From blood and ash

Chapter 40

 

 

I was deposited in the same room where he’d given me his blood, and then I’d stabbed him. Him. I stared at the damp mark on the wood floor, where the blood had been cleaned up.

Him.

I needed to stop referring to him that way. He had a name. A real one. I may never say it when and how he wanted, but I needed to stop thinking about him as if he were Hawke or somehow nameless.

His name was Casteel. Cas.

This was where he had saved my life and the chamber where I then attempted to take his.

He succeeded.

I failed.

My gaze flicked to where Kieran stood by the door, eyeing me as if he expected me to make a rush for the window and throw myself out of it. He arched a brow at me, and I looked away.

He had left, to do the gods only knew what, leaving Kieran as a sentry. Well, I did know he’d done something. After he’d left, a dozen or so servants filled the brass tub in the bathing chamber with steaming hot water, and another placed a fresh pair of black breeches and a tunic on the bed.

A part of me was surprised that he’d brought me back here and not to the cells. I wasn’t sure what that meant or if it should matter if it did mean something.

My thoughts still reeling from everything, I didn’t know anything at the moment, and he hadn’t answered any of the questions I’d asked on the way back. Say, for example, was Atlantia still an actual place?

Because as far as I knew, it had been all but leveled during the war.

Then again, everything I thought I knew was turning out to be false.

I rubbed my hand over my cheek as I glanced at Kieran. “Does Atlantia still exist?”

If my random question caught him off guard, he didn’t show it. “Why would it not?”

“I was told that the Wastelands—”

“Were once Atlantia?” he cut in. “They were once an outpost, but that land was never the entirety of the kingdom.”

“So, Atlantia still exists?”

“Have you ever been beyond the Skotos Mountains?”

The corners of my lips turned down. “Do you always answer a question with a question?”

“Do I?”

I shot him a droll look.

A faint grin appeared and then slipped away.

“No one has been beyond the Skotos Mountains,” I told him. “It’s just more mountains.”

“Mountains that stretch so far and wide that the very tops are lost to the deepest mist? That part is true, but the mountains don’t go on forever, Penellaphe, and the mist there may not contain Craven, but it’s also not natural,” he said, and a shiver danced over my shoulders. “The mist is a protection.”

“How?”

“It’s so thick, you just don’t see anything. You think you see everything.” A strange light filled his pale blue eyes. “The mist that blankets the Skotos Mountains is there so anyone who dares pass through will want to turn back.”

“And those who don’t turn back?”

“They don’t make it through.”

“Because...because Atlantia is beyond the Skotos?” I asked.

“What do you think?”

What I thought was that talking to Kieran was an exercise in patience and energy, two things I was ru

“Are you going to bathe yourself?” he asked.

I wanted to. My skin was not just dirty, it was also chilled, and I was still wearing his bloodied shirt.

But I also wanted to be difficult because I was so freaking confused by everything, and as he had warned, I was tired. “What if I don’t?”

“That’s your choice,” he replied. “But you smell of Casteel.”

I jolted at the sound of his name. His real name. “I am wearing his shirt.”

“That’s not the kind of smell I’m talking about.”

It took a minute for me to get what he was referencing. When I did, my mouth dropped open. “You can smell…?”

Kieran’s smile could only be described as wolfish.

“I’m going to bathe.”

He chuckled.

“Shut up,” I snapped, gathering up the new clothing and hurrying into the bathing room. I closed the door behind me, a

Cursing under my breath, I looked around and found several hooks on the wall. I hung the tunic and breeches there. I quickly stripped and stepped into the bath, ignoring the twinge of pain in a very private area as I sank into the lavender-scented water. I didn’t allow myself to think about anything as I got down to scrubbing off my blood and…and his. My stomach turned over as I used the bar of soap to wash my hair. When suds ran down the back of my neck, I dipped under the water and held myself there.

I stayed until my lungs and throat burned, and white spots sparked behind my closed eyes. Only then did I break the surface, gasping for air.

What was I going to do about him? About everything?

A strangled, hoarse-sounding laugh escaped me. I didn’t know where to even begin to start figuring out this mess. I’d just learned that the kingdom of Atlantia still existed, and that seemed like the least crazy thing to have discovered. Gods, I still didn’t even understand how I’d gone from learning who he truly was, stabbing him in the heart, to then willingly falling into his arms.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I dragged my hands down my face. I couldn’t blame the bite, even though it had some kind of arousing effect, just like his blood had. And who, by the way, would’ve ever thought that would feel good?

But damn, it had…

I shivered as a tight curling motion bloomed low in my stomach.

That was the last thing I needed to think about right now if I had any hope of figuring out what I needed to do.

And I needed to come up with some kind of plan and quickly because even though he didn’t seem to hold my attempt to kill him against me, I wasn’t safe here. I wouldn’t be safe anywhere with his people. They hated me, and if half of what he and Kieran claimed about the Ascended and what they’d done was true, I couldn’t blame them, even though I’d done nothing to them. It was what I represented.

Still, it was too much to believe that the Atlantians were the i

But…

But I’d never seen any of the third and fourth sons and daughters who were given to the gods during the Rite.

I could never understand how those like Duke Teerman and Lord Mazeen had received a Blessing from the gods.

But never once had I seen an Ascended lift a single finger to fight the Craven, the one thing the people of Solis feared more than death itself.

The one thing they’d do anything and believe anything to remain safe from.

He had claimed that the Royals used the Craven to keep the people in check, and if that were true, it worked. They gave up their own children to keep the beasts at bay.

It had to be true.

Worse yet, others must be involved in this. The Priests and Priestesses. Close friends of the Court, who hadn’t Ascended. My parents?

Gods, I couldn’t lie to myself any longer.

What had happened with him was proof enough. His blood had healed me, not turned me. His kisses had never cursed me. And so far, neither had his bite.

The Ascended were vamprys—they were the curse that had plagued this land. They used fear to control the masses, and they were the evil hidden in plain sight, feeding off those they had sworn to the gods to protect.

And my brother was now one of them.