Slaying the Vampire Conqueror(66)

I was on my hands and knees, coughing violently, when my consciousness returned to my body. My chest burned. My stomach lurched. I gagged up a mouthful of stomach-sour salt water.

Atrius knelt beside me, his hand on my forearm. My clothes were soaking wet. I shivered violently.

“—tide is coming in,” Atrius was saying, as he dragged me across the beach. “I don’t want you to drown.”

Atrius.

It took a moment for me to come back to myself—to feel his presence, strong and forceful and very much alive.

He let go of me on a drier stretch of sand, and I had to resist the sudden, overpowering urge to throw myself against him.

“Here.” A heavy cloak fell around my shoulders. Atrius’s hands stayed there, on my arms, for a few seconds longer than they needed to. “Stay near the fire.”

I struggled to orient myself. “How l-long was I g-gone?”

I couldn’t keep my teeth from chattering. The moon seemed higher in the sky. I must have been Walking for quite some time, especially if the tide came in enough to reach me while I was under.

“More than an hour.”

Atrius settled beside me, watching me. He didn’t need to ask. The question was in his stare.

I should have been thinking about how to lie to Atrius. I had been commanded to kill him. Yet the thought didn’t even cross my mind. The truth poured out of me immediately.

“Something is wrong,” I choked out. “On the island. Something is wrong.”

Atrius’s aura went cold.

“Wrong how?”

“I don’t know.” Visions were difficult to decode. Rarely literal. What I had seen could mean many things. But I was so utterly certain that at its core, it meant: danger.

“But something is wrong, Atrius,” I said. “I’m sure of that.”

He didn’t question me. He knew better by now.

He rose abruptly, and I did too, holding onto his arm to steady myself. Together, we set back off toward camp.





Atrius didn’t want to wait for the Bloodborn ships to make it up the coast. He ordered ships be sent from the coastal regions of Vasai—the closest he had available. What arrived were little more than fishing boats, certainly not the warship fleet that he’d arrived on, but if Atrius cared he didn’t show it. He’d throw wooden planks on the water and paddle his way to Veratas if he had to.

There was no sleeping in the two days it took for him to arrange for the boats. Not for him, and not for me. I didn’t want to sleep when I knew what dreams would be waiting for me—and lately, the dreams I had alone were never welcome. Instead, I threw myself into helping with the preparations.

While Atrius didn’t share the reasons for his change of plans, the warriors knew that something was wrong. The mood over the camp was tense and uneasy. Among the most frantic was Erekkus, who pulled me aside the first free moment we had among Atrius’s flurry of orders.

“Is this because of your seering?” he asked me, his grip on my arm white-knuckled. “What did you see? What does Veratas have to do with this?”

Erekkus’s presence shocked me. The fear was so intense that his touch alone was painful.

“It’s a precaution.” The platitude tasted so disgustingly false on my tongue.

“Bullshit.”

I didn’t want to lie to Erekkus. I didn’t want to tell him the truth, either, especially when Atrius had decided not to.

“It was Atrius’s decision—”

“I have a child on that island!” Erekkus barked, his fingernails digging into my arm. “Fucking tell me, Sylina. Please.”

My mouth tasted ash.

A child. The thought left me reeling. Atrius had told me the island was full of his warriors’ families. The realization that Erekkus had a child—that the child was among those civilians—

The image of that village with bodies protruding from the sand seared itself into my mind, stubbornly.

I laid my hand atop Erekkus’s. His soul was frantic, barely kept under control by a fraying tether of self-control. I reached for his threads and, so subtly he wouldn’t recognize it, I sent him calm.

“If I could tell you anything I knew definitively,” I said softly, “I would. I promise you that, Erekkus.”

His expression crumbled for a moment, like stone collapsing, before he straightened his back and turned away.

“Let’s get those boxes to the shore,” he said. “He wants them all ready to go as soon as the boats get here.”

And just like that, we slipped back into work—our only distraction, and all of us were grateful for it.

The boats came quickly. The supplies were ready once they did. We loaded them up immediately. Only a small force of soldiers would be going on the journey, the rest remaining at camp.

Once it was time to board, Atrius turned to me. “You should stay—” he started.

But I snapped, “Do you really think that’s going to work?”

Apparently not, because he didn’t argue. Maybe I even sensed that just a tiny part of him was relieved to have me there.

I only had time to pack a sparse bag. It wouldn’t take long to get to the island—it was only a few days away, secluded not by distance but by the thick mists that surrounded it. I threw together some clothing and food. Weapons, of course. My sword went to my hip, as usual. My dagger would go to my thigh.