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“If you think I’m going to shelter with you, you’re an idiot,” I snapped. “I have allies amongst the other witch clans. I’ll go to one of them.”
“You could,” Maximillian agreed. “Except that your beloved Sebastian erected a magical barrier across the entire length of Trivaea’s land border. No one can pass, not even witches. You might be able to shadow travel, but again, you’d have to wait until you can recharge your magic to do so.”
My stomach plummeted, but I shook my head, refusing to believe that. “Sebastian couldn’t have sealed off the border. A spell like that would require an insane amount of magic—all five clans would have had to combine their powers to pull it off.”
“And so they did.” The vampire lord gave me a grim smile. “I’m not sure how he managed it, but your former lover executed quite the coup. Although he is not officially the king, all five clans bow to his whim. Which is another obstacle you’ll have to overcome if you return to Trivaea. Your allies may not be as accessible or as willing to aid you as you think.”
“You’re lying.” I clenched the edge of the table. “The clans barely agree on anything—that’s why there are five of them. There’s no way they would have united under one clan’s banner! And especially not if a man was trying to get them to do it.”
“The same thing could have once been said about the four vampire houses,” Maximillian pointed out. “And yet here we are, united by Emperor Vladimir’s iron fist.”
Right.“You and Nyra told me earlier that he’s the emperor of Valentaera. What do you mean by that, exactly?”
“Well, self-styled is more what I meant,” Maximillian admitted as he forked up a piece of fish. I’d never actually seen a vampireeat food before, but I knew that while blood was essential to keep their undead hearts beating, they still needed solid food like the rest of us for energy. “But while he has made great headway in his plan to conquer the continent of Valentaera, he has not yet accomplished that. He only holds the human kingdoms, at least for now.”
My mouth was suddenly dry, and I reached for my goblet of water. “What do you mean ‘only the human kingdoms’?” I said after I’d gulped down the last of my water. Had the vampires taken more than just the city of Lumina?
Maximillian flicked his finger, and the pitcher of water rose again to refill my glass. “About a week after you disappeared, the sun stopped rising. We don’t know precisely what happened, but Vladimir seemed to be expecting it, because he had already positioned most of his troops near the border Noxalis shares with Heliaris. He waited two days, giving time for the chaos to fully set in, then attacked. It took us six months to take all three human kingdoms.”
I froze, my body going still as my mind churned, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what the vampire had just said. “The sun disappeared… completely?” I finally asked. “And it hasn’t returned since?”
Maximillian nodded, and I forced myself to glance at the windows again, at the spangled blanket of darkness that covered the sky despite the afternoon hour. The sun should have been halfway toward its descent to the skyline, the city’s spires gleaming brightly in its wake. Instead, they were shrouded, illuminated faintly by what I assumed to be aetheric crystals.
As a witch, I generally preferred the evening, when the goddess Hecate showed her face and blessed us with her gentle lunarglow. But humans were children of the sun god Phaeros—their power came from their connection to the sun, and therefore to him. For the sun god to cease pulling his chariot through the sky, bringing light and warmth to the human race… a catastrophe like that would have had devastating consequences to their magical abilities.
I scrubbed a hand across my face, trying to wrangle the chaotic thoughts whirling through my mind. If I wasn’t careful, I could easily follow them into a spiral of doom, and while everything the vampire lord had told me was dire enough to warrant that kind of reaction, the only thing I’d verified from his story was the sun’s disappearance, and the vampire occupation of the city. I had no idea if King Vladimir had actually conquered all three kingdoms, or if this supposed magical barrier cutting off Trivaea from the rest of Valentaera was real.
“You’ve gone through a lot of trouble,” I finally said, raising my head to look at Maximillian. “Uncovering my past, breaking me out of my prison, and bringing me here. Why do all this? What do you want from me?”
Maximillian leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the table. “I’d like to offer you a bargain. My help in enacting your vengeance against Sebastian Nocturne, in exchange for the use of your professional skills.”
He spoke casually, but there was an expectant gleam in his eyes that sent a warning thrill through me. “My professional skills?” I repeated, confused. “Do… do you mean my vampire hunting skills?”
“Precisely.”
I scoffed. This seemed too easy. “And who is it you want me to kill, exactly?”
The gleam in his eyes intensified, and I froze as the last name I expected to hear dropped from his mouth.
“Vladimir Invictus.”
5
Istared at the vampire lord for several long seconds, my jaw hanging open.
And then I threw my head back and laughed.
“Is that a yes or a no?” Maximillian propped his chin in his hands as he watched me, a droll look on his face. “Mortals laugh for all kinds of strange reasons, so I can never tell.”
I clutched at my belly as I laughed even harder, trying to get a hold of myself. I had no illusions about the state of my psyche—being trapped in a magical sarcophagus for half a century would leave anyone with at least a touch of insanity. Part of me still wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t another dream.
But not even in my lowest, most desperate moments, where I envisioned all kinds of scenarios in which I gained my freedom, had I ever conjured up a fantasy as wild asthis.
“This has to be a joke,” I finally said, wiping tears from my eyes. “There is no fucking way that you went through all this troubleto break me out of that prison, just so you could hire me to assassinate your king.”
“And why is that?”
I scoured Maximillian’s face, searching for any hint of subterfuge, any sign that this was some elaborate prank or scheme. But he watched me steadily, those starfire eyes of his glittering as the firelight cast flickering shadows across his pale, elegant features. Ire rose inside me when I found nothing in his expression, not even the slightest tell.
