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He shrugged like it made no difference. “In your silly little nation, same as before. We’ve been enjoying ourselves for several days now. Seems your people possessed an army they thought to use to stop us. It’s been quite entertaining to destroy them and then burn every village in our path to the ground.”
That was what the flashes had been, then. And why the humans were here too.
Unease stirred within me, and I squashed it down. The villagers I cared nothing about. Peasants were nearly useless beyond being a marginally satisfying meal. But the army gave me pause.
I should have known those idiotic lords would send soldiers when word reached them of this horde. Never mind that those had been my soldiers, and I’d planned quite another purpose for them besides dying at the claws of monsters or being possessed by the Voidborn.
Fools.
There was nothing for it now, though. I would simply need to conscript more soldiers. I’d had years to convince the humans they needed to raise arms against a far-off threat, and the immediacy of what the Voidborn had just done would only make it easier to gather up humans ready to fight.
I just needed to reach the capital and reclaim my throne first.
Locking my eyes on the horizon, I adopted a tone of boredom, as if my words meant little to me. “You realize every second we delay grants my stepdaughter a greater chance of returning to Lumilia ahead of us.”
Alaric scoffed.
“She may even be planning to take control of the nexus herself,” I persisted in the same tone. “She was surrounded by witches, last I saw her. They may have instructed her to do such a thing, and she would likely obey, simpering little follower that she is.”
Never mind that the thought of coming near magic would have likely scared her witless.
Or that it should have, anyway.
I exhaled slowly, maintaining my neutral expression. Gwyneira was not a witch. Whatever power I’d felt on the breeze days ago, whatever whispers of the Nine that had carried on it, I refused to believe that girl was anything but an insufferable brat I would happily kill for putting me in this position instead of dying when I’d intended her to.
“You wish me to hurry onward to your city, pet? I didn’t realize you relished the thought of its destruction this much.”
Lumilia wouldn’t burn or fall. Alaric would die first.
And thus I merely arched an eyebrow at him. “I wish to see my stepdaughter destroyed. You know this.”
His lip twitched. “Indeed, I do.”
Seconds crept by. The ground did not lurch and the sun did not jump in the sky. Instead, the great ball of flame merely continued its descent below the horizon, slowly plunging the world into darkness.
My teeth ground, and I stilled them with effort. He was doing this on purpose. He wanted to keep me on edge. To make me ask why he hadn’t yet tried to toy with my awareness again.
Something stirred in the dark field beyond where the monsters rested. My night vision traced the tall blades of grass in silver as they moved in a way they wouldn’t if the wind were solely responsible.
“Ah, at last,” Alaric said. “They really are so slow, these creations of yours.”
That drew my eyes to him. “My creations?”
“Well, ours, obviously.” He nodded to the monsters, clearly including the Voidborn within them in that term, not me. “But you had a minor hand in it too, considering you chose these from among the rabble to be the ones you turned.”
Four vampires shifted into solid form in front of us. They all dropped to a knee before me and bowed their heads.
I glanced from them to Alaric and back. They were four of mine. A maid who’d failed to choose a flattering dress for me one morning, two stablehands who’d been too slow to stop a horse from panicking in my presence—nearly resulting in the disgusting creature kicking me—and a nobleman I’d once heard mumble something that might have been an insult when he left my presence.
The vampires looked quite well fed, considering I’d left these four at the castle when I went after Gwyneira.
Trepidation rose on the heels of that observation, and it wasn’t solely for the fact I had not summoned these creatures here. If they had drained everyone in the castle, that could present a problem for filling the ranks of my own vampire army, considering the humans I would have turned would now be dead.
“Why are you here?” I demanded. “How did you find us?”
At their silence, Alaric chuckled. “Tell us why you’re here, worms.”
“Mistressss,” the nobleman hissed. “We have found them.”
