The Lion & the Deathless Dark — Chapter 35

C HA P T E R T H I R T Y-F I V E

ain jolted through me like lightning through my spine. It was Nyaxia’s

touch. It was Kajmar’s blows.P My eyes snapped open.

A vampire leaned over me. Her face was inches from mine, lips parted, a faint glimpse of razored teeth visible between full lips.

Every muscle of my body screamed, Fight!

My thumbs jammed into her eyes.

The vampire drew away with an infuriated shriek, and I lurched away from her. I landed heavily on the ground—I had been on some sort of bed— and scrambled to my feet, even though every muscle protested.

Two names bobbed to the surface of my churning mind: Zefiah. Septimus.

I could sense Zefiah’s presence nearby, but I had no idea where Septimus was. The memory of his face in my last seconds of consciousness, burned and bloodied, returned to me before even the memories of the gods did.

I stumbled around in a circle. I was wearing a clean, white shift. This was a bedchamber of some kind, though the style of it was unlike any I’d been in before—the furniture all low to the ground and carved of dark wood, accented with red velvets. The walls were inlaid with burgundy brocade paper. Two large windows were covered with heavy velvet curtains. The room was shockingly ornate. More so than anything I had witnessed since the sun fell, even in the remains of great lords’ mansions.

The vampire woman rubbed her eyes, muttering curses. She had shoulder-length, white-blond hair. Her clothing was simple, leather

breeches and a figure-skimming black jacket. An outfit that, especially to my still-addled mind, did nothing to tell me which House she was from.

My hand thrust out for Zefiah, but nothing happened, even though I was certain I sensed her nearby. My eyes bounced around the room to see her

sheathed against the wall.

I called to her again.

Nothing.

What the hell, Zef?

With a hiss of frustration, I dove across the room and grabbed her, just

as the vampire woman chased after me.

“Wait!” she started.

Zef was heavy in my hands, like trying to drag around a limp corpse. I noted this, confused, as I went to the door— My body went rigid, freezing without my permission. I looked down.

Tendrils of red dancing from my open wounds, suspended in the air.

“Take a breath and sit.” The vampire woman approached with her hand outstretched, beckoning to my blood. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

But I still gripped Zefiah, even as she compelled my body to drop her.

“Where’s Septimus?” I gritted out.

She sighed. “Sun take me, don’t give him the satisfaction of finding out those were your first words. He’ll be insufferable.”

Somewhere behind me, another door opened. “Too late.”

I was a little ashamed of my reaction to that voice. The rush of relief, like the first breath after a near-drowning.

I whirled around so quickly I nearly sent myself stumbling backward onto a coffee table. A firm, familiar touch grabbed my wrist, steadying me.

“Easy, lyri.”

Septimus’s face stared into mine. His gaze started low and moved up my body. It was such a thorough, searching look. It reminded me of the way he had looked at me when I’d worn the modified habit in Bosqua, except there was no lechery in this stare.

So why did it feel just as intimate? More, even?

He was wearing clean, white clothes—a long-sleeved shirt buttoned up to his neck. But dark circles hung in the hollows of his eyes. Bruises adorned the pale column of his throat, in a near-perfect imprint of Kajmar’s hands. Beneath them were faint streaks of red, which seemed darker than

before. And his eyes . . . a full circle of deep burgundy encircled the silver- and-amber threads of both irises, a bit thicker on the left side than the right.

And yet, those eyes held such relief.

I had righted myself, but he still held my wrist, and I didn’t pull it away.

I said, “You look like shit.”

A smile bloomed over his mouth. Not a smirk, but an actual smile— slowly, like the unfurling of a blossom in the springtime, rare and precious and the kind of beautiful that felt like a stolen gift.

“So do you, Kyrene,” he replied, in a way that really said, I’m relieved to see you, too.

“I LEAVE FOR FIVE MINUTES, and you nearly blinded my sister?” Septimus said.

The vampire woman grumbled as I sank down onto a chair, as gracefully as I could manage. Nausea churned in my stomach, though I tried hard to look collected.

I cast the woman a wary stare. Now that he mentioned it, the resemblance between them was uncanny. Same sharp, elegant features.

“Your sister,” I repeated.

“Calista,” the woman said begrudgingly. Her eyes were bloodshot.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“It could have been better for me,” she replied. “But my brother speaks highly of you, and I hear you’re quite the asset, so I suppose I can forgive.”

My brother speaks highly of you. For some reason that felt borderline indecent.

Septimus cleared his throat awkwardly and seemed to very deliberately not be looking at me.

“And what pitiful outpost have you dragged me to now?” I said to him.

The corner of Septimus’s mouth tightened. He went to the windows and, with a dramatic flourish, pulled back the velvet curtains. I rose and approached them. My breath warmed cloudy puffs of condensation on the frigid glass.

Outside, jagged peaks of gold reached up to the starry sky. Snow- drenched hills rolled in all directions, tinted blue and purple beneath the moonlight. The sea was visible, just barely, in the distance, icy stone rising from the waves. Rocky sheer cliffs cradled stone buildings, painted red, with white carved columns and triangular peaks outlined in gold. A few spires stood above all others like gold knives stabbing the stars, though some were broken, moonlight dripping down jagged edges.

“Welcome to the House of Blood,” Septimus said. “This is Vaktrana.

The capital.”

His home.

“I thought that outsiders weren’t allowed in the House of Blood,” I said.

“They’re not. But I’m a prince. I’m allowed to make exceptions.”

The words—the way he said them—skittered up my spine.

This was . . . odd. This was all so odd.

I glanced down at Zefiah, limp and heavy at my side. I expected a snide retort, or at least some kind of protest at being in the realm of the fallen ones, but she was silent.

“Lucky for you,” Calista said. “You would be dead otherwise. Our healers worked hard on you.”

My gaze slipped to Septimus, and the way he was looking at me sent a bolt through my chest. I wondered if this was how it felt for a vampire to be staked.

With that look, the memory of our battle against Ix and Kajmar returned to me. What he had seen of me. What I had seen of him. That image of him standing over Nyaxia’s dead body. And his urgent words in my ear: Not yet.

Nyaxia had been right in front of me. Right there, and I’d held perhaps the only strike I’d ever get. All because of the vision I’d seen of Septimus’s desires. All because of those two words.

I heard the echo of Zefiah’s final cry before I lost consciousness: What

have you done?

Holy fucking gods. What had I done?

I pulled away from the window, facing Septimus fully. “Not yet.” I drew the words out, looking him right in the eye. “Want to tell me what that means?”

He was the one who danced around pretty words and convoluted bargains. Life was too fucking short for that. Shorter than ever, now.

A smirk lifted one corner of his mouth.

“I do appreciate your bluntness, Kyrene.” He held out his hand. “So long as you get to be one of the few outsiders to ever witness Vaktrana,

perhaps you’d like a tour.”

“I don’t want a tour, I want—”

“To talk,” he finished. “Then fine. Let’s talk.”

I stared at his hand. I remembered the first time he had held it out to me.

Then, I had been struck by how elegant and unmarked it was. The hand of someone who, I was certain, had never known true suffering.

Now, his perfectly trimmed fingernails were caked with red, like he still had not managed to get the blood out. Purple mottled his palm. White bandages wrapped four of his fingers and his wrist, black seeping through.

A persistent tremor lurched his little and ring finger, both of which were slightly curled in a way that seemed to not be of his own volition. The harp and Ix’s bow had taken their toll on him.

I don’t like to get my hands dirty, he’d said so many times. But these belonged to someone who had been in the dirt right next to me. Maybe in

more ways than I’d realized.

I took his hand.

SEPTIMUS and I limped down the hall. We were, he explained to me, in the Bloodborn palace. I had been in many grand buildings, though never palaces. None of them had looked anything like this. The ceilings were tall, the walls lined with red paper and punctuated by gold columns and molding of dark wood, all intricately carved. Long tapestries bearing the crest of the House of Blood hung from the high ceilings, that weeping woman staring sadly over the goings-on below.

But the Bloodborn palace was not opulent perfection. Yes, it was beautiful, the craftsmanship evident in every detail of the molding and tapestries and mosaics. But it was also incredibly old, and it showed. Cracks wove through stained-glass windows. Missing pieces interrupted the

mosaics like gap teeth in a vicious smile. Stunning marble statues lined the hallway, but many were missing their swords, or arms, or even heads.

I might have imagined that vampire palaces would have held all the finery that had been sapped away from the human lands over the last ten years. That they were bastions of prosperity, thriving on the blood of the humans Nyaxia had slaughtered. Instead, like Septimus’s battered hands, this one bore the marks of a vicious fight for survival.

We fit right in. It wasn’t until I tried to move that I realized how pathetically injured I was. Perhaps the vampire healers had done their best, but I felt terrible. And Septimus, though he still managed to exude that perpetual elegance, seemed little better.

“We look pathetic,” I muttered.

“We look battle-hardened. A little ruggedness suits me, doesn’t it, lyri?”

His eyes slid to me slyly as he let out a long exhale of smoke from a freshly lit cigarillo.

But I didn’t smile. I watched the smoke and wondered if I was imagining that the scent was a little more pungent.

“So those keep you from succumbing to your curse,” I said. “Is that it?”

His smirk disappeared and eyes slipped away. “You really aren’t interested in small talk.”

A servant bowed her head to him as we passed, and he nodded an acknowledgment.

“We’ve killed two gods,” I said. “I think we’re past fucking small talk.”

“Mother help us, we need to get you out of this hallway.”

“You’re the one who brought me here,” I grumbled.

He led me down a side hallway, then through a set of double doors. Two women in Bloodborn military uniforms were posted on either side of them, and Septimus gave them both Obitraen greetings before leading us inside. It was a sitting room adorned with fine furniture that seemed largely untouched. Large windows overlooked the icy hills and distant seas. A partly ajar door to the left revealed a glimpse of a bedchamber, and another,

a copper tub.

“Is this your chamber?” I said.

“Yes. Though I don’t spend much time here these days.”

I believed it. It looked more like a guest suite than somewhere someone actually lived.

He strode across the room and opened the glass doors to the balcony. He took a seat in a wrought iron chair and gestured to the one across from him.

“It’s freezing,” I muttered as I sat.

“It’s pleasantly crisp.”

“Your blood runs cold. Also, you never answered my question.”

He let out a puff of smoke. “I don’t like to stain my room. I hate the smell of these.” He gazed down at the cigarillo between his fingers. “Hate isn’t strong enough, actually. I fucking despise it. And now everything smells like them. My furniture. My clothes. My hair. One day, when I die and am punished in eternal damnation, it will smell like fucking vanilla.”

He drew in an inhale, deep and resentful, and let it out. “But they’re the last thing I touch when I go to sleep and the first thing I reach for when I wake up. And they keep me one step further from becoming poor Erekkus back in Estrys. So. You know. Trade-offs.”

His eyes slipped to the icy horizon. “Don’t work as well as they used to.

But then, nothing does, really.”

I watched his profile, painfully pristine. Then my gaze slid down to his twitching, bandaged fingers.

I thought of Erekkus’s corpse. A horrific, monstrous form that reeked of distilled suffering. The idea of Septimus one day becoming such a creature was incomprehensible. And yet, now, I could see the shadow of it encroaching over him. So close I was startled that I’d never seen it before.

I said quietly, “I want to know what ‘not yet’ means.”

“I think it’s quite self-explanatory. You saw my deepest desires.”

A bitterness wrapped around those two words. And I was grateful I could stare at the horizon, because immediately, they conjured to memory the visions we had both shared—his vision of me, in that barely there dress, every bit the chosen warrior. Mine of him, his lips on my throat and hand between my legs.

But I pushed those images away and instead focused on the one that mattered: Septimus killing Nyaxia. Smiling over her corpse.

“So that was real,” I said. Even though I knew it was.

“Of course. I couldn’t have lied.”

“But you controlled what you showed them.”

“I tried to think very, very hard about what would be most useful for them to see. That didn’t make any of it less true.”

“So that’s been the real goal all along. You told me you wanted to collapse the White Pantheon. You told me that you wanted to break the curse. Instead, you want to kill Nyaxia.”

But even as the words left my lips, my own surprise tasted false. I thought of his face after Estrys. That fury I recognized so implicitly. His careful wording. A lie, but only barely, so thin I could see moonlight through it.

“Instead?” He barked a bitter laugh. “I do want to break the curse, Kyrene. I want that desperately. Just as my brother did when he first took up the mantle of the chosen savior.” He spat those words, like they tasted rancid. “But I have learned from his mistakes. He did everything right.

Achieved feats no mortal had ever dreamed. All to please her. And what did he get for it?” A crack, a familiar malice, in that beautiful profile. “I was ten years old when my mother opened the box with his head in it. Atrius had journeyed across realms carrying it. And he’d tried so hard to preserve it, so that my parents might have some piece of Gaius left to lay to rest. Because they really loved him, you see. Everyone loved him. He was going to be the one of us immortalized in statues. He’d be the one of us remembered by the legends in five thousand years. And he would have been worthy of it all.

But do you know what I thought, as a child looking at that box with my beloved brother’s head inside?” His lip curled. “I thought it just looked like a piece of meat. Because that’s all a hero was in the end. A piece of rotting meat. Just like everyone else. And so, one by one, all my older brothers fell —to failure or carelessness or bad fucking luck. But not me. This ends with me.”

He let out a long exhale. The scent of vanilla floated by.

“Nyaxia will never release us from the curse,” he said. “It took too long for my parents to realize that. Just kept throwing sons at the problem, hoping the prophecy might still be true. But I knew. We will never appease her. And so, we will have to kill her.” Another exhale. “You told me once that the gods cared about nothing. You have no idea how right you were.

And all along, I have wanted her blood just as much as you do.”

I stared at him, pressure building in my chest.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

I didn’t know why I was angry. I knew it didn’t make sense. Even I couldn’t quite wrap my fingers around it. I stood abruptly, ignoring the wrench of pain. Paced the length of the balcony and turned around.

“Fuck.”

Septimus watched me, confused. “This wasn’t the reaction I—”

“You were lying to me this entire time,” I bit out.

“I couldn’t exactly just say—”

“You knew the entire time.”

I wished I had better words. Because I was still caught on what he had said—just as much as you did.

He had known from the beginning that my ultimate goal was to kill Nyaxia. He had known how badly I wanted her dead.

His face softened slightly.

“Not in the beginning,” he said. “I was skeptical. When I first began following you. I thought you were just another sell sword for the White Pantheon. I thought you were motivated by nothing but your own selfishness. But I’ve become an expert in finding out exactly what people want and leveraging it. I thought, Well. At least she will be easy to use.”

The words stung more than I would have expected. Even though—or perhaps because—they were true. He had been right about what he’d seen when he looked at me.

I turned away, making a show of observing the horizon. But I wondered if perhaps my hurt showed on my face, because Septimus rose to stand beside me.

“For a time,” he emphasized. “A short time. Surely you cannot think that your aloof act is all that good, lyri. Because anyone who is with you for any stretch would quickly learn that you’re far more than that.”

A pang in my heart, a confusing one.

I thought of Valentina, the last time I had seen her. She had spent more time with me than anyone else. But apparently Septimus was wrong, because even she had not known whether she meant anything more to me than her latest gadget. Right up until the end.

“So yes,” Septimus said quietly. “I realized quite quickly what your goal was. It wasn’t difficult to see that none of this was about money or power for you. And from there, no great logical leap to see where your ultimate target lay.” I could hear the suppressed smile in his voice. “After all, you are the Vindica Ultis. The chosen one of retribution. And who better deserves it?”

My heart clenched tight, tight, tight, the pound of it deafening.

Gods, I was angry. I was angry even though I didn’t know why—even though I knew, I knew, it was not a rational reaction. I felt slighted. Cheated of something simple, something straightforward. But then, I already had been. The simplicity of this had started slipping away almost immediately, and I had just been trying not to notice.

“So this was your little secret,” I said. “Nyaxia being your ultimate

goal.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a—”

“A very deliberate omission.”

“The gods see everything. Everything. The less I spoke of this, the better. You know very well the consequences of betraying a god. I only get one chance at this.”

Consequences. I saw Valentina’s mangled body. And that had merely been Shiket’s abandonment. Not a deliberate punishment.

The gods see everything.

He was right. Yet, he spoke freely here. I glanced at him, and maybe he saw my unasked question.

“The Bloodborn have been in a precarious position with our goddess for a long time,” he said. “We have our ways of keeping the gods’ eyes away, even if they are imperfect. Our seers do their work here, in the most sheltered bowels of the House of Blood, or in places like Glaea’s Salt Keep, in such murky territory that none of the gods have too much visibility. But a key piece of that strategy is making sure that Nyaxia never suspects disloyalty. Hence why I am so very, very loyal.”

His lips curled around that word like it was poison. I felt so foolish for not seeing it before—just how much he hated her. Now, he reeked of it.

His gaze held mine for a long moment. I didn’t want to be seen. I involuntarily thought of the vision he had witnessed when I had played Kajmar’s harp, and I felt more naked than I had in that bathtub or pleasure hall. That was vulnerability I had wielded for power. This—this just made me feel weak.

“So that means there was another part of this prophecy, yes?” I said coldly. “The one about me. You showed me the fall of the White Pantheon.

Nothing about Nyaxia.”

“That was going to come later.”

“Well. It’s later.”

A quirk at the corner of his mouth. “It is.” He gestured to the door.

“Come.”

SEPTIMUS LED me into his sitting room. It was a small library, every wall jammed with books and scribbled papers. It was the only room in this place that looked lived in at all—like whatever rare time at home was spent here.

There was a hearth on one side of the room, and before it sat a tray with a familiar assortment of colorful powders and liquids. Like the ones Sylina had brought to us in the Salt Keep, the first time Septimus had shown me my role in what was to come.

“I had it prepared,” he said. “A seer did the hard part, before we arrived.”

“You do like to anticipate everything, don’t you?”

“When I can. Though certain people make it difficult.”

He sat by the fire and gestured for me to do the same. I kneeled. The flames gave off no warmth.

“I didn’t lie to you in Glaea. Everything that Sylina showed you was the truth.” He began tossing cups of powder and liquid into the fire. The fire jumped and lurched, surging green, purple, white. “It was merely . . . incomplete. Would you like me to show you the rest?”

I hesitated, though I didn’t know why. Zefiah throbbed faintly at my back—still conspicuously silent.

But of course I wanted to know. I nodded. He put his hand into the fire, palm up, inviting mine.

I laid my hand in his, and the world burned away.