Slaying the Vampire Conqueror(80)

My lips parted.

For a minute I thought he was implying—but he couldn’t be saying—

I managed to choke out, “Are you asking me—”

“I’m not asking anything. I’m telling you that I would like that person to be you, Sylina. And you can do with that information what you will.”

I opened my mouth again. Closed it.

Weaver help me.

“I didn’t know you were so old-fashioned,” I said. “One fuck and suddenly you’re proposing marriage and crowns and—”

“Not marriage.” He blurted that out fast, then winced. “Not that I—What I meant was—”

It would have been more amusing to see Atrius flustered if I wasn’t also just as flustered.

He let out a breath. “This arrangement isn’t about me. It’s not about us. It’s a title that you deserve because you are a good leader. You are intelligent. You are compassionate. You know what the people of Glaea want and need. You have lived the lives of many here. And I know that if you were to be tasked with their well-being, you would advocate for the lives of these people until your dying breath. That makes you worthy of power, Vivi.” A wry twist of his lips. “And so damned few are.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, as if he was listing the contents of an inventory, and yet I could feel in his presence how deeply he believed them.

And when he used my old name—my real name—it was like an arrow right between my ribs, guilt flooding me like hot blood.

I wasn’t sure what I had done to make him think so highly of me. And I so desperately wanted to be the woman he thought I was.

I couldn’t speak. Weaver, I could barely even breathe. When I said nothing, he straightened and cleared his throat.

“You don’t have to decide anything now,” he said.

But I had decided.

In this moment, I decided all of it.

Atrius was our answer. Our path to finally overthrowing the Pythora King and making this damned kingdom what it was meant to be. He would be a good ruler. He would accept guidance from his people, human or not. I believed this.

I refused to let another soul wither under the Pythora King’s rule.

And I refused to kill Atrius.

I was no fool. I knew what this meant. When a Sister betrayed the Arachessen, she was carved into pieces and left throughout Glaea—damned to never be whole again, physically or spiritually.

I had only one bloodless path forward, and that was to try one last time to convince the Sightmother that Atrius could be a worthy ally.

And if that failed...

Well. Atrius had been prepared to sacrifice his life to his goddess to save his people.

I would be willing to make the same sacrifice.

Atrius was looking at me strangely, his brow furrowed. His thumb swept over my hand and I realized it was shaking.

“Vivi,” he said softly. That was it. Just my name, and in it, the question he didn’t ask.

For one powerful moment, I wanted to tell him all of it. The truth.

That was a selfish desire.

Because if I told Atrius the truth of why I had been sent here, that made me a traitor. And a wartime leader, when confronted with a traitor, only would have one choice. He would need to execute me. Even if he decided I was too important to sacrifice, he wouldn’t trust me, and he needed to trust me if he and his people were going to make it through the Zadra Pass alive.

Or.

Or, even worse, he would try to save me.

And Atrius could not do that. The Pythora King was his enemy. The Pythora King needed to remain his only focus. Not the Arachessen. He couldn’t save me and kill the Pythora King. Trying to might destroy him.

Somehow this was the possibility, not my execution, that left me breathless with terror. Strange, because it never would happen that way. Atrius was a ruthless king. He’d kill a traitor.

I told myself this, over and over, as he gazed at me with such concern, thumb rubbing the back of my hand.

I gave him a weak smile. “I just... I can’t think about any of that until that bastard is dead. That’s all.”

He nodded, like this made perfect sense to him.

“Of course,” he murmured.

It was now dark. The sun had set. Atrius stretched, then started to stand. “I’ll let you get dressed. Then we have work to do.”

But I caught his arm and pulled him back down. And before I knew what I was doing, my hands were on either side of his face, my mouth against his in a deep kiss.

After a moment of confusion, his stance softened, pulling me closer.

I kissed him for a long, long time.





37





The moment the sun went down, the night was bright with activity. Soldiers and healers crawled from their tents immediately, ready to tend to the wounded or to keep gathering supplies. Vampire healing had done wonders—my own wound was now little more than an afterthought.

I took the long way back to my own tent, walking along the coastline. In the distance, the moonlight caressed the rocks by the shore. I couldn’t help but think about what had happened there last night. Weaver, I wondered if I’d left claw marks on those rocks.

Then I abruptly stopped.

A distant presence caught my attention—a familiar presence. The pain in it left me breathless.

I climbed down to the shore and approached another cluster of jagged stone. The figure was curled up between them, sitting in the damp sand, knees pulled up to his chest. He had a blade that he twirled skillfully in one hand, driving it hard into the damp sand over and over again. THWACK.