And yet, I screamed, “No!”
I threw myself in front of Naro. Atrius barely stopped himself before taking off my head. Naro tried to run right through me—whether to Atrius or to the mangled body of his dead master, I didn’t know. His presence was erratic, lurching in so many directions at once.
And yet…
It was him. Him. I didn’t know how to make sense of that. I didn’t know if I wanted to.
Out of sheer desperation, I braced myself against him and put my hands on either side of his head. I reached deep into his threads. They were tangled and broken, many of them consumed by the haze of drugs and pain.
I did the only thing I could: I sedated him. And after a few seconds, the tremors subsided. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.
I stood there, hands still raised, breath shaking.
I had thought this would be a triumphant moment. And yet here I was, in the same room as Tarkan’s body, and I had barely even looked at it.
I felt Atrius’s eyes on me. The quiet was suddenly deafening.
I turned. He stared at me with a hard, questioning gaze, the gore-covered axe still poised in his grip.
What could I say? I didn’t want to show Atrius the truth. I couldn’t even admit it to myself. I was supposed to be hiding myself from Atrius—not showing him things that no one was supposed to see.
I reached for a lie and came up with nothing.
And yet, I got the impression that he already saw some piece of the truth.
I choked out, “Please.”
“He’s one of Tarkan’s guards.”
“Please.”
Begging. Pathetic. All I could think to do.
You have no brother, the voice reminded me, again. If his death is the Weaver’s will, it is the Weaver’s will.
And yet I—I couldn’t. I couldn’t.
I hated when Atrius looked at me like that. That unrelenting steel stare, right through my gut. He did not ask who this person was. He did not ask why I wanted to spare him.
Something in his aura softened.
He didn’t say a word. He simply turned to Tarkan’s body, grabbed his hair, and hacked his head off with several wet THWACKs of the axe.
He turned to me. “You were right,” he said. “This way was cleaner.”
Then he strode to the balcony, head in hand, to go claim his new city.
25
Yes, I had been right. Under other circumstances, maybe I would have been preening more that Atrius recognized it.
Tarkan’s city fell apart without him. The crumble was near-instantaneous. Atrius’s warriors were ready to sweep the city as soon as Tarkan was dead. They did so efficiently and, for the most part, bloodlessly. Few of Tarkan’s warriors were willing to fight for anyone but him, and if their survival wasn’t threatened, they were no threat to anyone else.
Within days, Vasai was firmly secured under Atrius’s rule.
I didn’t even feel anything when Atrius conceded this to me, or at Erekkus’s impressed whistles. I went through my tasks with rote mindlessness, and when I was free, I went to Naro’s side.
Atrius didn’t kill him. I didn’t know how to think about the fact that he spared him for my benefit. I knew Atrius was not a man made for mercy.
I put that question off for another day.
Instead, I sat beside Naro and waited.
My sedation should have worn off quickly, but he remained unconscious for days. Only the beginning of it was my magic. The rest, likely the after-effects of the drugs. He trembled and gasped in his sleep, sweat slicking the scar-dotted landscape of his forehead. I dabbed the sweat away with a cloth and dripped water down his throat.
I had never so strongly simultaneously hoped for opposite things: that he would wake up, and that he wouldn’t.
Near dawn on the first night, Erekkus came to the room and paused in the doorway. I turned, then hurriedly rose.
Atrius. I’d completely forgotten.
“I apologize,” I said. “I’m late to go to—”
But Erekkus shook his head. “No. He sent me here to say he doesn’t need you tonight.” His gaze lingered on me, then on Naro, listless in the bed.
“You’ve found a pet,” he said.
“He’s not—” I bit down my objection. What could I say? I didn’t even know what the real answer was.
“I’m just watching over him,” I said.
Erekkus never did much to disguise his expression. He didn’t hide how confusing he found this situation.
“The others are celebrating,” he said. “Probably not a good idea for you to join. Not that you’d want to. But if you want anything special—”
I turned back to Naro. “No. I’m fine.”
“I have some food here for—”
“I’m not hungry.”
A beat. Then he said, “I’m supposed to make sure you eat. If you don’t, I’ll be the one in trouble for it.”
My hand went to my chest, pressed over the strange twinge there.
I turned around again. Erekkus held out a bowl of rice and meat.
“Just take it,” he said. “Goddess knows he doesn’t want it back.”
I took the bowl from him. It was still hot—very fresh.
Atrius.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Thank you.”
“I’m not the one to thank.” He glanced at Naro again. Then back to me. His expression softened a little, like he saw something unwillingly revealed in my face.
“I know we’re… different. Vampires. Humans. But there isn’t one of us that doesn’t know what this feels like.”
“This?”
I shouldn’t have opened the door. I regretted it the moment the word left my lips.
Erekkus gave me a sad smile. “We’re used to saying goodbye to our own,” he said. “More than most vampires.”
My chest ached with a sudden, powerful clench of anger. Anger because I didn’t want to reveal that Naro was “my own” at all. Anger because, even if he was, I wasn’t saying goodbye to him.
“Thanks for the food,” I said, tightly, and shut the door.
Naro’s eyelids fluttered open the next day, as the sun was lowering in the sky over Vasai.
The vampires were all tucked away at that point, save for those who guarded the Thorn Palace and the other key buildings of Vasai, so I’d opened the curtains. I rarely did that now, even on my own. The sun held little appeal to me, experiencing the world as I did. But Naro—he, perhaps, might appreciate some sunshine once he woke up. He had loved the sun, back in those days, even though he didn’t have the complexion for it. He’d spend the summertime sprawled out on warm rocks beyond the outskirts of the city, baking in the heat like a lizard, then peel himself off and return home bright pink and cursing at every accidental touch.
Sure enough, when his lashes fluttered, the first thing he did was tilt his face toward the warm rays of light.
Then his eyes opened more, and he turned to me.
I wished I could see him as I did then—see him with eyes, not threads. And yet, a cowardly part of myself was grateful for it. I knew if I could see him the way I had as a child, the marks of life and time would be so stark. I sensed them written all over his threads.
He’d had a hard, hard life.