Страница 56 из 219
ORAYA
Lahor was, so far, not very helpful.
Evelaena had given us all suites near each other. They were once-grand apartments that were now dusty and rat-infested, with cracked windows that let in flecks of the overnight rain over the tile floor. When Mische pulled back the covers of her bed and several roaches ran out, she simply stared down at it with a look of utter disgust on her face, threw the covers back into place, and said brightly, “This can be Septimus’s room.”
This, Ketura had found exceedingly amusing. I think it was the only time I’d seen the woman laugh.
Not that we were doing much sleeping, anyway. The keep had gone eerily quiet, even to the vampires and their far superior hearing. That was when we acted. We went through the libraries, the studies, the empty bedchambers. Septimus’s companions were excellent at slipping through hallways u
After a dozen instances of this, I held the half-rotted atlas between two fingers. A few bugs scurried from between the pages, irritated at having their home disturbed for the first time in what appeared to be centuries.
Clearly, this was it. The answer to all our problems. The key to historically unknown power.
I gave Septimus a deadpan stare that must have said everything my words didn’t.
“We came all this way,” he said, letting out a puff of cigarillo smoke through his nostrils. “Have a little patience, dove.”
“Evelaena said that Vincent never returned here.”
“Evelaena doesn’t seem like the most reliable person. Not to insult a host.”
“No,” Raihn said, “but she doesn’t seem like she would just forget that the uncle she’s obsessed with showed up.”
“Unless she’s keeping it from us intentionally. He kept plenty of memorabilia from this place. Why else would he do that?”
“Nostalgia?” Mische offered, but even she didn’t sound convinced.
Vincent had no love for this place. I’d suspected that before, and now, there was little doubt of that in my mind. He wasn’t the type to wax nostalgic about the past, especially not parts of it that he felt little affection for. Lahor certainly fell into that category.
If he’d kept any co
I sighed.
“What am I supposed to do?” I muttered. “Just touch everything in this castle and see… what, exactly?”
Septimus shrugged.
“You’ll know.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then we wasted a trip and will try something else.”
More time to search. More time for the Bloodborn to sink their claws into this kingdom. More time for Raihn to establish his hold on it, too.
I heaved another exasperated sigh and kept wading through objects.
Hours and hours and hours of useless shit.
Eventually, we gave up. So much of the keep was so badly damaged. Even the artifacts that seemed like they had once been quite valuable were now little more than junk. I doubted that I would just magically “know” when I would come across a possession of Vincent’s, but even still, it was obvious to me that these were worth nothing to him.
Eventually, when we’d made it through all the unoccupied, safe rooms of the keep, we allowed ourselves to rest.
My suite had only one bedroom—Raihn, to my relief, took the couch without complaint, leaving Mische to sleep beside me. She was snoring within minutes of crawling into bed, limbs sprawled out in all directions.
I curled up into a little ball and stared at the window at the glimpse of night-drenched Lahor through the opening in the curtains. Dawn was still at least an hour away. Sleep called to me, but I didn’t want to know what I’d see in its depths.
Eventually, I couldn’t just lie there anymore.
I slipped out of bed and grabbed my blades, going out to the sitting room to see—
“Where are you going?”
Raihn stopped mid-movement. He was half-shrouded by gauzy curtains, leaning out the open window.
He looked me up and down, an eyebrow raised.
“Did you sleep in your armor?”
I glanced down at myself, briefly self-conscious.
“Where are you going?” I asked again, instead of answering.
“Probably the same place you were. Feeling restless, too?”
I didn’t want to admit it aloud.
I glanced back at the open bedchamber door, and Mische sleeping beyond it. Reading my face, Raihn said, “Oh, don’t worry about her. Nothing wakes her.”
Then he outstretched his hand. “Come on. Let’s go get into some trouble.”
I didn’t move. Fine, he was right, I was going to sneak out into the city. Admitting that to him was a whole different concession.
He sighed.
“I know you, Oraya. Don’t tell me you aren’t curious.”
I peered over his shoulder, out the open window to the eerie, desolate skyline beyond.
He smiled. “I thought so. Come on. Let’s go.”
This was a stupid idea.
I took his hand anyway.
Lahor had seemed abandoned when we first arrived here, and the strangeness of the keep—seemingly occupied only by Evelaena and her stable of Turned children—had only made that sensation stronger. But the city, while dilapidated, was not deserted. People did indeed actually live here, congregating in the few habitable buildings throughout the city.
Or maybe “living” was too generous a term.
Raihn and I wandered through uneven, cracked roads and paths through dilapidated piles of brick. Those within peered at us with hungry, wary eyes, whispers falling to silence as we passed.
“Do you think they recognize us?” I whispered to Raihn.
“No,” he said. “No way these people know what a couple of royals from hundreds of miles away look like. They don’t recognize us, but they definitely recognize outsiders.”
That wasn’t hard. The people who lived here were twisted shadows of vampires or humans—all equally hungry. The eyes that stared at us were shadowed, more akin to those of starving animals than sentient beings. Unlike most cities in Obitraes, the city wasn’t divided into vampire and human territory—instead, everyone seemed to scurry for whatever workable shelter they could find.
Life anywhere in the House of Night was always dangerous and bloody. But here? The feral desperation festered like an infected wound. Raihn and I passed several vampires crouched over another, lying open and bleeding in the middle of the street.
A vampire body. Blood that wouldn’t even be able to keep them alive on its own, providing only the temporary pleasure of relief. But hunger that intense didn’t care.
It was hard not to shiver at the way their heads snapped up when we passed. The way their eyes followed me.
Raihn stepped a little closer to me after that, his hand on my back. We made the silent, mutual decision to drift away from the populated areas, instead wandering out toward the dunes.
Eventually, we came to the edge of a lake. It was an eerie, beautiful scene, the body formed by a crater in the ruins, remains of past destruction now cradling glassy water. Broken remnants of marble slabs jutted from the water’s surface, ghostly under the moonlight. Beyond it, several of Lahor’s tallest towers, spires of shattered stone, loomed over us.
Goosebumps rose on my arms.
“Must’ve been something,” Raihn murmured. “Long time ago.”
Yes. It was as beautiful as it was sad.
Raihn’s head turned. “Look.”
He nudged my arm and lifted his chin to our left. At the edge of the lake, a woman knelt down, filling a bucket. A human—I recognized that immediately. Her stupidity was mind-boggling to me. Why a human would be out after nightfall—even so close to dawn—in this place was beyond me.
But then again, living in constant danger made one numb to it. I knew that too well.
She didn’t see the Hiaj vampire flying overhead, landing on one of the nearby ruins and slowly climbing down, his eyes on her.
But we did.
I stiffened.
“Want to take care of that?” Raihn murmured in my ear. “I get the impression you’ve been anxious to kill something lately.”
I rubbed my fingertips together.
He thought right, as much as I hated to admit it. I craved death like an opiate addict craved their fix. And yet, a part of me was afraid.
Afraid to pierce another chest when the last one I had pierced was Raihn’s.
Afraid to hear my father’s voice in my ear.
Afraid of whatever I might not feel anymore.
The vampire crept closer.
“If you don’t move,” Raihn said, “then I will.”
But the words weren’t even out of his mouth before my decision was made.
I slipped through the ruins to circle around behind my target. I was out of practice. The terrain was unfamiliar. I wasn’t as silent as I usually was in my nighttime hunts in Sivrinaj. The vampire had turned to meet me by the time I reached him.
That was fine. I wanted more of a fight.
He came at me with his claws, but my blade was faster.
I nearly took his arm off when he swung at me. Blood dotted my face, iron-sweet when my tongue ran over it.
My target hissed and dove for me. I sidestepped, let him run himself into the wall. He wasn’t used to fighting, not really. Even compared to the laziest of Sivrinaj’s hunters, he was sluggish and unfocused. Starving. Untrained. Practically an animal.
Wings first, Vincent reminded me, and I tore two slashes through each one. Hiaj wings—so satisfyingly easy to pierce.
His claws opened a cut over my cheek. I didn’t even flinch. A strike to his leg, to make him stumble. His right shoulder, to take out his dominant arm. And then finally I had him, pi
He didn’t know my name or my title. He only smelled my human blood—the blood that made me unworthy of being anything other than food in his mind.
And now there was fear in his eyes.
For a brief moment, there it was. Power. Control.
Push hard to make it through the breastbone, Vincent whispered.
But I didn’t need my father’s advice anymore. My strike was quick and true, piercing cartilage, sliding right into his heart.
Too late, the memory hit me—of the way that this same blade had felt sliding into Raihn’s chest. That rust-red stare, urging me on.
End it, princess.
I snapped my eyes open, forced myself to replace Raihn’s face with this one. This person who deserved it. Uncomplicated. Easy.
I yanked my blade free. The vampire started to slide down the rock.