Chapter 39 Keeper of Secrets #2
Te Léna and Maynir had remained at the estate, watching over Everlayne.
Danya was still at the temporary war camp.
Iseabail had stayed to continue in her attempts to scry for Ren.
Lorreth insisted he come with us back to Ammontraíeth, but Fisher had refused, telling him to check in with the warriors at the makeshift camp instead.
Carrion had balked loudly when I’d told him he couldn’t come to the ball, but he was the only person Hayden really knew at the estate, and I wanted someone there to keep an eye on him.
It would be just like my brother to flee Cahlish in a pique of temper after the argument we’d had, and I was not about to let that happen.
I was furious with him, sure, but not angry enough to let him be eaten by some hole-dwelling creature with razors for teeth.
We always did seem to have more water and food than anyone else.
Was he really so blind? Didn’t he know me at all?
I had fought tooth and nail to rescue him from Zilvaren, and all the while he’d suspected that I was a traitor?
“Dance with me.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, facing Fisher. His eyes were even greener tonight with the sky full of evenlight. He hadn’t gotten to his feet yet, but he was offering his hand, and he didn’t look like he would be deterred from his request.
“Is this the part where you tell me you don’t dance, Osha?” he murmured. “The part where you say that you don’t know the steps, or that you have two left feet?”
Hah. And he thought he had me all figured out.
There were still things about me that Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate was yet to learn.
And while I didn’t know the steps to any of the graceful dances popular here in Yvelia, I was a quick study and light on my feet.
And I was not one to be underestimated. I smiled as I considered Fisher’s hand and then took it.
“I’ll muddle through,” I told him.
The next thing I knew, we were among the high bloods, and Fisher was spinning me along with him as he slipped onto the dance floor and into the dance itself. He moved easily, his movements sure as he fell into step with the vampires that surrounded us.
I tried not to smile as he swept me around, lifting me so that my feet barely touched the ground.
“Does this entertain you, Your Majesty?” he murmured, suppressing a smile of his own.
“Oh no. I’m just surprised that you’re so confident on a dance floor.”
He leaned into me and spoke, voice low, his breath fanning warmth over my neck. “Dancing is like fighting, Osha. It’s also like fucking. And I pride myself on my skills in both of those arenas.”
I laughed. “Oh? Is that so?”
“Mm. Yes. It is.” The dimple in his cheek made a brief but satisfying appearance.
“I suppose you’ve had a lot of practice in those arenas then, have you?” I was toying with him, and he knew it. He puffed out his cheeks, pretending to think about the question.
“Well. I’ve impaled quite a few people on the end of my sword,” he said conspiratorially. “And I’ve lost count of how many battles I’ve fought in.”
“Hey!” I thought about digging him in his ribs, but at that moment his hands found my waist and he lifted me into the air, doing a one-eighty before setting me gently down again—a part of the dance that the other high bloods on the dance floor carried out at the same time.
Fisher’s eyes were bright, the thread of quicksilver resting dormant in his iris as he took my hand and set off again, careening around the hall in the opposite direction.
“I don’t think I want to know about all of this impaling,” I said, feigning disapproval. “Though, maybe you’re not as good at it as you think you are. Maybe you need a little more practice.”
The left side of his mouth lifted, his eyebrow following suit. “Oh? You have notes?”
“Yes. Extensive notes.”
Now it was Fisher’s turn to fake injury. His lips brushed my temple as he spoke. “And here I was, thinking I was doing a good job every time I made you beg for my cock.”
Gods and sinners, he was trying to kill me. In public. “How many of these high bloods can hear your boasting right now, I wonder.”
“All of them, I hope. They can already smell you on me.”
“Fisher—”
“They’re lucky I’m not tearing you out of this dress and bending you over that fucking throne right now, Saeris,” he growled.
Gods. My blood pounded in my ears. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He looked at me, smile turning into something far more serious. His eyelids lowered, a lazy hunger suddenly lurking in his eyes. “You’re right,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t want to ruin the dress.”
I’d thought now that we were sleeping together, that the roar of need I experienced whenever I was around him would dull a little.
That had not happened. If anything, my appetite for him was growing worse by the day.
I looked up at him and remembered what he looked like when he thrust inside me.
How his sweat marked his brow. How he tasted of salt, and mint, and so godscursed sweet whenever he plunged his tongue into my mouth—
I looked away, unable to bear the eye contact anymore.
I loved him so fucking much.
No other emotion came close to this. Not the hatred I felt for Madra.
Not the hurt I felt over Everlayne, suffering alone in some unknown hell.
Not the worry I felt over Ren’s disappearance.
None of it. The world could be ending and my love for this male would outstrip my fear.
Sometimes, I felt like I would burst open from how overwhelming that feeling was.
Fisher’s eyes burned when I dared look back at him again. He knew all that I had just been thinking. I was almost certain that he had been feeling it, too.
“You seem overly preoccupied with dresses,” I said in a small voice.
“Do I?” His voice was rough.
I nodded. “Every time I enter my chambers here or your rooms at Cahlish—”
“Our rooms,” he corrected.
I ducked my head. “Every time I enter our rooms at Cahlish, there’s a new dress, laid out on the bed and waiting for me.”
He took a second before he replied, but then said very carefully, “Don’t you like them?”
“Yes. I do. I just . . .” Gods, why was this so hard to put into words? It shouldn’t have been. “It makes me feel like . . . you’re trying to domesticate me.”
He stumbled to a halt, right there in the middle of the dance floor.
Miraculously, no one careened into us; the other dancers course-corrected with grace, flowing around us as Fisher frowned at me, looking rather mystified.
“And how in all five hells would I do that, Osha? I’d have better luck trying to domesticate one of your hellcats. ”
“I don’t know. I just . . .” Still, the words didn’t want to come.
Fisher stepped toward me, cupping my face in his hands.
“I don’t want you to be anything other than what you already are, Saeris.
The dresses are just . . .” His brow furrowed.
“They’re an invitation. The life you lived in Zilvaren was hard.
You had to do everything for yourself. I’m here now, and—no? wait.
No, let me finish. I’m here now, and just because I am your mate and you are mine doesn’t mean that I expect you to sit around looking pretty, or .
. . or put down your weapons and adopt a different way of life.
I would never want that for you. But you don’t have to be one thing here, Saeris.
You can be many things. You can wear your leathers and fight every day of the year.
I would never ask you not to. But sometimes, if you wanted to .
. . you’re allowed to soften, Saeris. You’re allowed to stop baring your teeth at the world and take a breath. Because I’ve got you.”
The dancers whirled on by, streaming velvet, silk, and damask out behind them, and I let those words settle into my soul.
Because I’ve got you.
He did have me, didn’t he? He was the anchor that kept me from drifting away. Even here, in this horrible place, he hadn’t left my side.
“Come on.” Fisher nodded, as if he’d just made his mind up about something. “Come over here. I want to show you something. It won’t take a second, and then I’ll get you out of here.”
I followed him. I would have gone anywhere with him in that moment, but we didn’t travel far—out of the flow of the dancers, away from the long tables, where many sour-faced high bloods still sat, muttering darkly into their wine.
Fisher came to a stop in front of a small round table that stood before a particularly graphic wall hanging.
I looked up at the hanging, squinting at the bacchanalia it depicted. “What’s the male doing to that goat?” I asked.
“Ignore the goat,” Fisher said in a chiding tone. “Look here.”
A huge flower arrangement dominated the small table.
A variety of blooms, likely selected for their complementary purple hues, had been organized quite expertly in a shining golden vase.
They were stunning. At the center of the arrangement, Fisher pointed out the most beautiful bloom of all.
It wasn’t the largest of the flowers, but its color was the most vibrant.
Iridescent, almost. Its petals were ruffled at the edges and pinched in the middle, swelling out at their ends to form the shape of love hearts.
On each heart, a tiny droplet of water glittered like a diamond—
“Don’t.” Fisher’s hand closed around my wrist, preventing me from touching the flower. “It won’t kill you, but it’ll make you really miserable, believe me.”
“It’s poisonous?”
“To most people, it’s deadly.” Shooting me a crooked smile, he said, “But you’re stronger than most. Here, they call it Veridius. Saint’s Steeple. In the Fae courts, we call it Widow’s Bane. You’ve heard of it before.”
I had. “Lorreth gave me and Carrion some to chew at Gillethrye. Our ribs were broken after we hit the surface of the lake. It took our pain away for a while.”
Fisher nodded. “Allow that little dewdrop to come into contact with your skin, and it’ll take your pain away forever,” he said.
“Widow’s Bane is safe to chew once that poison has been cleaned from its petals and its leaves have been steeped and dried for a couple of days.
So long as you don’t swallow the leaves and only chew them, you’ll be fine.
But I didn’t bring you over here to give you a lesson in plant medicine.
I came to show you that sometimes, it’s the most beautiful things that are deadliest. A dress can’t make you weak. It won’t make you vulnera—”
Help! The tremulous scream cut above the music.
In a heartbeat, Fisher had drawn Nimerelle and was scanning the crowd, trying to locate the source of the cry.
“Gods! What’s—what’s happening?” At the table close by, a male high blood was bowed over his place setting and was shuddering, a thick stream of rank black blood pouring from his mouth. It flooded from his eyes, too. Ran from his nose and his ears.
“Help!” The plea went up again, on the other side of the hall this time.
And again, behind us. “Mercy! Please!”
A red-haired female in a royal blue dress slumped to her knees, blood gushing from her mouth as she went down and sprawled out, convulsing on the obsidian floor.
Wide-eyed, Fisher took in the scene in disbelief. “What in all the gods’ names is this?” he whispered. “Was this . . . was this what was in the journal?”
“No! No, it told me to name Foley as Lord! There was nothing in there about this!”
Left and right, high bloods started vomiting blood, staining their fine clothes red. Male and female alike, they went down, trembling, fingers grasping, bloody eyes rolling back into their heads.
Soon, most of the vampires in the hall were writhing on the ground. And in the midst of them all stood Taladaius, towering over them like some silver-haired harbinger of death. “Brothers and sisters!” he cried. “Your judgment has come for you at last!”
“What the fuck?” Fisher hissed.
“Your gluttony is your undoing! Welcome to your final death. But who am I to deny you one last chance at redemption? The thralls you have sipped so greedily upon this evening are passing through the hall with glass vials. Take a vial and swallow its contents, and you will undergo a painful transformation. No, not a transformation. You will be reborn, back into life, back into your Fae bodies, where you will face the horrors of what you allowed yourselves to become! Refuse the vials, and you join the other demons in hell with me posthaste!”
“What the fuck has he done?” Fisher stalked toward the Lord, stepping over the bodies of the toppled high bloods as he went. I was right behind him, my mind spiraling at the scene unfolding before us.
“Tal! Tal, are you out of your mind?” Fisher grabbed the Lord and shook him. “What is this?”
“This is what should have been done a long time ago. They were never going to change, Fisher,” he said.
“They’re incapable of it. Evil through and through.
And I wasn’t about to put this on your shoulders.
I wasn’t going to do it to you, either, Saeris.
” His eyes searched for mine. “I made the hard choice so that neither of you would have to. This was my final act as a Lord of Midnight. Now I’ll go pay for the sins I have committed. ”
We should have noticed the wineglass in his hand.
We should have stopped him from throwing back the viscous red blood inside.
We watched in horror as Tal swallowed—whatever was in the glass was a far greater dose than had been delivered to the other high bloods.
There was no delay for him. Blood welled in his eyes and trickled from his nose as it immediately took effect.
“Tell Everlayne . . . I’m . . . sorry,” he said.
He fell to the ground and started to shake.