Page 22
Elarian stood and surveyed her surroundings. Somewhere, she would find stairs, a door, and eventually, the bedchambers where this would finally end. A lone witchlight flickered in a wall mount, amber glow reflected by a smoky glass sconce around the eternal flame. Long shadows crawled across polished black stone. Thick slabs of gray formed a wall, interrupted only by the occasional shelf holding empty decanters. Elarian fished a damp—but clean—cloth from her breast pocket and wiped the muck from her face.
The castle smelled wrong.
Beneath the perfumes and smoky incense, a sickly-sweet stench lingered—rich and full of earth, like crushed berries left too long in the summer heat.
Blood.
It had soaked through every tapestry hung on these stolen walls, seeped into rock and dirt until its memory could never be erased. Crimson and silver, blessings from the gods now spilled by those they had cursed ages ago. The thought sickened Elarian until her stomach churned and her bile rose.
As her gaze wandered, she spied a doorway to an adjacent chamber; a low hum emanated from within.
Skin prickling, Elarian crouched low to the ground. Water still steadily dripped from her hair and clothes; a mild inconvenience. Closing her eyes, she pictured dark clouds swallowing a full moon. As she breathed out, a thin layer of blackish-gray smoke gathered at her hands and feet. She sank lower to the ground, steps silent across the stone.
Elarian fingered the hilt of the silver dagger strapped against her thigh, her other hand unconsciously checking for the throwing blades at her waist. Cold metal stung against her hands now hot with anticipation. She crawled forward. The room was silent besides the muffled drip, drip of her waterlogged clothes. Strange portraits hung over the entryway, their eyes following her every move—eternally frozen, forever watching, even as dust clung to the frames and cobwebs sprawled over their thin smiles.
Edging closer, Elarian caught the unmistakable scent of a shivaem. Her nostrils flared. A tightness grew in her chest, familiar with every kill.
A chair creaked.
She froze, one hand in the air like a dog performing a trick.
“Bloody fucking mess is what this is,” a male voice muttered before sighing. “‘Oh, Braeth, I don’t understand why we need so many hunting parties!’ You know godsdamned well why, Anileta. The eastern cistern, the fucking eastern one!” Something pounded on wood.
Anileta. A name, and seemingly of someone important. Elarian’s grip tightened around the dagger. She inhaled; shit, blood, and sickening sweetness filled her lungs.
Silver flashed through smoke and shadows. In one breath, she swiftly crossed the space between her and the vampire, his back to the open door, hunched over a mess of papers and half-empty goblets.
He turned just enough for her to see red.
Metal sank into flesh, soft and eager to accept. Black liquid sprayed; a fountain most foul as a putrescent odor followed. A clawed hand reached for Elarian’s throat. She twisted to one side, blade now slicing down at the shivaem. Wet gurgles rose from his quivering lips as she sank the silver into his heart.
The vampire sank to the floor like a wilting flower. Black blood oozed from his wounds—a deep puncture to his throat and gaping hole in his chest—as his body thrashed. Red spread across his porcelain skin, lesions forming around his neck and mouth.
For a breath, she did not move.
Her gaze stayed where the vampire’s snarling face had been a moment ago. Slowly, she unclenched her hand clutching a throwing knife at her side. The world snapped back into place. Done. It was done. Elarian’s gaze fell to the shivaem at her feet.
She always loved how death revealed their grotesque nature.
Knowing better than to linger, she bent and retrieved her dagger and wiped the blood on the vampire’s torn black coat. Admiring its clean form only for a moment, she tucked it back against her thigh. The twisted thing fell still at her feet. Still, she did not permit herself to smile. It was an easy kill. Convenient.
But it brought her no closer to Lucan.
Moving with the practiced motion betraying her long years of dealing death from the shadows, she stripped the vampire of everything except the golden pendant at his breast. It was the one code Elarian gave herself—never remove jewelry. She would kill but not steal another’s memories, even if they were a godsdamned shivaem.
Soon, Elarian had stripped, wiped what filth she could from her body, and changed into the blood-stained clothes of her first victim. Scratchy and far too loose on her lithe frame, but enough for now. She fussed endlessly with them before throwing her hands up and tying a cord around her waist.
Ridiculous.
Reshva had better have the softest finery for her when she returned home.
At last, Elarian turned her attention to the body. It had begun to stink already—burnt flesh mixed with the rot of death perfuming the stale cellar air. Red pustules covered nearly every inch of the once-perfect skin. Black, unseeing eyes stared up at the ceiling, mouth agape as if pleading for mercy. Using her old tunic—the only item of clothing not completely caked in feces—she grabbed the corpse by the wrists and dragged it to the sewer drain. The body slumped in easily enough, splashing in the fetid water below with a satisfying thunk.
Elarian slammed the metal grating down with her foot. A thin smile flicked across her lips.
One down.
Elarian returned to the cramped room; little more than a desk strewn with parchment and several shelves filled with gears, chains, and something that looked like a fishing tool. Rifling through the papers revealed little. Maintenance lists filled several pages. Three more were dedicated entirely to the problem of disease amongst the vampiric thrall. Another hinted at shoring up defenses along the sewer lines with a note in the margins that this was of low priority.
