Chapter 66
Chapter Sixty-Six
Lorkan
Glowing lanterns hung from the cavern’s ceiling, draping Lorkan’s secret village in a heady glow. While those of Vísdómr Library slumbered, half a mile under the mountain’s base, a pack of witches and werewolves now turned vampyrs lived.
It wasn’t as grand as the city built into Vísdómr or full of the same charm as the Drengr Village, but for those who had to live their life away from the daylight and fear the sun, it was a place of refuge, and that gave Fjall it’s beauty.
Those like Lorkan, with little choice from what fate handed them, had a chance.
With rock surrounding them on all sides, the quaint but bustling village echoed.
Built into larger caves, establishments conducted business.
Bakeries handed out savory bread stuffed with cured meats and well-aged cheese.
Another storefront handed out fruit and vegetable preserves, jars that lasted years on the shelves if properly stored.
At the edge, another distributed smoke trout—something Lorkan had never taken a liking to.
Instead, he sipped a mug of barleywine and nibbled on peppered almonds while assessing the fallen branch Mya had found during her foraging.
The crooked branch looked as though one had pulled a string from inside and scrunched the once mighty oak. The one leaf that remained hung limply, flesh burnt from frost. The bark curled to reveal an onyx fleshy exterior, and inky sap oozed from the cracks.
“Smells like licorice,” Alvin whispered.
“And death,” Mya added, frowning.
“How close to Vísdómr did you find it?”
Mya gestured towards the baskets. “Near the elm trees.”
“That is the farthest south we’ve come across signs of the Void,” Alvin said.
Lorkan trailed a finger over the rim of his mug. “I’ll have to write to Eldrick.”
But he had nothing else to report. Aside from some vague connections, he had no answers on how to break the curse, nothing to soften the negative news that their land was infected.
“What else was it near?” he asked.
Mya’s brows furrowed. “Trees and more trees . . . Actually, I spotted the most peculiar tree, and there was a small pool of water wedged in its root, tremoring from the storm.”
“Odd storm for the winter months, don’t you think?” Alvin said, lips downturned in a frown. “Felt like something was watching us, still does.”
Mya hummed. “I don’t think we can count on anything normal with the Void spreading. Weather has been unpredictable in Nūa, too, these days.”
Lorkan sighed. “But Alvin has a point. It felt more than the land tonight.”
Mya didn’t reply, her eyes fixated elsewhere.
Lorkan followed her line of sight, but he didn’t catch anything of interest across the street, aside from a weaver handing out thick, wooly sweaters.
He caught sage on the slight breeze funneling through the tunnel, his inner wolf rising to the surface at the familiarity.
But to think it was Blair was a foolish notion—his pack cooked inside their homes, restaurants, and taverns.
No doubt there was to be hints of the woody herb in the air.
“Did you find anything regarding the fire I wrote to you about?” he asked Mya.
She nodded. “It happened in 1895, the same year as Vísdómr’s. Days apart.”
Alvin’s brows pinched. “No one found that incredibly coincidental?”
“It was within the same weeks as the Void splitting across the continent,” Lorkan said. “I imagine their attentions were elsewhere.”
Mya nodded. “I found something else interesting. That wasn’t the only fire that night within the city walls of Nūa.”
Lorkan gripped his mug, hair rising on the back of his neck. He couldn’t shake the sense Alvin was right, and they were being watched. He shook it away, focusing on Mya again. “Go on.”
“A printing house suffered an incredible loss. Their warehouse and pressroom were scorched to the ground. Records, too, destroyed,” Mya said. “But I was able to study their printing logs. Guess who had their next installment and anthologies fresh off the press?”
Both Alvin and Lorkan leaned inward and asked at the same time, “Who?”
“Matilda Moore,” Mya said. “It would’ve been her last work before she disappeared. Every last copy was burnt, even the manuscripts’ master copies.”
Lorkan stilled—he’d learned from Evelyn and Blair that the famous witch scholar had close ties to vampyr history with her fated, a seer seeking solitude from his visions, along with her journal full of personal accounts.
“That work might’ve covered the original history of vampyr before the curse,” Lorkan said.
“Which means, whoever destroyed this information never wanted us to learn that vampyrs were different before the curse,” Alvin said.
Lorkan shifted in his seat, still unsettled that vampyrism wasn’t darkness but instead touched by a curse.
“But why?” Mya shook her head, the usually optimistic witch saddened. “What exactly did they gain by destroying that information?”
“Curses can be broken.” Lorkan crossed his arms, pensive.
“Without the truth, it kept ‘darkness’ ambiguous. Without the rest of the prophecy, Sorin has little solution other than the Son of the God and Daughter of Goddess. Someone was intent on making sure no one discovered exactly how to defeat the darkness.”
“We’ve all been led astray so the Blood Goddess was able to grow in her power,” Alvin muttered.
“It seems so.” Lorkan sipped his barleywine, but the pleasant maltiness melted on his tongue and left behind a sour taste.
“Was or is?” Mya said. “How are we certain this someone isn’t still controlling the narrative now, or worse, seeking more desperate measures?”
“Perhaps it’s that ghastly prince you’ve mentioned.” Alvin jutted his chin towards Lorkan.
He shook his head. “From what I know, Riven wasn’t working for the Blood Goddess that soon after the Void formed.”
Mya sighed, voice tentative as she spoke. “I don’t suppose you and that witch can put your heads together and figure it out?”
Alvin snorted. “He’d have to speak to her in order to accomplish that, and Lorkan’s barely been in the same room as Blair for days.”
Lorkan tensed at the sound of her name, hating to hear it in the place he’d visited to escape her. No matter the distance or stone he put between them, he couldn’t outrun what he was, and instead of hiding his truth, the surrounding rock closed in on him.
Moons, he still tasted her on his lips, could feel the aftershocks of her release on his fingers, but more importantly, he missed the sight of her studious stare or the twitch of her lips before she smiled.
He yearned to simply be in the same room as Blair, to cherish her presence.
What would it be like to have her as part of his world, sitting amongst his friends and theorizing to break the curse?
Sorin still isn’t ready for your darkness, his father had said.
Yet, Blair wasn’t Sorin. Lorkan’s insides twisted.
He could pretend he feared harming Blair, his blood thirst too great, but he’d never hurt her, he knew that.
He feared what she’d think, how she’d react to him being a vampyr.
He feared the unknown, and yet one thing was certain—he had to find her and discuss what Mya had discovered.
Perhaps their time at Vísdómr was coming to end, and they had to take their research elsewhere.
“I think Lorkan knows what’s right, he’s just afraid.” Mya rose from her seat, downing the rest of her barleywine. “Now, as splendid as your company is, I need to get these blossoms ready to dry before the sunrise.”
Alvin got up from the table, too. “I’ll join you. Goes faster with two.”
“How long will it take to create the tea?” he asked.
“Ten days,” Mya said. “Albeit that’s only if the storms hold off and we get a sunny day tomorrow.”
Lorkan nodded. “I’ll visit you both then. If there’s anything urgent in the meantime, you know where to find me.”
Alone and swallowed by darkness, Lorkan ventured up the north and most narrow tunnel, leading to his study.
His thoughts ran wild as he climbed—Blair, the curse, taking care of his pack, worries for his brothers and parents.
The latter had an ache blooming in the pit of his belly.
The longer he walked, the tauter the knots grew.
These last years, keeping what he was a secret had been relatively easy.
Hiding had been like breathing, but Blair had waltzed back into his life and shattered the grip he had on his secret.
Regardless of how his bloodthirst rose in a mighty wave in her presence, his heart yearned for her, a thread he’d ignored for ten long years.
As darkness surrounded him and doubt wrapped its thorny vines around his mind, Lorkan wished the shadows would swallow him whole and save him from this torment.
But Lorkan’s legs keeping moving, one foot in front of the other—a Drengr family trait thick and through—like his cursed body was tired of his weary mind.
At the end of the tunnel, he placed his palm flush against the hidden door and pushed. Warmth and coziness reached him on the other side as he stepped into his study and positioned the large painting back in place.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Another presence bristled in the air, and Lorkan froze and inhaled. Sage and storm mingled with the crackling fire, and he whirled.
Blair sat on the leather couch, not even looking in his direction. Her wild curls stuck in various directions and mud reached above her shins. Healing ointment and a bowl of water sat on the cushion beside Blair, and she cleaned a cut on the bottom of her foot with a washcloth.
Lorkan didn’t think, he moved, snuffing a growl that vibrated up his throat. The sight of her hurt riled his inner wolf.
“Moons, Blair, what happened?” Lorkan dropped to his haunches, snatching the cloth from her and inspecting her wound.