Page 28
Neither man moved.
The rooftop stretched between them like a drawn blade, a sharp tension that frayed the very edges of the chilly night air. The broken statues loomed around us like silent witnesses, their shattered wings catching the ghostly light from the fractured stars.
I crossed my arms tighter. “Someone. Start. Talking.”
Valden slowly turned first, his long coat flaring around him. He addressed me, but his eyes, cold and hard, stared at Remiel. “Fine. I’ll go first.” Each word dripped with the bitter taste of old blood. “A century ago…there was a fledgling bloodline in Prague. Fragile but…promising. We were under celestial protection. Or so we were led to believe.” The disdain in his voice could have shattered stones, and his voice dropped to a dangerous softness. “And then, the tribunal sent their dogs. Their righteous hounds to slaughter what they deemed a threat in my home.”
He didn’t need to look at Remiel to name him the executioner. The accusation hung heavy and damning in the air.
Remiel’s jaw tightened, a visible crack in his carefully constructed celestial composure. “It wasn’t a home,” he said, his voice vibrating with suppressed intensity. “It was a nest. You harbored abominations and half-turned things, twisted by power they couldn’t control. They were killing without restraint.”
His laugh was soft, a sound that held only pain. “She was not an abomination.”
“She was dangerous,” Remiel shot back, his voice rising.
I shifted my weight, a cold unease threading through my spine. This was old poisoned history. “She?” I asked, my voice quiet in the sudden lull.
Valden’s mouth curved into a smile. It was thin and broken. Haunted. “Her name was Isolde.” The name was a raw wound in the cold night air. “She wore my ring.”
Strange way to say she was his wife, but what did I know?
My breath caught because there was no mistaking the profound, unyielding bitterness and loss carved into his voice. I turned to Remiel, seeing the sudden tightness around his mouth, the almost imperceptible flaring of his nostrils. “You killed someone he loved.”
“I followed orders,” Remiel said stiffly, his voice devoid of emotion. “We didn’t know who she was until it was too late.”
“Convenient,” Valden hissed. “You burned her to ash and salted the very ground where she stood. A thorough cleansing, wouldn’t you say, Guardian?”
The wind rose between them, tugging at their coats and snarling in their hair. The old pain, the ancient grief, hung so heavily that it almost had mass—a suffocating presence.
“It wasn’t personal,” Remiel said, his voice quieter now but no less brutal. “It was a necessity.”
“For you, that’s always the case, isn’t it?” Valden sneered, his face a mask of contempt. “Duty. Sacrifice. Blood offered on the altar of your unforgiving righteousness.”
I stepped back a pace, drawing the cold air into my lungs and feeling out of my depth. I then exhaled slowly, trying to regain some semblance of control. “Enough.” My voice was firm, cutting through the charged silence. I turned to the vampire. “You want my help, Valden? Then stop trying to measure your grief against his guilt. It’s a pointless exercise. Tell me what matters now.”
His attention snapped back to me like a whip. His smile, when it returned, was slow, devoid of any warmth. “Of course, Miss Vex,” he murmured, his voice smooth once again. “Shall we speak of present tragedies then? Of new losses to lie upon old graves?”
And just like that, the night, already dark and treacherous, shifted again. I rolled my eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn’t launch into the star-dusted, indifferent sky overhead.
“Vampires,” I muttered, the word a universal sigh of exasperation. “Now that we are done with the supernatural dick-measuring contest, back to business. You said you’d give me answers. Well? Spit them out.”
His smile held for a moment longer, his gaze sweeping from me to Remiel and back again, as if weighing his words. “Very well, Miss Vex. To the heart of it then.” He straightened, the theatricality falling away and being replaced by an almost grim demeanor. “Lysanthe is not merely missing. I believe she was taken. And not by any common denizen of the night.” He paused. “She was investigating something for me. Something…delicate. Concerning artifacts of considerable power, artifacts that are best left undisturbed.”
My blood ran a little colder. Lysanthe, for all her wildness, was no fool. If she was in over her head, it was deep.
“Why me, Valden?” I asked, my voice sharp. “Prague is crawling with your kind. You have resources and influence.”
“Indeed,” he said with a slight inclination of his head. “But none were her friends. None possess your…unique perspective, Cassia. Your ability to navigate the liminal spaces, to see the threads others miss. You understand the shadows in a way few others do. And she trusted you. If there are only whispers, you are the one to find them.” He reached into his coat and produced a small folded piece of paper. “Her last confirmed safe house. She was to report from there. She never did.”
I took the parchment. The address was a stark black script against creamy vellum. The weight of it felt immense.
Remiel was a silent storm at my side, his disapproval a palpable force. Yet he said nothing. His battle was with Valden, with the past. Mine was for Lysanthe, for the future.
“I’ll find her,” I said, the words cold and absolute.
Valden offered a shallow bow, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. “I would expect nothing less, Miss Vex.”
I turned away from the two, clutching the address in my hand. The wind whipped around me on that desolate rooftop, carrying the scent of rain and the distant, mournful cry of the city.
