CHARLIE
Istill lay beneath the crushing weight of the golenae. I hadn’t given up struggling against it, though sweat dripped off my forehead and my muscles ached with the futile effort.
Meanwhile, Kortoi sat in a chair across the room, his legs crossed, scrying into his cup of wine. Now, he stood abruptly and crossed the room in a flurry of dark robes.
“Excellent news. The princess is ready to see you now,” he said cheerfully. “Come on, then. Let him up.”
With a sound like the shifting of an avalanche, the golenae rolled off me and I staggered to my feet. Kortoi gestured to the door with a genteel flair.
“After you, Major.”
The two Gray Brothers led the way and I followed with the Prelate a step behind.
We made our way down a long hallway, which opened up into a large hall.
A colonnade separated us from the main part of the room, but on the other side of the columns, a great many men were gathered, all of them arrayed in the brocaded tunics and furred cloaks of nobility.
I assumed it must be a feast of some sort, but as I listened, I realized the din in the room wasn’t the usual chatter and laughter of a large gathering.
I heard men wailing. Sobbing. Cursing. I peered between a pair of columns and saw a bizarre tableau.
At least a dozen men lay sprawled on the floor, so pale and still they had to be dead.
Others knelt, crying, or rolled back and forth on the ground, clutching themselves in agony.
One fellow in bejeweled robes had his dick out and another was pouring wine on it as if he were putting out a fire.
“What in the hell…?” I started, but the Prelate kept walking.
“Come along. Don’t want to keep your princess waiting,” he said briskly, and I hurried to catch up.
At the far end of the room, there stood a small door, framed with an arch of flowers. A brass gong with a symbol of a tree on it stood to one side. A pair of Lacunae stood before the door, but they stepped aside as we arrived. Kortoi stepped aside as well, gesturing grandly to the portal before me.
“Here you are, Ace. Your love awaits.”
The mad glee in his eyes should have been a warning, but I could think of nothing now except Essa.
I rushed forward, breathless, my heart pounding as I burst through the door.
My momentum carried me half a dozen steps into the room before my mind could register what I was seeing—and my steps wound down like clockwork.
Essa was there. Naked. Tied down to some sort of stone bed.
And looming over her, holding a knife, was that green-haired freak—Braimar.
I didn’t stop to think. Or breathe. Or feel.
Kortoi’s thugs had taken my weapons belt, but in their haste, they hadn’t bothered to check my boot—where the dagger I’d taken from the wisps was stashed. In one fluid motion, I crouched, pulled it free, and sprinted forward like a runner bursting out of the blocks.
Braimar saw me and put his empty hand in the air, a gesture of surrender.
“Easy, I’m just—” he made a sawing motion with his dagger, down near Essa’s hand.
But words were drowned out by my roar of fury, and he never finished his sentence. I launched myself forward, tackling him over the bed, and buried my blade in his chest. We both hit the ground hard, me on top of him, snarling. He looked up at me with eyes already going glassy.
“You’ll never hurt her again,” I hissed, giving the dagger a twist. His body spasmed once, then went still. The scent of his blood rose to me, a siren song, seductive and powerful. But its allure was nothing compared to Essa.
I was already on my feet, turning to face her.
She stood next to the stone altar now, staring at me with wide, wild eyes. She’d gotten a silk robe from somewhere and held it in front of her nakedness.
“Essa…” I reached out for her. “You’re bleeding.”
A rivulet of blood was tracing a line down her neck, across her collarbone. She touched the wound absently.
“From his knife,” she said. “When you slammed into him.”
She sounded stunned. And angry, though I struggled to understand why.
Already, it was hard to think. The scent of her blood was in the air, mingling with his, and it hit me like a fist. I felt both my cock and my fangs growing longer.
But that wasn’t what I wanted, what I’d dreamed of over all these miles—blood and sex.
No. I wanted to hold Essa. To love her. Not to consume her.
She glanced to Braimar. “You killed him.” She shook her head, then looked back to me, blinking as if to clear her vision. “You’re not supposed to be alive.”
“I came back for you,” I said, taking a small step forward, but she backed away.
“No,” she whispered. “You were dead. I saw you.”
“I’m not dead, Essa,” I said fervently. “I’m here.”
She shook her head again, tears filling her eyes. “Well, you’re too late.”
I blinked at her, utterly confused.
“Too late…?” I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re too late!” she bellowed—with such force that this time I retreated a step. She clutched the gown in front of herself tighter, as if to make her nakedness disappear behind it. “Go,” she snarled.
I put a hand over my mouth. She must’ve seen my teeth. Was that it? Did she think I was a monster now? Did she want nothing to do with me?
“Essa…”
I stepped toward her, reaching out a hand. Again, she retreated until her back was against the wall. Tears stood in her eyes, ran down her cheeks. She was trembling, I saw, shivers wracking her body.
“Go.” She enunciated the word with such fierceness it felt like a spell. Like an edict. Like a command that could move armies.
I paused. All the miles I’d walked. All the hardships I’d faced, just to be at her side again—and this was my greeting?
It stung like a slap. The world blurred, and I blinked fast. I had no idea what to do next, what to say.
In my confusion, I glanced around the room, taking it in for the first time.
I saw the flowers. The flowing swags of fabric hanging from the columns.
The silk ties on the stone bed, now sliced by Braimar’s knife.
And finally at Essa. At her bare legs and feet.
At the naked chest visible above the robe that she held clenched in front of herself like a shield.
“Was this… the bydrune?” I asked, my voice small.
“GO!” she screamed so hard her face went red, the veins in her neck standing out.
“Essa…” I whispered, taking a step toward her once more.
But bootsteps from the doorway interrupted me.
“Brothers, help my nephew,” Kortoi said, his words clipped with irritation.
The two mages rushed to Braimar. They unceremoniously hoisted him up by his arms and legs and carried him from the room.
“Essa—” I tried again, but she’d turned away from me.
Her hair hung across her face. She held her robe tightly, and her arms were wrapped around herself in an embrace.
Her one hand trembled where it clenched the silk against her breast. Her legs bent as she sank down against the wall, folding into herself.
“Get him out of here,” she barked in a ragged voice.
“Essa, please. Talk to me. We can—”
“You heard the princess,” Kortoi said.
Rough, armored gauntlets of the knights grabbed me by each arm and dragged me backward. I could have fought. With my vampyre strength, I might have gotten free of them. But what was the point? Essa wouldn’t even look at me.
And so, I gave up and let them drag me from the room.
Back in the main hall, the tumult that had been taking place moments before had given way to an ominous silence, broken only by a few scattered moans.
Several men rolled on the ground in pain.
A handful of servants scrambled to help them.
Everyone else—dozens and dozens of noblemen, lay still. Pale. Dead.
There was no delicious taste of blood in the air, though. The scent I picked up felt acerbic. Unclean.
“What the hell is going on in this place?” I muttered, with a glance at Kortoi.
“Death,” he said simply. But when I looked over at him, the sick bastard was smiling.
He and his men walked me down a set of stairs, down a long corridor, and through a set of three locked doors—two made of heavy wood and one of barred steel.
Eventually, we emerged outside Charcain’s walls into what looked like a muddy stable yard.
Afternoon sun beamed down from a terribly clear sky.
A handful of goats galloped up to us, curious.
It felt surreal. Like what had just happened must have been a dream.
I shooed the goats away and turned back to the Prelate. I felt numb. Bewildered. Lost.
“What now?” I said.
“What do you mean?” he sniffed.
I glanced at the hulking men behind him. “Are you going to try to kill me, or…?”
“Kill you?” he chuckled. “No! I would never. Let me tell you something about working with a monarch. The important thing is leverage. Whoever has the most leverage has the most power. As long as you live, and as long as she cares about you, you’re a lever that can be pulled. Do you see?”
My gaze fell to the muck at my feet. “Who says she cares about me? You saw what just happened.”
The Prelate made a pouty face, mocking me.
“Oh, you’re breaking my heart, Ace! She may not want to walk hand-in-hand with you through the market square.
But if someone were to, say, begin pulling your toes off one by one, do you not think your screams would move her stony little heart?
I do. So, go. Live. Prosper. And if I need you, rest assured, I’ll find you. ”
I didn’t want to fear this snake’s threats, but I couldn’t help it—his last words sent a shiver through me.
“In fact…” he fished into a leather pouch at his belt, took something out and tossed it into the air.
It looked like a beetle, like a black ladybug.
It buzzed through the air with incredible speed right toward me.
I swatted at it, but it evaded me, dipping right for my head.
It landed behind my right ear, and I felt a sharp, stinging pain.
I cried out and rubbed the spot, but the bug was gone.
There was only a lump. But I could feel it, its little legs scrabbling beneath my skin.
“To help me find you, when the time comes,” the Prelate said with a smile.
“Don’t worry. It will sleep soon, and the pain will disappear.
At least, until I want to find you again.
Oh, and we don’t want you starving in the meantime.
” He reached into the pouch again and took out a handful of clinking coins.
As he stepped forward to offer them to me, a shadow fell over us both.
We looked up in time to see Parthar swooping down.
The dragon landed between us and whirled to face the Prelate, snarling protectively.
“Well, you’ve certainly grown,” Kortoi said, retreating a few steps, his wide eyes betraying a rare hint of surprise. “I’ll just leave these here for you.”
He dropped the coins into the mud outside the range of Parthar’s bared teeth, then turned to his men and made a swirling motion with his finger. “Alright, then. Back to the castle!”
“I ought to kill you for her,” I said.
He stopped, then slowly turned back to me. There was something terrifying in his eyes then, a shift in his energy that made the birds in the trees around us stop their chirping.
Kortoi was always cracking jokes, offering gifts, charming, flattering, fawning, running his fingernails through his long hair.
But I sensed just the faintest inkling of his true power in that moment, felt it in my gut, like a low peal of distant thunder.
And I somehow knew that all his outward manifestations were just a mask, that at his core, he was far more dangerous than any knight, any ace, any dragon.
He was not a man. He was oblivion, dressed in human skin. Deadly. Ancient. Terrible.
“You killed my favorite nephew today,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically low. “Do not test me.”
At the menace in his voice, even bold Parthar cringed.
Then in a swish of robes, the priest of the void turned again, marching with his men back into the tunnel that led beneath the wall, back toward Charcain.
The iron gate clanged shut behind them with the finality of a prison door being shut, and Parthar and I were alone.