The Lion & the Deathless Dark — Chapter 4

C HA P T E R FO U R

y captor was so close that his forehead nearly touched mine. I could see nothing of him but his eyes. He lowered his head, lips nearlyM brushing my ear, and whispered again, more urgently, “Do not move.”

Right. Because it was always wise to obey the commands of a vampire.

But I didn’t have time to resist. The words had barely left him when the Shadowborn I’d been fleeing stepped through the hole in the wall. And as I’d suspected, he was no longer alone. I guessed that half a dozen soldiers now accompanied him, though with my hood raised, I couldn’t get a good look. I could see him well enough, though, to note the blood soaking his left

sleeve.

Satisfying.

“If you’re looking for your wife, she went that way,” my captor said, lifting his chin toward the collapsed wall and the forest beyond it. “Better get moving, Miles, if you want there to be anything left by the time you catch up.”

He spoke in Obitraen, and it took a moment for me to untangle his words. I was one of the few humans who spoke the language, though it was much easier with Zefiah in my hands—a helpful benefit of divine magic.

The Shadowborn soldier—Miles, apparently—hesitated. I could feel his eyes searing into me, though I shrank beneath the fabric of my hood. I was very conscious of the dead vampire lying mere feet away, just beyond the threshold.

“Where’d you get that one?” Miles said drily.

My captor tilted my head so that my face was carefully obscured. I emptied my mind of all but the unremarkable. Just as I’d thrown those poor mutilated prisoners at the soulless’s feet in distraction, now I threw the vampires all my disgustingly vulnerable human emotions.

I felt the Shadowborn’s eyes rake over me, faintly interested in the way I would be in a piece of cake or a beautiful man, but little more. Zefiah, after all, was nowhere to be seen. I doubted this man even recalled what I looked like without her.

“Found her taking shelter here,” my captor said. “Not the prettiest, but she tastes good enough, and I don’t need to look at her face, anyway.”

I glanced over his shoulder, at the pile of trash and human waste in the corner—someone had been sheltering here. Perhaps the poor unlucky soul Marko and I had tripped over in the forest. The best way to lie to a Shadowborn was with just a hint of the truth.

“Glad you’re making yourself useful, Septimus,” Miles said sarcastically.

Septimus. Septimus. A familiar name, but I couldn’t place it.

A laugh. My captor’s mouth was so close to my throat that the sound slithered over my skin. I found myself pressing more tightly against the wall, even though there was nowhere to go.

“If I must follow you on such tiresome diversions,” he said, “then don’t judge me when I make the most of the time. Do you want to stand there and watch, and I’ll let Queen Egrette know why your precious target got away?”

Miles sighed, and then, without another word, he and his companions were off into the night with barely a rustle of trees.

Septimus stepped away, casually placing himself between me and Zefiah. My eyes found her immediately—I could always feel her, like a fifth limb. She was somehow all the way across the room, obscured beneath a dingy curtain that framed a broken window. The fabric was thick enough to dim all but the faintest suggestion of her glow, which thrummed against the walls, her annoyance clear.

She was barely too far to come when I called her. And I’d need to go through the vampire to get to her.

A stream of moonlight now fell through the window, illuminating my captor’s face.

Vampires were all beautiful, but this was one of the prettiest I’d ever seen. His face was elegant, every plane defined, features delicate and strong

in equal measure. Full lips, high cheekbones, marble-pale skin. He had fair hair, silver or ashy blond—I couldn’t tell which, in the shadows—which was swept neatly away from his temples, a few strands escaping over his forehead. A small ruby dangled from one ear, catching the moonlight.

He was tall, lithe in build, wearing a white suit in the Obitraen style—a jacket with red embroidery around the collar and lapel, open to reveal a crisp shirt with one button undone. Even in the darkness, I could tell it was all impeccably clean, which seemed like a supernatural feat all its own in a world this dirty.

But despite his beauty, he had a certain edge that I couldn’t place.

Something that seemed different from typical vampire attractiveness.

He withdrew a black cigarillo from his breast pocket and drew in a lazy inhale as his gaze roamed up my body.

“What a pleasure, to at last meet the famed Vindica Ultis,” he said. Even Obitraen accents were beautiful, in an ugly way. Like off-key music.

At my hard stare, he raised a brow. “There’s no need for such glares.

After all, I brought you a gift.”

He gestured behind him. My weak human eyes could barely make out the shape—a shadowy lump on the ground. Still, I recognized him instantly.

Gaveer Irons, my mark. Obviously dead.

“Curious,” Septimus said. “A petty criminal. Doesn’t seem the type that Shiket would concern herself with.” He nudged the body with his toe, and his broken-glass eyes slipped back to me. A smile curled the corner of his lips.

“Ah,” he said, in mock surprise. “This isn’t one of hers, is it? The great Vindica Ultis, chasing bounties. Nervy, nervy. Goddesses do not like to feel as if they come second.”

It was no secret that I took on bounties. Nor was it a secret that I was Shiket’s warrior. But for this man to understand, within seconds, that I was prioritizing the former over the latter unnerved me. It was almost admirable just how quickly he locked on to that sliver of vulnerability. As if he could see the deadly weight of Shiket’s unfulfilled commands, a fraying rope holding a dagger over my throat.

I bared my teeth in a smile. “I’m sure I could soothe her frustration with a vampire head,” I said in near-perfect Obitraen, and couldn’t help but relish the way his brows twitched in genuine surprise.

“The Vindica Ultis speaks the tongue of the fallen ones,” he replied, in

kind.

“Know thine enemy.”

“Shame on me for underestimating you. I should know better.” He pressed a hand over his chest. “I am an admirer. But that must be nothing special to you. I hear you have so many.”

I eyed Zefiah’s glow behind him. {Do not try it yet,} she warned. {Soon enough, we will have his heart.} Useful that would be, too. Now I’d have two slain vampires to present to Shiket. She’d still be pissed at me, but nothing delighted her more than trophies she could wave in Nyaxia’s face. She told me once that in Ysria, the land of the gods, she had built a monument to them. A monument holding every single vampire head, heart, and set of balls her followers had presented her. After ten years of war, it stretched a mile into the sky.

I took a slow, casual half-step forward, acutely aware of the distance

between Zef and me— And Septimus did the same.

“Oh, let’s not. I just said I was an admirer. I know your style. Besides, you don’t want to kill me just yet. I have important information for you.”

He nodded down to the first of the two corpses on the floor, the one I’d hastily hidden around the corner. The Shadowborn woman, whose black blood now seeped around my boots. I was lucky Miles hadn’t noticed it.

Perhaps the smell of the dead human had masked it.

“You’ve caught the attention of a very important being,” Septimus said.

“Vampires think so highly of themselves. You think I’m afraid of some Shadowborn nobles?”

He smiled, fangs glistening. “No, dove. Nyaxia.”

I was unable to stop my blink of surprise.

Everyone knew who I was, including the gods. But I was far from the only divine champion of the White Pantheon running around, and though I knew Nyaxia was likely aware of my existence in some tangential way, with so many other enemies to draw her ire, I had never attracted her specific attention.

“She has commanded her followers to find you,” he went on, picking a piece of gore from beneath the nail of a long, elegant finger. “The Shadowborn queen is very eager to fulfill her request. She will stop at

nothing to do so. And now you’ve killed one of her favorite assassins. Quite bent on making life hard for yourself, aren’t you?”

I watched him, brow low.

The man was certainly not Shadowborn. I felt no pressure on my mind, no saccharine honey in my thoughts. And the way my own body had betrayed me when he’d first pushed me to the wall only confirmed my suspicions. Bloodborn, then. Rarer. They were the pariahs of Nyaxia’s kingdoms, cursed by their goddess, and though no one knew the details, every theory was more gruesome than the last. But they were just as dangerous as the Shadowborn. Their magic could manipulate blood itself.

I’d even seen them rip humans apart with their teeth like wild wolves.

An image that stood in strange contrast to the man before me, who was pristinely spotless.

“Let the Shadowborn try to kill me,” I said. “See how it works for them.”

Septimus laughed. “Your arrogance is sweet. How easy it is to be brave, when fate protects you.”

We both glanced down, to Zefiah’s glow throbbing beneath the curtain.

She hissed with disapproval at even being referenced by a fallen one. I was surprised he was standing so close to her. I wondered if her glow burned, even from steps away.

“A strange feeling, isn’t it,” he said softly, eyes rising back to mine, “to be so beholden to the very thing that will one day end you.”

There was an odd note to his voice, something I had never once heard from another vampire. I resented the curiosity it sparked. Even more, I resented the pang of understanding.

It was, after all, the truth. I was the bearer of Zefiah, the Blade of Retribution, a weapon that came from Shiket herself. A responsibility that placed me a step closer to a goddess. But the cost was that she was one day destined to kill me.

After close to ten years wielding her, I had long come to terms with this.

I’d rather die by her blade than by vampire teeth or cannibals’ axes or the countless fevers that had sprung up in this foul world since the sun fell. I had witnessed so many better people than me suffer undignified, cruel deaths. What right did I have to be picky about my own?

“Vampires can’t wield a god-forged blade,” I said sweetly. “A bit inconvenient for my hunters, isn’t it?”

“There are many things worse than death. And the Shadowborn elevate such cruelties to an art. Have you ever looked closely at the face of a soulless? Does that qualify as life, do you think?”

A chill ran up my spine.

This, after all, was the curse hidden beneath my blessing. If a vampire drained me, or a soulless ripped off my face, or an illness destroyed my body, I’d be left begging for Zefiah to end me. I would suffer eternally until she pierced my heart. A potential fate she warned me of with every scolding of my carelessness, but one I preferred not to think about.

I gave Septimus a cool smile.

“Vampires and cats have so much in common,” I said. “You both like to play with your prey. But do you piss on the carpet, too?”

A barely there glint of delight in his eyes. He replied smoothly, “Only occasionally. But I only lick others, never myself.”

I barked a laugh. “Oh, look at you. So clever.”

I took another half step closer; subtle, casual. {Careful,} Zefiah warned, and I ignored her.

Septimus took a long drag of his cigarillo, letting the smoke plume through his nose.

“It is up to you whether you trust me. But, as much as it pains me to praise the Shadowborn, they are excellent hunters. They know you will be going to the Temple of Yiferis, and they’ll be there to meet you.”

The Temple of Yiferis.

Only now did it occur to me that he was, perhaps, being truthful.

Because I was going to Yiferis. How had he known that?

As if he heard the question I did not ask, that smirk lifted one corner of his mouth. “Surely you know how good the Shadowborn are at gathering information.” He tapped his temple. “Once they set their minds to it. Or their victim’s minds, more accurately. Avoid Yiferis. Save yourself the trouble.”

“You must think I’m a terrible divine warrior if you think I’d take the word of a vampire over my blessed mission.”

The phrase came with a hint of sarcasm. {Six bleeding blades,} Zefiah muttered. {And you accuse him of playing with his food.} Amusement flashed in Septimus’s eye, there and gone again. I wasn’t sure why that look gave me such a thrill—why I enjoyed the little challenge

in it. It was different from the way any other vampire had ever looked at me. With the challenge of a competitor, not a predator.

“I assure you, Vindica Ultis, I am in no position to judge any divine warrior.” He glanced down at the dead Shadowborn woman. “Perhaps an extra vampire head will ease your goddess’s ire.” {Enough of this,} Zefiah sniffed. {We have listened to him for longer than we should.} I agreed. And yet, still, I found myself watching him. Intrigued.

“Why are you bothering to warn me?” I said. “Why would you think I’d believe you?”

Was he, perhaps, attempting to sabotage the House of Shadow? The Houses of Shadow and Blood had been allies for ten years, both carrying out Nyaxia’s war against humanity. Still, vampires were ruthless creatures.

Even their alliances were lined with teeth.

“You can choose not to listen,” he said. “Perhaps, oh holy chosen one, you can withstand the consequences. But human flesh is so . . .” His gaze dragged up my body. Lingered at the triangle of exposed skin at my neckline, at the smear of blood there from my fresh wounds.

Until now, he had been perfectly composed. But now, ever so faintly, a

flare of his nostrils.

Hunger.

“Fragile,” he finished. “And what a waste it would be, to let the Shadowborn peel it from you. A treasure like you, splayed open on a laboratory table.”

I watched him. Clung to that single tell, the invitation to this game. My inability to let things lie, to turn down a challenge, was one of my many

vices. I knew it.

And yet.

I cocked my head. Smiled.

{Kyrene . . . } Zefiah warned.

I stepped closer.

“And what is your interest in my flesh?” I crooned. {Goddess help us,} Zefiah groaned. {Spare me this indignity.} A familiar expression flashed in the vampire’s eyes. Delight. And how strange, that it felt like looking in a mirror.

He leaned closer. My heart leapt beneath my skin with every inch closed between us, a body recognizing its intrinsic predator—or, perhaps, its

playmate.

Zefiah was close, now. Just a few steps away.

“It’s beautiful flesh indeed,” Septimus said. Involuntary goose bumps rose on my skin as his fingertips, cool and smooth, brushed the underside of my chin, tilting my face. Angling my throat, already smeared with blood, toward him.

“There’s something about humans,” he murmured. “You’re so soft.” His thumb slid over my jaw. “So alive.” A sweep of hair behind my ear.

“So . . .”

He leaned closer. My hand moved slowly, slowly, to my left side. Palm opened.

He whispered, breath heavy in my ear, “Predictable.”

The next movements happened at once. A flurry of fabric, as Zefiah went flying out from beneath the curtain to meet my call. A sweep of silver, as Septimus, just as quickly, withdrew into the shadows, leaving my strike hitting nothing but empty air, a half breath too slow.

Footsteps echoed in the night.

I whirled around, half expecting to see the vampire behind me.

Instead, a familiar large form trudged through the forest.

“Kyrene!” Marko was doing a terrible job of keeping his voice down, and his drunkenness struck me all over again, somehow so much more obvious than it had seemed an hour ago. Perhaps I should have left him behind after all. It was a miracle he was alive. {Idiot,} Zefiah grumbled.

Undeniably. Yet, I felt an inexplicable wave of relief. I wouldn’t exactly say I “liked” Marko, but I felt a bit incomplete without his presence. Like a splinter that had been there so long it just seemed like a part of your body.

“Here,” I called.

I turned around, Zefiah raised, her glow illuminating the corners of the abandoned room. Two corpses. Red and black blood, human and vampire, now mingled in the cracks in the wooden floor.

Nothing else.

Septimus was gone.