The staff knew not to interrupt my audiences with the Flask of Dominion unless it was urgent. I inspected him, brow furrowed, with a sinking suspicion in my chest. “Don’t tell me someone else died.”
He paled significantly before blurting out his news.
The Flask’s sweet and aching laugh filtered through my mind.“And then there were ten.”
A squad of Sanguine soldiers relocated this next body to a secure location a short carriage ride from the mansion. Most of them now surrounded the perimeter of the building, armed and ready should any more trouble arise. My head ached from how hard I’d been clenching my jaw.
“The body was just found at our border with the House of Whispers, Lord Regent.” The squad captain concluded his summary of events as I circled the corpse pieced together on a table, taking in every brutal detail. She’d once been Stefania Vikander, and now she was the second dead contender for the throne in one night.
I tsked under my breath as I took in the state of her detached head. Just yesterday, she had bragged that she would take the House of Whispers’s new queen for the Trial of the Nemesis. Clearly, she’d given it an attempt, as this was no less than a warning.
The vicious rumors that circulated about our rivals suited the newly crowned Queen Sabine. She’d had Stefania returned without her tongue. Once the first torture our enemies inflicted on any Sanguine vampire they captured, it’d gone out of style. Until now, apparently. Stefania would whisper no longer.
The soldier shifted on his feet and cleared his throat. “Did you care for her, Lord Regent?” He only asked this with an air of awkwardness, as if he thought he was intruding on a private moment.
I turned my attention toward him with a raised brow. “Return her remains to her family,” I instructed him. He saluted crisply, privately relieved at the clipped response.
As we walked out of the building, my attention caught on a zing of nerves. My gaze fell on a liveried servant, the insignia of Lord Valerius on his breast. He held his horse’s reins and bowed beside the animal, whose flanks heaved from what had to be a hard ride here.
“Lord Regent,” the servant yelped, extending out an envelope for me to take.
I sensed his urgency and broke the wax seal, scanning the letter’s contents. My brows rose even as my guts churned.
I groaned inwardly.Not a third death. Not now.
Lord Valerius’s personal home bordered Lady Lorelei’s. He’d written to me first after investigating a commotion next door. My sight swam as I unwittingly took in the servant’s panic as myown.
I closed my eyes for a moment, grounding myself in my own headspace, where no one else’s panic could drown me. I was still in control. Even though these deaths would result in another council meeting where they’d spend hours debating solutions I’d already implemented.
Useless bastards, all of them. But I’d smile and nod and let them feel important while I did the actual work.
Turning back to the servant, I addressed him evenly. “Thanks be to Lord Valerius for giving me these tidings first. Send for the rest of the council. We must have an emergency meeting.”
“Right away, Lord Regent.”
While he spread the word, I had my coachman return us to the House of the Sanguine. I exited the carriage after we passed a long line of vampires halted at the gates. While the guards let my coachman through, a few people raised their voices, leaning out of carriages of their own or past wagons filled with goods.
“What’s the holdup now?”
“Let us through!”
I pushed out the frustration and anger lingering in the air and spoke with the guards, instructing them to let in any council members. They’d be arriving in a hurry once they received the news about Lady Lorelei and the summons for an emergency meeting.
“Excuse me,” a woman called. She approached on foot, her skirts hiked up in her fists. She wore the echo of a face I was growing to know quite well, though age had further refined her features with vampiric flawlessness.
A pair of guards moved to intercept her as she went straight toward me. I waved them off. I could handle this quickly. “Goodevening, Lady…?”
“Tahlia,” she answered primly. “Tahlia Krudelbach. I must see my sister right away.”
“No.” I glanced skyward, reading the deep colors of darkness and the position of the moon in the sky. “The gates stay shut, Lady Tahlia. Your sister is currently property of the Trials of Succession, not a sibling. Find a bed in the city or sleep in your carriage. I have a murder to solve, and your indignation isn’t on my itinerary.”
Her face pinkened, brows drawing with wrath. “Well now, that is unacceptable.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from chuckling. She and her sister were alike in their reactions to the word no. “And yet, your acceptance isn’t required.”
“But—I have to know that Ilyana is all right,” she protested.
“She’s fine.” Unless we had a fourth murder tonight while I had my back turned. Could I be so unlucky and yet so fortunate?
