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“When I died, they told me to join with my kings and unite them all.”
I grinned. “Your kings?”
“Yes. I assume they’re referring to you and Xander.”
“Because we’re yours?”
She looked away. “Yes. Because you both are mine.”
Interesting.
“When did you decide I was yours?”
“When I gave you my blood and you swore to protect Xander and me.” She moved her view back to my face and pierced me with her gaze. “Anyway. Once I returned from death, Ambi and Ressi came to me in a dream. They warned me that humans fled Capitol City and rushed to the mage tribes, seeking a safe haven and spreading a message that a Horned King has risen to take over the whole land.”
“So, what are we supposed to do?”
“We aren’t supposed to do anything.” She shook her head. “Ambi told me to approach the tribe myself—”
“No.”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“They’ll see your hair and recognize that you’re a blood mage. You’ll be on fire before you can make another step.”
There weren’t a lot of blood mages in my time with hair as red as Camille’s, and such sweet blood.
Tribes murdered them due to the power of their blood. It could heal most creatures quickly and turn a human into a vampire overnight.
Tribes didn’t want more vampires flooding the planet.
They believed that their lives’ purpose was to kill them all.
According to mage religious texts, Ambi showed up, spotted Ressi, and was overtaken by her beauty.
He desired her, but she refused him.
And so one night when she was fast asleep among the stars, Ambi attacked and raped her for sixty days and nights, filling her body with his seed.
And when he finally finished, darkness bathed the world for seven days and vampires clawed their way out of her womb, spilling onto the earth.
Ambi was exhausted, so Ressi seized the opportunity to kill him.
But a god can’t be killed, only stopped by separating him.
So, she filled him with light, which for some backward mage reason, paralyzed him.
Then she split him in two halves with her teeth, rolled him into two balls, and trapped him among the stars. The two moons that bathed the land in light were supposed to be two halves of Ambi constantly trying to reform.
But mage theory went further. They believe that when Ressi looked down on planet Dos, she cried in shame at the sight of the vampires, the products of her brutality. She wanted us dead, but couldn’t do it herself, because we were still part of her.
So, she formed mages with her tears, dirt from the land, and fire from her breath. She gave each of the mages power over an element so they could exterminate the vampires for her.
Then she left.
According to mages, when all the vampires are gone, Ressi would return.
I shook my head. “You’re not going to the tribes by yourself.”
“I am.” She shrugged.
“They will kill you.”
“I have a plan.”
I snarled. “And what could this plan be, Queen?”
“This is the first part.”
Several sharp points pressed against my back. I glanced over my shoulder. Twenty guards stood behind me.
Leeta and Octavia got in front of me next to Camille and held wooden daggers.
“What is this?” I growled and shifted my gaze to the wagon where Xander had disappeared into, hoping he would be done soon to help me.
Tote positioned himself in front of the wagon and clamped several locks down along the hinges of the door.
He’s locking Xander in.
It wouldn’t keep him inside the wagon for long, but it would give Camille enough time to run over to the mages and die.
“This is dangerous.” I moved an inch toward her. In a blur, Leeta’s dagger smoothed against my throat. I tensed. “You’re already on my bad side, Leeta.”
“I’m just following the queen’s directions.”
“Queens are trouble,” I said. “Perhaps you should consider only taking orders from kings.”
“Enough.” Camille took off her robe. The crimson material fell to the ground. Her hair floated around her as if magic radiated from her skin.
Maybe it does.
Those symbols brightened all over her flesh again. I still couldn’t make out all of the words, only the one sentence written along her navel.
“Unite as one and you will conquer all,” I read the symbols and directed my attention to her eyes.
Her hair rose above her head and brightened so much it looked like fire.
Just as shocked, she gazed at her arms with the glowing symbols. “They said this would happen.”
“Who, Camille?”
“In my dream.”
“Dear Ambi. You look like one of the Returned.”
There were a few people who’d died and returned from death with symbols on their body and a bit of magic moving around in their core.
It was said to happen every hundred years or more, but no one truly knew if it was true or not.
No Returned existed anymore.
I’d only seen discussions of it in children’s books and bedtime tales.
