Chapter 4 #2
Shaking my head, I quickly cleaned up before abandoning the workshop. Once I yanked the door open, Axel launched into a brief report about my mother. He was trained to be brief and cryptic after moving among the shadows during my entire reign, but I preferred when he gave me more information.
I was so damn glad the Blood Council disbanded, so I didn’t have to sneak my advisor around anymore.
They’d have hated that their vampire king listened to the advice of a human, even if he was a skilled swordsman who trained the executioners.
He was still just a human in their eyes.
A vessel. A bag of blood. Instead of the man who raised me when King Roderic cut down my father.
Our strides matched in pace as we marched past the Blood Council’s old meeting room.
There, the blood of hundreds of humans who lived only as long as the Blood Council considered them useful vessels stained the stone.
Starting with King Roderic, who’d fed on his two chosen vessels in that room.
My mother and another woman he claimed and hid away from the other vampires, after which nobody heard from Brida again.
At least my mother had survived his reign. Now I just had to get her to eat more than a diet of thin broth.
I glanced at Axel. “Did she eat this time?”
His shaggy hair bobbed with a curt nod. He marched ahead to push through the door of my private dining room. “She did. A whole crust of bread dipped into the broth. Truly a victory. This is the first solid food she’s taken since the storms began.”
My mother recognized Thor’s anger, even if Lux didn’t. This storm was a message that the gods hated us all, not just the vampires. Maybe it was because of Silver. For a witch to defect and find loyalty among hundreds of monsters, no doubt enraged him.
“My mother is at her calmest with you lately,” I said.
Striding to the other end of a long table, I admired all the food.
Roast venison steamed at the center, surrounded by custard tarts dipped in cream and honey, an array of soft cheeses spread over pears and baked apples, and cups spilling over with aged mead.
Saliva wetted my tongue in anticipation of the variety of flavors, many combined perfectly as repeated from a recipe created by a former vessel and friend of Lux’s.
Though Stasia was no longer in Mara’s Keep after Silver captured and took her hostage, her legacy remained in our kitchens.
And though none of this would satiate me, I appreciated the taste.
It was something to relish between gulps of the warm blood pooled in the soup bowl set before my chosen chair.
Axel took a seat at the opposite end. Ingrid seems more relaxed lately; I think her mind is clearer. She actually recognized me today,” he said.
“Recognized you?” It was all I could say. My mother rarely even remembered me, her own son.
“I mentioned your father.”
Before I could even take a sip of blood, my throat tightened. “What about him?”
Axel sat with his spine rigid, waiting for me to break the fast before he took a cup of mead or a bite. “I told her that soaking his bread was the only way Erik would eat broth.”
“That’s it?” My shoulders relaxed at this news, and I lifted the soup bowl to my lips. The offered blood tasted both bitter and sweet, but the second it soaked over my tongue, energy spread down my throat and through my torso, giving my limbs a jolt.
“That’s it,” he said, reaching for a knife to slice into the roast. Eating with Axel was an old tradition from my childhood.
One I’d wanted to bring back after the past seven years of feeding on vessels in private.
I decided this vampiric life was already only a piece of my past. “She laughed and said that Erik used to insist soup wasn’t real food.
That only the food you could hold in your hand counted as real food. ”
He had. My father had said that often, and I didn’t recall this until Axel—no, my mother—mentioned it. “Her madness…” My voice trailed off . “Could she be healing?”
Axel set his cup down and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, my king, but it is still as strong as ever. After that, she screamed at me, saying Thor was going to strike her down. She demanded that I blow out all of her candles because she swore they were pieces of his lightning.”
I slammed the bowl down on the table. The porcelain cracked, and blood splashed red stains over the linen cloth that covered the wood. Wiping the back of my hand across my forehead, I cleared the loose hair from my vision. “Why the fuck didn’t you start with the bad news?”
“I’m sorry, my king,” he repeated.
My anger towards Axel dissipated, given that he was the only person to have consistently stayed by my side without ever betraying me. Though it wasn’t my father’s choice to lose his head and leave me behind in this world. I ground my teeth and eyed the crack in the soup bowl.
My mind drifted back to the mark I’d left on the shelf.
The nick could become a rose adorning the bookshelf’s side.
Roses always calmed my mother, but I found a sort of horrifying beauty in them after King Roderic had planted them all across the grounds at Mara’s Keep.
I wanted to keep my hatred for him fresh.
If only I could kill King Roderic again and again for beheading my father and claiming my mother. For denying me food whenever I whispered my father’s name. For igniting my desire to become a vampire like him so that I could rip him to shreds and sit on his blood that spilled across the throne.
But that was all in the past.
Lux was my future. Godhood was my future.
And it was nearly time to bring her back into the armory. If we approached her practice slowly and carefully, the madness would have too much time to seep into every corner of her mind, like it had with my mother.
Then I’d lose her forever.
And since she wouldn’t agree to this fake marriage, she had to learn to fight off multiple vampires at once.
My throat tense and my stomach churning, I shoved the broken bowl aside.
The race against madness had begun, whether I liked it or not.
This week's practice would be the last training I’d allow—the last time I’d let the gods scream at her for mere practice.
I wasn’t like Kayn that way. I actually cared.
“At sunset, you will bring Sif and Mista to the armory again,” I said, meeting Axel’s gaze over the dishes of food I could no longer stomach. “And Lux too. Tell her to be ready to train.”
I winced, hating how similar I sounded to the Exile. I swore I wouldn’t push her too hard the way he had, but time wasn’t on our side. This was for her safety, and her safety was my obsession.