Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
The soulless first appeared a few years after the sun fell—a tool of war crafted by the vampires. When I first began to hear whispers of them, I had thought, The vampires must be desperate. Flooding us with stupid, thoughtless mimicries of themselves.
I had thought, This must be a sign the war will end soon.
Imagine, I’d believed I had shed all my naiveté by then.
Stupid.
Those hopes evaporated the first time I had encountered them in the flesh.
The vampires didn’t have the benefit of Srana’s magic, which allowed us to craft powerful weapons and technology—which we rapidly innovated when the vampire threat came.
But they could create monsters. Their very own living grenades of teeth and claws and distilled, paralyzing fear.
The soulless traveled in packs, autonomously, like wild animals.
The vampires either no longer could control them or no longer cared to.
Their appearance varied, though most had fair, hairless flesh and vaguely humanoid forms that crawled on four long limbs.
Their faces were similarly distorted: stretched too long, their features all a little too close together, jaws hanging as if dislocated.
Most people didn’t get to see their faces, though. If they got that close, you were already dead.
They were close now. And everywhere. Like ants engulfing a carcass.
Marko’s lantern smashed on the rocks, drowning us in darkness. I heard his grunt, a slew of indecipherable curses drowning beneath the sound of metal through flesh over and over and over again.
Zefiah and I did what we did best:
We fought.
The soulless had little in the way of self-preservation instincts. They shied away from Zefiah’s godlight only when they felt its heat upon their skin—which was far too late. The blade cut through them like warm butter, black blood spilling like rancid flesh from a rotten fruit.
Still, there were so, so many of them. So many teeth and claws.
And the fear was unbearable. The shrieks of the soulless had been known to paralyze their would-be victims from a mile away.
Up close, they didn’t even have to make a sound.
Their bodies secreted it. With every second of exposure, my heart grew faster, my muscles twitchier, my movements sloppier.
{Try not to breathe so much,} Zefiah scolded, which was advice that could only be given by an inanimate object.
“Marko!” I bellowed as I fought.
But I could no longer see him. No longer hear him, either. We were in constant movement, swept up in a current of beasts, and he had been pulled away.
A knot of something resembling guilt formed in my stomach, sour with the soulless’s fear. Zefiah gave me strength and resilience. Marko had no such boons. Could any human survive this?
But then, men like Marko never seemed to die. It was the best and worst thing about them.
{Indeed,} Zefiah said drily as we hacked off the head of another soulless, sending a spew of black blood over my face. {Marko shall outlive us all. Proof that there is little justice in this world.}
I stumbled backward as my heel caught on a mangled tree root.
{Move!} Zefiah commanded, as I twitched right just in time to avoid a soulless diving for my face, sending it into the tree instead.
{Behind you. Quickly!}
Gods fucking damn it. Couldn’t be in two places at once.
A wet thunk, as some hunk of soulless flesh fell to the ground.
A ragged squeal, as another one attacked.
Pain, as claws dug into the back of my shoulder.
A roar of exertion as I threw all my remaining energy into my counter, spinning around with Zefiah drawn—
The soulless pounced.
Blood sprayed. For a moment, I wasn’t sure whose.
The soulless’s face was so close to mine that our noses nearly touched. Its nostrils, two flat slits, twitched with heaving final breaths. Its mouth was open, revealing not one but two sets of fangs, thinner than vampire teeth but sharper. Empty eyes stared directly into mine.
It was rare that even I saw the things so close. A chill ran up my spine as it occurred to me that they did, indeed, look so very human.
I kicked the body off Zefiah’s blade.
Silence.
The pack had passed through. I remained coiled, blade drawn. I was breathing heavily, and worse, bleeding. But no movement in the forest. No soulless.
No Marko, either. Or Gaveer, for that matter. Shit.
Slowly, I straightened. Took a single, careful step.
SNAP, as a twig broke beneath my boot.
A smear of darkness moved across the edge of my vision.
{Halt!} Zefiah commanded.
I did. My muscles froze, right down to my boot, heel down, toe up.
Zefiah, of course, sensed it before I did. The presence in the air, hot and sweet, like the heady taste of honeyed wine. Making your thoughts a little too sticky. Making your body a little too slow.
And even though I couldn’t see them or hear them, I knew, even before Zefiah spoke:
{Vampires.}
Not soulless. The fallen ones themselves. Shadowborn, if I had to guess, judging by the magic I could already feel encroaching on my thoughts like a drug.
I swallowed thickly. Tried not to feel the fear that fell over me, slow and inevitable, deeper even than the panic the soulless brought to the surface.
I had killed vampires before. I had nothing to be afraid of.
A laugh slithered through the air.
I think you are very afraid, a voice whispered. It sounded like a gentle breeze, soft and echoing in that way that made me unsure whether I was hearing it in my mind or ears.
Don’t blink, I told myself.
But the images came anyway—images of Vostis.
The first time I had ever encountered vampires.
How they had appeared like ghosts along the shore, pouring into the Citadel halls.
How the blood had pooled between the mosaics on the floor.
How children sounded screaming as they died. And above all, the terror—
I slammed my mind shut against the invasion. Too slow, and I cursed myself for it. I could still feel their fingers in my thoughts, their presence leaching into it like dirty hands in dinner soup.
I whipped around to see a vampire before me.
She had fair hair cut into a sharp bob at her shoulders.
She wore a long, fitted, dark green jacket, two copper faces embroidered at her lapel.
The crest of the House of Shadow. No surprise, considering the invasion into my mind—a Shadowborn trick.
Most of the vampires on this side of the sea were Shadowborn or Bloodborn, the two kingdoms that spearheaded Nyaxia’s invasion.
I’d seen them before. Killed them before. And yet, at the sight of that crest, with old memories still too close to the surface, my palms sweated.
All vampires took pleasure in inflicting pain.
But the Shadowborn’s mind magic made their torture particularly cruel.
I hated that every time I saw those green uniforms, I saw them as I had the first time, ten years ago.
More, I hated that they fucking smelled it on me. The fear I wished I didn’t feel.
The woman’s blue eyes raked over my body, then landed on Zefiah. Her smile glinted in the darkness.
“The Vindica Ultis,” she purred. “You look smaller in the flesh.”
Her voice had that lilting, smooth accent, thick and sweet.
She was, of course, disgustingly beautiful.
They all were. It was common to hear of human soldiers abandoning their posts to run to the vampires.
Everyone always laughed about such stories, but once you saw one in person, no one was laughing.
No one was surviving, either—or at least, you hoped not, because death was a mercy compared to whatever fate they had planned for you.
That’s why you never let them talk.
You ready, Zef?
{Always.}
I raised Zefiah, and light burst through the darkness.
The vampire staggered backward, arm over her eyes, lips twisting into a hiss at the sudden onslaught of godlight. My eyes locked onto her chest—her heart. An old voice in an old memory whispered, Push right here. Really, really hard. Harder than you think.
I charged. A smirk of satisfaction twisted the corner of my mouth. I could already practically taste her—
A wall of force struck me from the side, sending me careening into a tree. Zefiah flew from my hands, landing with a dull thump in the dirt.
Without Zefiah in my hands, I all at once was painfully aware of my human fragility.
I forced my eyes open, forced my head to clear, forced myself to my feet. A man stood over me now, the woman joining him, hands on her hips. He had dark hair bound in a tail over his shoulder, and wore a hungry, satisfied smile.
Two vampires.
Soulless were one thing. But it was much rarer to see vampires out here. Let alone multiple. Let alone soldiers.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zefiah’s golden glow matching my heartbeat, partly obscured by the underbrush.
{Do not try. Not yet.} Her voice was a faint whisper in the back of my mind.
After the better part of a decade together, I now could hear her speak even when she wasn’t in my grip—something I cursed when she was criticizing my choice of clothing in the morning but was useful in times like this.
{The next time I taste their blood, it will be from within their hearts. }
I approved of this plan.
The male vampire stepped closer. He smelled of blood and death. His magic slithered into my thoughts like hands sliding under my clothing, and it felt just as violating.
“Did you know that you are quite famous even in Obitraes?” he crooned.
When I took a half step, deliberately stumbling, it was toward him, not away. The woman watched from a few paces back, eyes glittering with hungry delight.
{Careful,} Zefiah warned.
But still, I waited. Allowed him another step closer. My eyes flicked to the collar of his shirt, slightly open. To the heart beneath it.
I decided he was close enough.
Now!
I flung my hand out, palm open, ready for Zefiah.
The last thing I saw before the godlight blinded me was the vampire’s satisfying shock.
Zefiah ripped through the underbrush, her weight slamming against me, my palms closing tight around her hilt as my body coiled to brace against the force of her return.
I lunged.
Pain exploded through the back of my skull as old memories erupted to the surface. My strike wavered, but Zefiah found flesh. I tasted blood. Heard a curse of pain.
{Run, you reckless fool,} Zefiah commanded. {Run!}
I hated fleeing. But I needed to split them up before I could split them in two.
I wove through the forest. Zefiah’s magic made me just a little better than most human warriors.
A little faster, a little stronger, each blow landing just a little harder.
But those boons didn’t put me at the level of a typical adult vampire—let alone skilled soldiers, as these were.
And it did little to protect me from the Shadowborn’s mind magic, which still throbbed beneath my skull.
The forest was dark. Zefiah barely lit my way. Branches scratched my cheeks. I was eternally conscious of the blood soaking through my clothing. Though I could not see the vampires, they certainly could smell me.
They had separated, just as I’d hoped they would—toying with me like cats. I could see flashes of gold, the woman’s hair, on my left side. Could hear the man behind me, moving slower, but pursuing. I’d injured him, but that only meant he’d be more determined to catch me.
What’s ahead? I asked Zefiah.
{There is a building. Abandoned. To your left. Smaller quarters.}
Good. Somewhere I could let them believe they cornered me.
I followed the streak of Zefiah’s godlight through the forest, pushing myself to move faster, faster. The forest opened around me. A clearing, or what had once been one, perhaps before the sun fell—now overgrown, anemic bushes and saplings reaching up to reclaim it.
And at its center, a building. Just as Zefiah had told me.
It had likely once been a quaint little house, maybe owned by a groundskeeper employed by the nearby estate. Now, it was half collapsed, a great rotten gash open in its wooden siding.
I dove inside. Broken glass crunched beneath my boot. I whipped through a bowing doorway and pressed against moldy wallpaper.
The woman careened through the door seconds later. And even though humans didn’t have an ounce of mind magic, I swore I felt it up my spine—her delight at her luck, thinking her terrified mouse had run right into a trap.
It was always their overconfidence that did them in.
I spun on my heel just as she ran after me.
Her eyes widened. Golden light flashed through the dark corners of the room. Her skin burned as Zefiah sliced through her flesh. Godlight ate vampires up like flame to paper.
She hit the ground with a mushroom puff of ash.
The strike, satisfyingly, had nearly carved her in two.
Her blue eyes stared lifelessly into the darkness.
With my boot, I nudged her stray arm, still twitching, beyond the doorway threshold, so she wouldn’t be visible from the forest. Then I sank into the darkness and waited, straining to listen.
Her companion was still out there. He’d come. Any minute—
Then, footsteps.
Many footsteps. More than those of the man I had injured.
Shit. Shit.
Instinct tingled at the back of my neck. I sensed movement—not ahead, but behind me, and close.
{You are not alone—}
Hands slid around my waist, pulling me against the wall. The scent of smoke surrounded me. A body pressed to mine, a head bowing over me.
Zefiah clattered to the ground, and the figure pushed her away with an unceremonious kick. I went rigid, blood freezing in my veins—forcing my muscles to still. Someone grabbed my hood and raised it, holding it tight at my neck so that it obscured my face.
“Keep your mind blank,” a male voice hissed into my ear. His breath was exactly the same temperature as the air—neither cool nor warm—and my skin puckered at the eerie sensation.
I raised my gaze to see a set of eyes staring into mine—strange eyes, like broken glass, silver and amber intertwined.
Unmistakably inhuman eyes.
The eyes of a vampire.
“Do not move.”