Chapter Five
WREN
Screams woke me while I was still in the hammock.
Benedict dove headfirst out of the treehouse and flew down toward the eastern cliffs before I’d even sat up. Kieran was right behind him, and Ronan stayed back with me, wings flared with anxiety.
“Let me up!” I insisted, baring my fangs at him and struggling ridiculously as the hammock turned and tilted.
“Wren, you must stay here until we know what the threat is.” Yet he held the hammock still, steadying it.
“I can fucking stand up!” I snarled at him, in no mood to be treated like a child.
He reluctantly helped me up and I waddled to the edge of the platform. I couldn’t see from here, but I knew flying wouldn’t be smart in my condition. I hadn’t flown in weeks, and already my wings ached thinking about it.
“Walk me down,” I insisted.
His expression darkened. “Wren—”
I waddled down the staircase as fast as I could, which … wasn’t fast. Ronan could easily stop me if he wanted, but I didn’t think he would. My hands ached as I grabbed the railing hard, knowing how upset my mates would be if I fell.
“Eastern shore,” Ronan said, already resigned to following me.
“I know, I have ears,” I snapped, then immediately felt bad. He was just trying to protect me; they all were. “Sorry.”
He kissed the top of my head, smiling.
We made our way to the eastern cliffs, slower than I’d like as we made it out of the jungle and up to the open plains, which ended in rocky outcroppings. Down the sheer cliff, out in the ocean on the rocks, the seawitches were already waist-deep in the surf, screaming in frustration.
The reason was soon apparent.
Rising from the waves were bodies: pale, slick, and wrong.
Vampyres.
“Just twelve,” Benedict called out from above, circling high with Kieran. He shot Ronan an annoyed glance at my presence, but said nothing else.
Just twelve. Why the fuck were they here?
Benedict tried to dismiss the numbers as a non-threat, but watching them slip through the tides like silver eels, eyes bright red with hungry grins made my stomach flip. We had children on the island!
“They don’t breathe!” Meruse shouted, fury and panic mixing in her voice. “They can’t be drowned!”
Oh, that’s a fucking problem.
Air witches hovered overhead, unsure of how to help.
“Ignore them then, they shouldn’t be able to breach the wards,” Benedict ordered the drakens waiting at attention, who were lining the cliff as the dozen vampyres staggered forward, uncaring as the tide bashed them into the rocks over and over again.
“They’ll just crush themselves,” I noted, frowning.
Kieran was beside me in a flash, sword drawn, eyes black with focus. “Get back, Wren!”
“I’m fine,” I snapped. “The wards will stop them if they don’t get shredded first.”
We all watched with bated breath as they tried to climb up the rocky surf. This would be the first real challenge to our wards.
The first vampyre lunged forward toward a rock and then fell backward violently, as if he’d been sucker punched back into the water. The rock it hit glowed gold for a brief instant, and hope flared in my chest.
It worked. Everything is fine.
But just as quickly the gold faded and turned to angry red lines, then black.
The rock exploded.
The seawitches fell back, watching with mild interest as the vampyres threw themselves at the wards, reaching for the rocks and land only to be violently expelled back into the ocean.
The wards worked, mostly, but they were showing cracks and fissures. They wouldn’t survive any sustained attack.
“Let me down there! I will flay them all alive!”
I turned to see Nerissa held back by two drakens, spit flying from her mouth as she tried to dive into the sea.
“Look at them, they’re already defeated,” I tried to point out. It was a bit sad, really. And anticlimactic.
But the wards are failing.
She went limp in the drakens’ arms, angry tears falling down her cheeks.
Benedict made a disgusted sound at the vampyres’ frustrated wails and hungry cries.
“Round them up and chain them!” he called out to the witches. “We need to find out what they know,” Benedict ordered, turning toward Nerissa. “You can interrogate them.”
Benedict pushed off from the ground, opening his wings and taking off toward the ship. Nerissa shoved off the drakens holding her, adjusting her blouse and the knife holster on her waist.
Kieran soared over us as Benedict growled.
“Right. Vampyres, chains. Got it,” Kieran confirmed.
A dozen drakens flew down to the water, air witches backing them up as the seawitches tossed them the vampyres. One by one, they each took a captive and headed around the island to the southern side and Nerissa’s ship.
“You there! Air witch! I need a ride!” Nerissa called out.
I hid a chuckle behind my hand.
Nerissa shot me a look. “You coming?”
Benedict and Kieran would hate that. “Yes.”
“Make that two!”
Ronan bristled next to me. “I don’t think they would want you down there, away from the wards. Besides, even if you did go down, I am perfectly capable—”
“Take me down there. I am still queen, am I not?” I demanded.
He gaped at me. I rarely pulled the queen card on him. His fangs gnashed together. “Fine. Come here.”
Ronan grunted, sweating a little more than he usually did while carrying me, but we glided together around the tip of the island and to the south. A large wooden ship sat in the harbor, its sails patched and worn.
My claws dug into the wood of the deck as Ronan sat me down. My nose wrinkled at the smell of tar and blood.
Benedict was arguing with Kieran. “What do we do with them? After we interrogate them, that is?”
Ronan wiped sweat from his face, chest heaving. “They can’t be drowned,” he said. “And if we keep them here, they’ll tear apart the first guard who gets close. They look to be near-feral.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Benedict demanded, a bit impatient. His lips pursed when he saw me, but wisely he chose not to argue at this moment.
Ronan opened his mouth, then closed it, clearly thinking better of whatever it was he had to say.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Drop them into the volcano seems logical,” he said tentatively. “And quick.”
The words fell like stones.
I turned on him. “You can’t be serious.”
Benedict nodded, grudging respect in his eyes for Ronan. “It’s merciful and clean, and if we drop them from high enough the wards shouldn’t interfere.”
Nerissa shot Ronan an odd look. “That’s … creative.”
Benedict didn’t flinch. “They killed a draken,” he said simply. “And they’ll do it again if we let them.”
Nerissa huffed. “If they murdered my son, I’ll drop them in myself.”
I wanted to argue, but when I looked at her—really looked at her—I saw what I would become if anyone ever hurt the child inside me. I said nothing. I didn’t disagree.
I surveyed the prisoners. The chained vampyres were lifted into the sky one by one, nets of glowing sigils binding their limbs.
Ronan held his hands out in resignation. “Come on.”
I grinned and he picked me up, flying toward the volcano.
The vampyres thrashed, shrieking curses as the drakens flew and carried them toward the volcano: the same mountain that had once burned red with fury when the Overlord fell.
The same mountain that had destroyed our entire people when the Overlord had caused it to erupt all those centuries ago, but as we circled overhead, the air was wrong.
No heat. No glow. Just silence.
I landed on the rim, frowning at the cool ash directly underneath my claws. The crater was dark, its heart as cold as stone. Hadn’t it just been warm this week? Or had I imagined it?
“There’s no lava,” Ronan murmured, kneeling beside the edge. “It’s dead.”
Benedict crouched beside him, pressing a hand to the rock. “It shouldn’t be. How long has it been like this?”
“Nothing’s burned since the Overlord’s death,” I said softly, looking into the hollow, realizing the truth. “Not even smoke.”
“No. Not since Baila sacrificed herself to quiet it,” Benedict corrected us.
The mood tumbled into a stony silence except for the sounds of thrashing vampyres, dangling in the air.
Astrid hovered in front of us. “The bloodwitches say this place wasn’t just a volcano.
” She traced her fingers along the blackened stone.
“Fire magick. And bloodmagick. The two fused here once. You can still feel it humming beneath the surface, like an echo. Blood repaid has satiated it. Maybe they can study it more, but the sacrifice snuffed it out.”
The air prickled against my skin, electric with old, buried power.
“When Baila died, the volcano died?” I asked.
Benedict’s face paled. “The ultimate willing bloodmagick sacrifice. It stopped the volcano, so that we’d never again have another devastation like the one before.”
That was good news, but tears gathered in his eyes. The protection of the island had cost him his only remaining blood relative.
I stroked my stomach. Until now.
“But that is separate from the wards?” I asked.
“What do we do with them, then?” Kieran asked, nodding toward the captives overhead.
“Back to the ship,” he ordered.
Nerissa wasn’t happy to see us come back so soon, vampyres in tow. Benedict and Ronan hit the deck hard, their claws digging into the wood.
Benedict huffed at her. “They can’t be allowed to live.”
“Obviously,” Nerissa huffed. “Use the chains. I have many.”
I did not ask why.
Kieran oversaw chaining the vampyres down to the side of the boat. They hissed and writhed, barely more than feral creatures as Ronan had said.
“Why did you attack our island?” Benedict demanded immediately of the first one. It snarled, refusing to answer. And down the line Benedict went.
Most said nothing: spitting, snarling, baring their fangs like beasts. But one, a woman, lifted her head and smiled at me. Her teeth were slick with blood, eyes haunted and cheeks gaunt.
“I’ll tell you,” she said. “If the queen grants me my life. And food. We are all sooo hungry.… He promised we would eat. But it was only a little …”
The other vampyres went ballistic at the mention of food, writhing and fighting their chains to no avail.