Chapter 14 Blood in the Milk #2
Taladaius snorted. “No, I don’t. I think that one day a magician folded some paper and created these birds.
” He let his head drop back, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth as he watched the silent birds swooping and wheeling high above our heads.
“I think it took a curious mind to combine the ingredients it took to make us, too. But that’s all.
Where any kind of life exists, magic proliferates, Saeris.
We create all the wonders of this realm just by being present to witness them, and it’s always magic that lights the way. That is what I believe.”
“He speaks like he knows what he’s talking about,” a dry voice observed from the shadows. It was the same voice that had demanded we close the door.
Tal’s smile became rueful as he turned to face the female who hobbled out of the stacks.
She was stooped double, her back hunched, shoulders hiked up around her ears.
Deep wrinkles lined her face. The puff of hair floating around her head was as white as the fresh snow that capped Omnamerrin.
I had only seen her once before, at my coronation.
Algat’s eyes were shrunken into her head, black and glassy as the obsidian walls of the palace.
They skipped over Taladaius as if she found nothing of import where he was sitting and homed in on me with startling intensity.
Hobbling, she descended the stairs and crossed the library, then gripped the back of a chair as, slowly and grumbling openly, she sank to her knees in front of me.
“What an honor this is, my queen,” she rasped.
“A visit from our new regent. And so finely dressed, too.”
She didn’t hide her sarcasm; it was an artless jab.
My fighting leathers were in poor taste, apparently.
My boots were mud-spattered and worn. But this was the Lord of Midnight who had made me feed from Fisher in front of the entire court.
She was also the one my mate had told me to be most wary of.
I didn’t give a flying fuck what she thought about my clothes or the state of my boots.
She was lucky I didn’t make her clean them while she was down there.
She grinned up at me, displaying yellowed, blunt canines. “I knew you’d find your way up here eventually. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Is that so?” Ice hardened my words. I liked very little about the old female. I especially didn’t like the way she eyed me as she scratched the back of her hand.
“Indeed, indeed. Might I get up now, child? These old bones of mine don’t like the draft down here.”
It would have been petty to say no. Reluctantly, I gave her a stiff nod. “You may rise.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. You have my deepest gratitude.” The crone didn’t even flinch as she popped up from the floor and sprang away, suddenly as nimble as a newborn lamb. “As I was saying, I have been waiting for your arrival. After all, you are hungry.”
The accusation made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. “No, I’m not.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, you are. I feel your hunger beating like a pulse all the time.”
“I don’t need to feed,” I told her in a clipped tone, but she shook her head, her jowls wobbling.
“Not for blood, King Killer. For information. For home. For release.” She cackled as she spoke that last word, like it was something lewd, to be ashamed of. “I feel you hungering at all hours,” she continued. “Insatiable, you are. Always wanting.”
I rounded on Tal. “This is what you brought me here for? This is how you thought you were going to help me?”
The vampire splayed his hands wide, sighing. “Sometimes the medicine tastes bad, Saeris.”
“How is she the medicine?”
“I am the Keeper of Records, child,” Algat sniffed. “I know them all better than they know themselves. There are books within this room that you would like to meet. It’s within my power to facilitate an introduction.”
My spine stiffened. “This library doesn’t have any books on Alchemy,” I said.
Algat’s eyebrows had ceased to exist a long time ago, it seemed, but the patch of skin where they had once been rose high up her forehead. “Is that so?”
“Yes. Belikon wiped the whole realm clean of any information pertaining to the Alchemists and their power.”
The ancient female aimed a very serious expression at me, nodding her head sagely, but she couldn’t keep it up; she burst out laughing before I was finished speaking. “Oh, child. You are wet behind the ears. Did you finish suckling at your mother’s teat yesterday?”
“Algat,” Tal said in a warning tone. “Remember who you’re speaking to.”
The female scowled at the silver-haired Lord. “My memory is as sharp as yours and then some, wraith. I know exactly to whom I speak. King Killer. Day’s End. The Last Tide. Namebreaker—”
“Enough!” Tal brought his fist crashing down onto the table. The ancient female cut off her tirade, a rope of spittle dangling from her top lip. She stared at Tal for a second, her face expressionless, but the air was suddenly still, thick with a prickling tension.
Tal kept her locked in his sights. He did not look away.
“All right, then!” Algat clapped her hands together, suddenly standing on the other side of the table.
Where the hell had she come from? I hadn’t seen her move.
As she swung around, her body moved in a jerky, unnatural way that made my skin crawl.
“Belikon De Barra! Belikon De Barra!” she chanted in a childish, high-pitched voice that was nothing like her earlier croak.
“The king of the Yvelian Fae has never stepped foot across the threshold of your domain, my queen,” she said mockingly.
“My father forbade it. That poisonous old toad has never sought an audience with my books. They are intact.”
I didn’t want her to know what kind of an effect this news was having on me, but I wasn’t quick enough. The stooped female heard my pulse quicken, and a rotten smile slowly crept across her face.
“My father was a patron of the Alchemists. He supported their crafts. Nurtured them. Where others saw only danger, Malcolm of Sanasroth saw power.”
“What do you mean, danger?”
“Oh, yes. An Alchemist is a dangerous thing. Has no one ever told you what you are? No one’s told you why Belikon and your precious Queen Madra both hunted down and murdered all your kind?”
“Algat.” Tal didn’t raise his voice this time, but he didn’t need to.
The single word resonated around the library with the force of a thunderclap.
Algat jumped, the wild light in her eyes sputtering out as she cowed, lowering her head away from the vampire.
I felt it, too: a crushing force against the back of my neck that wanted me to bow, kneel, crawl for the male sitting at the end of the table.
It was by sheer force of will alone that I didn’t drop to my knees.
“Enough of the games,” Tal said. “She wants to understand who she is and what she’s capable of.
She doesn’t need to be scared out of her mind along the way.
You will help her find facts and nothing more—”
A wisp of shadow coalesced in the air before me, taking shape. The blur darkened, falling, and by the time it hit the surface of the reading table, it had become a cat. A black cat, to be precise, with glowing red eyes.
It fixed me with a leonine stare that reminded me of other, far larger cats I had encountered out in the dunes back home, and a thrill of panic chased up my spine.
“Where the fuck did that come from?” I breathed.
“That is Guru,” Algat said, disgruntled. The hold that Tal had exerted over her was broken now; she shot the other vampire a filthy glance as she shuffled down to the other end of the table and started aggressively petting the cat with a gnarled hand.
The cat was there. She was stroking it.
“He keeps the rats and other pests at bay,” she said meaningfully, again serving up another baleful glare for Taladaius. “I hear you have a white fox living in your chambers, King Killer. I wouldn’t let it out roaming, if I were you. Guru doesn’t like canines of any persuasion.”
I had made the decision to keep Onyx in my rooms for this very reason.
I had no idea what kind of trouble he might find himself in at the Black Palace, and I didn’t intend on finding out, either.
Guru seemed pleasant enough, but still. The cat threw back his head and squinted, enjoying the attention as Algat petted him, his tail flicking left and right.
Taladaius shuddered. “I have some other matters to attend to, Saeris,” he said, rising stiffly. “Algat will behave and make herself available to you for as long as you want to stay here and conduct your research. Right, Algat?”
The female just sniffed.
My maker—he was still my maker, at least for now—made his exit, leaving me with the old female and the cat.
Algat had produced a saucer from her ratty skirts and was pouring a thin stream of milk from a ewer into it when I faced her again. “Do not think,” she said, “that just because that wraith commanded me to assist you, there will not be a cost associated with the labor, Your Highness.”
I huffed. “Wouldn’t dream of it. I am your queen, though. Doesn’t that count for anything?” There was something unsettling about the way the female moved, like a spider that scuttled too quickly. I didn’t like it.
Tucking a mat of unruly hair behind a flopping ear, the female tutted under her breath. “Even a queen must pay her debts, Your Highness. Especially a queen.”
Guru ducked his head and delicately sniffed the saucer of milk. He yowled, sounding displeased, turning away from it and raising his hackles.
“And what will your help cost me tonight?” My tone was sharp, but I was tired of the old female. There wasn’t time for her to be purposefully difficult.