The idea that she’d been manipulative and made him believe she’d cared hurt too much. While he’d buried that pain after ten years, the simple mention of her name by the Nahli man had brought it all rushing back into his mind.
The vampire broke down, shoulders heaving with his breaths. Tears marked his cheeks, and he struggled to think. Though he had no plan or even a potential path to concoct one, he knew he had to get her back.
Athan remained in his tent for several days, unable to function on any meaningful level. His haunting thoughts regarding Kayla Sipesh had cast him into a deep depression. That slowly began to give way to a much more welcome and understood feeling, however.
Anger.
The depression started to lift and something broke loose inside him. When someone finally dared to check in on him, he’d attacked the man and ripped out his throat. No one dared to try again.
He started to convince himself that Kayla hadn’t simply run away of her own accord. Perhaps the Nahli had taken her against her will and were holding her prisoner. It was easier to believe not only for his ego, but it helped push away the sickening heartache of rejection.
The Nahli’s claim she was alive and presumably living amongst the ice people made some degree of sense if it were true. He couldn’t imagine Sytir had come up with the name unless he had at least met Kayla Sipesh.
Athan had no way of seeing into the northern wastes as even the most gifted seers were unable to peer into the territory the Nahli inhabited, Sabetha being no exception. Athan had long ago tried to travel there, wanting to know what stopped Sabetha and others from seeing within the region. In doing so, he’d discovered a barrier that stripped him of his abilities, and he suspected it kept seers like Sabetha from looking within.
During his attempt, he’d flown along as a raven, marveling at the vast expanse of snow and ice below him, and the eerie, moving ghost lights illuminating the night sky. However, those northern lights did something to the air that began to affect him on a profound level. The vampire had flown far enough northward to where the lights were almost directly over his head, and then he’d plummeted to the ground, stunned.
Athan had fallen to the snow, shifting back into his actual physical form. He’d been rendered unable to use any of his powers at all, and he’d been forced to walk for miles until he was far away from those damn shifting bands of color in the sky. Only then had he been able to change forms again and flee the region.
If Kayla was up with the Nahli and under those ethereal lights, it was no wonder Sabetha had never spotted her, or why he’d never heard any tales of her afterward.
Athan struggled to come up with a plan. If the other Nahli were as powerful as Sytir, and Athan’s own powers were useless in the northern wastes, it was simply out of the question for him to go there and take Kayla back. The notion she wouldn’t want to come back was something he refused to ponder any further. She couldn’t possibly be happy living up in a barren wasteland of ice.
The old pain of being deceived and thinking she’d run away had been too much for him to bear. The idea she’d been kidnapped by the Nahli, though… it gave him a reason to be angry instead of sad. Pushing the blame onto the Nahli somehow made it better.
He decided there had to be a way to not only stop the Nahli from interfering with his country’s sovereignty but to regain control and ownership of Kayla Sipesh once more.
Athan decided to remain in the area for a while longer to study the storm and see if it was definitively being held in place by the Nahli. He held out hope Sytir would appear out of the storm to talk in the meanwhile, but the vampire didn’t honestly expect the Nahli man to come. The storm offered a level of protection Sytir would have to be mad to surrender around Athan.
The vampire finally got up from where he lay, deciding he’d wasted enough time wallowing in his own thoughts. While it wasn’t completely unlike him to vanish now and again for lengths of time as he dealt with issues within his own mind, this wasn’t the time for it.
Things were obviously changing in his corner of the world, and he needed to find a way to get back into control.
* * *
Corina had caught a ride on a supply wagon heading down into Tordan Lea. She was soaked through from the rain by the time she was dropped off before the cathedral in town, but she’d left the castle in a hurry and hadn’t taken the time to prepare. Luckily, though wet, she wasn’t particularly cold as the spring thunderstorm hadn’t brought much wind.
She walked up the steps into the stone edifice, carrying the demon’s body in her arms. The interior of the building was quiet, but she spotted a young man inside who directed her to Father Beezle’s office.
The door was open, and she stepped in, finding the small priest sitting on the floor, arranging the books on the lowest shelf of his bookcase.
He heard her enter and struggled to get up as quickly as his aged body would allow. “Corina! It is good to see you.”
She offered him a smile in return before going over and setting what she held on the corner of his desk near the back of the office.
“It is good to see you as well, Father Beezle, but I’m afraid this isn’t a social visit on my part.” Corina turned to face him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, moving closer.
“We found something inside the castle.” Corina frowned. “It has us terribly concerned.”
His eyes widened as he turned his sights toward the wrapped object she’d placed on his desk. “And what did you find?”
She turned around and pulled away the grain sack, revealing the crushed demon lying on the cutting board. The creature’s gray skin had taken on a dusty hue despite the rain that had soaked through the bag. The viscous, black ichor that had leeched from its body had pooled on the cutting board and gelled, leaving the tiny corpse glued in place.
Randall went closer to it, leaning down and perching his glasses on the end of his nose for a better look. He was silent for a bit before standing up and shaking his head.
“Well, what do you think?” Corina asked, anxious for his answer.
He turned around slowly, pulling off his glasses. “You brought it here because you feared it was a demon, I assume? And if that is the case, yes, it is a demon.”
“I feared as much,” she said. “Where would such a thing have come from?”
“I’ve been doing quite a bit of study on them as of late to try and figure that out. I hate to say it, but this isn’t the first one I’ve seen,” he replied, moving to sit in one of the chairs before his desk and motioning for her to take the other seat.
Corina sat in the other chair. “There have been more of these?”
“Aye,” Randall said. “I saw the first one just like this when I was exhuming Ilana from the cemetery. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but then I had a farmer bring one in that he’d killed after it had torn apart one of his piglets, and the blacksmith killed one in his shop, too.”
“It killed a piglet? Then they are dangerous.”
“I’m afraid so. If more than one of them were to attack a child…” He paused and looked up at the ceiling. “I was hoping there would just be the three, but if you found one in the castle…”
“Has your research given you any idea why they’ve cropped up suddenly?” Corina asked.
“Not to my satisfaction. We know Peirte Methaius was summoning, and I think their appearance might be related, but I can’t be certain,” Father Beezle replied. “These are just feral, juvenile entities, but if they aren’t dealt with while small, they will only get more difficult to destroy. For now, killing them is a simple matter, but that will change as they feed and grow.”
Corina reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Then I suppose some sort of hunt for these little monsters should be organized.”
“Aye, it would be a reasonable thing to do,” Randall agreed. “I wish Keir were around to authorize such a thing.”
“I don’t think he’d mind one bit if you were ab
le to ask people to do it,” she countered. “You are the authority on these things, and you have a considerable audience several times a week.”
The old priest gave a nod and came up with a smile. “I suppose that is true enough. I’ll try to get it organized.”
Chapter 4
Keiran awoke, hearing movement in the corridor outside of the room he and his two guards shared. He pulled himself up from the bed, already dressed as they’d decided they would remain ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
He moved to where the spare bed had been shoved in front of the door and pulled it aside before looking out into the hallway. There were several guards from his entourage already out and going door-to-door to rouse the others.
“What’s going on?” he asked as one came closer.
The guard was bleary eyed from being woken from a sound sleep but did his best to come up with a coherent answer. “The Alerians said we need to come down for a headcount and to receive further instructions.”
Kanan had woken upon hearing the room door open, and he emerged beside the king. “The Alerians are ordering us around?”
The guard offered a lax shrug.
Kanan looked at Keiran and shook his head. “We shouldn’t have come. Nothing is making sense.”
“I hate to admit it, but I’m starting to think you’re absolutely right,” Keiran replied. “Still, we don’t have enough men to fight our way back out of here. We have to comply to see what is going on. Wake Jerris and we’ll all head downstairs to see what they want.”
Not long after, Keiran emerged with his two companions out into the street before the inn. All of his other men were present, encircled by armed Alerians.
Upon seeing the Tordanian king emerge, a man moved forward to meet the foreigners.
“Good morning, Your Majesty,” he said, bowing deeply before the vampire. “We are honored to have you here. I am Stepan Garasim, leader of the Alerian Royal Guard.”
Keiran felt anxiety coming from the man, just as he had sensed from the other Alerians surrounding them. He glanced at Jerris and Kanan before speaking up.
“Good morning to you as well.” Keiran kept his expression neutral. “We’re rather curious about being called out here like this. We’ve been treated strangely since arriving in your country.”
Stepan clasped his hands together before his chest, trying to remain calm. “You must understand, we need to take certain precautions given the circumstances.”
Though Keiran knew, he asked anyway, crossing his arms over his chest. “And what circumstances would those be, exactly?”
Stepan took another step closer and lowered his voice, glancing around nervously in the process. “Of you being a vampire, of course. The queen’s order to bring you here was in direct opposition to Aleria’s long-standing policy of not allowing vampires within our borders.”
“I wasn’t aware of such a policy. No one bothered to mention it. I must admit I’m rather ill-informed regarding your country,” Keiran said, frowning. “If we’d known, we would have spared you the trouble of accepting the queen’s invitation.”
“Your mother was Alerian, Your Majesty, I find it hard to believe you to be so ignorant of our customs.” Stepan furrowed his brow.
“Well, sadly, I am,” Keiran admitted. “She died before I ever had a chance to know her.”
Kanan looked at his Alerian counterpart and narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps it would be best for us to simply turn around and leave if this is so terribly disturbing to you.”
Stepan’s cheeks flushed red and he shook his head quickly. “I’ve overstepped my place, I apologize. Queen Adira does wish to meet with King Sipesh. It would be a terrible waste of your time to have you turn back at this point.”
Kanan looked at Keiran, awaiting his verdict.
The vampire looked at the ground, taking a deep breath. “Then I suppose it would be best for us to go see her right away. The sooner my business here is done, the quicker I can leave your country in peace.”
“Very good, then!” Stepan said, relaxing. “You may bring three of your men with you, but we will need the rest of your guards to remain here. They will be well taken care of in the meanwhile.”
Jerris shook his head and took a step closer to the Alerian. “What the hell do you mean? You expect us to leave most of our king’s protection here?”
“We simply cannot accommodate this many men in the palace,” Stepan said, eyes widening. “You will be returned to them before nightfall, I assure you.”
Keiran started to press forward hard with his senses, desperately prying into Stepan’s mind. There wasn’t any deception he could see. The guard was either telling the truth, or at least he was being honest with what he’d been told himself. There was a roiling mix of other emotions, however, and they confused Keiran as he didn’t know what they were anchored to.
The redhead huffed and looked at Keiran and his father. “This is going very badly.”
Keiran spoke just above a whisper to his companions. “He believes he’s telling us the truth.”
“But he might have been lied to,” Kanan countered, flashing a glance toward their host.
“Aye, possible,” Keiran replied. “But we’re grievously outnumbered, regardless. Whether we’re split away from the other men or not is almost a moot point for now. We need to see this queen. He says I can take three guards, I prefer, however, just to take the both of you.”
Stepan began to grow uneasy from the Tordanians huddling together and talking while he stood close by. “We should get underway.”
The vampire grit his teeth and turned toward the man, forcing back his frustration and anger as best he could, though there was already a dull ache setting in over his canines. “Very well, we’ll go with you. I would like these two men to be my escorts. I have no need for a third.”
Stepan finally smiled and swept an arm to the side toward a waiting coach. “Good! If you will, Your Majesty.”
The three men climbed into the coach. Keiran and Jerris on one side, Kanan on the other. They remained silent until the coach started moving, so their conversation would be muted to the driver and guards now escorting them toward the palace.
“Why are we going with them?” Jerris asked, scowling out the window. “We should have refused and taken our men and turned around.”
“You honestly think they would have let us do that?” Keiran replied.
“I’m not the mind reader, here,” the redhead shot back.
“I hardly qualify as one myself,” Keiran said. “I don’t think we would have been allowed to turn around, and with only eleven of us, we wouldn’t have been able to fight off the fifty guards surrounding us. I’m not willing to let my men die like that.”
“How do you know they won’t just kill them anyway?” Jerris asked.
Keiran shrugged.
Kanan leaned forward. “If the goal was to kill all of us, they would have just done so. If they are out to kill anyone, it’s just us at this point. They can simply ship our other men out of the country easily enough. They’re interested in Keir.”
“Good, that makes me feel much better to know they will just kill the three of us,” Jerris said, sinking down further into his seat.
“I just don’t feel like they’re out to kill us,” Keiran said. “I don’t know why, but that isn’t the end game here.”
The younger guard grumbled to himself before fixing his sights out of a window. He was officially terrified, but he’d be damned if he was going to let Keiran or his father know that.
Keiran, however, could feel it clearly enough. He’d been picking up on it since he’d had his drink the night before, and there was a good amount of worry coming from Kanan, too. Both men were unwilling to show it, however.
They made the rest of the trip up to the palace in silence. Once it was within view, all of them looked out the window, amazed at what they saw.
While the palace Keiran and Jerris had seen in the Sador Empire had been massive, th
e complex they were nearing now dwarfed even that. The elegantly pointed spires of the Alerian palace jutted high into the air, the compound sitting on a hill in the middle of their capital city.
The main structure was composed of a light gray stone with red tiles capping the assorted towers. Within the wall surrounding the compound, there were multiple other buildings. Outside of the wall, a lightly forested area ringed the entire site before giving away to the densely packed streets of the town.
“Keir, I’m starting to feel like Tordania is a dump,” Jerris said.
The vampire elbowed him in the side for it, but he didn’t have a particularly witty comeback because he, too, had been thinking much the same thing.
Within minutes, they pulled through the palace’s substantial gates. They were comprised of massive hardwood planks, layered over with gold leafing. The vast courtyard was filled with guards, and when the carriage stopped, the door was quickly pulled open.
Keiran and his two guards climbed out, looking around and taking inventory of how many guards there were around them. While there had been fifty or so near the inn, there were twice as many now surrounding them.
“Can they honestly be this scared of you?” Jerris asked quietly as they watched Stepan come toward them again.
“I suppose it’s better to be safe than sorry,” Keiran said, his voice wavering. Whatever confidence he’d been trying to show was faltering as the anxiety of his companions started to get the better of him.
“If you will all kindly follow me,” Stepan said as some of the guards parted to give them a pathway to the palace’s entrance.
Kanan and Jerris flanked Keiran as they began to move forward. The guards around them looked on with worried eyes, many of them standing with their hands on the hilts of their swords.
Kanan’s experienced eyes casually flicked upward before he leaned closer to Keiran, whispering in his ear. “Archers up in the towers and on the walls, all with arrows nocked and ready.”
The Lost Duke Page 9
