Chapter 11 Fool’s Paradise
FOOL’S PARADISE
SAERIS
GOODBYES WEREN’T EASY.
We made it quick.
If Madra was responsible for sending the infected feeders to Yvelia, then every second the quicksilver was awake was yet another opportunity for her to deploy more of them.
When Kingfisher and Carrion stepped into the silver, my emotions were so high that I’d cracked the lintel that ran around Cahlish’s pool.
I’d nearly begged Fisher not to go. Instead, I’d given Carrion the relic I’d made for him, and I’d given Fisher the relic I’d made for Hayden.
I’d kissed my mate long and deep, promising to reopen the gate for them in three days.
In return, Fisher had left a shadow gate open for us at Cahlish.
Using a warding sigil painted below the gate in his blood, he had essentially propped the door open, so that we could move between the estate and a safe, uninfected point on the banks of the Darn, where we could cross the river and ride back and forth to Ammontraíeth.
I’d been thinking about my mate as we’d saddled the horses. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him during the two-hour ride across the dead fields. Not when I’d swept through the echoing halls of the palace, high bloods dropping to their knees and bowing their heads as
I blew past them. Not while I’d read in my rooms to pass some time. Not while I’d picked halfheartedly at the meal a low blood—the lowest ranking of all the vampires in Ammontraíeth—brought to my chamber. I couldn’t stop thinking about him now, either.
“Hold it up. You’re dropping your guard.”
The sword came crashing down, its edge slicing through the air dangerously close to my face. A thrill of adrenaline buzzed right below the surface of my skin, making me break out in a cold sweat.
Lorreth probably didn’t want to be here.
How selfish of me not to have considered it before: The warrior had come close to being drained by three rogue feeders once and had nearly died as a result.
Fisher had needed to bind a piece of his soul with Lorreth’s in order to drag the male back from the brink of death.
That had been centuries ago now, but you didn’t just get over something like that without it leaving a mark.
Ammontraíeth was a place of shadows—an element I had grown trusting of lately.
But the dark that welled in the corners of the Blood Court’s palace was not made to caress or seduce as Fisher’s shadows were, at least when he used them on me, anyway.
Ammontraíeth’s shadows hid danger and watchful eyes.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed that when we’d arrived earlier, shortly after dusk.
Lorreth was on high alert, his gaze everywhere but on me as we sparred. The training facility was lit by evenlight, the strange, lazy flames swaying like tall grass in a light breeze as the warrior and I wheeled around one another.
There were no windows here. The walls and the floor were made of slick, polished obsidian, which blunted the air somehow. My quickened breath and the sound of our bare feet slapping against the cool black surface seemed too loud. Too close.
Lorreth launched himself forward, grunting as he brought Avisiéth swinging down. The sound echoed once and didn’t come again. I spun away from the blow, light on my feet, careful not to take my eyes from the warrior lest he bring the god sword’s pommel down on my head in a backhand.
“I should have gone,” I said, bringing Solace’s guard up. “I should be with them.”
Lorreth easily sidestepped the thrust I aimed at his shoulder, batting Solace away.
He tsked through his teeth, shaking his head.
“Sloppy. Higher. Like this.” He demonstrated how I should hold my sword, making a point of raising his elbows so that they were in line with his jaw.
He nodded when I had mimicked the posture to his satisfaction, then attacked.
“You couldn’t go with them,” he said, rushing forward.
“In case you’ve forgotten, your old home has two suns and no night. ”
“I could have worn a cloak.” I ducked a slashing strike he aimed at my stomach. “Kept my skin covered.”
“Sure. That wouldn’t have made you stick out like a sore thumb. And what about the exhaustion? You’re weaker at midday here—”
I straightened, lowering Solace. “Hey!”
“I said weaker. Not weak. Guard!” The flat of his blade landed on my upper arm—a punishment for dropping out of my stance. Pain jarred my shoulder and shot straight up into my head. My teeth cracked together so hard that I bit my tongue and tasted blood.
“That wasn’t very polite,” I grumbled.
“Oh, damn. I didn’t realize we were doing this to be polite.
Sorry. Let me fix that.” He snapped his bare heels together, adopting a stiff-backed stance.
With his chin lifted, he peered down his nose at me and fixed me with an imperious stare.
“I challenge you to a duel, Saeris Fane. Would you please stab me with that shiny sword of yours? It would be such an honor.”
“Fuck you, Lorreth.”
He made a face. “You kiss my commander with that mouth?”
“I’ve done far worse than kiss him with it.”
His mouth pulled down at the corners, his eyes going wide. “Okay. I don’t need to hear about that, thank you very much.”
“I wasn’t going . . . to tell you.” I gasped for breath as I spun around again, twisting at the ankles, then the knees, then the hips as I brought Solace arcing through the air.
Sword fighting was much harder than fighting with daggers.
A dagger was an extension of my hand. I was quick with a set of daggers.
Nimble. The sheer size and weight of Solace made moving hard.
Lorreth tracked me as I spun; he took a step back, raised his boot, and kicked me in the side.
I went down hard, the air rushing out of me as I slammed against the floor. “Ooof!”
“Form was good. Shame about the lack of speed,” the warrior mused, pacing in a circle around me.
“I was just . . . thinking . . . that . . . myself.” Shit, my ribs hurt.
Lorreth crouched down by my head, laying Avisiéth flat across the tops of his knees and then resting his elbows on the god sword’s blade.
The bastard wasn’t even out of breath. “You’re right where you need to be, Saeris,” he said.
“Well. Not on the floor. You definitely shouldn’t be on the floor.
But here, I mean. If you stayed away from Ammontraíeth any longer, one of the other Lords would have declared the throne abandoned and claimed it for themselves.
They’d call it a dereliction of duty or something.
People think the Blood Court’s all debauchery and blood-soaked orgies, but it’s mostly bureaucracy and political backbiting, from my experience. ”
“You sound disappointed.”
He shrugged, offering me a hand as I got back to my feet. “I mean, who doesn’t love a blood-soaked orgy?”
“Can’t say I’ve ever participated in one.”
He shrugged. “Not missing much, honestly. They get . . . sticky.”
“Can we pause this super interesting conversation for just a moment? I think my shoulder’s dislocated.”
Lorreth barely even looked at it before thumping me in the shoulder. The resulting pop and twist of my arm slipping back into place made bile rise up the back of my throat. I glowered at him through watering eyes. “Thank you?”
“You’re welcome. Now, come on. Guard.”
“I can’t lift this damn sword again. Not for at least ten minutes. I think I’m gonna puke.”
Mouth open, he was going to try bullying me to my feet again, but his eyes met mine and something in him softened.
He took pity on me. “All right. You get five minutes. Take a breath. And . . .” Suddenly, he sounded awkward.
“I know you feel bad, okay? Useless, even, stuck here in this shitty fucking palace while everyone else is out there without us. Ren’s warning the Gilarians.
Danya’s orchestrating efforts to keep the infected at bay.
Fisher and Carrion are scoping out whatever they can in Zilvaren while they hunt down the silver and your brother—”
“Oh, gods!” I cried, an awful realization striking me out of nowhere.
Lorreth’s eyes grew round. “What? What is it?”
“He made you promise to stay here and watch over me, didn’t he?”
Immediately, Lorreth’s expression went blank.
“He made you promise to stay and protect me!” Gods, I was so blind. “That’s the only reason you’re trapped here in this training room with me, isn’t it? Otherwise, you’d be out there with everyone else, doing something useful, too!”
After hashing out the finer points of our plan, we had each set off about our individual tasks.
Te Léna and Maynir had gone to tend to the wounded among the warriors who fled Irrín.
Iseabail had returned to her people to ask politely if any of the witch elders knew how to seal Alchemical runes.
Ren had ridden out to the small settlements east of Cahlish and along the coast to warn them of the rot.
With what was left of the war camp at her disposal, Danya was sending out hunting parties to keep the infected at bay or at least keep them from progressing inland any farther.
The plan was to all meet back in Cahlish in three days’ time, come what may.
But Lorreth had claimed he wanted to stay here and help me train.
He was incapable of lying; he probably did want to help me train. But I would have bet my left eye that he’d rather have been out there with Danya, tackling the infected instead. The warrior shrugged off my accusation, trying to feign ignorance.
“Don’t you worry about any of that. All you need to focus on is keeping these vampires distracted and figuring out your runes.”
“Lorreth!”
“All right, all right! I’m not going to confirm or deny your suspicions either way. But if you don’t kick up a stink right now and you finish training with me, I will tell you the story of Ajun Gate. All of it, every single gruesome detail.”
“I know the story—”
“Hah!” Lorreth grunted. “No, you don’t. Do you know about Merelle?” he demanded.