Page 29
The woman paled, mouth drawn tight.
“Gods preserve him.”
“He has yet to properly feed since his return.”
“Leta said it was getting better. Before he left.”
Before he left.
Before he tasted Elarian’s silver once more? Elarian leaned in closer to the vampires conversing below despite herself. Now she really wanted to hear more. The idea of Lucan slowly driving himself insane over her warmed her belly while satisfaction unfurled in her chest.
Good, she thought.
Let him lose sleep. Let him see her shadow in every corner, her silver glinting each time he closed his eyes. She would become his obsession until it fucking destroyed him.
The man handed something small to the woman. Gold flashed as her pale fingers wrapped around it.
“I thought it was, too,” he said. “She can refuse, you know. If she leaves court to tend to her farms, there is nothing Lucan can do.”
Soft brown curls bounced as the maid shook her head. “She will never do that, Senna.”
A long sigh.
“One day, the silver will kill him.”
Silver. Elarian’s grip tightened around the hilt at her thigh.
The man—Senna—looked toward the upper floors. Elarian drew herself back into the shadows. The wooden beam beneath her feet groaned, but the vampires did not seem to notice.
“That would require him to want peace. I think the only thing he truly desires is her blade.”
Her.
Elarian’s teeth flashed in the shadows, a rare smile parting her pale lips.
Oh, you’ll get my blade soon enough, princeling.
The two servants fell into silence. Stringed instruments playing their slow, mournful melodies leaked into the long corridor as a door on the far end opened. Another creaked open closer to them.
All at once, a rush of servants carrying golden trays, pushing carts piled high with decanters, and leading drugged thralls entered the corridor. Senna and the woman parted as oil dropped into water. Noise erupted until the rafters nearly shook.
Hissing, Elarian crept back to the corner where the beams intersected, then slowly shimmied her way along the thin overhanging. Below, dozens of vampires milled about in a coordinated dance they had practiced for centuries. The sight of humans in chains, their faces masked except for two breathing holes, piqued her curiosity. If what her spies said was accurate, these were from the Bloodlord’s court.
Aurelion.
The fucking shivaem who started everything, who’d broken their treaty in the night and forever shattered the Saint’s connection to Melistra.
The very sound of his name echoing in her skull incensed her until her hands shook.
If she had a dozen more Blades with her, this room would be nothing but corpses and black, putrescent blood within minutes.
eleven
Poor Thing
Lucan strode down the dank dungeon corridor faster than usual. His skin crawled as if a thousand spiders had hatched in the hollow of his throat and now set about devouring him piece by piece. Pus and blackened blood chafed against his tunic across both shoulders. Aurelion’s markings burned hotter than the blazing sun that Gairan had cursed him from ever feeling again. His self-inflicted ones only ached with emptiness.
She was getting harder to escape.
