Secretly, I was enjoying the wine. We didn’t often have it at the Keep, considering what it did to the senses. It was what a typical traveler would be expected to be drinking, though, so it was what I drank as well. I took only the tiniest sips, barely allowing it to touch my tongue.
The barkeep was not being cooperative, which the soldiers did not appreciate. After a heated exchange that went nowhere, they released him, and he staggered back against the wall with a gasping breath. They looked at each other—I could sense their mutual frustration, and even more powerful, their dread as to what they would find when they returned to camp empty-handed.
And then I felt their eyes on me.
I took another sip of wine, seemingly oblivious to them. But I didn’t move. Didn’t shy away from their gaze. I let them stare right at me—me, and my blindfold, and my dress that looked so perfectly befitting a seer of Acaeja.
Remember me, soldiers, I thought, waiting to smile to myself until they were gone.
Most of the time, my unusual appearance made things more difficult. I was, of course, happy to offer my goddess my eyes. Over the years, she’s taken my little finger on my left hand, too, and etched several scars into the skin of my abdomen. All gifts that I gave her freely, and it was an honor to allow my reverence for Acaeja to mark my flesh so permanently. There’s a strange sort of kinship in it, too, among my Sisters and I—we all turned ourselves into something foreign to the outside world, forever branded as Arachessen.
From a logistical perspective, though, sometimes being so prominently marked… had its challenges. We stood out. It was difficult to maintain any kind of disguise. The eyes, after all, usually gave it away quickly.
So, it was a nice change of pace that this time, my appearance worked in my favor. From the moment those Bloodborn soldiers saw me, they knew exactly what I was.
All I had to do was wait for them to come back for me.
I got myself a room in the inn that was the least secure place I could possibly choose—right in the front, with big windows that I left uncovered. The innkeeper didn’t even try to stop my would-be captor. I didn’t blame him for that. Some misguided attempt at noble chivalry wouldn’t be worth laying down his life.
The vampire didn’t knock before forcing open my door. Whatever he did to it made the rickety piece of wood fly open with a BANG, the iron knob gouging the plaster of the wall. If that was brute strength alone, I was almost impressed.
He stood in the doorway. I recognized him as one of the soldiers who had seen me the night before. He was stocky and broad, with pale skin and shaggy ash-blond hair, and a neat, trimmed beard. He wore the uniform of the Bloodborn soldiers—it had probably been a fine jacket once, dark red and double-breasted with silver buttons, but it was a bit worse for wear these days.
“You’re coming with me,” he said. His voice was deep and heavily accented. It echoed the same weary exhaustion I felt in his presence—spurred, I’m sure, from days of fruitless searching.
I didn’t move. “I—excuse me? What are you doing here?”
My voice notched up an octave, emphasizing the depths of my shock.
“You’ll come with me,” he said again. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Up to you.”
I rose, staggering a little, pressing myself against the wall like I was truly terrified of the man before me.
“I—I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He heaved a dramatic sigh. Then he crossed the room in two strides and grabbed my arms.
Immediately, I struggled. Not too hard, of course. Not as hard as I could. Just enough to make it convincing. “Get your hands off me!”
He didn’t, predictably. Instead, he dragged me across the room. Even though all of this was going exactly as I’d hoped it would, my heartbeat quickened despite myself when my captor flashed a smile at me and revealed two sharp fangs—so sharp I could practically feel it through the threads. A sudden spike of claustrophobic fear wrenched through me, reminding me far too much of decades ago, and I had to stop myself from succumbing to the instinct to slip his grasp.
Instead, I flailed like a fish on a line and let him drag me.
“Let me go!” I demanded. “Get your hands off me! Let me go!”
For effect, I managed to free one of my hands, then grabbed the metal candle holder from the bedside table, and swung it across his face.
He spat a string of Obitraen curses. His face darkened. I’d opened a gash over his cheek, which now dripped black blood. He glared at me.
“You’re trouble,” he muttered. “You’re not worth any of this.”
Then, without hesitation, he held me tight with one arm, used the other to withdraw a dagger from his belt, and opened a long slice down my forearm.
I hissed in pain, stunned. At first I was confused—if his intention was to either subdue me or kill me, this made no sense. But moments later, as blood bubbled to the surface of the wound and dripped down my skin, I realized:
The vampires of the House of Blood used blood magic.
A slow burning sensation started at the wound, then intensified, slowly, slowly, until it left my teeth grinding and my breathing shaky. The vampire lifted his hand, and without my permission, my arm jerked closer to him—a genuinely disconcerting sensation, like my muscles were no longer under my control.
Then he flicked his fingers up, and suddenly my face was hot, and my head felt like it was splitting in two.
I had trained through worse pain than this. Experienced worse. But this—the feeling that my body was turning against itself—
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“That’s enough,” my captor said, annoyed, as I slumped back into his arms, and everything went dark.
6
I awoke slowly. My head was splitting. The first thing I became aware of was the scent of snow—strange, because there was little snow in Glaea.
Voices. A language I didn’t recognize at first. Then I realized, it was Obitraen.
Someone shook me, hard, and with their touch came a sickening jolt that stirred me from the inside out.
At that, the threads came alive again.
The vampire that took me from the inn leaned over me, grinning at me in a way that did far too much to highlight the sharpness of his canines.
“Good evening,” he said.
I’d been trained extensively on how to retrieve my consciousness quickly. Amazing what one can do with tightly controlled breath. I quickly took stock of my surroundings. I was in a chair, slumped over. My neck ached, probably from being wrenched forward for Weaver knew how long. It cracked a little as I lifted my head, though I didn’t let my grogginess or the pain show on my face.
I straightened my back, lifted my chin—
—And came face-to-face with the conqueror.
He was right before me, sprawled out in a chair, one heel propped up on a box. We were in his tent, I gathered, the space small for a room but huge for a tent. Though there was another soldier here, the conqueror’s aura dwarfed his, like a wave crashing over rocks.
I could kill him now.
I wouldn’t, of course. It wasn’t my mission. Those weren’t my orders. I wouldn’t disobey the Weaver’s command.