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“Hush,” Maximillian said. “There are some things that shouldn't be spoken aloud here, even if we do have a magical sound barrier.” He sighed, raking a hand through his hair and messing up the sleek, stormy strands. “My guess is that Sebastian merely wants you to know he’s watching, Kitana, and that he’s ready and waiting for you. I doubt he’ll try to interfere with our plans, not when he stands to benefit. But this does take away the element of surprise I was hoping for,” he said, standing. “We’ll need to rethink our strategy once we’re through here.”
“Wait,” I said, getting to my own feet. “Where are you going?”
“I have another meeting I must attend,” he said, moving to the door. But as I drew close, he hooked his arm around my waist and pulled me into him. “Try not to have any more run-ins with the prince, Kitten,” he murmured, his lips grazing the shell of my ear. “Whatever he did or did not see, it’s clear he knows too much.”
29
Casimir
Casimir half-expected his father to cancel the dark mass in the wake of his brother’s death. The emperor had been beside himself when he’d beheld Taius’s severed head in the mortuary—a chamber seldom used in the Iron Spire, since Nightforged rarely left corpses behind when they died. Their bodies disintegrated when they were stabbed or staked through the heart, but not when beheaded. That was why whoever had murdered Taius had opted to sever his head—so they could use his corpse to send a message.
Casimir had hoped that perhaps the guards had it wrong, that the head had not belonged to his brother. But there was no mistaking the silver scar bisecting Taius’s left eye, nor his distinctive, russet-colored eyes. The vampire who had taught Casimir to wield a sword, who had drilled him in the art of battle and warfare, and who had encouraged him to excel despite his father’s criticisms, was well and truly gone.
But the High Nexon would hear nothing of the sort, and as the head of their realm’s religious order, he was one of the few people who could gainsay Casimir’s father. The very idea of canceling the dark mass during the one time of the year when the majority of Noxalis’s nobility were present would be an affront to the dark god, the old bastard had warned. He would honor Taius’s life and commend his undead soul to Tenebros during the ceremony, but the dark mass would proceed as scheduled.
“I still don’t understand how someone could have stuck his head on the gates without anyone noticing,” Caelum said under his breath as he and Casimir entered the Sanctum of Tenebros. The two of them had joined the search party, scouring the city for any sign of the culprit, but the assassin had left no trace, not even so much as a scent for them to track him with. The city guard had flushed out a few rebels operating on the outskirts of the city, but though they had been thoroughly interrogated, they did not know who had killed Taius or the identity of the person who had impaled his head on the gates.
Such a feat could have only been accomplished with witchcraft. Which pointed to either the rebels… or Trivaea itself.
“What are the chances that the witch-king himself is behind this?” Casimir asked as they entered an antechamber off to the side of the main hall so they could wash, as was their custom.
“Anything is possible,” Caelum admitted as he scrubbed his hands using the small sink and bar of soap in the corner of the room. “But given that Taius was nowhere near the Trivaean border, it seems unlikely that the witch-king could have intercepted him. Sebastian doesn’t send his witches through the border passes unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
True. The border passes were extremely treacherous to navigate—magic surges erupting from the barrier often killed any who attempted it, and even if they managed to survive the trek, they would then have to deal with the guards waiting on the other side.
“Still, someone thought it necessary to not only murder Taius, but travel all the way to the capital to leave his head on a spike with a message for someone we do not even know,” Casimir growled as Caelum stepped aside so he could use the sink next. “Who is this ‘darkling girl’ this murderer is so desperately seeking the attention of?”
Almost as soon as he spoke the words, an image of Catherine rose in his mind’s eye. Wavy, brown-black hair, violet eyes, a star-shaped beauty mark on her cheekbone, and secrets that clung to her like some dark perfume.
But no. That made little sense. She was just a human woman. No one of consequence.
No one of consequence?a voice in his mind asked, sounding faintly amused.Even though you gravitate to her like a moth drawn to flame?
Casimir clenched his jaw as he stepped into the main worship hall of the temple. Towering ceilings arched above them, adorned with intricate carvings too high up to be viewed clearly. The hall was dimly lit not just by the moonlight filtering in through the stained-glass windows, but from the thousands of black candles scattered throughout the grand space. Clusters of them were placed in front of statues of minor deities and religious figures that stood watch along the perimeters, and still more flickered in massive candelabras arranged on the worship stage. The pews were already filled near to bursting, but asCasimir scanned the crowded hall, he saw no sign of the woman plaguing his thoughts.
“I’ll see you later,” Caelum muttered, splitting off to join his father and sister, who were already seated in their pew box directly in front of the stage. The pews, arranged into four sections with three aisles between and two on the outer edges, reflected the order of the vampire clans. Nobles occupied the ground floor, their seating closest to the High Nexon indicating their status, while commoners filled the upper galleries, observing from above.
Casimir made his way down the center aisle to where his father and his siblings sat. His brother and sister stood upon his arrival so he could edge past them and take his place next to his father. But the emperor barely acknowledged his arrival, his diamond-hard gaze fixed on the altar.
“Did you find anything?” his father asked, even though he’d likely already received the report from the city guard.
Casimir shook his head. “They left nothing behind for us to track or trace them with.”
“Witches,” his sister, Sarai, hissed to his left. She ran her tongue over her canines, her dark blue eyes glittering with suppressed rage. “Bold for one of them to sneak right up to the spire gates. Whoever this ‘darkling girl’ is, she must be important.”
Casimir looked over Sarai’s shoulder to the Psychoros pew, where Maximillian sat with Callix Starclaw. The rest of the Psychoros delegation was present, save for Catherine. Why wasn’t she with them? Thralls usually weren’t permitted to attend the dark mass—it was meant to be a communion between the Nightforged and their god alone. But as a Descendant,Catherine was expected to attend. In fact, by not doing so, she risked rejection from the dark god himself.
As if Sarai could hear his thoughts, she leaned in and whispered, “I heard Lord Starclaw telling Alaric that he excused her from the dark mass due to indigestion. Evidently she had a bad reaction to the bloodwine from last night.”
“A reaction to the bloodwine?” Soren Ironheart scoffed from his seat behind Sarai’s. “How can he expect us to accept her as a candidate if she can’t handle a few sips of blood?”
“Perhaps it’s not the blood she had a reaction to,” Ruslan, who sat on the emperor’s right, said, twisting in his seat to address Soren. “She could have a low tolerance for alcohol.”
“Silence,” Casimir’s father said, his tone as cold as the catacombs that ran beneath their feet. “We are about to begin.”
The four of them faced front as the High Nexon ascended the stage, two attendants at his side. All three of them were anointed with blood, the dark streaks painted in swirling runes over their powder-pale faces. The attendants remained a few feet behind the ancient vampire as he approached the pulpit, a heavy black book of sermons clutched in his gnarled hand. He took a moment to set the book on the wooden surface before lifting his head to address the gathered masses.
"Children of the Night," he began, "we assemble under the watchful gaze of Tenebros, to whom we owe our eternal allegiance. As the shadows gather, so do we, united in sacred darkness. We come together to reaffirm our dominion over the night, to draw strength from the abyss, and to renew the covenant with our dark father."
