11
FOOL’S PARADISE
SAERIS
GOODBYES WEREN’T EASY.
We made it quick.
If Madra was responsible for sending the infected feeders to Yvelia, then every second the quicksilver was awake was yet another opportunity for her to deploy more of them.
When Kingfisher and Carrion stepped into the silver, my emotions were so high that I’d cracked the lintel that ran around Cahlish’s pool. I’d nearly begged Fisher not to go. Instead, I’d given Carrion the relic I’d made for him, and I’d given Fisher the relic I’d made for Hayden. I’d kissed my mate long and deep, promising to reopen the gate for them in three days.
In return, Fisher had left a shadow gate open for us at Cahlish. Using a warding sigil painted below the gate in his blood, he had essentially propped the door open, so that we could move between the estate and a safe, uninfected point on the banks of the Darn, where we could cross the river and ride back and forth to Ammontraíeth.
I’d been thinking about my mate as we’d saddled the horses. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him during the two-hour ride across the dead fields.
Not when I’d swept through the echoing halls of the palace, high bloods dropping to their knees and bowing their heads as
I blew past them. Not while I’d read in my rooms to pass some time. Not while I’d picked halfheartedly at the meal a low blood—the lowest ranking of all the vampires in Ammontraíeth—brought to my chamber. I couldn’t stop thinking about him now, either.
“Hold it up. You’re dropping your guard.”
The sword came crashing down, its edge slicing through the air dangerously close to my face. A thrill of adrenaline buzzed right below the surface of my skin, making me break out in a cold sweat.
Lorreth probably didn’t want to be here. How selfish of me not to have considered it before: The warrior had come close to being drained by three rogue feeders once and had nearly died as a result. Fisher had needed to bind a piece of his soul with Lorreth’s in order to drag the male back from the brink of death. That had been centuries ago now, but you didn’t just get over something like that without it leaving a mark.
Ammontraíeth was a place of shadows—an element I had grown trusting of lately. But the dark that welled in the corners of the Blood Court’s palace was not made to caress or seduce as Fisher’s shadows were, at least when he used them on me, anyway. Ammontraíeth’s shadows hid danger and watchful eyes. I wasn’t the only one who noticed that when we’d arrived earlier, shortly after dusk.
Lorreth was on high alert, his gaze everywhere but on me as we sparred.
The training facility was lit by evenlight, the strange, lazy flames swaying like tall grass in a light breeze as the warrior and I wheeled around one another.
There were no windows here. The walls and the floor were made of slick, polished obsidian, which blunted the air somehow. My quickened breath and the sound of our bare feet slapping against the cool black surface seemed too loud. Too close.
Lorreth launched himself forward, grunting as he brought Avisiéth swinging down. The sound echoed once and didn’t come again. I spun away from the blow, light on my feet, careful not to take my eyes from the warrior
lest he bring the god sword’s pommel down on my head in a backhand.
“I should have gone,” I said, bringing Solace’s guard up. “I should be with them.”
Lorreth easily sidestepped the thrust I aimed at his shoulder, batting Solace away. He tsked through his teeth, shaking his head. “Sloppy. Higher. Like this.”
He demonstrated how I should hold my sword, making a point of raising his elbows so that they were in line with his jaw. He nodded when I had mimicked the posture to his satisfaction, then attacked. “You couldn’t go with them,” he said, rushing forward. “In case you’ve forgotten, your old home has two suns and no night.”
“I could have worn a cloak.” I ducked a slashing strike he aimed at my stomach. “Kept my skin covered.”
“Sure. That wouldn’t have made you stick out like a sore thumb. And what about the exhaustion? You’re weaker at midday here—”
I straightened, lowering Solace. “Hey!”
“I said weaker. Not weak. Guard!” The flat of his blade landed on my upper arm—a punishment for dropping out of my stance. Pain jarred my shoulder and shot straight up into my head. My teeth cracked together so hard that I bit my
tongue and tasted blood.
“That wasn’t very polite,” I grumbled.
“Oh, damn. I didn’t realize we were doing this to be polite. Sorry. Let me fix that.” He snapped his bare heels together, adopting a stiff-backed stance. With his chin lifted, he peered down his nose at me and fixed me with an imperious stare. “I challenge you to a duel, Saeris Fane. Would you please stab me with that shiny sword of yours? It would be such an honor.”
“Fuck you, Lorreth.”
He made a face. “You kiss my commander with that mouth?”
“I’ve done far worse than kiss him with it.”
His mouth pulled down at the corners, his eyes going wide. “Okay. I don’t need to hear about that, thank you very much.”
“I wasn’t going . . . to tell you.” I gasped for breath as I spun around again, twisting at the ankles, then the knees, then the hips as I brought Solace arcing through the air. Sword fighting was much harder than fighting with daggers. A dagger was an extension of my hand. I was quick with a set of daggers. Nimble.
The sheer size and weight of Solace made moving hard.
Lorreth tracked me as I spun; he took a step back, raised his boot, and kicked me in the side.
I went down hard, the air rushing out of me as I slammed against the floor.
“Ooof!”
“Form was good. Shame about the lack of speed,” the warrior mused, pacing in a circle around me.
“I was just . . . thinking . . . that . . . myself.” Shit, my ribs hurt.
Lorreth crouched down by my head, laying Avisiéth flat across the tops of his knees and then resting his elbows on the god sword’s blade. The bastard wasn’t even out of breath. “You’re right where you need to be, Saeris,” he said.
“Well. Not on the floor. You definitely shouldn’t be on the floor. But here, I mean. If you stayed away from Ammontraíeth any longer, one of the other Lords would have declared the throne abandoned and claimed it for themselves.
They’d call it a dereliction of duty or something. People think the Blood Court’s all debauchery and blood-soaked orgies, but it’s mostly bureaucracy and political
backbiting, from my experience.”
“You sound disappointed.”
He shrugged, offering me a hand as I got back to my feet. “I mean, who doesn’t love a blood-soaked orgy?”
“Can’t say I’ve ever participated in one.”
He shrugged. “Not missing much, honestly. They get . . . sticky.”
“Can we pause this super interesting conversation for just a moment? I think my shoulder’s dislocated.”
Lorreth barely even looked at it before thumping me in the shoulder. The resulting pop and twist of my arm slipping back into place made bile rise up the back of my throat. I glowered at him through watering eyes. “Thank you?”
“You’re welcome. Now, come on. Guard.”
“I can’t lift this damn sword again. Not for at least ten minutes. I think I’m gonna puke.”
Mouth open, he was going to try bullying me to my feet again, but his eyes met mine and something in him softened. He took pity on me. “All right. You get five minutes. Take a breath. And . . .” Suddenly, he sounded awkward. “I know you feel bad, okay? Useless, even, stuck here in this shitty fucking palace while everyone else is out there without us. Ren’s warning the Gilarians.
Danya’s orchestrating efforts to keep the infected at bay. Fisher and Carrion are scoping out whatever they can in Zilvaren while they hunt down the silver and your brother—”
“Oh, gods!” I cried, an awful realization striking me out of nowhere.
Lorreth’s eyes grew round. “What? What is it?”
“He made you promise to stay here and watch over me, didn’t he?”
Immediately, Lorreth’s expression went blank.
“He made you promise to stay and protect me!” Gods, I was so blind. “That’s the only reason you’re trapped here in this training room with me, isn’t it?
Otherwise, you’d be out there with everyone else, doing something useful, too!”
After hashing out the finer points of our plan, we had each set off about our individual tasks. Te Léna and Maynir had gone to tend to the wounded among the warriors who fled Irrín. Iseabail had returned to her people to ask politely if any of the witch elders knew how to seal Alchemical runes. Ren had ridden out to the small settlements east of Cahlish and along the coast to warn them of the rot. With what was left of the war camp at her disposal, Danya was sending out hunting parties to keep the infected at bay or at least keep them from progressing inland any farther.
The plan was to all meet back in Cahlish in three days’ time, come what may.
But Lorreth had claimed he wanted to stay here and help me train.
He was incapable of lying; he probably did want to help me train. But I
would have bet my left eye that he’d rather have been out there with Danya, tackling the infected instead. The warrior shrugged off my accusation, trying to feign ignorance.
“Don’t you worry about any of that. All you need to focus on is keeping these vampires distracted and figuring out your runes.”
“Lorreth!”
“All right, all right! I’m not going to confirm or deny your suspicions either way. But if you don’t kick up a stink right now and you finish training with me, I will tell you the story of Ajun Gate. All of it, every single gruesome detail.”
“I know the story—”
“Hah!” Lorreth grunted. “No, you don’t. Do you know about Merelle?” he demanded.
Merelle. The name was familiar, somehow? Maybe? I shook my head. “No. I don’t.”
The tension in Lorreth’s shoulders fell away; he knew he’d already won.
“Merelle was Ren’s sister. She died on the side of that frozen mountain, and none of us have been the same since.”
“Tell me.” Now that he’d mentioned her, I had to know. “Ren had a sister?”
“Not just a sister. A twin . . .”
I was already back on my feet, the pain in my shoulder forgotten. I raised Solace, but Lorreth let out an annoyed groan and batted the sword away before I could adopt a defensive stance.
“Y’know what? On second thought, if we’re talking about Merelle, we shouldn’t be fighting at the same time. We should be doing the next best thing.”
I had a feeling I already knew what Lorreth was going to suggest next, but I still had to ask. “What’s that?”
“Drinking, of course. Come on. These blood suckers are too fancy for beer, I’m afraid, but they really know their wine.”
What had I expected? An armed escort through the palace? A crowd lining the streets, cheering me as I passed? No, of course not. That would have been ridiculous. But I hadn’t expected Lorreth to toss a cloak around my shoulders, yank my hood up, and bully me out of Ammontraíeth without anyone stopping us or saying a word. That just seemed too easy. Though I hated it, I was getting used to residents of the Blood Court kneeling whenever I passed them in a hallway or entered a room. With my hood drawn up tonight, my reluctant subjects didn’t recognize me for who I was, and so I slipped out of Ammontraíeth unmolested.
I knew there were buildings outside the palace. Lots of them. I could see them from the balcony outside my bedroom. I hadn’t paid much attention to them, though. When I stood out on the balcony at night, my attention turned northward, across the barren plains that stood between me and my mate, and not down at the hub of activity that bustled around Ammontraíeth’s feet. The Cogs—that’s what Lorreth called the circular, interlocking neighborhoods, each connected by a steep downward staircase until they reached street level.
Rain hammered on the rooftops of the narrow buildings, sluicing over slate and pouring from cracked clay gutters onto the cobbled streets. We cut through the second tier of the Cogs—an area frequented by blood mages, the lich-born, and outcast paladins looking to trade questionable goods, according to Lorreth.
Shadowy courtyards waited down narrow covered walkways that branched off the main thoroughfare. Brick-built shops with crooked roofs and windows fogged with condensation advertised tinctures, tarot readings, and familiars for sale.
As we walked, Lorreth held true to his promise and told the tale of the Ajun Gate. I was the only one who remembered the song he’d once sung about that terrible night on the mountain, but even that hadn’t covered all of it. Renfis’s poor sister Merelle had burned to death in the most horrific way, and Ren had been there when it had happened. She lived on in a small way, part of her spirit bound to Fisher’s sword, but . . . it was hard to imagine how her loss had
affected the band of warriors.
Hard.
An appropriate thought. Everything about this place was hard, and the Cogs was no exception.
There were plenty of people out and about their business as we walked— mostly high bloods, with the exception of a feeder every once in a while, collared and being used in lieu of a packhorse. I tried not to stare from underneath the hood of my oilskin cloak. The feeders were gaunt and thin, little more than rotting skin stretched over bone. Their eyes bore a hunger that could never be sated. Their masters dragged them along on chains, taunting them with vials of pungent blood and laughing at their desperation as they strained for their prize.
Everywhere I looked, some new form of cruelty unfolded before my eyes. A female, stripped to the waist and lashed to a post, the pale skin of her back parting like wet paper as she was whipped.
A child wailing, crimson tears rolling down his cheeks, shoved this way and that, ignored by the other high bloods as they hurried about their errands. A spindly-legged creature crouched on the top of a low stone wall, tearing the limbs off a rat before ripping its head off and drinking from its body like a cup.
But . . . there was beauty to be found here, too. It felt wrong to acknowledge that anything in Sanasroth could be beautiful, but I found myself awed as I followed Lorreth through the winding, narrow pathways that cut between the buildings.
From window boxes, night-blooming flowers cast fragrant spores up into the cool air. They crept in vines up the fascias of the buildings, carpeting the stonework with tiny white flowers that smelled like jasmine.
Some of the shop windows had stained glass that caught and refracted the glow from evenlight candles that shimmered within. The designs were stunning, a myriad of colors cleverly soldered together to depict some of the most intricate, expertly crafted scenes I had ever seen. And then there were the high bloods themselves. They wore cruel smiles, and their eyes flashed like
knives in the dark, but their features were delicate, their skin flawless, their shirts exquisitely tailored, their dresses sheer in silk and satin.
Lorreth led the way, eyes pinned straight ahead as he confidently cut through the crowds. He didn’t see the writhing bodies down each darkened side street—the painted females, perfect as dolls, with their heads thrown back in ecstasy as well-dressed, raven-haired princes of the night dipped fingers between their bare thighs and drank deep from the hollows of their necks. He didn’t seem to notice the hissing, either.
Wherever Lorreth passed, high bloods recoiled, baring their fangs at him.
Hatred burned bright as fire in their eyes, but not one of them made to touch him.
“You’re popular,” I mused from beneath my hood. “Must be nice.”
“They have no idea who I am,” Lorreth answered. “They sense the silver strapped to my back. That’s all that matters to them.”
“Mm. I’m sure the fact that you’re the only Fae male in Ammontraíeth hasn’t escaped their notice, either.”
Lorreth bared his teeth at one brave high blood female who dared block his path. She spat curses at him in an unfamiliar, guttural language until he was within arm’s reach, then she spun around and vaulted away up the side of a building. “You’d be surprised,” Lorreth said airily, ignoring the angry female.
“There are more Fae here than you’d think.”
“What? No way. No member of the Fae would come here willingly.”
The warrior placed a hand on the door of the dilapidated building in front of him, raising his eyebrows as he faced me. “No one said anything about willingly. Most of them are thralls.” He raised his voice so that the high bloods staring at us in the street could hear him. “After all, who do you think these fuckers eat?”
He made a good point. Truthfully, I’d spent a good deal of time trying not to think about how such a large court sustained itself when its sole food source was blood.
Lorreth gave me a wry smile as he pushed open the door and gestured me inside. “Welcome to the Fool’s Paradise, Saeris Fane.”
There were Fae everywhere. Males. Females. Children. It made no sense. The tavern was full of them. They sat in booths, laughing with high bloods. They picked at meals, listening with intense fascination as they were talked at by one high blood while another casually fed from their wrist.
A row of booths ran along the back wall with thick brocade curtains drawn across them for privacy, but a couple of the curtains hadn’t been drawn, and all I could make out was a tangle of writhing naked flesh. Mouths on breasts, and wrapped around cocks, and—okay, yeah, that was enough of that. I looked away, my cheeks coloring hotly.
“What do you call a fully dressed Sanasrothian?” Lorreth asked, his tone
droll as he made a beeline for the bar.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“Me, either. I’ve never fucking seen one.”
“I remember you, Faeling.” The sneering voice came from behind the bar. It belonged to a tall high blood with pinched, narrow features; quick, dark eyes; and a deep-set scowl. “You were in here a while ago.”
Even with my hood down now, the male behind the bar didn’t remember me. The denizens of the Cogs had no clue what their new queen looked like.
Therefore none of them knelt, which was perfectly fine by me.
“If, by a while ago you mean six hundred years and some change, then yes, you’re probably right,” Lorreth said, dumping a leather pouch full of coins on the bar and sitting down heavily on a stool. “What of it?”
“You got into a fight and broke one of my tables. You also left without paying your tab.”
“Gods and martyrs. Six hundred years go by, and you’re still bent out of shape over a rickety table and a glass of wine?”
The high blood—presumably the owner of the Fool’s Paradise—narrowed his eyes to slits. “All debts are paid.” He pointed an index finger with a disturbingly long fingernail up at a sign above the bar that, indeed, said, ALL DEBTS ARE PAID. “You’ll have to settle your tab if you expect service from me.”
“I don’t want any kind of service from you. My sister and I came for a glass or two. Let’s not make this any more uncomfortable than it already is.”
The high blood turned to me for the first time, the icy cold weight of his attention pressing down on me. I was too taken aback by what Lorreth had called me to care much about the male’s distasteful sneer, though.
Sister.
He had called me his sister.
“I don’t even waive the rules for my own kind,” the male seethed. “What makes you think I’d waive them for the likes of you?”
“My handsome face?”
The high blood gave Lorreth a look that could have stripped the flocked wallpaper from the walls.
“No? All right then. What about this?” The warrior reached back over his shoulder and drew Avisiéth, setting the engraved sword down onto the bar with a clunk.
The high blood’s eyes shuttered momentarily, but I had to give it to him. He had balls. He didn’t balk for long at the sight of all that sharpened silver. “We accept coin or blood.” He paused, assessing Lorreth, and then said, “Blood is preferred.”
“Go fuck yourself, tick. The only way you’re getting at my blood is if you drain it from me yourself.”
The high blood perked up. “That could be arranged.”
“You’ll have to kill me first,” Lorreth added, baring his teeth.
The high blood folded his arms across his chest, pursing his lips. “It’s high treason to draw silver in Sanasroth, you realize. What is your name, Faeling?
Who is your master?”
A harsh bark of laughter burst out of Lorreth. “My name is Lorreth of the Broken Spires. And I have no master.”
At last, the high blood’s imperious scowl faded away. There was something oddly satisfying about watching him slowly begin to panic. “Only thralls are permitted here. Ungoverned Fae aren’t welcome.” He took a step back from the bar top.
“Don’t worry. We’ll leave once we’ve enjoyed a carafe of your finest Lìssian red.”
Two more high bloods had risen from the nearest table and had come to stand behind us. They were both male and significantly bigger than the vampire behind the bar. One laid a hand on Lorreth’s shoulder. “You seem to have forgotten where your kind stand on the food chain around here, warm blood,” the one on the right said. A thick, silvered scar ran down his right cheek.
“Errigan told you to leave. Get up, right now, and we might give you a head
start before—”
I knew it was coming.
Watching it happen was still shocking, though.
Lorreth left Avisiéth where she sat on the bar. Didn’t even touch her. He became a black blur as he spun and launched out of his seat. One moment, the scarred high blood had been trying to pull the warrior back, off the stool, and the next, his hand was no longer attached to his wrist. Lorreth had it in his hand. Ichor spurted and sprayed from the high blood’s wrist (now a meaty stump). The high blood looked down, opened his mouth to scream, and Lorreth jammed the male’s hand down his own throat, fingers first.
I staggered back into a stool, nearly losing my footing. “Holy fuck! Lorreth!”
“What in all five hells is going on here?”
The music that had been playing when we’d entered stopped. Leaden silence blanketed the tavern as everyone turned to look at the newcomer. Taladaius stood by the tavern’s entrance. A dark figure in a cloak stood beside him, angled toward the exit, their hood drawn up to conceal their features.
Lorreth stiffened, a dark look forming on his face. He took a step toward Taladaius, but the Lord of Midnight held up a hand, closing his eyes in frustration. “Wait there, Lore. You’re covered in blood and not fit for polite company.” Taladaius spoke quickly to the stranger in the cloak. Even with my vastly improved hearing, I couldn’t make out a word. If I wasn’t mistaken, a soundproof shield had temporarily gone up around the two of them.
The cloaked stranger nodded and left without a backward glance, leaving Taladaius standing in the tavern doorway. As always, his clothes were immaculate, his silver hair was swept back, not a strand out of place, but his eyes were wild, his nostrils flared, and his usual composure was compromised.
“When I heard you’d left the palace, I knew trouble would find the two of you.
But I didn’t think you’d be reckless enough to go looking for it.”
“Lord.” Errigan—the other high blood had called the vampire behind the bar by that name—lowered his head, averting his eyes from Taladaius. “I didn’t expect you yet. We haven’t tallied the night’s tithing. Apologies. If you give me a moment—”
“I don’t care about the tithe, Errigan. I care about the pool of rapidly growing blood on my tavern floor, and the fact that one of my regulars is currently choking on his own hand. Care to explain what’s going on here?”
My tavern floor? This place belonged to Taladaius?
My sire looked fit to burst a blood vessel as he stepped over the pool of blood and planted his hands against the bar top. “Well?”
“The male was causing trouble,” Errigan muttered.
Taladaius squinted sidelong at Lorreth. “Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“God—” He let out a frustrated huff. “Can’t you even pretend to lie, for pity’s sake?”
“That’s not how being Oath Bound works, Tal. You must have forgotten.”
For a split second, the echo of sorrow coming from Taladaius faltered, a spike of something that felt a lot like hurt assuming its place. It was gone just as
quickly as it had come.
“We only came to get a drink,” Lorreth continued. “But this one wouldn’t let up about a six-hundred-year-old debt.”
“What?” Tal looked like he was at his wit’s end.
“I know. Ridiculous,” said Lorreth, completely missing the fact that Taladaius was frustrated with him.
“All right. Errigan, bring me the ledger. And once you’ve done that, bring them the wine they wanted. Sinners have mercy.”
“But, Lord—”
“Do it, Errigan.”
The high blood grew even paler. With his eyes glued to the floor, he disappeared through a doorway into the back of the tavern. Taladaius turned to the two high bloods who had attempted to intervene on Errigan’s behalf, sighing as the one with the scar held up the dismembered hand that he had managed to dislodge from his mouth.
“This demands reparation, Lord. Like for like. A hand for a hand!” He spat flecks of his own black blood when he spoke.
“Come now, Anterrin. A hand for a hand is hardly like for like. Yours will grow back,” Taladaius argued.
“In a month or more! How am I supposed to do anything like this?” He waved his dismembered hand in the air.
Against all good judgment that I knew he possessed, Lorreth laughed.
“When it grows back all tiny like, at least it’ll be in better proportion when you wrap it around your cock.”
“Enough!” Taladaius hadn’t shouted before. Not even when Ereth attacked me on the dais and Fisher had cut him down. His hands were clenched into fists when Errigan returned with a large, dusty ledger, slamming it down onto the bar. “How much coin will you lose while the hand regrows?” Taladaius asked.
The high blood, Anterrin, considered. “A hundred cröna a day.”
The Lord let out an exasperated sound. “You’re a gatekeeper, Anterrin. At
best, you make ten cröna a day. I’ll give you that, though I should halve it for the lie. Come back for the money tomorrow. Errigan will have it ready for you.
Khol, get your brother out of here now before he says something stupid and winds up losing his other hand as well.”
The two high bloods left, casting venomous glances back over their shoulders as they exited the tavern. As soon as they were gone, Taladaius turned and cracked open the dusty ledger. “Show me the record of this debt,” he ordered.
Errigan leafed through the pages from the other side of the bar, craning his neck around until he found it. “There, Lord.” He tapped the middle of the page with that creepily long fingernail.
Taladaius looked down at the ledger entry, then looked back up at the high blood. “Eight thousand cröna, Errigan? For a bottle of wine and a repair to a table?”
“Compounding interest, Lord! The Faeling left the debt unpaid for centuries!”
Wearily, Taladaius picked up the quill Errigan had brought along with the ledger and drew an impressively straight line through the entry.
“Lord!” Errigan looked set to faint. “I owned this place for eight hundred years and I never once forgave a debt!”
My sire snapped the ledger closed and shoved it across the bar toward the other vampire. “And you sold the place to me fifty years ago, along with all its debt, and now I have forgiven one of them. That’s the end of it. Get him the wine,” he commanded. “On the house. And you?” he said, taking me by the arm.
“You’re coming with me. I need to talk with you.”