Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
“Are you ready?” Camilla asked, her eyes steady on Thalia’s.
Thalia nodded, holding her hand out.
The shifter carefully sliced along her heart line with a sharpened blade. Cassius tensed beside her, and she resisted the urge to glare at him.
The shifter allowed the blood to well, then slowly tipped her hand over the jar of teeth.
As soon as Thalia’s blood hit the poisoned teeth, they began to bubble. They popped and hissed, burning away until there was nothing but a pile of ash.
“I think your blood is the cure.” Camilla looked up, eyes wide.
Thalia turned to the others around the table. They’d all gathered back in Perden. The Mages had managed to put out the fire in Chaménos, but most of it was lost. Over half of their sacred forest had gone up until nothing remained but crisp, charred earth.
“Do you think it’s because Thalia’s mother made it?” Keegan asked, the golden-eyed Vampyr watching with his ever-calculating eye.
“It would seem the most likely cause,” Lady Decima said, her curly hair catching the light.
“But how is that possible?” Thalia asked, after Camilla had bound her hand. She directed her question at Larellia, who sat opposite her.
Larellia’s lips pursed, her silver eyes flashing.
“I admit what happened was strange, something I still don’t understand.
Your mother told you that her father was a Mage?
” Thalia nodded in confirmation. “As far as I know, there is no magic in the human realm, no pockets for your mother to have pulled from. That is why our forest is so sacred. It protects the magic from the mundane. It acts as a barrier to keep the wild magic from running loose.”
“Are you sure there aren’t pockets of magic there?” Thalia pushed.
Larellia shook her head. “No. But seeing as none of this should happen, seeing as your blood is the cure we’ve all been praying for, anything is possible. At least with your mother now dead, we have no fear of more creatures spawning and creating havoc.”
Silence fell, until Thalia asked quietly, “And the Vampyr courts?”
Cassius stiffened once more beside her.
Since coming back from the brink of madness and death, he hadn’t left her side. Not that she’d been inclined to leave him either. At night his unseeing eyes would flash in her mind, and he was driven out of sleep as much as she was.
She didn’t know what sort of nightmares terrorized him, but she’d hold him closer. Let the steadiness of their breaths anchor them until they both drifted back to sleep.
“Lord Adrian has slunk back to House Gallinus now that the cure for the sickness has been revealed,” Cassius finally said.
“He is being watched,” Camilla added, settling into her seat. Indeed, the shifter had taken it upon herself to fly back and forth to ensure that he stayed there.
“And the prince?” Thalia asked. Everyone glanced at each other. “What have the courts been told?”
“They were told that the prince perished slaying the creature,” Larellia said. “He, at least, is now seen as the savior to his people. A tale is already being spun about how he’s spent months trying so desperately to slay it.”
“Has that stopped the unrest?” Thalia pushed. The issues of the Vampyr courts all linked back to the sickness and the missing prince. But the prince was dead now.
“The unrest has paused, especially with Lord Adrian no longer whispering in the other Houses’ ears,” the head Mage started. “But I do fear that, once the relief of the creature being dead and a cure being found has passed, the unrest will resurface.”
“Why?” Thalia asked.
“Because a human princess now rules the Vampyr kingdom.” Larellia met her stare.
Thalia straightened at that. “Would they even accept me as ruler, considering the marriage between the prince and me was never finalized? We never consummated anything. Does it even count when he was turned into … that?”
Cassius cleared his throat. “The law of the Vampyrs is black and white. Marriage is recognized during an agreement, when a ceremony is performed and vows are taken, including blood sharing, even by proxy.”
“That’s the real reason Lord Damien wanted me to take your blood in Agripa when we were first bound,” Thalia breathed. “Because it would have solidified the line of rule right then and there.”
Cassius nodded. “Yes. Blood is stronger than ink. ”
“So, I am the ruler of Vaccarium?” Thalia said.
Cassius nodded once more, his face becoming hard. “Yes. The courts, the Mages, and the shifters—we are bound to serve and protect you.”
Thalia felt the weight of it settle over her shoulders.
Everyone began to trickle out, Camilla promising Thalia that she would begin to take her blood to start working it into a cure. It had taken her being nearly drained for Cassius to come back, perhaps because his injuries had been so grave.
But she’d gladly drain her blood if it meant that her mother’s wrong could be righted.
Thalia found herself standing in the inner courtyard of the castle, looking out past the bridge suspended over the waterfall and into the pine forest, almost as if she could see the manor nestled near the lake.
A dark presence came up beside her.
“We’ll still save Sybil,” she said, eyes out in the distance. She might have been drained of blood, but Sybil wasn’t a bitten anymore. Not with Thalia’s blood in her serving as a cure for the poison.
Cassius’s arm slipped around her waist, tugging her close. “I know.”
She leaned into him, her chest tightening as she whispered, “I should have just killed her back in Agripa.” Thalia’s mind flashed to her mother buried in Chaménos.
While their relationship had been strained, she was the last of Thalia’s kin.
Thalia hoped she found peace, wherever she went.
That maybe in the next life her hatred wouldn’t bind her the way it had in this one.
Cassius’s fingers clenched on her waist. “You did what you needed to do to get us out of there.”
Thalia shook her head, throat tight. “If I’d just killed her, the creatures would have all died right then. Who knows if the fire would have even started. You wouldn’t have gotten hurt. You wouldn’t have—have died—”
Cassius gripped her chin, lifting it to his. “Don’t dwell on the past or what might have been.” His thumb swirled over her cheeks, catching the tears. “We are both here. We are both alive. That’s what matters.”
Thalia nodded, her head going to press against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat, feel the rise and fall of the breath in his lungs.
Alive.
“But it won’t be easy,” Cassius said. “With the courts.”
“I know. I don’t expect it to be.”
“You being the cure should help,” Cassius mused, running his fingers through her hair.
Thalia huffed out a laugh. “I should hope so.”
She pulled away slightly. “I want to start over, with the courts.” Cassius raised a brow as she plowed on. “I want to earn their trust—for real. No matter how long it takes, no matter how much pushback there is. I want to see this world—I want to see Vaccarium thrive. I want to see Agripa thrive.”
Although Thalia didn’t know if Agripa would recognize her rule, seeing as she’d had a hand in killing her own mother.
But despite the uphill battle she faced with the courts, some of the weight around her shoulders lifted.
This was what she was meant to do. This was how she’d fulfill her vow—not with revenge but by living to see what Ariadna had wanted to see: their two realms enter into a time of peace.
Thalia turned to Cassius suddenly. “But I’ll need your help.”
Cassius offered a small smile. “You always have me. No matter what.”
Thalia lifted her chin. “And if it comes to it, will you fight for me if I ask?”
“I will die for you.”
His lips pressed into hers, and she let herself sink into his kiss.
She pulled away, her hand resting against his chest. “We have our whole lives ahead of us. Let’s not try and die anytime soon.”
“Agreed.”
“When you agreed to step in as proxy,” Thalia said, staring at the ring on her finger, “you were agreeing to marry me yourself, given the fact the prince never could?”
Cassius swallowed. “Yes. I always—I always knew it would be you, no matter what.”
Thalia’s throat tightened, and she flicked her gaze to his.
“Shall we take the vow, then, officially?” At Cassius’s raised brow, she continued, “Go to the springs and vow that no matter what darkness comes, even if we become darkness ourselves, we shall be by each other’s sides?
That we’ll face whatever trials this age brings—together, two souls entwined. ”
Cassius gripped her chin. “Princess, I would like nothing more.”
Thalia grinned, sealing her lips against his, their silent vow stronger than iron.