Chapter 3 #3
He should have become a feeder. Malcolm was the only one of his kind capable of creating other vampires with their personalities and minds intact.
At least, that was what we’d believed at the time.
We’d thought it was a miracle. Years later, I discovered the truth: that Taladaius had been there that night, overseeing the assault on the mountain.
When asked, he’d said that he had done it as a kindness to me. That he had fed Foley his blood and then drained him, if only so that he might have a choice in whether he lived or died.
Foley had been angry. Confused. We’d stayed with him.
Our friend had screamed for hours as he completed his transition.
He’d fed before we’d found him and couldn’t stop crying over those he had killed.
His horror over what he had become seemed as though it would kill him, though when darkness fell, he left us, fleeing into the night, down the mountain and away.
We heard later that he had fled to Ammontraíeth. There had been many instances over the years when we had reached out to him, but our letters had all gone unanswered.
“He’s there,” I said softly. “He wouldn’t have left. He wouldn’t have trusted himself around the living.”
None of us spoke again for a time.
Shhhhick. Hummmmmm.
Shhhhick. Hummmmmm.
Even though he sat still, gaze lost in the flames, the tension pulsing from Renfis mounted until it became a fourth presence at the fire, hogging all the warmth. “Will you speak, or will you stew?” I asked eventually.
He inhaled sharply, as if waking from a dream. “I have nothing new to say on the matter.”
Lorreth set Avisiéth down at last, leaning back in his chair and resting his cup of ale against the flat of his stomach. “Then say what you’ve said already, and we’ll hear you out again.”
It seemed for a moment that Ren was going to hold his tongue, but then he began. “It’s been hundreds of years. Close to an age. We knew him once, but Foley’s been a vampire longer than he was Fae at this point. Who’s to say he is anything like the person we once fought alongside?”
He was right. So much time had passed. But there was that word again.
Faith. Every once in a while, it let me up from the dirt long enough to take a breath.
“He was bound to us by blood, as we were to him. He swore to protect our people, along with all the creatures of Yvelia. If you found yourself in his shoes, would you break your oath, Ren?”
Renfis hadn’t just stepped in as commander of the Lupo Proelia when I’d been lost to the maze.
He’d become general to an army. He had willingly donned a mantle of responsibility that would have crushed most other warriors, as it had almost crushed me.
I knew the core of him. He was honest, and true, and good.
But still he was foolish enough to shake his fucking head. “I honestly don’t know, brother.”
“Well, I do. There is no way you’d turn your back on your promise. I choose to believe that Foley hasn’t, either.”
I’d spent hours looking for him, once I’d known Saeris was going to be okay. So had Lorreth. Taladaius had refused to tell me where he was, which hadn’t done much to dull the anger that I still harbored toward him. But, in a way, I’d understood.
Foley had needed to carve out a new existence for himself at Ammontraíeth.
At some point, he must have needed to accept his new life and move forward with it.
He hadn’t answered the letters any of us had sent to him, which must have been for a reason.
And if Foley didn’t want to speak with us, then it stood to reason that he wouldn’t want to see any of us, either.
A long time ago, he would have died for me and I for him. I would still have laid down my life for him if it would save him in some way. But the damage was done, and of all people, Tal seemed to be the only one who could respect that.
“If he is in there somewhere, who’s to say he has any interest in helping Saeris?” Lorreth said. “He has no connection to her. No reason to show her any loyalty at all.”
“Other than her being my mate?”
Lorreth sipped from his beer. “I mean, honestly, that might make him even less inclined to help her.”
I shrugged. “We have to hope. We need him. His grandfather was one of the last Alchemists. Foley knows more than anyone else about Alchemical magics and practices. Belikon burned all the Alchemists’ texts when he seized the crown.
The few books that my father collected back at the library in Cahlish don’t explain much of anything at all.
So that leaves the knowledge that exists in Foley’s head. If he won’t share that with her . . .”
“Then Saeris will never be able to realize her full potential. We’ll never be able to destroy Ammontraíeth for good.
And we’ll never be able to put an end to Belikon once and for all and stick Carrion Swift on the throne,” Ren admittedly grimly.
“I suppose we’d all better hope and pray that Foley changes his mind and wants to be found, then.
Because I, for one, would love to see peace in my lifetime. ”
Hah.
Peace.
What would that even look like? Would any of us know what to do with ourselves?
I doubted it. Absently, I realized that I hadn’t put my bracer back on after I’d let Saeris feed from me.
I ran my fingers over the two small puncture wounds at my wrist; they were healing rapidly and would be gone by morning.
Sighing, I removed the other bracer and set it down on the table, then unfastened the gorget, too, freeing myself of its weight around my neck.
I was rolling up my shirtsleeves when I realized that my brothers were staring at me.
“What?” But I already knew what they were staring at.
I had been careful to conceal the rune work that stained the backs of my hands and looped around my wrists ever since Saeris had accepted me as her mate.
My hands had always been inked. The runes for vengeance and justice had been marked into my skin for a very long time .
. . but now there were other runes layered over the top of them.
So many runes, in fact, that they were impossible to differentiate from one another.
The runes and script that wound their way up my arms—the God Bindings that matched Saeris’s own—were beautiful and terrifying, even to me.
I looked down at it all, staining my skin, and smiled ruefully. “Yeah. It’s a lot.”
“I mean, we knew,” Ren said breathlessly. “But knowing is one thing. Seeing it in person . . .”
“Seeing it in person is wild,” Lorreth agreed. “Does this mean the two of you are going to . . . y’know.” He seemed to be struggling to get the words out. “Will you perform the rites now? Get married?”
A jolt of adrenaline zipped up my spine. I shoved away from the table, quickly rolling down my shirtsleeves, covering the ink. “No. We won’t be doing that,” I clipped out. “She’s not—”
The war tent’s flap opened, and Danya burst into the room. “Ren! Oh. You’re here.” Her eyes landed on me, full of panic. “You need to come outside now. All three of you. Something’s wrong.”
Ren was already on his feet. “Feeders at the river?” Panic tinged the question; after Saeris’s decree earlier, the feeders had been recalled back to Ammontraíeth. They were to be garrisoned a mile from the Black Palace, far from Sanasroth’s border with Cahlish.
“No,” Danya answered. “Yes. I—I don’t know what’s happening. I can’t explain it. It’s best if you come and see for yourself. Hurry.”