How na?ve he had been, how trustingly he had followed Saint’s youthful arrogance.
“Questions?” Amused, the vampire paced before him, repeatedly testing the movement of his hands as though reclaiming the ability to move like a human being.
“You were someone important at the palace? A nobleman?” Will asked cautiously. The monster now carried itself with an arrogance and confidence that could only speak of a life spent in privilege.
In a gesture that held no meaning anymore, the vampire brushed an invisible lock of hair from his brow. “I was secretary to the Red Hand. Perhaps I would even have become his successor.”
Will raised his head. “How does one become the Red Hand?”
“So that is what you want, little man? You are not made for it. You must be willing to make a sacrifice. There are two paths. Either the Red Hand nominates you as his successor and takes you to the king, or, if you believe yourself strong enough—and you never will be—you kill the Red Hand and descend into the palace yourself for an audience with the king. If he finds you worthy, you return as the Red Hand.”
Will shifted forward in his chains, pushing the pain aside for a moment. “The Red Hand sees the king?”
“More than that. He makes you the Red Hand. My master spoke of it sometimes, on dark nights when he had nearly drunk himself unconscious. Then he would stammer words…” Once again, the vampire’s eyes turned glassy.
“‘We are all only bodies of flesh and blood to him. And he is flesh and blood entirely. All flesh and blood belongs to him.’”
A shudder passed through the vampire. “In those hours, he wanted to die. I waited for the moment when he would allow it—when his torment became so great that he would long for my knife. But I was not strong enough.”
The vampire buckled, its teeth clinking together as it whispered to itself.
“Please,” Will begged. “Let me down.” His fingers were numb, his entire body cold, his arms and legs trembling with strain. It felt as though his muscles were about to tear, and dawn remained so far away—only the faintest blue had begun to weave itself through the night.
“Your Albatross—the Red Hand spoke of him in those dreams,” the vampire murmured, crossing the room. “Of him and the queen in the Capitol.”
To Will’s surprise, he came closer. Chains rattled, and a moment later, Will dropped to his knees. The vampire kept Will’s arms stretched above his head, but he could now place most of his weight upon his legs.
More vampires entered the room. They were not as old as the monster. Some still had matted hair, and one wore a simple dress, but all of them walked hunched over and had the eyes of beasts.
“Drink,” the vampire said.
“No!”
But it was too late. They jumped on him. One bit into his waist, another tilted its head far enough to reach Will’s neck between his ear and the spiked collar. Another licked the blood from his forearm where it seeped from the wounds beneath the manacles, then drove its teeth into the tender skin.
Will wept, unable to wrench himself away.
Their fingernails clung to him like a vise.
Their rotten breath, heavy with the smell of copper, filled his nose.
They were ravenous, sucking and licking, rubbing themselves against him.
He lost himself in the burning and pulling, his eyes falling shut as the sea carried him away.
Cold depths opened beneath him and dragged him down until the last light of the surface disappeared.
Sunrise came and went.
They dragged in a weeping woman who bled from countless bites.
“Drink,” the elder said, forcing the victim’s arm against Will’s lips. “Your blood is more precious than hers.”
Will shook his head, but he was too weak to resist. Someone pressed a bite wound to his mouth until blood ran down his throat. He swallowed because he had not given up yet. Because somewhere inside him, hope still lived.
Noon came and went. It was a rainy day. Ice mingled with the drops and hammered against the windows. The world beyond the cloudy glass blurred into a grey sea.
The vampires drank from him, never enough to kill him, but the pain remained constant. His fingers and arms were so numb they might have been made of ice, and the blood they fed him did nothing to ease his thirst.
Sunset came.
The younger vampires, who descended from the rafters only occasionally to drink from him, stood at the windows and watched the sun sink. It had not been strong enough that day to harm them inside the building.
Soon, more would come, they whispered.
Will drifted through his frozen sea and wondered whether he would meet the Albatross there. Its touch held no warmth. It, too, was only a beast imitating humanity. But it was familiar. It was the monster he knew.
How could he let him die here?
The ocean was so vast and silent, the final glimmer of light so small above him.
He did not even have the strength to swim toward it.
What would happen to his magic when he died?
When his bones touched the earth, would a palace grow from them if that became his final thought?
A castle of black ice, raised from the darkness of the sea.
Light would seep through its ceilings but never reach the floor.
Would his bones become his last sacrifice? Not merely a toe, but an entire man.