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A knock at my door tore me from the vicious memories, and I sat up to see Eliza come into my room. Her olive skin looked unusually wan in the firelight, and there was a haunted look in her green eyes.
“Mind if I come in there with you?” she asked, giving me a shaky smile. “I… I don’t think I can be alone after what we saw tonight.”
“Of course.” I scooted over to make room for her, then lifted the bedcovers so Eliza could crawl underneath. She grasped the edge of the coverlet and pulled it tight beneath her chin, and Jinx, who had been curled up by my feet, nuzzled up to her with a soft meow.
“You couldn’t sleep either, huh?” she whispered, stroking the cat as she looked at me.
I shook my head. “I thought I would.” Eliza and I had stayed up until nearly six in the morning helping Lucius and Nyra search the entire place from top to bottom for slaves, dead bodies, and contraband, and I’d also worked with the healers to help triage and give first aid to the humans we’d rescued. I would have stayed longer, but Maximillian had spotted me swaying on my feet, and Eliza slurring her words, so he’d ordered the guards to take us both home to rest. “I guess I just feel too guilty about lying here doing nothing to fall asleep.”
Eliza shook her head. “I’m the one who should be feeling guilty, not you.” She bit her lip, an anguished note entering her voice. “If I hadn’t ignored your concerns about your human friend, if I’d gone with you to the Red Tavern like I said I would—"
“Don’t.” I grabbed Eliza’s slim shoulder, refusing to allow her to spiral into what-ifs. “There’s no point in beating yourself up about this. If you’d come with me, you might have been seriously hurt, or worse.”
Eliza snorted. “Please. I know I look like a glorified grease monkey, but I can be handy in a fight.” She lifted her fingers from the sheets, and a small current of aetheric energy crackled at her fingertips. “Vampires don’t much like being incinerated. That’s why they enthralled those of us left who can still manipulate aetheric energy.”
I tried to smile at that, but I knew it didn’t reach my eyes. I hadn’t told Eliza about my close-call with Trystan and Donna. I’d been lucky Jinx had intervened, but I wasn’t sure they would have stayed their hand if Eliza had been there with me. She could have very well gotten us both killed if she’d come, which was why I hadn’t brought her.
“Look at it this way,” I told her. “If you had come with me, Vinicius’s goons might not have snatched me off the street, and we might never have found out about his slave trafficking operation. I know what we saw tonight was nightmare-inducing, Eliza, but look what we accomplished. We saved all those people.”
“She’s right, Eliza,” Nyra said, her voice floating through the door. I scowled as she walked into the room, still wearing the same blue and silver-striped dress from yesterday. Her expression was a tad drawn, but despite being awake for overtwenty-four hours, she didn’t have a hair out of place. One benefit of being an immortal who didn’t need much sleep. “But don’t think that just because the commandant is dead that this is over, huntress. You’ve forced Maximillian to open up a can of worms that may very well put us all in danger.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, sitting upright.
Nyra crossed the room and perched on the edge of the bed, a troubled look on her normally no-nonsense face. “While Maximillian is well-within his rights to kill a lower-ranking vampire for stealing personal property—” I clenched my jaw at the pointed look she gave me, “—and engaging in a number of illegal activities in his territory, the fact that Vinicius was one, a member of another vampire house and two, a high-ranking military officer who has influence with the emperor, complicates things. Trial and imprisonment would have been customary in this situation.”
“Then why didn’t Maximillian do that?” I asked. “I didn’t tell him he had to kill Vinicius.” Though I was glad he did.
“Because you usedmagicon him,” Nyra said, her tone so forceful that I clenched my fists in the sheets to keep from rearing back. “You exposed your true nature, and if Lord Starclaw had allowed Vinicius to make it to trial, he would have told everyone who you were.”
“And what was she supposed to do?” Eliza demanded. “Just stand there and let him kill her?”
“No, of course not.” Nyra pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, as if staving off a headache. “I’m not saying Kitana shouldn’t have defended herself. What she did was admirable.” She opened her eyes and looked at me again.“But there’s no denying that you’ve made things complicated for Maximillian, regardless of whether you choose to go to the Summit with him.”
My stomach squirmed with guilt at the look of genuine frustration in her eyes, and I dropped my stare to my lap, feeling suddenly ashamed. “I haven’t really been thinking of anyone but myself, have I,” I said.
“How can you say that?” Eliza demanded. “You helped save fifty humans from slavery tonight!”
“Yes, but I’ve behaved recklessly these last few weeks, and have judged you all harshly even though all of you have been nothing but patient with me. Sometimes even kind,” I said, giving Nyra a wry smile. “I refused to acknowledge any of your kindnesses because you’re vampires, but witches are just as capable of kindness and cruelty as you all are.” Sebastian’s face flashed in my mind, and my stomach clenched. “I don’t regret what I’ve done, not when the outcome resulted in so many lives saved, but I could have been a lot more thoughtful about it.”
To my surprise, Nyra let out a soft chuckle. “I was once a young, brash warrior myself,” she told me, “and I wasn’t the most thoughtful person either when I was convinced I was in the right.”
“You were?” I blinked, taking in Nyra’s sleek, professional outfit and perfectly coiffed hair. “You don’t strike me as the type.”
She laughed. “Oh, I’m still more than capable of mowing down a company of soldiers on horseback,” she said. “But I left those days long behind me after Lord Starclaw Turned me and brought me into his service.”
“Will you tell me how it happened?” I asked. “Why you allowed Maximillian to Turn you and take you from your people?”
Nyra turned to look out the window, and the moonlight poured over her features, casting her high cheekbones and pointed chin in sharp relief. I held my breath as I waited, not wanting to push her too hard given how she’d reacted the last time I’d asked her about her past.
“I was the daughter of an Equinox chief,” she finally said, her voice almost trance-like as she stared off into the middle distance. “The pride of my family, and set to become the next chieftess. But when I was twenty-two years old, a terrible illness struck me. It ate away at my muscles until I could barely walk, never mind ride a horse. The healers told me I would never ride again, and that it would be a miracle if I survived at all. But even worse was watching my mare, Lliona, waste away alongside me, our life-forces tied together. I couldn’t stand to see her like that, so I begged my mother to send for someone who could cure me so we both might live.
“She came home with Lord Starclaw in tow, and I cursed them both so soundly, I swore Maja herself boxed my ears.” Nyra shook her head ruefully. “I didn’t want to be Turned, didn’t want to spend the rest of my life without the sun on my face, or the bond of my familiar flowing through my veins. But Lord Starclaw seemed to understand my fears, and he assured me that although I would have to say goodbye to the sun, I would not have to say goodbye to my familiar, or my family. He said that if Lliona wished it, I could bring her to Noxalis, and that even though I was in his service, I could visit my homeland as often as I wanted.” She swallowed. “It was hard, holding my mother’s hand as she died, watching my sisters and their children grow old and die, too. But I was grateful for theprivilege of being able to watch them live, and to provide for and protect them, too. Until now, at least.”
A lump formed in my throat as she turned to look at me, tears glimmering in her eyes. “What happened to them?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer. “Your tribe?”
“Gone,” she whispered. “Our horses could not survive without sunlight, and therefore neither could we. Ferae who lose their familiars become a shadow of themselves, losing their will to eat and sleep. They wander the world aimlessly until they either die of exhaustion or someone kills them. The only ones who did not meet this fate were those of us too young to bond to familiars, and those people are now slaves, scattered throughout the vampire realm. There are a few thralls who work in service to the empire, breeding the aethersteeds alongside the engineers. But for all intents and purposes, my people were genocided. The Equinox tribe is a footnote in history now.”
“Yet you still support Maximillian?" I pressed "Even though he fought for your emperor?”
