I surveyed the prisoners. The chained vampyres were lifted into the sky one by one, nets of glowing sigils binding their limbs.
Ronan held his hands out in resignation. “Come on.”
I grinned and he picked me up, flying toward the volcano.
The vampyres thrashed, shrieking curses as the drakens flew and carried them toward the volcano: the same mountain that had once burned red with fury when the Overlord fell. The same mountain that had destroyed our entire people when the Overlord had caused it to erupt all those centuries ago, but as we circled overhead, the air was wrong.
No heat. No glow. Just silence.
I landed on the rim, frowning at the cool ash directly underneath my claws. The crater was dark, its heart as cold as stone. Hadn’t it just been warm this week? Or had I imagined it?
“There’s no lava,” Ronan murmured, kneeling beside the edge. “It’s dead.”
Benedict crouched beside him, pressing a hand to the rock. “It shouldn’t be. How long has it been like this?”
“Nothing’s burned since the Overlord’s death,” I said softly, looking into the hollow, realizing the truth. “Not even smoke.”
“No. Not since Baila sacrificed herself to quiet it,” Benedict corrected us.
The mood tumbled into a stony silence except for the sounds of thrashing vampyres, dangling in the air.
Astrid hovered in front of us. “The bloodwitches say this place wasn’t just a volcano.” She traced her fingers along the blackened stone. “Fire magick. And bloodmagick. The two fused here once. You can still feel it humming beneath the surface, like an echo. Blood repaid has satiated it. Maybe they can study it more, but the sacrifice snuffed it out.”
The air prickled against my skin, electric with old, buried power.
“When Baila died, the volcano died?” I asked.
Benedict’s face paled. “The ultimate willing bloodmagick sacrifice. It stopped the volcano, so that we’d never again have another devastation like the one before.”
That was good news, but tears gathered in his eyes. The protection of the island had cost him his only remaining blood relative.
I stroked my stomach. Until now.
“But that is separate from the wards?” I asked.
“What do we do with them, then?” Kieran asked, nodding toward the captives overhead.
“Back to the ship,” he ordered.
Nerissa wasn’t happy to see us come back so soon, vampyres in tow. Benedict and Ronan hit the deck hard, their claws digging into the wood.
Benedict huffed at her. “They can’t be allowed to live.”
“Obviously,” Nerissa huffed. “Use the chains. I have many.”
I did not ask why.
Kieran oversaw chaining the vampyres down to the side of the boat. They hissed and writhed, barely more than feral creatures as Ronan had said.
“Why did you attack our island?” Benedict demanded immediately of the first one. It snarled, refusing to answer. And down the line Benedict went.
Most said nothing: spitting, snarling, baring their fangs like beasts. But one, a woman, lifted her head and smiled at me. Her teeth were slick with blood, eyes haunted and cheeks gaunt.
“I’ll tell you,” she said. “If the queen grants me my life. And food. We are all sooo hungry.… He promised we would eat. But it was only a little …”
The other vampyres went ballistic at the mention of food, writhing and fighting their chains to no avail.
Benedict’s eyes flicked to mine, asking permission without words.
