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Great.
Maybe it would burn through my stupid heart.
Silence fell, but it didn’t last long. “The Craven were our fault,” he said, startling me. “Their creation, that is. All of this. The monsters in the mist. The war. What has become of this land. You. Us. It all started with an incredibly desperate, foolish act of love, many, many centuries before the War of Two Kings.”
“I know,” I said, clearing my throat. “I know the history.”
“But do you know the true history?”
“I know the only history.” My eyes opened, and I shifted my gaze away from the chains and twisted bones.
“You know only what the Ascended have led everyone to believe, and it is not the truth.” He reached over, plucking up the chain that crossed a part of my stomach. I tensed as he carefully moved it aside. “My people lived alongside mortals in harmony for thousands of years, but then King O’Meer Malec—”
“Created the Craven,” I cut him off. “Like I said—”
“You’re wrong.” He shifted so he sat back, one leg drawn up, and his arm resting on his knee. “King Malec fell hopelessly in love with a mortal woman. Her name was Isbeth. Some say it was Queen Eloana who poisoned her. Others claim it was a jilted lover of the King’s who stabbed her because he apparently had quite the history of being unfaithful. But either way, she was mortally wounded. As I said, Malec was desperate to save her. He committed the forbidden act of Ascending her—what you know as the Ascension.”
My heart lodged somewhere in my throat, next to the messy knot of emotion.
His gaze lifted and met mine. “Yes. Isbeth was the first to Ascend. Not your false King and Queen. She became the first vampry.”
Lies. Utter, unbelievable lies.
“Malec drank from her, only stopping once he felt her heart begin to fail, and then he shared his blood with her.” His head tilted, those golden eyes glittering. “Perhaps if your act of Ascension wasn’t so well guarded, the finer details would not come as a surprise to you.”
I started to sit up but remembered the wound and the fizzing liquid. “Ascension is a Blessing from the gods.”
He smirked. “It is far from that. More like an act that can either create near immortality or make nightmares come true. We Atlantians are born nearly mortal. And remain so until the Culling.”
“The Culling?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“It’s when we change.” His upper lip curled, and the tip of his tongue prodded a sharp canine. I knew this. It was in the history books. “The fangs appear, lengthening only when we feed, and we change in…other ways.”
“How?” Curiosity had seized me, and I figured that whatever I could learn would help if I managed to get out of this.
“That’s not important.” He reached for a cloth. “We may be harder to kill than the Ascended, but we can be killed,” he went on. I also knew that. Atlantians could be killed just like a Craven could. “We age slower than mortals, and if we take care, we can live for thousands of years.”
I wanted to point out everything was important, especially how Atlantians changed in other ways, but curiosity got the best of me. “How…how old are you?”
“Older than I look.”
“Hundreds of years older?” I asked.
“I was born after the war,” he answered. “I’ve seen two centuries come and go.”
Two centuries?
Gods…
“King Malec created the first vampry. They are…a part of all of us, but they are not like us. Daylight does not affect us. Not like it does the vampry. Tell me, which of the Ascended have you ever seen in the daylight?”
“They do not walk in the sun because the gods do not,” I answered. “That is how they honor them.”
“How convenient for them, then.” Hawke’s smirk turned smug. “Vamprys may be blessed with the closest possible thing to immortality, like us, but they ca
That couldn’t be true. The Ascended chose not to go in the sun.
“They also need to feed, and by feed, I am talking about blood. They need to do so frequently to live, to prevent whatever mortal wounds or illnesses they suffered before they Ascended from returning. They ca
He dabbed the cloth along the wound, careful not to exert too much pressure as he soaked up the settled liquid. “Atlantians do not feed on mortals—”
“Whatever,” I snapped. “You expect me to truly believe that?”
His gaze lifted to mine. “Mortal blood offers us nothing of any real value because we were never mortal, Princess. Wolven don’t need to feed, but we do. We feed when we need to, on other Atlantians.”
I shook my head. How could he honestly expect me to believe that? Their treatment of mortals, how they virtually used them as cattle, is what drove the gods to abandon them, and for the mortal populace to revolt.
“We can use our blood to heal a mortal without turning them, something a vampry ca
“That’s a lie.” My hands balled uselessly at my sides.
“It is the truth.” Brows lowered in concentration as he peered down at the wound, he glanced up at me only when he laid the cloth aside. “A vampry ca
“What you’re saying makes no sense.”
“How does it not?”
“Because if any part of what you’re saying is true, then the Ascended are vamprys, and they ca
His jaw hardened, eyes turning glacial. “Because it is not the Ascended who are giving the gift of life. They are using an Atlantian to do so.”
I coughed out a harsh laugh. “The Ascended would never work with an Atlantian.”
“Did I misspeak? I don’t believe I did. I said they are using an Atlantian. Not working with one.” He picked up a jar, screwing off the lid. “When King Malec’s peers discovered what he’d done, he lifted the laws that forbade the act of Ascending. As more vamprys were created, many were unable to control their bloodlust. They drained many of their victims, creating the pestilence known as the Craven, who swept across the kingdom like a plague. The Queen of Atlantia, Queen Eloana, tried to stop it. She made the act of Ascension forbidden once more and ordered all vamprys destroyed in an act to protect mankind.”
I watched as he dipped his hand into the jar and then set it aside. A thick, milky-white substance covered his long fingers. I recognized the smell. It was the same salve that had been used on me before. “Yarrow?”
He nodded. “Among other things that will help speed up your healing.”
“I can—” I jerked as the chilled ointment touched my skin. Hawke spread the mixture over my stomach, warming the balm and my flesh.
And then me.
My knuckles began to ache as an unwanted shiver of awareness skated over my skin. He betrayed you, I reminded myself. He played you. I hated him. I did. The knot in my throat expanded even as a heady flush swept through me.