My brow furrowed at that. I was grateful to have something to think about other than Naro or the past I wasn’t supposed to remember. Battle strategies and espionage were so simple comparatively.
Karisine was a well-fortified city, especially considering that Atrius was losing numbers with every city-state he needed to maintain control of. The idea of taking it by brute force seemed outrageous, and unlike Tarkan, its ruler had not set herself up for such easy assassination. Furthermore, Vasai and Karisine were closely connected by a number of communication routes, far more than Alka had. They’d be prepared for Atrius’s arrival.
I was supposed to be learning how to understand Atrius by now, but I couldn’t fathom how he intended to pull that off.
“It’s going to be… challenging,” I said, choosing my words carefully.
A suppressed smile tugged at the corners of Atrius’s mouth. Like a cat that was secretly hiding a canary in its teeth.
My brow twitched. “You have a plan.”
“I always have a plan.”
I wasn’t sure that was true. He always managed to make it work, I would give him that. But part of what made Atrius so difficult to understand—what made him such a formidable enemy—was that his plans didn’t make sense to anyone else but him. Sometimes I thought he conducted warfare like he fought in battle: entirely in the moment, responding to every change in circumstances in real time, impossible to anticipate.
“So?” I said. “Prove it. Enlighten me.”
He seemed to debate whether he wanted to or not.
“Are you familiar,” he said, “with the island of Veratas?”
“Yes, but—barely. It’s… a nothing island, isn’t it?”
Tiny. Uninhabited. Close to the eastern coast of Glaea.
“It was,” Atrius said. “Easiest conquering I’ve ever done.”
My brows rose now. “Conquering.”
Again, he was silent for a long moment, his eyes far away, a gentler smile playing at his lips. It was a strange expression on him, all those hard lines softened, even under the harsh light of the fire.
“There’s a settlement,” he said.
He spoke so quietly I almost didn’t hear him—like he was bestowing a precious secret to me, delicate as butterfly wings.
“They’ve lived there for a few months now,” he went on. “The husbands and wives and children.”
My lips parted in shock. His civilians? The families of his soldiers were… right over there, in Veratas?
“I—I’d assumed they were in the House of Blood. In Obitraes.”
Atrius shook his head. “No.”
I knew he wouldn’t answer. But I had to ask anyway.
“Why?”
His threads shivered slightly, as if beneath an unpleasant cold breeze.
“My people,” he said, “are not welcome back home.”
My people.
All this time I thought he’d meant the House of Blood. No. He meant his people—the ones who had followed him all this way.
His eyes lowered to the carpet, the fire reflecting flecks of gold in them.
“So,” he said, “I’ve had to find a new one for them. Or find a way to let them return to theirs.”
The wall over his presence, normally so impenetrable, suddenly disappeared, letting forth a wave of deep sadness. Not my brother’s wild grief. This was quiet and constant, like something that had just been accepted into one’s bones.
I felt an echoing ache in mine—something that, perhaps, had always been there, but I tried not to look at too closely.
“Why?” I murmured. “Why can’t you go home?”
Atrius’s eyes at last flicked back to mine, steel-stark against the firelight.
For a moment, the vulnerability in them shocked me.
And then the wall returned, and his back straightened, and his face hardened again. He cleared his throat, as if to force away the remnants of his honesty.
“My cousin, one of my generals, will be launching another offensive from the island,” he said. “Her men will roll in to support us from the sea, under the cover of the mists.”
He was trying to make this discussion businesslike again. It didn’t work. We had exposed too much to each other.
All at once, the realities of my role crashed down on me. In one day, three versions of myself who were not supposed to coexist—Sylina the seer, Sylina the Arachessen, and Vivi the lost little girl—had collided in the most confusing ways. The pieces of myself didn’t fit together. They were ugly contradictions.
A lump in my throat, I rose and crossed the room, each step closer to Atrius shivering up my spine.
What are you doing, Sylina?
He said nothing. But his eyes didn’t leave me, the way a predator’s tracked their prey. And yet, it wasn’t quite a predator’s hunger that shivered in him.
I lowered myself onto the arm of his chair, my legs touching his, practically in an embrace.
He didn’t move, but I sensed his heartbeat quicken.
I pressed my palm to his chest. His skin was warm, almost hot, like he was fighting back a fever. Beneath his flesh, I felt his curse eating at his threads, a gaping, starving mouth of necrosis.
“You’re in pain today,” I said softly.
“It’s fine.”
“You didn’t call for me.”
“You were busy.”
“I’m surprised that mattered to you.”
His head tilted slightly—so, so slightly, like it wasn’t even intentional—as if to resist the urge to bury it in my hair.
He didn’t answer for so long that I thought perhaps he wouldn’t. And maybe I was grateful for that, because no matter how much I told myself that I was getting close to him because it was my task, I knew whatever he would say would cut too deep.
I was right.
“It matters,” he murmured.
Two words that could mean nothing—should mean nothing.
It felt like they meant everything.
“Your brother will be safe here,” he went on, “for as long as he needs.”
My chest clenched. I was grateful for the hair curtaining my face. But then gentle fingers pulled it back, placing it carefully behind my ear, the brush of his fingernails against my cheek striking me breathless.
“Thank you,” I choked out.
I wasn’t acting.
Others would tell me that Naro would die of his addiction or its withdrawal. Others would imprison or execute him as a war criminal. I couldn’t blame anyone for either of those things—certainly not Atrius, the monster, the cursed vampire, the conqueror.
And yet. Here I was, being presented with this gift. Compassion.
“Why?” I asked. “Why are you helping him?”
An aching pulse, like the throb of an old wound. “Because we lose the past so fast. We should cling to those who made us who we are. And because, if the one I considered my brother was alive, I would want someone to do the same for him.”
Brother.
I thought of a body in the snow at the feet of a furious goddess, a wave of grief, and a hole that would never be filled again.
So many things about Atrius almost made so much sense. Almost. Like I was missing a critical puzzle piece.
I whispered, before I could stop myself, “Why do you want to conquer Glaea?”
A beat. Then, “Because I’m an evil, power-starved monster.”
He said it so flatly, like it was an actual answer. Not long ago, I thought that was the truth, and would have told him as much.
But now…