CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
VESPER
Vesper stared up through the open ceiling, shrouded only by a tangle of vines.
The colossal hole looked like a larger-than-life beast threw a bloody tantrum and punched through the cavern’s roof.
But the withered sunlight that bled through burned his eyes.
Apparently, he’d already become some underground creature in his short time in Rensburrow if that glimmer of light hurt.
He rubbed his raw wrist, still tingling from where Kyrith had tugged him along through this strange town and into this pocket of the cavern. And she certainly hadn't been gentle about it.
When he snuck a sideways glance at her, he caught her tapping her finger against her sword in perfect rhythm to that familiar tune.
He cleared his throat, and said, “So, uhm, you brought me here to stare up into a big ass hole in the ceiling? Because I thought you had to show me something. And now we’re just gazing at a bunch of rocks.”
She shot him a look harsh enough to shrivel his balls. “Are you always this obnoxious?”
“Are you always this friendly?”
His lips pulled into a smile as she rolled her eyes and returned to tapping her sword as if he didn’t stand in this cavern with her. Like she didn’t care at all if he was here or not. He couldn’t patch this situation with humour and get away with it. He had to actually prove himself.
“Don’t you want to ask me about my plan?” The drag to his words mirrored his hesitant stomach. “What I know about the prophecy? About my scars? About my strange magic and—”
Kyrith held up a single finger to silence him. “I stand firm on that two brain cells comment. Hang onto them. And be quiet for a godsdamn moment, won’t you? You’re giving me a headache.”
If she wanted to be difficult, so be it.
There were three things she wouldn’t be privileged to, not just because of her attitude, but because he didn’t trust this wild woman, even if Zyphira had led him here.
So, his title, his family name, and the Council’s impending visit would remain his secrets.
The anonymity strangely lent him strength.
Gave him a chance at a new beginning without his past tagging along like a leech.
Or maybe more like an ugly drunken gremlin ready to spill his past shames.
Vesper toed a small puddle and smeared the water along the ground, needing to keep busy.
He shoved his hands in his pockets to hide the slight tremble in them.
It wasn’t that he was nervous, per se. More so that if this interaction, whatever they waited for, didn’t go well, he was so bloody screwed.
He clenched his teeth as an unexpected shiver raced down his spine and he—
Well, he felt it first.
The stirring of the air, the thrum of magic, and the absolute shitstorm of wind comparable to a hurricane.
His hair lifted, whipping against his wide eyes, as he turned to Kyrith.
Her burgundy locks whirled around her head, hovered in the air, and she grinned like a woman possessed as the filtered sunlight disappeared, and the greenery parted.
Vesper swallowed the terror climbing his throat.
A black mass, or, shit, black masses, descended through the opening in the cavern’s roof.
His legs screamed to run, but his mind willed him to stay.
We’re wolves, Vesper, Izzy had said. And wolves don’t cower, nor do they hide. So, he straightened his spine and shielded himself from the wind. But nothing could have braced him for the beasts that dropped into the cavern and stole all the fucking air from his lungs.
He blinked. Blinked again. Still couldn’t bloody believe it. This was—
They were fucking dragons.
Holy Hollowhound shit on a piss cake pie.
They were enormous, obsidian things, with scales that reflected the spectrum of the rainbow, a hue Vesper assumed Arborius may have once held before he was tortured, drained, and bled.
Before he lingered on the threshold of the Hollow.
Vesper gazed up at the dragons as his tunic wrestled on his frame and his trousers flapped in the breeze.
And he hadn’t realized it, but at some point, he’d begun to clutch at his Shadowheart.
His heart pounded against his palm and Kaida strained against his ribcage, each flap of her wings a plea for freedom. A lover’s call toward the wind.
Vesper willed his heart rate to calm, and Kaida with it, because he wasn't afraid anymore. He was elated. Stunned. Completely and totally enraptured.
He'd believed dragons were nearly extinct. For the last five hundred years their numbers had dwindled down to none and now he gazed up into the face of one. And not the one he had betrayed and made an enemy of.
But the dragon didn’t seem to notice him at all actually. It just stared as if it didn’t have a single bloody thought in its head.
That’s when he caught sight of a rider atop. And the person mounted on the dragon’s back did so with such casualness, Vesper gaped.
Black leather covered them head to toe, and they donned a skeletal mask like the one the innkeeper had given him. Maybe the innkeeper had somehow been playing dumb and he knew exactly who Vesper was. Also maybe, somehow, where he would end up.
He staggered back as the dragon’s massive taloned feet struck the cavern floor. Dust stirred in wild gusts that stung his eyes and nose and yet, he couldn’t pull himself away.
And then another rider emerged.
Then another and another until five dragons landed in this cavern and Vesper’s back now braced against the cold, hard wall, one hand fisted in his hair and his other braced on the stone behind him.
When his gaze found Kyrith’s, she grinned so fucking wide, as if she could see how close he was to soiling his pants.
As the first rider slid from their mount’s neck, their vestige, a shimmery gray like aluminum and silver and chrome, wavered.
It reflected in the dragon’s eyes in that way Vesper’s did when he possessed a creature.
Each of them dismounted and pressed their hand to the snout of their dragon.
Then the hue of their vestige absorbed into their touch, like water soaking linen.
Siphoning. That’s what it was. They had reclaimed their magic.
The flesh melted off the dragons’ bones to leave barren skeletons that clattered to the floor with an earth-shattering boom. It was a bloody miracle the ground didn’t crack and give way beneath them from the sheer magnitude.
Vesper froze. He gaped at the bundle of bones, now nothing more than decay and death. They’d brought the creatures back. Renewed their form. Created flesh and life.
Impossible. The word repeated in his head.
He’d only ever played with death. He’d never breached the boundaries, never even tested them, but this—
They were essentially gods. And he couldn’t help but sink into unending shame, as if his entire life he had lived a lie.
Kyrith walked up beside him. She nudged him with her elbow and said, “Don’t faint now. You have impressions to make.”
After the dust settled, his attention snapped back to the riders to find them striding toward him.
Vesper’s stomach dropped.
Their capes lifted in the remnants of wind and billowed behind them like some great, ancient beings.
The fabric, composed of oddly woven white threads like a spider’s silk, caught the dappled sunlight.
The vines wriggled back into place, likely to gatekeep the bloodlace.
Were those enchanted too? Fuck, everything here was so bizarre.
The first rider, clearly a man by his tall stature and muscular build, yanked off his mask to reveal a tanned handsome face and greyed hair slightly darker than Vesper’s.
The man studied Vesper, but not in the same way people often did.
He didn’t hold judgement in his eyes or look at him like some freak with hideous powers or a fallen prince.
He studied Vesper as if he could see his magic. Feel it too.
The man’s gaze slid to Kyrith. “I didn’t know we had a visitor,” he said, his voice a slow, throaty bass.
“Thought I’d find the scoundrel who was asking my name all over town,” Kyrith said. She shot Vesper a condemning look. “He has some things to tell us, Thorrin. Interested?”
As he stood there, his knees wobbling like a newborn fawn, his mind raced back to Callias’s instruction. Specifically his insistence that Moranians valued formality. So, he pressed two fingers to his cavae, swept out his leg, and ensured his toe was pointed as he bowed his head.
A deadly silence swallowed the cavern disturbed only by the rhythmic pitter-patter of dripping.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Vesper’s heart pounded with each one.
He waited.
And waited.
A melodic laugh like a song severed the silence. Kyrith gasped for air, as if she couldn’t contain the laughter that ripped through her as she doubled over.
And then all the riders joined. Uproariously. Unrestrained.
Vesper wasn’t one to blush, or feel embarrassment over really anything, but in that moment, as he plotted some nasty revenge for Cal upon his return to Ellynne, he wanted to crawl under the nearest boulder and hide. And even his ears glowed a hot red.
The man, Thorrin, still shaking with laughter, clapped him on the shoulder. “Stand, lad. There’s no need for formalities or any of that nonsense. Besides, we’re not in the seventh century.”
Though his cheeks still burned, Vesper straightened. He glanced between the other riders. Their masks were all still drawn, but he detected two women and two men from their statures and the exposed upper halves of their faces.
“I’m—well, I'm not familiar with your culture,” he said in an attempt to stretch for any dignity he could scrape together.
To his left, Kyrith pinched her fingers and rubbed them together. Two brain cells, she mouthed at him and stifled a laugh.
Fucking Hollow. But he resisted the urge to shield his face.
I’m a wolf. I’m a wolf. I’m a bloody fucking wolf, damn it!
He sucked in a breath and said, “My name is Vesper, and I hail from Ellynne.”