My mouth parted. “Sabrina, you're a genius.” I hurried toward the door, stepping past her and entering a room which took my breath away.
A spiralling wooden staircase with an intricate iron railing sat at the heart of the room. The walls were built from packed bookshelves, reaching all the way above me to a circular skylight which allowed light in. The stained glass cast the place in deep red and amber tones, making the floor ripple with colour.
I moved further into the space, taking in the books. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. An endless amount of worlds to get lost in.
“Count Erik adds to his collection regularly,” Sabrina said as she followed me into the room then pointed to the staircase. “There's a seating area up there. When he's not working, he can always be found here. But only me and a few other guards know about it. When the Count is here, he doesn't want to be found.”
I glanced back at her with a nod, my eyes prickling with emotion. My dad would have loved it here. He'd often spoken of the library he'd visited before the Final War. He said a book was a portal and when life got tough, you only needed to enter one to forget your woes for a while.
I remembered why I was here and turned to Sabrina with a small smile. “Is it okay if I have some time alone in here?”
“Of course Mis- Montana.” She bowed her head, exiting the room and shutting the door behind her.
A breath of relief sailed past my lips. This room was a tantalising piece of Erik. And it felt more like home than any other place I'd visited in the city.
I crept up the staircase, reaching out with my senses as I tried to locate Nightmare. I was sure it was close. Like a fragment of my soul was calling to me.
I know you're here. Where are you?
I reached the top of the stairs and found myself on a wide balcony. Between two rows of shelves was a black armchair. Beside it was a table with a bottle of whiskey atop it. I moved toward it, the scent of Erik everywhere in this place. I shut my eyes, wondering if he'd care that I was trespassing on his sacred space.
I stood by the chair, detecting a thrum of energy coming from beneath it. Bending down, I slid a wooden box out from under the seat. My pulse quickened. My heart pinched with longing.
I pushed the top off of it and found Nightmare wrapped in a thick sheath of leather. Unravelling it, I took the shining gold blade in my grip and released a sigh of relief.
Moon Child, it purred.
I had no idea why I was so attached to this thing. But it immediately swept calm through my veins, soothing the aching grief in my soul.
“My dad's gone,” I whispered, unsure why I was telling a hunk of metal. But it had always brought me comfort before. And I needed that now more than ever.
We shall end the one who did this.
I nodded, my veins surging with energy.
Drive me into the culprit's heart.
Determination gripped me as I stuffed the blade in the back of my jeans and pulled my t-shirt over it. I spotted a row of scrolls lining a shelf and moved toward it, taking one in my palm. Carrying it to the box, I wrapped the leather around it and pushed the box back into its hiding place. I didn't know how long it would be before Erik figured out I'd taken the knife. But I prayed it was long enough for me to kill Wolfe with it.
I turned toward the staircase, but my eye was caught by a book beside the whiskey bottle. A page was marked with a black feather and my fingers itched to see what Erik had been reading. Picking it up, I carefully opened the large book and took the feather between my finger and thumb.
The words swam before me for a moment as I adjusted to the small, printed text. A paragraph was circled in red ink. Slowly, I deciphered the words Erik had highlighted, my heart hammering in my chest.
Andvari: Master of gold. Mythology recounts him in many forms. From a god, to a dwarf, to a powerful mortal.
The legend speaks of a magical ring, Andvaranaut, which held great power. It was one of many pieces of treasure possessed by Andvari and the gods often tried to steal it from him.
“Montana!” Sabrina called to me. “Count Erik has summoned you to the city, we must leave immediately!”
I nearly dropped the book in alarm, quickly placing the feather back inside it and resting it down where I'd found it. I pushed away my annoyance at Erik for beckoning me like a pet and hoped this was to do with Wolfe.
Jogging downstairs, I found Sabrina holding a fine navy coat for me. I put it on, my heart beating harder and harder.
As we stepped out into the garden, I spotted two royal guards standing there in dark uniforms. They led us around the house to a wide gravel driveway where a black car was waiting.
Sabrina dropped into the back of the vehicle, placing her sword over her lap.
My heart did back-flips as I reached behind me and quickly slid Nightmare into a pocket inside the coat before following her.
“What’s this about?” I asked Sabrina.
“I’m not sure,” she replied.
The driver glanced over his shoulder at me. “Count Erik has made an arrest in the city.”
My heart stumbled. I had to be ready. Resolve found a space in my chest and blossomed like dark flowers.
I'll kill you for what you've taken from me, Wolfe. You're about to find out what happens to anyone who hurts my family.
Julius still hadn’t returned and I was beginning to grow irritable. We’d been tracking a lead on the whereabouts of the Revenant Miles for the past three months and now that we were finally getting close to a breakthrough, the trail had gone cold.
I huddled against the freezing rock face in my thick furs and tried not to shiver. I was unsuccessful. My anger over losing the vampire who fancied himself a god was doubled by the fact that he had led us to the top of this goddamned mountain before he’d disappeared.
It didn’t make sense. We’d been right behind him. I’d seen him with my own two eyes as he’d fled, taking this trail while his disciples slowed us down. The climb was sheer and treacherous. There was no other way to the summit and no way he could have passed us to make it back down without falling from the cliffs and dashing his brains out on the jagged rocks below.
Immortality wasn’t enough to make him capable of surviving that fall uninjured. Even if he’d decided it was worth breaking his body to escape us, I was sure we would have seen signs that he’d taken that option.
I cursed him again as I waited for my brother. Night was drawing in and I was beginning to wonder if we were about to fall prey to some trap ourselves. Perhaps instead of fleeing he was really lying in wait somewhere, hoping to ambush us on the way back down.
A savage part of me hoped that was the case. It had been three days since I’d cut through the most recent of his immortal offspring and Tempest hungered for more blood. I’d promised the blade a meal of Revenant souls and my first target should have been within reach.
I shifted my gaze beyond the patch of scrub which I was using for shelter and looked towards the horizon. The sea twinkled in the distance, cold as steel and twice as deadly. It called to me in a way that I couldn’t quite describe. A part of me hungered to travel the seas like our Viking cousins. I wished to see new worlds, fight new foes. Perhaps once I’d rid the world of the Revenant scum, I would...
I focused on the sea, almost convincing myself that I could hear the crash of great waves against the rocks. Yes, that noise called to me but it was more than just a promise of adventure. It was a whisper of freedom. If I crossed the seas in the name of the gods would they release me from my bond to Valentina?
I rubbed my hand over my chest, wishing I could remove the tattoo which sealed my betrothal bond to her. It was the one mark on my skin which I wasn’t proud of. Every other scar or tattoo meant something to me. But that mark just felt like a chain binding me to a fate I didn’t want.
I still hadn’t married her. Eighteen months was a long time to keep her waiting. But the prophet had only foreseen our betrothal and until someone saw an actual wedding, I was
keeping up my end of the bargain. Not that Valentina saw it that way. She tried to convince me to choose a date at every opportunity.
I didn’t for the life of me understand why she was so desperate to bind her soul to a man who didn’t want her. The more she insisted she loved me, the more I bucked against the idea of tying myself to her. I knew it was pointless. In the end the gods would expect me to fulfil the promise I’d made to her. But I’d seen true love in my parents. Every look they exchanged, every touch, even their disagreements were filled with passion. I knew what love looked like and Valentina wasn’t it.
A branch snapped a little to my left and I pulled Tempest into my grasp. I recognised the breaking branch as Julius’s signal that he was approaching but we could never be too careful. There was a Revenant on the loose and despite it seeming as though he’d alluded us, I wasn’t about to count on it. Such a powerful being stood a good chance against two slayers, even if we were the youngest clansmen to ever take our vows.
Julius appeared and I relaxed a little. “What took you so long?” I asked irritably. “My limbs are ready to drop off.”
“Well we wouldn’t want your infamous backside to freeze now would we? Perhaps we should have brought Valentina with us to rub it better for you.”
I snorted a laugh. It wasn’t really fair of us to mock her as we did but my wife-to-be had become the subject of many such jokes recently. I knew she was only keen to follow the directions of the gods but I found it hard to respect someone who was so desperate for their approval that they would forgo their own opinion. She was so eager to believe we were fated to be together that I doubted she even cared about who I truly was. Nothing I did could diminish my image in her eyes and it had become somewhat embarrassing.
“Did you find signs of the monster?” I asked, turning the subject back to our hunt.
“No. I’m beginning to think you were right; he found a way to escape us again. Perhaps he never truly took this path. He could have doubled back or maybe he jumped from the cliffs lower down? A few broken bones wouldn’t stop him for long.” Julius scrubbed a hand over his short hair and sighed.
“But why?” I asked, the question itching at me like a fresh wound. “He’s avoided us until now but I had the distinct impression that he’d led us here to finish our quarrel with him. Why turn and flee at the final second? What made him blink?”
“I don’t know brother,” Julius replied with a shrug. He never questioned the vampires’ motivations the way that I did. He preferred to focus on hunting them down and killing whoever we found. Wondering what made them tick wasn’t high on his list of priorities. But it always infuriated me. If we could only know what they wanted or where they would strike next then we could get ahead of them.
Instead it always seemed that we ended up like this; following cold trails and staying one step behind them. It was infuriating. They almost seemed to know what we’d do before we knew ourselves.
“Something doesn’t feel right about this,” I grumbled as I began to lead the way back down off of the godforsaken mountain. “I know he was going to face us. If he changed his plan there has to be a reason for it. And the fact that we have no idea what that is makes me feel more uneasy than I can explain.”
“Have the gods spoken to you to make you so uneasy?” Julius asked. He always questioned me when I had gut feelings like this but I was rarely wrong.
“No. As always the gods remain silent in every aspect of my life besides my marriage,” I replied irritably.
Julius clapped a hand on my shoulder and led the way out of our hiding place so that we could start our descent.
The path was even harder to navigate on the way down and loose rocks rolled beneath my feet at each step, threatening to send me tumbling to the foot of the mountain.
The daylight was fading fast and our progress only slowed as it became more treacherous to choose where to place our feet. I was half tempted to call a halt to our journey and make camp until daylight. Not that we’d be able to get much sleep between huddling on a rock face and the howling wind tormenting us.
Ignoring my better judgment on the safety of our descent, we carried on. I wanted to put the damned mountain behind me and find somewhere warm to see out the night. There had been a tavern in the last town we passed through and with a bit of luck someone there might be persuaded to give us some information on where Miles could have headed. Tongues tended to loosen after a few drinks and a bribe or threat might be all it took to track him down.
An icy wind buffeted us, it almost felt as though it was trying to fling us from the rocky outcrop we clung to. I frowned up at the dark sky as specks of snow began to fall.
“Curse this weather,” I swore. “I should have brought a storm-weaver with us.” The members of the Clan of Storms weren’t strong enough to change the weather unless they worked together. But a strong enough clansman would have been able to provide us with a warm wind at the very least.
“Oh? And who would you have chosen to join us? I’m sure you wouldn’t have selected Valentina. Elvard creates more wind from his ass than he can conjure from the elements. And I’d sooner freeze my manhood off than spend weeks in the wilderness with Hoft,” Julius joked. “I’ll settle for a village girl to warm my bed tonight and accept the bastard storm while we’re stuck in it.”
“You have a point,” I conceded. There was more than one reason that we had chosen to travel alone to take on Miles. Two warriors were quicker, less noticeable and more likely to be underestimated by our enemy. If I’d brought a full host after him then he would have fled far sooner than this. Aside from that, I enjoyed my brother’s company above that of anyone else. If I was going to spend weeks alone with anyone then it would always be him.
I’d hoped that Miles’s ego wouldn’t have let him run from the two of us. A mighty Revenant afraid to face two slayers in the wilderness? Surely that couldn’t be the case. But it would seem that I’d misjudged him again.
I stood in the small washroom and inspected my nose in the mirror. Magnar had insisted it wasn’t broken and I begrudgingly had to agree. It still hurt like hell though.
The sun shone in through the large window and gave me plenty of light to see by. Despite the fact that my intention had been to look at my injuries, my gaze kept snagging on my reflection instead. We’d never had a decent mirror in the Realm and I’d never seen such a clear image of my own face before.
The blue in my eyes was more intense than I’d realised. It sparkled like the colour of the sky on a perfect summer’s day.
Aside from that, I felt like something had changed in the girl who looked back at me now. Like the gifts I’d been given were shining through my skin, adding a touch of colour to my once pale complexion. My hair seemed more vibrant too, almost glittering as the sunlight caught on it.
I twisted my fingers through it, beginning to braid it like I always had when standing before our mirror at home. The familiar movements sent a surge of longing through me as if any moment now Montana would start pounding on the door insisting I hurry up while Dad called us through for breakfast. I’d never miss the Realm but I’d always miss that.
“Don’t,” Magnar said softly behind me and I turned to find him standing in the doorway.
“Don’t what?” I asked in confusion.
He reached out and stilled my busy fingers. I dropped my hands as he gently teased the braid back out of my hair. My scalp tingled while he worked my hair loose again and his gaze slowly slid to meet mine.
Neither of us moved towards each other. We couldn’t have even if we’d wanted to. But the air that flowed through the inch of space separating us felt alive with energy.
Magnar let out a heavy breath and released my hair. “If you’re done admiring yourself, the morning is wearing thin.” He turned and marched away from me, making me feel like he’d just dumped a bucket of cold water over my head.
I glanced at myself in the mirror one last time, confirming I’d removed all of the blood from my
face before I hurried after him. I ran my fingers through my loose hair, wondering if he just preferred it this way. Why else would he have cared how I wore it?
“I wasn’t admiring myself,” I clarified as he led the way out of the farmhouse. The horses were waiting for us and Magnar had already placed our meagre belongings onto the mare’s back in preparation for our departure. “I was checking the damage you’d done to my face.”
“If you don’t care what your face looks like then why would you bother?” He untied the rope securing the stallion to the fence without turning to look at me.
“Well I definitely prefer my nose straight so if you could avoid punching it again then I’d appreciate it,” I snipped.
“No promises. If you don’t want me to punch your perfect face then you’ll have to stop me from doing so.”
My heart fluttered unexpectedly. “You think my face is perfect?” I asked.
Magnar stilled halfway through checking the mare’s lead rope and looked up at me. “I didn’t say that.”
“You did actually.” I stepped closer to him, my mouth pulling into a playful smile.
“Get on the horse.”
“Not until you admit it,” I pushed.
“Alright.” Magnar dropped the lead rope and closed the distance between us. I looked up at him expectantly but instead of admitting what he’d said, he lunged at me, giving me no time to reach for my gifts. He caught me around the waist and I squealed as he threw me over his shoulder. I tried to fight my way out of his grip but he held an arm clamped heavily over my legs and wouldn’t release me.
“Put me down,” I begged but he ignored me.
He tossed me over the stallion’s back so that I laid across him face down. I scrambled to push myself upright as Magnar jumped up behind me but he grabbed my arms and yanked them behind my back.
“Elder what are you doing?” I bit my tongue in frustration as it forced me to speak that stupid word in place of his name again. I protested as he used the reins to tie my wrists at the base of my spine, immobilising me in the uncomfortable position.
Age of Vampires- The Complete Series Page 51
