Page 35
Sighing, she finally closed her eyes.
Her temples ached, the blood running hot in her veins. The starin in her veins pulsed sluggishly. Its light guttered beneath her skin—once the color of starlight, now pale and tinged blue. She had not thought crossing the Evermist would take so long. Now, she cursed herself for not thinking what might happen if the fires in her blood rose while she was trapped amongst the shivaem.
No.
She simply wouldn’t let that happen.
Ten days to kill Lucan Valmere.
Melistra, guide me, Elarian thought as she finally drifted to sleep.
It abandoned her almost as soon as it came.
A whimper escaped her lips as Elarian opened her eyes again. Her joints ached from the cold, muscles stiff as she unfurled herself from the small hole she rested in. Tucking the silver blades back against her waist, she slowly crept back up the servants’ stairwell she had found earlier that evening.
The Blooded Court was larger than Reshva’s maps suggested. It was a city unto itself. The sprawling grounds housed thousands of vampires, their servants, and the enslaved thrall they fed from like cattle. Miles of corridors led to hundreds of chambers. Servants in nearly every corner. Rafters thick with shadows, strange beasts—shifted vampires, no doubt—watching like unmoving statues.
Too many opportunities to make a fatal mistake.
Elarian replayed every corridor she had crossed since entering the vast castle. The twisting staircases and hidden passages. How the sickly-sweet aroma of the shivaem betrayed their presence. The tapestries—so many of them elven maidens desecrated by vampires.
And, of course, the serendipitous conversation she overheard between two servants who obviously held prominence in the court.
If she leaves court to tend to her farms, there is nothing Lucan can do.
She will never do that, Senna.
Who in this cursed castle possessed enough influence over Lucan to alter his movements?
The maid…She worked for the woman.
And her mistress, in turn, had the access Elarian needed.
A slow breath escaped her lips as a smile formed. Now at the top of the stairwell, she dropped low to the ground before surveying the long corridor yawning out before her. Witchlights hung far enough apart that deep shadows welled together in the alcoves between tapestries. Permeated by the amber light, it almost felt like something from a twisted dream.
Checking for the silver at her thigh, Elarian slowly crept forward.
Enjoy these last hours, shivaem, she thought bitterly.
Elarian had little sense of time in this accursed place.
Centuries ago, when the vampires first turned the humans who once lived in the young kingdom, they hung thick curtains across the tall windows. Now, the layers of cobwebs coated with soot made them almost indistinguishable from the stone around them.
Only the stirring of mortal servants marked the passage of time.
Unlike their masters, the humans slept at regular intervals—during the day, Elarian presumed—and kept to predictable routines. Fires needed tending. Floors required polishing. Stains lifted, clothes stitched. Endless meals—fellow humans—prepared for the vampires above.
Elarian almost had to admire Lucan’s court and their efficiency.
It took her several days to track down the maid she had overheard speaking with the vampire named Senna. At first, she searched amongst the humans, for the woman moved with much less grace than the other shivaem around her. The mortals lived deep in the bowels of the castle. Though they dressed in refined clothes and had clear skin, coughs wracked their thin frames. When one collapsed in a corridor, the others skirted around their limp form as if they were a piece of furniture.
The humans serving below were too sickly, too exhausted. Whoever attended one of the Bloodlord’s inner courts would be healthier. Better fed. Better hidden.
Finding the maid in the upper halls proved no less difficult. Elarian had no idea where Lucan held his court, much less the personal rooms of his inner circle. She wandered down corridors and crept along rafters until the castle blurred into shades of black and crimson. The spiders grew accustomed to her presence in their hidden corners as she stole a few hours of sleep here and there.
At last, the maid wandered below Elarian’s perch. She floated over the smooth marble with a basket overflowing with freshly pressed gowns balanced against one hip. Every few moments, she paused to readjust her skirts, muttering under her breath too quietly for Elarian to understand.
Still, she smiled deep in her shadowed perch.
