Slaying the Vampire Conqueror(99)

He bowed to Nyaxia and held out the head to her.

“My lady,” he said. “A gift for you.”

Nyaxia chuckled. The sound felt like a fingernail up my spine—a promise of something either very pleasurable or very dangerous.

She reached down and took the head, examining it.

“My,” she purred, “and what a gift it is.”

“I promised you a kingdom of the White Pantheon conquered in your name,” Atrius said. “I do not make promises I don’t keep.”

“And yet I didn’t expect the head of my cousin’s devoted acolyte.” A slow smile widened over Nyaxia’s mouth, another drop of blood trickling down her ice-pale skin. “A kingdom is one thing. But this... what a delightful surprise. For too long my cousins have thought my children are free for them to hunt. How nice to see the roles reversed.”

The earth itself shivered with her pleasure. I’d never been in the presence of such wicked delight. I knew that gods, petty as they were, loved to be offered sacrifices that spat in the face of their rivals. But this... Nyaxia seemed to love the spite of it more than the gift of the kingdom she had sent Atrius on an impossible mission for.

She lowered the head and ran one blood-soaked hand over Atrius’s cheek, a mother’s caress. He stiffened beneath her touch.

“You,” she purred, “have exceeded my expectations, Atrius of the House of Blood.”

Just then, the air shifted again. All the air ripped from my body, leaving me heaving on the ground.

It wasn’t enough to say the threads shifted. They changed. suddenly they were more alive than they ever had been, every one of them bound to a new source—their only true master.

Only the Weaver herself could shift the threads of life itself like that.

“You always were far too quick to make your decisions, cousin,” a low, melodic voice said—a voice that sounded like every age layered on top of the other, child and elder and everything in between, ever-moving, like the unknown itself.

I forced myself to lift my head. Forced my senses to reach out for her—my goddess, my Weaver, Acaeja.

The entire world bent to her. No, flowed through her—like every sense and element and tiny speck of time was held in the palm of her hand. While Nyaxia emanated breathtaking, dangerous beauty, Acaeja’s was constant, stable, like the powerful grace of the horizon where the stone met the sea. She had rich, deep skin, her features strong as stone, her large eyes pure white and clouded with mist that shifted and changed with every passing second. She had six wings, three on each side, each one offering a glimpse into another cryptic version of the future or past or present—snowy skies or churning seas or flames of a fallen kingdom. She wore a long, simple white gown that trailed over her feet, fluttering in the breeze. Her hands, which had ten fingers each, were fanned out in front of her. Each finger was tattooed with symbols that indicated a different fate—and from those fingers spilled threads of light. Threads of fate itself, surrounding her like the moon circling the earth.

A slow smile spread over Nyaxia’s face—a wicked smile. “Acaeja. It’s been so long.”

“A shame for us to meet with my acolyte’s head in your hands.”

Nyaxia’s smile withered. “I seem to recall once we met with my husband’s head in yours.”

The air grew suddenly cold, the stars shifting to storm clouds overhead.

Acaeja’s presence soured. The fates in her wings darkened, all cold nights and smoldering ashes.

“We have discussed this many times, cousin,” she said.

“And perhaps now you’ll tell me that we’ll discuss it many more,” Nyaxia snapped, lip curling.

Acaeja didn’t answer. But a small, knowing smile curled her lips.

“Yes,” she said. “I expect we will.”

“Maybe it isn’t so bad for you to know what it feels like to mourn something,” Nyaxia spat, sneering down at the Sightmother’s head. “What do you feel for this witch, anyway? You have thousands more. I had only Alarus. Only him.”

Her voice cracked over those final two words, and it struck me just how childish she sounded—how lost.

I had been so ashamed of my inability to shed my grief from fifteen years ago. And yet here was a goddess, one of the most powerful beings ever to exist, and her grief was still just as raw, two-thousand years later.

The pain in the air hardened, sharpening to anger. Nyaxia’s flawless face twisted into a hateful sneer. “And all of you have exiled my people. You’ve hunted them. You kill them. I have defended Obitraes through force alone.”

Acaeja regarded her steadily. “I loved Alarus as a brother,” she said. “I have never had any quarrel with your people. And I have defended you, Nyaxia, from others who judge you in ways you do not deserve. I will not excuse the actions of the White Pantheon. But this—”

Nyaxia cut in, snidely, “This is what I have earned—”

“This, Nyaxia, is a new sin.” Acaeja’s voice did not raise. She didn’t need it to. The power in it alone cut through all other sounds. “Your follower has murdered one of my most devoted acolytes. You intend to take a kingdom from the grasp of the White Pantheon. You have been wronged, cousin, I will give you that. But someone must pay for the blood that’s been spilled here.”